#tw: smoking

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[hannahssimblr]

Once, years ago now, Aunt Maureen took me to visit her eldest daughter, Karina. In the midday heat, beneath the shade of a fig tree we sat in a Venice restaurant, where bougainvillaea draped over the front of flat roofed houses and fragrant blooms edged the terrace. 

I loved Los Angeles. The food was always better, the people happier, the streets more colourful and picturesque than in Albuquerque, where everything was brown and beige, blending with the dust land. Karina laughed when I said this, sitting back in her chair in her oval sunglasses, a cigarette balanced between long slender fingers. 

“You should see where I live downtown, then I’ll ask you again how much you love it here.”

I didn’t know what she meant. I was thinking about those cool guys I’d seen on a basketball court earlier with their hats on backwards, the loud, bass heavy music they played from a speaker, and the skaters who dropped lazily into concrete basins on their boards. I wanted to be one of them, though I knew Maureen would never buy me something dangerous like a skateboard. I played things a bit fast and loose at the best of times and once almost rollerbladed clean off a pier, so she’d developed a fear that I might one day die of pure stupidity. Maybe when I was older and she wasn’t watching me from the kitchen window anymore I would move to LA, get myself a board and skate around on it without wearing a shirt, and get muscles and a deep tan like everyone else here. 

These were the kinds of thoughts I lost myself in as Maureen and Karina had conversations that either weren’t interesting or which I was unable to understand, but I was content sipping on my Fanta with ice, lurid orange, and so fizzy that it stung the back of my throat and thinking about being a grown up in LA while Maureen had her white wine and Karina her cigarettes. Soon they would order a plate of oysters that looked too much like boogers for me to sample and speak more about things happening, things that had already happened, and plans they’d made for the summer. 

“What’s your favourite time of year?” Karina said to me suddenly, snapping me out of my thoughts. I knew this is the sort of question you ask a seven year old when you don’t know how to speak to children, but I thought hard about it anyway to make sure I gave her the best answer I could. She was my cool, mature cousin, and I always wanted so badly to impress her. November and December, I told her, because I got presents on my birthday, then time off school on Thanksgiving and both these things on Christmas. I was still reeling from the PlayStation console that Maureen and her husband Mario had bought me last Christmas, slotted perfectly within its square, silver box, which I still had, stored carefully beneath my bed just in case I ever needed to pack it away and move it. 

“What about you, mom?” She said, and Maureen didn’t have to think. 

“The spring,” she said, “I just love to be out in my garden then, with all the flowers and that lovely sun, it’s not too hot. It feels like everything is just on the brink of bursting to life.”

I thought about that later as we passed the canal, all the beautiful spring flowers that erupted from the banks, and of home too, where by now, in the hazy days of mid May, the desert was blanketed with spring grasses, with violets and golden poppies and bluebonnets, burning a trail of vibrant indigo all the way to the mountains. 

Beginning // Prev // Next

Ty to @scrapplesims for suffering living in LA once upon a time and for answering my weirdly specific questions about what it was like

[starbanmk]

baristas/bartenders

—

The bar reeked of cigarette smoke. Maybe that's what drew Ash to it.

He was at it again, although he was sure any other celestial being who may have been watching him would think his efforts were silly. He was a god, he'd always tell himself, but here, sitting alone in this greasy bar watching the bartender carefully, Ash never felt more human. Ash was a god. Saying it felt more like a reminder these days.

Most iterations of Reddoons Ash found across the multiverse weren't too different from Ash's own. Brazen, charming, fiercely loyal. But this Reddoons just looked… tired. As he chatted lazily with the patrons, making their drinks, Ash felt a pit grow in his stomach. Something wasn't right.

He had a goal, though, so Ash pushed down whatever he was feeling and moved from his booth to the bar.

"For you?" Reddoons asked as soon as Ash found a barstool. Ash took in a quick breath.

"Anything." He replied, wondering what, if anything, Red would give him.

It was a toothy grin, first, and something akin to a laugh. "That's bold." Reddoons said as he reached under the counter, casting a sidelong glance to the other patrons. "You smell like smoke. How do you feel about a cigarette?"

"Never smoked before." Ash replied, semi-truthfully. He wasn't sure if he'd know what to do with the cigarette. He wasn't used to it. Anyway, he took it. He took it anyway. He took the plastic lighter Red slid him too, the body of the thing adorned with an intricate rose design.

