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talesofstyles · 3 years

Text

Drs Styles

paediatric heart surgeon harry, husband harry and dad harry. honestly the holy trinity.

warning: they did it in the car. bloody animals.

Harry

“Move your car, please!”

“What are you going to do? Write me a ticket?”

“This is in the interests of safety for the children!”

I look at the time in the car. I’ve still got about twenty to twenty-five minutes to watch this drama unfold at the school gate. I just wish we had popcorn because drop-off and parking situations at the school gates are always more entertaining than Good Morning Britain.

The school gate is a strange social scene, and honestly, I don’t blame my wife for trying to avoid it like a plague. Sometimes, you don’t even have to talk to these people to know everything about their lives and more. I swear there are more gossips in the class WhatsApp group and daily playground chattering than in the copies of The Sun and Daily Mail combined. You know who’s married, who’s getting a divorce, whose husband shagged the au pair again, whose party you haven’t been invited to, even who’s looking for a builder.

I see the school caretaker chuckling to himself as he sweeps the autumn leaves off the pathway, no doubt also enjoying our morning entertainment.

“Why is Mrs Chambers screaming like that?” Alma, our eldest daughter, asks from the back of the car.

“Because that man parks his car in a drop-off zone,” I reply, still watching him as he removes a child from his car seat. “Do you know who that is?”

“I think the boy is your classmate,” Alma turns to her sister.

Fiona, our youngest, peers over to inspect. “Oh yeah, that’s Rufus and his dad.”

“Do we like Rufus?”

“Not unless we like boys who pee down the slides,” Fiona scrunches her nose up. “He stood at the top and peed down like a waterfall. I haven’t gone down the slide ever since.”

I shake my head and let out a chuckle. “M’sure they’ve cleaned it up since, button.”

Did you know that choosing a school for your child after nursery can be a head-throbbing, stomach-twisting, heart-pounding experience? Well, it can. How is one supposed to choose a school anyway? According to the proximity? Leavers Results? Adorable uniforms? Parents’ agendas?

After many, many discussions and visits through more schools than I can count, we ended up with Thomas’s Kensington. It’s a great school, and only ten minutes away from our home, making school runs easier. The downside of this school is the fact that it costs us an arm and a leg and that they’re always trying to rip us off any chance they get. Also, they only take the kids until 11, so after that, we’ll have to look for other schools again. But since our girls are only seven and five, we can worry about that later.

There’s a strange mix of parents at this place. I went to school up in the North and the school gate scene is nothing like this. Here there are more au pairs, fancy cars, nicer clothes and people coming with impressive tans from their last weekend break in Antibes. The kids here are suited up too: the PE kit is the size of a small weekender bag, and we put them in uniforms that make them look smart, hoping that will increase the size of their brains. A child walks past our car with a cello case, another with a hockey stick. It’s a different land here. One that my socialist in-laws constantly tease us about and one which my mum was hysterical about because she was scared her grandbabies would be little Tories. I promised her I’d keep them grounded by only giving them plain hobnobs. None of those luxury chocolate covered ones.

Jokes aside, my girls are happy here. They’re thriving. They learn French and Spanish and Mandarin, even if they share a class with kids who have ridiculous names like Kitty and Archibald.

A knock at my window calls me to attention. I wind it down.

“Are you Fiona’s dad?” A mum asks me.

“I am.”

“It’s about Ophelia’s riding party this Saturday at the riding stables.”

Like I said, it’s a different land here.

“I thought we RSVPed to that?” I look at her in confusion.

“Yes, you did, but we have to change the food options as one of the partygoers is allergic to nuts. I’m making everyone aware and we need to let the guests know that they can’t bring any nuts on the day.”

A dirty joke is right there on the tip of my tongue and I’m trying my hardest to keep it in. My wife would definitely find it funny though, I’ve got to remember this and tell her later.

“Noted,” I mean, I wasn’t going to send my daughter to a party with a packet of cashews anyway but I nod politely.

“And just gift vouchers for gifts please. Smiggle, if you can.”

Again, I nod, biting my tongue at the presumptuousness. But then I suddenly panic, because we haven’t entered the realms of pony riding just yet. Do I have to buy jods and boots? If I don’t, will my daughter be the odd one out? But Ophelia’s mum saunters off before I’ve got the chance to ask.

“Do I have to go to that party, daddy?” Fiona asks.

“Well, we’ve already replied, poppet,” I tell her. “Did you not want to go?”

“I’ll go if I have to.”

I don’t answer because I get distracted by a vacant space. I edge the car forward so my girls can hop off.

“I love you both. Have a good day, make good choices.”

“Bye daddy! We’ll see you after work!”

***

Evelina London Children’s Hospital is our second home. Of course, as a children’s hospital, we try to make the place as fun as possible as not to freak those little patients out at being ill. It is bright and primary coloured, and each ward is decorated according to its own theme with different colours and lovely artworks. There are televisions and toys almost in every corner. We have a giant slide on the ground floor, and even the bins are shaped like red London buses. The aim was to help the children to forget that they’re in a hospital and take their minds off their sickness.

Since my wife and I are in the same department, our offices are next to each other, both overlooking the Thames. It’s nice up here. Would’ve been nicer if we could sneak in a quickie, but that’s practically impossible with our shared secretary’s desk sitting literally in front of our doors.

Speak of the devil.

“Good morning. Here’s your tea,” my secretary follows me into my office with a cup of tea and a tiny plate with a couple of rich tea fingers. “Clinic until 3 pm, scheduled PDA ligation in the laboratory for 4 pm and then evening rounds on the wards.”

“Mornin’ Rhonda, you look lovely today,” I greet her cheerily. She’s a stern-looking woman who definitely likes her tea as strong as tits and who has probably never cried in her life. With such severity, she runs a tight ship, but she secretly has this affectionate side in her too. Not only is she a great secretary, but she also takes care of us in a way as a grandma does. She makes us tea, feeds us in between surgeries with biscuits or nice baby cheeses and crackers just so we wouldn’t starve.

See that sofa over there in the corner of my office? Rhonda got me that. It was around the time when I had just become a new father with the sweetest, most gorgeous little baby who did not sleep. Alma wasn’t a fussy baby though. For some reason, she just wouldn’t go back to sleep after her midnight feed for months. Believe me, I tried everything. I changed her nappy, I swayed and jiggled and rocked and sung her to sleep. Odd nonsensical songs like, ‘Alma darling go to sleeep. Sleepy sleep sleep. Pleeeeease. I’m so tirrrred. My eyeballs may actually exploooode. I don’t want you to see thaaat.’ And she would just look at me all wide-eyed like I’d lost the plot. Those were song lyrics? That was rubbish. Please don’t give up your day job. Also, it’s not sleeping time. I’m awake. I’m ready for life. Come on, entertain me, old man. Isn’t this nice, just you and me? Tell me everything you know. EVERYTHING.

Except of course she didn’t say all that. She would just stare at me and I had no idea what was going on in her little head.

I took over my wife’s patients at the hospital during her maternity leave, so I had longer hours at the hospital. One day Rhonda found me napping on the floor between surgeries, so she sweet-talked some porters into looking for any old sofas on the go and paid to have this one reupholstered. She even bought me a fleece throw for it too. We really don’t deserve her.

“You hittin’ on me?” She deadpans. “Yer wife not doing it for you these days?”

“It’s the blazer. I’m a sucker for a blazer.”

“If I’d known, I would’ve worn it more often,” she replies. “Did my nice dress yesterday not give you the fanny flutters?”

“It’s schlong shiver for me,” I roar with laughter. “And it’s the tartan, makes you look well old.”

“YN, yer husband’s a bloody git, did I ever tell you that?” Rhonda says loud enough for my wife to hear, and I can hear my wife’s laughter from her office next door. “Drink your tea. Your first clinic appointment is in twenty.”

“Yes ma’am,” I salute her.

***

The Arctic ward in the Evelina is home to many of our imaging, heart and kidney services. The name is probably giving it away, but everything is decorated in blue and white to go with the theme. We have several zones, and since paediatric cardiology clinics are held in the Walrus zone, I spend a great deal of time each day looking at walrus and snowflake decals.

“Doctor Styles!” I hear a little voice shouts in excitement as I walk towards the waiting room in the outpatient ward. I smile, because I recognise that voice even before I see the little person.

The waiting room is very open here compared to other hospitals. There’s a sea of noise, snacks, tiny juice boxes and colouring pages. There’s also always a look of expectation, judgement on the faces of parents and guardians every time I walk in. They want to see if their doctor is old or qualified enough to see their children. There’s always one child who has the whole gang with them; parents, two sets of grandparents and even several aunts and uncles, and there’s also at least one child running around in circles out of boredom.

This little lad bounces off his chair and hurls himself at me in a way like a little puppy would when its owner comes home from work. I put an arm out, hoping that he’ll apply the brakes but no such luck and he bundles himself into my arms. “Nice to see you, mate.”

His parents smile as they watch their son’s antics, who then runs off as I shake their hands. I turn around to see what caught his attention, and I can’t help but chuckle when I realise it’s my wife.

“Doctor pretty Styles!” He exclaims excitedly as he bundles himself into her arms. She gets a mouthful of curls in the process.

“Hi Rory,” she greets him as she runs her fingers through his curly mop.

“Oi,” I pout as I walk towards them. “You don’t think I’m pretty?”

“Your wife is prettier,” he says with a shrug, his tone matter-of-fact.

She laughs and gives him a high-five. “Rory, you are officially my favourite patient.”

She is right. Rory is one of our special patients for sure. We’ve both known him for about six years now, ever since Rory’s mum gave birth to this tiny human next door at St Thomas and his heart was literally broken. I remember watching proudly from the theatre when my wife replaced two of his valves when he was born. It was in our early years of training. Long time patients like Rory almost always feel like family. We’ve seen all their parents’ tears and watched over their children throughout the years. They send us cards and wine every Christmas and despite all attempts to keep a professional distance, their kids do feel like our own.

Rory shrugs off his dinosaur rucksack and unzips it, pulling out a drawing of a blue whale and an opened packet of KitKat. I like that the whale wears a top hat and appears to also don a moustache.

“I drew you both a picture. Only one though, because I figure you can share,” he says with a big toothy grin and hands the packet of KitKat to my wife. “And I’ve got half a KitKat here. Do you want it?”

“I’m good for now. Keep that KitKat for later on the tube,” she smiles and waves at Rory as she begins to walk away towards the fetal cardiology ward just down the hall. “Bye Rory, thanks for the picture.”

“Bye doctor pretty Styles,” Rory replies, making my wife laugh as she walks away. I give her a wave and a wink.

“Hey Rory, did you know a blue whale has a heart the size of a small car?” I ask him and his eyes widen.

“No way! That’s mega!” He exclaims. “Do you think you could operate on a whale heart?”

“I would need a very big ladder,” I tell him. “And a wetsuit. I’d give it a go though.”

A senior nurse from the outpatient ward, Florence approaches us with a junior nurse trailing behind her. “Dr Styles, always a pleasure.”

I smile at her. “Florence. How are we today?”

“Busy as usual,” she replies. “We’re about twenty minutes behind I’m afraid. We had Dr Goodridge in this morning and you know he likes to talk.”

“He always runs over,” I chuckle. “Well, don’t worry. I’ll skip lunch and get us back up to speed.”

“I’ll make sure to send some snacks for you. Here’s your chart, your files are already in your office. And this is Alice, your nurse today. She’s newly qualified so might need some instructions.”

The new nurse looks terrified so I smile at her to try and calm her fears. I totally get that. When you work in medicine, unfortunately, you’ll realise that there are a lot of rude self-important wankers.

I look down at my chart and find Rory’s name on the top of the list. “Well, look who’s coming with me to the exam room.”

Rory reaches out to hold my hand and we walk towards the examination room. His parents follow us closely, carrying the usual coats and devices that people do when they know they’re bound for a hospital waiting room. I see them inside and sit behind the desk.

“So, young man, I hear we’ve had a touch of drama with you. Can you tell me what happened?”

I’ve actually already got the information in the file, but I like the way this kid tells a story. He reminds me of my youngest.

“So… I was at school and we were doing PE and I wasn’t really feeling it because it was cold and really we should have been inside but Mr Witter makes us go outside because he used to be in the Army apparently and he says we should get used to the cold but that’s what they do in prisons.”

I smile. “Go on.”

“And then my heart started running.”

“You mean racing?”

He nods firmly. Racing isn’t even the word. It sprinted to the finish like Bolt at 252 beats per minute, three times the speed it should.

“It felt like bubbles in my chest and then the school went crazy panicky and they called the ambulance and they brought me to the hospital but not this one, it was another one and it wasn’t as good because you weren’t there and they had really bad biscuit.”

His mum adds. “And they gave him some drugs to bring it back to a steady rhythm; they were close to shocking him.” Her voice trails off and both parents’ faces look drawn and pale remembering the incident.

Rory looks absolutely unbothered by this. To be fair, we have put this little man through everything. We’ve cut his chest open more times than is necessary for someone so small, we hook him up to machines and put him on treadmills. His resilience and character amaze me, and I really can’t imagine what it feels like to see your child so vulnerable and helpless, to be paralysed and weighed down with such worry.

“Alright then, little man, we need to make sure that your heart is working as it should. This is Alice, and she is going to take you over for an ECG and we just need to make sure your tick-tock is in good shape.”

Rory nods and jumps off the chair. His dad offers him a piggyback, and his mum smiles at them. I can hear Rory offering that half KitKat to Alice as they leave the room.

His mother turns to me as the door is closed, her shoulders relaxing, allowing herself to breathe. “And how are you?” I ask her.

“You just think it’s done and then something like that comes along to scare you,” she says with a sigh.

“Let’s have these tests and then see if it’s anything major to worry about,” I try to calm her. “Episodes of rapid heartbeat is quite common in Rory’s case, and we can look into drugs to remedy that if necessary.”

She smiles, nodding.

“Did you have any other questions for me?”

She studies my face for a moment too long. “I… well, it will show up in Rory’s records soon, but my husband I are… I mean we’re getting a divorce.”

I pause for a moment. Of course, I know these things happen in life, but I’ve known this couple for years. I’ve seen them at their lowest ebb, bound by friendship and their love for that boy. I really do feel sorry for them.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” I mumble.

“We just… we’re terrified about telling Rory.”

“He doesn’t know?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “We’re scared of breaking him. I mean, look at him. All of this stuff he’s been through and he carries on like nothing has happened. We don’t want to upset him.”

“It took a team of us the best part of six years to build Rory’s heart. There's a warranty on that workmanship,” I reassure her. “Have that chat with him. He’ll be fine.”

***

“Have we got time for dinner first?” I turn to my wife as we walk out of the hospital. We don’t normally have the luxury of ending our shift at the same time, but today is exceptional. We have parents’ evening at the girls’ school so Rhonda made sure to clear up our schedule after our evening rounds at the ward.

“No, but we can raid M&S and eat in the car?”

I’m starving and I almost cry with relief at the suggestion. “Always knew I married the right woman.”

She chuckles. “Damn right you did.”

We leave the car at the hospital and she drags me along the walkways to Waterloo, the breeze biting at our cheeks. I pull her into M&S, dodging the marching commuters and grab a basket.

“I’ll look for some wine,” she says before she saunters off. “Oh and I want sushi. None of that crap with the mayonnaise please.”

“Alright.”

I skipped lunch today so the whole place calls to me. I start taking very random things off the shelves: a packet of raspberry iced buns. That’ll do. I also take some hummus for my wife because she bloody loves hummus. I’m not even joking, I’ve seen her down a whole pot of it. Then I take some sushi as requested, some coleslaw, a family bag of mature cheddar and red onion crisps and a trifle. I hope I don’t bump into Rhonda. Next are cheese twists, noodle salad and cocktail sausages.

It takes me a while to notice that there is a man right next to me with a roll of yellow stickers in their back pocket. Hello there, you are one of my favourite people tonight. Have I managed to find that sacred hour when all the food is being marked down? He labels some prawns with dip and even though I get a little squeamish about eating fish near its expiry date, I put it in my basket. I then follow him around the corner. Now, this is dinner. I put all sorts of random food in my basket and smile at the thought.

Ooh, knockdown pizzas. I should get a pizza. That’s tomorrow’s tea sorted, the girls will love it. Although I can’t help but wonder, what’s the limit for us to feed our daughters frozen pizza in a week before they get taken away from us? But eh, we might be able to get away with it if we give them frozen peas on the side.

“Look at you,” says my wife, depositing two bottles of red in the basket.

“Yes, it’s me. I’m the yellow sticker bitch.”

She snickers as we turn to head for the tills. “Excellent work.”

***

“Mr and Mrs Styles, welcome.”

“Mrs Ebner, always a pleasure,” I shake the headmistress’ hand who’s standing at the door.

“Busy evening?” My wife asks her as she shakes her hand next.

“Always,” the headmistress replies with a smile, then proceeds to speak like she’s reading out of brochures. “But such a wonderful opportunity to connect with our parents and build on the special relationships we have with our school community.”

Two uniformed minions appear.

“Lewis, Maggie, could you please show Mr and Mrs Styles through to the drinks reception?”

They both nod in unison. The boy holds his arms out like a waiter showing us to our table. We follow them through the school’s grand corridors to the main hall. It’s the one thing I like about this place. It’s very Hogwarts-like with hefty engraved name boards and sepia photos of successful sports teams. In the hall, a throng of parents mill around waiting to see respective teachers. It’s the same every year. We all dodge the people from the PTA trying to sell us quiz tickets, and the bowls of crisps out of hygiene concerns.

