slkdottie

[slkdottie]

dominic-qin‌:

Ubers were unreliable. Dominic was realizing this as he stared at that phone app. The icons of cars could be seen miles away, though his signal kept failing every third step he’d take. No one had told him that his chances of summoning a driver were better if he stayed still, but that was the thing about the biker, he was always on the move.

It was kind of hard to flee, however, when the mode of transportation was still at the shop due to the repairs that had slipped up.

Normally Dominic was on top of these things. He’d rarely fall behind in his line of work, but with the sore shoulder and bruised ego, he couldn’t seem to pick himself back up from the fall.

As to distract himself, he’d taken to the outdated, yet lovely, Bishop’s Diner for a quick bite to eat. It was, now, outside of that Diner where he remained posted, as the idea was forming to just walk home. He pulled out a cigarette for comfort, lit the end and took a drag before speaking to the stranger as they approached, “Don’t give me that look. I’m 20 feet away from the entrance. You can pull out your ruler and check or kindly keep walking. It’s been a day.”

“Just when I thought you were kinda cute,” she said, pouting. “You always this rude, huh? I’d give you a second chance, but it’d conflict with my New Year’s Resolution: stop making excuses for clowns who’re rough around the edges.” 

Dottie didn’t mince her words when letting someone know exactly how she felt. It didn’t help that she was highly sensitive, always interpreting extremes. You were either family or strangers, soul mates or mortal enemies, a knight in shining armor or a dragon to be slain. 

“Anyway, let’s get down to business,” she said. She sauntered towards him. Each step shed glitter, leaving a trail of metallic and jewel-toned sparkles floating through the night air. “You’re Vinny, right? Or, am I talking to the wrong dark haired, tatted up, mid-twenties guy smoking a cigarette in front of Bishop’s at this lovely hour?”

Dottie reached unsnapped the top buttons of her navy, peplum jacket and retrieved an envelope. It was heavy with money, sealed by a lone heart sticker with glue already lifting from strain. She gripped it tight, and eyed Dominic with uncertainty. “This better be a massive coinkydink, buster! ‘Cause I don’t see what I was promised.”  

[slkdottie]

simonxmuhn‌:

Simon frowned as he watched his papers get stabbed by an umbrella. The dirt and smudges would be bad enough to explain to his students, he’d have to explain any rips and tears now too. It’d be bad enough if he lost them and had to ask a select few to print or e-mail a copy to him. As a former student himself, and a current researcher as well, Simon knew just how frustrating it could be to spend weeks working on an assignment only for the professor to seemingly not care enough about the work to actually pay attention to the papers.

“…The bossy-pants guy? That’s how you remember me? Just because I didn’t want a semi-valuable book to be ruined?” He asked, with yet another scowl on his face. In a large city, Simon hadn’t expected to run into more people like this. Unfortunately, luck didn’t seem to be on his side. Especially since the woman still hadn’t handed his work back to him.

Rather than smile or even erase the scowl he was coming to be known for off of his face, Simon instead extended his hand. “I’m not here to smile, I’m trying to get some work done. Those papers, please?”

“You’re kind of a grump, aren’t ya?” she said. “Well, I wish I knew that two months ago! I wouldn’t have taken your attitude in the book tent personally if I’d known it’s just your personality.” Although less irritated -- and far less paranoid -- than during their first encounter, she held a slight grudge. She had a tendency to obsess, fixating on the murky details of incidents her mind played over and over again on an endless loop. The only relief from those thoughts was to daydream about revenge, about all the amusing and humiliating ways she could get even with others. It was one of the few joys from her Control Room days that she’d carried over into normal life.

“Whatcha spend the money I gave ya on, anyway?” she asked. Dottie licked a gloved index finger, then combed through the papers in her arms. She decided to go the pesky hindrance route, rather than a full-blown score settling. As she flipped through the pages, a spongy, polka dot-patterned mushroom expanded outward in uneven spurts. Cold and arid, the weather put her mutation at a disadvantage. 

The mushroom’s edges wobbled like waves of the sea until they overlapped each other, fully covering the papers and bulking outwards. She dropped her mushroom box. Two strands of fungus sprouted out from it, like the strap of a handbag, and she caught them before it could hit the ground. Dottie held it out, wondering if Simon would brave touching it.

“A handbag!” she said, winking. “So ya don’t lose ‘em again, Grinchie!” 

[slkdottie]

simonxmuhn‌:

“Drugs. Gangs. Whatever it is, I don’t have time for any of it,” Simon scowled. He’d heard the news of the mayor’s accusations and didn’t believe it for a minute. Not because he blatantly disliked the mayor (although he wouldn’t consider himself a member of her fan group) but because he had sourses of his own that told him otherwise. And Simon couldn’t do much about it, not without exposing himself or his sources to the public.

So instead, he’d sit and wait and focus on more time-pressing manners: grading rough drafts of final research papers. The pages never seemed to end. And while Simon was far from an English professor…the grammar some of his students used made reading their papers regarding basic introductions of language made it all the more impossible. And the gust of wind that blew part of his finished stack away threatened to make sure he’d never finish.

