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raindancejodi · 7 months

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Halloween Movie Watchlist

Hi guys! It's spooky season so I'm trying to come up with a list of horror movies and Halloween movies to watch to celebrate! I want to watch one movie a night, and I want to watch mostly movies I've never seen before!! I've got a small list of the classics/my favorites:

Hocus Pocus - if you're American (or I guess just acitve on Tumblr) and have been paying attention to Halloween media at all in the last decade, you've definitely heard of this one! In case you haven't: a teenager accidentally reawakens 3 child-eating witches and must stop them before they eat the youth of every child in town. Sounds a bit scary like that, but it's one of the absolute best family Halloween movies around

The Conjuring - my favorite horror movie ever! So scary, so well acted. The actual story is a bunch of scammers (with the Warren's being the biggest liars/scammers of them all), but the movie's great! Synopsis: a family moves into a new house and scary/supernatural things begin to occur, seemingly focusing on the mother.

Halloweentown - back to the realm of 'family friendly', this is another absolute banger from my childhood. A teenage girl learns she's a witch and must use her new powers to save Halloweentown, a magical place where Halloween is 24/7

The Vigil - I watched this fairly recently and I was very impressed! A Jewish horror movie about a young man who must sit watch over a dead body (which is a Jewish custom I'm forgetting the name of), but supernatural forces begin to haunt him

The Nightmare Before Christmas - back to the more fun ones, this movie is probably the most quintessential 'Halloween movie' in my mind, I think I've watched it every year since I was born! Jack Skellington, the king of Halloween, grows weary of celebrating the same holiday over and over. When he discovers a portal to Christmastown, he gets filled with excitement over something new and decides to try his hand at being king of that instead

The Possession - another Jewish horror story about a Dybbuk box, a box containing a malicious spirit, that finds its way into the hands of a young girl and begins terrorizing her family. Based on a true story! Based here being the operative word, but the owners of the box do seem to consistently say they were genuinely afraid of the box (although no deaths have been attributed to it as far as I know)

Fear Street 1994, 1978, and 1666: technically 3 movies, but all part of a series based off of the books by R. L. Stine. Phenomenal movies, I loved everything about them and want to own them on DVD. This story follows a group of mostly teens as they uncover the truth of the curse of Shadyside, a town where serial killers seem remarkably common. Also has excellent LGBTQ rep (sapphic) and genuinely some of the best storytelling and 'unraveling' I have ever seen (in my opinion)

The Exorcist - a cult classic for a reason, the movie that kicked off the exorcism movie craze that continues to this day (The Exorcist: Believer, anyone?). A young girl begins to display horrifying changes in personality and her mother is desperate to find answers, so she reaches out to a priest. I like this movie a lot, but it may seem kinda hokey to those more used to the more 'modern' special effects. I also love this one because they don't let themselves get bogged down on the specifics of the 'why' and the 'how', bad things happen to good people for no reason all the time (the explanation at the end of Hereditary really undid the whole movie for me)

Halloween - it's literally called Halloween, how could I not include it? This one is my favorite of the franchise because I, personally, really dislike gore (specifically painful body horror like in Saw and later installments). Not that there's anything wrong with those types of movies, just not my personal cup of tea. This movie is much slower and much more thriller type than you might expect if your only knowledge of the franchise is the latest (2020 +) movies, but it is masterful in its suspense and its overbearing, black, ominous, foreboding feeling it evokes.

Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) - can't have Halloween without Dracula! This is my favorite of the adaptations, I love the music, the sets, the casting, the costuming. It's beautiful and grandiose and suffocating and terrifying (and not totally SFW so maybe look up some details before watching with kids) and also a bit long so keep that in mind. A real estate agent travels to remote Romania to settle a land deal for a wealthy recluse, only to find his life and the lives of those around him irrevocably changed when the mysterious man takes a keen interest in his fiancé

That's 12 if you count Fear Street as 3, or only 9 if you wanna watch them all together (as I usually do, I really love those movies), and I'm gonna work out a specific order if I get a few more suggestions. Please add on and give me your ideas! I'm trying to focus more on Halloween movies - some connection to the holiday or more 'traditional' Halloween monsters like vampires, witches, werewolves, and ghosts - but there's more than a few non-Halloween movies on there so don't be afraid to add your fav scary movie too!

#halloween #horror movies #halloween movies #scary movies #hocus pocus #the exorcist #dracula

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dumbgaybrunette · 3 months

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Sloane Character Sheet

🍒🍒🍒🍒🍒🍒🍒🍒🍒🍒🍒🍒🍒🍒🍒🍒🍒🍒

``` ```

General information and warnings:

This is a character made for deaddove, grimdark, or otherwise potentially triggering content.

If I missed anything to tag please feel free to let me know. TW for themes of cannibalism, violence, body horror, and actions related to manipulation and psychological warfare are prevalent in this sheet.

``` ```

BASIC INFO

Full name:

Sloane Cereza

Nicknames/aliases:

- Sloane

- The lady in the ribbon

- “Shrike”

- “Songbird”

- “Versemonger of the Darkest Allies”

- “The garden”

Age:

Apparent age 23, has been 23 for 10 years now.

Sex:

AFAB

Orientation:

Pansexual and Panromantic

Occupation:

“Student” was her last title before she blossomed. Currently sings at a jazz lounge on weekends and certain times of the week.

APPEARANCE

Height and build:

5’9”, hourglass shaped with decent bone structure. Long extremities and very elegant hands.

Skin tone:

Porcelain, tans nicely in the summer

Eyes:

Hazel

Hair:

Mahogany/ dark red to the point of almost being black. Kept long and loose most of the time, devoid of knots and tangles.

``` ```

PERSONALITY

Positive traits:

- Polite

- Sparkling conversationalist

- Great listener

- Demure and elegant

- Compliments whoever she’s with, both with words and with the way she acts

- Highly intelligent

- Good with children

Negative traits:

- Can be really difficult on a whim (a brat is a brat)

- Awful temper (one thing can set her off for a week)

- Constantly assumes the worst in people

- Gets horribly jealous

- Poor self image and image of others

- Is not above jeapordizing her position because her mood took a heavy turn.

- Literally eats people and doesn’t see anything wrong with it.

Likes:

- Favorite food: Hot pot

- Favorite drink: Elderberry mojito

- Favorite color: Black

- Other people’s money (likes to hoard her own)

- Singing jazz

- Loud music you can feel in your chest.

- Jewelry and expensive gifts from suitors and business partners

- Praise (lots of it).

- People who listen and hold her gently

- Things that smell nice.

-Rhythm games.

- Plants, specifically vivariums and self-sustaining ecosystems.

- People who bend the rules without breaking them. (Bonus points if they’re intimidating. She likes them scary)

Dislikes:

- *Those* kind of men (you know the ones)

- Capers

- The sound of metal scraping metal

- Loud noises that aren’t music

- Psychotropic drugs, any drugs that aren’t uppers, really.

- Rotting/putrid smells

- Doctors

- Any mention of academia and medical school.

- People who use religion to justify atrocities that they commit.

``` ```

HEALTH

Physical health:

Sloane Cereza is in her prime, her body is average. Soft, flexible, but lacks some muscle tone. Her initial transformation at 23 held her body type in a sort of stasis and has not aged for the past ten years or so. Her internal temperature exceeds 120 degrees Fahrenheit with an exceptionally high heart rate and enlarged heart to pump more oxygenated blood throughout her body in order to expedite healing.

Disorders:

- Borderline personality disorder (undiagnosed and untreated)

- Autistic Spectrum Disorder (diagnosed, untreated, neglected by parents)

- Lack of restraint and control over strong emotions behind the placid façade.

- Hypersexuality as a form of self-soothing and sensory seeking.

``` ```

ABILITIES

- Corpsebloom Curse

> A curse as old as man, transferred typically from mother to daughter, but Sloane has no recollection of how she came to bear this ailment as it lay dormant in her for decades.

The curse makes its host/bearer immortal with regenerative powers, among other things unlocked with each “death” they experience.

The curse has no limits, but can be put into stasis for a long time with extreme heat, extreme cold and an anaerobic environment to achieve total cellular homeostasis.

Powers:

In order of unlocking after multiple deaths and regenerations. The more 'deaths' she experiences, the faster she regenerates and becomes more in tune with her own body down to a cellular level.

- <10 = Basic regeneration, arteries and veins pump vigorously to get blood pumping again. Highest objective is to mend broken bones and reach thermodynamic equilibrium.

- >50 = Rapid regeneration, hair begins to overtake most of it, keratinized strands turning to flesh and bone. Burns, frozen pieces and necrotic pieces of flesh quickly become superficial, only able to penetrate the epidermis.

- >100 = Osteomancy. She can manipulate the calcium in her system, crafting weapons and defensive maneuvers out of teeth and bone at an alarming rate.

- >150 = Cellular manipulation. Can actively control her own stem cells in her bone marrow to give her what she needs. Can create sperm from her own stem cells as well as needed erythrocytes and leukocytes. This is a roundabout way of saying she can change the shape of her flesh and how others perceive it.

- >200 = Semipermeable membrane. Bludgeoning and piercing attacks have no effect on her, as it bounces off her skin. Becomes impervious to physical attacks. However, she has full control over this and can, for example, make someone's hand go through her and trap their limb inside to be torn off by the membrane's stoma.

- >210 = Copycat. Can use any part of her and create lifelike copies. Previously, if one incarnation gets fully formed, all others die. Now, the copies are fully sentient and don't collapse in the presence of Sloane Prime. In this process, she is the most dangerous and gives her loved ones lockets with her hair inside it in case things go askew.

- ??? = Walking Mausoleum. Can call forth former cursebearers and become an Eldritch abomination. An indestructible and indescribable chorus of slaughter, violence and ferocity.

Irresistible:

Her blood is not wholly arcane or Eldritch, but something entirely different. It runs hot, and alerts inhuman beings that not all is what it seems. Every part of her has an addictive, almost sweet taste, from her blood down to her bone marrow.

Skills:

- A people person. She likes to make friends and allies wherever she goes. Often sent as a gift or diplomat by her employer to smooth things over.

- Knows just what to say to bypass people’s defenses and get what she needs from them. A master manipulator.

- Skilled in knife fighting and jiu jitsu. Not physically strong, so she uses her opponent’s weight and momentum against them.

- Fast learner.

- Advanced medical training.

- Persuasion

``` ```

BACKSTORY

(*semi-abridged*)

CW: Child abuse and neglect, mentions of misogyny, manipulation, coercion, murder, sexual violence, drugging.

Sloane’s childhood was strained as the oldest daughter in a Catholic household. Her mother was a CNA, and her father worked in finance. Once they noticed that their daughter was whip-smart, they immediately put her into rigorous academic training so she could be on track to become a doctor, the first in the family. She has a younger brother, Carlo, was treated as the crown prince in her house for being the only boy. She had limited time to spend playing or bonding with him, so they grew apart. They were once very close, but once Sloane began her academic career at twelve years old and was often kept busy, Carlo thought that she hated him, so he never bothered her.

She never wanted to be a doctor. All she wanted to do was relax and let loose, to break free from all those expectations for perfection that shackled her. She was sent to an Ivy League university immediately after graduating high school. Even with her intelligence, she had to work hard for her goal, or rather, the goal her parents implemented into her. She was in her senior year of her premed, studying for her MCAT when she met Miles. An older, rich gentleman that frequented the coffee shop and bar she studied in. The two hit it off, if you could call it that.

