#it feels like a goddamned cult on there and every time i dip my toes i come out feeling slimy and sick

[here-there-were-dragons]

every time i think the "staff can do no wrong and any form of complaining or expressing literally anything other than "yaaay love it <3" with no further comments is bashing and literally evil we should never say anything that could even potentially be interpreted as mildly critical ever because ~some artist who worked hard on this is probably reading the forums and might feel bad if we ever express anything but praise~ also we must be constantly positive at all times unless we're passive-aggressively shaming someone for having an extremely polite and apologetically worded criticism and if you ask the staff for literally anything you had better be prepared to preface it with 3 paragraphs of apologizing for breathing air" attitude is bad on tumblr, i take one look at the forums, and holy fucking hell is it SO much worse on site

[dykephannie]

REALITY OTP CH. 3

MASTER LIST.  PLAYLIST. NEXT CHAPTER. PREVIOUS CHAPTER. 

summary: Avid fangirl Gracie Green expected that the most extraordinary thing to happen to her at Summer in the City was meeting her long time obsessions Dan Howell and Phil Lester. This proves to be untrue when a fatal virus sweeps through the convention, killing everyone except for Gracie and the very two people she was there for. The odd threesome must travel across Europe to escape an evil tyrant who has claimed the crown for herself, and face not only the dangers of this new, post-apocalyptic world, but the feelings and secrets uncovered by the life threatening journey.

Because after all, it’s the harshest conditions that reveal the deepest truths about us, truths we’re not even willing to admit to ourselves.

chapter word count: 1.7k

tw: gun violence

DAN

Dan didn’t know what to think of Gracie.  

She seemed to appear fiercer than she really was. Her curly blonde hair was hanging in a high ponytail. Splatters of blood stained her collarbones and neck. She was walking evenly, one foot in front of the other, like the hours they had been trudging on the harsh pavement had no effect on her muscles. Dan envied the ease at which she carried herself. He felt as if he was about to collapse at any moment, his calves and thighs were nearly on fire by the time he reached his street.

“It’s just this way,” Phil announced, pointing down the road.

“How much further?”

“Two kilometers, maybe. We don’t normally walk this way.”

Gracie looked back at the two of them. “Maybe we should take a rest.” Dan was on the ground before she could finish her sentence.

He watched as Gracie pulled out a bottle of water from her backpack and took a sip. It was covered in stickers, her name, and two letters in the center. XC. Dan longed to grab the bottle from her hands and take a sip, but he felt as if that was crossing a boundary he wasn’t prepared to cross.

He thought that by now both she and Phil had forgotten that Gracie was a fan, and therefore capable of anything and everything. She seemed levelheaded and rational now, but she had the hungry glint in her eyes Dan sometimes saw in the girls that reached up to hug him in those meet and greet lines. She was different from the ones with the whiskers and the 2011 merch. She knew how the world of a fangirl on tumblr worked.

That sort of understanding of his and Phil’s fanbase could, and most likely would, lead to a sort of understanding of him and Phil themselves.

Dan cast his eyes downward. His white shoes were stained with streaks of black. He had never walked this far in them.

“Are you guys ready?”

Dan looked up at Gracie, who had tucked her water bottle back to her backpack, and was staring down Dan and Phil’s street confidently. Dan’s brow furrowed, his eyes drawn to a group of people coming down the road behind Gracie. It was strange to see them. A small part of Dan had wondered if they were the only ones left.

Yet, there they were, marching towards them, clear as day. As they grew closer, Dan could tell they were led by someone, a short female figure in navy blue, with brown hair that hung just past her chin. He watched as she noticed the three of them and raised her hand. The crowd halted shakily.

“Hello,” Gracie said. Her tone was less of a greeting one and more of a cautious one, dipping her toe in the pool to test the temperature. “I’m Gracie.”

