#this tag is full of recycled shit

[thefirstlioveyou]

.

[aw-bean-s]

its 4am. i was going to go to bed 2 hours ago. however. for some fucking reason. my c:drive filled up while i was drawing. which is weird. because i swear to fucking god i had at least 50 gigs left. so i have been googling. and cleaning. and searching. and whatever the fuck for two goddamn hours. only for no one and nothing to have a solution for me. i am going to fucking scream.

[quitesins]

Hair as Pink as his Cheeks

Masterlist

Bakugou x Fem!Reader

Tags: Sfw, fluff, drabble, early stages of the relationship tings, disgustingly sappy, Kirishima is there- at the start I mean, I’ll come back and edit dis later

A short drabble- that I’ll probably recycle for an actual fic I’m writing- where Bakugou accidentally dyes his hair pink!

“What the fuck shitty hair?!” Bakugou emerges from the bathroom, a bottle gripped tightly in his hands. And his hair. It’s pink.

“Holy shit.” Kirishima looks at him, wide eyed and evidently about to laugh. “What did you do man?”

Bakugou just dashes the bottle towards Kirishima- which the red head narrowly misses- and stomps over. “This is your doing, why the fuck is the shampoo full of dye.”

Kirishima just shrugs and pushes his hands through the wet hair, looking closely. Even at the roots, where his hair darkens, it’s pink.

“Wow, you really got it in there.” Kirishima notes, going to study another section of hair, before Bakugou pulls back and shoves at him lightly.

“Will this shit wash out,” Bakugou grumbles, glaring at his roommate. Kirishima looks sheepish and Bakugou already knows his answer. He groans.

“Hey, man, it looks good on you.” Kirishima tries to comfort. “Plus your hair grows fast, no? Give it a few weeks, you’ll be fine.”

Bakugou almost decks his- soon to be ex- best friend, best friend in question noticing and raising his hands in playful surrender.

“I need it gone now!” He huffs.

“Like now-now?” Kirishima inquires, looking at him suspiciously. “What for?”

“I have a fucking date with [Name]!” Bakugou finally shouts, sighing heavily as the words leave him.

The relationship is new. Still soft and stuttered. In its early stages of romance. It’s warm with the need to take the love in his hands, hold it gentle and nurture it. There’s a pressure to keep it close, nerves that force perfection. But most of all, it’s a simple childish urge. He wants to impress you. He wants you to like him.

Kirishima nods his head, looking solemn as he thinks. Then he finally speaks.

“Maybe a hat will do-” But before he can finish, Bakugou is on him like a rabid dog…

He’s nervous. Hat tucked over his hair and hoodie atop that for good measure. The air is hot and it only serves to make him dizzy. He dislikes the stickiness of his own skin and how his quirk threatens to go off. He waits for you in the shade but doesn’t spot you in the crowd.

“Kats’?” Your voice comes from behind, startling him, and he whips around quickly.

There you stand, in a flowing, summery dress, looking pretty in the sun.

“Yeah.” He turns, letting you greet him with a hug. The smell of your perfume is familiar and settles his nerves a little.

“What’s with the disguise,” you joke, and his nerves return.

“It’s not a fuckin’- it’s not a disguise.” He pulls off the hoodie but keeps the hat on. The pink of his hair does not stay hidden.

When he sees you and the way your eyes go wide, he groans, wanting the ground to swallow him whole.

“Wow,” you speak, almost like a question. “You’re pink?”

He isn’t quite sure how to respond, instead shoving the hood back on and grabbing your hand. He ignores your light protests and pulls you along with him to take seat at a cafe nearby.

With orders placed, he finally lets the hood and cap fall off, showing off the entirety of his now pink mane. He mumbles out a quick explanation, something about stupid roommates and ex best friends, and waits for you to react. You don’t respond immediately, so he prompts you, wanting to get it over with.

“So? What do you think?”

Your face shows you’re thinking, and after a moment you speak, “Well, it’s not quite Dynamight-”

He cuts you off. “I fucking know.” It’s like his walls draw up without his order. Ready to fight rejection before it arrives.

You bend over the table slightly, to sift your hands through his hair. You words are light, soft, and hold a sincerity even he can’t deny. “But I like it.”

That’s unexpected.

That’s really unexpected. So unexpected that his walls drop with a sudden thud and his face heats instantly.

“You’re as pink as your hair, Kats’” You laugh, moving back to you seat. He almost instinctively reaches out to keep your hands in his hair, but stops himself at the last second.

“Fuck off.” He rolls his eyes, trying hard to keep his lips from tugging. He knows he probably looks a little insane, the way his teeth are bared, but he’s too embarrassed to let the smile free.

“Like candy floss.” You look at him dreamily. And God, he wants to squish the expression off your face.

“Are you just hungry.” He retorts, with an even more dramatic eye roll.

“A little bit.” You smile cheekily and he regrets his tease for he can see your next words coming clearly. “Maybe I should just eat you up.”

You’re unbelievable.

“Shut the fuck uppp.” He groans with his head turned. This time the he can’t keep the smile to himself, so he doesn’t.

Even you have a slight sickly grimace on your face. “Okay yeah, that was bad, even for me.”

The food arrives shortly, your half is mainly cakes and treats while he chooses something more nutritious. Doesn’t matter as he finds himself giving you half his meal anyways, liking the way you’re so free with how you express your delight. He frowns when you raise a cupcake with icing of an annoyingly familiar colour to him and snap a picture. He lets you keep the picture of course, playfully threatening that of it gets anywhere, that’d be your head. You reply with your own light hearted jabs, and the quick back and forth becomes something that could only be considered flirting.

“I really like it you know.” The sun sets on the two of you nicely. You speak to keep the day longer.

“I won’t keep it.” He establishes. “But I’m glad.”

“Aww not even for me.” You joke, smiling at him, like you’re trying to replace the sun. To him, you do.

If you asked seriously, he probably would. Anything even. He’d give it to you in a heartbeat.

“Nah.” To accept would have the discussion taper. So he lies, although he knows you know otherwise. “Not even you.”

Defo gonna snag bits and pieces of this for an actual fic. A pick n mix of my own writing with the sentences as sweets. Anyways I wasn’t sure how to end this at all and was tempted to simply go “the end” but i somewhat pulled through, hopefully… also also sorry for the random pacing and pov switching. Also also also, I used the word even too much. Okay long and drawn out authors note OVER! GOODBYE!

[mycupofrum]

Friday snippet

Thanks for the tag @lovelymasks! In honour of Hot Prongsfoot Friday, I give you some thirsty Prongsfoot. Poor Father James is being tested by Sirius over and over again. :D Nsfw part is under the cut.

__

The next morning, James is reading his emails in his office. He has just finished replying to the last one and made himself a fresh cup of tea, when he receives a notification of a new email. The sender's name is S.O.B., which he doesn't recognise, and the subject line says, "Practical measures." Curious, James opens the email. 

Dear Father James, 

Please see the video file attached for missing information from our earlier discussion as well as a suggestion for the future. 

Do let me know what you think. 

I hope your day is full of revelations. 

Best regards, 

S.O.B. 

None the wiser, James downloads the file and hits play on the video, which displays only a black screen. He's just sipping his tea when the camera zooms out and he notices the dark background is actually that of a pair of boxers. The screen shows a man's lower body lying on a bed, his toned legs slightly apart and a hand resting on top of his bulge. 

James coughs and spits tea on the laptop screen. 

"Shit!" He places his mug down and wipes the screen with his sleeve.  

Someone sent him a believable-looking scam email, and he was foolish enough to download a porn video onto his computer. It's probably infected with viruses now. 

James should stop the video. Click away. Delete the email. Empty the Recycle Bin. Do a virus check. 

"Hello, Father," a low voice on the video says, and James tenses.  

The hand is slowly rubbing the bulge, pausing only to squeeze it. 

"I've been thinking about you." 

A mixture of panic and exhilaration runs through James, and he pauses the video, stands up and rushes to lock the door to his office. 

He paces around, covering his mouth, not knowing what the hell he's supposed to do. No one has truly come on to him since he became a priest, though he has had his share of longing looks from both younger and more mature women, and some of their husbands too. It's only natural and humane, but there's always been respect for his profession and conviction. 

Except now, and oh, how blatantly Sirius Black crosses the line. 

James sits by his desk and presses play again, knowing full well it is the path to perdition. 

"Take this as part of my confession."  