“Red or white?” Asks a lady in an apron.

This right here is the very reason we get through parents’ evening. From the look of the bottle, it’s decent wine too. I think that’s where a good proportion of our fees is going.

“Red, please.”

We both take our glasses and walk to the corner of the hall. It’s essentially a holding area without the background music. The idea is that all the parents will get on and create a party vibe but it just becomes a strange family gathering. As terrible as it sounds, it’s sorted into cliques: parents who know each other via NCT groups, the international expat brigades who keep to themselves, the parents who’ve ostracised themselves by gossip, the ones who you know regularly brunch and ski together.

The boy from earlier suddenly appears in front of us. “Mrs Hughes is ready for you.”

I put my hand on the small of my wife’s back as we walk towards the classroom. Fiona’s teacher first and then Alma’s straight after. Right, we can do this.

“Mrs Hughes, we meet again,” I shake her hand. I’ve got no qualms about Mrs Hughes. She’s a seasoned teacher who likes a slack and sensible moccasin and we’re familiar with her since she taught Alma two years previously. When we enter the classroom, Lewis bows in reverence, taking his leave and I wonder whether to tip him.

“It’s always lovely to have another Styles girl in my classroom. Fiona is a particular delight.”

My wife and I smile proudly. I’m sure Mrs Hughes says this to every parent here about their child, but that’s always nice to hear.

“She talks a lot about you,” my wife says. “She seems to have settled in well.”

Mrs Hughes opens up a couple of books and it’s classic Fiona. Alma is ordered and neat—if she makes a mistake then she erases it completely and she underlines things with a ruler and listens to instruction carefully. She gets that from her mum. Fiona though, on the other hand, she’s all me. She has more wild abandon about her; no rulers, no rubbers. She puts giant crosses through things that don’t work and likes her bubble writing decorated with doodles of many, many cats.

I glance around the classroom as Mrs Hughes talks to us about standardised scores. The theme of the school is to show you how smart and educated these children are. Look at the copperplate handwriting, their reproductions of Van Gogh and our languages corner where they’ve all had a go at telling us what they like in French. I spy a contribution from my girl. J’adore les chats et le gâteau au chocolat.

I’ve lost track of the conversation so I try to catch up.

“So to push Fiona into those top scores, perhaps we can look into tutoring? For maths, in particular, so she can grasp some of the concepts a little more tightly,” says Mrs Hughes.

My wife and I look at each other confused. “Uh, I don’t think there’s a need, right? She’s only five.”

“It’s never too early,” replies Mrs Hughes. “We run an after-school tutoring club on Tuesdays that would help.”

Back when I was a youngster, clubs were fun endeavours that involved matching baseballs caps or were a chocolate biscuit that you had in your lunchbox. Maths tutoring session was not a club.

I ask her. “Is it free?”

“It’s fifteen pounds per session.”

See? My point being this should be a parents’ evening, not a sales session.

“Well, then it’s something to think about,” says my wife. “It could be that Fiona catches up with people throughout the year.”

“Possibly,” Mrs Hughes nods. Still, though, she proceeds to go into her folder and passes me a form. Sneaky. “Fiona has also shown great interest in languages and art. Her pictures have been a joy.”

Mrs Hughes goes to a file and pulls one of Fiona’s drawings. I glance down at it. It’s a standard child piece of art. The grass and sky are strips of colour to the top and bottom. It’s a family portrait, and we are as tall as the broccoli style trees. Wait, hang on a second. I count the number of people in the picture again. Is that-

“And Mrs Styles, I gather congratulations are in order,” she says with a smile. “Such lovely news.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Fiona told me it’s a boy,” she adds, and the sheer terror on my wife’s face at the realisation is priceless. “You must be very thrilled.”

I study the picture. There’s a house in the middle, and standing in a line in front of the house is our family. The one slightly taller than the broccoli tree is me. I’ve got my white lab coat, and I look like a serial killer because I’m holding a scalpel with the size of a butcher’s knife. Next to me is my wife, also with a white lab coat, but instead of a scalpel, she’s holding a very chunky baby who rather looks like a basketball with a head.

“Oh dear,” I chuckle. “Guess now we know what she’ll ask for Christmas.”

“Yeah,” my wife shakes her head. “We’re not expecting.”

“Oh, I apologise,” Mrs Hughes says with a sheepish smile.

“No worries, Mrs Hughes,” I tell her. “So, what else has our girl been up to here? Besides gossiping of course.”

Mrs Hughes laughs under her breath. “Well, in class, Fiona is attentive, bright and very helpful. She is a credit to you both.”

***

“I swear your daughter, Styles.”

We’re sitting in the car now. Finally done with parents’ evening, still laughing at the slightly creepy, chunky basketball baby in Fiona’s picture and the fact that three people, including Mrs Hughes, have congratulated us for the ‘baby’.

“You haven’t called me Styles in years,“ I turn to her with a grin. “Not since medical school.”

I can’t help but flashback to the good ol’ days when we had matching university hoodies and we’d test each other on the parts of a kidney whilst walking into lectures, sitting next to each other, sharing pens and cans of Lilt.

“Well, after that I became a Styles too,” she chuckles. “Would be confusing then, wouldn’t it?”

“True,” I laugh under my breath, then I grab her hand and pull it to my mouth so I can kiss her knuckles. “Thank you.”

“What for?”

“For being a Styles.”

“Aw, aren’t we soppy tonight?” She smirks. “Alright, stop the car.”

“What?”

“There,” she points to a dark empty spot and I oblige.

Then, before I can even ask her why, she reaches over and grabs me by the collar. Pulling me close to her and gives me a kiss. I kiss her back, and I smile when she bites gently on my bottom lip.

“Oi, oi. Something’s got you randy.”

The next thing I know, she undoes her seatbelt and then rolls her trousers down her legs along with her knickers, fumbling and giggling at the awkward movement. I push my seat back and pull my trousers down.

“Don’t fall on gearstick now,” I joke as she climbs over to straddle me. “Well, unless you want to, of course…”

She laughs as she lowers herself over my lap. I really can’t believe what’s happening here.

“Mrs Styles, we’re about to have sex in a car. Around the corner from our daughters’ school.”

“I know,” she says with a smile before she runs her tongue along my neck. “Not our first rodeo though.”

“Oh right, we did it in our Volvo years ago, didn’t we? Thought the suspension couldn’t take it.”

“And it turned out fine. Told you that you needed to have more faith in the Swedes, they’re a reliable breed.”

“I love it when you talk about Sweden.”

“Ikea.”

“Fuck.”

“Meatballs.”

“Billy Bookcase.”

She throws her head back in laughter and I take this as an opportunity to run my tongue along her collar bone. She gasps. I reach down to lift her before I slowly lower her over my cock. We both sigh as I enter her, a long exhalation with our lips barely touching.

“Viggo Mortensen.”

“Isn’t he Danish?”

“Tomato, Tomahto.”

I smile at my wife and push my hips up, silently telling her that we don’t need to talk about Swedish people anymore. She grabs onto the car seat and levers herself up and down. I look at her in the eye, a goofy smile still plastered across my face.

But then I squint. Light. Bollocks, what’s that? Where’s that light coming from? Crap, that’s bright. Shit. I see the flash of a hi-vis jacket, a knock at the window and someone shaking their head.

Oh sodding fucking bollocking shit wank.

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hyliacursed · 3 years

Text

" you still get to be the hero. " / spy au :))

------ @petervel / accepting!

cherry chapstick gets stuffed in their brand new company-issued bulletproof handbag, rolling impartial eyes while lips purse in this less-than-well-hidden chagrin --- they point a glare in his direction, agent aslan, co-worker, cubicle neighbor turned mission partner by a gracious & incredibly lucked out twist of fate, “ i know. ” zelda sighs, already sullen & oh so melodramatic. their leather-gloved hand brushes over their shoulder to whip their ( newly cut as per the disguise protocol, ) bob into its proper shape before moving forth to flick the lights on.

“ i’ll keep clicking my funny little color-coded buttons & reciting excessively technical jargon through your earpiece while you get to gun people down & smoothtalk criminals, so... heroic of me, sure, like i’m practically just another I.T. guy --- ” their big green eyeballs nearly bug out of their blonde head as they cast their first glance of their very much upgraded portable setup. it’s sleek, black, & downright gorgeous. the light-up keyboard, while a feature common enough not to be boggled by, still seems a kidney or two more expensive than the off-white yellowing brick back at their homedesk as it sits in front of them.

certain telling traits of tactlessness, such as the use of unnecessary obscenities, are rarely exhibited by the amateur ‘ secret operative ’ ( no matter their fuss, it still excites & intimidates them all the same to brandish this spiffy new title, ) polite & ever so well-mannered, but the first thing that tumbles out of their cherry-flavored lips is a bursting “ holy shit. ” they nearly sprint to bring their face up close & personal with a thing that looks like it could cure cancer. “ how on earth did they acquire funding for this? ” they’re almost mad their previous profession did not grant them such splendiferous devices. it probably displays holograms.

“ pevensie, ” they turn to him, wild sparkling eyes before their gaze ultimately hardens, “ ...agent aslan. we were put in this place for a reason. we’ll just... keep doing what we always have & we will be fine. we both get to be the heroes. ” they slip off a glove to place their bare hand on his padded shoulder. the pep talk is more for them than it is for him, but they perhaps adjoinedly need it anyways.

#petervel #( i have to let u know i was listening to the pink panthers theme as i wrote this )#( IM OBSESSED WITHT HEM ACTUALLY )#( ALSO . hacking machine: Acquired. they have the guns they have the tech WHAT NEXT!!!!!!! )#( also consider this a verse drop )#🌟 ❝ ic / like a river's flow; it never ends.#🌟 ❝ asks / if you find me; will you know me?#🌟 ❝ au; petervel. / rolling faster than a whitewall.

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sparxwrites · 4 years

Text

(the opening lines of this, i shit you not, came to me in a dream. or at least in the space between sleep and waking. mr sims, could you get your podcast out of my subconscious pls. set some time vaguely in The Future as a what-if, i guess.)

cw for vomiting, gore, body horror

[ao3]

“Maybe it’s the flu?” says Martin, anxiously, as Jon vomits into the toilet for the third night in a row.

“Maybe,” says Jon, drawing a shaking hand across his mouth, “the human body wasn’t intended to hold a god for this long.” His lips are bloody, and his voice is raw, like he’s been screaming for hours. Maybe he has. Martin’s only just gotten back, only just found him hunched over the toilet and heaving up the contents of his stomach once again.

Martin’s fingers curl into fists, release. “You’re not a god, Jon.”

“Look me in the eye, and say that again,” says Jon, quietly.

His tone isn’t cruel, but his words hit like knives. Martin hasn’t been able to look him in the eye in weeks – it hurts, too much, too sharp, the back-of-the-neck prickle it used to induce turning to the sensation of his skin being slowly flayed away. There’s too much knowing there. Jon sees enough to hurt those he beholds, now.

Martin grits his teeth, and looks Jon in the eyes. The two on his face, at least, the ones still where human eyes should be. “You’re not a god, Jon. Don’t– don’t be arrogant.”

When he finally, finally lets his gaze slide off to the side, it feels like someone’s set needles through his bones. His hands are shaking. He feels seen, down to his intestines, his marrow, the awful, rotten pits of his soul.

Jon laughs, or makes a sound that’s trying to be laughter. One of the two. He spits into the toilet, and rests his forehead against the cold plastic of the seat. Martin doesn’t need to look into the bowl to know what’s there – bile, and blood, and dinner, and vile, thumb-sized chunks of gore in amidst it all.

Stomach lining, Jon had said, the first night. Martin hadn’t questioned him. Hadn’t asked him how he knew.

“That’s… kind of you,” says Jon, softly – and for a moment, he sounds almost like himself. Almost the way he was, before his god sank the last of its hooks into him. And then, casually– “I have eyeballs on my liver, you know. My kidneys, my bowels. My heart. If you cut me open, Martin, I’d blink at you.”

“And heal pretty much immediately,” blurts Martin, though there’s a cold sinking deep into his guts. He thinks of the stomach lining still sitting in the toilet bowl, and wonders for the first time what it’s being replaced with.

“And heal,” agrees Jon, and there’s that careful, constrained flatness to his voice that means he’s on the edge of hysteria. Martin can’t look him in the eye, but he can see him out the corner of his vision, still curled over the toilet as though it might offer salvation. “…I think.”

“How do you know?” asks Martin. “About the eyes, I mean. Maybe it was just a, a dream, or a nightmare, or something–”

Jon snorts in bleak amusement, and then gags, and then vomits wet and choking into the toilet again. Martin drops to his knees, and strokes Jon’s back, and wishes he could do more than just hold his boyfriend’s fucking hair out the way as he pukes up his own body to make way for more damn eyes.

“I can… can see out of them,” says Jon, eventually. He’s panting, and there’s a string of bloody drool stretching from his lower lip to the porcelain below. He doesn’t seem to have noticed. “The eyes, I can– see. I can see inside myself, Martin.” He barks out a harsh, humourless noise, and spits a mouthful of blood. “Do you know what that’s like? How could you. I hope you never do. But– god. I can see myself. Every swallow, every– every contraction, every heartbeat.”

He reaches out, with unerring aim for someone whose head is still half in a toilet bowl – he’s getting better at using his other eyes, thinks Martin, and the thought fills him with dread for reasons he cannot fully explain. When his hand closes around Martin’s wrist, Martin can feel the eyelashes on Jon’s palm flutter against his skin as the eye there closes against the contact.

When he presses Martin’s hand to his stomach, dangerously flat and heaving with every breath, there are bumps there. That’s expected, eyes hidden beneath ill-fitting knitwear, coiling around his torso and up, up in some awful, organic spiral. But then he presses harder, his hand over Martin’s, and there are bumps below. Eyes upon eyes, lurking beneath like awful, clustered tumours, bulging out from the depths of Jon’s viscera and blinking hungrily beneath flesh and muscle.

“Oh god,” says Martin, faintly – because he can’t think of anything else to say, because what the fuck else can he say. “Jon…”

“Maybe,” says Jon, spitting again, swallowing audibly against another heave. Martin can’t look him in the eye – it’s killing him, but he can’t – but he can still see Jon’s crooked grin in his peripheral vision. It’s a mad sort of expression, made madder still by the blood on his lips. “Maybe you should cut me open, Martin, and look me in the eyes, and tell me I’m not a god then.”

He taps fingers, gently, over his heart. The triplet of small, watery eyes on the back of his left hand flutter with every touch.

Then his body jerks, a roll of nauseated motion that starts at his stomach and rolls its way up to his mouth. His throat works, but nothing comes up, other than a thick sliver of slick-red flesh. He gasps, in the aftermath, like there isn’t enough air in his lungs.

Martin wonders if it’s still just stomach lining in the toilet bowl.

“Stop,” says Martin, and the strength of his voice, the way it shakes, surprised even him. “Just– stop, Jon, don’t… don’t say that. God, don’t say that.”

He reaches out, both hands curled into Jon’s sweater, and drags him into his arms, risk of being puked on be damned. Jon smells of sweat, and vomit, and sour fear, and Martin still buries his face in his hair and holds him. As though holding him will fix this. As though holding him tight enough will squeeze the poison from Jon’s body.

“Don’t say stuff like that,” he says, again, quieter, his nose full of the rank smell of sick, unwashed human. Human. “This is– it’s a lot. I know it’s a lot. And I’m so, so sorry. But… you’re a person. You’re a person, Jon. It’s not right.”

Jon laughs, and then sobs, and then heaves up a trickle of bile-or-blood-or-both against Martin’s front. “Am I, though?” he asks, and his voice is cracked, mad, his fingers curling against Martin’s chest hard enough to bruise. “Is that really what I am?”

“Yes,” says Martin, firmly, though he believes himself less with every passing day. When he rubs Jon’s back, he feels every node of his spine, and every bump of the eyes wound around it. “Yes. That’s what you are. A person, Jon. Not a god. A person.”

They sit there – on the floor of the bathroom, surrounded by the stench of sickness and ascension – until Jon stops throwing up, and until Martin stops crying. By the time they leave, the sun is rising, and Jon is too weak to walk unaided, and Martin cannot stop thinking about the knife in the kitchen and the eyes on Jon’s heart.

#the magnus archives #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #jonmartin #whump #tma #fic #tma fic #gore cw //#vomit cw //#i wrote this in like an hour last night whilst mildly drunk #it was Exceptionally cathartic

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thanksjro · 4 years

Text

More Than Meets the Eye #5- Delphi Has a Two-Star Rating On Yelp

Issue #4 left off with some pretty raw dialogue from Fortress Maximus.

Now, that’s a lot of hot talk from a guy who looks like he’s wearing fairy wings. Hope you got some walk to back it up, Fort Max.

FUCK YEAH YOU DO HOLY SHIT THAT’S AWESOME.

And would you look at that! Got some familiar posing going on here.

Considering Fort Max just woke up from a years-long coma, and before that had spent three years under Overlord’s sadistic thumb, this sort of parallel might be cause for concern, but I’m sure it’s fine.

It’s fine!

