lil bitch

My mother was very young, my father was always busy with his chain of electronics stores, so consequently, as a kid, I often stayed with my grandparents. Imagine the most picturesque, lush children’s book house you can—add a spooky twilight, the kind of light they use to depict dreams in movies, and you get the idea.

My grandmother usually was in the kitchen, silently pottering about, my grandfather stared out of the window. It always seemed to me he was waiting for something. Later on I learned that’s what a traumatic war can do to people. I guess the gruesome death of your sister is not something you easily bring up to your grandchildren.

Whenever I came over, my grandfather would show me the cartoons he had taped for me: Road Runner, Mickey Mouse, Betty Boop. He was one of the first people who owned a VCR, much to my joy. One day though, I was about eight, he was in the middle of watching an old movie—he either stared out of the window or watched a classic Hollywood movie, usually a musical. There was this golden blonde woman struggling to get out of a porthole. For some reason I found her very intriguing, she kind of burst through the screen. She didn’t seem real, yet she wasn’t one of the cartoon characters I usually saw.

“That’s Marilyn Monroe,” my grandfather said, a little puzzled that I had to ask.

He told me she had been very famous a long time ago, and had died very young. That last part was a quick stab of a dagger: suddenly, in this bright comedy scene, Death had appeared. I felt I had to back off a little.

For a long time, the name “Marilyn Monroe” had the same ring to me as “Mickey Mouse”, “Charlie Chaplin”, or “Coca-Cola”: an alliterated American wonder. The Death cameo that had startled me so as a kid went up in the general theme of violence that permeates American culture, with its glorification of gangsters and war, what remained of my idea of Marilyn Monroe was an unrealistically beautiful face, or rather an aura. Some people have white auras, others are red or green, but Marilyn Monroe had one of glittering gold—a Hollywood corona.

Then it happened. It was my first year at University, and the days were dark. In my own life, Death’s role had grown into something more than just a cameo: it had cheerfully paraded through my family, grabbing people left and right, until me and my cousin were the only people left standing (and I really disliked my cousin). I often wandered through Amsterdam as the sun was setting, looking for something. These travels would nearly always end in a bookstore, where I browsed every book, still looking for something.

A row of postcards grabbed my attention, one in particular. A woman in a darkened room, surrounded by upturned chairs. The end of a party. I thought I recognized her as Marilyn Monroe, still, I had to check the back of the card to make sure. Gone was the gold, the glamour, the comedy; silver-toned sadness was her aura now. I stared at the card until I noticed that I was staring at the card.

It’s strange to look at that photo now (it’s the first image of this post of course). All sorts of things come flooding back you can’t even imagine. I still have the postcard—I never throw meaningful things away—but it’s kept in a secret place, as I don’t want to get too used to it.

The Internet was in its embryonic early years. I could find some Marilyn Monroe photos among the porn sites and Jesus dot-coms, but they were merely promises, glimpses—I knew there had to be something greater out there. I bought all the books I could find about her, continually stepping into traps set by sensationalist pseudo-writers, finding my way, weighing all the information and insights, slowly chiselling away all the superfluous marble until a sculpture started to appear.

I learned that everything I had assumed about her had been wrong. This was endlessly fascinating to me. There were two Marilyn Monroes now: my grandfather’s Marilyn Monroe, the Hollywood screen icon, Venus, Cleopatra, Lady Godiva, and a kind of weary, melancholic creature, who forever feared to descend into madness, who had recurring dreams of being sexually touched by a crowd of hands, who wrote odd, lonely poems, and who would study her face for hours, looking for imperfections, until she had convinced herself she was a piece of nothing who deserved nothing—but who also was bright, original, magnetic, genuinely kind to everyone and everything.

I connected with the second version. The first one was distant like a star, but the second one was me.

Though I always had many friends, and you could say I was a popular kid at school, I always felt like an alien in disguise, trying to do what people did, adopting their lingo and habits, closely following and mimicking human behavior. My real friends were figures in the sky: they were artists I admired, original thinkers, gifted oddities, rare birds, wanderers, searchers, talented rebels, nonconformists. People who tried.

Marilyn Monroe was all those things and more, and that is why she appears on this blog once a day, every day.

1. When your prince comes, refuse to be saved. Watch as the dragon devours him then starts on you.

2. Bite into the apple. Death tastes sweeter than anything you have ever had.

3. When you see the witch, stab her in her heart.

4. Harden your heart. The only way to survive is to be ruthless and manipulative.

5. Turn your Prince Charming away and save yourself.

6. Tame the beast and make it fall in love with you. You don’t need a Prince, you want a pet.

7. Never sacrifice yourself for love. Your Prince Charming can save himself.

8. Be reckless. Seek the witch, enjoy the prick of the needle and the taste of the apple. Run to the beast and away from the Prince.

