Revenge Arc, page 1
Revenge Arc
Cat Voleur
Copyright 2023 Cat Voleur
Published by Archive of the Odd
Cover by Grim Poppy Design
Artwork by Bri Crozier
License Notes
All rights reserved. Reproduction and transmission of this production by any means, including mechanical, audio, or electronic, without prior permission of the publisher and copyright holder is prohibited.
Table of Contents
Warnings
Dedication
Part 1: Gut Reaction
Part 2: Hiatus
Part 3: Revenge Arc
Part 4: Heart-Eater
Part 5: Red
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Warnings
Murder, torture, stalking, exploitation, referenced sexual assault
Dedication
To Mrs. Skidmore,
I had to make up an English test during my lunch period one day. You came into the room and you told me that after the day you’d had, I had better dedicate my first book to you.
Here it is.
I’m sorry it took so long, and that it’s so profane.
But thank you, for knowing that I’d write it.
Dedication
For Riley.
I will be dead when you see this, if you ever do. How I long to show it to you. But I don’t want to spoil our ending.
This collection is a labor of love. Love for you. Love for our work.
I hope that in time, you learn to see it as I do.
I hope you know how beautiful you will be when we are finished.
Oh, how you inspire me.
Part 1
Gut Reaction
Where the work of Riley Langdon blossoms into more than just words and our ideas meld into one.
The following was the first post from the Gut Reactions Review Account on Twitter, posted in December of 2014, and has been taken in its entirety. Alt text is included.
Gut Reaction: Choke on Dirt (1978)
[ALT
Image Description:
Movie poster depicting a woman’s back. Her clothes are torn and she clutches a bloody knife.]
For a movie that prides itself on being too much, I was underwhelmed by the gore. The story was both lacking and slow paced. I mean, come on. We’re all just watching for the revenge arc anyway.
5/10
_____
The following has been copied from a Tumblr account known as Deckland’s Dungeon.
A Blog Update/Upcoming Feature
Hello all freaks and Dungeon geeks,
Emery here.
I know you have all been waiting patiently for the third and final entry of my Lisey breakdown as well as a beta review of ByteMe. Don’t worry, they’re still coming.
For now though, I am sitting on something that is just too special to wait any longer.
As many of you know, I was on a special recon mission over the weekend to take a crack at playtesting a certain roguelike from The-Developer-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named. If you follow me on any of my other socials, then you’re well aware they bailed right out of AkaCon, leaving me high and dry in the middle of buttfuck nowhere, AL. (Still bitter, in case you couldn’t tell.)
I made the most out of the weekend all the same. I met a couple of cosplayers from some pretty obscure fandoms that agreed to come onto the podcast for some specialty deep dive episodes. I hung around Artist’s Alley and placed some commissions for the new avi that should be pouring in over the next couple of weeks. I also did quite a bit of networking, so hopefully we have a few new accounts reading this.
These are all standard convention practices for a dedicated businessman such as myself. What isn’t standard is the panel I found myself sitting in Sunday morning.
Those of you who have been to an anime or gaming convention before know that all the big shots have basically already left by that final day. AkaCon didn’t have that many big headliners to begin with. I was totally prepared to spend the rest of my morning hitting up some random Q&A panels for whatever fandoms struck me as the least offensive.
So you can imagine my surprise when I saw a Q&A panel for what is perhaps the most offensive fandom of all time.
Have any of you ever heard of Red?
It has enough of a cult following that I may not be surprised if one or two of you out there are fans. It’s well past time I did a deep dive into that one, I think. Not only is it the most successful horror webcomic to be hosted independently by an American creator, but the controversial content keeps it ripe for drama. And believe me, there’s drama.
Now, for those of you who are fans, don’t get too excited. There’s no deep dive episode coming just yet—I’ve got all those topics scripted up through August. For those of you who aren’t fans, I’m sorry for the rabbit hole I’m about to introduce you to. Consider this your final warning and don’t blame me when you’re 200 pages into Red research tonight.
Now.
Recording was expressly prohibited during the panel, but you know I have my ways. The audio quality is too poor to upload directly, but I’ll be taking the liberty of transcribing the juicier bits for you throughout the day.
Some of you may be wondering at this point, who the fuck cares about some fan panel for the obscure torture porn comic? But that’s the thing, ladies and gents, it was not a fan panel.
Riley fucking Langdon was there.
I hope I don’t have to tell you all that she’s a big deal. Maybe not in our little corner of the nerdverse, but I imagine there are plenty of you who have heard of her that weren’t even aware of Red. Gut Reactions, anyone? Her casual commentary on Twitter blows my little tabletop community out of the water, and I’d wager her actual website brings in about twice the revenue mine does. And any drama lovers in my readership are sure to remember the ‘Death Do Us Part’ controversy? Remember that movie that marketed itself as a romantic comedy, only to feature a twenty-minute massacre at the end?