After Fort Max comes down from his adrenaline high and stops cutting folks’ heads off with his titty flaps, Ratchet can finally address the downturn in Drift’s health, as he lays on the floor rusting to death. Turns out the two of them have a bit of a past, but we won’t be getting anything of substance out of that little detail, because Pharma’s decided to pull a gun on Ambulon.

He claims that Ambulon is the one who released the Decepticons from their cells, and that he’s most likely also the cause of the virus. Why? Because Ambulon used to be a Decepticon himself! Gasp!

Ambulon cops to having defected 10 years prior, which is that a long time for Transformers or not? It’s vague. Their sense of time dilation as a species is never actually addressed in canon.

Then First Aid pulls a gun on Pharma, saying that Pharma’s full of shit, because while Ambulon was busy being threatened, he rooted around in the Decepticons’ corpses and found something that shouldn’t have been there: their transformation cogs.

Then Ratchet reaches for his gun, demanding that Pharma switch to his alt-mode. When he refuses, that seals the deal on Ratchet’s theory- the virus doesn’t become active until after the infected changes their shape. That’s why Pipes and Drift are currently not-bleeding out on the floor after having been at Delphi for twenty minutes at most, but First Aid and Ambulon are perfectly fine.

I mean, fine outside of what’s probably equivalent to a major kidney infection being left untreated and turning into a leg.

C’mon, Ratchet, that’s the thing he’s sensitive about!

And then Rung comes out of nowhere and pulls out HIS gun-

No, that doesn’t happen.

What does happen is that Pharma shoots the life support machines and bolts, leaving the other doctors with twenty machine-dependent patients who will die without intervention.

Ambulon, on what fucking planet is First Aid not taking initiative? This guy’s done more in the last two days than you’ve probably done in the last year. Look at Ratchet back there, he knows how to properly appreciate a go-getter.

Fort Max runs after Pharma as Ratchet finally peels Drift off the floor and gets him into a bed. Drift, who’s pretty convinced that he’s going to die today one way or another, goes full sad cat and begs Ratchet to mercy-kill him, seeing as this is the planet the DJD base a majority of their operations out of, and the likelihood of Pharma being involved with them is looking real good right about now. The sprinklers have gone off, people are flat-lining, Ratchet disregards his own health and safety for that of a patient, transforming to give him a reboot, Fort Max comes back empty-handed because he’s too got-danged big to fit down the trapdoor Pharma went through, and the whole situation is really just the hugest mess.

Let’s check in on the Lost Light, shall we?

The boots are still real, y’all. Those goddamn fucking hooves come off, I’m telling you.

So, Tailgate’s come to a decision. Again. He wants to be an Autobot this go around, though, which sits a whole lot better with Ultra Magnus.

But why bother joining a faction now? The war’s over. Turns out, Tailgate’s feeling a little lonely, because no matter how successful you are, it just won’t fill the hole in your heart quite like being a part of a found family narrative does.

Magnus, moved by Tailgate’s openness and equally impressed by his positively ridiculous resume, agrees to help him prepare for the rite of Autobrand.

Of course, Magnus being Magnus, isn’t going to do this in any sort of half-measure; he’s going to go through the entire 10,000 pages of the Autobot Code, line by line, word by word, punctuation mark by punctuation mark, breaking it all down through multiple schools of thought to garner the deepest possible understanding of what it means to be an Autobot. Tailgate, though horrified by the prospect of so much studying, agrees, and a glorious two-man act is established.

Meanwhile, over in Rung’s office, the good doctor is ruminating on his history with one of his most prolific patients, Red Alert.

Red Alert’s been under Rung’s care since before the war even started, which seems to contradict issue #1’s claim that Rung was his psychiatrist for six centuries, but perhaps the case file got bounced around as Red Alert’s stationings changed.

Which doesn’t bode terribly well, considering Rung is, again, pretty much the only mental health specialist for the entirety of Cybertron.

Red Alert’s been diagnosed with Paranoid Personality Disorder, and it seems like it’s a pretty intense case, or at least it was before Rung got ahold of him. Red Alert had been doing better, and his military career had flourished as a result.

And then the war friggin’ ended, and it looks like the lack of routine- violence-based or otherwise- might be causing a bit of a backslide.

Red Alert’s been hearing noises, ones only he seems to be able to perceive.

Then again, he seems to have some pretty banging ears, so maybe he’s on to something.

The only problem is that where he’s hearing these noises doesn’t make any sense, because he’s hearing them under the basement, where there should be nothing other than the cold silence of space, according to the schematics of the Lost Light. It’s crazy. Purely crazy.

Good thing Red Alert recorded what he heard. Dude probably has a ton of experience not being believed, and knows the value of having evidence to back up your claims. He plays Rung the audio file, and after a bit of playback speed manipulation, they figure out just what that noise is.

Great, even the basement’s got major depression.

Back with Tailgate, it looks like Ultra Magnus has gotten a head-start on the study session, having knocked the little guy clean out with a precision strike verbal barrage of pure boredom. Tailgate nodded off during Magnus’ covering of section 19 of the Tyrest Accord, subsection 80, paragraph 5. This reminds Tailgate of when he met Skids and that giant yellow robot got all exploded.

Jesus, would you look at that shading. Ultra Magnus takes his literary references very, very seriously.

Back with the plague plot, Ratchet’s finally caught up with Pharma, who proceeds to tell him all about how he pulled off his big bad plan, in true villain fashion. Ratchet just sort of stands there and takes it as his eyeballs start melting out of his head.

Pharma is pretty much the only reason that Delphi hasn’t been wiped off the map by the Decepticon Justice Division, because he and the leader of that gang of murderous assholes have a deal- the DJD leave the outpost alone, in exchange for all the transformation cogs their greedy little hearts desire. The problem with this sort of deal is that in order to keep up his end of the bargain, Pharma had to start offing patients.

Of course, that sort of thing isn’t sustainable in the long-term, so Pharma had to orchestrate a way out, while still keeping himself out of prison for some of the most intense malpractice this side of Cybertron, so he called in a little help from some Decepticon nobodies and waved a little cash in their faces. He made a bomb, gave it to them, and they did what they were paid to do, spreading a illness that laid dormant in the liquidy stuff surrounding the t-cog until properly stirred by transformation. As Pharma tells his story, his face does the anime thing.

That’s how you know he’s SNAPPED!

Ratchet really just isn’t a fan of this new character arc Pharma’s got going on, but there isn’t a whole hell of a lot he can do about it now other than stand there and rust as his line art breaks down.

Though that actually works out in his favor, as the corrosion juices puddled under him during that whole spiel, enough so that they reached Pharma’s feet. Once Ratchet points that little detail out, Pharma panics, trying to jump out of the juice and getting clocked in the face.

Pharma said, whilst holding said vaccine in clear view of the man threatening him with a gun.

Ratchet doesn’t fire, because his hands are acting up- talk about poor timing- but Pharma doesn’t have that problem, onlining his built-in guns and shooting Ratchet, seemingly killing him.

Or not. It’s the return of the smiler, Ratchet’s vaguely creepy solid light avatar, best known for telling teenagers to get inside him and making mechanics uncomfortable.

The sight of this creepy little man throws Pharma off enough to allow Ratchet to tackle him, the vaccine flying out of his hands and rolling towards the edge of the incredibly tall portion of the outpost they’re currently on top of.

As the vaccine glowstick falls over the edge, Pharma, understandably, becomes furious, attacking Ratchet, though it doesn’t really work out for him too well. Guess that’s just what happens when your shut-in ass tries to tangle with a dude who’s been on the front lines for years now.

Ratchet, please make a fucking appointment with Rung, I’m begging you. This isn’t a healthy attitude to have towards yourself.

Because he got his arm stomped on real good earlier, Pharma’s on a timer for how much longer he’ll be able to hang onto the edge of the building, before he has to decide whether or not to risk transforming to save himself from impact with the ground, or just chancing being a neigh-indestructible space robot. Ratchet gives him a raw-ass one-liner, turning his back on the dude who has gun turrets built into his shoulder blades.

Luckily Drift hasn’t completely melted yet and managed to get up the ladder to the roof access just in time.

And thus the power of violence saves the day!

Ratchet’s avatar caught the vaccine as it was falling, because he’s just that good at multitasking, so it wasn’t lost at all, and they were able to save everyone from rusting to death. Even Pipes is okay, and you know how much Roberts likes killing that guy. Things are looking up!

Because Delphi’s been revealed to be pretty much the worst place ever, everyone is evacuated to the Lost Light, where First Aid will finally get the credit he’s due.

Suck it, Ambulon!

Ratchet figured out that First Aid sent the datalog that alerted him to the situation on Delphi, because he too is a giant nerd, and like recognizes like. The two lament the loss of the person Pharma had been, wishing they could have saved him.

Yeah, Ratchet, that sentiment goes a hell of a lot further when you don’t steal the man’s hands.

Like, I know he wasn’t using them anymore, but Jesus.

And thus the “Ratchet can’t do shit because his hands suck” arc draws to a close.

#transformers #jro #mtmte #issue 5 #maccadam #Hannzreads #text post #long post #comic script writing

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paipayaseeds · 3 years

Note

After a quick glance ensured her that both Shuichi and K1B0 were right behind, she took off in a dash hoping that enough distance would be put between them and the explosive. In her mind she was moving in slow motion, every step seemed to be agonizingly heavy and she already felt her lungs burning as she tried to move faster.

At the last moment, she dove for some semblance of cover behind a barely there corner just as she heard the bomb go off behind her. Her last thought before she hit the ground was whether or not someone would have to peel her kidneys off the ceiling. The explosion was thunderous and she held her arms over her head as the wreckage rained down around her. It seemed like hours passed before the noise subsided and she stopped getting pelted with debris.

She cautiously opened an eye and peered out at the hallway. Okay, apparently her eyeballs had survived the bomb. She methodically twitched first her arms then legs to ensure that they were still attached to her torso. It seemed everything was intact. The only thing that slightly alarmed her was the loud ringing she heard. As she carefully got up, she glanced at the other two and wondered why they couldn’t hear it, it was so loud. She felt a rush of dizziness went she got to her feet and stood still for a moment while it passed.

The ringing seemed to be tapering and she noticed that there was now a red door where the bomb had been. Shuichi seemed to have noticed it too because now he was trying to open the door with his key but to no avail. His look of intense concentration suddenly turned into irritation as he tried again to unlock the door. Her heart dropped as that attempt failed as well.

She felt slight confusion when she noticed him looking somewhere behind her. She turned to the spot he was focused on and realized that Monokuma had appeared sometime after the explosion presumably to explain what was going on. So why wasn’t he saying anything? Instead, he was pantomiming something. Whatever it was, K1B0 and Shuichi seemed to understand whatever it was he was trying to convey because their faces were screwed up like they both wanted to scream. How in earth did they understand him?

The answer hit her like a brick. Monokuma wasn’t giving a pantomime, he was talking. The reason she had thought so was because she couldn’t hear! The explosion had been so close to her that it must have done something to her hearing. She felt a wave of panic rising in her stomach before forcing herself to calm down. If she lost her hearing, it was temporary and she just had to wait for it to come back. Pausing, she realized that the sound was slowly coming back but right now it was muted and muffled like she was underwater. She’d just have to be patient before it fully returned.

Shuichi felt a small amount of tension get removed from his chest as soon as Monokuma had left their area. Exhaling, he darted his eyes on the other two of the group, calling them over to call it a day. “We should probably rest for the day.”

Though Shuichi felt a small bit of concern bloom in his stomach as he saw S/o not responding. “S/o? Hey, are you okay?” He squinted at her in worry, attracting the attention of K1B0 as well. “What’s wrong with S/o?” Shuichi only shrugged his shoulders wordlessly.

“K1B0, can’t you analyze her or something? Check if she’s okay?” K1B0 gasped, his scoldings following shortly after, “It’s highly robophobic to assume that all robots have that function! Do I have to remind you I’m as normal as all of the other individuals? I’m a student just like you!” Shuichi was honestly too tired to even comprehend or care about what K1B0 was saying, he just wanted to go to his dorm and sleep- Ah, but... he had training. Well, it’s not like Kaito’ll be willing to talk to him, might as well just look forward to sleeping early.

Ignoring K1B0 unintentionally, Shuichi shifted his attention back to her, “Can you hear me?” He furrowed his brow at her, not thinking about the possible consequence of the bomb exploding from earlier, the boy was too tired to know what was happening, but even if he was, he needed to make sure his classmate was alright first.

Speaking a bit louder, he used hand gestures as he spoke slowly, “W-we’re going to call it a d-day..! Go to bed, get some rest!” He flinched at his tone of voice, he usually wasn’t this loud unless he had been in a trial, so he definitely wasn’t used to talking as loud as he did in a normal conversation. He waited for her to respond, not wanting to leave her helpless and confused before he left.

#mod chia #rp

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chaostheoryy · 5 years

Text

Flashes of You (A Reddie One-shot)

Summary: Richie’s childhood comes to him in flashes. It isn’t until he travels back to Derry, Maine and sees Eddie Kaspbrak that any of them start to make sense.

Word count: 2,185

Rating: Teen

Warnings: Language

A/N: This is my first time writing for Reddie and I’ve been in the It fandom for approximately 96 hours so forgive me if my characterizations are off.

For two decades, Richie’s childhood came to him in white hot flashes. He couldn’t fully recall a single event or a single friend’s name but he would see details and hear sounds so clear that he couldn’t understand why everything else surrounding these points on the road map of his mind was fuzzy.

The flashes would come at random. Sometimes he’d be going through the mundane moments of life like showering or eating. Other times the flashes would come to him in the middle of a gig. One moment he was setting up the punchline and the next he was staring at a massive statue of Paul Bunyan.

None of the flashes made sense and yet he knew they were somehow all connected: a crimson “V” scribbled over a sloppy “S”, an underground hammock, a pink polo, a fanny pack full of medicine bottles, the letter “E” carved into a wooden plank.

And oh God, the laugh. Every so often his ears would ring with the sound of a boy’s laughter — a sound so pure and contagious that he couldn’t help but smile every time he heard it. He didn’t know who it was that laugh belonged to, but he never wanted it to stop. He didn’t tell jokes for the fame or the money. He became a trash mouth comedian for that laugh.

***

When Richie got the call from Mike, his stomach flipped. Flashes bombarded him like lighting bolts striking the ocean. Blood, lifeless bodies, a red balloon, a condemned home surrounded by weeds. It wasn’t clear as to what these flashes meant, but Richie couldn’t deny that he was afraid. There was a reason he couldn’t remember his childhood. Something terrible happened in Derry, Maine and, frankly, he didn’t want to know what it was.

After throwing up and downing a couple of drinks to burn away the taste of his own bile, he made it out on stage for his comedy special. He was a mess, stumbling over his bits and forgetting the punchline to his opening joke. A man shouted “you suck” from the audience but Richie just smiled. That soft laughter of the boy was ringing in his ears again.

He wasn’t going to Derry tomorrow to follow through on some cryptic oath he couldn’t even remember making. He was going to Derry for that laugh.

***

The moment Richie stepped through the doors of the Chinese restaurant with Beverly and Ben, he locked eyes with a stranger across the foyer. His hair was slicked back, his brow creased with incessant worry. A small smile tugged ever so slightly at the corner of the stranger’s mouth and suddenly Richie felt like he couldn’t breathe.

Eddie.

The flashes started again, only this time with a wider scope: the crimson “V” scribbled over the “S” on Eddie’s arm cast, the underground hammock where Eddie draped himself over Richie and knocked his glasses off with his toes, the pink polo that Eddie loved to wear whenever he needed to convince his mom to let him hang out with the Losers, the fanny pack hooked around Eddie’s waist that held every stupid pill his dipshit doctor had prescribed to him, and the letter “E” carved beside Richie’s own initial on the kissing bridge.

Richie’s stomach flipped and a lump formed in his throat. Eddie Kaspbrak was the first person he had ever loved and it took him two decades to even remember that.

“Fuck me,” he muttered under his breath before following Beverly and Ben to the table. How he was going to get through this, he honestly couldn’t say.

***

Dinner somehow went even worse than Richie expected from a bunch of friends-turned-strangers getting together for the first time in twenty plus years. The food was great and the conversations were surprisingly lively up until the point Mike brought up the murderous clown from their childhood. All of a sudden the table started rattling and the bowl of fortune cookies turned into a smorgasbord of nightmares. Richie’s own cookie mutated into an eyeball with tentacles and attempted to crawl across the table toward him like a zombie. He couldn’t recall a time in his entire life where he had been more disgusted.

Amidst all the chaos, he kept his eyes on Eddie. The man was terrified, trembling in the corner as a cookie with the wing of a bat fluttered around and shrieked at him. The attack brought back more memories of his childhood, moments where he had done everything he could to protect and comfort Eddie — drawing Eddie’s eyes from the horrors of Pennywise’s illusions, pushing Eddie behind him to keep him out of harm’s way, firmly grasping Eddie’s shoulder whenever he was afraid to remind him that he wasn’t alone.

When the illusion stopped and the dust settled, Richie bolted from the restaurant as fast as he could. He couldn’t stay and face the facts. If he stayed, he was going to die. And, on top of that, he would be forced to come to terms with the ugly ass truth that was his feelings for Eddie. Being closeted for his entire life was one thing. Finding out that the man he had unknowingly been in love with for nearly thirty years was married to somebody else was a whole other level of suffering.