“Hey –” Simon called out to pedestrians down the sidewalk, hoping one would stop to grab the few papers that fluttered in the wind. “– Grab that for me, will you?”

“Don’t you know we’re living in the digital age, buster? At least keep ‘em in a briefcase or something,” she said. Dottie stabbed a cluster of papers using the shaft of her umbrella, the canopy sprinkling spores atop them. The umbrella’s original color had been so drab, she’d ripped off the nylon fabric and grew panels of snow mushrooms around the metal skeleton. In addition to matching her white wool hat, it had the added bonus of holding five hundred times its weight in water. Whoever said that fashion couldn’t also be functional? 

Dottie scooped up the papers, glancing idly at the content. Just as she was about to hold them out for Simon to take, however, her eyes widened in recognition. “Hey, you’re that guy!” she squeaked. “That bossy-pants guy from the book tent!” 

Near-black irises darted at their surroundings. The inner corners of her mouth curled, impish and hinting at the mischievous thoughts crossing her mind. She could make a run for it -- make a mad dash for the back of a pick-up truck, scale the fire escapes of an alley and use mushrooms to ease her fall from the rooftops, or even take a hostage! There were so many options.

She pressed the papers against her chest. “I’d recognize that scowl anywhere,” she said. “Or is your face just stuck that way? Let’s turn that frown upside-down!”

[slkdottie]

bamfmax-rojas‌:

@slkdottie

He was feeling WOOZY. So damn woozy. He didn’t know why or how. And he didn’t know why it was worse than usual. The drugs at the party hardly affected him. In fact, they’d made him way better at being an upstanding individual. They altered his brain with some actual balance. They made his constant vertigo fade, and they made it so he didn’t walk around like a less swaggery Captain Jack Sparrow. 

But now? He was leaning against the glass windows of that Wal-Mart. His head was spinning faster than normal, and he was certain that there were fireworks in his eyes. He was seeing things– that or the effects were finally doing him in. 

He huffed a weak exhale as he began to feel dizzy from the balls-to-the-wall high of the mycelium. He nervously whispered a soft “what the fuck” as his eyes traveled to the lovely lady in front of him. 

“I don’t feel so good Lady Stark?” 

Dottie’s voice fluttered with gentleness, as though she were coaxing a stray kitten into trusting her. “It’ll only give you visions,” she said. She patted his cheek, knowing little could be done until the boy’s body metabolized the hallucinogens. “You’ll be alright soon,” she said. “Oh, but have a doctor take a looksie in the E.R. if you think your eyeballs look a little yellow tomorrow!” 

The hallucinations could be paradise or mind-shattering nightmares. It was dependent on her mood, which had fluctuated from frantic love-hate thoughts about Francis when she sneezed out that cloud of spores. “It really was an accident -- ya know, fall allergies are a real pain in the fanny!” 

She lowered her hand, only to press a fingertip to her lips in thought. Life on the outside felt like a hallucination itself, equal parts beautiful and terrifying. Restraint was a thing of the past, glass cages were of a bygone era. The only lasting impressions from the program were the impressions Francis had left on her heart, and the way he’d forever altered her mutation. Dottie had her control sacrificed for power, and her spores rarely listened to her.

And it hurt.

Dottie had to worry about sneezing now, as if the constant worrying about physical contact wasn’t enough. Her powers had found new ways of playing russian roulette, and that thought put an unsettling twitch into her smile. “Do I gotta stick with Lady Stark?” she asked. “That sounds like, so medieval! Gimme a nickname adorable like my smile, why don’tcha?”

[slkdottie]

eo-nova‌:

it was a mere stroll out on the town. something simple to get her mind off any all-consuming worries or troubles in the middle of a nice, crisp day. eun-ha only just entered the uptown sector of new arkansas, a distinction not readily made evident to the untrained eye  — particularly given the rather unassuming street corner she now occupied. however, the undergrad had visited the district on far too many an occasion to let it slip her seemingly distracted gaze. 

there were no plans exactly for the moment, or .. nothing entirely set in stone, at least. her wandering mind was potentially geared towards lunch as she could feel the gradual ache of hunger approaching, though eunie couldn’t quite nail down her choice in food presently .. or maybe she’d just contact another to eventually join her at some point and keep her further occupied. perhaps she’d pop by her mother’s bakery? the possibilities were surely endless. 

with book in hand, and music blaring in her ears courtesy of the neon kitten headphones adorning dark tresses, the young girl minded her own in casual step until she neared a boutique with a particular shade of dress catching her peripheral and soon stealing a fair portion of her attention. right as she deems it worth stepping inside, after some consideration towards whether it was a necessary to bother for a closer inspection of course, the girl nearly misses the scene unraveling a short distance away until a noise splinters through the barricade her headphones once provided, drawing dark hues sharply in the opposing direction to land on a surprising sight.

All her belongings were contaminated. A colony of microfungi infamous for causing brain swelling teemed on the red ribbon looped around her ponytail. Spores all shades of the rainbow were embedded under her nail bed, hidden underneath sets of bejeweled acrylics. And inside her handbag, and inconspicuous, baby pink looking thing with cheap charms, was a cesspool of poison. If the thief had known that, perhaps they would’ve thought twice about stealing from Dottie. Big, blubbering dewdrop tears shone on her face. She sprinted after the thief, half-halfheartedly swinging a broken umbrella she’d used to protect herself. “Hey, you can have the bag!” she cried. “Just gimme back the pictures in my wallet!”