Miles would give her exorbitant amounts of money in exchange for sexual favors. At one point, he drugged Sloane and took her into his house only to comfort her and chalk it up to exhaustion due to the exam prep. She never came to the conclusion that he was manipulating and using her. She liked the attention, though it was brutal at times, and the money helped tremendously. After a small crisis following the loss of her virginity, she ended up dropping out. She lost her student housing and cut her family off, running to Miles after selling all of her belongings for extra cash. It wasn’t as if she was broke, far from it. Miles, naturally, let her live with him, though, later that night when they were having a tryst, he was a bit too rough with her and crushed her windpipe during sex. This initial death awakened something sleeping in her, and Sloane Cereza blossomed. Her hair color changing from black to mahogany, her body repairing itself from the assault. When she awakened, riddled with fear and trauma from dying, she held onto him like a lifeline, and that was only the beginning.

Years after the matter, she stopped counting. After countless deaths, drugs and conditioning, Miles had crafted her into something of a living doll, something soft and pliant to hold at night and fuck until it bled and screamed. He’d often take her to outings with the rich and beautiful, where she’d act as a party favor. After five years of captivity, Miles brought in a gift for her. Her very own captive. Chaos ensued, Sloane having to kill the captive so they wouldn’t kill her in turn. Then something fractured into place as Miles held and praised her for such an act of grotesque cruelty, and she stabbed him through the heart. Even as he pulled her on his way down, Sloane had won. Years she spent in that lavish home in the city, she wanted nothing to do with it anymore, so she pocketed all the cash she could find, drained his assets and burned the house to the ground.

The time between then and now was a blur, nebulous nights of assimilation and learning how to be a person again, even as Miles haunted her, she had *lived*, and she’d be damned if someone were to do that to her again. Eventually, she was spotted by a certain benefactor and now works as a scout for an underground criminal syndicate, singing jazz in lavish lounges to pluck ‘product’ from the crowd.

Pronouns: she/her

What to expect:

🩸Indirect violence, but uses a boxcutter and other small blades in case things get bad. Medical “play”(is not above flaying/bloodletting/operating on a live person)

💉 Drug use as needed, she doesn’t enjoy it, so she tries to keep it short and sweet using tranquilizers to knock someone out.

⚠️ Psychological manipulation, gaslighting, etc. Sloane will make herself a soft place for her victims to land on by making everything else around them hostile and inhospitable. Then, once they’re comfortable enough, she snuffs out the light.

I believe that’s it!

Sorry for the wall of text but I want y’all to be up to speed with our resident freak ^w^

#and now y’all are up to speed with Sloane’s lore!#sloane #nsft #my ocs #dgb Sloane #Sloane Cereza #cw dubcon #cw violence #cw blood #cw body horror

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particular-one · 1 year

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hello!! could i please request a romantic matchup with twisted wonderland and honkai star rail?

my name is alex and my pronouns are they/them, my mbti is intp-t, my zodiac is virgo.

personality: im really shy and kind of awkward when socializing others bcos im not really good interacting with them so i just stay in the sideline where i observe people and their behavior and thats the reason why people depict me as intimidating and hard to approach and also bcos of my stoic expression too but when im with my close friends, im really bubbly and more comfortable with them. im really quite moody sometimes and i also tend to overthink things. i always listen to my friends whenever they're having a problem and just be there for them sometimes pitching in some advice now and then. im also the type of person to run away from their problems and tend to push people away bcos i dont want to burden them, i also laugh at small things, im also the type of person to read a body language very well bcos of my observant nature. i also get insecure with my appearance too. im also blunt with my words i do not sugarcoat things

romantic preference: i prefer to be match with a male

my hobbies/likes: writing stories and reading books, poetry composition, learning about stars and outer space, watching horror videos on yt, staying up all night writing down my ideas about my next stories, sleeping, i also have a fascination to ocean and i tend to stare at it, dark academia, i also like abandoned places especially if its haunted, i also love matcha green tea, i really love a meadow full of lavenders.

my dislikes: loud people including loud places too, vegetables (depends on my mood), cheaters and playboys, worms, hot weather, arrogant people.

what i look for in a partner: someone who is very loyal since i have trust issues and soemone who can be my safe haven when things get so overwhelm

my love language: acts of service and quality time

that's all and thank you!! ^^

hello alex! and yeah, definitely!! sorry for taking quite a bit with yours, i hope you like your matchups :>

TWISTED WONDERLAND ---- TREY CLOVER

⋆｡ﾟ☁︎｡⋆｡ﾟ☾ ﾟ｡⋆ trey is, without the doubt, one of the sweeter guys in night raven academy. he usually treats everyone with much respect and admiration, so your first meeting went very smoothly. trey is a sweetheart even minus the romantic context, so it is expected that he'd do things out of the ordinary for you, like getting you something from the bakery or just helping you out on your work. although your friendship didn't exceed from the usual polite gestures and greetings, the instance that probably shifted his entire view of you positively was when he overheard you giving advice to the younger heartslabyul students. he was surprised how you were able to impart such words of wisdom, and since then, he's been really interested in you and actively makes an effort to talk to you. as a partner, trey is very big on a specific love language. well, scratch that — he probably demonstrates his affections for you through every love language possible. quality time? trey would go out of his way to spend time with you even if he was busy with his own commitments, because you were his priority. words of affirmation? he makes handwritten notes to accompany the small mementos that he buys for you. with trey, he likes to shower you with as much love as possible, but he rarely goes overboard to the point of discomfort. trey is quite the loyal and considerate guy and he can tell almost immediately if something is off, in which he'd try to figure out how else to cheer you up. dates with trey might involve baking together — honestly, it might just be him baking while he listens to you talk about what you like, but he always wanted you to taste test his baked goods anyways. he'd also bring you on picnics with these freshly baked goods and the both of you would just relax outdoors and bask in the fresh air. learning about your fascination with stars, trey offers to go stargazing with you late at night! the both of you would just stay up as he listens to you point out the names of the stars on the sky.

HONKAI STAR RAIL ---- GEPARD LANDAU

⋆｡ﾟ☁︎｡⋆｡ﾟ☾ ﾟ｡⋆ gepard is the type of guy who'd act very knightly around you, mostly out of respect and his duty as a soldier. though gepard is not the best conversationalist, he saw past the initial view of stoicism and intimidation and approached you with the notion of befriending you, especially since his sister kept hounding on him to make friends outside work. since then, he hasn't regretted meeting you — if he were being honest, he laughs a lot when you're talking with him, which serval instantly picks up that something is definitely up — that he gradually develops a crush on you. as a partner, gepard is the very reason why chivalry isn't dead. he is big on acts of service, so he treats you a lot to make sure you're feeling as pampered as possible. when gepard had tried courting you at first, he had definitely tried to win you over by serenading you, but serval had to be the one to push him away then pull him aside and tell him that this awkward charm and very... questionable singing was not going to charm you. still, it magically worked and the both of you went out weeks after that anyways. up until now, gepard likes singing to you in private with songs that reminded him of you, and though it starts off disastrous, he honestly likes expressing it in that way. gepard isn't an avid reader, but he likes to ask book recommendations from you! secretly, this is because he likes to surprise you with annotated copies of them, where he highlights quotes and statements (especially those with a romantic connotation) and just write "reminds me of you!" or "the way i feel for you :)", things along those lines. he's very sappy when it comes to you that he gets easily flustered if you do something remotely romantic for him. he'd reach for the stars and gift wrap one for you, if he could.

#honkai star rail #honkai star rail matchups #twisted wonderland matchups #twisted wonderland #·˚ * 🔭 carlyle matchups

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musicallisto · 2 years

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Hi dear! You got to 1200 followers! That's amazing and you deserve it! I wanted to participate in your event so may I have ☄️Comet for game of thrones?

I hope this is enough info and thank you in advance!!

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Zoadic: Leo sun, Aries moon, Leo rising

Mbti type: Entp

Pronouns: She/her

Sexuality: Straight....I think lmao-

Appearance: I'm 5'5, very petite and I get picked on for being "small" even though technically i'm average height. I have thick messy brown hair, freckles all over my face and body, brown eyes and I'm very pale. I don't have a very specific style although I have always liked more of the grunge/punk style but I'm too lazy to dress like that so I wear lots of flannels, skinny jeans and band t-shirts. I also appreciate some nice over sized hoodies!

Personality: At first people find me intimidating due to my resting bitch face and my cold demeanor but once you really get to know me I'm just a big goofball that's EXTREMELY sarcastic and I'm honestly very reckless sometimes. I also stick up for my friends and family a lot of the time. My friends sometimes make me come to certain places or talk to people with them because they are scared to go alone lmao so I'm always there if someone needs me. But I'm also very competitive, hard headed and feisty!

Random things: I have a slight southern accent because I've grown up in the south and sometimes I'll say certain words that come out way more southern sounding than I mean it to. I also kind of bounce my leg up and down while i'm sitting idk why I do it and I don't even notice when I am doing it. I run my hands through my hair a lot, mainly out of anxiety or when I want it out of my face and that's one reason why its always a mess. I'll also space out and start to chew on my gum or lip....bad habits.

Likes: Swimming (I was on a swim team for about 6 years!), running, rain, sound of thunderstorms, 90's grunge and alternative rock, fall, horror movies, cats....for the most part, writing, reading, going for walks, cooking, baking

Dislikes: Spiders.....I will scream if I see one, cold weather, bossy people sometimes people in general, passive aggressive people like seriously don't talk about me behind my back if you have something to say then say it to my face or you better be ready to catch these hands

-THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS! FROM ✨Sparkle anon✨!

☄️ comet

The people of King's Landing need to be kept amused. It is the best way to keep revolutions at bay, and for the people to forget how starved and miserable they are. It is not enough for the nobles to attend a banquet, or visit a whorehouse every now and then to satiate their hunger—the poor must be entertained too.

And entertainment is what you do best.

You are one of the best athletes of Westeros, renowned across the whole continent for your agility and strength. Under King Tywin Lannister's patronage, who lifted you from your Western little town and brought you to the Capital, you've fought every foe and risen up to every challenge you've been presented in the King's Landing arena. Bulls, hyenas, even bears? You've fought them off bravely. Acrobatics courses, antics on a wire stretched ten meters above the ground? Piece of cake. Racing the best swimmers in the Westerosi navy? Been there, done that. And the people know your name and chant it every week, without fail. It is safe to say you've become one of the most beloved people in King's Landing... by the mass and the ruling class alike. Well, one member of the ruling class in particular.

Jaime Lannister often attends your shows when he's not away on some battle or reconnaissance mission, and it is hard not noticing him in the crowd. Not only from the army of knights surrounding him at all times, but also because his gaze is piercing, but appreciative, like a pleased emperor who will not have your head today—but perhaps tomorrow. One day, though, he takes a step further, and meets you outside your changing room after the show.

He introduces himself (of course you already know who he is), he compliments you heartily on your impressive skills (of course you hear it all the time), and suggests, without so much as an introduction, that you become a knight of his personal guard.

You're stunned into silence, but immediately reject the proposal. You're an athlete, not a soldier. (But you're the more skilled and athletic than most of the doorknobs in his army.) The King, his father, pays you handsomely for your performances. (The pay for the Kingslayer's guards is thrice as high, and he can overrule his father anytime.) No. The answer is no.