The woman didn't reply. She instead stood up straighter and stared Gracie down. She was several inches shorter than Dan and Phil’s companion, but from the furrow of her thick eyebrows to the menacing glint in her eyes, her presence seemed larger than life. A man standing next to her, wearing his own, poorly fitted, navy uniform, cast the woman an anxious glance and stepped forward.

“Uh,” he began, looking back to the woman as if for permission. She didn’t budge. “You are in the presence of Her Majesty the Queen Marilynn Williams. She requests that you join us, as it is your best chance of survival in this new world.”

“I’m sorry what?” Gracie spat. Marilynn blinked. “Why can’t she speak for herself and stop acting like this is fucking Game of Thrones?”

Marilynn stepped forward. “Are you denying my protection?”

Gracie reached into her back pocket and pulled out the pistol Dan had sworn he had minutes before. Had she pick pocketed him? “We have our own protection, thanks.”

The other woman smiled. “One gun won’t get you far. What happens when you run out of bullets? This isn’t America. You can’t loot one from any old store on the street.”

“In that case, what makes you so certain you’ll have any protection?”

Marilynn tapped her belt buckle, Britain’s lion gleaming in the sunlight. “An officer of the Royal Military has certain privileges normal citizens do not.”

This seemed to bother Gracie. “So what? You’re just going to steal all of Britain’s arms?”

“There’s no one to steal from,” Marilynn scoffed. “The generals, the lieutenants, the Prime Minister. Even the goddamn Queen. Everyone is dead.”

“I’m not dead.”

“Not yet.” Marilynn straightened, letting her hands rest behind her back. “But you will be. World leaders have been killed. Only a few are left, for reasons unknown. Cults will arise. Anarchy will ensue. The safest place is here, in London. Under my control and containment. Otherwise you risk the dangers the outside world will bring.”

“How are we supposed to know you won’t bring just as much danger?”

Gracie and Dan both turned towards Phil, startled. He flushed and stammered out another sentence.

“All I’m saying is, what qualifies a member of the military to basically be the new queen?”

Marilynn crossed her arms over her chest. “What’s your name?”

“Phil.”

“Well, Phil. Someone who has dedicated her life to protecting this country is the only one truly capable of continuing to do the same thing.”

“But you don’t know anything about ruling!” Phil insisted. “If it’s just you, England is just going to become a monarchy again!”

“There isn’t a place for a Parliament in the apocalypse.”

Marilynn’s eyes had grown steely, any sort of friendliness wiped from her face. She took a slight step forward, and Dan tried to resist the urge to turn and run. But Gracie stayed completely still until Marilynn was a mere couple feet away from her. The two stared each other down like a pair of lions, ready to pounce at any moment.

“You remind me of me, when I was your age,” Marilynn said. Her voice had dropped in pitch, making her seem all the more menacing. “Ambitious. Thinking you can take care of yourself and the people you love.”

Marilynn’s eyes shifted towards Dan and Phil.

“But you can’t. You need my protection. For your own good.”

“I will not be ruled by a queen who has no idea what she’s doing.”

Marilynn stiffened. “Then I’m afraid you’ve left me no choice.”

It was as if Gracie knew exactly what she was going to do. She surged forward as soon as Marilynn turned her head. The gun in her hand made an ominous click, and it was against Marilynn's temple before Dan could stumble back in alarm.

“Let us go,” Gracie growled. Dan’s eyes didn’t miss her fist trembling at her side.

Marilynn narrowed her eyes. “You have no idea what you’re doing,” she hissed. “Go with me, find safety in this new world, or you will be destroyed.”

“Fuck. You.”

“Let them go,” Marilynn muttered. “You’ve made your first enemy, Gracie.”

“I think I’ll cope.”

Gracie kept her gun up as she stepped away. She jerked her chin down the street.

“Run,” she instructed Dan and Phil. “I’m right behind you.”