The thief shoved their way down the sidewalk. But, their stolen goods slowed them down; a bulky handbag designed more for fashion than function threw off their balance and the useless charms kept snagging on bystanders. Meters away from Eun-ha, the thief ripped open the bag to take out the valuables and run. But instead, came face-to-face with a swollen puffball mushroom ready to burst like a balloon. And it did -- a cloud of spores enveloping the man’s face, first sending them into a coughing fit and then to the ground in agony. Growths spread across half of his face, some entering his blood stream through a picked-at shaving cut. 

They made quick work of his flesh.

Dottie caught up to the thief, dropped to her knees, and completely ignored his screams in favor of rifling through her bag. She pulled out her wallet. Marvin the Maine Coon cat? Check. Winky, Blinky, and Nodd the golden dart frogs? Triple Check. She sighed in relief, using a gloved finger to dust off stray spores from the photographs. “My babies,” she sniffed. Dottie grew calm, and with the change in her emotions so did the degree of deadliness in the fungus mottling the thief’s face. Their structures rearranged, their very DNA mutating into less harmful forms as she relaxed. She stood. Slowly, she felt the weight of the fearful and angry eyes of the pedestrians watching her.

[slkdottie]

redjcnny‌:

In her suit, but off duty, Jenny was collapsed onto a park bench, people watching silently with pursed lips as she considered her next course of action. Fall was incoming and leaves of red and orange were gently falling around her head, one perched upon the bench beside her. The rest were being crunched indelicately under the footsteps of passersby. Jenny herself was caught up in her thoughts. New Arkansas had felt both familiar and strange as soon as she stepped foot in it and she was still parsing through those feelings, wondering if they even mattered if they wouldn’t get in the way of her duty here.

Jenny was leaned back, arms crossed now. Someone walked on the side of the path, seemingly in their own world and just about to step on a pile of excrement that she had spotted earlier. If only she had seen the culprit, they would have gotten a stern dressing down and potentially a ticket. “Don’t!” Was all that came out at first, Jenny reaching her hand out to stop the stranger, her voice urgent. “Step on the dog shit!”

She squealed in surprise and evaded the all organic landmine with a clumsy, lopsided twirl. The heels of her stiletto boots landed on a sidewalk crack, wedging themselves into the ground like tent poles as she teetered off balance. And then, her heels snapped clean off. “My shoes!” she said. Fortunately, the autumn leaves made fertile grounds for her mutation. An over-sized mushroom, curved with the elegance of a rose petal’s swoop and a texture just as velvety, sprouted from the ground. Black curls sprung forward as she fell backwards onto the Aleuria aurantia, more commonly known as the Orange Fairy Cup fungus. 

“Nothing ever goes my way anymore, does it?” she wailed. “I hate this stupid city!” Glitter-like spores fell from her curls as she shook about, pounding her fists and kicking her feet in an absurd tantrum. Each spore produced a new mushroom that flourished from the nutrients of decomposing autumn leaves and surrounded the base of her mushroom throne: neon-colored mushrooms shaped like cups, glowing fungus resembling bluebells, and her favorite red-and-white spotted toadstools. With comical timing, a bouquet of dung-loving fungi popped out of the dog poop on the sidewalk, too. 

Dottie locked eyes with Jenny.

“I just don’t have mushroom on my calendar to deal with this crap, ya know?”

[slkdottie]

florenceseung‌:

Had Ren noticed that the other woman had a book in her hands, she would have gone to complain to someone else. While she’d certainly mastered the art of complaining, it was only fun if people were willing to listen, and people with books were very obviously preoccupied with something else and couldn’t provide the undivided attention she really wanted.

“It’s not just about the pizza,” She rolled her eyes as if the fact was obvious. “It’s the fact that people are adding things to food that they definitely shouldn’t be. It can’t just be something simple. I mean, really, who ever asked for scrambled eggs on pizza?” She asked. Well, Ren, apparently, as she was the one who ordered the pizza in the first place, but that was besides the point. “Sure, it all looks the same coming out,” Ren continued, though she wrinkled her nose at the notion. “But it’s a matter of tasting good or not. And I’ve eaten a lot of bad food in my time.”

After all, Ren had tried a donut burger once before. And she certainly had no plans of going near that monstrosity ever again.

“It may as well be the end of the world. I am a very patient person, but it’s frustrating when your plans get ruined like that,” She sighed. “I had my whole day planned out and now? Ruined. I want to try something new, not this…lame pizza place I’ve been to before,” She explained. “The breakfast pizza is one thing I haven’t tried yet.”

“Voluntarily?” she asked. The pizzeria’s manager passed their table, oblivious to the wicked smile Dottie directed at his name tag. “You need a stronger mentality, else you’ll keep eating everyone’s garbage forever.”