“The real horror of life is that it can happen to anyone at any time.”
Classic.
She may not be as well established in the gaming and comic communities, but she is still a bonafide internet celebrity.
That is why I am so surprised and thrilled to bring you these direct, black market transcripts of The Red Panel.
I have the bulk of them typed out for you and will be posting the edited excerpts throughout the day while I wait for my weekly videos to render.
So stay tuned, and stay freaky.
-E
_____
The following was copied from the Red fan server on Discord in the #lobby channel.
Ami Gara
You guys will not believe what just happened
Simp4Scarlet
Wat?
InnocentTech
What?
Ami Gara
I met Riley Langdon!
Simp4Scarlet
Shut up no u didn’t
SunnyViolet
How? When?
HHMarch
Are you being serious?
Ami Gara
Okay, well I didn’t really ‘meet’ her I guess, but I saw her speak at a panel yesterday at AkaCon
HHMarch
She wasn’t scheduled to appear at AkaCon
Ami Gara
She wasn’t an official guest or doing autographs or anything
I don’t think she was vending, either, or I def would have heard about her sooner
But there was a Red Q&A panel and she was just there
Simp4Scarlet
U sure it was her?
Sweetz
No way
HHMarch
She hasn’t been to a convention in over a year. Plus AkaCon is really small, right? If she could go, she would have been credited as a special guest for sure
PoptartMaster
We have been BEGGING for Gut Reactions to tour
HHMarch
Also, she lives up in the northern US. AkaCon would be a long way to drive
Simp4Scarlet
Don’t believe it
Sweetz
Probably just someone cosplaying as Riley
ShellE
Who would cosplay as a real person?
Sweetz
It DOES happen.
And we have very few cosplay options in this community
ShellE
You don’t want to chain yourself up and walk around the con naked?
InnocentTech
How come we’re not all doing our Red cosplays on OnlyFans?
Sweetz
LOL
ShellE
Dangerously close to creating a real Red Room at that point
InnocentTech
Just saying, there’s a market for it
ShellE
Sicko
_____
The following has been taken from the horror review site Bloodforblood.com in December of 2019.
After Death Does Part Us: An Interview With Riley Langdon
By Morris Kingsley
Last Saturday I had the pleasure of sitting down with writer and director Riley Langdon. She has just worked with DarkerFlame studios to write and co-direct the controversial indie horror film, “Death Do Us Part’ which is making waves in the community online.
MBK: How long have you been working in the creative field?
REL: I guess about six years? I sort of don’t like being asked that question—no offense. It’s just sort of hard to answer. A lot of the hardest part of w
Shit, sorry. Can I say ass? Can I say shit?
MBK: You’re all good.
REL: Good. I’m not used to doing interviews, still. I’m more of a Reddit AMA gal.
MBK: It could always be edited down, if need be. But we’re a pretty informal outlet.
REL: You’re not going to edit it down to make me seem like a psycho or anything, are you?
MBK: Not unless you say anything psychotic.
REL: I will try to be on my best behavior then.
MBK: So has the horror genre always called out to you?
REL: I wouldn’t say that it calls out to me, exactly.
I like to think of it more in the way that the genre chose me, the same way that a lottery winner might be chosen, but sort of terrible. Tragedies just seem to happen randomly in the world with no rhyme or reason, but once you learn to see that it’s everywhere all the time, it’s hard to look at much of anything else.
I was cursed, or blessed, with the sort of cynicism that allows me to just see potential dangers in everything. Horror is the only outlet I have that lets me share those thoughts without going totally crazy.
MBK: So you started with horror?
REL: I got it into it pretty young. But, I actually started writing fantasy, if you can believe it. Not the dark stuff, either, but honest to God, young adult fantasy. With fairies and unicorns and everything.
I have a lot of respect for the fantasy genre because I do believe it’s the purest form of escapism, which I know is what a lot of people use fiction for. When I was young I used to dream about having a little forest lodge that I could hide in all day and write up all these fantastical notions I was always dreaming up.
But you know what a forest lodge is? It’s a cabin in the woods. Semantics matter.
I think once you pull the switch on seeing the world in a menacing way, it’s impossible to go back.
MBK: Is that where a lot of your inspiration comes from?
REL: Yeah, I would say so. I have always had a very overactive imagination and when it takes me to dark places, sometimes I just need to bring others along for the ride.
MBK: Was there an inciting incident? That flipped that dark switch for you?
REL: I see a lot of speculation online about how that switch got flipped. I think because I’m very angry and very outspoken, people like to write this tragic incident into my past that explains those traits.