Dan didn’t even think. He turned and bolted. He could hear Phil behind him, their sneakers slapping loudly against the pavement. Dan could already feel the air leaving his lungs, but he didn’t dare slow down. He expected at every second to hear gunshots, a loud cry as Gracie or God forbid Phil went down, but there was nothing except his panting and the brush of Phil’s skin against his as he caught up to him.

“This is crazy,” Dan heard Phil murmur in between his deep breaths.

It was a very large understatement.

Gracie was ahead of them in a manner of seconds, her ponytail swinging behind her and gun clutched in her hand. She wasn't bothered by the steady thump of her backpack as she ran.

“Marilynn will give us a head start,” she called back. “But we should get to your house as quickly as possible. That's where we’ll be safe.”

“For the time being,” Phil added. “If we stay here we're in trouble.”

Gracie nodded, her eyebrows knit together nervously.

Eventually, Dan and Phil had to slow to a limping walk, accompanied with a frustrated groan from Gracie. But Dan didn’t think there was any way Marilynn’s large army could have caught up to the three of them. And Gracie had proven herself to be too dangerous to pursue alone.

“We’re almost there anyway,” Dan choked out. “Couple more… minutes.”

Eventually Phil spotted the rooftop of their building, shouting triumphantly. Gracie hung back as Dan dug his keys out of his pocket and opened the door, pointing up the stairs to their flat.

Gracie blinked. “Okay, so. We’re here.”

“Yeah.”

They wandered up the stairs, Dan’s calves straining past their limit. Once inside, Dan watched carefully as Gracie looked around, trying to keep the excitement from her face.

Phil cleared his throat. “So what now?”

“Oh.” Gracie blinked. “We should pack up some clothes and stuff and then escape.”

“Escape?” Phil repeated shakily.

“Yes, escape,” Gracie snapped. “It’s dangerous here for us now.”

“Well, who’s fault is that?” Dan muttered quietly. Gracie heard him anyway.

“What?”

“All I’m saying,” Dan stammered, “is that we could’ve gone with that crazy woman. At least we would’ve been kind of protected.”

Gracie stared him down, long and hard. Dan’s skin crawled at the way her brown eyes bore into his skull. “If you want to survive, you have to trust me,” she finally said, her voice low and melancholy. “If you don’t want to, then I have no problem anymore leaving you.”

It was one of the most terrifying things she could’ve said.

“Where are we going?” Phil risked asking.

Gracie thought about it for a second. “Paris. We’re walking the Chunnel.”

Dan stared out the window and onto the street. The sun was setting, casting the eeriest orange glow over the world, like they really were in the midst of an apocalypse movie. Everything was still and quiet, and in the moment, it was easy to forget that Marilynn or her army existed, that his parents and brother, his friends, were either alive or dead.

For now it was just him, one of his fangirls, and the sole person on Earth keeping Dan from ending his own existence in the nightmarish hell he now lived in.

[scifrey]

I'm super pleased to announce that my satire novella THE DARK SIDE OF THE GLASS is returning to print as CITY BY NIGHT, published by Short Fuse. 

The Cover Reveal is on its way, but in the meantime, how would you like to read the first three chapters for free? They will be released one at a time on Wattpad this week, leading up to the October 6th publication date. And if you'll be at Con-Volution on October 7th, join us for the release party!

This is a story about Mary, number one fan of the hottest cult vampire detective TV show, City by Night...until it becomes all too real.

An accident with the Craft Services truck sends her hurtling into the world of the show, and Mary is thrilled--who wouldn't want to live alongside their favorite TV characters? Unfortunately, living in TV-land isn't all that Mary thought it would be. The charm fades when Mary realizes that the extras still don't speak, the matte paintings don't become real, and all the infuriating flaws in the writing are just amplified when you have to try to interact with the shallow characters. And then, of course, the lead character Richmond DuNoir falls for her!