Her hand shot upwards, gloved and tapered fingers splayed like points of a star. The force of it all caused her to partly rise from her seat -- especially as she waved her arm around, attracting the attention of the manager and just about every customer in the restaurant. “Yoohoo!” she said. “Hey, Mister Manager! Whaddya got that’s not listed on the menu?” 

Once she had the manager’s attention, she plopped back into the booth. Underneath the table, she subtly removed her gloves. “This lady's telling me that the food is lame,” she said. The manager, his expression stone apart from the reddening of his face, gave Florence an incredulous look. “She’s going on about how whoever wrote the menu’s putting things where they don’t belong. And well, I’m no customer service! It’s like, what does she want me to do about it? So, can ya fix her up something special?” 

[slkdottie]

Princess Serenity || 

                       “We all, everyone one of us, carry a star inside our chests.” 

This is Dottie’s second outfit, intended to be worn for the costume contest and the rest of the party. Ever since discovering volumes of Sailor Moon at the Harvest Festival’s book tent, she’s been obsessed with fighting evil by moonlight & winning love by daylight~! This costume’s glitter comes from bioluminescent spores, all gemstones are real (and stolen), and she can’t wait to twirl around the dance floor in tulle and vintage lace!

[slkdottie]

Princess Toadstool ||

         “The power of the Stars is restored to the castle...and it's all thanks to you!” 

Dottie arrived to the party as the iconic ruler of mushrooms: Princess Peach !!! Real sapphires are embedded in her crown and jewelry, gold embroidery and crystals make up the brocade on her dress, and she is absolutely living for the pink silk ruffles. She’s carrying a non-poisonous toadstool that was hollowed out into a makeshift purse. Overall, she couldn’t have paid a cuter form of homage to her mutant abilities if she tried! And, it’s a great opportunity to finally wear all her stolen sapphires. ( Stay tuned for her costume change! It simply wouldn’t be Dottie unless she brought two outfits to the party! )

[slkdottie]

selkiesalin‌:

in the corner of the room where salin resided, she took note of the people around her. through that golden, devilish mask, her eyes were narrowed into slits as she stared around the gala. She wasn’t one to think that a gala would be anything of interest to her, however the night had proved her wrong. a cup of punch changed her mind, nearly immediately as her vision went blurry, and heart started racing. she felt more on edge than she usually would in a room full of people. the effects she began to feel were nothing new to her. the growing irritation that she felt for the people around her shouldn’t be anything she’d consider to be out of the ordinary for herself. though that, mixed with the other things she was feeling, there was a recognition she felt. 

this was that selkie shit. she was unsure of whether or not the people outside of the compound had been able to get their hands on this, or if she had to be concerned about if there were people from the compound in that very building. though the quick bounces back and forth between a feeling of calm, and a feeling of annoyance made her unable to concentrate on one thing for too long. she knew she had to keep an awareness, just in case there were people lurking with the worst of intentions. she couldn’t let herself slip, no matter how much the drug she knew was in her system was trying to affect her. 

she huffed and mumbled a curse under her breath as she took a seat. one look of suspicion that came from another towards herself, she felt like she might pull a knife in front of all these people. subtlety was never her strong suit, of course, though she wasn’t feeling very obedient to her leader’s ideas of patience in this moment. was he not too busy to notice whether or not she was pulling knives anyway? she ripped her devil mask away from her face, letting it fall to the floor in a moment of thoughtlessness. wouldn’t a selkie worker be able to recognize her better without the mask? it wasn’t even a thought in her head as she patted around for the knife hidden under her dress. “All this trouble for a damn Halloween party.” 

“What’s wrong with your mask?” she asked. Pearl earrings studded her earlobes like heavy ocean droplets, endless dimension in how their storm-like silvers and blues caught light. Dottie had fallen in love with their depth, so deep they could drown men easy as the heart of the sea. And of course, she’d loved the price tag of three thousand dollars.

More accurately, it had cost the original buyer that much money. They were a recent name crossed off from Wade’s hit list and had first paid for the earrings in dirty money, then again with a bullet to the back of their head. 

Dottie never paid a dime. She found it thrilling. 

”I think it’s cute,” she said. She picked up the mask, gingerly holding it as though it may dissolve any minute. It had happened to people before -- accidentally, of course. She loved beauty too much to willingly let flesh eating fungus disintegrate a person inside and out. 

“The horns remind me of a unicorn,” she added, smiling. “The ones off the coast of the Arabian Peninsula have two horns just like these, and they can cure any poison. Well, at least they can in fairy tales!” She gave the horns a playful poke and held out the mask for Salin to take. “You’d look magical with it on, ya know?”  

[slkdottie]

kalindathorn‌:

Mystique’s Antiques occasionally had cases of new butterfly specimens that Kalinda had yet to add to her collection, but this time when she walked in she had seen a beautiful skull, perched on top of a grandfather clock closer towards the back of the shop – probably so it wouldn’t put off potential customers walking by the storefront. He had a gold tooth and a small sheet of paper sold with him that gave a snippet of his life story and how he came to Mystique’s. 

And so, Kalinda walked out of the shop with one more skull to her collection, if you could call it that. It was three people so far, Henry would be the fourth. Now he was bundled safely in cloth within a glass case with more cloth around the glass. Kalinda was so focused on thinking about where to display Henry in relation to her other friends that she missed the tree root and promptly tripped, Henry starting to fall out of her arms. “Henry!”