But no, I wouldn’t say there was a singular experience that jumpstarted my obsession with the macabre. I was never attacked or assaulted or anything like that. Which is sort of amazing. As sad as that is to say, but statistically speaking, being safe is not the default.
I’ve been hyperaware of that, I think because I grew up in a very vulnerable position. I never knew my dad, my mom was never around, and I basically raised myself past the age of eight or so. When I started to be exposed to violent media, and was putting together that it wasn’t all fiction, I started to realize that my upbringing was seriously dangerous and I would have been susceptible to a lot of bad things if they’d come along. So, I’m aware that I was incredibly lucky.
Now, it’s sort of evolved, if that makes sense? There’s this notion I resent; that something terrible needs to happen to a woman before she can understand the dangers of the world, or care about them, or even speak about them.
That’s actually the sort of story I would want to tell to a mainstream audience if ever get another chance, my preemptive revenge story. Probably still a novel, since I don’t think any movie studios are going to want to work with me after this.
MBK: Speaking of which, let’s talk about your movie.
REL: Right! The thing I’m supposed to be promoting. Or defending.
MBK: People are calling it the most controversial horror movie of the decade. What are your thoughts on that?
REL: I don’t think it’s true, but I’m also not surprised that people are saying it.
In an era of political correctness and trigger warnings, movie-goers are just ill-equipped to handle films that are hard to categorize. I don’t mean to vilify those things, exactly, because I believe they have a place in publishing. I just haven’t seen much of a cinematic equivalent. There are ratings, obviously, but you see an R and you don’t know if it’s for blood or nudity or language or whatever else. Audiences went into this without the proper expectations, and I can see why that caused a problem.
MBK: Did you not expect that you were going to have those sorts of issues with the press?
REL: Expect implies that I thought about it, which I really didn’t.
This was a new medium of storytelling for me to actually work in. I feel like this answer is going to show a lot of my naïveté, but I didn’t think about how to promote this to the press a single time during production.
It was a small indie film and I had the freedom to basically tell the story I wanted to tell. That’s a once in a lifetime opportunity, and I wasn’t thinking very far past that. And even still, I don’t have a lot of hand in how the film is promoted.
Understand, that’s not me trying to throw anyone under the bus. I gave them a grenade and no instructions. For all the heat that the marketing people are getting right now, they’re getting people talking about the movie, and out to the theaters to see it. You have to give them credit for that.
MBK: So the box office numbers are doing well?
REL: Let’s put it this way, initially there were not going to be box office numbers. We had not scheduled a theatrical run.
MBK: None whatsoever?
REL: Nope. We were just going to do festival premieres and then send it straight to streaming. Which, when you think about it, would have made the controversial part a lot easier to warn people about. Netflix has warnings and tags and stuff, that little MA pop-up for television—I think something could have been done. But the critics threw fits about it when it premiered and now here we are.
MBK: So the studio must be thrilled that it’s taking off? No such thing as bad publicity and all that?
REL: Yeah, they’re generally pretty pleased, but they’re about the only ones.
It’s very surreal. There’s a certain level of dissonance that comes from being praised by the studio and creative team and having everyone else try to cancel me.
MBK: And I do want to cycle back around to this, because I have more questions about the movie. But this isn’t your first experience with strong criticism online, is it?
REL: You’ve got me there.
There were actually rumors that the studio hired me in the hopes of causing a controversy to drive sales.
While that’s not true—I don’t think it’s true—I was approached for the project because the director had read another story I’d written that has gotten me into some hot water in the past.
MBK: And what would that be?
REL: It was—is—a little webcomic called Red. It’s a very gory, over the top, violent revenge story that had a lot of people clutching their pearls when they finally noticed it. It’s in its final arc now and scheduled to conclude this coming year, I’m already prepared for the pitchforks.
MBK: You do seem to enjoy ruffling feathers, don’t you?
REL: Not really enjoy it. It’s anxiety inducing. I think when people are mad at a public figure, even a very, very small public figure such as myself, they tend to forget that we’re real people.
I have strangers sending me the most vulgar, vivid death threats on a near daily basis, and it absolutely takes a toll. Liking extreme horror as a genre does not make me immune to fear or anxiety.
But at the same time, it does make me kind of proud of myself. I strongly believe that if you’re pissing off the kind of people who will take time out of their day to make those sort of threats online, you’re pissing off the right ones.
My favorite kind of art has also always been the kind to push boundaries, and make people upset. So, it is sort of validating to know that it’s what I’m creating now myself.
MBK: I think it would be hard to deny that you’ve pushed a lot of boundaries with this one. Do you feel cheated at all that the controversy seems to be centered around the classification of the movie and not the content?
REL: Disappointed, maybe.