Standing in the parking lot, Richie was surprised to find Eddie at his side. Eddie wanted out just as badly as him and, frankly, Richie was relieved. If Eddie ran away just like him, they would both survive. The idea of going back to the life where he no longer knew who Eddie was sucked. But a life of oblivious wandering and shitty stand-up was better than a life where Eddie was murdered by a psychotic, shapeshifting clown.

Mike tried with every ounce of his being to convince them to stay and defeat Pennywise together but their will to live was stronger. Richie hopped in his Mustang and headed back to the inn with Eddie hot on his trail.

***

Neither Richie nor Eddie said anything to one another when they got back to the Derry Town House. They simply bolted up the stairs to their respective rooms and started packing. Having brought nothing more than a small carry-on sized duffle bag, Richie finished gathering his belongings before Eddie had even managed to lay his clothes out on the bed.

“What’re you moving in?” Richie teased when he peeked his head into Eddie’s room and saw the two open suitcases on the floor. “Look at all this shit.”

Eddie frowned. “Fuck off. I didn’t even know what the hell I was doing coming to Derry so how was I supposed to know what to bring?”

“I only own like two shirts. Guess I’m not in any position to judge.”

Richie eyed the pile of clothes and was drawn to a vaguely familiar shade of pink. A soft smile yanked at the corner of his mouth.

“Your style hasn’t changed much has it, Eds?”

Eddie followed his gaze to the pink polo laying by the foot of the bed. “Myra hates any outfit that’s not a suit and tie,” Eddie said as he continued folding his collection of dress pants.

“Well, somebody needs to pull the stick out of her ass ‘cause that shirt is bitchin’, man.”

Richie’s heart nearly soared when Eddie laughed. That was it, the whole reason Richie came back.

A long silence blanketed the room as Richie watched Eddie work. Twenty-seven years later and Eddie was still as precise as can be, making sure every article of clothing was folded into the same dimensions before he put them in the suitcase. Things had to be as perfect and clean as possible. At least, that’s what Eddie’s mom had taught him.

“Jesus Christ, would you pick up the pace? I’m gonna pass a fucking kidney stone before you finish packing,” Richie quipped to break the silence.

Eddie threw him a look. “Don’t you have somewhere to be, dickwad?”

“Not until Tuesday night when your mom and I meet up for our weekly date night at Olive Garden.”

“Fuck you,” Eddie snapped despite the amused gleam in his eye.

“I’m serious, Spaghetti. You better not cock-block me on my date or I swear to God I’m shoving those unlimited breadsticks up your ass.”

Eddie stopped all of a sudden, the shirt in his grasp hanging limply in wait to be folded. The expression on his face was almost impossible to read. Richie felt his chest tighten.

“Eds? You alright?” Richie asked hesitantly. “Look, if the mom jokes are too much, I can ease off-“

“No it’s fine. It’s just that no one’s ever...” Eddie’s thought trailed off. “How much do you remember? About our childhood?”

Richie adjusted the shoulder strap of his bag and shrugged. “Not much. Bits and pieces used to come back in flashes but I couldn’t even figure out what the hell they all meant until I got here. It’s like some fucked up jigsaw puzzle that my brain’s still trying to put together.”

Eddie laid the shirt in his hands down on the bed and leaned against the wooden post. “It doesn’t make any sense, man. How can we be best friends for years and then suddenly forget everything about each other once we separate? You don’t just-“ Eddie swallowed. The worry lines on his brow were even deeper than before. “I saw you on TV — one of your comedy specials. I looked right at you and, even though I had never heard your name before I just got this feeling like...Like I knew you.”

Richie felt like his throat was going to collapse in on itself. If Eddie had gone through the same things he had, what kind of flashes had come to him over the years? What pieces of Richie Tozier had stuck in his brain?

“Did you finish the special?”

“God no. It was terrible. I don’t know who the dipshit is that writes your jokes but he fucking sucks.”

Richie grinned from ear to ear. “I’m firing him the second I get back to New York.”

Eddie returned his smile with one of his own. “Good. You’re ten times funnier than any of the shit he writes anyway.”

Richie’s breath hitched. “Holy shit, Eds.”

“What?” Eddie’s eyes grew wide with concern.

“I think that’s the first time you’ve ever complimented me,” Richie joked, stepping toward Eddie with his arms outstretched, “Come here you little Smurf. I always knew you secretly cared about me.”

“Fuck that. I take it back!” Eddie tried to slink out of the way but Richie scooped him into his arms and crushed his entire body in a bear hug.

Eddie groaned as Richie squeezed him. “You’re gonna give me an asthma attack.”

“You don’t even have asthma, fuckhead.”

Eddie went still in his grasp, his squirming ceasing without warning. He was quiet for a long moment. Richie swallowed and eased his hold, worried he had squeezed too hard and hurt Eddie. But instead of slipping out of the hug when the vice of Richie’s arms loosened, Eddie reached up and clutched at Richie’s jacket, hugging him back. Richie’s heart skipped a beat.

“I missed you,” Eddie mumbled lowly, “Even though I didn’t know it, I fucking missed you.”

Richie felt breathless. His eyes burned, threatening to form tears he never planned on shedding. He tightened his arms around Eddie again.

“You’re such a sap,” he murmured, “It’s a miracle you got a woman to marry your wussy ass.”

Eddie slammed the toe of his shoe into Richie’s shin just hard enough to really make him feel it. “Fuck you.”

Richie smiled despite the pain ringing in his leg. “Fuck you too, Eds.”

They hugged each other tightly for a good thirty seconds before Richie pried himself away. “Would you finish packing your shit so we can get the hell out of here?”

Eddie stumbled backward. “Fuck. Yeah. Gimme like ten minutes and I’ll meet you downstairs.”

“I’ll head down there now and make sure our psycho friends don’t summon the devil and get themselves murdered.”

“Good idea.”

Richie headed for the door only to pause in the doorframe when Eddie called his name. “What’s up?”

Eddie smirked, a familiar mischievous gleam in his eye that Richie had grown all too familiar with as a kid. “I probably should’ve told you this years ago but I fucked your mom.”

Richie rolled his eyes and flipped Eddie off. “Hurry up, asshole,” he grumbled before stepping out into the hall and leaving Eddie to finish packing.

As he made his way toward the staircase, Richie felt his chest swell with joy. Eddie had missed him just as much as he missed Eddie and, now that they were back together, they were joking with the same ease as they did when they were younger.

His entire adult life, Richie had wondered why he’d never fallen in love with anyone and now he understood why: Eddie Kaspbrak held his heart. Always had and always would.

***

Tagging: @justauthoring, @beepbeepstiney, @atownofeggs

#Tumblr changed it’s text format so I’m sorry for the long post #I couldn’t find the Read More tab???#Yikes #Hope y’all enjoy this though #Reddie #Richie/Eddie #Richie Tozier #Eddie Kaspbrak #It Fanfiction #It (2017)#It Chapter Two #Reddie Fanfiction #My fic #It (2019)

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hi-im-dazey · 4 years

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Hey, so, I know, very well, having been around people who are alcoholics, that it is HOLY CRAP rough and hard for them to stay sober. And if that’s the path you are on, I have nothing but respect for you and am here for your progress and your setbacks with encouragement 100%

I only want to take two seconds here to point out that sometimes people who aren’t alcoholics also quit drinking (or never even started).

It’s not okay to pressure anyone regardless of WHY they turn down a drink into taking a drink.

I was surrounded growing up by a full rack of alcoholic relatives in our extended family, although my immediate family were casual drinkers at best.

I saw one uncle die because when “Stopping Drinking” came up against “Slowly lose your sight and your fingers then your feet then your limbs then your kidney function from Diabetes” he chose to die from the complications of Diabetes rather than stop drinking. Then I watched his brother follow him down the same path.

Their father drank jack daniels as EVERY beverage he had with every meal, and for sipping in between, all day, every day his entire life. He still worked and kept his family clothed, fed and housed, so I guess you could call him a functioning alcoholic, but he was not a nice person or pleasant to deal with (to put it mildly)

I also have friends who have stopped and are working on their sobriety and taking those hard steps, I saw what it did to them, and how they got to that point where they knew they had to make a change. And I know it can’t come from outside, you have to get there and tell yourself you have to change. No one can get through to you like you can.

I also had a friend who complains about:

being overweight,

hungover,

never having spare money,

when she gets told she gets sexually aggressive and rape-y and constantly says and does horrible things to everyone around her when she’s at parties.

and she NEVER connects any of this to her 150$ per visit, three times a week bar tab,

or the 4 cases of beer she goes through in a week.

(I say “had a friend” because I could not deal with her once she started being rape-y with people)

People who are alcoholics and are recovering are traveling a long road with a lot of inclines, and if that’s your burden to bear, I wish you all the luck and strength there is in your journey. I hope the people around you support you and help you avoid temptation and are kind and understanding. I quit smoking after 25 years of it, I know what it’s like to have a chemical dependence clawing away at your brain. But some of us, just don’t drink. I’m not an alcoholic, I didn’t hit rock bottom, I am under no religious edict to abstain; that’s not my path through life.

I just don’t drink.

I am not opposed to it, I mean if you come to my house I’ll offer you whatever I have, (which to be fair, is probably a soda or some milk or water. Or Coffee) I use wine and beer to cook with sometimes, and I will have a beer maybe once every summer. (For some reason, right dead middle of August, my brain wants carnitas and a beer, and if I don’t have it when the craving hits, it just goes away until the following August... dunno why)

Now, when I was younger I drank like a fucking fish. No real reason there either. Probably because my friends were drinking, it wasn’t really that deep.

I preferred smoking to drinking because smoking gave me something to fidget with, I did not realize I was using it as a stimming technique until I was much older and that was key to finally quitting successfully (the patch didn’t work because I couldn’t fidget with it, same with cold turkey; what did it was vaping, FYI, because I got all the stim and gradually stepped off the nicotine completely)

The reason I stopped drinking? I woke up hungover one morning and realized how much feeling like crap had cost me. I’d dropped half my paycheck on a night out drinking with friends and woke up feeling like I was going to vomit out and out of my eyeballs.

I paid to feel like that.

My brain just went, “This was a horrible use of money.”

And if I wasn’t willing to spend my money on feeling that way, I sure as hell wasn’t going to let someone else spend money to make me feel that way.

So I just sort of, stopped. (And that doesn’t make me better or worse than anyone, it’s just how my brain works, it’s not more or less valid than anyone else’s path.)

Can I be around people who drink? Absolutely, I am all the time. I don’t judge them or feel tempted or remove myself for preservation purposes. I just don’t drink.

Do I drink or serve dishes made with alcohol around people who are struggling against alcohol cravings? No. Not even if it’s carnitas and beer day. Because I can enjoy their company sober and it helps them for me to abstain, so why the fuck would I drink around them? My friends are more important to me than a beer I won’t even want tomorrow.

My point is this: Not everyone who stops drinking or doesn’t drink is doing so because of alcoholism. It is not really any of your business why, or a topic of discussion, or a judgement on YOU -- if someone tells you they do not want an alcoholic beverage.

It’s another instance in life where “No.” continues to be a complete sentence. It doesn’t need a convincing cajole or a philosophical discussion. It just needs to be heard, respected, and moved on from.

#booze #alcohol #alcoholic #chemical dependence #it's okay to not drink #No continues to be a complete sentence #body autonomy includes substance ingestion #don't make yourself sick to make other people comfortable with their drinking #If you choose not to drink that's valid

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curious-minx · 3 years

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Heat Lamp vol. [i]

A how-to guide on harnessing the very best light for your under-lit overly priced hovel! In Style!

“Lighting is everything, you goon!” spits Magda Marlene, and, of course, she’s absolutely correct.

“Don’t call me a goon, Magda! I’m trying my best. Have you ever tried shopping around for the best possible lights? Of course not. The challenge of conceiving of wattage and luminosity in the abstract blue light tech etching our basic human retinas will never compete with the likes of you. “ Elroy wipes away the trail of verbiage slipping down his prominent jawline. He attempts to grab at Magda to make her take him seriously, but it was impossible, because after all she is enshrouded in light. She is the kind of bruising overwhelming beauty that is perpetually well lit. Magda has endured a panorama of over stuffed suits of testosterone tossing off a clip of one-liners about her “lighting up a room,” because she had already brightened her entire surrounding vicinity. Light seeping out as far as several stories above and below whatever apartment is lucky enough to grace her presence. You had to alert your local neighboring Vampire’s of someone like Magda coming around. To forget would be akin to a hate crime.

“I do take pity on you sallow beef man. You are close, so close I can nearly taste your success, but this lack of suitable lighting! This will be your ruin. That’s what all the Entertainment and Arts are all about-,”

“Yes, the lighting! The wonderful bright, but not too bright lighting. I know Magda. Ugh! I much prefer if we go back to when you would stick to sending me laymen articles on the anatomy of human eyeballs and the latest breakthroughs in light-based therapy, but now all I hear is your dogmatic barking.”

“You sure do talk a lot for a layman. Why did you want to touch me? Don’t tell me you’re starved for human contact!”

“Of course not! Don’t be foolish! You know I’m not attracted to you. It’s the only reason why you even bother gracing me with your infernal light. Why won’t you sell some of your light source already?”

“Oh no no no, not this this again. I will have no further discussion about the selling off of my light.”

“You won’t share your light, you won’t sell your light, but all I ever hear you go on and on about is the importance of light! Don’t you think you’re being a little selfish?” Elroy tries sizing Magda up and all around with his big soulful hazel brown dopey puppy dog eyes.

“What is this, ‘on and on’ slander? That’s a complete and total falsity! I barely even talk to you! You asked me to come over and help you pick out a new light. Yet here you stand insulting me and everything I represent. I knew all men were trash! I really wanted a reciprocal easy going friendship receptacle. Like the ones you see on flashy American sitcoms, but no! Instead you reek of man boy desperation. You are not Easy Elroy, nor are you sleazy enough to warrant a pass. Good day!” And with that Magda leaves Elroy in his room. A room that is painted a banana baby sick off-scrambled eggs shade of yellow that made Elroy think of himself as a “warmed over Simpson” whenever he looks at himself with his overhead lights on. Magda leaves him behind so that she can go attend a life devoid of preening men devoid of any elevated levels of cognitive stimulus. Magda had a strong feeling deep inside that being eaten out by Elroy would feel either like the confectionary sugar clinging to a beater or a cow pondering the universe with a cud. Magda has bigger prospects to attend such as the purchasing of a new Ultrasonic Television, a television for people too interesting to own a regular television. Now this is a process more grueling than picking out some sort of pathetic LED lights set out to emphasize poor life choices.

Magda’s candles burn ferociously for the scented perfume wick of her occasional beaux Hillary. Oh sweet sister Hillary. Magda flips a dizzy spell as she gets behind the wheel of her space craft. In the driver’s seat she grabs and teases pinching caresses onto her sides, hands running underneath her shirt and imagines Hillary’s hazy visage. Magda turns on The Quick’s Mondo Deco, the album is lodged into the fourth track already, “Hillary.” The porto-phrenetic ASMR zipper crunch! The perfect symmetry of a song making sense for the right woman in the right space and time. Magda wishes she could be some special somebody’s Kim Fowley. She knew she has the making of a Valkyrie companion. Mostly a bottom, but occasionally there’s a switch…a candy striped hypnosis stick being cradled in Magda’s hand turns her space craft into autopilot. The space craft assumes a sensible soaring speed, sharing the sky with all the other avians and sky ships. Magda lands onto the fetid grassless knoll where she finds the manor of Scent Maven Monique. A west coast equivalent of a Hobbit Hole in the Hills. Except instead of a 5,7” English gentleman it is a 5,7” Black American bohemian scientist woman. Magda lights up one of Monique’s Pixie Stix a jolt of nicotine, THC, estrogen, nootropicals, and most importantly caffeine. Cigarettes that don’t make you smell like cigarettes, that don’t make you smell like anything, but a hint, a wink, a whisper, and a prayer of exotic bubblegum.

A Vaping Assassin is prowling on her rooftop. Antonia, The Daycrawler, of course. A woman so intimidating in strength and beauty that all law officers around the country worship at her talon toes. Lines of swat teams, cops, and military official personally see fit the they get their asses beaten by Antonia’s hand each and every year at The National Cop Christmas Party. Monique is constantly alienating, offending and inspiring everyone she works with, but they usually only send soft assassins like Soy Hands Flannigan or the Detangler. Magda believes that this must be the opening salvo of a new killer regime.

“Quit your daydreaming Magda Marlene! Are you really about to let me red rover your special number one gal? I am dropping through the ceiling now! Catch ya later!” Antonia is always narrating her actions to her blind brother Donovan who makes glass sculptures for an assassin’s memento. Some assassins keep locks of hair, some assassins keep emails, some assassins bond and indulge their impotent’s brother pop art. The giant blocky neon green rotary telephone with each notch designed with a mysterious suggestion of a dreary person. A lot of guilt trips about being sent to mental institutions and the occasional rainbow clamshell birth control pill case. All glass blown by the Daycrawler’s blind and naive brother. Monique doesn’t stand a chance!