Tiers of foliose lichen in celadon greens and pasty, mint off-whites layered the tree branch. They stacked upon each other, each swollen and leaf-like lobe encompassing the other like the layered icing petals of buttercream flowers. A girl, bare-legged, straddled the branch.

“Henry?” she laughed. “As in the eighth?” New lichen spread to the tree stem, but remained condensed and centered around where she sat. She was the center of every mycobiome’s universe, the center of gravity around which every last spore in New Arkansas orbited.

“Hey, do ya know any other members of the royal family?” she said. She flicked her braid over her shoulder and peered down, dark eyes crinkled in amusement. “Why don’t you get yourself some flesh-and-blood nobleman or duchess? They’d be way more entertaining. For starters, they haven’t lost their funny bones. And their style’s more Givenchy, less guillotine.”

[slkdottie]

slkwade‌:

closed started for the one and only @slkdottie​ ♡

wade was no stronger to the game of predator versus prey- he practically thrived on it. between the adrenaline rush and the inevitable mix of pain and pleasure, it may as well have been an addiction in and of itself. tonight’s pursuit is no different, exhilaration singing in his veins as he creeps through the darkness and in on his next victim; a small town, out-dated politician who had signed one too many dotted lines. hits like these didn’t come easy; they were high-risk and required weeks to months of planning. one small error or even a print of evidence could ruin everything and send the contract killer to his demise. 

while wade had always loved the taste of danger, he couldn’t deny that these days, he was more on edge than he’d ever been. it was a far easier job when the only person at risk was himself. he had never been the type of man to care about his future or fear death, but with his pretty little mushroom queen at his side, a safer future seemed to be the only thing he could think about. maybe it was his inner care-taker or the thick spell of love that was flipping his mind upside down and changing the way he thought, but either way, he didn’t mind. 

the inside of the building is dark, he’d cut out the power shortly before coming in and had determined he’d had about eight and a half more minutes to get to his target before the politician would head out for the night.

it’s only as he turns the corner into a new hallway that he freezes at the sound of gentle movement behind him. his heart rate picks up as adrenaline and nerves settle down nicely in the pit of his stomach. there’s no time to ask questions, no time to calculate his next move; natural instincts kick in and wade is quick to flip his body around, one hand shoving the masked person down against the empty secretaries desk by their throat, his other hand pulling out his gun and using it to slip the mask off of the intruders head. the very sight before him causing him to let his vice grip on their throat go as he nearly falls stumbling back in shock.

“dottie? what the fuck are you doing here? i told you to stay at home!” 

She was a nice girl, but caged birds made her hands tremble. And glass mirrors made her scream unless fogged by shower steam or rain, shattering her playful visage into splinters of rage. And lack of touch reduced her to a mumbling mess rocking on her heels, longing for the reliability of the Control Room’s schedule. Three months simply wasn’t enough time to rebuild herself from scratch. She was still dependent on others -- particularly, the only two people in the world she could touch without killing: Francis and Wade. They weren’t the only people in her life. But, they were the only people able to hold her without something terrible happening.

Terrible things happened when she touched people. In fact, there was a trail of poisoned witnesses convulsing and foaming at the mouth downstairs. She’d deal with the repercussions later. For now, she wanted to spend time with Wade. “Oh, that was what you wanted me to do?” she huffed, rolling her eyes. “Oops.”  

She took a seat on the secretaries’ desk, haphazardly knocking over a mug filled with pens and sending them scattering to the floor. Her fingers trailed her neck -- almost lovingly -- and circled where he’d grabbed her throat. “Well, at least you’re still excited to see me,” she mused. “I was hoping for a warmer reception, though!” 

Dottie kicked off her heels and they landed atop of the pens with a clatter. She tucked her sheer, black heart-patterned stocking-clad legs underneath her and gave her boyfriend a wistful sigh. A new mask in a rich, plum purple color formed around her face, and it was entirely made of mushrooms. As it covered her cheekbones, she tapped it with her index finger and embedded it with light-catching spores. “What do you think I am, baby? A cat?” she said. “I’ll admit Marvin’s got a sweet deal, but it’s so lonely living like him.”

She pouted. 

“I wanted some of the action, too.”

i’ll follow you into the dark ;

[slkdottie]

simonxmuhn‌:

“Books can be bought,” Simon countered. In fact, he’d be stupid to not take such an offer. That stack of bills was worth way more than the actual book – not that he’d let the woman know that. It was out of his hands and no longer worth the trouble; he could exchange the stack for books worth far more, or at least of more interest to him. And the stacks that threatened to spill out of her purse certainly did interest him. Simon never considered himself incredibly money-minded, but he’d couldn’t deny the fact that the bills caught his attention. Just think of the equipment: the guns and weapons, the information, the people that money could give him access to.

Perhaps he would have to give Alya a call to keep her eye out.

“That book,” Simon continued, making sure to disguise his interest in the rest of her money. “Is worth a bit of money, but th value goes down if it gets stained or torn. I’m not going to trade something valuable for something you can pick up at the dollar store,” He scoffed. But she was right, he still had taken the money. And he’d certainly put it to good use, more use than that book had given him.