Sirius slips his hand inside his underwear and pulls out his hard-on, gently sliding the foreskin up and down a few times before pulling it back and stroking his length. 

James's mouth goes dry. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. He leans back in his chair, spreads his legs, and moves his hand to stroke his crotch. The familiar flow of blood towards his lower body no longer surprises him, but watching Sirius on screen turns James on even faster than his own imagination.

__

Edit: Open tag!

[in-collection]

Hotel Vast Horizon by @rocket-eighty-eight

Heat (1995) | Vincent Hanna/Neil McCauley | 16,202 words | 100 pages

You can see and download the whole typeset HERE.

You can also print it if you want a copy for yourself! I provide printable files below. Check out the guide first ↓ The book is 11x18cm AKA 4,3x7,1" & can be printed with a coptic stitch or staples. Mine's printed on 80gsm grey recycled paper & 210gsm grey paper for the cover.

DOWNLOAD THE FILES / PRINTING & BINDING GUIDE

PRINTING NOTES: This typeset goes pretty close to the edges of the pages, so be careful when cutting it, and the first signature or so has double-spread images, so I'd really recommend making sure your double-sided printing is calibrated for this one (whether you're doing it at home or at a printing shop).

HEY!!!! HI! finally. If you've checked the Heat (1995) (Al Pacino and Robert De Niro Go on a Date: The Movie) tag on AO3 in the past year you've probably checked out Hotel Vast Horizon (Michael Mann Could Never: The Fic). Welp here it is on paper.

The common thread in the typeset was always the ocean (and shit, I said the o-word. did you know there are like 20 references to water, seas and storms in HVH, and yet never once "ocean" is said?). The other thread was the Bitstream Cooper typeface, which is round and curvy and so pleasing on the eye. Isn't it? Also Arial (underrated), because I needed it for the sequencing to show that Michael Mann is a loser. I'm kidding. Or am I? But this brings me to another major thing: the sequencing. (The common denominator between movies and books: the sequence.) That can only be apprehended on the full PDF/book, and it's really something that did not really exist (in so much depths) in the previous typesets.

As to what the sequencing is saying, or what the hell this intro is about (no I did not have a stroke when I did it), I will not say much if only that it is about the vocabulary, the image, the movie, the things that go beyond fate, a little bit Neil vs Vincent and a lot the reason vs the heart. More things shall remain unexplained because I feel they would be better experienced than laid out here.

If you'd still like to know what's actually going on in this thing don't hesitate to send in an ask lol.

More details on the technical matters + a visualization at the bottom, because there is work involved and my micro typography is so clean it could give Neil McCauley a boner.

help where do i even begin? I learnt how to use FontForge to create a new typeface specifically for that symbol at the beginning of the paragraphs in order to implement it in InDesign (see fig.1 below), I changed the Arial's @ in FontForge too (fig.2) to have it fit with the underline in @ rocket88, what the hell.

2. I also drew 11 (I think) illustrations for the intro (yes, those knots......), but that wasn't as complicated as I thought it would be. I do deeply curse InDesign's "Print Booklet" function for how much it hates images though.

3. I would like you to meet my InDesign characters styles (fig.3) as they simply are impeccable and the best you will ever see, I could not have been more professional if you had paid me 5 grand for this. The hyphens! The dashes! The custom small caps!

4. To get even further in the micro typography. It is, in most, most cases, much too time-consuming to properly kern (=modulate the space between your characters and/or words) your text for how little the average eye will get out of it, and/or your average graphic designer is certainly not getting paid enough to actually do it properly. I, on the other hand, am insane and unemployed, therefore yes, I kerned this shit. Micro typo is actually the sculpture of the white spaces of your page. When done thoroughly it does mean checking every characters with your own eyeballs.

So in english, since this typeset is in english, the rules are no spaces for punctuation. Right? and not right ? It makes for a pretty tight block. I do argue too tight - although of course you'll also have times where you want tight. (And this is all within the 5% of the time where kerning matters.) That might not sound too bad until you get to em-dashes, this '—' thing. Which is a literally useless punctuation mark that is so hysterically long it'll leave an unnatural horizontal void in your text and draw all attention to it—you know, instead of the text itself. Useless, because it can always be replaced by commas, colon, semicolon, or parentheses. Unnatural, because em/en-dashes do not follow a typeface's characteristics (when hyphens do! fig4), so they hardly fit with serifs, AND characters are generally vertically stressed in latin (fig5: which one looks normal?) except... well. So you'll have the tightest group of punctuation marks humping each other?!"— then a dash literally the size of a whole ass m that looks nothing like the rest. ridiculous. absurd.

Anyway the point is I said bye-bye to this aberration and used hyphens stretched at 260% (lmao. it works so well?). And sometimes 230%. Sometimes with a space after, sometimes not - if not the same meaning then why the same treatment (fig6)? I wondered at this point if I wasn't going too far (lol) but this is the point of micro typo, so, whatever. See fig7 for more kerning stuff.

5. I have far less things to say about this part than the last even though I must have spent twice as much time on it, but I just wanted to say that I manually set the text rag on all 69 pages, it looks nice, I love tetris, AND!!!! the greatest thing about the whole fucking book (fig8): the text starts on the top line of the first column, and ends, on p.91, on the LAST line of the column, at the very bottom of the page, and IT IS NOT. BY. CHANCE!!!!!! HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!

thanks for reading. perfection has not been achieved and there might still be typos. see you later.

[changelingsandothernonsense]

Wips on Wedsdays

He kiddos, it's actually my Wednesday so imma post a few wips. tagging @thequeenofthewinter @archangelsunited @kookaburra1701 @rhiannon1199 @viss-and-pinegar @saltymaplesyrup @rainpebble3 @throughtrialbyfire @rosette-dragonborn @mareenavee @snippetsrus @snowy-weather No pressure, this is all just for funs <3

We got art and a smidgen of writing:

Starting with a close-up of the tat details in the render I'm working on. This redo that isn't purely a redo is coming along well. Just gotta add three more tattoos and alllllllll of his scars. Full art and a writing snippet under the cut.

IDK I think it's going well so far ;) and a snippet from Sleepers Awake chapter 7

Teldryn hated tombs. He hated tombs, the undead, the fucking bleached ash that covered the floor after centuries of recycling the same old fucking urns! He hated the way the tombs would wind like a maze. These halls had turned him around to the point of utter confusion! Teldryn hated having to enter the halls of the Dunmeri dead. It creeped him out, to put it bluntly. He had complained about this assignment, of course. It was the last thing he expected when Cosades sent him to go meet with a Blades informant who studied over at the Balmora Mages Guild. The old sugar-tooth had been vague about what this might entail. Just telling him that the notes he got from his last mission weren’t fucking enough and he had to go bother some mage about a fucking myth! The Nerevarine, how fucking ridiculous! The expectation with these missions seemed to be something along the lines of ‘a favour for a favour’ and the mage he’d been sent to, an orc named Sham gra-Muzgob was asking one hell of a fucking favour! She was after the skull of some poor sod named Llevule Andrano. That meant he had to break into the Andrano Ancestral Tomb out on the Bitter Coast. Shit was pretty much a one-way ticket to an execution if he was caught. When he’d mentioned that, the woman merely replied- “Then don’t upset the natives when you do it.” Cosades had said this would be a ‘silly little errand’. How the fuck is desecrating the remains of a member of a fucking hugely influential family in House Redoran a silly little errand? Then there was the justification gra-Muzgob gave him for all of this shit. Something about his people’s death practices being primitive, superstitious nonsense. Teldryn had held his tongue as best as he could. The last thing he wanted was to be thrown in fucking Fort Moonmoth again. The shit they did there…he was glad they’d only pulled out his toenails. Teldryn sucked in a deep breath, trying his best to calm his nerves as he stepped into what he hoped was the chamber that this skull was being kept in. “Look for the one with the ritual markings,” he murmured under his breath as he pulled down the old, silk scarf he’d taken from Suran. A keepsake he allowed himself amongst the things of his that his mother managed to save after his grandfather had thrown most of his belongings into the fire. Llaro had really tried to erase his existence entirely. He wanted to shake the hand of the guy who killed the miserable old cunt! Teldryn tapped his fingers on the rough chitin of his pauldron as her scanned the small, sand-coloured room. Carved into the earth thousands of years ago, the clay walls were smooth and rounded around the edges. His eyes fell on what looked like a small altar at the lip of a pool of ashes. An enchanted chitin dagger and a skull with something carved into its forehead, Daedric runes by the looks of it. Red pigment coloured the thin grooves in the bone. It made him shudder as he knelt down by the altar and stared into Llevule Andrano’s hollow eye sockets. He wondered if he should say something before he went and just took the thing. He knew that there was some sermon that one would recite when they visited the dead. Something that eased the ancestor’s spirit of some shit like that. He had never actually listened to what was said in those sermons. Never listened to the shit spoken by the temple priests either. Honestly, he found it boring, preferring instead to disappear into his own head whenever they started to rattle on. Shit was way more entertaining…until his mind became the enemy of course. He longed for that simplicity. Shit was folly. Teldryn wracked his brain for something appropriate to say. Sure, he might not have cared much for the Tribunal’s teachings as a kid but fuck if he wasn’t bitterly fucking aware of how wrong this all seemed. Teldryn sighed as he took the skull into his shaking hands, opting to mutter a simple “Sorry,” to the spirit before he pulled his scarf from around his neck and wrapped the skull in it before he carefully placed it into his pack.

