#flash stories

[microsff]

The patron

The alien came to the library again, shortly before closing time, and quickly found a book.

"May this entity borrow The Complete History of Knitting?"

They always return the book they borrow after five minutes, but the ritual of checking it out seems important to them. 

"Of course. Did you bring your card?"

I looked them up, after the first time I saw them for real. They first registered with us over ninety years ago. The senior librarian who first told me about them said I shouldn't stare, or pry.

"Whatever else they are, they are a patron, and should be treated as such," she said. "If they seek knowledge, it is our duty to help them find it."

There isn't an ancient and secret code of librarians, but that is definitely a core part of it. If such a code existed.

I scan the card and the book. "There you go," I say and hand them over. "Please return it within two weeks."

They tilt their head. "This entity will honour your terms."

"Oh! That reminds me, we have updated the terms since your last visit." I hand them the pamphlet we got from the printers last week. "It's mostly about internet usage, but I'll need you to read them and agree."

They study the pamphlet.

"These are terms this entity can abide by." They pause. "Is there no requirement to keep your existence secret?"

"Of course not," I say, "we always welcome new patrons."

They stand silent, long enough for me to realise the implications of what I have just said. 

"This entity had made an assumption, based on prior experiences on countless worlds, where knowledge is always closely guarded and costly to obtain" they say at last. "You will provide knowledge for free to all who seek it?"

In my mind, I weigh humanity's ignorance of those countless worlds of alien civilisations against the code.

"Yes," I say, "this is a library."

[strangelittlestories]

After the occupation, the princess was confined to the palace.

Once a month she'd be taken on a walk around the city, heavily guarded of course, to show the people that she still lived. It also served, of course, as a reminder of what they stood to lose if they made trouble. The princess did her best go wave and smile and give the people what encouragement she could.

The rest of the time, her life was spent in musty rooms and dusty towers. She filled most of her time scouring the castle for materials which she would sew into more and more elaborate outfits, which she would show off on the days when she was allowed outside.

Indeed, the public loved their princess and her dresses so much they'd often sketch or paint them along the route and pass the images on so that all could see the princess at least was well.

This pleased the occupiers for two reasons. First: it kept the princess out of trouble. Second: it gave them a reason to sneer and they did love a good sneer.

"What a vain creature she is!" They would remark.

"Doesn't even care we murdered her brothers so long as she gets enough satin to make her little dresses!" They squawked.

This was unfair, of course, for to call her creations "little dresses" was to call Queen Murderfun the Needlessly Genocidal "a tad piquey". Her dresses were gravity-defying wonders lace and pearl. They were thunderstorms captured in velvet and waterfalls summoned in silk. She was a wizard with silk.

Still, she bore their mockery with a tight smile and careful deference.

"Please, good sirs, my home, my people and my city now belong to you. Let me keep, at least, this one last joy."

And they sneered and they crowed most unpleasantly, but they let her keep her sewing room.

Of course, they would have known their mockery to be doubly unfair had they realised the true purpose of the princess's elaborate designs. For hidden in the intricate embroiderings across her gowns, jackets and fans, the princess had encoded secret (and very detailed) messages. When she would go on her monthly walk, the city's loyalists would line the route, sketching down the patterns to decode later.

Thus did the princess transmit all the occupiers' secrets (unearthed while supposedly 'searching the castle for old fabrics') to the city and thus did she build her resistance.

On the day the revolution finally came, she girded herself in armour of thick spider silk and whale bone. She cut a fine figure with a lacy handkerchief in her top pocket and a razor sharp knitting needle keeping her hair up.

As she waltzed through the castle to open the door for her army, the Usurper King tried to stop her and she simply unfolded her handkerchief and showed it to him.

Upon seeing the impossible arcane pattern emblazoned across it, he fell to the floor with blood streaming from his eyes.

She always had been a wizard with silk.

---

Thank you for reading. If you'd like to support my writing, you can do so at https://ko-fi.com/strangelittlestories

[ladiesofcinema]

Drew Barrymore's "Just Breathe" look in Ever After: A Cinderella Story (1998)

costume design by Jenny Beavan

[eggsploded]

heiress eternal

[0fps]

general jiyan

[kitteecassee]

one time payment to be added to my private snap, please dm if interested <3

[reunitedinterlude]

dan: don’t gamble kids // unless you are phil who deserves nothing

[t-800]

Nine Inch Nails // Lollapalooza 1991

[charlesoberonn]

When you were young, your mother used to read you an old fairytale every night before bed.

It was a sad story, about lovers who walked through hell to reunite with one another and almost succeeded, only to be separated again forever in the last moment. It made you cry, and the next night you would beg your mom to read it again.

"You know it'll be sad, right?"

"This time they'll win, mom! This time they'll have a happy ending!"

But they didn't. Nor did they win in the next night, or the night after that.