When she closed his book, Simon expected her to continue on her way. And yet, she remained in front of him, asking for more opinions. He had the feeling he couldn’t get away with taking another stack of hundreds from her, at least not without someone missing them, but he’d play nice. For now, at least. “Well,” Simon sighed. “It all depends on what you’re interested in. Uncommon books – like what you have there,” His eyes looked to The Ruby in the Smoke in her hands. “Or something else. Mysteries? Histories? Contemporary, Romance, Horror?”

“As can most things in life,” she replied. Money ruled the world; it funded the hellhole she was raised in, and dictated her disappearance as lost investment. If she thought hard enough, then she could even label the stages of her childhood in terms of profits and losses. 

But right now, she was unable to discern whether her blood money was having its intended effect. Dottie listened as he listed genres, only the mention of uncommon books catching her interest. Perhaps the festival organizers had given the man a rare book cheat sheet, or his knowledge of uncommon books may have come from being a hobbyist. The latter was something she could exploit. After all, hobbyists required love -- or at the very least, enjoyment -- towards their subject matter of choice. Dottie took her gamble with a devious smile. “Stained or torn?” she said. She opened the book, ripped out a page, and slammed the cover shut with all the finality of nailing a coffin.

A cathartic sensation filled her chest. How lovely it was to own and destroy. 

The page slid onto the ground with a rustle and she looked down at the cover illustration. The unhinged nature of her smile softened into tender pity. “Now it’s worthless, the poor thing,” she said. Her sympathy quickly died with a lackadaisical flick of her wrist. She strode to the nearest display table, the heel of her boot piercing through the page she’d just torn out. 

“Boohoo!” she whined. “What if I don’t know what I want, pumpkin?” Velvet gloves slipped against plastic dust jackets. Idle fingers slipped from cover to cover, but none caught her interest. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. She imagined not having her gloves on: pages spotting black with mold, bindings eaten up and decaying like dead logs in a bog. 

Suddenly, she looked over her shoulder at Simon. “Hey, can ya give me something glamorous?” she said. “I’m inventing a new me and could use a little inspiration here.”

[slkdottie]

florenceseung‌:

“I swear to god, I must be the most unluckiest person ever!” Ren sighed. She placed her phone down on the table of the local pizza place. It certainly wasn’t her first choice, nor was it her second, but it was the closest place that was open at that time. What pizza place opened in the morning, Ren didn’t know. But she’d already placed an order for a breakfast pizza (whatever that was) partially because she was curious as to what it would be.

But, if anything, she felt as though that would only add to her poor luck.

“All I wanted,” She continued. “Was breakfast at Bishop’s Diner. I’ve never been before. So, of course, the one morning that I go is the day after they’ve been robbed and are all closed up and under investigation. And now I’m stuck at this pizza place with…a breakfast pizza. Is it just a regular pizza with scrambled eggs on top? I’m a little scared to find out,” She admitted. She then turned to the person in the booth across from her. “You do know what I’m talking about, don’t you? The breakfast pizza? Have you ever tried it before? Please tell me what I’ve just gotten myself into.”

Dot dreaded empty apartments and the long, lonesome weeks cooped up with the Main Coone cat as her only company. So, she’d joined the local Ladies’ Book Club to occupy herself while her boyfriend skipped town for his next hit. A copy of All the Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation laid flat on the table, held down by black velvet-gloved fingers. She was midway through it, far more absorbed in the pages than the half-eaten pizza slice oozing grease her plate. And sticking out from her purse was the second book for that month: The Handmaid’s Tale. 

She’d quickly plowed through the club’s recommended readings for other months, devouring The Princess Saves Herself in This One, Nineteen Eighty-Four: A Novel, A Room of One’s Own, The Giver, and so forth. None of those books had been available at the compound. At least, not in their honest forms; once they past through the facilities’ gates, they’d been so heavily edited that the novels hardly made sense. Dottie questioned the program’s intentions, wondering why yearly re-reads of Pride and Prejudice were enforced when a wider selection of books were available on the outside. What ideas did these books hold that the compound was so afraid of?

Dot was pulled out of her thoughts by the chatty stranger and looked up from her book. “Why are you so worked up over pizza?” she asked. It was an innocent question -- after all, she was still acclimating to world outside a glass cell. “All food looks the same when it comes out the other end, doesn’t it?” 

She took her bookmark, laminated card stock with illustrations of toadstools and faeries, adorned with a bright red tassel looped through the top, and slipped it between the pages. “Is it really the end of the world if you have to order something else?” she asked. “Or do you just not get out much?”