[kassandras-one-braincell]

ugh when is it my turn to have an irl kassandra i would do anything for her .

anyways what kinds of clothing styles, jobs, or just general day-to-day life (like their houses) do you think modern!kassie/eivor/soma would have?

Pssh, it's not like I've given this any extensive thought in the past or anything... That would be weird... Who would do that haha

I would let's go

Kassandra dresses like a dad who lost his passport in Tenerife on holiday and has been stuck cycling between the same 4 hawaiian shirts since three Tuesdays ago, but owns a few casual suits for work.

She's a historian and museum curator. Specialises in the history of weaponry, occasionally giving guest lectures on ancient swords at universities. Mention any type of weapon and she will not be able to stop herself from rambling about its evolution over the centuries.

Has a pottery wheel. You know that scene from Ghost (1990)? Yeah. Very reliable with the ladies.

Ikaros is her pet eagle, do not ask her how she manages to get him pet insurance because she may have lied about his species.

She has a vegetable garden (her pride and joy, this might as well be her child with how well she takes care of it) and a briki to make coffee with. Kassie always starts her day off with freshly brewed coffee the traditional Greek way, some bread and some fruit, which she always plates too much of because Ikaros likes to steal it.

She's a great cook.

Dozens of books on old weapons are dotted about her home and some (so many. so fucking many holy shit) model replicas because she's a fucking nerd.

You cannot turn a corner inside her home without seeing at least three family photos. Family includes Myrrine, Alexios, Barnabas, Herodotos, Markos, Alkibiades and Phoibe. Nikolaos is in prison for trying to yeet his stepchildren off a cliff.

Phoibe is her goddaughter who calls her "auntie" and Auntie Kass absolutely gives her the world.

━━━( ͡ಠ ͜ʖ ͡ಠ)━━━

Eivor serves lumberjack realness. Flannels, cargo pants, work jeans, yes she has a tool belt, yes she looks a damn treat in it. All she's missing is the hard hat and the protective visor. The axe is in her workshop.

She wears glasses. This isn't up for debate.

Tattoo artist by trade and has a degree in literature. Her love for poetry knows no bounds. She specialises in black and grey realism and her pieces are breathtaking.

Speaking of poetry, her colleagues bully her mercilessly for being a "big old sap". She has fancy paper to write her poems up on, and a wax sealing kit for handwritten letters. She's old fashioned like that.

Technology is a demon she would rather not trifle with. 100% complains about the need for there to be an app for everything, but she does appreciate video calls so she can see her people.

As a hobby, she pursues woodworking and blacksmithing, sometimes selling her creations. She'd make the engagement ring she proposes to you with herself

Dwolfg (or Chewy, or Mouse) Nali and Dandelion Puff are all beloved members of her household. The neighbours' kids named them all; sometimes she babysits Knud and Sylvi, and of course Eira has to tag along.

Her fridge is full of boring meal prep (you better wife her up and cook for her) but her pantry? Brimming with baking supplies. Ma'am loves to bake. Sure, she eats a lot of grrr protein big strong macro gym buzzword meals, but she loves bread and cake. Big muscles but she likes to eat, so she isn't lean, I'm gonna stop before this gets unreasonably gay

━━━( ͡ಠ ͜ʖ ͡ಠ)━━━

Soma, look, this is gonna be specific, but there's foundations for this in game (her metric fuck ton of rugs in the longhouse). She evidently likes fancy things. Her modern!AU occupation: owner and ceo of a sustainable luxury jewellery brand. Recycled metals, gemstones that are sourced/synthesised sustainably, everything is ethically manufactured and her employees are paid well.

She's from humble beginnings, so she does loads for charity and really enjoys quiet domesticated tasks.

Waistcoats and tie when she's attending businessy things, simple t-shirt or jumper and joggers when working from home. Outside, she wears a few rings that she designed.

Not a particularly great cook, but she's a mean pastry chef. She has a massive sweet tooth. Loves to start her mornings with a homemade croissant and a cappuccino.

There is a post-it note above her desk to reminder her to straighten her posture because she tends to sit like a fucking goblin.

Her home is pretty eclectic, which takes people by surprise given her organised manner. Lots of blankets strewn over the couch, lots of knickknacks she collected over the years, some sentimental ones from Lif and some ruder ones from Birna. A few sketchbooks are scattered about with designs for work.

She has a record player and an ungodly collection of country vinyls. It's okay. Nobody's perfect. It's what makes her human.

Also needs to wear glasses, but wears contacts usually because she insists the specs make her look "old", oblivious to the distant sounds of feral lesbian screaming whenever she puts them on.

[brodinsons]

okayu..... so this fic you talked about in the tags of the spn s5 'thinking about her <3' post..... does it.... hows that going... is there.... a place for me to perhaps be obsessed with it?

(for anyone who had the requisite tags muted/etc)

Tragically, anon, it doesn't (truly) exist! As of yet...

I kicked off a little intro snippet for my wife and I to play with, but it's mostly just been marinating and mutating in my brain from there.

There's so much meaty material to play with in the context of a post-not-apocalypse world that isn't remotely the recycled cash grab the subsequent ten seasons went with. Obviously network/budget constraints meant confining the story to the states, but in my imagination, there are no limits!

Dean can fumble his way around Cas on the road, doing whatever it is that satisfies that eternally restless itch to be moving and marching.

Meanwhile, we can have a whole Sam-centric spin-off that lets him go full nerd and meet people all around the world to help him figure out the whens and hows and whys because that brain of his is never satisfied.

He can get tatted up with enochian script as the years go by (and if certain sections reference a certain archangel he can't get out of his head, no one needs to know). He can take Claire Novak on as a stateside apprentice (who also keeps tabs on his brother now and then). He can hunt down mythical relics and spells (and favors) that inevitably lead him to the road that ends with jailbreaking his celestial other half. Only this time, it's fully intentional and he's walking into the blinding white with his eyes wide open.

Of course Lucifer would've preferred a different physical homecoming, but humans are weird with our hangups about bodily autonomy so he settles for a vastly-reinforced (and mercifully vacated) Nick and slowly learns that this is the face Sam intrinsically associates with him, over anything else. So it gets less uncomfortable over time. (He'll settle for a great deal, it turns out, if it means Sam is his.)

And Sam's pure acceptance this time, instead of the desperate denial from before, that's the part that shocks him the most. Time passes so differently between Hell and Earth; how much has he lost? But, by the same card, what has he gained?

Sam can show him the parts of the world he's uncovered over his nomad years, and when Lucifer has enough of humanity, he can take Sam to the hidden pockets that still remain untainted. They can give and take between each other, instead of trying to get one to bow to the other's will. It's not easy and it gets messy, but it's good. It's so much better than before. Maybe what they were meant for all along.

