How to Write Torture

For the first time in my writing career, I've written torture.

Not pleasurable, both parties enjoying themselves torture, or torture that is pre-consented punishment for a bad deed. This was quite literally torture for the sake of one sadistic party. The only orgasm that is given during the scene is that of the sadist.

This was supposed to be written as a first person, self degradation scene, but because I don't know how to write self-degradation that's supposedly non-fiction, I wrote it as a scene of fiction. I don't know if the person that I wrote it for is happy with it because I've yet to hear a review.

However, doing this writing style has really shown me that I have some places that I am lacking as a writer. Usually, I'm a writer of sexual things, of torturous things, but usually the torture is for mutual pleasure. To write something truly like de Sade takes me out of my element. Not that i don't have some kinky stories, I usually write stories about pleasure.

Granted, there are themes that are adult (consensual rape, under age characters, sometimes a character that is entranced by a creature of another species), but the pleasure (the majority of the time) is given to all the characters capable of pleasure. I've never written something where a character is to be tortured with only one character's enjoyment.

When I was writing it, I had to take myself out of the equation, and I had to remember that there was no reason to feel bad for the character being tortured. The story that I've written is not traditional captured victim being tortured by someone they didn't know (which would have made for a sympathetic character). My victim knew her attacker, she knew the parameter of their relationship, and knew that he would do that to her whenever the idea struck him, he would do it to her.

I think I might post it on here, of course with a nice big WARNING for people that might stumble upon it accidentally. I wonder how many people have written torture, and if so: was it for their own pleasure, was it accidentally written, was it something they were comfortable writing?

Equestria Girls- Yes, Another MLP Related Rant

I didn't think that I would write again about My Little Pony, at least not until the new season returns. However, after doing a bit of searching about my former favorite Western animated show, I've found something else that makes me -_-.

Now, before people say that this show is "for little girls" and that there is no reason for me to write anything about it because I'm not its target audience, I'd beg to differ. Being a 21 year old female means that I'm actually it's second target audience. I'm still young enough to watch cartoons enthusiastically, but I've just reached the cusp of having disposable income, income that I'd like to assume Hasbro would like me to spend on their creations.

I have seen wonderfully beautiful fan art of humanized ponies, and then I've seen some... not my style fan art. This Equestria girls fuckery falls into the latter category.

Hasbro has managed to take the characters, and give them all the same long, skinny, big-foot, fake anime style look that is running rampant in cartoons. And it seems the setting is high school. High school. Even as I'm writing this, I can't stand what I'm typing.

Hasbro obviously has no insight into their viewership or fans, or high school. For the majority of people, high school was not the happiest time of their lives, nor do they get into shenanigans like those always shown in shows. It's full of lessons, tests, and if you're lucky, friends that make it easier. Regressing the Mane Six to such a level is not wise.

Not only that, the character design is flawed. Rather than having to deal with the issue of making the characters from different ethnic backgrounds, the company has bleached out their fur colors to give them a pastel M&M flesh tone. Then, they have all of the main characters in skirts, with hair down to their asses that looks like a mane and tail, horse ears, cutie marks on their face, and the pegasi (and Twilight) have their wings.

I'd post a picture of it to my blog, but I'd rather just put a link.

All of these things just prove that Hasbro is a cash cow that doesn't understand that it's alienating the majority of their core audience. MLP, in its current incarnation, has the ability to go strong for at least a decade, hell even longer if steered in the right direction. With all the choices being made by the creative team, all these wrong choices, it's going to burn this bright only temporarily, before backs are turned about it.

It's such a shame that they're wasting such beautiful character designs and near limitless writing directions sucking it dry.

I think I will stick to my My Little Pony Game for Kindle. Besides the ridiculous prices, it'll satisfy my pony need.

Red Dragon By Thomas Harris Review

Remember that whole Black history month reading list? How I had Invisible Man on it? I got fifty pages into the book, and I realized that I was reading it with only the most basic understanding of what was going on. So basic did it feel, that I really want to get a companion guide whilst I read. This might sound bad, coming from a writer and all, but I fucking suck at identifying the meaning behind symbolism, and what the deeper context means. When I'm picturing something, I basically picture it at face value. So, I'm going to go back to Ellison when I actually have a snowball's chance at understanding what is going on.

That's why I started reading Red Dragon. Yes, I had to use that color and everything in order to write the name. I'll start off by saying that I'm a fan of Thomas Harris, particularly a fan of his fantastical character Dr. Hannibal Lecter. The only literary villain that I've had as much fun reading in a series of stories has been Lord Voldemort himself.  Last year, I read Hannibal, and I loved it (I also lent it to a friend who had a gay old time with it). A few years before that, I read Silence of the Lambs. I remember so distinctly that Harris is one of the few authors whose books I've read have actually given me flashes of the movies. Granted, there are still differences (in some cases rather major ones that I shan't reveal due to their spoiler nature), but they're much less dramatic than some screen play treatments (i.e Flowers in the Attic).

When going in to the book, I'd already been in love with the movie, and the titular antagonist played by Ralph Fiennes (Also Voldemort's actor). I wasn't sure how the original character stacked up to how he was played, the same with Ed Norton's Detective Graham. Just like with Silence of the Lambs, there were times that I was able to sync the movie with the book, and picture all the characters. I had been told by a friend that the Dragon was actually not hot like Fiennes, but as I read further into the book, I found that comment wasn't exactly true.

Because this is just a review, and not a synopsis (something many a critiquing person seems to confuse), I won't get into the plot, I'll go straight into the style of writing. Harris does a few things with his style that I rarely see with other writers. Sometimes he uses jarringly short sentences, ones that give you a very clipped image of what is going on. Another thing he does (that to be honest, I thought was one of the cardinal writing rules you're not supposed to break) is switch tenses. Unlike back in the early days of my writing, his have a purpose, and make the reader feel as if they're right in the moment, watching it unfold with every word they read. It's actually refreshing for it to happen, and sometimes it's so subtle that I don't realize I'm in the present tense.

The copy of the book that I had was a PDF version, so there were typos on the behalf of whoever types it up, and there were a few images that I know I would have gotten if I had actually had a legit copy. What can I really say about PDF versions of books, they have their upsides and their downsides, but that's not for me to explore here.

Harris is careful about his language, and doesn't use any words that I would be forced to look up, something I like a lot. At just over 200 pages, it was a relatively fast read, although chocked full of information and some technical things. I feel like Harris is the kind of writer that checks his background information well, or has an editor that does a bloody brilliant job. I would say that this book, as with his other books, is a read for a mature reader. Now, I'm not saying a certain age, because I know I technically could have read this in middle school, but the main characters have some pretty shitty memories that they're forced to look back on, and we journey with them, including some really jacked up abuse and murders.

All in all, I really have to give this book two thumbs up. It's a Thomas Harris book. What more can I say.

Oh, and a little random fact that made me giggle: the Red Dragon's birthday is the day after mine. Gemini's whoop whoop!