So Jaime leaves, and you think this will be the end of that, but he returns on your next show, and applauds you as warmly as before. And he meets you again after the show, and asks you to reconsider. You refuse again—you will refuse as many times as necessary. And Jaime continues to visit you, though he drops the question, and simply inquires about your day. Your life. Your aspirations. Your family. He wants to know you better. You unravel yourself piece by piece to him, careful but a bit enraptured too. There's not a single armor that has resisted his blade long... but yours is a welcome challenge. A few months later, he asks you to become his knight again—and you refuse again. But your resolve is not as steely as before... and both of you can notice.

#anon #1.2ksleepover

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with-love-from-hell · 2 years

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Hi Storm,

You know I ADORE your writing... but I would love to know a little bit more about your Mc in game. Like personality traits, HCs, their name, what they look like, etc. I was wondering if they look like/are based on you or if they look different?! I am SO CURIOUS

Also, which brother(s) are you romancing in game? I would like to know the characters your MC vibes the most with.

I know your asks are closed but I would really love to know more about how you view the character in your stories. It feels like the Mc in Vermillion Skies specifically is based off of your character, so yeah! If you have drawn them or done picrews, can you also share those?

(I know requests are currently closed so I can be patient with waiting until you have the time!!!!)

Helllooo Sarah!

I'd love to tell you more about my Mc!

If you all didn't know, Storm isn't just the pen name im going by on this blog! Its also the name of my Mc! (Read more about her under the cut)

Name: Storm

Pronouns: she/her, they/them is also fine

Age: mid 20s

Height: 5'3" (very short)

Eye color: light blue/steele blue

Hair features: Scarlet color that goes down to her hips. Her hair is very thick and curly. She takes very good care of it. She will often wear it down, in a messy bun, or tied back in a loose pony or braid.

Occupation: Event Planner for a large University, side gig at an animal shelter

Top 5 skills: situational analysis, singing, taking care of others, planning/organizing, cleanliness

Favorite season(s): Fall and Spring

Favorite Color(s): black, blue, purple

Likes: most animals (particularly dogs and reptiles), flowers/plants, moths and butterflies, tattoos/piercings, cooking, music (particularly hard rock and indie but likes pretty much all music), anything within the horror genre (art, movies, etc), being in/near water

Dislikes: loud noises, bright lights, being touched without permission, bears, being treated like she's stupid/being talked down to, messes/disorder, spiders and centipedes, people who chew with their mouth open, being the center of attention, bright-colored clothing

Favorite meal to prepare: Corned Beef, potatoes & Cabbage

MBI Allignment: INFJ-T

Astrological sign: Libra

Love languages (giving): giving gifts, words of affirmation, quality time, acts of service, physical touch (literally all of them. Lol)

Love languages (receiving): physical affection, quality time

Sexuality: grey-asexual, panromantic

Officially Courted By: Lucifer

Crushes on: Lucifer, Simeon, Beelzebub

Closest Friends: Beelzebub, Mammon, Satan

General headcannons:

Mom friend!! She is very protective of her friends and family and she is always prepared with emergency snacks, bandaids, ponyholders, etc

Quiet, but observant and thoughtful. She will definitely contribute to a conversation if she feels she can add something, but otherwise keeps to herself.

Peace keeper/mediator in arguments. She hates conflict. Any time something gets heated she starts panicking.

LOVES to swear. Like every other word is "shit" or "fuck."

Really feels awkward when she's being flirted with publicly. It also makes her super uncomfortable when people joke about her sex life.

Incredibly patient and forgiving. She literally has the bullshit tolerance of a saint.

She is often manipulated and walked over by others, especially after letting her walls down and trusting them, which gets harder every time she experiences a betrayal.

Long history of various types of abuse/trauma. She has a really hard time feeling comfortable around people who are angry or yelling.

Very empathetic and compassionate. She loves helping others and making people happy. She often goes out of her way to do things for others.

Very self-deprecating and has a very low self-esteem. She struggles to feel comfortable in her body

Has a very hard time accepting compliments, but is great with criticism.

Becomes attached to others way too easily. She often fears rejection and tries to hold back her true emotions to avoid getting hurt by casual acquaintances, but because of her kind and caring nature this doesn't last long once she befriends someone

Absolute meme lord and loves referencing human world memes (and teaching them to the brothers)

Has a bachelors degree in Philosophy. She doesn't need it for her career, but she enjoys deeper existential discussion and debates on ethics.

Is hearing impaired, but not deaf. She does know ASL though!

The people she meets often think she's much older than she is (like by 3-4 years). This has been true most of her life.

Loves to try and experience new things, but can sometimes be hesitant to new experiences that may result in her feeling embarrassed due to her social anxiety

Generally able to stay calm in a crisis until the situation is resolved, THEN she freaks out.

Really bad at math and most physical sciences, but is really good at reading, writing, and social sciences. Generally speaking, she is pretty intelligent, but can sometimes lack the street smarts necessary to avoid being scammed.

Has 9 tattoos, and plans on getting more. She has a nose piercing, and 5 piercings on her right ear, and 2 piercings on her left ear

#ask #personal #my mc #obey me mc

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pristinepastel · 3 years

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i made an outfit based on mc in acnh. just thought id share that

anyway in other news— heres more penemue trivia! under the cut so those who only wanted to see the acnh obey me drip dont have to scroll through it lollo

Penemue enjoys embroidery in their spare time. its not perfect, since they’ve only just started practicing, but they really like the sound the needle and thread makes going through the fabric in the hoop.

Easily startled =/= Easily terrified. When snuck up on by people they know/trust, they will scream, but this just gives that person a headache and maybe some temporary hearing loss. Strangers will pass out from the pain, but unless there is actual danger threatening penemue, its very unlikely that anyone will die.

Having said that, when they scream intentionally they can control the severity and who it targets, so if you’re threatening someone they love even if its not themself, you’re in the shit

They can also cast illusions on themself even when they’re not in their sinful form. These don’t cause as mind breaking a fear, but they can definitely terrify someone enough to make them flee.

as a result any school festival haunted house they participate in—once they became a demon— is a rousing success

these illusions are generally hyper-realistic wounds/features. surreal body horror is their preference— think siren blood curse type horror with the stomach mouth.

they dislike most horror movies, but love the creature/monster design and world building aspects of them. this is because they hate jumpscares, but when they control when they see it and how they love the intricacies of it.

specifically loves the guy who plays the monster roles in del toro, crimson peak, and the silent hill movies— the creature design is impeccable. pans labyrinth especially

In human and basic demon forms, can creep/freak people out unintentionally. both with behavior—(*blows on the back of mammon’s neck* “YIIKES— PEN WHY???!” “You had a bit of fuzz on your neck. :^)”)— and appearance, since sometimes they cast extremely subtle/minor illusions subconsciously. out the corner of your eye you see their eyes go pitch black, or their face flash into a rotting corpse’s for a split second.

has as a result accidentally made mammon shriek when he saw them standing in the hallway, staring at nothing and dripping wet. they were returning to their room after a shower and got lost in thought, forgetting to keep walking;;

#obswd #obey me #obey me mc #obey me shall we date #acnh #pristine did a create #penemue

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askkrenko · 3 years

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Krenko’s Guide to Pokemon: Eevee Line

Part 1. Because seriously.

DESIGN:

Eevee was intentionally designed to be some sort of generic wild critter that could exist but doesn’t. Given traits of all sorts of small, furry things, the purpose of Eevee is to be cute, lovable, and evoke the feeling of ‘some animal.’ It is simultaneously known to everyone and completely unknown. Everyone recognizes Eevee but nobody actually knows what it is. Eevee is, above all else, THE ‘normal’ Pokemon.

And honestly, it’s totally freaking adorable. Eevee is the best rabbit dog fox kitty thing that ever was, and nobody doesn’t love Eevee. Its design basically couldn’t be better. There’s a reason this fuzzlewuzzle regularly competes with Pikachu for being the face of Pokemon. Sure, it can’t quite win, but it’s up there.

But the concept of Eevee is really the interesting one. Eevee was the first Pokemon with branching evolutions, and while other Pokemon have gotten such since then, Eevee has always had the most. Starting with three in Generation 1, there are currently eight possible evolutions of Eevee, and there could easily be more on the way. This puts the Eevee line in a really notable position. I always love when a Pokemon has a unique gimmick, and while in combat each Eeveelution might just be another, having an Eevee with so many options to choose from makes it an interesting Pokemon to obtain.

But before we discuss the designs of any evolutions, let’s talk about the non-evolved alternate form: Gigantamax. Like Pikachu and Meowth, GIgantamax Eevee is just a gimmick. The Pokemon’s not strong enough to be used, and Gigantamax Eevee can’t actually evolve, so it’s just there to be big and fluffy and cute… and it just fails at that. It’s not that Gigantamax Eevee isn’t cute- of course it is- but it’s not cuter than Eevee is normally, and the big bushy collar isn’t nearly as fun of a unique touch as Meowth being memes or Pikachu going back to its fat gen 1 design. Sadly, Gigantamax Eevee is a waste of everyone’s time.

And now onto the actual evolutions.

VAPOREON:

Vaporeon is an interesting and unique creature, with large fins on its head and small ones down its back and tail giving it the appearance of a fish, but still with a clearly mammalian mouth and legs. Vaporeon is clearly aquatic and clearly related to Eevee, but other than that it simply doesn’t look like anything. And yet Vaporeon still has a clear design and aesthetic, as something that could maybe possibly be something between a dog, a seal and a dolphin. It’s an elegant, clean design that looks fantastic without looking absurd.

JOLTEON:

Jolteon’s just yellow with spikes. It’s simple, but it works. There’s nothing weird about Jolteon’s design in the least, though admittedly that means there’s nothing overly special about it. Jolteon is just what happens when you take Eevee and make it cool, and other than the bright coloration there’s nothing particularly odd about it. One of the more subdued Eeveelutions, I like it, it’s cool, but I don’t exactly have specific praise for it.

FLAREON:

Flareon looks even more realistic than Jolteon. The red coloration’s a bit bright, but other than that it’s just a big ol’ floofy floof. The shape and color of its fur suggest fire, but unlike many fire types it doesn’t feel the need to actually be on fire. Like Jolteon, Flareon is a good, clean design.

It’s also noteworthy here that the first three Eeveelutions have big collars, like Eevee does. The rest do not. Honestly, I really like this part of the design, but I understand why not all would have it.

ESPEON:

The psychic evolution, Espeon’s purple colors are a bit more out there than the previous three, and my first instinct when looking at it is that it’s supposed to be hairless like a Sphynx Cat, but then it has those huge tufts on the side of its face that are clearly hair despite it not having tufts or even signs of fur anywhere else. They’re too high to be whiskers, too, so they just come across as weird. In fact, everything about Espeon is weird, and not always for the better. The split tail is a cool design, but I don’t understand what it’s going for. The jewel on the forehead I DO understand as a psychic focus, but it’s so obviously artificial compared to the previous Eeveelutions that it feels out of place. In fact, the core concept of Espeon feels a bit out of place. Most of the Eeveelutions are the result of stone or location radiation, and Umbreon happens at night. Espeon levels up in the day time with affection, and somehow becomes a psychic type. A psychic type whose pokedex entry calls the Sun Pokemon.

Eevee’s whole gimmick is that when exposed to weird stuff it transforms, so I have a hard time understanding why a happy Eevee turns into a psychic type during the day. If it was just about the strong bond with its trainer, why does the sun matter? And if the sun does matter, what’s going on with its everything?