9. Test the Princes who fall at your feet. If they can’t save themselves they don’t deserve you.

10. Choose: death or life.

11. Choose: your life or someone else’s life.

12. Let people underestimate you.

13. Fall in love, over and over and over again. Watch as they all die for you.

14. Your kingdom needs a ruler not a damsel in distress. Love is just one of the many weapons in your arsenal.

                                       (IT WAS REAL! IT WAS REAL!) Gretel watches Red.

              (Red in the wolf skin coat, Red with the bloody woodcutter axe, Red who shares heated glances and secret crimson smiles, Red who had to be cut out of the wolf but it’s clear she’s learnt to do the cutting.) Gretel watches Red more than she contributes. Feels a kinship with the other girl of the forest; the other girl who learnt to save herself, the other girl whose ‘happy ending’ didn’t involve marriage and Princes. 

(Gretel never wanted a Prince anyway.)

                    The organisers always lay out a spread. Gretel can’t stomach sweets anymore, feels sick at the suggestion of sugar. 

                (No one else has burns on their arms or wakes up at night with the acrid smell of burning in their nose)

Red hands Gretel a cup of orange juice. Their fingers brush. 

                        “Have you been back to the woods?”

Gretel shakes her head.                             

                                “What are you afraid of?”                                                     

                                                                        “Getting Lost.”

Red smiles, candy apple sweet. She interlaces her fingers with Gretel’s, leans in close.

                  “Want to learn how to not to be afraid anymore?”                                             

   (A New Fairytale:                                       Girl meets Girl.                                       Girls overcome trauma together.                                        Girls fall in love.                                       Girls get their happily ever after.)

I don’t condone murdering. This is purely for reference while writing fictional stories. If anyone is concerned, these have been on blogs written by chemistry majors, forensic criminologists, and forensic chemists. Information is accurate, but please don’t test them out. ((If you do test them out please tell me how it goes))

Prevention of Suspicion -Wear shoes that are bigger than your normal size. -Make your stride longer and trod heavier. -If you’re a male, wear perfume. If you’re a female, wear cologne. -You could also wear heels if you’re a male. -Crossdressing -Heavy makeup/contour -Kill someone that you don’t know. Having relations with the victim makes you more of a suspect. Prevention of Evidence -Gloves will absorb oil from your fingers and start leaving fingerprints after about 15 minutes. Keep a supply of latex gloves on hand. -Paint your fingertips with clear nail polish.

Disposal of Evidence -After wiping for fingerprints, take the victim’s hands and wipe them around. Place them on cups and other everyday items. No fingerprints will look suspicious. -Wrap your knives in plastic before using them. This will allow for no evidence on the knife.

Killing/Torture Techniques -Instead of injecting poison through a syringe, fill the syringe with air and inject in between the toes. It will mimic a heart attack and look exactly like a heart attack so no one will suspect. -If you kill a man on an unregistered boat in international waters and then dump the body overboard they can’t trace it back to any one legal system and you can’t be prosecuted. -Bleach and urine (ammonia) mixed together make a fume that is toxic upon inhalation. -Plastic knives can be sharpened, stabbed into the body and then twisted to shatter the knife. This is effective in causing immense amounts of pain. -When killing by stabbing, make sure you remove the knife. It will allow the victim to bleed to death. -Three crushed cherry pits in their food or drink will be equivalent to a lethal dose of arsenic for two adult men. - Stab below the neck near the spinal bone, it will break the bone and permanently paralyze them while minimizing blood loss. -Piano wire works well with slitting throats and then you can just place it back inside your piano!!

Disposal of Body -Satellites look for holes 6-10 feet wide, so bury the body vertically. -Bury body 6-10 feet under a dead dog. Police dogs will find the dog and the police will take it as a false alarm. -Mixing body fluids with bleach and letting them soak will rid the blood and whatnot of the death smell. -Dispose of body in a septic tank. The acidic properties and equipment will take care of the body for you. -If you have the means to dispose of the body over, time, one could cut the body up into small pieces (head, feet, hands, limbs at the joints, separate the ribs and hips, etc) and from there the body could be disposed across the land, miles apart. Fresh graves would be another alternative. -Grind the pieces into fish chum, mix them with actual fish chum, and let the fishies take care of it! As an added bonus, you might catch something! - Literally just bury the body in a cemetery. Preferably a fresh grave but y’know whatever’s available!

⌘ Sad Scenes Playlist ⌘

For writing the scenes that make your readers bawl like babies..