“Oh no,” mouths Magda. She’s going to be vaporized by that tall Nordic pillar of mayhem. Quentin Tarantino might as well be hanging himself up here on Monique’s roof turning himself into the human satellite, beaming this impeding cyclone of beautiful woman on beautiful woman violence for all of his cronies to see. “Not today,” mouths Magda. With a flick of her wrist, bracelets of light begin forming and overlapping. Discs of light coursing up and down Magda’s forearm. Magda then hides her arms underneath her long and flowing cherry blossom trench coat. Magda’s light does not instantly light up the rest of Monique’s abode. Antonia is hiding her frustration and she looks around Monique’s mostly spacious and poorly lit living quarters. Seeing only a completely stainless steel coated mini-kitchen and a chest level table top. No chairs. No other furniture or trace of personality. Magda hopes that this cat and mouse game will grow less cheesy and the Daycrawler will soon leave irate and hungry.

“Aha! You got me good Light Bright. Of course you knew she wasn’t here and distracted me. For such good work I will personally see to killing you myself. I haven’t murdered anyone in over twelve hours. Do you know how rusty an assassin can get in that time? First, I must take a shower. Surely this lab rat has some sort of hose or bucket and pulley system to wash herself?”Antonia begins sizing up the space, trying to squint a bathroom into existence.

“I believe her bathroom is right next the front door. You must have accidentally passed in when you were getting yourself worked up into this bloodlust.” Magda suddenly feels completely at ease. Yes, she could easily blind and frankly obliterate this toned and blonde killing machine. Doesn’t matter though, because Magda realizes that she has this whole ordeal in her pocket and it’s only a matter of Antonia getting into that shower. Magda goes to raise her fist in conquest but then meets resistance. Antonia’s silent rope snakes! They are giving Magda the world’s most cold blooded group hug. Magda knows she must submit to the plan. She grimaces feeling the ridges of her teeth and wait to unleash her light show.

////

Antonia has been in the shower for over and hour and half. Magda is only now starting to bruise because the rope snakes have grown lethargic and weak ever since the water started. The rope snakes are clinging on to Magda out of obligation and lethargy. The water stops and a shrill elongated sigh is heard from the bathroom. Antonia, the Daycrawler, emerges from heavy plump clouds of perfumed steam. Magda thinks she can detect a hint of Ceylon Cinnamon and gun smoke, but you can never tell with Monique and her smells. Antonia is a lot drier than you would expect for someone who has ostensibly been bathing for the past two hours and she is wearing an oversized clumsy kimono with her hair wrapped up in a towel.

“Alright, where is she?” Antonia asks in a voice that is almost saccharine and faint.

“She’s clearly not here. Let’s revisit the fact that you were going to behead me as a house warming gift. How about instead you rob me of one of my kidneys? They are oozing with glow-stick fluid, but they never stop glowing! Please don’t kill me!” Magda says fully aware that Antonia is not going to kill, at least not while she’s so fresh out of the shower.

“That’s what I need to talk to her about. I suddenly no longer have my urge to kill! Not you, you, or anyone else ever again!”says Antonia breathless like she is hearing her voice for the first time.

“I thought you were killing out of profession?”

Antonia crouches down and is almost blushing as she asks, “Why are you still on the floor like that? Can’t you not fry us up some rope snake snacks? Or wait! Are you like me and need the sunlight to fully operate?” Antonia begins opening up every window and even trying to create new windows in Monique’s house to let the light in.

“Fine! I’ll do it! You made me do it!” Magda unleashes her light that sets off as a retina unfriendly supernova. The light charged specifically around her arms were even still lit up and racing to be shot off as blades of light into the nearest surface.

“See? That’s wasn’t so bad! Why do you get so…so conservative about using your light whenever you’re around me?”

“I don’t want to end up blinding or hurting anyone.” Magda says still on the ground facing onto Monique’s steel plated sterile floors.

“Even someone who was moments ago trying to kill your friend and you for the thrill of murder?”

“Your an easy target Daycrawler,” Magda gathers herself back up into a standing stance,” You are exactly the type that would change your mind if given half a chance. I still feel like you could plunge your famous ribbon blade into my personal generator… ” Magda trails off realizing that Antonia is no longer listening to her. She is still running her reformed(?) killer’s hands through her honey flaxen unwieldy tower of hair that only a towering murderess could support.

“That shampoo it’s, it’s going to help a lot of people. I’m waiting to see the catch. Like with her cancer-free candy cigarettes they’re too good to be true, right?”Antonia takes in another long inhalation of her own hair and takes one lock and flecks her tongue only at the tip of the follicle. The one blank wall inside Monique’s apartment spins around revealing Monique on the other side who steps up and says without missing a beat:

“They’re called Pixie Stix!” Monique fully emerges from her illusion wall hiding the hint of a laboratory. She lights up a Pixie stick of her own which begins flooding the spartan space. Who needs furniture when you bask in a smell this sweet? Magda lets her guard down and lights up the rest of the space turning the formerly drab and empty hovel into a chic and spacious boutique. “Lighting!” Continues Monique, “With the right lights and an overwhelming pungent odor reveals the path to an enveloping inner peace. No matter how small or unfashionable your home or hovel happens to be there could possibly be an outlet for a chosen few people that the three of us could use to build our own society or something?” Monique turns on music by malodorous mall core cyborg nu metal pop band called Neon Betty Degenerates. Antonia goes over to Monique and gently forces Monique’s bangled and gloved clammy hand into a boisterous hand shake. A Kashmir blossom shaped pin attached to Monique’s vegan leather newsboy cap opens up and contracts. The blossom is spraying out a mist invisible to the human eyes, directed into Antonia’s face. Antonia then immediately releases Monique and she turns away from the gangly scientist, she unravels the towel from her hair and starts sprinting outside of Monique’s house. Antonia begins climbing up the lone ancient hundreds of feet tall redwood tree watching over Monique’s property. Antonia climbs up to the tree in record time, she is nothing but a blur of momentum and rustling branches. Antonia, the Daycrawler, jumps out into the sky with the grace of a flying squirrel leaving her nest, and she’s reached enough height so that she can use the heel of her shoe to write, “I’m sorry! <3 I will work on respecting your personal space” in a cloud-based font.

Magda turns to Monique who has completely flipped open her furtive laboratory, revealing the glow of scent analysis technology calling out to Magda begging her to crank up the wattage. Before submerging back into her lab, Monique turns to Magda and tells her, “Antonia is seemingly the only person my Perfumed Personality is working on. Do you think that will be enough?” Monique directs this question more to the ether than to anyone in particular.

“Looks like it’s really working on her though. Oh right, before you leave. I am going through this really tough crush on someone and was hoping that you’d have some-“ Magda stops talking. Monique enters her lab leaving Magda behind in the empty kitchen and the lingering vapors of the ethical strawberry and lavender pacifist shampoo. Magda knows that she probably won’t see Monique emerge back out from her work for another two weeks at the latest. Magda shivers and steps outside and all of her pent up light energy continues bursting forth from her navel, banners of light shooting from her forehead, spotlights dancing out of each of her fingertips. Magda’s light even causes the clouds that Antonia used as calligraphy to break into a sweat. The extreme daylight and the small patch of rain causes a family of foxes to burst forth from out of the ground and carry on a quick and sweet wedding. Magda climbs on top of a dune and watches the wedding ceremony from afar. She remembers Hillary and groans, a sticky and somber sound. Magda has her revery broken by the sound of a voice calling from below the dune.

“cOuld yOu pleeze take Our picha, lamp lady? Da lurvely cOupa wOuld be sO grateful!!” The source of the voice is coming from an approaching silver fox who has a slight wobble in his gait. Magda looks at the silver fox further and notices that he also has two plastic and springy legs. Magda not wanting to seem judgmental, sighs and takes the fox’s hefty Kodiak bridge cam and without even taking time to focus the lens takes the picture. The newly wedded couple and the silver fox open up the camera’s finder and look at the results and start panting in approval. They have never seen themselves look so well lit before.

“Daddy! You must pay this kind lady Beacon mucho ancient coins! I’ve never looked this good!” Magda smiles and shakes her head and puts her hands into her pockets, leaving the foxes behind. She readjusts her trench coat and puts on a large wide-brimmed blackout hat she keeps in a box shaped fanny pack. Even while wearing her light suppression accessories each and every passing streetlamp emits a powerful sphere of light that dims with each of Magda’s passing step. Most of the houses in Magda’s neighborhood are heavily tranquilized and sleeping in deprivation tanks so the dramatic light fluctuations don’t bother most. One overhead apartment pulls back its drapes and an angry shirtless and chiseled man has taken out a mirror and trying to reflect the light back down at the street. The power of the light’s heat creates another pothole into the road, which causes the man to start swearing and yelling incoherently. Magda kneels down onto the empty sidewalk and rubs her palms together causing the street lights to dim back down to their normal level. Magda’s face looks pale and she begins moving at a slower pace.

“Damn…I’m so close. Being mindful of so many people really sucks. I think I’m going to lie down in this pile of moss and maybe I’ll wake up back in my bed.” Magda hums a lullaby to herself and begins folding herself into a ball of fading light. Magda is blacking out.

///

She opens up her eyes as soon as she registers motion. Magda is being carried in somebody’s arms! Magda almost cranks up her internal light furnace but then she smells the tangy coconut cologne of Elroy.

“What did I tell you about picking up tramps?” Asks Magda with a yawn. “Put me down you goon!” Elroy immediately does so and gives Magda her space.

“Of course, I’m sorry Magda. I was out scouting shoot locations for a new headshot this week and saw your abandoned space craft on the side of road. Knowing you as well as I do I had a feeling that you were probably enjoying one of your unnecessary sojourns. Thankfully you left it in one of the bougiest possible neighborhoods so I think you’ll be fine with picking it up tomorrow. I’ll leave you be. Clearly you are wanting some time alone.” Elroy brushes off a twig out of Magda’s hair and starts walking back into his own shabbier Electric Hover Desert Rabbit.

“Any luck with your lamp search?”asks Magda causing Elroy to stop in his tracks and turn around revealing an excitable grin.

“I found this Ponce de Leon Torchier that promises to age and de-age me based on what kind of bulb I put into it. There’s this audition for a movie about a man breastfeeding his own child I got. The role comprises of both the child and the father, it’s a student film but the kid directing is supposed to have a real stash of connections.” Chatters Elroy, clearly trying to regain a sense of joviality between him and Magda.

“I have actually never really bothered playing with light in that way before. How are you so good at online shopping? And here I was about to actually consider giving you a droplet of my very own light” sneers Magda as she enters through the lamp shaded gate of her parent’s compound.

“What?! Really! Wait Magda I’ll gladly take some of your light off of your hands! Come on, come back!” Magda leaves Elroy behind once again and a roving street sweeper pushes him up the current of streaming sidewalk leading deeper into the Energy District. He calls out to Magda yelling her name as he’s being street swept away. Magda turns copper green with regret with even toying around with the idea of sharing any amount of light. Especially with a total goon like Elroy! The family leopard spotted moth, Sapphire, comes whooshing up to Magda giving her a silky kiss. Magda grins and brushes the silk away from her face and picks up a floating torch, lights it with her finger and tosses it as far as she can throw, which due to the pent up hormonal surging emotional cycle Hillary has gotten Mega into, turns out to be quite far. Sapphire flap flap flaps her wings into a column of speed and chases after the floating torch. The outside ladder leading to her room has been rolled up.

“Because of course!” Sighs Magda as she slips off her cycling light up shoes, the tongue of her shoes light up with a balloon showcasing the amount of miles Magda has walked from Monique’s house, nearly fourteen, if only Elroy hadn’t gotten in the way. Inside both of her parents are stationary as always. Wires running from the back of both of their heads so that when they glance over at the door in unison you can see the pulses of light traveling at the same speed from both of their skulls. Magda parents disgust her and she really tries getting up stairs into her room as fast as possible.

“Magpie! Get your cute little grown ass over here and tell me about this nice young man you’re considering giving up your light to!”

“Journey,” Magda says addressing her mom by her proper name which causes her mom to feign a twinge,”Why must you two always insist on watching the security feed whenever I am coming home. Every. Single. Time. Do you two expect me to be still be living here until either one of you finally burn out? Just so you can always have a little show of someone else’s lives to watch? You’re almost as much as a goon as that ‘boy’ you are referring to. You know him already, that’s Elroy, we’re just friends.”

“See Enterprise? What did I say?” Journey says peering directly into her husband Enterprise’s vacant light producing sockets.

“Aw dawlin looks like I owe you thirty pulses! I knew I should have betted on our Magpie giving her light away to some respectable enterprising lesbian. You’re donating your light to science right Magpie? That’s why you left today?”

“I am not donating my light to anyone! I am not anyone’s generator ready to be milked and sapped away for all of my worth.”

“Magda you know your light is strong enough that you could be a really successful crime fighter, or you could even be just another lamp builder like your lil brother and sister.” Coos Magda’s father, Enterprise.

“Or, she can be nothing too! Fine by me! Keep on going missy, I can see how much you are burning to get back into your precious room. All I ask is that at some point tonight please help your siblings make some kind of dinner. Your dad and I are going to be all tied up for the rest of the night running double concurrent shifts. Those damn strikers! We don’t need em! Ow ow ugh I’ve got to be quiet and focus.” Journey rubs her temple which emits a spark.

“Relax my love. This is just a rough patch. Once there is a serum manufactured we’ll be able to import more workers and we can recharge for the next decade. Maybe even more.” Enterprise says this to Journey and they hold each other’s hands not even minding that they are becoming entangled within one another’s connecting wires. Magda hears the quiet scrape scraping of her younger brother and sister’s lamp and neon shop that takes up most of the second floor. Magda ascends up one more floor and reaches her bedroom at the end of a hallway adorned with family portraits. Mainly of her siblings Gidget and Chester selling lamps around the world. See Gidget and Chester in Bali with a lamp made from resurrected coral reefs. There’s a picture of Gidget, Chester and both of her parents soft shoeing on the grave of Thomas Edison. See Gidget defile the Tesla’s tomb. Chester burning an effigy of Musk. There’s one picture of Magda and Sapphire, Magda is only visible as a beam of light. Magda opens up her bedroom and finds Antonia, the Daycrawler waiting for her, suspending herself from the ceiling. Rotating around like a monk’s slimy finger circling around the lip of a singing wine bowl.

“Hiya there Miss Shiney! I brought you a present!” Antonia says this in her persistently chippier and bubblier voice that has not subsided since taking her shower with Monique’s personality shifting scented shampoo. Monique raises her right eyelid causing one of her dimmest overhead lights to come on. The light reveals reveals the sight of a tied up woman sporting a bouncy pompadour sprawling out across Magda’s bed. Soy Hands Flannigan!

“What am I supposed to do with an assassin? All I want to do is curl up and shop. God I sound pathetic.” Magda says attempting to hide the anxiety spiking through the roof of her dome coursing down to her toes.

“She knows how you can find Hillary!”

That’s all it took. All Magda needed to hear was her name. The utterance of Magda’s one and only Hillary causes each and every one of Magda’s three hundred and eighty five lights adorning her bedroom to flare out bright beams of all encompassing light. The kind of light that only glows for a woman once thought lost and dead to the world soon to be rediscovered. Maybe, thinks Magda, having a reformed violent and dangerous assassin as a companion wouldn’t be so bad after all.

#short story #short fiction #surrealism #indoor lighting #science fiction #sci-fantasy #fantasy #power pop #The quick #Kim Fowley

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whumpsideblog · 4 years

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Part one//Part Two After his fingers were broken he was collared to the pipe again, left alone for hours. Calum came back once to give him food, just plain bread and a glass of water. His deprivation of decent food better contribute to the cost of this debt, he thought.

He had a lot to think about in his alone time. He didn’t know what Lev would have needed an absurd amount of money for, or why he never told him. He hated not knowing just how much money was left, he hated not being able to speak to Lev, he hated this isolation. He kept telling himself he had to get through it though, there had to be some good reason Lev owed this money. When it came down to it, he’d rather it be him than Lev.

His wrists were no longer bound so he was able to use his good hand to look through the notebook some more. He skipped the stuff he already knew, looking for higher priced things. He could have his nose broken, he could be stabbed, beaten, tased, even shot. Towards the back he found the more extreme things. Thousands of dollars off for amputating a limb, fifteen thousand dollars off to remove a kidney, ten thousand per eyeball. He wondered if anybody had ever taken up these suggestions. He hoped he could make it out of there without resorting to that.

He was given a whole night to recover before Calum came back.

“What are you feeling today?” He asked. “I’m sure you had enough time to look over your choices.” He’d had more than enough time to come up with awful combinations of pain for himself.

“Five shocks from a stun gun. A twenty minute beating. Break my nose, and then a stress position, all night.” He said it seriously, there was no doubt in his voice and Calum seemed taken aback. “How much will that take off?”

“Slow down, what are you talking about?” He looked confused and almost angry. “You’ve been here a fucking day, that’s a bit much, don’t you think?”

“How much?” He asked again, his voice stern.

“I’m not going to do all of that to you, not right now.” He shook his head.

“Why not?! Isn’t that your job?!” He wanted out as soon as possible, he had to get out and if this is what it took then so be it.

“Yeah, But-“ He was cut off by his phone ringing, he looked reluctant to answer it but did so anyway. Judging by his expression he wasn’t pleased with the person on the other end, all he said was a few “yes sir”s before hanging up. “Well, I guess you’re lucky my boss is a sadistic fuck.” He said, slipping his phone back into his pocket and going over to the drawers.

“What do you mean? How would he know?” He asked, confused seeing as him and Calum had been alone this whole time.