Espeon ultimately just doesn’t work for me. It reads wrong as a creature and I don’t understand how it fits in with other Eevee lore.

UMBREON:

Okay, what’s up with those circles? Black fur I get. Gold stripes I get. Floofy tail, red eyes, sleek body, sure sure sure. I am totally on board with that. But those clean, obvious golden rings absolutely take me out of this design. I get that they’re supposed to be moonlight rings or something, but I’d have been much happier if this thing had golden spots instead of such clean shapes, to make it look more like a realistic animal.

As far as actually fitting though, it makes sense as a Night-based Pokemon, but the Moon thing is a bit more of a stretch. It’s not nearly as bad as Espeon and the Sun, but Eevee plus Moonlight should result in a brighter, glowing Eevee, not a darker, more sinister Eevee. Umbreon also has a serious issue of its abilities not being what it says they are. For example, the Pokedex says it’s got poison; Umbreon has never naturally learned a poison type attack. Its rings glowing is supposed to be one of its key features, but none of its abilities reflect that.

This isn’t to say that I dislike Umbreon or Espeon overall. Some of my favorite Pokemon have been Umbreons and Espeons. Their designs just really don’t sell the story that they’re trying to.

LEAFEON:

So, now this is more like what I’m talking about. Eevee + Moss Rock/Leaf Stone = Eevee that’s turning into a plant. It’s still an animal, but with its ears and tail and some of its fur turning into leaves so it can now photosynthesize. Also the leaf is a sword because that’s bitchin’.

Now, while I am totally on board with Leafeon’s concept, I do think the design could’ve used a bit of tweaking. The head and tail are great, but the little leaf things coming off the body look a bit odd, and I’m not really sold on the mostly tan color scheme. I think it’d have looked better with more browns and greens. Specifically, brown legs and belly, green back and neck. Maybe a leafy collar like the original Eeveelutions all had collars. Still, I like it overall.

GLACEON:

I don’t particularly like Glaceon. While it reads as an Ice Eevee it doesn’t read as an Eevee infused with Ice or adapted to Ice so much as it reads as an Eevee with design elements that look ice-like. The sharp diamond shapes over it don’t actually have anything to do with ice the way Jolteon’s spikes are the result of electric charge or Flareon’s floof looks like fire. Further, the addition of what is clearly a hairdo is just sort of weird. It’s too sharp to look like it comes naturally and while it makes for an interesting visual element it doesn’t mean anything or serve any purpose in the Glaceon itself. At least Espeon’s split tail was supposed to be for sensing things. Glaceon just has huge flaps that are definitely a disadvantage in a fight and don’t seem to serve any purpose other than possibly attracting a mate.

Glaceon is a solid design for a creature but not for ‘this is an Eevee mutated by the ice element.’

SYLVEON:

OH MY GOD WHAT THE HELL IS THIS ABOMINATION!?!?

Oh, it’s a cute fairy Eevee that’s pink and blue with ribbons and bows? You’d think so, and I don’t mind the color scheme for a fairy type but THOSE ARE NOT RIBBONS AND BOWS. Those are ‘feelers.’ Those are FLESH. Fur-covered, wriggly, boneless flesh.

This is bad. This is wrong. This is not okay.

This is not a fairy. This is an eldritch horror. Foxes should not have tentacles, and tentacles should not have fur.

And that’s not even getting into how much I hate Sylveon’s evolution method. Eevee evolves into Sylveon when it has affection and knows a fairy type move… but Eevee can just learn Baby-Doll Eyes on its own at level 15, so this isn’t a feat or anything special, it’s just a normal part of raising an Eevee. The worst part is that this is some weird new and special method to explain why you couldn’t have done it before, but the only actual change here is that Eevee didn’t learn Baby-Doll Eyes naturally before, so instead of something being discovered the world has just been rewritten to allow Sylveon to exist.

Because Sylveon is a monster from outside reality that has forced its way in here.

I hate Sylveon. I hate Sylveon so much. And to truly understand how much I hate Sylveon you need to understand that I love Eevee. I have two Eevee on my nightstand- named Artemis and Apollo after my Espeon and Umbreon from Gold and Silver. I make it a point to use Eeveelutions in every game, because I love them so much. One of my oldest RP characters was a Jolteon named Flash. On Halloween, I had one of my video game characters dress up as an Eevee to go to a costume party in an MMO. Which obviously didn’t have an Eevee costume so I had to assemble it. So my hate for Sylveon isn’t just ‘oh, this is an icky Pokemon,’ but I take its existence as an insult to Eevee, who I love so much.

You came to the wrong Eeveehood by Dakunart

TYPING:

What type do you want? Eeveelutions come in eight different types, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. But that’s Pokemon for you. And in the future we’ll probably get even more types. I just hope they have good designs and aren’t disgusting abominations.

STATS OVERVIEW:

We’ll talk about stats of Eeveelutions individually, but for now let’s note what they all have in common: numbers. Every evolved form of Eevee has a 130, a 110, a 95, two 65s, and a 60, for a total of 525 base stats, making for Pokemon that are highly specialized in some areas and very weak in others. This results in all of them having at least a decent stat array, except for Flareon, though whether their array is offensive, defensive, or more balanced varies.

Eeveelutions by Endivinity

MOVES OVERVIEW:

As with stats, we’ll discuss them for individual evolutions, but as they’re all evolved from Eevee they do share a large amount of their move pool. Eevee is notorious for learning Baton Pass naturally, a move so powerful and useful it’s been banned in many formats, and though it requires chain breeding, Eevee’s one of a relatively small number of Pokemon that can learn Wish.

Yawn, Substitute, Protect, and Rest all offer strategic options, and though not available in the current generation, Eevee could previously learn Toxic.

Actual attack forms for Eevee to learn pre-evolution are pretty limited, but an Eevee can learn Shadow Ball and Iron Tail, both of which have their uses.

Eevee does have a number of unique attacks, primarily from Let’s Go Eevee but also the Z-Move Extreme Evoboost. While all of these are viciously powerful to the point of being outright broken, Eevee’s evolved forms can’t learn them, and thus they’re not relevant in most competitive play.

Next time, we’ll start going down the list of forms and discussing them in the specifics. This one’s a doozy.

Eeveelutions by Lushies-Art

#Krenko's Pokemon Guide #Eevee #Jolteon #Vaporeon #Flareon #Espeon #Umbreon #Glaceon #Leafeon #Sylveon #Eeveelutions

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r1k-y9 · 3 years

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redesign of my old ocs :]

i’ve been wanting to do this for a while so i’ll just be dumping info n my revamp of my old ocs!

this is the first introduction to the revamp

i used to have these old ocs with the names of angelle, azura n crystelle

i wanted to do things with them but i never ended up doing until now!

i’ve completely changed angelle and azura’s, crystelle’s redesign is still similar to the old one (i’ll have to find old pictures of them in my main blog and try to do a comparison!)

angelle’s redesign has a much more babyish and rounder face (i tried my best to really draw it) while azura’s redesign has a much more sharper square-ish face and with crystelle’s i kept my usual design for majority of my random designs but i made them softer!

here is a second picture; specifically to try to illuminate their styles and how they act i’d say

i drew this picture in a more recent setting, like the pandemic and all, hense the masks

the purpose of this drawing was for me to practice drawing them and to illuminate on how their character would act

so for crystelle, they would be more awkward, i’d say; angelle is a little more photogenic but in kinda like ‘i’m starting to become photogenic and its working well!’ and azura just, doesn’t care.

here is me dumping my headcanons for the characters, well only the species

azura is a pixie, i high lighted that with the sharp ears but add a little touch of a thin sharper skin underneath the ear! they also have wings that they can will out of existence and in existence

angelle is a demon! a difference from well being an angel in the original character. they have a sharped tail.

crystelle is an elf with a much more softer but still elf ears. i wanna say that the earrings on the ears are not a personal preference (well lowkey they are-) but kinda way to show-off the ranks of what type of elf they are and what level they are (haven’t worked out the worldbuilding just yet)

next up is the character sheets for the revamped characters (i can finally use the new names!!)

TRANSCRIPTION OF CHARACTER SHEET: Name: Azurazar Markocs

a pixie

FTM Transgender

in human years; 20+ (age)

in pixies year; 2.1 (decimal is used for the age)

introvert, acts all-knowing, is smart

uses he/they pronouns

godsibling to blank (i forgot to write but they would be a godsibling to crystelle’s redesign)

3rd level type of pixie : use of mind type of fairy

short, has freckles

terrible health (physical) system

the ‘middle’ sibling (in terms of dynamic with the trio)

LIKES DISLIKES

musical transphobia horror games sweets gummy bear brightness rainbow sparkles Bill Cipher anime tulips romance (shows) book reader enclosed spaces (phobia) ice cream fairies

TRANSCRIPTION OF CHARACTER SHEET: Name: Arielle Orlion

demon

cis female

in human years; 19

in demon age; barely considered a young adult (aka; young demon)

soft, active, gentle, hyper

she/her

4th rank (in demon ranks)

“cousin” that they adopted (in terms of dynamic)

chubby

average height

LIKES DISLIKES

food mukbang cotton candy flowers bunnies arrogance nature horror pig bulls games silence drawing dark (phobia) banana work

TRANSCRIPTION OF CHARACTER SHEET: Name: Cryss Weishington

elf

nonbinary

in human years; 23

in elf years; 123 years old

kind, dorky, geeky

uses any pronouns

elder sister/parent (of the dynamic)

higher but average (rank in elf)

fit, average body size

tall

healthy (physical) system

LIKES DISLIKES

flowers peanut (allergy) meat idiots foxes loud (noises) writing work (paperwork) angels lava internet alone (phobia) vegetables love

~ = ~

and that is all i got for them! welcome to the blog, azura, arielle and cryss :]

#oc #oc art #original character #original character art #my art #||#arielle orlion #cryss weishinton #azurazar markocs #<-- their official character tags in this blog!#i'd love to do more art of them :]

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merryfortune · 3 years

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Tear ducts of Coral

Fandom: Tropical Rouge PreCure

Ship: Laura/Sango

Word Count: 3.8k

Tags: Out of Character, Body Horror, Gore, Xenobiology, Unrequited Pining

Minori adjusted her glasses and blinked when something had suddenly caught her attention during the Tropical Club’s latest endeavour: script writing. She turned her head, robotically, to the side and the increasing motion in just one little square of the desks they had bumped together had gotten Sango and Asuka to notice as well. Manatsu, however, was still scribbling away at her Ultra Hyper Pineapple Squad idea, whatever that was.

“Laura, do you mind me asking a personal question?” Minori asked.

“Huh?” Laura’s hand flopped around as she lazily, but in a fashion that was oddly regal at the same time which indicated that Laura was now paying attention. Somewhat, at least. “Pardon, you want to ask a personal question?” she addressed Minori.

Her tail twitched as Laura played with her hair, all whilst she remained propped up on Manatsu’s desk. Speaking of, Manatsu was paying attention as well, she chewed on her pencil as Laura tried to decide if she wanted to answer Minori’s question or not before, ultimately, she shrugged her shoulders.

“Yes.” Minori confirmed.

Laura sighed heavily, “So long as its not too personal, I suppose I don’t mind.”

“Good, I don’t think it is too personal, but you may find it odd,” Minori prefaced her statement, “but how accurate is the human trope of mermaids who cry pearls?”

