#aristide

The Dragon by Mairead Triste and Aristide

My final book of Fanfic Writers' Appreciation Day! The Dragon by @the-cimmerians is a casefic horror slashfic (the m/m kind... but really, a bit of both) circa 1999, for the TV show The Sentinel, the origin of the Sentinel/Guide trope in fanfic.

In the late nineties, Sentinel was one of the ubiquitous slash fandoms, up there with due South, X-Files, and Highlander. I fully admit I have only ever seen the pilot and some fanvids, but I absorbed SO much canon and fanon from fic over the years.

At one point, I swear I had a printed, coil bound copy of The Dragon (like the one at the end of this post about Ghosts by Torch) so of course it needed to make its way onto my to-bind list. Gay pining, eventually requited! A serial killer! Folklore monsters!

This was a fun one to play around with some of the visual elements. Black and red and silver for the cover, and I am not sad that the edges got a bit drippy with the splattering. The endpapers are red lokta paper and I went through some contortions with trimming to keep the raw edges on the paper, for the VIBES. The batwing motif fits in with the folklore, and the handprints fit a very specific scene in the story. (THAT one. The under the bed one.) Plus, teeth.

I'm pretty happy overall with how it all came together, and fit with the overall mood and themes of the fic, and with being able to share some older fic and fandoms.

Boiling domes of my distance

In all that's gentle and benign, all tender and so delicate was granted - by gracious closeness and mistful utterings that is of loveliest of all @thesavagemuffin, for whom is whole galore and domes of my adore and love and bows to gentle hands, and tender hearts, and watchful eyes<зз

Collinwood: Judith, Trask, Beth, Quentin In November 1897, wronged woman Judith Collins Trask has had her husband, the odious Gregory Trask, bricked up in her brother Quentin’s bedroom. While Gregory is taking this in, the ghost of another wronged woman appears to him. She is Quentin’s ex-fiancée Beth Chavez. Beth is looking for Quentin. Trask is initially frightened, but then urges Beth to go…