...so yeah! If there's still S5 samifer fans in the year of our lord 2024, I might be convinced to actually write this shit down in some form. But you guys actually gotta show up, otherwise it's just gonna keep marinating in my brain juices and make me go insane xD

[babybratzmaraj]

Overlooked…

Poems of The Mad Black Woman Part 4💫♥️

A/N I said i got yall, you been gotten. enjoy🤺

Taglist: @megamindsecretlair @iamrheaspeaks (if you wanna be tagged lmk!!!)

the middle child, a grey hair in the field of other black hair strands, my crooked bottom row if I dont smile too hard, the quiet one in the group. what all do they have in common my child? they are overlooked.

never really notice until they are down to their last bit of desperation, itching and scratching for one last bit of grounding before they fall, fall into that pit of nothing left. you see my child, the only way the overlooked gets looked is if they are needed, never to make you better but to feel better themselves. Use you like a clickbait, use you like a brush, use you, eat you, and shit you out back to the recycling plant, because of course, you have to be used again!

you’d be there for yourself to not be overlooked again my child, and that shit sucks. It shouldn’t be like that, and I’m so sorry my child, sorry that this world is full of shit and you are feeling it at this moment. but you should always remember what’s done in the dark always comes to the light, but what if that darkness don’t get lit? What if the light only shines on the opposite side of you? what if you chase that light just for it to show? what if—

that’s too many ifs. its when. It will forever feel like its never ending, like the weight on your shoulders never leaving you, only getting heavier and heavier, feeling the strength in your legs slowly leave. look up my child, the light you needed was always there,

it just needed to be uncovered

[slutforstabbings-archive]

Clean Again

Chapter 10: SELF-INFLICTED read on AO3 | previous chapter | tumblr chapter index make sure you check AO3 for this fic's playlist and other extras!

Corey plans a big night to show Reader how much she means to him

general warnings for this fic - angst, fluff, smut (MDNI), canon-typical violence, canon-typical gore contents/warnings for this chapter - luff, angst, graphic violence, alcohol mention, male masturbation, panty sniffing, passing mention of drug addiction, passing mention of domestic violence, knife play but just barely, major spoilers for The Lobster (2015)

5,108 words

A/N: This chapter contains major spoilers for The Lobster. If you haven't seen The Lobster, I think things will still make enough sense, but see the end for a summary of the plot of the film if needed. I've kept the summary vague so hopefully even though the ending of the movie is spoiled by this chapter, you will still be enticed to go watch the movie and see how they got there. It's one of my favorites and I highly recommend it but it is Fucked Up and there is graphic animal death among many other things so be prepared, look up a list of trigger warnings, and watch something gentle and lighthearted afterwards lol

A version of this chapter has already been published on Tumblr and AO3 with the title LoveSong. It was written to fill a request from @rebel-blue but I thought it fit here perfectly. This version has been edited and added to.

@heartrot666 @wolvesandvampires @cordelium @toxicanonymity @multifandom--mess @hersweetrevenge @futurewife @yllcm @ethanhoewke dm me or reply to this post to be added to the tag list 💕

Corey parks his motorcycle on a side street instead of his usual spot by the door and lets himself into your apartment with the key you gave him. It feels weird, he’s never been in here without you before. But it’s kinda cool, he feels close to you even though you’re not around. And you wouldn’t have given him a key if he wasn’t allowed to come and go as he pleased. He’d been trying to plan something nice for over a week when he received a cryptic text from you.

He padded down his mossy wooden steps and found the key in a little box with a note from you. Just something I thought you should have, it said. As he stood at the mailbox, awestruck smile on his face, his plan for a special night solidified. Now he struggles to close the door, his hands are so full of all the stuff he needs to make tonight perfect.

He goes to the kitchen and spreads all his supplies on the island. One bouquet of roses to give you and one to tear apart for the petals, a bottle of wine that he hopes is good for as much as he paid for it, a salad kit, a frozen lasagna from the take and bake section of the fancy grocery store, a big long loaf of Italian bread, a pack of tea lights, a carton of raspberry sorbet, a real vase so you can stop putting the flowers he gets you in containers you fish out of the recycling. 

Your oven groans like it’s haunted as it preheats. Corey darts around your kitchen, starting and stopping different tasks, feeling scattered. He places the wine and the sorbet in the freezer. He fills the vase with water and dissolves the plant food, but forgets to put the flowers in it. He grabs a small bowl from the cupboard, then abandons it on the counter. He pulls all the petals off a single rose, then remembers a story you told him.

“One time a roommate I had put a bottle of wine in the freezer and forgot about it. I guess because hard liquor doesn’t freeze, she thought it would be okay. But wine is way too low in alcohol content for that. It expanded when it froze and the fucking bottle exploded on me when I opened the freezer. Scared the shit out of me!” You laughed and shook your head. “Our freezer was sticky and full of broken glass the rest of the time we lived there.”

Fuck! Fuck fuck fuck. He opens the freezer apprehensively, squeezing his eyes closed in case of projectiles. The wine is still liquid and the bottle is still intact. Close call. He breathes deeply and tries to organize his thoughts. One thing at a time. The oven chimes. Lasagna first, then. He reads the instructions a third time and notices something new. TIP: it says next to a little drawing of a lightbulb. Place a cookie sheet under the lasagna pan to catch any sauce or cheese that bubbles over. He finds a cookie sheet and puts the lasagna on it, then slides the whole thing in the oven. 

The rest of his preparations go more smoothly. He follows a recipe he bookmarked last night to make garlic bread. He finds a giant mixing bowl and fills it with ice for the wine, like fancy restaurants always do it in the movies. He does his best to clean off your dining table. Usually when the two of you sit here to eat, you just shove all the shit that accumulates over the week to the side. But you know what’s on the table and Corey doesn’t, so he awkwardly stacks things instead, placing the piles all at one end so there’s room for the set up he envisions. 

He needs something to protect the table from the heat of the lasagna pan. You don’t have any kitchen towels in the drawer where you usually keep them, so he goes into your bedroom. He’s gone with you downstairs to your building's laundry room before, so he knows you have a two hamper system, but he can’t remember which is for clean and which is for dirty. He reaches into one and just pulls out whatever’s on top to do a smell test. It’s a wadded up pair of tights and it definitely came out of the dirty laundry. He just intended to sniff them for hamper identification, so he’s not sure how he winds up sitting on the edge of the bed with the crotch of the tights pressed firmly over his nose and mouth, inhaling as deeply as he did the other night to get stoned on your shotgunned smoke. The smell of you lingering on the nylon couldn’t be more beautiful. 

Since the first night he woke up in the hospital Corey has sometimes struggled to believe things are real. Everything in his life seems so much like a bad dream. Even being in your apartment, cooking you dinner, Corey felt like he was on an empty sitcom set, no cast, no crew, no studio audience. Putting on a show with nobody watching. But you, your physical body, left an imprint on these tights that proves you exist, made out of bones and electricity and meat. Gloriously alive. A unique trace of you, so rare a dog or a DNA panel could follow it back to you and only you, out of eight billion other people. The most precious substance on Earth.  

Corey's breath hitches and he pulls the tights away in surprise when he realizes his cock has gotten all the way hard. He feels like a creep, getting aroused by your stuff when you don't even know he's there, and he still hasn't gotten completely over the Pavlovian way he feels shame when he's horny. When he's with you, you distract him, so beautiful and brazen that you make it feel right. But he hasn't been able to do it alone without feeling bad about it since the night of that first kiss. He pulls his phone from his pocket. There are still several minutes left on the timer for the lasagna and almost everything else is finished.

Maybe it's okay... It's not any worse than following you around, really. He pulls his pants and his underwear down to his knees and scoots back on the bed a little. He brings the tights back over his face with one hand and wraps the other around himself. His intention as he starts slowly stroking is just to tease a little, save the rest for the main event with you after dinner. His hand doesn’t get the memo. He tries to slow down and only speeds up, tries to loosen his grip only to squeeze himself a little harder. 

He wants to resist it, but it occurs to him again that this is kind of creepy. Except now the thought doesn't feel as bad. It kinda feels good. What would happen if you came home early for some reason? What would you think, seeing him, in your apartment without your knowledge, practically eating your undergarments in his attempt to inhale the smell of your pussy, touching himself on your bed? The mental image of your face as you realize your boyfriend is a total fucking pervert is so clear, he looks over his shoulder to make sure you aren’t really there. He can imagine the shock in your eyes, the confusion, the fear. Fuck. 

Then the shame rears its head and he retreats from the thought like jerking back from a hot surface, scrambling to think of something else. He comes up with a brilliant idea. He shakes the tights out until they uncoil from the ball he’d squeezed them into and the legs hang limply, then he slides one leg over his slippery, throbbing cock. He bunches the extra length up against his pelvis, drawing himself deeper into the tights, pinching and wrapping the fabric until he’s sheathed in it like a condom. The texture is scratchy but not unpleasant. Corey leans back on one arm, propping himself up on his elbow, getting his hips into it. He brings the toe of the other leg to his face, knowing your smell lingers there too. He pants hard, and it only takes one, two, three gulping breaths for him to get there. Hot, sticky cum seeps out of the nylon.