“Only happens once in a while.” Laura replied. “Sometimes its rubies, emeralds, it can be anything and everything. There have even been instances of mermaids crying seafoam, seaweed, and even sea grapes. It really depends.”

Manatsu gasped and then blinked, “What are we talking about?” she asked.

“The thought crossed my mind whilst I was adapting my novel into the script format of a movie and I recalled hearing notions of mermaids crying seafoam, and even pearls, so the curiosity struck me to ask.” Minori explained.

“I’ve never heard of any of that but I’m not exactly a mermaid otaku like you, Minorin.” Asuka said and she crossed her arms, glancing at Laura, and her brow twitched, “Argh, now I gotta know, what kind of tears do you cry, Laura? We all cry salt water, if that alleviates the burden.”

“Crying hurts so I don’t cry.” Laura replied, brusque.

“O-oh,” Sango piped up shyly, “I thought you would have looked really pretty crying tears of pearls, that’s probably a cruel thing to say.”

“It is.” Laura sniped but she looked smug about it.

Sango flinched. She hadn’t meant to be cruel about it and Laura relished the reaction. She laughed. But then when Asuka gave her a scolding glare, Laura let it go. She sighed again.

“It sounds peculiar to me, that crying doesn’t hurt.” Laura mused.

“Yep, not at all, in fact, it feels really good after.” Manatsu said. “I cried heaps on the way to Aozora when I was leaving my Dad behind on the island but whoa, I felt tropica-shining afterwards once it was all done.”

Laura cringed, she was unsettled by the idea that crying could be painless, “But I suppose unless you’ve actually experienced it, its difficult to understand but yes. Crying hurts so I don’t cry. Besides, mermaids only really cry when love is involved,” she explained, “so I don’t ‘love’ either.”

“I don’t follow?” Sango murmured.

Laura glanced at the others and sighed heavily, “I mean, yes, mermaids ‘love’ one another. We go forth, procreate, bring more spawn into the world. We love swimming and we love pretty, shiny objects but there’s a love that is uniquely human. More than a means to an end or a satisfaction of greed or lust or gluttony. We are not in possession of this feeling that I see in each and everyone of you each and every day.”

Manatsu gasped ad her face began to glitter with a huge grin. Laura’s own expression softened in return, pleasing Asuka and intriguing Sango. Regardless, Laura continued after this micro-second of a pause to her speech.

“Fittingly, it does make me envious, but every boon has its bane, so I am content not being flawed by this particular human characteristic.” Laura checked her nails and her voice quietened, not to a mumble, just became disheartened. “Of course, not every mermaid is as pragmatic as I. Hence, they cry. Poor little silly things who have gone and hurt their hearts. It’s a sickness, a contagion, and I will do anything to remain impervious to it.”

“I see.” Minori said, her voice calm and even in a way that none of the other girls’ voices could have been had they been the first to respond to Laura’s tirade. “Thank you for answering my question, I can make amendments to my script – and my novel – per this new information.”

“Your welcome.” Laura replied like she was bragging.

With that, the conversation finished and when the girls checked the time, they realised it was late enough to end club activity anyways, so they tidied up and left for the day. They parted ways thereafter with an unusual mood to them. It was sombre and peculiar. Laura seemed mostly unaffected by it, based on what she would yell from the Aqua Pot but the person who seemed most affected, but it was Sango.

She had done her very best to hide it but her old facades were more difficult for her to wear nowadays since meeting and befriending Manatsu. She couldn’t quite suppress herself and her feelings quite so adeptly nowadays. She had thought it for the better but the tremor in her heart of present was disturbing her. Asuka and Minori could both tell but they waved Sango goodbye without issue, nonetheless. Their small gestures looked so out of place beside Manatsu who waved huge arcs goodbye to her when Sango could barely muster flicks of her fingers in reply.

Sango went home and her head was swimming with Laura’s words. They were blunt but they were also morbid. Sango had never been intrigued by that sort of thing before. She was the type to be scared of her own shadow, let alone of all the bumps in the night and anything else a little unusual but this was something else. Perhaps it was because of how she pined for Laura, to know that it would be doomed because of some sort of incompatibility of emotions – that human love and mermaid love were completely different – or maybe its because she was vain.

Ruminating with this new knowledge that was ruining her, Sango stood in front of the mirror in her ensuite bathroom. On her tiptoes, she got up close enough to the mirror so that even the shallowest of her breaths fogged it, so that she could see every pore underneath her eyelid. She was the daughter of an accomplished make-up artist and seller, she would be considered scathed if she wasn’t a little bit vain and now Sango wondered what she would look like if every bout of her own cry-babyishness had caused her to be scarred. The notion of her cheeks being scarred by the rivets of tears previously shed was particularly made her shudder.

In the involuntary movement, Sango felt her heart tremor. She disliked the sensation and what lingered after it. This first twinge that something was amiss inside of herself.

She had been trying to ignore it all afternoon. To know that her crush could never come to fruition, Sango had avoided thinking about it but now her eye was all that she could see which meant all she could see was herself and her own flaws of being human. A human with a big but fragile heart, no less.

Her crush on Laura could be pinpointed to one specific catalyst: meeting her and becoming a Pretty Cure. She had been awestruck, seeing a real-life mermaid for the first time, and she had felt her heart flutter. The sound of her singing lured Sango: it was sweet, melodic, utterly incomparable to anything that she had heard before, so Sango opened that door. Beyond it, there she beheld Laura for the very first time, leaving her breathless.

She was beautiful, basking in the sun and its ray glittering off the surface of the pool as she swam through it. Elegant but slovenly. Sango knew immediately that she wanted to get closer. And so, she did. Hands on the glass, eyes wide, observing this creature that she had only seen before in the wildest of dreams and in the most fictional of fairy tales.

Given that Laura – and Manatsu – had offered to make her a Pretty Cure, Sango had assumed that maybe Laura wanted to get closer to her as well. Even if she turned her nose up at the idea of storybooks where mermaids gave up their mermaidness for humans that they fell in love with. She had thought, at the time, it was because Laura was uniquely a self-absorbed priss, but she realised now that she was wrong.

The books were wrong. Sango felt her eye grow wet as she stared at her own reflection distorted by being so close up to it. A mermaid would never give up her tail because mermaids don’t fall in love like humans do. Sango swallowed and the teardrop in her eye shone before turning into a jewel.

Sango watched, in horror, at the clear bead of her teardrop turned blood red. It streaked down her cheek and her stomach lurched with pain. A polyp branched out jaggedly from her tear duct. Sango squeaked in pain and her eyes watered. Only for that water to twist and form into a tentacle of… of… of coral.

Sango stumbled back away from the mirror. She clamped her hand over her mouth, and she willed herself not to make a noise. Not a sound. She didn’t want to disturb her mother because she didn’t know how to explain the fact that coral was growing from her tear ducts. Well, she was reasonably certain that it was coral.

These clusters that edged ever so slowly and so painfully out of her eyes were beautiful. As fearful of them as she was, Sango was awed by their innate prettiness as she tried to understand what was happening. As her vision now had criss-crosses and peculiar formations in the peripheries. Twisting, branching out like they were completely and utterly natural.

She inhaled deeply and slowly took her hand off her mouth. She could feel her eyes water but the stinging pain of calcium carbonate solidifying in the teeny tiny channels of her tear duct and the veins of her eyes was unimaginable. But she was a Pretty Cure. She would be strong and so, she tested her theory.

Very tenderly, Sango touched the scarlet polyps that were growing from her eyes where her teardrops had been cried. Her heart fluttered and her stomach twisted as every inch of her common sense told her not touch the delicate branches climbing out her eyes and yet. Sango did it. And they crumbled at her touch with immense pain.

A squeal of pain escaped Sango’s mouth and her heart leapt her throat. She heard her mother cry out, “Is something wrong, sweetie? Do you need me?” and the lie that she was okay came out her mouth just as easy as the pain. Sango swallowed and she began to cry again. Sango was harrowed as she looked at her fingertips. They were dusted with a crumbly powder that was a pinkish red. Just like coral looked in her mind. And that scared her more than the terrible sensation of cutting and ripping just under her eyes.

The fresh jolts of pain branched through her eyes and with it, came the blood. Sango was chilled as she felt these thin streaks on her cheeks, and it was a vicious cycle. Every time she was hurt, she would cry and every time she cried, she was hurt. The punishment emphasised by her mind which raced as she tried to comprehend the impossibility of what was happening to her.

Although… maybe it wasn’t all that impossible that a human in love with an actual mermaid would contract some sort of gemstone lovesickness from a mermaid. Sango felt herself grow hopeful, but it was a terrible feeling riddled with the polyps of the coral that was emerging from her tear ducts. If a mermaid had gotten her sick, maybe a mermaid could be her cure.

Sango’s hands shook as he made her way back to her bedside table, where her phone was charging. She was very calm as she took her phone off the charger. She opened it up and then her contacts app and then rang Manatsu.

“Hello! Manatsu’s phone!” she bellowed back.

Sango whimpered. The polyps protruding from her tear ducts quivered with the reverberations of Manatsu’s exuberant greeting. Sango tried not to cry but more tears escaped her eyes, mixed with blood and calcium, becoming yet more fragile branches of the coral that was growing from her face.

“Hi Manatsu… I need to see Laura.” she said softly.

“I can just put her on the phone, you know, she’s not totally out of touch with human technology.” Manatsu laughed.

Sango swallowed a strangled noise. She adored Manatsu, she really did, there could be no friend truer nor a friend more hard-headed. She wasn’t normally this abrasive but with such delicate structures spurting out her tear ducts, Sango’s tolerance for such antics was less than usual and yet, she remained sweet as sugar with Manatsu.

“Something has come up, an emergency,” she replied, strained, “so can we please meet somewhere in private?” she asked.

“Oh, okay, um… oh! What about at the cove! Its nice and private and stuff. Its close by both our houses, too!” Manatsu suggested, her voice very, very loud.

Sango winced. She could feel flakes of coral burst and twinge and sprout all over again in reaction to Manatsu’s voice, but she hazarded a smile anyway.

“That sounds good, thank you Manatsu.” Sango replied. “See you there.”

“Yeah, see ya soon.” Manatsu bade her goodbye and thankfully, she hung up first.

Sango sighed with relief. She shuddered and she felt more coral break off her eyes but at least she didn’t shed a tear with it. Though, Sango was still worried about what she looked like. Blood and dust and the like so she hobbled back into her bathroom and was sickened by her own face.

She could hardly recognise herself so frayed with fear. Her own ‘charm point’ mocked by this illness. She saw how the polyps twisted and arched on both sides of her face into sick, love-heart shaped. Her heart throbbed with the whiplash cruelty of that realisation and she felt the polyps move. Their rocky exoskeletons puncturing her veins as she shed more tears that turned into coral.

Sango put her hands over her mouth again. She felt her heart thud in her chest as she tried to power on through the pain, breathing in and out was so difficult but she tried so hard. When she achieved that shaky equilibrium again, where the cycle was temporarily diffused, she put her phone in her pocket and slipped on some shoes.

She felt awful sneaking out, but she didn’t want to worry her mother with this exotic, underwater disease. It was difficult but somehow, she made it out of the house in not too many pieces. It was cold for a late spring-early summer night, making Sango shiver and leave coral dander as she slowly made her way to the cove that Manatsu had agreed to meet her.