“There’s a camera, duh. I’m not going to tell you where but he sees everything we do here.” He rummaged around in the drawer for a minute before finding the stun gun, approaching him again. “I hope you remember, you brought this upon yourself.” He told him. Jason swallowed nervously, trying to prepare himself for the worst.

***

He thought the fifth shock may kill him, too stunned to even scream, his mouth open soundlessly and his body spasming. It didn't last as long as the last four, and once Calum pulled it away from his throat Jason collapsed, crying out as he fell on his injured hand.

“We don’t have to continue today…” Calum said, voice hushed as he didn’t want it to be heard.

“N-no, keep going. I mean it…” he insisted. Calum sighed heavily. He went and dropped the stun gun on the desk before approaching him again, pushing his sleeves up as if he didn’t want them to get dirty. Jason had just barely struggled to his feet, and without warning Calum swung his fist, punching him hard in the face and downing him again. He didn’t have a chance to get up, he was kicked harshly in the ribs, one, two, three times, he was gasping for breath, unable to even cry or scream.

Calum grabbed a fistful of his hair, harshly pulling him up before slamming a fist into his stomach. Jason curled in on himself, almost gagging as he was sure he was going to vomit from that. He felt sick, it must’ve only been a few minutes but it felt like hours already, being punched, slapped, kicked, he couldn’t even fight back or try to defend himself.

Once the twenty minutes were up he ended up on the ground, laying there whimpering softly, and Calum nudged him with his foot to roll him on his back.

“I don’t have to do this.” He insisted, looking down on him. “Do you want me to stop?” The only response he could manage was a weak head shake. Calum hesitated, finally raising his foot and stomping his heel on his nose as hard as he could. Jason let out a strangled cry, tears filling his eyes immediately. Blood was gushing from his nose and he raised his good hand to try and cover it, but Calum pulled him into a sitting position, kneeling down next to him. He ignored how Jason was crying frantically, hand covered in blood as he kept reaching for his nose. He just helped him shrug off the jacket he’d been wearing and he gently pressed the fabric against his nose, causing Jason to sob as the pressure made the pain worse.

“You’re gonna wanna stop crying, it’ll only make it hurt more…” He warned him. “I can’t let you bleed out, just hold this here okay?” He told him, and Jason did as he said, his hand shaking as he tried to bite back his cries. He stood up, going to look through his supplies while Jason hoped the bleeding would stop soon. He felt sick and dizzy, his whole body aching from the previous beating.

“You’re absolutely crazy for doing this, you know that right?” He said. “It takes most people days before they even consider a broken limb, but you seem to have no sense of self preservation.”

“I… I need to get out… if I have to pay his debt this way then… that’s okay…” he murmured, voice muffled by the jacket over his face.

“You’re fucking insane.” He sighed, shaking his head and coming back over to him. “I’ll come back tonight, Okay? For now you just try not to bleed out.” He told him, giving him a serious look before leaving the room. Jason was surprised he wasn’t even collared to the pipe again, left free for once. It didn’t really matter, he tried to stand up but only succeeded in collapsing once again. He had no choice but to curl up on the floor and simply wait for the rest of his torture.

***

He wasn’t sure if it was due to blood loss or exhaustion but he eventually passed out, sleeping for hours until Calum came back.

“Hope you got a good sleep in, you’re going to be up all night.” He told him, pulling him over to the pipe he’d kept him chained to. “I had to bring in a weight for this, I’m guessing you can’t move eighty pounds with your neck?” Jason stared at him blankly, as if he didn’t understand what he was asking, to which Calum shrugged and went to retrieve handcuffs and some rope. “By the way, you need to be sitting on your knees for this, Okay?” He told him.

“How much have I taken off already…?” Jason murmured as he changed position.

“Well… between your fingers and those shocks that’s six hundred… and the beating and your nose was five hundred each… you’ve already taken off sixteen hundred. Good progress but you have a long way to go.” He told him, coming and securing his wrists behind his back with the handcuffs and using some of the rope to bind his ankles together, despite the already uncomfortable position. His arms were pulled backwards, Jason was already uncomfortable and wanting to move but a length of rope tethering the handcuffs to the pipe kept him from doing so. He tried leaning back to alleviate some of the pressure, but Calum pushed him forward again.

“Don’t get too comfortable, it gets worse.” He told him. He left him momentarily to move the weight in front of him, before collaring him again. He unlocked the chain from the pipe and instead tied it around the weight, forcing Jason to lean forward even more to avoid the prongs piercing his skin. His shoulders were already aching, his legs already going numb. This, on top of the rest of his aches and pains, he couldn’t imagine being more miserable than this.

“W-what happens if I can’t do it…?” He asked, sniffling as tears already filled his eyes. “What if I can’t handle this all night…?”

“Well, that’s the thing. You don’t exactly get a choice.” Calum told him. “I mean, I guess if you wanted to and you pulled hard enough that collar would do enough damage for you to bleed out. It would probably take longer than just enduring it though. Once you’re positioned, you aren’t out until your time is up, tomorrow morning.”

“I… okay…” he sighed, nervously biting his lower lip. It had only been minutes and he was already incredibly uncomfortable, yet he had several more hours to go.

“I’ll come back to free you in the morning, Okay?” He told him, but the only response he got was a soft “Mmhm…” as Jason tried to focus on anything but the increasing discomfort. Calum looked almost reluctant to go but he left him alone, not even bothering to lock the door because they both knew Jason wasn’t moving until the next morning.

#whump #my writing #my oc's #Jason #Calum #reluctant whumper #kind of #stun gun use #beating #broken nose #stress positions #willing whumpee

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wisdomrays · 4 years

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TAFAKKUR: Part 13

Your Endocrine System: Part 2

My name is Thyroid!

I am placed in your neck, right at the two sides of the trachea (air tube) and below the larynx (voice box). I consist of two pieces that are attached to each other with a thin tissue. Inside me, there are many little saccules called Follicules which are densely surrounded by a capillary network. Following their innate program my cells produce three important hormones in the cavities of those saccules. The two of them are thyroxine and triiodothyronine, which contain iodine atoms and the other one is calcitonin. My hormones have highly important impact in your body. Our Lord God has appointed me, the hormones secreted by a very small piece of flesh, with regulating the oxygen use of all of your cells, and thus the speed of your metabolism which all affect your body’s overall performance. In addition to that, I also adjust your cholesterol level by lowering it in your blood. My iodine-containing hormones are vital for children’s growth. In the case of their deficiency, conditions like growth failure, dwarfism and mental disorders appear. If there is not enough iodine in the earth or water, it becomes more difficult for me to produce hormone and I start to work harder, which causes me to enlarge. This is a disease called goiter. When I secrete excessive hormone, your eyeballs become bulged, a disease called exophtalmic goiter or Basedow syndrome.

My iodine hormones and the stimulating Thyrotropin hormones secreted by the Hypophysis work together; they watch and control each other. If I get lazy and slow down secretion, the Hypophysis immediately warns me. If I secrete too much, this time Hypophysis stops warning me and waits for me to “calm down.”

Do you see what a wonderful system I am? Not only between us, but also all other systems have the same feedback organization between themselves and the Hypophysis. The Hypophysis is an organ as big as a chick pea, and we are only a small piece of flesh. Peter, look at the great jobs we are doing! Can coincidence play any role in this, do you think?

Lastly, I will tell a little about Calcitonin, a hormone which works to adjust the calcium level in the blood serum. That is not an easy job at all. This hormone is vital in the healthy growth of your bones; otherwise your bones will empty, get weak and they might even break for no reason at all.

My name is Parathyroid!

As my name suggests (“para” is a prefix signifying alongside of, beside), I am located just behind the Thyroid, consisting of four small parts. I have so many important functions beyond what is commonly known. My foremost duty is to delicately adjust the amount of calcium between your skeletal bones and your blood. Moreover, I am also assigned with controlling the phosphate and magnesium metabolism. In order to do that, I produce a hormone called parathormone. Of course, I have no idea about the chemical composition of this hormone; but I am just doing my job by producing it and working as I am programmed. When the level of phosphate in the urine and the level of calcium in the blood are measured, you can understand whether I am working well or not. The decrease of calcium in your blood leads to the stimulation of your nerves, thereby causing muscle spasms or titanic contractions that occur along with dotage. The healthy function of your heart and muscles highly depends on this calcium. Who knows, Peter, what other functions of me you human beings will discover in the future!

My name is Adrenal gland!

I consist of two little parts located on top of the kidneys, one on each side. Do not underestimate me by just looking at my size! You will be amazed to learn what crucial functions I perform. Each of my parts has an inner (medulla) and an outer (cortex) section. Those two sections differ quite markedly from each other in their structure, functions and in the origin of the embryonic layer where they form. But despite those differences, our God Almighty has put them one within the other. The two important hormones that my inner section secretes are Adrenaline and Noradrenaline. My adrenaline secretion speeds up the conversion of glycogen (in your liver) into glucose, and thus the sugar level increases in your blood depending upon your energy needs. This increases the power and the speed of your heart contractions and constricts the diameter of the blood vessels, thereby causing the blood pressure to increase. I assist in dilation of the narrow bronchioles of your lungs so that you can get more oxygen. When you become nervous, quarrel with somebody, face a danger or experience any stressful moment, I cause all those activities to happen by secreting more hormones expeditiously. That is how I help in protecting your body. All in all, 80% of my secretion is adrenalin, whereas the 20% is noradrenalin. Noradrenaline has less impact on your heart and metabolism.

My cortex (outer section), where steroid types of hormones are produced, secretes aldesterone, cortisol, and some androgens (a male hormone). Aldestrone regulates the water and salt levels (especially sodium and potassium metabolism) of your body. Cortisol meets your glucose needs if you are starving by breaking down the proteins into amino acids; it is also responsible for preventing the infections and allergies. Although the testicles (male reproductive glands) are the main organs that produce the male hormones, I also supply them. My androgens help in the development of male characteristics such as voice changes, beard and moustache growth and hair growth. When women get older, the androgens that I secrete causes the voice to deepen and hair to grow on their bodies.

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techmomma · 5 years

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A Little Perspective

Perspective is a tricky, fickle fairy to master. Our entire lives are lived in perspective, we see it from the day we’re born. We know what’s far, near, middling, when something is above or below us, we’ve seen perspective since the day we were born, we’ve seen it longer than we’ve known what hands and eyes look like—the things most artists know that even small mistakes can spell disaster for.

Which is why when perspective is off in an image, we know. Even if we’re not good at perspective, we know. Which is part of why perspective is such a tricky, tricksy principle to master.

In order to master perspective, you must have a solid foundation in the facets and aspects of perspective. Different types of perspective, vanishing points, horizon lines, everything. Your tower will fall without a foundation.

How do you build a foundation? With the basics. And yes. That goes for you advanced artists too (like me!!). This is the same shit that every artist has to go over, again and again and again.

Until you die. Or stop doing art. Whichever comes first.

So what is the first element to master when learning perspective? That, dear readers, is the humble…

Dot.

Open a sketch page, be it digital or traditional, and make a dot.

Congratulations, you’ve mastered the first element of perspective.

The dot on your sketchpage represents what is called a vanishing point, or sometimes a point of convergence. The vanishing point is the point at which two parallel lines will converge in the distance, or essentially, the farthest your eyes can see. (Not really, but for the sake of learning this aspect before I introduce horizon lines, you can consider it so.) Fun fact: in real life, if you stand on ground that is perfectly flat, that distance is actually about five miles! Go about 100 feet up and that distance increases to about 20 miles. Neat!

Now what I’d like you to do is around the dot, somewhere on the page, draw three shapes, or polygons. A square, a triangle, and a circle. Anywhere on the page, just make sure they have some breathing room, like this.

Something like that will do. Plenty of room for each, we aren’t going to get overlap.

Now we’re going to give these shapes depth. These are going to be 3D shapes, with their flat faces toward us, and their back halves receding into the distance. So what you’re going to do is head to that triangle. Now I want you to draw a line from each vertex (corner) to the vanishing point. And do the same with the square, while you’re at it. Leave the circle alone, we’ll get to that one later. You should have an image sorta like this now, with lots of lines.

Those lines are going to help determine the edges of the forms you’re making! You actually have a 3D shape here, one that extends way out into the distance! It’s transparent right now, because you can see the secret edge that you wouldn’t be able to see normally, if these shapes were opaque. Watch what happens when I make the line on that secret edge dotted.

Does it look 3D now? Just watch for now. How about if I delete that back line entirely?

Yeah, lots more 3D! I’ll make those lines black…

Oh those definitely look like 3D shapes now! Receding off into the distance! Now, obviously, there aren’t many blocks that recede off for miles into the distance, right? So let’s shorten these down. Pick an arbitrary spot somewhere along the long side of the triangular prism, and make a line from edge to edge--making sure it’s parallel from the corresponding edge on the triangle. Do it again for the square shape, making sure your new lines are connected.

Now erase some of the lines from those new corners you made, all the way down to the vanishing point.

Now we have polyhedrons! 3D objects! Objects that are in perspective! All of these objects are actually parallel to each other: you’d see it if you looked at them from a top-down perspective! The reason their lines appear to converge in the distance is the same reason that you can look at a straight street or pair of railroad tracks for miles, extending into the horizon, and the lines eventually appear to converge at a point.

But that same street is going to look like this from above. They never actually converge! This is the illusion of depth.

Going back to our shapes!

“Ah, but what about circle friend there?” you ask. No, circle is not a friend. Circle is the shitlord who steals your money in a backalley and leaves you minus a kidney. Circle is an asshole.

Circle is already technically in perspective, but what we’re going to do is make a cylinder. A long tube-y thing, you know them from using them to whap people after you’ve used all the wrapping paper. Traditionally, you would use a ruler to find the tangent point of the circle to create the “edge” of the cylinder. Now you can use an actual jpeg of a ruler like I did here.

But most digital programs these days have a line tool, and you can just put one point on the vanishing point, and extend the other out past the circle and move it around until the line and circle intersect, like this.

And erase some of the line extending past the circle.

WOO! We have a cylinder extending into the distance past our sight!

But… now what do we do to shorten it? That requires getting around circle’s asshole nature. We can do this in a digital program by duplicating the circle, and shrinking it down. (In a traditional setting, you’d need to eyeball the angle of the circle’s curve.) After you’ve shrunk it down some, move it so that the circumference is touching the lines headed to the vanishing point, in two places, like this.

That’s actually what you were doing, drawing those lines to shorten the cube and triangular prism way back at the beginning! You were making duplicate planes of the faces... facing us. You were making another 2D square, and a 2D triangle.

Now just erase some of those lines, like you did before with the square and triangle.

Look!! You have a cylinder! A transparent cylinder!

Now to make it a fully opaque 3D object, like the square and triangle, go to the smaller circle and erase some of it. It’s a little harder to tell with a cylinder where to erase, so here are the dotted lines showing the obscured parts.

Now let’s erase those obscured lines fully.

Ta-da! We just created a 3D cylinder, in correct perspective!! Cylinders are hard!!

Honestly, a lot of perspective stuff is typically learned traditionally with rulers and pencils and string and imo, physically handling and learning perspective in such a way was super helpful and informative for me. That really taught me how to do perspective and I highly suggest starting out with pencil, paper, and a ruler, if you can. If not, that’s okay! There’s still lots of ways to learn.

Repetition is also key here. You have to build muscle and brain memory with perspective. I recommend doing this practice a good ten, fifteen more times, until you really start to get a feel for this! And do it every day, for a week. Or y’know, five times every day for three weeks. Do different, simple shapes, like rectangles, more squares, triangles, and when you get comfortable, try for things like pentagons, stars, plus signs, diamonds, crescents, so on and so forth.

If you have questions or you did this exercise and you’re just not getting it, or did this exercise and would like to see if you did it correctly, please do feel free to visit my inbox! I’m always happy to help.

Next will be horizon lines and one-point perspectives!

#art help #perspective

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layesica · 4 years

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2019: It was a year that ends tonight.

2018 was rough, right? Well, so was 2019!

I did not feel like writing this, but it’s a tradition now, so for the fifth year in a row, here’s what I did all year with some of the crappy crap that made it not the greatest. I can’t promise an unwavering sense of optimism, but it’s okay. I’m okay. Here we go!

JANUARY Went to The Not Inappropriate Show at UCB curated by the Odenkirks, then Spent New Years Eve at Dynasty Typewriter with Ian & Emily. It was fun, but... eh. Home is better, y’all. Home is always better. Did a couple performances of a show at Second City – A Fonzie Scheme. It was fun. I was in an improv class at The Pack. I think it was Improv 4. The last weekend of January, Very Famous went to Sketchfest, which was super amazing. That’s, like, a goal. And even though it had pretty much nothing to do with anything I did, it was cool. And it was fun. And I was at a party with Neil Patrick Harris and I was SUPER cool about it.

Went to stuff: LA Times screening of Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse. It was free, and I would have never seen it otherwise. I enjoyed it. It was good.

Salt & Straw Flavor: Toasted Coconut Milk & Cookies (V)

FEBRUARY Made a return trip with Ian & Emily to San Francisco. Well, Oakland with an SF jaunt. I don’t have any cool stories, but Emily fought a seagull for her cookie and won, and that was pretty badass. On the drive back, there was a ton of snow just on the other side of the Angeles National Forest. I wasn’t excited enough to get out of the car, but snow is nice to look at. Oh, I had lunch with one of the head writers on my dream show that my old roommate met at the gym. I am terrible at networking.