His arm under him gives out and he lies flat on his back, the soiled tights sticking to him as he softens. He only gets a second to relax before the timer for the lasagna goes off and brings him back to earth. Corey rushes to clean himself off and shove the tights deep into the hamper he now knows is dirty laundry. He sprints through washing his hands, alarm still blaring, and finally yanks the lasagna out of the oven 3 minutes past time. It’s a little dark but it should be fine. Hopefully.

He digs a kitchen towel out of the clean hamper. He smooths it flat on the dining table and sets the lasagna in the middle. He brings in the salad and the garlic bread, trying multiple placements to see what looks best. He feels so out of his depth, but he’s determined to do a good job. He googles table setting diagrams and does the best he can with your mismatched thrift store dishes. 

He’s doing the last few steps, sprinkling rose petals in a path from your front door to the dining room with one hand, scrolling through the playlists you’ve made him with the other when he hears your car crunch the gravel outside. Corey rushes to the dining room, slipping on his sock feet and gut checking himself on one of the dining chairs. Wincing, he hides where you won’t see him from the door, and presses play on a song just as the lock turns.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

As you stand at your front door preparing to insert your key into the lock, you hear a thump and then a very faint groan come from inside. What the fuck was that? You unlock the door as noisily as possible and swing it open very slowly. The last thing you want is to surprise an intruder. You peak inside hesitantly. It smells good. Why does it smell good? Just as you start to fear something way freakier than a simple robbery, you notice the song playing over your speakers.

Whenever I’m alone with you… You make me feel like I am whole again. Wasn’t Corey just saying he had been listening to Jack Off Jill at your suggestion? You step inside and finally see the rose petals scattering the floor and the warm glow of candle light coming from the dining room. That cheesy motherfucker, you think as butterflies fill your guts. You smile and bite your lip in spite of yourself.

“Where are you, you big sap?” You call out.

“Follow the petals!” He shouts back.

You follow the petal trail into the dining room and see him standing at the head of the dining table, beaming above all his hard work. Your mouth hangs open in shock as you take in all the details. More rose petals surround the table, on top of which you see a dozen roses in a gorgeous crystal vase, a delicious looking dinner and -

“Are those proper two course place settings?” You laugh.

“My attempt,” Corey says sheepishly.

You come around the table and grab his face in your hands. “This is so…” you trail off, opting to kiss him instead of finishing your thought. It conveys what you mean much more eloquently anyway. When you release him he pulls a chair out for you.

“Thank you, sir,” you say. His face instantly turns bright red and he clears his throat.

Corey piles salad on your plate and pours you a glass of wine. The two of you eat and try to talk through your giggles. You knew he had a romantic side, but this is something else. Somehow you feel even more giddy than when you first met him, even more like a silly middle schooler writing Mrs. Corey Carpenter all over your notebook. You watch his every movement. Could it be possible he’s becoming even more of a babe? Or is it just because you love him?

God, that’s a scary thought. You’ve been suppressing it violently every time you have it. It just seems so fast, you haven't been “official” for very long at all. But trying to shove it down the past few days has made you feel like a cartoon character on a sinking ship, plugging holes with every finger and every toe just for more to appear and the water to keep rising. He smiles at you, all long teeth and crinkled eyes, and the boat capsizes. You love him, you love him, you love him. And now that you admit it to yourself, you have to admit it to him too. 

Before you can say anything, he stands.

“Ready for dessert?” Corey asks.

“There’s dessert?”

“Of course,” he says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Stay here.” He stacks all the dinner dishes onto the cookie sheet and takes it to the kitchen. You idly wonder if he’s ever had a job as a busboy. You try to guess what desert is by the sounds you hear him making in the kitchen. Something refrigerated, or maybe frozen. That doesn’t narrow it down very much.

He returns with a bowl heaped with scoops of something the color of blood, two spoons sticking out. He sets it on the table and scoots his chair closer to yours before sitting down. You take a hesitant bite. Raspberry. It’s delicious. You devour the bowl together without speaking, just watching each other.

“Corey…” You finally break the silence. “This was really special.”

“Oh, uh... It’s nothing.” He shrugs.

“It’s a lot more than nothing. You put a lot of hard work into this and it was really cool. No one I’ve dated has ever gone out of their way for me like that before.” In the short time you’ve known him, he’s done more for you than Orin did for your entire three years together. He looks at you like you’re God. He cares if you cum. He listens.

“How is that possible?” He asks. You snort at the question.

“I thought that was just how it was.” You say, shaking your head. “Corey I… I love you.”

Before you realize what’s happening he’s out of his chair, pulling you up from yours into a tight embrace, pressing you against him like he wants to fuse your bodies together. You squeeze him back and you can’t fight the goofy smile you break into.

“I love you too,” he says back, voice strangled with emotion. He releases you just enough that he can look at your face. “I’ll never treat you like they did. I’ll never hurt you. I’ll never walk away from you, unless you tell me to leave.” You look into his eyes. He looks so intense in the candle light, lit almost like the villain in a black and white movie. To your own astonishment, you completely believe him.

“I have one more thing planned,” he says after a long pause. He leads you to the living room. You sit on the couch. Corey turns on the tv and connects his phone. You see the name of the movie he’s casting and can’t help but laugh.

“The Lobster?” You say, incredulous.

“You said it was your favorite romcom,” he says.

“That was a joke!” You say, scrunching your face to keep from dissolving into hysterics. “I do really like that movie but it’s a dark comedy. It’s not a date movie… Unless you’re on a pretty fucked up date.”

“You’re on a date with me.” He smirks at you. 

“Okay.” You laugh, pleasantly surprised by his little self-deprecating joke. You pat the couch next to you. He puts his arm around you when he sits down and you nuzzle against him as he presses play. 

“So,” you say as the end credits roll. “Do you think he did it?”

“What?” Corey asks

“Do you think he went through with blinding himself?” You turn to face him.

“Of course. He doesn’t have another option.”

“I mean, there’s no obvious second option, but he could’ve figured something else out. It’s a hard thing to do, to hurt yourself like that. Your sense of self-preservation would get in the way, force you to consider something else, right?”

“No.” He says, with startling conviction. “All other options would lead to death, or something even worse than death. They say they turn you into an animal to give you a second chance, but that’s bullshit. If you’re still yourself inside the animal, that’s a prison. A punishment. If you lose yourself, then becoming an animal is no different from dying. It’s easy to hurt yourself when prison and death are the only other options.”

“But blinding yourself in unsterile conditions with imprecise tools is so dangerous, he might just be committing suicide anyway.”

“Yeah. If he doesn’t do it, he’ll probably die. If he does do it, he might die. But if he does it, at least he tried. Wouldn’t you try?” Corey rests his forearms on his thighs and looks at you with dark, serious eyes. It doesn’t feel like you’re talking about the movie anymore. 

“I would try harder to come up with another plan. If they’re both blind, how will they accomplish anything? Why, after all the shit he’s been through, is he still so willing to hold onto the old system? He’s just gonna give up his whole rebellious thing? No. He should stay sighted and fight to change things.”

“You don’t think he tried hard enough to come up with another plan? He thought of everything. He… He probably thought of a hundred more plans than just what they showed us. He only saw one way out. He did it.” Corey leans back onto the couch, watching your face. 

You look back at him, trying to process what seems like a coded confession. What part of his past is he alluding to? Did he inflict the wounds that scarred him on himself? The thought has never occurred to you. For a long time, your working theory was that it was drug related, a deal gone wrong or something. Corey’s quiet, no frills life would make sense for a recovering addict. But he shows no hesitation to drink, and he’d never smoked pot or seen a bong before the other day, didn’t recognize the sensation of being stoned. 

So then, maybe a robbery? You could see him on either side of that equation. Being young and stupid, making a bad choice and paying the price, or at any age, having an attempt to defend his home go poorly. The other prevailing option was someone’s jealous ex. He’s never had a girlfriend, but all it would take is being in the vicinity of someone with a sufficiently jealous, sufficiently violent former partner. If an abusive asshole decided Corey was a threat... Maybe that was what he meant when he said he was cursed?

No. Self-inflicted. It echoes in your head. What had he said when you'd asked him about it? I was stabbed. Passive voice, almost no information. Your eyes burn thinking about it. Corey just looks at you. 