[slkdottie]

francis-wan‌:

there was fault in thinking his last line would have won her over, though he’d deny it until the end of time. he shook his head in even more denial at her words even as the tasty banana cream fell from his face. separation did no one good. just look at her, acting out in front of all these people! though she was right, he must have looked like a clown, white painted face from whipped cream and graham cracker pie crust.

he was certain it was going so smoothly. he was certain after a set of three long months his dry spell would end, and the pressing fingertips of her new manicure were to be pressed even deeper into the skin later. he was certain he’d sweep her off her feet and carry her to the safety of their home, down lover’s lane where her spores could be contained and limited to him and only him behind that foggy glass container of hers. the whisper she supplied was a good sign. her actions to follow weren’t either..

the scene was embarrassing to say the least. the ego was finally bruised by these verbal lashings despite the curiosity that rose as she held that pie server to his eye. there might have been a twinkle behind those brown eyes, had his lashes not been masked and coated with the pie fillings. he tried his best to clean his face of the banana facial though, it were hard.

“Dottie put the spatula down, and settle down.” he was fuming so loudly, despite the love and care and calmness he continued to try to show her. his hot head might have recooked and burnt that pie as he continued to wipe it away. his chin was still heavily coated.

“I’m certain I can learn to love the new you as much as I love the old you.” he again, however, wasn’t entertaining the new boyfriend idea, and reaching behind that counter to yank her arm, “We’re going home, Mrs. Wan. It’s time you wake from this UTTERLY LOONEY fantasy. You’ll be lucky if you even have feet to walk on let alone kiss by the time we’re back home.”

“This spatula is gonna carve out that shriveled, dried out raisin you call a heart. And it’s gonna taste GREAT on top of all this filling!”  

This wasn’t her first promise to slice him like a serving of wedding cake. She’d made threats in the past: decapitating the groom figurine atop their real wedding cake during the reception, drawing graphic depictions of his bloody entrails using red lipstick and the glass of her cell, and so forth. Threats occasionally escalated into actions. During the small window of loneliness she endured while her on-and-off again beau received medical attention, she would whittle down her last lipstick by scribbling “♡ Mrs. Wan ♡ ” and “Francis + Dottie 4 Ever” on the walls. However, these past three months had given her a taste of the real world. And she thought it was sweeter than any wedding cake she’d ever had. 

“I’m warning you! This time, I’m seriou--EEP!” she yelped. Dottie stumbled forward, dragged out of the booth by her arm. Her hat fell off her head. The bundle of hair she’d pinned inside of came undone in a billowing mass, romantic curls tumbling down her face like coils of ivy. Their whiplash struck her face, glittering spores in deep magenta and purples shaking loose from the strands, as she twisted in a desperate bid to free her arm. 

By now, bystanders watched their fight and held up their phones to record the incident. Dottie dug her heels into the ground, threw her body weight backwards, and came closer to dislocating her shoulder than freeing herself. She didn’t want to user her power -- not with all these people watching -- but with her arm locked in his vice grip, she wasn’t scooping out his insides with a spatula any time soon, either. Luckily, she saw a familiar face in the crowd and her demeanor changed from panicked to overjoyed. So overjoyed in fact, that she lost control over her mutation. Groups of red-and-white toadstools and strange, glowing purple mushrooms shaped like upside down bells sprung up from wherever she stepped on the grass. 

“Mr. Dreamboat is gonna kick your ass, Frankie!” she laughed. “But not too badly! You see my new manicure? What’s the point of these claws if it’s not to shred the scraps of you my boyfie’s gonna leave behind, huh? I’m gonna do to you what you did to my heart. Meet my new Puddin’.”   

( @slkwade​ ) 

[slkdottie]

oranccn‌:

Oran’s eyes slowly trailed from the woman he stood in front of to the other patrons in the coffee shop, one by one, watching with a mixture of confusion and horror as people started to lose control of themselves. This definitely wasn’t the fault of the minor earthquake he had just caused. It was absolutely mad the way people were just losing themselves. A woman suddenly dancing on a table, a man choking on what seemed like mere air, holding a fork and stabbing his thigh with it. Oran flinched, his eyes widening at the sight. “What the fu…” he muttered, a cup suddenly being thrust towards him. It was the same woman. Having heard what she said, he took the cup and promptly held it against his nose and mouth, the stench of bitter coffee filling his airways. Clearly, she– like him– was a mutant. He spoke through the cup, the sound of his voice muffled, “They’re gonna die?” He watched her remove a glove and call the spores to her like some sort of bizarre performance act. “So that’s your power then?? You affect…you have some sort of mushroom power? This is what happens when you’re scared? Fuckin’ hell.” He looked at the patrons around them again, unsure what a mutie was but he was far too aghast to care. “Are they still gonna die now??”

“That was me feeling a little startled!” she said. “You’re lucky that you weren’t him, else I would’ve gotten scared for real.” Dottie’s eyelashes fluttered, glittering spores falling from them and dusting her cheekbones like glimmers of pixie dust. Large, dewdrop tears swept the spores off her face. “I started thinking he was bad for me,” she said. “So, I left without telling him where I was going! He can’t stand being apart -- ‘cause he loves me that much, you know? -- and so, I didn’t want to see his heart get broken. Then I mistook you for him, thought that he’d found me here, and here we are!”

The dancing woman slipped off the table, head colliding against the cold cafe floor. Dottie was oblivious to the sickening sound of skull against tiles, too caught in the woefulness of her love life. She gazed around the room, looking through the hysteria without feeling the weight of the situation. And while the chaos brought a tremble to her voice, it wasn’t for moral reasons. “Oh, my Frankie would’ve loved to see this,” she sighed. 