Went to stuff: LA Times screening of VICE. It was free, and I would have seen it... eventually. It was... a bit... self-indulgent.

Salt & Straw Flavor: “The Chocolatier Series” = Jeni’s Coffee & Sweet Cream

MARCH Auditioned for a house improv team at The Pack. I didn’t mention working with a practice group all of February & March to prep for that. The biggest bummer about not getting on a team may have been the loss of that practice group. It was fun while it lasted.

Went to stuff: Saw comedy dads, Bob & David, at Largo. They asked for volunteers, and I almost passed just thinking about it. Ian & Emily jumped up there. Good for them!

Salt & Straw Flavor: Smoked Sea Salt & Chocolate Crack

APRIL Interviewed for a new job at one of the guilds. HEY! I owe the government $3700. That’s fun! I went ahead and added a good purse to my new 0 APR card.

Went to stuff: Dana Gould Podcast at Dynasty Typewriter. Panel with Conan Writers at Lyric Hyperion. For some reason, I saw Avengers: Endgame. I dunno. I feel like I should see it through for some reason. Deadline did their day-long FYC event, The Contenders, at Paramount, so I spent all day seeing so many people from TV and eating so much yummy food in between. Amazon FYC at Hollywood Athletic Club – went mostly for the building. Prime seat at Conan taping.

Salt & Straw Flavor: Wildflower Honey with Ricotta Walnut Lace Cookies – I wait all year for this to roll around again!

MAY We were supposed to have a call for a travel show on Buzzfeed, but they ghosted us. I went camping with a huge group at Idyllwild, which would have been fun, but it was FREEZING and I got SUPER sick on the second day. After a few days, I got better and got the guild job. Free insurance, baby! (More on that later.) Bought a Universal pass.

Went to stuff: A UCB show with people from Chicago. Free Booksmart screening with Q&A. Such a good movie! LA Times panel for Broad City. I never really watched it, but I would love to have a partnership like that! Netflix FYSee for Nanette. Guys, people are like vultures for the passed trays. Adam Sandler at Dynasty Typewriter. Attended the actual red carpet, fancy-pants premiere of Amazon’s Late Night. It was enjoyable and not at all realistic, and I could not stop staring at John Early in the theater. He glows!

Salt & Straw Flavor: Pear & Blue Cheese

JUNE Went to stuff: FYSee for Dead To Me. I had not seen it yet, but then I watched it and it’s good. JV show at UCB with Paul F Tompkins. Did a lap at the AT&T Shape event that is always free. I only go to be on the WB lot where I would like to be more often. Like, 40+ hours a week more often. That’s it. I just went to stuff.

Salt & Straw Flavor: Campfire S’mores (with Brian)

JULY SO. MANY. EARTHQUAKES. After the third one, it stopped being cute. Went for a drive to the Angeles Forest and hiked to a waterfall. Did a sketch with Very Famous at Packcon. It was a small group, so I got a part! Huzzah!

Went to stuff: Saw Once Upon a Time in Hollywood at the Cinerama dome. (First visit!) Not a great idea because I kept trying to pick out the scenery and got a bit of motion sickness. Shirtless Brad Pitt on a roof in the ‘70s is nice.

Salt & Straw Flavor: Goat Cheese Marionberry Habanero (2x)

AUGUST Went on a random overnight to San Jose. Time to get panicky about Pack Sketch Teams! I did what I should have done last year and requested to be moved. I loved the people on my team, but I wasn’t getting a return on investment for myself. And that’s no fun. Did a show called Gibberish with Duckboi as Sharon Osborne and wore a great wig. Sketch is fun. Fell off my bike & got bruised legs.

Went to stuff: Mike O’Brien & Friends at Lyric Hyperion. Saw some Pack shows to be a supportive. Put up a sketch at GSY.

Salt & Straw Flavor: Green Fennel & Maple

SEPTEMBER Started working tech at UCB. It’s pretty easy. I get to see new faces... and old faces, too. I have no more comedy theaters to work at. Well, unless someone is going to pay me real money. My vision has been getting blurrier, so I went to the eye doctor to get new glasses. Ended up getting referred to a specialist for a “freckle” in my eyeball, but had to wait a month to go. Submitted a character video for Pack Sketch performer auditions. Got a callback! That’s one step further than last years attempt, and I actually came up with characters and I was pretty proud of it. Came up with more characters, then faced the fear of being on a stage all by myself while trying to be funny. I felt good about it. It used to take a day to find out, but not this time...

Link to Character Audition Video

Went to stuff: Got an AMAZING ticket (location & price) to see Skintight at the Geffen with friggin’ Idina Menzel. She is a queen! It’s a cute theater I should go to more stuff at. Saw Scott Thompson as Buddy Cole at the Lyric Hyperion. So good! I think I’ve seen the evolving show every year I’ve lived here. My face hurts for several days after. Lyndsey got a fancy job and invited me to the Dreamworks Friends & Family screening of Abominable. Would not have seen it. It was cute. Thanks, Lyndsey!

Salt & Straw Flavor: Forgettable

OCTOBER Flew to Denver for my cousin’s wedding. I almost typed, “weeding.” That’s Colorado for you. It was my first time to see my family all year. The time just got away from me. I got a late flight out and spent the day walking around Denver on my own. Went to a good bookstore. Ate some Giordano’s. Left my luggage in a van. Found out I got cut from Very Famous – also, Very Famous got cut from sketch night – and I didn’t make a new team. Started watching new season of Mr. Robot and felt so lost, so started it from the beginning. The new Almodóvar came out, so I bought one of those expensive Arclight tickets. It was very, very good. Maybe my favorite Almodóvar film. Worth it! Saw the specialist about my eye. They dilated it, took a bunch of pictures, did a closed-eye ultrasound (Yeah, they use jelly for that!), and refereed me to another specialist. Hunter picked me up, and I ate at Canter’s for the first time. The specialist’s office made the appointment for me at an oncologist. Guys, I just wanted new glasses and now can’t stop Googling some pretty scary stuff! Lyndsey took me to USC & hung out with me for a while. They dilated my eye, took a bunch of pictures of it with a bunch of different machines, performed an OPEN EYE ultrasound, saw two trainees and then the doctor. She said she is not diagnosing me with melanoma. BUT it has the orange color and a sliver of the fluid that are “concerning.” The pictures of the tumor weren’t as large at the ophthalmologist’s pictures made it look. So... bright side, I guess. I go back in January to check for changes. Margot scooped me up and brought me home. Baby’s first root canal!

For our very last Very Famous show, everyone got to put up a sketch they wrote. My favorite had too much production, so I did a black out. It turned out great, and I felt loved. It was a very nice way to go out.

Went to stuff: Two weeks after the Arclight screening, the LA Times invited me to see Pain & Glory with a Q&A, so I finally got to be in a room with my favorite director. I may have cried... slightly more than I did just seeing the film.

Salt & Straw Flavor: Black Cat Licorice & Lavender (2 cones, 1 pint)

NOVEMBER It was time for Penelope’s annual visit to the vet, so I rented a car for the weekend and took her. She had lost quite a bit of weight. I sprung for all the tests, and she has kidney disease. Her numbers aren’t terrible, but there’s not really treatment for it. We switched to a new kind of prescription food. All I can do is be good to her and try to keep her hydrated & happy. So... yeah... September – November have been... uh... not so great. On the bright side, I got invited to be in the Night Cap with Stacy Rumaker show as a character! I love this show so much - and when you read a thing in December, this show is the exception to that. I was so nervous, but I pulled it together and think it went very well. It felt good! Also, I am so emotionally invested in Mr. Robot! Mom & Dad came to visit for Thanksgiving and that was a nice relief. It rained most of the time, but we got out at about a bit.

Went to stuff: Vulture Fest screening of MacGruber with Will Forte & John Solomon.

Salt & Straw Flavor: Spiced Goat Cheese & Pumpkin Pie (with Mom & Dad)

DECEMBER Fell off my bike, bruised my legs, and scraped a chunk of skin off my hand. Finally: I left my mark on this town! I was not in the mood to plan a birthday thing, but rented a car to take Penelope for her health certificate she might need to fly home with me, then went on a showtune-belting drive on my birthday. Not the best drive ever, but it was nice to just drive aimlessly. Margot went with me to dinner at an Italian place in Los Feliz. In other news, Penelope gained some weight. Then I flew home for Christmas. I’ve just been sitting around with Mom & Dad, and it has been great. I had lunch with Justin & traditional margaritas & Tex-Mex with Lindsey. I finally did an entire month of morning pages after 4 years, so I may be done with that. Oh, and I (temporarily) quit comedy.

Went to stuff: Saw CATS (can’t hate on a bad movie with bad source material) & Little Women (I cried so much!)

Salt & Straw Flavor: Apple Brandy & Pecan Pie (with Brian), but I’m in Texas now, so I’m ending the year with some Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla. Do better, Tyler!

So, that’s it. I was not looking forward to this, but it did make me feel a little better since the crap at the end has just felt like it has beaten me down. I’m not a quitter, but a breaker is maybe a good idea for a bit. I don’t have any resolutions for 2020.

If you’re still here, THANK YOU for reading my yearly download. I hope that you are doing well.

You’re great!

I love you!

Have a great 2020!

#year in review #2019

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internethorrorfan · 5 years

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Commentarypasta: Slenderman vs. Eyeless Jack (originally posted on deviantart in 2017)

You know what's almost as creatively bankrupt as Jeff the Killer wannabe stories and Slender Mansion fics? Versus stories. Today's gem, hailing from the Spinpasta wiki, is one such story. Because why write original suspenseful horror stories or possibly put a new creative spin on an older idea or character when you can just take two unrelated creepypasta icons and have them lay a WWE smack down on each other, right? Submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society, I call this story... Slenderman vs. Eyeless Jack by OptimusPrime27 There are legends of the Slender Man. Some say he's a kind nurturing father figure that lives in a big beautiful mansion full of other monsters and killers as one big happy loving family who do all sorts of cute family activities with each other when they're not going on mass murder sprees. Nobody over the age of 12 believes such things.

He is a dark spirit. He is truly evil. Wait, what you mean to tell me is that the murderous, child snatching eldritch abomination who forces people to become his slaves in order to commit horrific acts on his behalf is evil? You don't say? He stalks people and murders them. But now he is gone. He's been gone. People don't know why, but he just... disappeared. Everything changed after the Fire Nation attacked. One day, he just left. Never to be seen again. Except in terrible fanfiction written by pre teen girls. Only a few people still remember him. This sentence is so easily contestable that I won't even bother. I wouldn't even know he existed if it wasn't for that dark, dark night... and that video-game that made. That sort of helped... This joke might have been funny is the grammar wasn't messed up.

You see, Slender Man disappeared because less people feared him. This sounds awfully similar to Freddy's plot in Freddy vs. Jason. Instead of that dark, mysterious force he became that cool, popular guy. "Yo Slenderbro, pass me that brewski when you're done droppin' those phat beats!" Just that guy. People didn't care how terrifying he really was, they just liked him. What if people liked him because he was terrifying? I like Slenderman because he's creepy. Creepy if done well at any rate. Video-games, toys, shirts, Hold the phone here, since when has there official Slenderman merch? he was everywhere. Less people feared him, and he became more of an internet icon than a despicable creature. So you can't be a despicable creature and internet icon at the same time? Someone better tell [insert well known internet personality who gets a lot of hate here)! More people knew him and they learned to stay away from him, how to avoid him, There's no official way to avoid Slenderman. and thus he didn't get their souls. Many people don't know this, but Slender Man needs souls. Many people don't know this because you completely made it up. They give him energy. He harvests them. He feeds of them. He lives. But now people don't fear him at all. He's just that guy.

That guy. He's just that guy who stalks people, kidnaps kids and drives people insane. Ya know, nothin' special.

But you see, Eyeless Jack is a different story. A story so bad its own writer personally asked for it to be deleted from the creepypasta wiki.

Eyeless Jack is a dark, undead spirit. Says who? A young boy brutally murdered, his eyes ripped out of their sockets. A vengeful spirit, Eyeless Jack's a ghost now? he spent the rest of his eternity getting his revenge. Which he accomplishes by eating random people's kidneys. Out to find the man who killed him. Until then, he could never truly be at peace. Less powerful and less famous, Jack was just a little kid compared to Slender Man. Which might have something to do with Slenderman being 6-10 feet tall. No match for this monster. Stories over! Goodnight everybody! Slender Man is basically the king of modern horror. I'm a huge Slender-verse fan and even I think that's bit of an overstatement. How can he be the king of modern horror anyway if supposedly no one takes him seriously or cares about him anymore? Creepy, mysterious. Slender Man has given existence to many wannabes and copy-cats like Jeff the Killer or Laughing Jack. Laughing Jack and Jeff the Killer have nothing at all to do with each other let alone Slenderman.

Slender Man saw potential in Eyeless Jack, and decided to use his superior power to manipulate the poor lost soul. This is literally just the plot of Freddy vs. Jason. One night, Jack was lurking through the forest, when Slender Man, now weak but still more powerful than Jack, appeared before him. Jack was shocked, but then the figure seemed to disappear into thin air. Jack turned around as Slender Man reappeared in front of him. Slender Man began to stalk the evil spirit as he ran through the forest. What sounded like static assaulted Jack's ears. He fell down and began to faint, everything else in the world fading away... Slender Man was now in control of Jack, and ready for the harvest. Now this is where I get involved. Me and my friends were having a sleep-over. It was a dark, rainy night. Lemme guess: You really wanted to write "it was a dark and stormy night" but you realized that was too cliché even for something called "Slenderman vs. Eyeless Jack" so you thought wording it differently would mask the unoriginality. Newsflash: it didn't. We were watching a crappy, blood-filled generic horror film, yet we kept screeching. We didn't know what true horror was yet. It's certainly not this story, I'll tell you that much. Not yet. You could’ve removed those last two words entirely and just said you "didn’t know what true horror was. Yet". We heard the back door creek open, so me and my friend Anne went to go see. The suspense was killing us. Suspense from what? The door creaking open? Do you guys flip out every time there's a light breeze? The entire house was pitch black. Turn on the lights then. We stepped into the dark hallway and slowly stepped closer and closer to the door. We heard heavy breathing from behind the door. And...JUMPSCARE! We went to grab the door knob, and when we saw what was behind it, we shrieked in terror. It was just our friend Mark. You held the tension here for 1 sentence. He and his friends Brad and Chuck were here. The idiots tried to scare us. "They're gonna be dead soon is what I'm saying." Me and Mark are sort of more than friends, but not really dating. Just sort of... into each other or something. It's complicated. We watched the movie together, and the guys kept making fun of us when we got scared, but they themselves kept getting freaked out now and then. Suddenly, we heard glass breaking. Mark volunteered to go check it out because how we were such "chickens". His words, not mine. I'd say that last sentence was completely superfluous but this whole story is completely superfluous. He walked into the hallways, closing the door behind him. He saw broken glass on the floor. He knew somebody had broken in. He turned around to warn us, but saw a masked, hoody-wearing creature. I thought he was a spirit. Now he's a creature? The mask was blue, with deep, empty, black holes where the eyes were supposed to be. I asked myself this same question when reading the original Eyeless Jack but how can they tell he has no eyes when he's wearing a mask in the dark?

The creature grabbed Mark's throat, squeezing it tightly. Mark gasped for breath, but the grasp on Mark's throat increased in strength. Tighter, tighter, until Mark couldn't breathe. Mark closed his eyes and dropped down onto the ground as the creature finally let him go. The creature observed his corpse, as if marveling at his own work of demented art. Oh no, not Mark! He was such a well developed character that we knew so well!

It was half an hour later, and we were worrying. I went to go check on him and found his corpse. So all of you just stood there and waited for 30 minutes while a monster choked Mark to death instead of alerting the police? What truly wonderful people you guys are. I nearly puked. There was no brutal damage or harm to it, but that's what scared me. In the movies it's always bloody and chopped up, nearly unrecognizable. But this was... was so real. Just a lifeless body there on the ground, nothing more to it. The police said he was strangled to death by... something. Poor Eyeless Jack always getting described as a "something". The finger prints on his neck Fingerprints is one word. Like, nobody writes "head aches" or "bed rooms" do they? were something odd. They tasted great! They scanned them and all, but the person they belonged to was murdered long ago. Jack Robins was a young boy who was brutally killed back in the 1970's. I sure am glad these cops committed every important detail of this decades old case to memory. His parents were on a date, and he was being babysat by a local teen trying to get some quick cash. You say that as if all teen babysitters aren't just looking for quick cash.

A strange man broke in while he was asleep and the sitter was busy on the phone. Being on the phone doesn't automatically cancel out all other sounds. I think she'd be able to hear someone breaking in. The man went through the house stealing everything he found useful. The sitter saw him and shrieked, only to be shot down by the robber. The robber found Jack and pulled out his carving knife. Jack saw him and shrieked. The robber, not wanting to get caught, shot him, and then cut his eyes out with the knife. Why? How could cutting out Jack's eyes possibly benefit him in any way? If he's trying to be sneaky then carrying someone's eyeballs around would be super easy to trace. There is literally absolutely no reason for this guy to cut out Jack's eyes other than "well he's gotta become Eyeless Jack somehow!"