Deep down, logically, you knew it'll always end the same way. The story is done. It's been told long before you were born. But when mom was telling it, you could pretend that maybe this time it'll work out. This time will be different.

When you grew older you didn't stop pretending, even though you knew it was silly and getting sillier. When you learned to read and write, one of the first things you wrote was a new ending. It was bad, about you as an all-powerful angel coming down to help the lovers reunite and then you get invited to their wedding.

"It's not real, it's fanfic." a friend told you when you showed them. They explained the word, and you saw what they meant. But you didn't care, seeing the words on the page helped you pretend.

You read voraciously as you grew. All kinds of stories with all kinds of ending. But you kept coming back to that one. Reading from your mom's old copy which her read to her from.

You didn't need mom to read to you anymore, but sometimes you asked her to anyway. Occasionally she'd do it, but more often than not she was tired.

Soon she stopped reading. Then she stopped speaking altogether, her voice too weak and throat too sick to speak aloud. That's when you started reading the story to her.

It was hard at first, your tears choking you up. It was hard pretending that the story will end differently.

"The diagnoses are just estimates, probabilities." your dad said. And when he spoke, you could pretend there was a chance. But when the doctors spoke, their words felt as final and unchanging as the old words in the storybook.

Eventually, mom was no more. Your dad read something personal and touching in her funeral. Everyone thought you would, too. Everyone knew how much you loved writing since you were little.

You thought you would write too, imagined it in your mind as your mother's end drew near. You had so much to say, but the words wouldn't come out. The only words that would come to you were from the story. You tried to bat them away, but you knew you couldn't. You couldn't change this ending.

When it came your time to eulogize, you pulled out the book and without preamble started reading from the second-to-last page. This time there was no pretending.

Everyone knew the story, even the people who didn't know mom personally. Everyone knew it will end in tragedy. The lovers will not get a happy ending.

Except this time they did.

You didn't notice the change until you were halfway through the final page, so out of it you were. But the reactions from the mourning crowd clued you in. Your stoic dad choking down a chuckle.

You looked closely at the book and saw the words were written in your mom's neat handwriting.

You kept on reading, a smile on your face.

It wasn't the real ending. It was fanfic.

But just for a little while, seeing the words on the page helped you pretend a little longer.

[mikimeiko]

The Fall of the House of Usher | Miniseries (2023), Mike Flanagan

[professorcalculusstanaccount]

“Robbie is gone! I’m still here! And I refuse to live in his shadow!”

Rastapopoulos himself may be out of the picture, but his ghost continues to haunt those who were caught in his web.

A collaboration with @aboardthescheherazade using her OC Marlene Katz - an actress Tintin tries to save in Cigars of the Pharaoh!

Five years later and Tintin is baffled to see Hollywood starlet Marlene Katz turn up at his doorstep asking for help. Formerly under the thumb of Cosmos Pictures, Marlene became an unsuspecting witness to Rastapopoulos’ criminal activity and now the mob is after her, seeking to tie up some loose ends. To top things off, she is due to make a public appearance at The Golden Palm, a prestigious film festival. After years of hiding, Marlene is determined to get her acting career back on track, and this film may be her big break.

Tintin is highly suspicious. Chang, on the other hand, is utterly star struck, and after noticing an uncanny resemblance between the two hatches a ridiculous scheme that may finally put an end to this particular problem. It might just work, but Marlene makes the last minute decision to also go undercover, feeling immense guilt over having Tintin and Chang risk their lives for her.

While Tintin is running around in heels and beating up mobsters Haddock is away on a weekend break with Ramo Nash. Before leaving he asked Chang to keep Tintin away from any incidents and to promise not to throw any house parties.

This was my first collab on this blog and I had a lot of fun bouncing ideas off with Vaye. Her blog was one of the first Tintin blogs I followed - definitely check it out, it’s an absolute treasure trove of resources and research! Below are a few notes of stuff we discussed while making this:

- After the Blue Lotus, Marlene breaks away from Rastapopoulos and pulls back from the film industry to lay low, teaching dance classes instead. He keeps trying to come back to her, leaving her exhausted and paranoid. Since Rastapopoulos always considered Marlene to be pretty stupid he never made much of an effort to properly hide his criminal activities from her, but Marlene was able to slowly piece things together...

- This adventure takes place after St. Benezet’s Basement (the boarding school story) and before Call of the Songbird (Tintin Fucks Up and Steals A Whistle). Tintin is still in the grips of trauma from the canon stories. Chang is starting to settle in. Haddock and Nash’s relationship is in full swing, but they are keeping things quiet from everyone else. 

- In some sketchbook comics I did to flesh out ideas there’s hints of Tintin being gay and asexual, his complete lack of interest in Hollywood actresses and his mild irritation of people’s judgements being clouded by crushes! Chang’s attraction to Marlene however, foreshadows his feelings for Tintin later on down the line.