Sure, fine, he's hot...but he's also a bit, well, poorly written. And his admiration comes with its own set of problems: Antonio, Richmond's psychotic stalker, has a habit of killing off the girls-of-the-week. Not only is Mary disillusioned with what she thought was a lush world until she had to try to maneuver in it, now she's about to be murdered by one of the stupidest clichés in the history of television in a world that, pardon the pun, totally sucks.

A loving satire of the Toronto film industry, vampire-cop television, and what it really means to be a "fan" from award-winning science fiction author J.M. Frey.

READ THE FREE PREVIEW ON WATTPAD | PREORDER THE NOVELLA ON AMAZON

Chapter One : Concerning Rabbit Holes and All That

When Mary comes to, she is lying face down in the grass beside the road.

Her first conscious thought, beyond Ow ow ow, is How long have I been lying here? Followed closely by Ouch and Am I really so unimportant that nobody has helped me? and Ouch and Where am I? Followed again by Ouch as she tries to get her hands under her shoulders and push herself onto her knees.

Rain has pooled in her upturned left ear. Her toes are frozen. Everything aches. Her head throbs. Her knees and her palms burn. Her left arm and left leg are bleeding, both from jagged gashes right above the joint that look way, way grosser than anything she's ever seen people sporting after a visit to the Effects Makeup trailer. There's grit in the long cut, and when Mary flexes her fingers, she can feel the sickening grind of grains of dust against her muscles. It feels disgusting, the way that frogs squashed by a little boy's shoe is disgusting, with that sort of oozing pop.

The Craft Services van that hit her is nowhere to be seen. The studio is gone, too, even though she was pretty sure she hadn't run that far. Something warm and salty stings her left eye.

She's on a street she doesn't recognize, at night, with streetlamps that only mostly work. They cast an amber glow over the glistening pavement, so perfectly moody that it looks like something out of a cinematographer's wet dream. There's grass between the sidewalk and the road, and it's wet from a storm that must have passed over her while she was unconscious, if her wet hair and ear are anything to go by. The air smells of...nothing.

Nothing at all. For reasons Mary can't fathom—reasons which make her heart beat faster, her shoulders ratchet up to her ears—this unnerves her. It's unnatural.

There's no one on the barren street. It's a strangely harmonious mix of residential and storefronts made out of the converted ground floors of houses, all dark and closed up for the night. There is, by some strange cosmic luck, or fate, or universal synergy, a phone booth less than a block away, on the corner. Mary hasn't seen a phone booth in years, but she doesn't own a cellular phone herself because she never wanted to be distracted at work. She hates her coworkers when they tap away with their thumbs, instead of paying attention to who is going in and out of the studio gate like they're being paid to do.

It takes Mary a few minutes to get upright. She is reminded unpleasantly of the cliché about the wounded gazelle on the Serengeti: weak and tottering, but too afraid of attracting the wrong attention to bleat for help. Her head throbs again, and then a very stupid realization bubbles up to the surface of her muzzy brain: she is alone.

Totally alone.

There is no one on the street. There doesn't even seem to be anyone in the houses. The Craft Services van driver, her boss, and her co-workers have all just abandoned her, left her for dead on the side of the road. Clearly, nobody came after her. Nobody even stopped to make sure she was alive, as far as she can tell.

That says a lot more about how they think of her than Mr. Geary's horrible insults about her scripts. The ungrateful...jerky jerks! Mary thinks, clutching at the gash on her arm.

She has given City By Night two goddamned years of her life. She just wants the show to love her in return. Is that so very much to ask?

Apparently, it is.

Anger fuels her enough to get her over to the phone booth, helps her exchange pain for momentum. Clutching at the scarred metal frame of the door to stay upright, she stares in stupid incomprehension at the coin slot for a second. Her left hand dips unconsciously into her empty pocket, which is its own sort of special agony. She nearly cries when she realizes she has no quarters. It takes her a few more fuzzy, swimming moments to realize she can probably make emergency calls for free. Hopeful, she fumbles up the handset and dials zero. The operator—female and far too perky for Mary's dark frame of mind—comes on and asks what she needs or where she would like to be connected. "I need help," Mary says into the handset. She can practically hear the operator frowning, because, duh, why else would she be talking to one? "I was...I think I was hit by a car. A van. Whatever."