I was shocked when I heard this. That poor kid. But what was the killer doing with his fingerprints? Was it a coincidence? You don't know what coincidences are, do you? Was the killer the same one who did this terrible, terrible thing all those years back, and the sicko kept Jack's hands with him? If the killer took Jack's hands the cops would've said that. How is that your first thought? Why would a robber cut off the hand of someone they murdered, keep it on their person and use it decades later to strangle some random person to death? I was scared. Me and my parents were staying in a hotel room since the murder, but I couldn't help but wonder if he was still in the house... Meanwhile, in the woods, Jack woke up. He saw that he was in Slender Man's body. I'm sorry, what? This is a body swapping story now? Why does "Slenderman vs. Eyeless Jack" need to be about body swapping? But more importantly, he actually saw. He discovered that Slender Man didn't just take over his body, he switched both of their souls into each other's bodies. I have so many questions. This story keeps calling Jack a spirit so how can he have even have a body/soul to swap? Since when did Slenderman have a soul? Didn't this story also say Slenderman ate souls? How would swapping souls allow Eyeless Jack to see? How can EJ do all the things he does if he can't see? I have the sneaking suspicion that none of these questions will go answered. Jack, now able to see, used this to follow the Slender Man's foot prints to the house. The police were investigating the scene of the crime, and went into the basement. The entire house was totally dark. If the power went out it'd be nice of you to let us know that. The two police man walked slowly down the stairs, and entered the dark room. The basement was flooded up to the police men's ankles because of the rain. Our house was an old one and it was always in a really crappy condition. Get it remodeled it then.

They found the old light switch and flipped it, only to be attacked and killed by Slender Man in Jack's body. He took on the other cops as they ran down the stairs. Their bullets did nothing. The body may have been harmed, but it was just flesh and bones. Useless flesh and bones. If they're so useless why did Slenderman even do this whole body swapping thing in the first place? How does switching souls with Eyeless Jack benefit Slenderman in anyway?

As the battle in the basement was going on, Jack in Slender Man's body broke down the front door, searching for his impostor. He rushed down the stairs to confront Slender Man. Slender threw his knife into Jack's face, distracting him as he grabbed a metal pipe up from off the floor. He hit the already dazed Jack in the head, knocking him to the floor. Remember: Jack's in Slenderman's body. So according to this story Slenderman can be stabbed, dazed and knocked to the ground. Jack got up and pulled the knife out of his head, impaling Slender Man with it. Slender Man seemed to slow down for a bit, but no real harm was done. "Besides the gaping chest wound I mean." Slender Man tore the knife out and dropped it to the ground. It was useless. Slender Man hit Jack with an uppercut, grabbed him and threw him into the furnace, closing him in and turning it on. Jack struggled to break free, but Slender Man was holding him in with all his strength. Eyeless Jack's body is capable of picking up and throwing the body of Slenderman, who is a 6-10 foot monster with teleportation powers, tentacles, and psychic abilities. Ok then. Jack pushed against the furnace with all his might, and finally jumped out, tackling Slender Man over. He held Slender Man's face down under the water, trying to drown him, but Slender Man managed to push up and knock Eyeless Jak down. Wow, Slenderman knocked Eyeless Jack down so hard the c fell out of his name! Jack reached for a nearby tool bag and pulled out a drill, sticking it into Slender Man's face. He turned it on, and it began to cut into his face. Why is EJ trying to kill Slenderman when they've switched bodies? I assume the body swapping is the reason EJ is mad at Slenderman in the first place so why would he ruin his chances of ever getting his real body back? Guys, Eyeless Jack is drilling into his own face. Slender Man grabbed the drill and pulled it out, throwing it over onto the stair case. Getting shot, drowned and stabbed didn't kill him so cutting into his face with a drill probably wouldn't either. Shouldn't Eyeless Jack know the limitations of his own body? Slender picked up the carving knife, slashed Jack across the chest with it, and jumped up and cut a pipe above Jack's head. Tons of sewage poured down onto Jack, knocking him to the ground and covering him with the slop. Did the writer of this even know Slenderman's power set?

Slender Man left, leaving Jack to die. Slender Man grabbed a thing of matches on the kitchen counter, lit one, and threw it to the ground, burning down the building as he turned and ran out the back door. The entire house burnt up and collapsed in, crushing Jack completely and seemingly finishing him off. Slenderman is leaving his own body to burn to death. Slenderman of all beings should know fire doesn't hurt him! The police told me and my parents about what happened. The cops that were there were killed before any of this crap even happened. They didn't know anything about the two killers or what really went on, but they knew that the house burnt down. I was devastated, but I was hoping that... that THING... was killed in the fire. Can't be, the story's not over yet. Unfortunately. I thought it was all over. I wish it were all over so I could do something more productive with my time like watching paint dry. I told my parents I was ready to go back to school, but they hesitated to let me. We talked it through, and they decided I was okay. What teenager wants to go to school?

The next day at school, my friends from the sleepover, Anne and Lauren, asked me what happened. I told them everything. Jack, how Mark died, the house burning down, etc.,etc. They were shocked. Everyone who overheard was shocked too. One kid approached us. He said that Jack never really died, and that he is still alive. Everybody that he was crazy, but he said that Jack's spirit still wanders the Earth, searching for the man who killed him. Who is this kid and how does he know any of this? The janitor saw all the commotion, and told the kid to go down to the principal's office. He turned to the rest of us and said to get to class. The principal told the kid that the legend of Eyeless Jack was just crazy talk.

Rumor spread that all these stories of monsters and ghosts and stuff was all actually real and the adults were keeping it from us, like some crazy conspiracy. This kind of conspiracy I hope. Now it was like a rebellion was on the horizon. How could these things really exist without anybody letting us know? It's our right to know these kinds of things! If they're trying to protect us it clearly isn't working because now Mark has been murdered! OK we get it author, you really like Freddy vs. Jason. Can you please quit rehashing plot elements from it?

I was angry. We were all angry. I'm angry because it feels like this story should be over by now. But we still had to carry on. The prom was coming soon, and I planned on asking Mark to go with me and maybe we could officially start dating, but then this whole crazy thing happened. Multiple people, including your own boyfriend, have been brutally killed by supernatural forces and you're worrying about the damn prom? I went with Brad, Mark's friend, but I felt really guilty. Just because Mark was killed I went out with his best friend? It was messed up, I knew it. Yeah, taking your boyfriend's best friend to the prom the day after said boyfriend was murdered is pretty messed up.

Everything was fine at the prom, until... it happened. www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xe0Ba… Chuck and Anne sneaked away to make out or something dumb, and then he came. Obvious joke is obvious. They went over by the lockers and made sure nobody was looking, but then they heard footsteps. They thought they were caught, but it was much worse. That masked man that strangled Mark. It was here! It grabbed Chuck and held him up against the wall by his throat. Anne shrieked in terror as the creature stared into Chuck's eyes. Stared deep down into his soul. You'd think someone called "Eyeless Jack" would have a hard time staring at people. Then it took him and it threw him straight out the window. A car was driving by, and Chuck's body landed straight on the windshield, nearly shattering the glass. The principal and the gym teacher both came running to help us out, but they were no match. The masked man grabbed both of the two and hit their heads together, knocking them unconscious, and then he stuffed both of their bodies into a locker. He slammed the door, locking them inside, and then turned around to face Anne. He ripped a locker door off of the wall and hit her upside the head with it, knocking her down. Why is Slendy-in-Jack's body here in the first place? Doesn't he have better things to be doing than picking off stupid teenagers? She got up and ran, and the man... no, not a man... the DEMON rushed after her. Demon? Wasn't he a spirit earlier?

She ran into the gymnasium, where we all were, and told us to run. Too late. The creature bursted in and impaled her with a leg he tore off a desk. Ah yes desks: a common thing to find in gymnasiums. She dropped to the floor, and he tore the leg out of her corpse. We all ran out screaming, but some of us weren't as lucky. Me, Brad, Lauren, and the janitor all got out alive and took off in Brad's van. The janitor drove us away, and said that he knew about Eyeless Jack. What a totally non contrived coincidence that some random janitor at some non descript school knows all about Eyeless Jack, Slenderman and the conspiracy covering them up. He confessed to us, telling us that the kid from the hallway was right all along. He was privy to this information how exactly? They just didn't want kids knowing to try and keep them safe, but it clearly didn't work. As we were driving, a flaming man in a tuxedo ran out into the road, Tuxedos and business suits aren't the same thing. and we accidentally hit him. The janitor thought it was a victim of Jack from the prom, He didn't notice that Slenderman was 6 feet tall and you know, lacking a face? so he rushed out to save him, but the faceless man got up and grabbed him, throwing him into the sky with all his might. We screamed in horror, and Brad leaped into the driver's seat, ramming over the man. So did the janitor come down or did he fly into outer space or something?

We drived off as it tried chasing us on feet, but we managed to escape. We were all scared, and none of us knew what was going on. I remembered the faceless tuxedo man, though. I could never forget him. It was the Slender Man. But he was real? Of course he's real! You've seen him attack people and you just ran him over with your car. UGH. We didn't know what was happening, You and me both. we just knew to get away as quick as possible. Meanwhile, Slender Man and Jack had a score to settle themselves. Jack (in Slender Man's body)arrived at the school to face his foe. A high school: truly the best place to stage the climatic showdown of your story. The two saw each other, and nothing could stop them. Nothing else in the world mattered. It was just them, face to face again at last. Sure, Slender Man had won it the last two times, but now Jack knew better. Jack grabbed the knocked-over punch table, lifted it up over his head, and threw it right at Slender Man, knocking him over. It's damn confusing reading this and having to remember that EJ and Slenderman have switched bodies. Almost like it's pointless or something. Jack quickly ran over and started punching Slender Man repeatedly. Is EJ gonna use a single one of Slenderman's powers while inhabiting his body? Slender Man kicked Jack in the chest and knocked him over. Guess that answers my question. Slender Man started to kick Jack in the face over and over, even stomping on his head. Jack got up and overpowered Slender Man, picking him up and throwing him up on the stage. Jack ran over and jumped up, hitting Slender Man in the chest several times and damaging his decaying ribcage. Jack grabbed Slender Man by the throat and threw him down onto the ground. Jack grabbed one of the band's amps, lifted it up with all his strength, and dropped it down onto Slender Man. Jack picked up a bottle of water off the floor and poured onto his semi-crushed opponent, frying him completely. Eyeless Jack has apparently succeed in destroying his own body. Hooray?

Jack, victorious, left to find me and the others. We were at Brad's house, Can we please just stop with the constant POV and tense changes because this story is testing my patience as it is. and we went inside we saw his dad, dead, hanging from the ceiling by a rusty metal chain. NO! Not Brad's dad! He was almost as well developed a character as Mark! We were shocked, and Brad broke out crying. Me and Lauren let him have his moment, so we went in his room to discuss it. Lauren said that maybe somebody in the town was the one who killed him and that's why this is happening, but I knew it had to be something more. You think it might have something to do with those 2 monster guys running around? You know, the ones you killed your friend and that janitor right in front of you?

I mean, why was Slender Man there? Better question: why is this story still going? Brad walked in, still sad, and asked what was going on. Lauren told him her theory, but he didn't believe it either. Suddenly, a corpse was thrown straight through the window, crashing onto the foor. We all shrieked in terror as we saw the message. It was... written in blood on his chest! It said "If you yourself do not release than it will come to take a piece". "YOU ARE WRONG". He was spying on our conversation? How? Why? For what reason? Suddenly, Jack kicked the door down. Of course, he was in Slender Man's body so we couldn't tell it was Jack at first. How could you tell it was Jack after the fact? How do you know any of this crap involving Jack and Slenderman? He as holding the corpse of Brad's dad, and threw it right at Brad, knocking him to the ground. Brad screamed, and we all ran off, being chased by Jack. We got outside and into the van, but the tires were slashed. Suddenly, Jack ran out of the house and jumped up on the hood of the car, kicking the windshield. It shatter and broke open, and he reached in to get us. Brad kicked him in the face and we ran out, trying to escape on foot. Suddenly, a beaten up and bloodied Slender Man (in Jack's body) I think everybody knows they've switched bodies by now! ambushed us and stabbed Brad in the heart several times with his knife. We shrieked and ran off, when suddenly a car stopped right in front of us on the road. It was Brad's mom, home from shopping! How wonderfully contrived. She said she heard about what was happening and immediately left the store to get us! We drove off as the two monsters fought each other once again. Slender Man stabbed Jack in the face several times, but Jack was unharmed. Which Slenderman should know wouldn't work because it's his body. He grabbed Slender Man, lifting him up off the ground, and threw him into the streets. Jack charged at him, but Slendy kicked him in the stomach and then got up and punched his face several times. Jack overpowered Slendy and pushed him down to the ground, elbowing him in the face. The two struggled and pushed eachother around, until Slender Man managed to push Jack up and throw him off of him. Slender Man got up and ran off to find us, leaving behind Jack. Just finish him off already! There's no reason whatsoever to chase after these dumb kids!

We told Brad's mom what happened, from what happened to Mark, to Jack, to the house burning down, and what happened at the prom. She was depressed that her husband and her son were both murdered, and we were sad about all the murders too. "All these murders are a major bummer, man."

Suddenly, a truck rammed into the car and sent us off road into the forest. The truck chased us into the woods until we hit a tree and the car went tumbling down a path. We jumped out the first chance we got and watched in horror as the car rolled down the nearby docks and fell into the water. You're still alive...how, exactly?

The truck came crashing after us, and Slender Man stepped out. He began to chase us, and we managed to get to an abandoned factory. We picked up a wooden plank and put in through the door handles, locking him out. If Slenderman was in his own body he could just teleport in the building. Hell, he could've teleport them outside the building if he had his old body. See what I mean about how switching bodies with Eyeless Jack doesn't benefit him in anyway? We went into another room so we wouldn't be able to hear the freak pounding on the door. We were terrified. There was no hope left. What could save us now? Hopefully nobody because all of you are such bland characters that I couldn't care less whether you lived or died.

Suddenly, Jack arrived. Slender Man turned around to face the creature, and was immediately kicked in the gut. He stumbled backwards and slammed into the door. Oh goody, another fight scene. Because we haven't had enough of those now, have we? He grabbed Jack by the throat and began to strangle him. He eventually just lifted Jack up by the throat and threw him down into the ground. He kicked Jack in the face several times, but Jack got back up. How do you kick a faceless man in the face? Jack grabbed Slender Man and threw him over into the distance. Slender Man saw a little canoe and picked up the ore, charging at Jack and impaling him through the ribs with it. Slenderman's body can apparently be impaled with a rock. Sure. Why not?

Jack pulled the ore out and hit Slender Man upside the head, knocking him down. Slender Man got up again, only to be smacked by the ore and sent flying. Slender Man landed on the docks, and Jack ran over at him. Meanwhile, we thought the coast was clear so we opened the door and looked outside, stupidly enough. We saw the two fighting on the docks and couldn't help but watch. Standing there and watching the two fight is obviously a better option than running away.

Jack hit Slender Man with an uppercut, knocking him over. Slender Man got back up and punched Jack in the face repeatedly, knocking him back a bit. Jack picked the ore back up and hit Slender Man in the face with it, knocking him down. Jack was serious now. This time...it's personal. He lifted the ore up above his head and pushed it down into Slender Man's chest. He kept stabbing him and stabbing him with it until Slender Man managed to get up and take the ore from him, throwing it into the water.

Lauren yelled out to us, pointing at a stick of dynamite she found. Oh there just happened to be a stick of dynamite lying around on these boat docks? Oh how convenient. What's next, is Brad's mom going to pull out a lighter she just so happened to have and use it to light the dynamite so they can kill Slenderman and Eyeless Jack? Brad's mom pulled out her lighter and lit it. I was joking! We threw it onto the dock as the two were fighting. This was it. Our last hope. Slender Man and Jack were brutally beating each other, and didn't notice the TNT. Suddenly, it finally went off, and it blew the two into the air. They went off into the sky, and crashed down into their watery graves. It was finally over! Oh thank God! Finally I can move on with my life! We were saved! We ran out to get back to town, but little did we know it wasn't over. Why not? Everything's been resolved. There's no reason to keep going.

Slender Man and Eyeless Jack awoke in a fiery pit, surrounded by a whole crowd of demons. They seemed to be chanting some weird spell, when a strange, creepy statue of Link from the Legend of Zelda series Oh come on! appeared before the two, and smiled deviously.

"Men..." he said, "What seems to be the problem?" You couldn't even have BEN say either of his catchphrases? Either "You shouldn't have done that." or "You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you?" would have worked here. I sort of appreciate the shout out to one of the unused endings from Freddy vs. Jason but missed opportunity here, come on. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- And that, my friends was "Slenderman vs. Eyeless Jack". I have but 1 question to ask: What the hell was the point of any of that? Slenderman eating souls, Eyeless Jack being a spirit, the town trying to cover them both up, Slenderman needing people to fear him in order to gain power and Eyeless Jack's whole backstory were all introduced and then forgotten about. None of the human characters were interesting and they barley impacted the plot at all. The body swapping was completely unnecessary and just made everything extra confusing for no reason and there were just way too many fight scenes. The whole thing just dragged. On the plus side the sentence structure was good and there were relatively few grammar mistakes. It's just that on top of all the other problems the whole premise was silly and it took itself way too seriously from the get go, which is my problem with most vs. fics to be honest.

#old stuff from my deviantart

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