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Constructing great villains;

Expanding on “Every villian is the hero of their own story” can be a bit difficult to put to words, and can be misunderstood quite easily. A lot of people may see that sentence and feel like their villian has to have some kind of tragic backstory that makes the character sympathetic to the reader.

That’s not entirely true.

What this sentence actually means, is that your villians are people too. They’re not, nor should they be, cardboard cutouts of some one-sided stereotype. They should have their own goals and motivations. They should have desires and wants, same as any other individual. At the end of the day, they all have to shit and eat, just like everyone else. Granted, sometimes people are just bad, but they still have basics. They have reasons for doing things, even if we don’t understand those reasons. The majority of them feel justified in their reasoning.

“Because I felt like it.” Is a valid reason. Imagine not being able to feel anything. No emotion. No happiness, joy, love, hate, envy, satisfaction. Nothing. Then you discover that by doing this one thing, you can FEEL. It’s heady. It’s intoxicating. It’s a fucking rush. Adrenaline pumps in your veins for that first time, and you can feel excitement. It’s so strong you become aroused by it. Suddenly, the need to take the same action again, just to feel,something, becomes inescapable. Over and over, you seek out those feelings. However, like any drug, you eventually become numb to the dose. It requires taking bigger, more extreme actions just to get that same rush from before.

“I don’t know why.” Is also a valid reason. This time imagine that you once were able to feel emotions. You experienced the whole spectrum of human emotion, but, over time, those feelings started to fade away. You can no longer empathize, or sympathize with anyone. You’re numb and there’s nothing that can fix it. You start doing reckless and dangerous things, just because none of it seems to matter anymore. You hurt yourself, you hurt others, you destroy everything you touch. Why? Because nothing feels real anymore. Nothing matters. It’s pointless. No matter what you do, everything will keep going on just the same. Day after day, after day, after day.

The above examples are extreme cases, but they do show that everyone has motivations. Whether it be just to feel something, or just to prove something to yourself.

Your villian can think that they’re in the right. This is a valid villain as well. They believe that whatever the means, they’re justified so long as they can reach their end goal. That’s what makes them so dangerous to your protagonist. Both of these characters think they’re in the right. They will fight tooth and nail against each other just to try and prove their point. This can cause your characters to become very morally ambiguous. Especially if the villain causes your protagonist to throw all of their beliefs into question. The villain can use their own past experiences, draw upon their own private pain, and use it to manipulate, twist around, and torture your protagonist.

There are many different types of villain, and they can all be very real threats to your hero. To construct the best villain for your story, it really comes down to a few basic questions.

What message are you trying to convey with your story?

· Construct a villain that is the antithesis to your overall message/theme. However, remember to keep them human. Give them flaws. Just like your protagonist. (Like the Borg were to STNG. They were driven to assimilate as many species as they could,in effort of achieving perfection, but they also had flaws that could be exploited. They were also the antithesis to The Federations Primary Objective.)

At what point did your villain become evil?

·There’s a turning point for everyone. A moment that triggers them to act a certain way. It can even be a series of events, known as stressors, that eventually cause you villain to embrace the darkness within them. (Seymour from Final Fantasy is a good example of a tragic backstory if you need one.)

What are your villains ethics, or moral values?

· Villains are complicated, just like your protagonist. They can have codes of honor and ethics. They might be vile, but they never harm children, for example. They might make families a no touch zone. Or they might tale the rule of law to the extreme, and take it upon themselves to act as Judge, Jury, and Executioner. (Example; Alexander Pierce from the Marvel Universe. In an effort to create a Utopia, he killed, maimed, and tortured indiscriminately to try and reach that goal. Or, Light Yagami from Death Note, for you anime fans out there. )

What are your villain’s positive attributes?

· Just like your protagonist, they have both flaws and good wrapped up into one. This makes them relatable to the reader. Maybe they love animals, and fly off the handle when they see one hurt. Maybe they despise bullies and will step in to defend a kid against one. Maybe they volunteer at a homeless shelter. The choices are limitless.

Do you want your villain to be redeemable?

· Decide if you eventually want your villain character to become a good guy. If you do want them to be a good guy, don’t let them do things that are unforgivable. Like killing, or otherwise hurting kids. Or genocide. There are somethings that no matter what that character does to try and redeem themselves, they’ll never be able to come back from. (Strangely enough, killing a few adults seems to be forgivable. Looking at you Arrow.) If not, Umbridge away.

These are just a few things to ask yourself and think about when crafting your villain. This is not, by any means, a definitive guide. Hopefully, however, it will get you started on creating a realistic, and truly threatening villain for your story.

EVERY TIME WE KISS I SWEAR I COULD FLY

CAN’T U FEEL MY HEART BEAT FAST, I WANT THIS TO LAST

NEED YOU BY MY SIDE