Sango had been there a handful of times before. It was a nice little spot that was cosy and even romantic in the daylight hours but at night, it looked a little scary. Even with the cityscape lights behind it and the stars twinkling on the ocean in front of it. Fortunately, Manatsu was there to greet Sango and she waved her down.

“Oiiii,” Manatsu called out, “over here!”

Sango was glad to see her. Tired. But nevertheless, glad to see Manatsu as she hobbled closer and Manatsu blinked. She could tell, immediately, that something was wrong with Sango; how she was trying to hide beneath her fluffy fringe and the floppy plaits by her face was uncharacteristic, even to someone as shy and repressed as Sango.

“You okay?” Manatsu asked.

“Y-Yes, I’m fine,” Sango lied, “so, um, where’s Laura? I really need to speak with her.”

“Oh, um, she’s just over there, in the water, you may have to call for her if she’s underwater, but she was floating just a minute ago.” Manatsu said and she pointed towards the eroded cove.

Even in the dark, that striking image of a twisted love-heart was apparent in the sandstone structure of the cove. The twinkle of the stars above it was dull and below it, the water lapped at the ground. Sango swallowed her fears and her tears. She flashed a smile at Manatsu that was mostly missed.

“Thank you,” Sango replied, “and do you mind giving us some privacy? This matter it’s a bit, um, a bit unusual and hard to explain.”

“Er, yeah, that’s fine, I’ll just, um, wait over there.” Manatsu pointed in the opposite direction of the cove with both her fingers.

Sango sighed with relief, “Thank you.” And yet that didn’t feel competent enough with her gratitude. Nonetheless, Manatsu awkwardly tried to exit from the cove but not too far given that she was Laura’s ride home back to the safety of Manatsu’s place.

Sango, however, began to draw closer to the water’s edge. Her heart thumped in her chest and she could feel the vibrations in the polyps dangling from her eyes by a thread. They were weakening now that she had all dried up the tears that she had wanted to shed but that didn’t make them less threatening to her senses of security in her body or self. She got down on her knees, sitting, at the edge of the cove and Laura breached.

Her eyes were suspicious and cynical, even when barely reflected by starlight bouncing off the water’s perpetually moving and choppy surface. She hiked up her arms over the edge and anchored herself like that. Her tail coming backwards, forming a crest of her back and the water’s surface.

Laura hummed, “I thought humans cried seawater and only seawater.” she teased. “Isn’t that what we established this afternoon at the club meeting?”

“Well, er, we did but…” Sango said. “But have you ever heard of such a thing?! A human who cries coral?”

Laura sighed heavily. It was too late at night for Sango to be so loud and in her exclamation, her hot flush of emotions, there was the sparkle of a possible tear in the moisture of her eyes that gleamed in the dark, framed by coral dyed a blood red in the dim. Laura made a floppy hand gesture as she was deep in thought.

“No, I haven’t.” Laura admitted. “Mermaids crying coral isn’t impossible, of course, but humans? No, not so much… But given when love is involved – and it is, isn’t it, Sango?”

“It is…” Sango murmured, and she fidgeted with the ends of her plaits.

“How trite.” Laura’s voice was pithy with disdain. “A human girl has gone and gotten a crush on a mermaid. It is called a crush, yes?”

“Yes.” Sango mumbled.

Laura wanted to laugh but something stopped her. Even though she could feel the tickle in her throat, something about Sango’s expression was too pathetic even for Laura to worsen.

“I suppose it is possible…” Laura murmured aloud in half spoken thoughts. “I did describe it as a sickness. Given that humans don’t look too dissimilar from the top half to mermaids, yes, it is entirely possible that our weaknesses of physiology are capable of transferring.” Her skin crawled. “I better not have any of your disgusting germs. No way in Triton’s good underworld am I coming down with that ghastly influenza you lot speak of.”

Sango giggled. Although, maybe it was more than a hiccup. She felt just as whiplashed by the unspoken cruelty than if Laura had just straight up addressed it with her jeering.

“But every sickness has a cure, I suppose.” Laura said.

Sango perked up, “Does that mean?” she gasped. “Can you help me?”

“I can think of something, but I have no way of knowing if it’ll cure you.” Laura replied.

“What do you mean?” asked Sango. “How do mermaids normally rid themselves of this sickness?”

“The affliction typically goes away on its own, but I believe a token of severance could go a long way.” Laura explained but it didn’t feel like an explanation.

Sango’s heart skipped a beat and she felt her shoulders prickle as she asked, “And what is a token of severance?”

“A kiss.” Laura replied all too simply on a breathless voice.

“A k-kiss?!” Sango exclaimed.

Laura stared at her idly. She didn’t think it was all that of a big deal. Being stared down by such a cold, if somewhat expressionless, look Sango calmed down. Even though her heart was racing, and she could feel the sting of coral pushing through her tear ducts again, Sango calmed down.

“If you think it’ll help…” Sango murmured.

“I do think it’ll help.” Laura quipped.

And it was upon that cue, before Sango could quite adjust or ask to go slow, Laura swooped in with a kiss. Sango made a noise, but it was smothered in the press of Laura’s lips against her own. Her eyes went wide but Laura’s, curiously, were closed. Her brows twinged as she kissed Sango as hard as she could, like she was trying to perform some sort of CPR. It was awful yet Sango didn’t hold a grudge.

She softened into the kiss. It was her very first kiss and it wasn’t happening anything like she had ever daydreamed, but it was freeing. She could feel the remaining coral in her eyes and her tear ducts crumble to nothingness. To just flecks of sand that she could bat away with her eyelashes. She felt a wet lump in her throat, and she kissed back. She wanted to be cure so badly of her pain, but she could feel the smirk in Laura’s kiss.

Self-important with nothing to spare. Perhaps even relishing having this vast power or strength over Sango since Laura deemed the humanlike ‘love’ of crushes and pining to be beneath her since it caused nothing but pain. A teardrop – yes, a real teardrop – rolled down Sango’s cheek and Laura moved her kiss to lick it. Seawater. How peculiar but she liked it even though it didn’t quite have the nostalgic taste of her underwater home, it was endearing, nonetheless.

“Thank you,” Sango whimpered, shedding more tears, not coral, “for curing me.”

Laura tutted. She pulled back from the kiss and Sango looked a mess in the starlight. Pitiful and pathetic, crying her tears of seawater.

#femslash #tropical rouge pretty cure #tropical rouge #precure #laura (precure)#suzumura sango #sango suzumura #laura x sango #sango x laura #cure coral #cure la mer #writing tag #if this fic is what gets me kicked from r slash precure i'm gonna be sad bc its really not that risque

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jenomark · 4 years

Text

Part 2

➔Definition of stranger 1: one who is strange: such as a person or thing that is unknown or with whom one is unacquainted

“You haven’t been here in two weeks,” he said. “Do you want to talk about it?”

You sat across from your therapist. Being in his office again felt strange. No matter how you sat, you couldn’t get yourself to feel comfortable. He had moved things around since you last visited, bought a new shelf, and a new oil diffuser that added a specific scent you had smelled before but couldn’t place.

You stood up and walked to the window. The restless feeling in your legs wouldn’t stop, and you needed to move around. His eyes followed you across the room, his pen drawing circles in the margins of his paper.

“Avoiding it won’t make it go away.” he said.

You looked down at the street. You had to take the bus and train to get to his office. It was a nice day, so you didn’t mind the travel. All below you, people roamed in complete ignorance, their shiny happy faces too ugly for you to look at for too long.

Two weeks. Appointments cancelled. Texts dodged left and right. You shut yourself inside your apartment, your ability to function in society slipping underneath a rug. It wasn’t until the ridiculous feeling set in that you realized you should probably go outside. If therapy is where you found yourself, you wondered if what you really needed all along was help.

“It does for a little.” you said.

He didn’t sigh. It would be too unprofessional for him to do that, but you could feel the exasperation brewing. You didn’t follow his advice enough. If you were him, and your client was as stubborn and pigheaded as yourself, you would question the waste of money. Help wasn’t cheap.

“I think I was too scared to come,” you said. “My life has felt a little..off..lately. Actually, it’s felt off for a long time. Half the time I’m not even sure what I’m seeing is real.”

“Maybe it’s time to put you on medication,” he said. “or at least begin talking about it as a serious option.”

“No,” you said quickly. You placed your fingers on the glass window and leaned in slightly, your breath fogging up the glass. “I just need a little time to gather my thoughts, I think.”

The pen scribbling felt louder. Circle. Circle. Circle. You could hear the creak of his chair as he lifted his body, could hear him padding across the floor. You so rarely saw him out of his chair. The thought of him leaving it further shifted your reality.

“Do you know what I mean?” you asked. “Do you know what I’m trying to say?”

You didn’t turn to him, but you could feel his presence behind you. Tall. Looming. Judging. You figured he was giving you some space to talk it out, but he was still too close for comfort.

“Do you ever just want to get away from everyone you know?” you asked. “To forget who you are and disappear? Change your name, your hair color, your likes and dislikes. To be reborn as someone new, someone who doesn’t have the same problems as you. Have you thought about it? I think about it all of the time. Whenever things don’t go my way, or whenever things I can’t explain happen to me, my brain's first reaction is to abort itself. I don’t think it’s healthy, but then again, I wouldn’t be here if my mind were healthy.”

“That’s not true,” he said. “Even healthy people need help. It’s good to talk about things. You can’t keep it all inside. You can’t run away. You have to live through it. You have to survive.”

You laughed. You didn’t mean the laugh to sound so maniacal, but you felt like you were truly losing it.

“Is that your answer to everything?” you asked. “To survive?”

��Of course,” he said. “It’s better than waiting for what’s going to kill you.”

You thought about his words, digesting them internally. You were so lost in your own thoughts that you didn’t notice how still everything was. The traffic below had stopped, the footfalls dying out. In the office, you couldn’t hear the nasally voice of his secretary, or the tapping of her long fingernails on computer keys. You could hardly hear your own breathing.

“Sometimes I think it would be easier knowing when I die.” you said, your voice echoing in the space.

Your therapist moved closer, so close the hair on the back of your neck stood on end. You had read about therapists taking advantage of their clients, and even though you considered yourself someone who wouldn’t allow that to happen, you froze in place. His mouth was so close to your ear that you could feel how hot his breath was.

“You’re going to die..right..now” he whispered.

You swung around so fast the back of your head smacked the window. With your back pressed against the glass, and your eyes bulging out of your head, you looked at him. What you were met with wasn’t your therapist, and it wasn’t a man. With teeth as large as your head, and eyes so big and red, it smiled like it had you finally trapped.

It opened its mouth the same time you did.

You screamed first.

When you woke up, you were still screaming. Your alarm clock was going off, the most jarring sound imaginable. You slammed your hand down on it and set that same hand on your chest to calm your heart. In a sitting position, you rocked yourself forward. You tried to breathe, tried to banish the monster you were dreaming about to the back of your mind. You pulled back your hand and could see the sweat dripping down your palm, running a river through the deep set lines.

“What. The. Fuck.” you said, dropping your hand onto the bed.

You checked the clock: 10:44 a.m. You had slept a full twelve hours. Peeling the blankets back, you threw your legs over the side of the bed and pushed your feet into a pair of slippers. Despite getting good sleep, the nightmares were making you feel exhausted. Every night it was more of the same: You at therapy, your body uncomfortable, your mind frantic. The monster varied, but he was always trying to eat you alive. When you woke up, the tiny fragments you remembered lessened each day. It had been happening for two weeks.