- There’s a role reversal theme going on here. Both Tintin and Marlene are victims of Rastapopoulos but in very different ways. By playing each others’ roles they both can get a clearer picture of how Rastapopoulos hurt people, and therefore a better understanding of their own traumas. Tintin is usually spontaneous and rarely makes himself known, but here he is playing a set character. Marlene as an actress, on the other hand, is used to receiving direction from others, but circumstance pushes her to improvise. I can imagine her using her skills as an actor to get into character as an ace reporter to fake some much needed bravery!

- Marlene’s disguise is literally just stuff she pulls from Tintin’s and Chang’s closets. She’s wearing Tintin’s trenchcoat, dress shirt and suspenders and Chang’s spectator shoes, trousers and scarf!

- Marlene is a very skittish person but will be compelled to do what she believes is the right thing. As Vaye put it, “Marlene’s bravery under fire is that she’s like the one person in a room who’s willing to get a spider outside...” Marlene is also older than Tintin and pretty much views him as a child, even though he’s in his early 20s at this point. She feels incredibly guilty about what Rastapopoulos did to him and the fact he’s risking his life for her. She feels some level of responsibility for him.

This all started because I thought it would be cool for Tintin to beat some guys up in drag

[strangelittlestories]

It is a little known fact that angels cannot step foot in hell.

Note: this does not mean that angels *don’t* enter the burning depths, only that they cannot touch the floor. You see, the fires that rage below are not regular fire. They do not consume fuel and oxygen and spit out heat. Instead, they chew on reality and drink down order, and the flames that lick up at you are made of chaos-filled void.

This is antithetical to the very substance of angels. If it touches them, at *best* the angels will be spat out as they are forcibly reminded that *they don’t go here*.

At medium, they will be unmade.

At worst, they will be *changed*.

You might think they could avoid this by simply flying through the pit, right? Oh, would that it were so simple. Remember the flames that burn up reality? Hell is an alchemical reaction of exploding space and logic and time and souls. You try flying through a place that is not a place, where up and down can hardly agree on which is which for more than an instant.

But there is a way around this. It was originally discovered by the guardian angel Cambiel. You see, under Cambiel’s protection was a woman named Ruth. Ruth was a shining light who Cambiel cared for greatly.

Ruth, in turn, had a woman she cared for very much. And, sadly, a demon had stolen Ruth’s love away from her.

“Do not follow her,” warned Cambiel, “for if you follow your heart through the gates of perdition, I cannot go with you.”

“Sorry, babe,” replied Ruth, “but I am *very* gay and *very* romantic and that has made me reckless.”

And Cambiel nodded sadly, for all of this was true and good.

But as Ruth walked the lonely, tortured path into the underworld, an idea occurred to Cambiel.

Sure, they couldn’t walk or fly into hell, but maybe they could *ride* there.

Now, a fully grown horse could not hope to navigate the depths beneath the world, for their sense of self-preservation was too strong. An adult horse would flee from the screams of imploding souls and the winding geometry of impossibly winding roads.

But a young horse? With a child’s innocence, with bright young eyes, who had not yet been tricked into believing in its mortality?

That was a mount that could bear an angel (who was, after all, light enough to dance on the head of a pin) into the fearful caverns of the beyond. Honestly, the little horse seemed weirdly enthused about the whole thing. 

And so did Cambiel guide a pair of reckless and romantic (and useless) lesbians out of hell.

When the pair thanked the angel, all they said was this:

“Don’t thank me, thank the little horse. It turns out … foals rush in where angels fear to tread.”

[coldasyou]

And I said...

[submissiveness]

a cinderella story (2004) dir. mark rosman

[0fps]

jiyan ⟡ replica of past days

[whereserpentswalk]

Most interdimensional entities that humans consider horrifying demons and eldrich horrors actually consider humans pretty dangerous unless they're actively trained fighters. Your average extraplaner being isn't used to dealing with a species that evolved to hunt in groups, and developed to survive in violent scenarios.

Most final girl situations happen because young entities deeply underestimate that humans have such a strong will to live, and are willing to fight back agasint a stronger foe. Most older entities keep at bay for this very reason, which is why you just see them stranding around being creepy.

That pale long limbed cryptid you spotted in a subway station moved so quickly because it doesn't want to end up near you. That shadow person whose hovering over you in the woods is trying to observe you, but it will teleport away if anyone comes near it for a good reason.

And that doppelganger that's standing by your door at night just wants to observe you too. He was smart to try to copy your roommate's face, but he doesn't realize how good humans are at recognizing eachother's faces, and that his copy will be disturbing to any human who sees it. And he got way to reckless with his movements and bad attempts to imitate human speech. Trying to trick the human who he wants to study into coming to his dimensions is an even bigger mistake, especially since he didn't realize how quickly the human would catch on. He's soon going to learn things he should have read up on before hand: humans will try to attack things they're afraid of if they can't run away, humans can use almost any hard object as a weapon by holding it and swinging, and that those decorations on your wall are called 'swords' and were not originally designed as decorations...