“Yeah…” you say hesitantly. “Maybe he did do it.” 

----------------------------------------------------------------------

It’s the first night Corey has slept alone in days and days. After he made you dinner, he stayed the night. When he got off work the next day he popped by his apartment to get clean clothes, several outfits worth, and he hadn’t been back since. But tonight after work he came home to his little garage and the studio above it to work on his tinkering. It was a struggle to pull himself away, so many days in a row just made him want more time with you, like someone lost at sea drinking salt water when they're already dehydrated. He knows you feel the same way, quietly giving him permission to violate your three days a week rule, implicitly asking him to stay another night, and another. Eventually he had to come home. 

Some parts he’s been waiting on have finally come in, so he stays in the garage late, until he realizes he’s drifting to sleep with a soldering iron in his hand. The idea of dying in a fire caused by the iron dropping out of his hand to the wooden workbench doesn’t thrill him like it used to, so he climbs the stairs and crawls under the stained, secondhand covers on his stained, secondhand mattress. 

Like he always does when he’s in bed alone these days, he imagines he’s not. He lays there on his side and pretends he’s curled around you instead of his lumpy pillow. His descent into sleep is fitful, plagued by half-conscious dreams and hypnic jerking. 

Corey’s not himself, his body doesn’t belong to him. He’s taller, thicker, stiffer than usual. He looks down at his hands and he’s missing two fingers, not wearing his ring. I’m Michael, he realizes with awe. He’s outside Laurie and Allyson’s house, and he can hear a commotion going on inside. He turns the knob on the side door and is pleasantly surprised it’s unlocked. He’s going to kill Laurie. After all this time, the bitch is finally gonna bite it.

He steps into the foyer and Laurie isn’t there. He is. The real him. Corey that stabbed himself, bleeding out on the floor. Allyson crouches over him, wailing.

Don’t go! Please Corey, don’t go! Don’t leave me!

He wants to go to her, and he's next to her, just like that, like he teleported. I’m not going anywhere! I’m right here, I didn’t leave!

She turns to face him and screams at the top of her lungs, face contorting in terror. Except she isn’t Allyson at all. It’s you. It’s you and he’s Michael Myers, and the knife he stabbed himself with is right there on the floor, and you both spot it at the same time. You’re faster than him, rising to your feet and lunging for it, but Michael is so much bigger than you, he makes it first.

You stomp on his hand without hesitation. He’s amazed and aroused by your decisive brutality, but he can’t feel the pain at all. He wraps Michael’s massive fingers around your foot and yanks your leg from under you. You slam to the ground, your shirt soaking up dying-Corey’s blood like a sponge. He picks up the knife. You scramble backwards on your hands and feet like a crab, but the blood makes you slide and fall. In one stride, he’s standing over you. You roll away towards the front door, pulling yourself up by the handle and throwing it open. Corey-Michael follows you, desperate to break into a run to catch you as you sprint away, but unable to do more than walk with wide strides. He tries to call your name but his mouth won’t work.

The streets of Haddonfield narrow, the houses shrink and warp. The road is carpeted now and lined on either side not with homes, but with bookshelves. The library. He approaches the aisle where he first saw you, where you trapped him to ask about your sewing machine. He rounds the corner, knowing you’ll be there, that mischievous grin on your face. He raises the knife. You turn to face him and he brings the knife down. A thin red line rapidly widens on your cheek, and another across your chest. Your eyes glaze over with betrayed tears. He raises the knife and brings it down again. This time it penetrates your chest and Michael-Corey feels the tip glance off one of your ribs as the blade buries itself to the hilt.

He stabs you repeatedly, sinking in, sliding out. 10 times. 30 times. More times than he stabbed his mother. More times than he stabbed everyone else, combined. He keeps going, long after you’re dead, until the blade gets stuck in your sternum and the knife handle breaks off, and you slide from his grasp to the floor. All the books on the shelves on either side are coated with a fine mist of your blood. 

He throws the broken handle down the aisle, then sinks to his knees beside you on the ground. He cradles your head in his hands and cries. His hands with all his fingers, signet ring back on his pinky, white scar across one palm. He’s himself, survivor-Corey, hiding-from-the-police-Corey, your-loving-boyfriend-Corey. He wails your name. 

Don’t go! Please don’t leave me! I’m so sorry, please don’t go!

Corey wakes up in a cold sweat. He checks his phone. 4am. He’s been asleep less than two hours, but that's gonna have to be good enough. He tosses on a light jacket, shoves his feet into his boots and goes downstairs. In the corner of the garage is a large toolbox. He unlocks it and opens the lid. It’s full of junk, rusted nails and bent wrenches. He pinches the sides and lifts, pulling the false bottom compartment up and out, setting it on the workbench. He places his hand in the now empty box and pushes on one side. A second false bottom flips up out of the way. On the real bottom of the box is Corey’s little collection of weapons.

Pocket knives of different sizes and designs, a Buck 120 hunting knife in its leather sheath, a brass knuckle, a snub-nose .38 revolver not much different from the one Laurie shot him with, and a box of bullets. Things he’s bought or stolen or found. Things he knows it’s tempting fate for him to have, but they make him feel… Not safer, but perhaps more prepared. 

He takes out a knife and flicks it open. It’s the biggest folding blade in the box, more than an inch longer and twice as wide as the toothpick knife Corey carries every day. For a split second, he’s tempted to test the sharpness on himself. Instead, he turns to a cardboard box on the table top and stabs it. The blade glides through as if the corrugated walls of the box are nothing but air. Perfect.

He reassembles his hiding spot and tucks the knife safely into the inside pocket of his jacket.  

----------------------------------------------------------------------

You wake to pressure on the bed, the mattress sinking beside you. You open your eyes a sliver and see a silhouette next to you, ever so slightly darker than the surrounding nothingness. You’re barely conscious but you’d know that shape anywhere.

“Corey?” You croak.

“Hey,” he whispers. “Sorry to wake you.”

“Mmm,” you reply, too sleepy for real words. You scoot away from him and pat the bed next to you.

He shifts to lie down in the space you made, and pulls you into him. He’s so warm and soft and safe, you’re already almost asleep again. He puts his hand under your chin and lifts your face.

“Don’t go back to sleep. I need to talk to you,” he says softly, and plants a gentle kiss on your lips.

“Hmmm?” You ask.

“Come on, I need you awake enough to talk to.” He slides his hand along your jaw from your chin to your ear and back, stroking your cheek with his thumb. His words move through your brain thickly, like molasses. “It’s important,” he says.

You fight hard to rouse yourself. It’s important. Corey warns you to shield your eyes, then he reaches over and turns on your bedside lamp. The amber light stimulates you enough to prop yourself up on your arm and look at him. His eyes are red with deep shadows underneath.

“What’s going on? Is everything okay?” You put a concerned hand on his chest.

“Yeah, everything’s fine.”

“What time is it?”

“4:30. There’s something I want you to have.” He reaches into his jacket and pulls something out of the interior pocket. You hold your hand out and he places it in your palm. A pocket knife.

“What..?” You start to ask.

“I want you to be able to protect yourself. You’re so important to me, I need some insurance that you’re safe. I know you’re capable, but you don’t always have a baseball bat. Promise me you’ll keep it with you and you’ll use it on anyone you have to,” he says. 

You sit up and examine the knife in your hand. The handle is made of a rich, dark wood, with something shimmery inlaid. Mother of pearl maybe. The blade has a little groove for one handed opening. You slip your thumbnail into it and pop the blade out. The edge glints in the lamp light. It’s a beautiful knife. 

“Okay. I promise.”

“I‘m serious,” he says. “Promise you’ll use it against anyone you need to. Even me.”

“Corey, I… Why would I need to use it against you?”

“You won’t. But just promise me that if you did, you would.” The prospect is ridiculous to you, but he looks dead serious.

“I promise.”

He grabs your hand, holding the still open knife, and angles it so you’re pointing it at him, the tip grazing the skin of his chest made visible by the two unbuttoned buttons of his henley shirt.

“Promise me.”

“Corey…” you protest. You try to pull away, you don’t want to hurt him by accident. But the strength of his grip stops you. Your heart races. You’re scared, but the fear is oddly arousing. “I promise.”

“That’s three times you promised.” He lets go of your hand. 