"Holy sugar!" the operator says, all professionalism thrown out the window. Mary wonders if the operator calls her husband punkin. "Stay where you are, ma'am. We're tracing the call and an ambulance is on the way."

Mary winces; she's too young to be called "ma'am" just yet, and it's another dig at her self-esteem that she really does not need today. It's pretty thoroughly dug already.

"Thanks," she says, and lets the handset clatter out of her grip, relieved because it was pressing into her road burn. She slumps down the side of the phone booth to wait. She folds bruised elbows over bruised knees and rests her head back against the Plexiglass and tries to stay awake. She read that you're not supposed to go to sleep if you've hit your head, and she thinks getting smacked in the skull with a Craft Services van counts. The cord for the phone handset isn't long enough to reach all the way down to her ear, so she just lets it dangle, detachedly amused by the way the operator's voice is squawking out at her. She's pretty sure that she's probably in shock. She's also pretty sure that the fact that she's in shock isn't supposed to be funny, but she realizes belatedly that she's giggling all the same.

Hysteria makes Mary drift for a while. She's aware of closing her eyes, of replaying every time Crispin Okafor winked at her from the back seat of his car, the way she received the cast photo poster after the Season One wrap party, already signed with what she assumed at the time was a personal message. She thinks about how much she threw herself into the show, and how she's never seemed to notice or care that she has been bouncing off of brick walls.

It's a sucky thought. She stops giggling and lets herself be sad for a little while.

She might have even cried, but by then, her head is pounding and her whole body is like one stiff, hot rip. She thinks maybe the wetness on her face is tears, but it could also be rain, or blood; it's hard to keep track, especially when the liquid feels so warm, and her skin is getting so cold.

She wonders if she should be mad for a bit, just to change things up, keep her life interesting until the ambulance arrives, but she isn't sure whether she should be madder at the crew or herself for being so gullible. That spirals her back down into depressing aching sadness again, so she decides to stay there.

And somewhere in all of that, she thinks she sees Crispin Okafor. Crispin—the damnably beautiful lead actor who knows just the right way to smirk at a paparazzi camera, what angle he should hold his head and shoulders at—is sticking his face into the phone booth. He's dressed in his costume; that black leather jacket that Richmond DuNoir favors (whose style Mary has copied), in the signature red silk shirt that makes his smoky dark skin take on the depth of velvet, that fake look of honest concern.

"Miss?" he asks softly. "Miss, are you all right?"

"Fuck off, Crispin," she says back. At least she thinks she says it. It might come out just as a slur. Her mouth feels full of marbles and cotton now, and it's getting harder and harder to do anything as simple as moistening her lips. Of course, Mary very rarely swears, so it could be that, too.

She feels like this is an appropriate time to start, though.

"Miss, I think you're pretty badly hurt."

"Go away," she says, miserably. "You're the last person I want to see right now."

He startles visibly, dark eyes becoming dramatic white spots on his shadowed face. Overdone, she thinks. You're trying too hard to emote. Retake.

"You know me?" he asks.

"Seriously, I said go away."

He looks like he wants to argue with her, but cuts himself off, halted by the sudden approaching wail of sirens. The ambulance screeches to a halt beside her, washing the interior of the phone booth red and blue by turns, painting the already pale skin of her arms with deathly tints: blood-red and dead-flesh-blue and back to skin-colored before alternating again. Crispin is gone between flares, melting artistically into the darkness.

Mary's head starts throbbing worse in the flashing light, and she is pretty sure she's going to vomit any second now. She wishes Crispin had hung around long enough so she could do it on his goddamned shoes.

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