#bit different

[the-broken-pen]

hey!! Here’s a writing prompts for you: a human accidentally meets a sly, villainous vampire at a bar or club and the vampire messes with their mind (compulsion, hypnosis, or something else) to get their blood?

Hello! Thank you so much for the ask!

Someone entered the club, and Hannah felt it. The crowd got a bit quieter, as if someone had lowered the volume, and she turned to look—

A hand caught her chin, turning it back towards the bartender as its owner settled beside them.

“What’s a lovely thing like you doing in a place like this?” Their voice was smooth in an uncomfortable way, in scalpel precision and well oiled perfection.

The noise of the club slammed back into place.

She blinked, fingers cold around her glass.

“A night club?” Her voice felt rough, and she wasn’t sure why. The newcomer eyed her, and she was’t sure if it was appreciation or something a shade darker.

Her fingers began to ache around their glass. “As far as pickup lines go, that was spectacularly awful. Maybe start with your name next time.”

“Ezekiel”

Hannah looked over, and found Ezekiel grinning, mouth sharp like barbed wire.

“How biblical,” she murmured, and the bartender refilled their glass. Ezekiel simply watched, hands empty. The bartender didn’t offer to take their order. Ezekiel didn’t try to place one, either.

“You never answered my question.”

Hannah frowned, brow crinkling. “You mean your awful pickup line? I wasn’t aware that type of statement garnered a response. Or any type of favorable reaction, generally.”

Ezekiel simply smiled, and her heart jumped.

She sighed. “Enjoying a night out. Having fun. What does it look like?”

Ezekiel leaned closer, close enough that she could almost feel their breath against her ear, but not quite.

“It doesn’t look like fun,” they murmured. She stared into her glass.

“And this is your problem, how?”

She could feel them smiling.

“Pretty things shouldn’t be sad.”

She scoffed. “If you go away, I’ll give you enough money to buy a better book of pickup lines.”

This time, Ezekiel laughed.

“I don’t need help in that department, trust me,” they leaned against the bar, and took her drink from her. They sipped from it, too pretty and too sexual and too gorgeous, and smiled around the rim of it. “Do you think you aren’t pretty, Hannah?”

She jerked her head to look at them.

“I didn’t tell you my name,” she said, and it was entirely too close to a yelp. Her breath stuck in her throat like a rock, and she grabbed for her bag—

“It’s on your napkin,” Ezekiel soothed.

It wasn’t. She knew it wasn’t.

The air felt too hot, like she was drowning, and the lights looked the same but they were the wrong color.

Her napkin flickered when she looked at it, and her name was there.

Her heart slowed but her gut clenched.

“That wasn’t there,” she said shakily, and Ezekiel watched her with something that was a bit too hungry to be concern.

“Why would I lie?”

Hannah laughed, and it was panicked, and she stood up to leave.

“I think I should go—“ her eyes caught Ezekiel’s, and her temples twinged with pain, and she blinked, and she was sitting down.

“Are you alright, Hannah?”

The chair under her swiveled a bit, and she looked over at Ezekiel.

“Yeah, why?”

The bartender refilled her drink.

“You just seemed a bit panicked, is all.”

There was something close to amusement in Ezekiel’s eyes, so she laughed.

“Why would I be panicked?”

They grinned.

“Question of the year, love.”

She laughed again, and the world fritzed, like a bad signal television laying two images over one another, and snapped back to normal.

Her head hurt. The glass was too loud when she set it down.

“I think I’ve had enough to drink,” she said honestly, and it came out too loud. She put a stack of cash on the bar, and stood up.

“It was lovely to meet you—“ she caught Ezekiel’s eye, and she blinked, and she was sitting down.

They were laughing.

“What happened?” She asked, and her tongue felt numb, as if it were the wrong size for her mouth.

Ezekiel smiled, and for a moment, she was reminded of the big cats at the zoo, with that intelligent gleam of their eyes, the sharpness of their teeth.

She blinked and it was gone.

“Nothing, love.”

For some reason, the nickname made her warm, bubbly like champagne.

She laughed.

Ezekiel leaned forward, and she shivered.

“Why don’t we get out of here? It’s a bit loud.”

The noise was deafening.

She nodded.

“Yeah, let me just call a cab—“ she punched the numbers into her phone, glancing at Ezekiel, and when she looked back, her phone was gone.

Her head hurt, and something was wrong, horribly wrong.

“Where’s my—“

“I have it, love,” Ezekiel said. They tucked it into their pocket. “Come now, let’s go.”

She didn’t want to, and she didn’t know why she didn’t want to, but she opened her mouth to protest and found herself wrapping her arm in Ezekiel’s outside.

She jerked, but they didn’t let go.

“Alright there, love?”

“Let go of me,” she hissed, and they glanced down, amused.

“You’re very resistant to glamour, do you know that?”

Hannah grimaced, tugging at her arm.

“Let me go, or I’ll scream—“ she glanced out, because if they were by the club, then countless people would hear her scream. And somewhere among them would be someone who would help.

They weren’t outside the club. She had no idea where they were.

“What,” she breathed, and Ezekiel hummed.

“Resistant, but not immune,” they commented. They eyed her, examining her face, and tutted. “Still on the brink though.”

They turned to face her, keeping her arm clasped in their own.

“Hannah, love, I need you to do something for me,” her blood felt sluggish, and she wanted to start screaming, but her mouth wouldn’t move, and she was so so cold—

She nodded.