Ambulance sirens snapped the young woman out of her heartbreak. One of the waitresses who escaped out back must’ve called for help, and now there was a horde of ambulances, fire trucks, and police vehicles headed their way. “What’s wrong with you, Dottie? There’s plenty of time to pine over a psychopath later!” she said, gloved hands brushing away her tears. Taking a deep breath, she focused her gaze on the stranger. 

“Imagine taking sulfuric acid and drizzling it all over your liver like pancake syrup. How many people do you think can survive that, huh?” she asked. “And what’s worse: the cops are gonna have me arrested for it, maybe even send me back to that place! And it’s...”

Pressing her fingers to her lip, she gave the stranger a thoughtful look. “Hey, it’s all your fault!” she said. “All things considered, it’s only fair for you to be my hostage now, right? Or can you think of a better way to get me out of this mess?”

[slkdottie]

francis-wan‌:

the words she spoke were to be expected. it was typical ex-wifey nonsense for which she spoke. at her final words he felt the rippling jealousy from within him spread as it typically did. Bob the security guard told him constantly that jealousy over a dream was juvenile, but Francis couldn’t listen to his advice. anytime time Dottie brought up her dreamboat the man couldn’t stop that fist from clenching at his side. and it did so, characteristically before she even had a chance to confirm this. a set of gritted teeth matched the frustrations in his clenched jaw, though Francis told himself to remain calm. despite the need to take that darling wife of his by the arm and drag her out of there, he tried instead to examine her features, and for once act like a husband.

at one look of her face, though, he couldn’t see the sinister smile of that naughty girl behind the torture chamber glass. typically that smile would incite the rage and torment to follow. it was a lesson Francis believed that was necessary for her to learn to not lie to her husband. she had to know how much he loved her. he had to know the lengths he’d go to in order to keep her by his side, and while she didn’t entirely deserve the lashings of his temper for a figment of her imagination he had taken it out on her in the past.

though not this time. “Of course, I got them for you, my sweet tapioca.” he sighed an exasperated sigh. “They are to remind you of how much I love you– how much I missed you– and to bring a smile to your face.” he shook his head at her in a condescending manner. “Don’t you want to smile for me? Didn’t you miss me at all?” 

“We don’t have to go to counseling, sweetheart. I know I was unfair, and I know you left, but I forgive you, and you know what they say, I man who’s lost it all has learned his lesson.”

he tried his best to keep that smile on his face even as the bouquet fell to the ground, though, he was quicker in retrieving the mushrooms than she was. he was also quick to grab a hand of hers to pull her closer. “You don’t have to accept these, we can get you a fresh new bouquet to match your eyes. Now, stop trying to get under my skin. I know you didn’t meet anyone new.” her hand he held was brought to his lips for a light and uncharacteristic soft kiss on the inside of her palm. “Your husband misses you.” another kiss was sent up to her wrist and placed tenderly, followed by a parting of lips and a budding tongue that traced the veins just under his favorite pores. at a mere inhale he took in those toxins, an immediate and deathly high was soon to follow as the tongue continued to follow the vein up her arm. “Leave with me,” he whispered against skin, until finally he couldn’t stop himself from pulling her closer and meeting her lips with a kiss.

“We can celebrate International Women’s Day late this year.”

She indulged him, ruby nails raking against his biceps and heel popping up like she was a damsel winning true love’s kiss at the end of an old, black-and-white movie’s ending card. He always promised her fantasies that would never, ever come true. When he pulled away to speak, she pulled him back by the shirt collar for more. Frankie had so many faults, didn’t he? But, she’d always given him second chances. Her fingertips painfully digging into his arms, gripping harder and harder until her hands shook from sheer force. She’d always given this no-good, narcissistic hedonist second chances and yet, he had the nerve to insinuate that she needed forgiveness? Dottie’s eyelids fluttered open and her lips shimmered, gloss spiked with glitter-like spores. 

“You know what, Frankie?” she whispered. The two were leaned against the pie display, the table having pressed against her lower back throughout their kiss. She reached behind her, grabbed the silver tin of a cold, banana cream pie, and smashed it against his face. The rush of standing up for herself sent the tingling, icicle-like prickles of thrill down the nape of her neck. And as she huffed, she thought that she could get quite used to that feeling. “Separation did us a whole lotta good -- really opened my eyes to what an absolute clown you are!”

Dottie hopped over the display. She snatched a steel pie server and contained her rage long enough to calmly -- albeit, with an ever-twitching smile -- tell the booth owner that things were about to get ugly. The owner scrambled out of the tent, sparing panicked second-glances at the woman holding his pie server with the zeal a serial killer clenches a knife. 

“You should be on your knees, begging me to forgive you!” she said. “Not that it would do ya any good! ‘Cause I’ve got myself a new boyfriend. He’s real and if you weren’t such a bozo the clown, you’d be groveling right now for having called me looney. Oh, you should be kissing my feet after everything you’ve done to me, after you tried to ruin me. And you wanna know the other new person I met? It’s the new me! And boy, do I love her when she’s not around you!”