A sick impulse comes to you. Without thinking about it, you raise the knife, angling it upward so the tip presses against the soft underside of his chin instead of his chest. He breaks into a wide smile. You apply the tiniest amount of pressure and he raises his chin just a little to get away. You follow him with it, pressing it into his stubbly skin enough to make him pull away again. Then you realize what you’re doing. Horrified, you pull away and fold the blade back inside the handle.

You can’t even begin to apologize before he’s kissing you like his life depends on it.

Summary of The Lobster(2015): A man lives in a society where adults MUST be in romantic partnerships. After his wife leaves him for another man, he goes to a matchmaking resort for single people to meet. If you fail to meet a long-term partner before your stay at the hotel is over, you will be turned into the animal of your choosing. But there's a group of Loners, people who want to be single, that live on the edges of society. The man wants to be a Loner, but finds himself attracted to another Loner, which is against the rules. His partner winds up blind, and he has to decide if he wants to join her in blindness or not.

[antoine-triplett]

Tagged by @robbiedaymonds to post about what you’re reading right now! Thanks bud 💖

…

Red, White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuinston - This book is adorable. Some passages are really moving, especially the letters Alex and Henry write to each other. The way it addresses different struggles with mental health pleasantly surprised me. It’s pure fantasy, but in a fun way. Alex’s penchant for hyperbole can be hard to swallow sometimes, but you get used to it the more you get invested in the characters.

Slumber from Image Comics - I picked this up because the comic shop up the road had a poster of the cover of issue #1 in their window for a while and it kept catching my eye. The story itself is somewhat chaotic and maybe trying a bit too hard to be edgy/different while actually recycling a bunch of tropes - angry female main character with a dead daughter/death wish, rugged detective guy who doesn’t play by the rules and is haunted by his dead brother, manic pixie demon guy who can kill anything and speaks only in sarcastic one-liners… nothing we haven’t seen before on every sci-fi show. The art was worth the price of admission though.

Memory Librarian from Janelle Monae - Dirty Computer is one of my all-time favorite albums and this book didn’t disappoint. The collaborative nature of it is wonderful and compliments the message. People should be freaking out over Janelle Monae more honestly, she’s doing some super cool shit as an artist.

Six Stories by Matt Wesolowski - My best friend (who is an extremely avid reader) has been obsessed with this book for years. Finally got around to borrowing it and damn… I was tearing up in the first chapter because I was so excited to keep reading. It’s a thriller (the plot revolves around a murder mystery) so it might not be for everyone, but I get her obsession now, haha.

These Ghosts Are Family by Maisy Card - Randomly picked this up at the library and got sucked in immediately. The way the story unravels in pieces keeps the tension up even when there’s not much happening in a particular passage; you never know what might be significant later. Full of rich, complicated characters that you get to know little by little.

Haven by Emma Donoghue - Big fan of this author and this book was different from her other ones but I loved it. It’s about three Irish monks in the year 600. Lots of themes and descriptions involving nature and old fashioned survival techniques, both of which interest me a bunch. It’s kind of a character study of these three people with only one thing in common which was interesting. They all have an intense faith in God, but it shapes their lives and thoughts so differently. Got it from the library but ended up buying my own copy!

…

Tagging some folks if you want to share: @thelettersfromnoone @mollywog @unreal-unearthing @thegunlady @loungemermaid and anyone else that wants to post what you’ve been reading lately! Tell meeeee!

[monsterfactoryfanfic]

Thanks for the tag @sohkrates! I fear my Work in Progress list is significantly shorter than yours, mostly because my tabletop work is limited to the occasional game/supplement and videos. The rest of the time I'm writing book(s)!

In Progress

Next video: ??? I spent a lot of energy on Spire and now I'm just searching for an angle. I think it might end up just being about my system-neutral supplement "Finley: A Midwest Fantasy" and how it's something of a goodbye to Indiana for me.

Next game: Not working on any tabletop writing right now!

Book: The pitch for working title Ravenous is "What if countries exploited during America's Cold War coups tried to assassinate Henry Kissinger, and also he was the pope, and also the Church created Kaiju for the US military?" Basically doing a full rewrite because the first draft was not working, but hope to have around 70k of that by November!

Trunked/Maybe Will Return To

Games: I was collaborating with Dani Belonia on a Resistance game last year, and we just never got around to finishing it, but I think a lot of the setting stuff from that was really neat. The hydraheron from Finley actually originated there. Hopefully I can continue to recycle some of those ideas in future work!

Books: I've written about a book and a half that very few people have seen. The first, The Chains Nothing Can Break was my first novel and still is the creative work I'm most proud of. Marathis colonize Britain with steampunk mechas, a satire of both steampunk and adventure stories set in the Raj. Maybe one day we'll find a publisher. The other book, which I never titled, was about paleontologist necromancers who used magic crystals to do archeological digs, selling the bones of dinosaurs to be used in a war against sexy moth aliens. It was GREAT concept with TERRIBLE execution, ended up in some not great narrative territory, so I canned it. Will try to pull some stuff from it in the future, but yeah, sometimes you gotta take the L.

Would Like to Be In Progress

Games: Would still like to work on something with the resistance system, just because I think that's such a fun way to manage damage and consequences in a narrative-first format. But yeah, unfortunately I'm just better at setting/fluff than mechanics! Been writing for 6 years at this point, and only designing games for 2 (not counting D&D homebrewing lol). Anyway, if you're looking for a setting/fluff writer, I love that shit.

Videos: I definitely want to do something with Heart, just because Howitt and Taylor do a great job of building evocative worlds, but it'll be a while yet before I'm ready for another long one. I thought I might tackle Gubat Banwa, but it seems like DragonKid11 has that covered. Plus tactical games are a bit harder for me to get into, but who knows, maybe someday! I also posited the idea of doing a Tabletop 101 series last year, where I took a look at games that were considered foundational to the indie scene as it currently stands and why they were important. I think that might be a cool project, but like, how many more dives into Apocalypse World do we need at this point?

Books/short stories: Just off the top of my head- prophesied chosen one who is Dual Eligible for Medicare and Medicaid comes to slay private health insurance; fantasy retelling of the 2nd Punic War; examination of Lord of the Rings from the Orc/Haradrim pov largely based off of Charles W. Mills The Wretched of Middle Earth

Anyway, I'd love to see what folks like @titanomachyrpg, @goblinmixtape, @cassimothwin /@chasetheghost, and @kidnickgames are working on! No pressure if you don't care for these tagging games!

[alchemistys]

I mean, fanfiction can be fun and shit, but it is not...high art or whatever youre all making it out to be. it’s a form of consumption that takes death of the author to the worst degree, lacks meaningful depth or analysis, and is entirely predicated on breaking down a piece of media into a a handful or easily digestible tropes/ao3 tags. being a fanfic writer is not a job, it is a hobby. being a fanfic writer is not being a struggling artist. fan fiction is derivative and lacks originality. it is a way of engaging in fandom. it is not a replacement for published works, for original fiction, or for real literature. for people saying the premise of recycling or taking inspiration from preexisting works has always been around in literature, yes, it has. however, classics of the written word are not fanfiction. the slop churned out by teens and twenty-somethings, or, god forbid, full-grown adults with children, on ff.net or ao3 is not comparable to the divine comedy, or shakespeare! like. the nerve of some people to even suggest that...

[ghostly-hitch-hiker]

Speedrunning Puberty and All Its Cons. Chapter 2: Exit, Pursued by a Bear, (pt 2)

< start << previous / next >> (coming soon) | AO3 Update

PART 2 OF CHAPTER 2 IS HERE AND THE WHOLE CHAPTER IS UP ON AO3! Forgive me the cliffhanger. Also, merry crisis. Also if you requested to be tagged, I apologize. I cannot find the messages. I hope this finds you anyway.

Danny’s first night in Gotham started sometime around 3 am and ran together until dawn. He clambered down to street level, relying heavily on his right arm over his lacerated left one, and immediately disappeared into the shadows. Yeah, invisibility against whatever Bat had almost found him was a better move right now, but Danny wasn’t exactly thinking straight. He willed up enough energy and ice to just about freeze his shoulder, thus slowing the bleeding to almost nothing. Danny went to pull the sweatshirt he’d packed out of his backpack in order to cover up the blood, and his hand met nothing but air. Shit. He whipped his head up to look at the roof that now hosted a solid several ounces of his blood, his all important backpack, and an unknown Bat. Swearing under his breath, Danny managed to turn intangible and invisible, and floated up toward the roof once more.