"Really? Never?" Reddoons raised an eyebrow, sounding disbelieving as he busied himself with making another drink. For who, Ash wasn't sure. "What, then, do you just use some hella musky cologne? You reek. I took you for a stoner."

Ash actually laughed at that, but still shook his head. "Nah."

Reddoons hummed. "Someone you love— someone you're around a bunch? They smoke?"

Ash watched silently as the bartender took a drag. The timing would have almost been poetic, if Ash had cared for poetry. He hit the sparkwheel on the lighter. "Something like that."

—

Reddoons told Ash to meet him behind the bar after his shift. They went on a walk around the city, the moon high in the sky. Ash asked why he felt safe walking around at night, downtown, and Reddoons replied simply that he didn't believe in fate, that nothing would happen to him if he didn't let it. Ash nodded slowly, nostalgia creeping up the back of his neck like the mid-autumn chills.

As they smoked, and talked, and passed that little plastic lighter back and forth, Ash settled happily into how easy it was.

"You like roses?" Ash asked at some point, studying the lighter. Reddoons plucked it from Ash's grip.

"Nah. Too thorny." Red quickly pocketed the lighter, looking away. "This was just a gift from... a friend."

Ash raised an eyebrow.

"We don't really talk anymore, so."

"...Wanna talk about it?" Ash prompted.

"No."

Silence fell. It wasn't so comfortable here.

"You could." Ash said, slowly.

"Don't push me—" Red snapped, before trailing off. He peered at Ash, and Ash quickly realized how high Red was.

Ash sighed, then offered Reddoons a hand to shake. They were on equal grounds here, he supposed.

"My name is Ash."

Red took his hand. He looked angry.

"Reddoons."

"I know."

That just seemed to make him angrier.

—

[end of part four]

[metamatronic]

I may or may not have just lurked through a good portion of your Michael Afton tag and I’m curious-

Did the VR gang ever find out the truth about Iggy? If so- How’d that go?

No, they still don’t know. In fact, the web of lies has expanded.

[ilovemesomevincentprice]

Vincent Price interview on the set of "The Masque of the Red Death" 1964

[littlecarmine]

THOMAS GIBSON smoking and shopping in LOVE AND HUMAN REMAINS (1993)

requested by anon 🩷

[justuraverageweirdo]

S-T-O-N-E-D EVERYDAYYYY

[sofiaruelle]

Another commission for the lovely, @flowerandthesongstress of Sam, Sebastian and Abigail enjoying the afternoon sun.

The companion piece.

my commissions are Open!

[dailyworldcinema]

Pastoral: To Die in The Country (1974) Dir. Shūji Terayama

[folyxfanart]

Time to rest and heal, after a rough fight against ganados

[thevelvetgoldmine]

pride month celebration

BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN (2005) dir. Ang Lee

[zimthandmade]

Ah yes, oxytocin.

[dcartcorner]

another gerard

[kneelingshadowsalome]

König doesn't drink wine. He likes beer very much, enjoys the shit out of a nice pils, bock or lager. He rarely drinks any spirits/pure booze and if you give him something too sweet, like a vodka mixer or a long drink he might throw up later. It just doesn't work for him. (Somehow Radler is ok)

Doesn't like tobacco or cigars, the smell of smoke makes him nauseous. Thinks himself weak for not having a system built for cigs and heavy drinking, his pals always drink him under the table even if he drinks only beer.

Also his tummy is sometimes upset :(

[littlecarmine]

CARMEN "CARMY" BERZATTO in every episode of THE BEAR (2022 — PRESENT)

1.05 “SHERIDAN”

[bubblegumflavor]

It's far from perfect but I wanted to submit sth for the @allvalleyskillschallenge before it's too late, because I loved the moodboards so much so I went with Back to School! (ship: LawRusso. TW: Smoking)

-

Johnny Lawrence and Daniel LaRusso had been rivals ever since they became students at West Valley High, but something had changed about them when they returned to high school for their final year. Their individual friend groups wondered where they had been all summer and where all the hickeys were coming from. The boys who are well known as the ultimate rivals across the valley are quiet about their sudden change of behavior. They let the walls speak for them, but if you asked them about it, they would say they had no idea who messed with the writings.

There was no chance to get to know their secret, only one thing was for sure. If you couldn't find Daniel LaRusso, you wouldn't find Johnny Lawrence either.

-

(It was supposed to be only an art piece but I felt like writing a few words for it X3)