You walked across your room, dodging the laundry on your floor, and the old take-out wrappers. The mess was accumulating well, but it was nothing compared to the smell. Most days, you could barely bring yourself to shower because you couldn’t stand to be in the bathroom for more than a few minutes at a time. You brushed your teeth in the kitchen, closed your eyes to take a piss. And even through it all, ignoring the issue really is what you did best.

“Shit,” you said. “I’m sorry.”

A fluffy black cat curled around your legs and jumped to rub his head against the back of your knee. His meow was deep and full. You leaned down to scratch behind his ears to make him purr.

“I’m not the only one I’m neglecting,” you said. “Guess we’re in this together, huh?”

As you made your way to the food bowl, the cat followed diligently. You fed him and set the food back onto the counter when something caught your eye. Slowly, one foot in front of the other, you walked to the window and peered out. In your nightmares, the view was the same as your apartment building, which didn’t make sense.

“I didn’t leave this open.” you said, shutting the window. You pulled the blinds down and turned back to your cat, who was scarfing down his food. “And you don’t have thumbs.”

You walked to your desk and sat down. The best thing about working from home was not having to go outside and talk to people. It was easier to exist on the inside, in your pajamas. You opened your laptop and looked through your work email, at the various unread emails that plagued you. Instead of reading them, you shut the laptop and placed your chin on your fist. Every day was the same. You pretended like you were okay and could handle what happened until you found yourself obsessively thinking about it.

Two weeks ago felt like an eternity. You knew your memory would fail you the further you got away from the day you met him, but you didn’t think it would be so hard to remember everything. When you tried to think about the day, there was a fog over each picture in your mind. You grew tired every time you tried too hard to remember, passing out on the couch no matter the time of day. Trying to retain any of the dialogue between you and him was like attempting to find a speck of glitter in sand. Impossible.

Haechan. You could remember his name. You remembered how he looked in your car, but couldn’t seem to remember the feeling that made you follow him. There were voices whispering in your mind, but you couldn’t pick out one from the other. Something in your brain told you it was in your best interest to forget the whole situation, but you really were so stubborn. You had to know.

The next person to invade your mind was your not-boyfriend. You hadn’t seen him since the convenience store. The only thing you could remember is how he looked when he left the car. After that, everything was hazy. Still, you felt something was wrong. He usually came over at night when he was horny, and if he wasn’t up for having sex, he would at least check in to make sure you were okay. You called his phone but there was no answer, no voicemail. You thought he must have been avoiding you, so you let him be.

You leaned back in your desk chair and swiveled around until it was facing the window. Your cat was staring at you, his green eyes unblinking. You called him over, but he didn’t come. You stared each other down, your eyes glazing over. The doorbell to your apartment buzzed and you jumped, hitting your knee on the desk and knocking over an old iced coffee that had been sitting there for four days.

“Coming.” you called.

Your voice didn’t sound like yours. You definitely were not the type to answer the door. Your usual brand included staying away from the door in case they could see your shadow underneath the crack, or holding your hand over your mouth in case they heard you breathing. Jumping up from the chair and yanking the door open was not your average reaction. Neither was the smile that found its way to your lips.

“Did you order a pizza?” a man asked. “I have one pizza.”

The pizza in question was, in fact, in his hands. You looked into his eyes and shook your head. He looked at the receipt and shook his head.

“I’m going to get fired,” he said. “Have a nice day.”

“You too.” you said, your hand getting ready to close the door.

“Hopefully,” he said. “I hear it’s getting harder to survive out there.”

You closed the door, his words not hitting you until you heard the click. You stared at the knob. You couldn’t hear his footsteps fading away down the hallway. You looked down and could see his shadow standing in front of the door. It was moving like he was jumping up and down, but there was no sneaker connecting with carpet.

You were too scared to move, to speak. The sound of your eyeballs moving back and forth in their sockets felt extremely loud.

“Have a nice day.” you called out, swallowing the lump in your throat.

The shadow disappeared. You exhaled, but you were still too scared to move a muscle. You didn’t have the courage until you heard your cat meow behind you, and when you turned around, you wished you hadn’t. The pizza man was standing there, but there wasn’t a pizza in his hands. There was no smile on your lips.

“I plan on it.” he said.

There was no time to scream. You jumped towards the door and opened it, all thoughts leaving your head. All you could think about was survival. You looked back before you closed the door shut behind you and saw the pizza man fling his whole body at the door. You ran down the hallway, your legs pumping as fast as they could go. You couldn’t wait for the elevator, so you bolted down the stairs. Taking them two at a time, you could feel the pressure on your ankles. The sound of the door upstairs opened and hit the wall. The noise in the stairwell was loud and set your teeth on edge. You looked up in between the stairs and saw a hand on the rail, and it was sliding down fast. You kept going without looking back, your whole body shaking with fright. When you made it down to the lobby, there was no doorman waiting. You pushed the front door open and found yourself out in the sunlight, the people on the sidewalk watching you with curiosity.

“Help me I-” you started to say before you noticed that no one was listening.

You ran up to the nearest car and banged on the window, your fist balled up and still shaking. You didn’t know what you were planning on saying when the person rolled down their window. You kept looking over your shoulder and expecting the pizza man to appear behind you, his teeth large and ready to devour you, but he never came. You looked back at the car and noticed, for the first time, that it was the same car that your not-boyfriend drove. You looked through the window and saw two hands on a steering wheel. They were his hands. He didn’t lean over to invite you in, and he didn’t roll down the window. You backed away and could see the outline of him, could see that he was staring blankly ahead, as if he were in a trance.

There was not enough time to find out what was going on. You kept walking, bumping shoulders with people as you passed. Your brisk walk turned into a jog that knocked the breath straight out of you. Two blocks and zero direction later, you were bent down and clutching your knees. You patted your pockets, the cold realization that you didn’t have your phone or money with you sinking in.

You looked around and thought about your options. You could keep walking and hope pizza man would be gone by nighttime. You could ask a stranger for help, or you could---- Images of him began to float to the surface in your mind. You stood on the sidewalk, not really seeing the world before you.

“Haechan,” you said. “I have to find him.”

You hailed a taxi, something you had never done before. The taxi pulled up and waited for you. You had no money, but you would deal with that problem when the time came. You stepped up to the car door and opened it, taking one last look at your surroundings. That’s when you saw him standing across the street, his eyes on you, half of his lanky body hidden behind a car.

“Lady,” the taxi driver said. “Are you getting in?”

You couldn’t remember his name, but the longer you looked, the fog was clearing up. You felt exposed, your soul stripped down until it was a nub of nothing. He didn’t move his lips or his eyes. He just stood and watched from across the street, his visual bringing everything back to you at once.

“Jisung.” you said.

The lights in the club painted purples and pinks on the wall, the paint brush a little cleaner than the one he was used to. It was easier to hide out in seedy strip clubs than the higher end places, because you never knew who you would run into. He liked to confine himself to the corners where he could see who was coming and going. As long as he kept the money flowing, they let him stay as long as he wanted.

“Baby, you look lonely,” one of the girls said. “Can I keep you company?”

He had been there long enough to learn every girl's name, but the one before him was brand new. They all had fake names just like him, but they were the realest people he’d ever met. He liked to strike up conversations to get to know them a little, to find out what made other people tick. He smiled up at her.

“I’m not lonely,” he said, taking a wad of cash out of his pocket. “But I would appreciate the company.”

The girl got onto her platform and started to dance for him. She worked the stripper pole awkwardly, walking around it with her hands grasping it. Right away, he noticed the way she eyed his table full of empty drink glasses. Twenty or so glasses littered the top, leaving wet rings on the surface. Though none of the drinks would get him drunk, he knew people didn’t drink as excessively. The shock was hard for her to hide.

“Can I get you another?” she asked.

“No, thank you.”

The cash would be all hers, she knew it well enough. None of it belonged to him, anyway. Cash was easy to come by when you could make other people forget how he acquired it. The other thing he liked about strip clubs is how no one ever asked where he got his money, and they never questioned the validity of his attire. Dressed in an expensive suit, Haechan certainly looked the part of a rich, drunk asshole.

He threw singles onto the little stage and sat back in his booth to watch her. She was pretty, but her face was hard to focus on. He looked at her body and felt his very human needs swelling up. She placed her heel in between his legs and crossed the gap between stage and booth, straddling his lap and slipping her hands inside of his suit jacket.

“You look like a baby.” she said.

“Only in this world.” he said.

The girl didn’t hear his words. She started grinding on him and sucking on his earlobe. Haechan touched her thigh and let her kiss his neck, his body still. He looked towards the doorway and watched men file in. He would bet that most of them came from out of town so their wives wouldn’t know what they were up to at night. He avoided that crowd, choosing to keep a neutral disposition about what people did with their lives.

“You tip a lot,” she said. “ Other girls talk about you. Tell me, where did you get all that money from?”

He smiled. “Does it matter?”

She kissed him on the lips. When she got to her feet, the hand she held out was open. He could smell the greedy stench on her. He placed his hand in hers despite it, and let himself be led outside. Past the dumpsters and discarded traffic cones, she got on her knees to blow him.

“We don’t get a lot of men like you,” she said, her fingers yanking his belt off. “You seem shy. You’re definitely handsome. I don’t normally do this.”

Haechan looked down at her, at the roundness of her breasts, and how her lipstick was stuck to the front of her veneers. He believed that taking random strangers out back and performing oral sex on them wasn’t her regular activity. Like most people, she was drawn to him. It wasn’t her fault. She pulled his zipper down and touched the front of his cock. The way it felt made him forget who he was for a small moment. He could have been any of those men walking through the door, and he liked that feeling, too. He wanted to enjoy having her mouth around him, to give in to the excitement brewing in his belly.

“Stop.” Haechan said before her pink tongue touched his cock.

From her perch on the ground, she looked up at him. He asked her to get up, which she did. Haechan zipped up his pants and buckled his belt. She watched him in silence, her expression regretful.

“You don’t want me?” she asked. “This always happens to me.”

“It’s not you,” he said. “Trust me.”

Before she could say another word, he looked into her eyes and leaned in close. The words that came out of his mouth would affect her, he knew. He said, “You and I are strangers. You’re right, I am lonely. I didn’t want a dance from you tonight. You found the $1,000 I gave you, and you’ll tell no one about it. Use it on yourself and your daughter.”

With eyes that grew expressionless, she nodded.

Haechan closed his jacket and went back the way he came. When he went back into the strip club, he started cleaning up his own mess, which was something he needed to do more often.

The taxi car stopped on a random street. You banged on the glass partition and asked the taxi driver to keep driving. Ever since you drove away from Jisung, your memories flooding back to you, you were scared of stopping in a neighborhood you didn’t know. You didn’t know if he was following you. There was something about that boy that unnerved you.

“Oh no,” the driver said. “This is where the trip ends.”

“What?” you asked. “I asked you to drive me to the motel. I gave you the address.”

“And I did drive you,” he said. “Enjoy the rest of the walk.”

You looked around and saw that the motel was nowhere in sight. The driver made eye contact with you in the mirror and turned around to face you. He looked like he was debating whether or not he wanted to speak, when he opened his mouth and spit out all the words at once.

“Thatplaceiscursed.” he said.

“Cursed?” you asked. “The motel? The motel is cursed?”

“Yes,” he said. “No one goes there. Everyone knows to stay away from it. Therefore, this is where I leave you. Give me my money, and have a nice day.”