Ezekiel grinned, tilting her chin up, before placing his lips just below ear.

“Hannah darling,” he murmured, and her mind was a mass of colors and shapes and she was on the edge of being lost and she was scared and she didn’t want to let go and she wanted to go home. “Fall.”

She woke up in the ER.

[nike-apteros]

This is a bit different....😳

(Pinterest, all kudos to artist)

[fontinalia-films]

lmao i have other names too (i also go by winter) so its kinda fun alternating through different names sometimes

-rin

Lol I kinda like experimenting with my identity on this site, and I love coming up with new names for myself

[cuckedbyneptune]

(via Gridllr)

@gingerbredman1989 put me onto google image fx, and... jeez, the experimenting has been really fun, seriously

the promptwork is a bit different with how to weigh things, but holy shit, when it works, it works

[butchfalin]

the funniest meltdown ive ever had was in college when i got so overstimulated that i could Not speak, including over text. one of my friends was trying to talk me through it but i was solely using emojis because they were easier than trying to come up with words so he started using primarily emojis as well just to make things feel balanced. this was not the Most effective strategy... until. he tried to ask me "you okay?" but the way he chose to do that was by sending "👉🏼👌🏼❓" and i was so shocked by suddenly being asked if i was dtf that i was like WHAT???? WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME?????????? and thus was verbal again

[artsymeeshee]

Here's the mini comic of Dipper's nightmare! I know the idea of Mabel being the one to have the nightmare about pushing the button has been played with before, but I wanted to explore that with Dipper. (Also sort of a way to include some bonding time with Stan). Plus I think they both benefit having a more serious talk like this.

[valtsv]

anyone who thinks dostoevsky's writing is dry and humourless is missing out on passages like this

[hazbinbabbling4ever]

Exactly. I've had to do this with JKR and in the end, while I find her a distasteful horrible person, I still like the books that shaped my literary childhood. After reading Harry Potter I went on an Urban Fantasy bender and discovered so many more of my favorite authors of today. JKR transphobia doesn't cancel the hours I spent loving the books, as a child, or whatever came out of it next. She won't see another dime from me though. Not funding her terf propaganda and laws.

My favourite artist has been cancelled! What do I do??

I think this is the wrong way to address the issue. Rather than cancellation, we need individually to decide how the scandal, statement, or other controversy colours the work we love, and in what shades. For some people, the metatextual knowledge of the artist will be overwhelming, and they won't be able to continue to consume the work. For others, it will just be another thread, however distasteful, on top of the themes and interpretations that were already present in the artist's art. For others still, it will have no effect at all, as they don't inject that commentary into the text at all. All three are equally valid.

There's a fourth group, of course, which is particularly social media prone, who enjoy feeling morally righteous by ceasing to consume the work of people who've been cancelled. I know because I spent a lot of time thinking that way. If you're one of those, I'm sure you'll be tempted to reply, but I'm not talking to you. So we'll leave door number 4 for now.

What I would suggest is that you go back and consume the art that you love and see how much you read the current scandal into it. That will tell you how much you're still able to enjoy the work for what it was to you a month ago. It might be that falling into those old, comforting flows of language or colour of music allows you to put the real world aside as you fall into it. It might well be that it's time to find some other artist who speaks to you in a similar way. Even if you return to that artist's work some day in the future.

Whatever you choose to do, I'd say take a break from the discourse here and on other social media and make your mind up for yourself. Ultimately art is a conversation between the artist and the consumer. Everything else is just noise.

I've put in the tags the artist I was thinking of when I wrote this, but I really do think it applies to any artist; including ones that I personally find loathsome, such as J. K. Rowling or Morrissey. Your relationship with art is your own, and don't let anyone else shout you down.

[trekkerac]

Winning is just doing better than your competition

[chloesimaginationthings]

I like to think the FNAF Chicas are friends,,

[momoloop]

Ooh, you and I Is it the way you and I stay?

[pecchbear]

quick thing for @nothing-impt substitute mentor au bc i needed an excuse to draw unhinged telemachus

[fisherrprince]

it’s not necessarily that I hate the themes most prevalent in fiction set in the real world and it’s not necessarily that I don’t like stories revolving around real people or relationship drama or interpersonal issues it’s more like im a dog who doesn’t recognize that a pill is still a pill if it has peanut butter on it. I need like the little peanut butter spoonful that is aliens or robots or monsters or time travel or something fantastical and not at all down to earth real life so that you can approach me and be like “this story is about how friendships can deteriorate over time and also how this guy feels bad for being a bad friend and causing his buddy problems with their girlfriend” and then look at me making a face at you and be like “AND! they’re all aliens who are doing all that across spacetime” and I’ll be like OHHHHHH OKAY YAY (shlop shlap shlup the sound of a dog horking down peanut butter pills) wow what a poignant story

[verocitea]

Soul Eater AU my beloved

[chiptrillino-art]

(ID in ALT text) ArtTrade with the very sweet @die-auster ! thank you for sparking back my obsession with this blue guy here!

Please check out their amazing works here! 1 . 2 . 3.

[egophiliac]

I'm still processing 7-13, in the meantime have this super quick thing! of all the things that happened that I didn't expect, one of 'em certainly was a not insignificant subplot revolving around Silver unintentionally committing international mail fraud.