Dentes Sub Corium

Dentes Sub Corium by Iron Eater first appeared in issue Issue 95 in 2022.

Creator's Notes

Content Warning: This submission involves assorted material that may not be appropriate for all readers, including extensive discussion of torture methods, frequent instances of body horror (some more casual than others), violence, gore, stalking and harassment, intimidation tactics, class struggles, and the insistent use of words like “pharmacobezoar.”

Once again it’s time for Ward & Wainwright to take the stage, and while this entry is certainly closer to the previous than usual (a mere three issues!), the theme this time around felt like the best fit for the story I wanted to tell.

The Sauvageot Theater is a fairly obvious nod to the real-life Grand Guignol, both named for Punch-and-Judy-style characters; the Sauvageot itself is named for Alexandre-Charles Sauvageot, who donated an enormous amount of historical objects from his personal collection to the Louvre and is considered to have just blatantly made up at least some of the details about said artifacts. In the event things were unclear, everything Tabitha’s troupe does is simply a matter of very skilled stage illusions, though whether Tabitha or Lindy are capable of more than that is left intentionally more vague.

Hugh’s commentary on far too many implements of torture is the short version, believe it or not. I did my best to trim things down and break them up so the piece wasn’t a solid wall of conversation, though it’s still quite a talky tale; the entire business with the letter-sending miscreant was added so there could be some more satisfying stakes and action in this thing than simply yet another conversation. I amassed a rather hefty bibliography during my writing time, and as a result had to do a lot of settings-shuffling with my Academia.edu account to keep them from emailing me every time someone posted so much as a mouse fart of a paper relevant to what I’d been reading. Turns out medievalists can be wordy! Who knew!

Lindy referring to Mr. Ward as a “little chunk of lokum” isn’t meant as an insult, as the man is a bit of a human gumdrop. Lokum, by any other transliteration, is another name for Turkish delight; it’s unclear whether there’s a country named Turkey in this setting, but there’s definitely places outside the vague and British city in which most stories take place, hence the choice of names. It’s a lot better than certain Lewis-addled Tumblr posts might have you think!

I hadn’t expected to bring up Hugh’s calling cards again (they first showed up in Mare Testimonii), but as things evolved they felt like a natural addition to the plot. Not that Hugh needs an excuse; he has downright Patrick Bateman opinions on having a good card ready to give to people at all hours of the day, though his are somewhat more colorful than a certain other axe murderer’s.

This series began as a Bloodborne pastiche and Bloodborne pastiche it remains. When it comes time for the unnamed stalker to “comprehend the vast potency of Hugh’s ability in comparison to his own,” this is the literary equivalent of someone seeing a named boss bar appear on screen, and yes, I am very proud of that little detail.

Hugh and Mr. Ward are absolutely not going to be misusing their society connections to provide the Sauvageot’s troupe with copies of The King in Yellow, because that would be irresponsible. I’m sure The Golden Banquest is something entirely different. It’s fine! Support your local performing artists.

Alas, I didn’t have any appropriate metal lyrics to tuck into the prose this time, but Mr. Ward does manage a half-quote of Cecilia Condit’s Possibly in Michigan, which felt thematically appropriate enough.

So goes another W&W story, and so the metaplot moves ever-onward. Barring incident, illness, or injury, we shall be seeing these two again in 2023.