As his eyes crested the edge of the brick, Danny caught sight of his first ever in-person Bat. A mostly black-clad figure stood about ten feet away, escrima sticks clenched in gloved fists. Danny inhaled, and Nightwing’s head whipped in his direction. The man adopted a defensive position, scanning the area for what he didn’t know he wouldn’t find. Danny turned his attention to searching for his backpack, and almost groaned aloud when he spotted the lavender canvas only three feet from Nightwing’s foot in the shadow of the water tower. Ignoring Nightwing, Danny floated through the building toward his backpack.

“Oracle, I’m on a rooftop on the edge of the Narrows looking at signs of a struggle…”

“Violence isn’t exactly uncommon near the Narrows. What makes this unusual enough to call in?”

“Well, I’ve got a seriously deformed and bloody water tower for one thing.”

“Suspected cause?”

“Whatever hit this thing did so after a pretty decent fall by the looks of it.”

Danny froze, his hand just inches from his backpack straps. Nightwing was looking right at him, and Danny had a brief moment of panic that maybe his invisibility had stopped working.

“There’s a purple backpack up here. Not exactly any of the usual suspects’ MO…”

Nightwing shifted his weight and pinched the bridge of his nose in clear frustration. “No, Hood is not involved… nor does he know I’m here.”

Danny ignored the staticky voice on the other end of Nightwing’s comm in favor of grabbing his backpack and dragging it through the roof and out of sight of the vigilante. From below the roof, Danny could hear the muffled sounds of Nightwing cursing. Evidently he’d noticed the backpack was gone. Danny once again phased into proper existence two streets away, and collapsed against the graffitied wall of an alley.

The alley was about ten feet across and crammed full of trash and recycling cans. Danny crouched down behind a random bin and unzipped his backpack as quietly as possible. Reaching a hand into its zipper maw, Danny dug through his backpack until he found his sweatshirt. He carefully extracted the fabric from his mess of other supplies and tugged it on. The soft shing of a grappling hook unfurling overhead drove Danny to his feet and, remembering his backpack this time, out into the streets of Gotham.

If cities were films, Amity Park was a brightly colored 90s cartoon and Gotham was 50s noir Danny mused. The comparisons weren’t one to one, but Danny did find the change in scenery a welcome respite from the neon palette of his hometown and the Ghost Zone. Danny found himself meandering at first, getting distracted by the recurring gargoyles and wishing his phone had both the battery and the memory to send pictures to Sam. She had waxed poetic about the architecture before, and he was beginning to see what she found so compelling about Gotham. It was aesthetically very pleasing. As several police cars sped past, sirens all blaring, Danny frowned and amended his mental assessment of the city. It was beautiful in its decrepitude. It was also too loud and too smoky.

Danny turned away from the sirens and started winding his way along progressively dirtier and more broken streets, ducking into alleys and turning invisible as needed to escape Nightwing’s notice. Fifteen minutes of wandering later, Danny was leaning against a heavily graffitied wall and listening for the tell tale sound of a grappling hook. Fifteen more minutes later, Danny felt confident enough in having left Nightwing behind to turn his focus to other things. He took a better look at his surroundings. The street was more pothole and patchwork than it was asphalt, and the curb was almost black with gum and ink and who knows what else. The buildings that lined the street he was looking out on were either all boarded up or broken glass. There was the occasional neon sign, half out, advertising… something. One simply said “girls”. A neon green sign above a boarded up door advertised “meat”. Danny didn’t want to know if the meat was referring to a deli or something else entirely. Turning his gaze upward, Danny took in several stories of shaded or boarded windows, none of which seemed to have any lights on inside. He turned back to the wall he was leaning against, saw it was perhaps a story or two taller than many of the surrounding buildings, and began looking for a fire escape to climb. If Danny had lived in Gotham longer, he would have found an empty street at 4:30 in the morning strange, especially for the Narrows. Danny, having never visited a city like Gotham, did not notice anything off about this, and proceeded to climb the fire escape he had found as quietly as he could. After using so much intangibility and invisibility to escape Nightwing, climbing the fire escape with his injuries was his best (and only) option for getting above street level, and Danny had enough street smarts and anxiety to know that he did not want to spend the rest of the night on the streets of Gotham—especially if he wanted to catch some sleep.

Danny pulled himself onto the roof with a grunt and rolled onto his back. Then, he just laid there on the edge of the roof, breathing harder than he had any right to or even needed to. The sound of gun fire (holy shit, actual guns!) from only a few streets over roused him from the early stages of sleep, and Danny leapt to his feet. He wobbled on the edge of the roof for a moment, waiting for his vision to clear before crossing to the other side of the building to see if he could spot whatever was going on.

Just a street or two from his current location, Danny could see sparks flying, but very little else. He could hear plenty though. Lots of shouting, sprays of gunfire, and, if he focused hard enough, he could hear the clink of each individual casing as it hit the pavement. Focusing on a single noise over the whole cacophony helped him avoid being overwhelmed. Danny crouched on the edge of the roof to listen as the machine gun fire faded and the shouting grew more panicked. Voices cut off abruptly, each preceded by a gunshot or a wet crack, until there was nothing coming from that direction anymore. Danny assumed everyone was dead, and he didn’t notice the soft thump behind him as someone new joined him on the roof.

“Oy, Dick Head. The fuck are you doing here?” a robotic modulated voice called from behind Danny, and he startled so badly he almost fell out of his crouch. The robotic voice whistled. “Haven’t gotten the jump on you in ages. Seriously, Dick, what the fuck?”

Danny finally managed to find his footing and stand. Then he turned to face the stranger.

[what-yadoking-likes]

[Not a Payday post]

I need to rant about this because AHM FUCKIN FUMIN-

My Nana's local council has the people put their cardboard into a blue bin, and their papers into a green box for recycling.

I have never, in all my years, seen ANYWHERE insist that cardboard and paper be put into separate recycling containers. AND I HAVE LIVED IN 4 DIFFERENT COUNTIES IN ENGLAND AND IN HONG KONG FOR 6 YEARS.

It is a dumb little thing™️ but I got so fucking mad. I had shoved all our wrapping paper, tags and cardboard into one bin bag to dispose of when we were all less drunk full, and then today there's me today furkling through this bag searching for the tags and cardboard that I had learned cannot go into the same box/bin as the paper.

I am genuinely so fucking mad honestly. What a shit show, what a shithole.

[yellowjckets]

15 QUESTIONS, 15 MUTUALS.

i was tagged by @helenekuragina 

i haven’t done one of these in FOREVER 

are you named after anyone?  no & i’m actually one of the few people in my family that ISN’T which is so funny. whole bunch of recycled names but not me (and then i still refuse to use my full name to be even more annoying)

when was the last time you cried?  probably a day or two ago ... i cry a fair bit. my eyes teared up yesterday at something really stupid but cute. my gf says smth nice to me and i well up so 

do you have kids?  jesus fucking christ absolutely not & i never will !!

do you use sarcasm a lot? a fair bit ?

what sports do you play/have you played? football (normal english), netball, i was a competitive swimmer, rounders for a bit i think, and i was very briefly on a university cheerleading thing for about 2 weeks when i was 18 

what's the first thing you notice about people?  can i say vibes

what's your eye color? blue but like pale

scary movies or happy endings?  scary shit! i have been converted. i just like chaos these days. 

any special talents? predicting the future fr. kidding but also am i? speedreading if we are being real. idk if i have anything else but i can also go a scary long time without blinking 

where were you born?  london i am the titular london boy don’t believe the rumours

what are your hobbies?  reading, watching videos on 1.5-2x speed, cooking, writing when i am not stuck in mf writers block 24/7 ..... also i do enjoy a nice long walk. i’m like a little energetic dog . i get the zoomies at night and i take myself for a walk until i’m tired enough to go to sleep 

do you have pets? she lives at my mum’s but i still have katniss if anyone remembers her <3 my baby little cat who is nearly TEN

how tall are you?  i am like 5′2 ish

favorite subject? i am an adult but uni wise it’s the novel module i just did  

dream job?  ummm hard to say. something that i enjoy that i can be comfy with . like ... can i say working in a little indie bookstore. that’s my only goal in life but it is soooo hard. only way to do it is if i start one myself which i cannot do bc funds and bc i dont morally agree w owning a business unforch .

um i am tagging @colemckenzies @chansaw @woodenpicador @goodsriddance @sofiarostova @petzel but no pressure also anyone is welcome to do it yay