You were trying to make sense of it all. Your mind was struggling to keep up with everything trying to filter in. In a strange world, you had to contemplate the possibility that the driver had the same experience you did. Or maybe you were crazy. Or maybe everyone was crazy.

“Wait,” you said. “I was there two weeks ago. What do you mean everyone knows to stay away from it? That motel is empty.”

The driver's eyes widened. “Get out.”

“What? Why?”

He got out of the drivers side and opened the back seat. “Get out.”

You were getting ready to object, when he reached in and grabbed your leg. He pulled, and you screamed. His long nails were scratching at your skin. The more you kicked, the more aggressive he became. He was angry, spit flying out of his mouth.

“Get the fuck out of my car,” he said. “Get out. Get out.”

He pulled you onto the pavement, your ass bouncing off of the cement. He didn’t check to see that you were alright, just got back into his car and slammed the door shut. You thought he was going to step on the gas and peel away but his last shred of humanity rolled down the window and looked at you laying on the ground.

“Go back, “ he said. “You don’t belong here.”

You sat on the ground long after he had driven away, the hot sun beating on your back. When you found your footing, you weren’t thinking about anything. You kept walking forward. On and on you went, taking different directions, not really knowing where they would lead you. You thought about finding a phone and calling someone, but you didn’t know who would listen. You hadn’t talked to your sister in awhile, and everyone in your life would be tired of picking up the call just for them to have to forgive you.

Thinking about just going home made you turn around. You turned around and around until the final turn saw you in front of the motels parking lot.

“How the fuck did I get here…” you said.

The motel looked much the same as it did when you left. No, it hadn’t. When you left, it was destroyed. You remembered the glass crunching beneath your feet, and how Haechan told you to stop being so nosy. He was protecting you from looking at the body of the old woman. You remembered his hand on your back and how he guided you to the edge of the parking lot. The motel before you looked the same as the day you first saw it. With the old woman in your mind, you moved forward. There was no broken glass, no signs of a struggle. It was like you had taken a step back in time. You went up to the door of room 11 and touched the face of it. You could hear her words in your head: Can I help you?”

“Yes.” you said, out loud.

You moved to the side of the building where you knew room 22 would be. There was no beer bottle, no proof of what had happened that day. The only thing that stuck out as odd was the open curtains. You could see inside his motel room, and it was empty. You moved forward and touched the door, your fingers against the blue paint until you found the knob. A curious twist later, the door was opening.

Inside, the room was like every other motel room. There was a bed, an outdated television, a phone, a chair, and a lamp and other tables stuffed into the small space. You retraced your footsteps from two weeks ago, to when Haechan pulled you through the room. You were brought to the bathroom door, its door closed and perfectly intact. You looked underneath the door and could see a shadow moving. You would be lying if you said you weren’t scared shitless. You thought about running, but then you remembered what your therapist said.

Running away won’t make it go away.

You moved out of the way, just in time. You turned the corner to where the mini fridge sat. At the same time, the bathroom door opened. You held your breath, terrified that you would find another monster getting ready to fling their body at you. When Haechan came out, you felt yourself relax a little. There was a familiar feeling of comfort surrounding him, like a halo.

Haechan crossed the room, confidently. He had just gotten out of the shower, the towel hanging from his hips tightly secured. He didn’t see you standing there, arms by your sides, and your eyes raking over his body. He touched the clothes on his bed, the price tags still on them. You were getting ready to step forward when his body started disappearing slowly, fading away until it was nothing but smoke. A thick, black fog was suddenly before you, hanging in mid-air. It rolled over the clothes and went inside them, bringing them up into a stand position. You watched as the black fog filled out the suit, an arm and a leg forming to make Haechan. When it was all filled out, he rolled back the cuff on his sleeves and fixed you with a stare.

“I thought I told you to go home?” he asked.

#haechan #lee donghyuck #donghyuck #lee haechan #nct #nct dream #nct 127 #nct fanfiction #nct haechan #haechan fanfiction #donghyuck fanfiction #lee donghyuck fanfiction #jisung #nct jisung #haechan week

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betterdaysareatoenailaway · 3 years

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Random Review #3: Sleepwalkers (1992) and “Sleep Walk” (1959)

I. Sleepwalkers (1992) I couldn’t sleep last night so I started watching a trashy B-movie penned by Stephen King specifically for the screen called Sleepwalkers (1992). Simply put, the film is an unmitigated disaster. A piece of shit. But it didn’t need to be. That’s what’s so annoying about it. By 1992 King was a grizzled veteran of the silver screen, with more adaptations under his belt than any other author of his cohort. Puzo had the Godfather films (1972 and 1974, respectively), sure, but nothing else. Leonard Gardner had Fat City (1972), a movie I love, but Gardner got sucked into the Hollywood scene of cocaine and hot tub parties and never published another novel, focusing instead on screenplays for shitty TV shows like NYPD Blue. After Demon Seed (1977), a movie I have seen and disliked, nobody would touch Dean Koontz’s stuff with a ten foot pole, which is too bad because The Voice of the Night, a 1980 novel about two young pals, one of whom is a psychopath trying to convince the other to help him commit murder, would make a terrific movie. But Koontz’s adaptations have been uniformly awful. The made-for-TV film starring John C McGinley, 1997′s Intensity, is especially bad. There are exceptions, but Stephen King has been lucky enough to avoid the fate of his peers. Big name directors have tackled his work, from Stanley Kubrick to Brian De Palma. King even does a decent job of acting in Pet Semetary (1989), in his own Maximum Overdrive (1986) and in George Romero’s Creepshow (1982), where he plays a yokel named Jordy Verril who gets infected by a meteorite that causes green weeds to grow all over his body. Many have criticized King’s over-the-top performance in that flick, but for me King perfectly nails the campy and comical tone that Romero was going for. The dissolves in Creepshow literally come right off the pages of comics, so people expecting a subtle Ordinary People-style turn from King had clearly walked into the wrong theatre. Undoubtedly Creepshow succeeds at what it set out to do. I’m not sure Sleepwalkers succeeds though, unless the film’s goal was to get me to like cats even more than I already do. But I already love cats a great deal. Here’s my cat Cookie watching me edit this very blog post.

And here’s one of my other cats, Church, named after the cat that reanimates and creeps out Louis and Ellie in Pet Sematary. Photo by @ScareAlex.

SPOILER ALERT: Do not keep reading if you plan on watching Sleepwalkers and want to find out for yourself what happens.

Stephen King saw many of his novels get adapted in the late 1970s and 80s: Carrie, The Shining, Firestarter, Christine, Cujo, and the movie that spawned the 1950s nostalgia industrial complex, Stand By Me, but Sleepwalkers was the first time he wrote a script specifically for the screen rather than adapting a novel that already existed. Maybe that’s why it’s so fucking bad. Stephen King is a novelist, gifted with a novelist’s rich imagination. He’s prone to giving backstories to even the most peripheral characters - think of Joe Chamber’s alcoholic neighbour Gary Pervier in the novel Cujo, who King follows for an unbelievable number of pages as the man stumbles drunkenly around his house spouting his catch phrase “I don’t give a shit,” drills a hole through his phone book so he can hang it from a string beside his phone, complains about his hemorrhoids getting “as big as golfballs” (I’m not joking), and just generally acts like an asshole until a rabid Cujo bounds over, rips his throat out, and he bleeds to death. In the novel Pervier’s death takes more than a few pages, but it makes for fun reading. You hate the man so fucking much that watching him die feels oddly satisfying. In the movie, though, his death occurs pretty quickly, and in a darkened hallway, so it’s hard to see what’s going on aside from Gary’s foot trembling. And Pervier’s “I don’t give a shit” makes sense when he’s drilling a hole in the phone book, not when he’s about to be savagely attacked by a rabid St Bernard. There’s just less room for back story in movies. In a medium that demands pruning and chiseling and the “less is more” dictum, King’s writing takes a marked turn for the worse. King is a prose maximalist, who freely admits to “writing to outrageous lengths” in his novels, listing It, The Stand, and The Tommyknockers as particularly egregious examples of literary logorrhea. He is not especially equipped to write concisely. This weakness is most apparent in Sleepwalkers’ dialogue, which sounds like it was supposed to be snappy and smart, like something Aaron Sorkin would write, but instead comes off like an even worse Tango & Cash, all bad jokes and shitty puns. More on those bad jokes later. First, the plot.

Sleepwalkers is about a boy named Charles and his mother Mary who travel around the United States killing and feeding off the lifeforce of various unfortunate people (if this sounds a little like The True Knot in Doctor Sleep, you’re not wrong. But self-plagiarism is not a crime). Charles and Mary are shapeshifting werewolf-type creatures called werecats, a species with its very own Wikipedia page. Wikipedia confers legitimacy dont’cha know, so lets assume werecats are real beings. According to said page, a werecat, “also written in a hyphenated form as were-cat) is an analogy to ‘werewolf’ for a feline therianthropic creature.” I’m gonna spell it with the hyphen from now on because “werecats” just looks like a typo. Okay? Okay.

Oddly enough, the were-cats in Sleepwalkers are terrified of cats. Actual cats. For the were-cats, cute kittens = kryptonite. When they see a cat or cats plural, this happens to them:

^ That is literally a scene from the movie. Charles is speeding when a cop pulls alongside him and bellows at him to pull over. Ever the rebel, Charles flips the cop the finger. But the cop has a cat named Clovis in his car, and when the cat pops up to have a look at the kid (see below), Charles shapeshifts first into a younger boy, then into whatever the fuck that is in the above screenshot.

Now, the were-cats aversion to normal cats is confusing because one would assume a were-cat to be a more evolved (or perhaps devolved?) version of the typical house kitty. The fact that these were-cats are bipedal alone suggests an advantage over our furry four-legged friends, no? Kinda like if humans were afraid of fucking gorillas. Wait...we are scared of gorillas. And chimpanzees. And all apes really. Okay, maybe the conceit of the film isn’t so silly after all. The film itself, however, is about as silly as a bad horror movie can get. When the policeman gets back to precinct and describes the incident above (”his face turned into a blur”) he is roundly ridiculed because in movies involving the supernatural nobody believes in the supernatural until it confronts them. It’s the law, sorry. Things don’t end well for the cop. Or for the guy who gets murdered when the mom stabs him with...an ear of corn. Yes, an ear of corn. Somehow, the mother is able to jam corn on the cob through a man’s body, without crushing the vegetable or turning it into yellow mash. It’s pretty amazing. Here is a sample of dialog from that scene: Cop About To Die On The Phone to Precinct: There’s blood everywhere! *STAB* Murderous Mother: No vegetables, no dessert. That is actually a line in the movie. “No vegetables, no dessert.” It’s no “let off some steam, Bennett” but it’s close. Told ya I’d get back to the bad jokes. See, Mary and Charles are new in town and therefore seeking to ingratiate themselves by killing everyone who suspects them of being weird, all while avoiding cats as best they can. At one point Charles yanks a man’s hand off and tells him to "keep [his] hands to [him]self," giving the man back his severed bloody hand. Later on Charles starts dating a girl who will gradually - and I do mean gradually - come to realize her boyfriend is not a real person but in fact a were-cat. Eventually our spunky young protagonist - Madchen Amick, who fans of Twin Peaks will recognize as Shelly - and a team of cats led by the adorable Clovis- kill the were-cat shapeshifting things and the sleepy small town (which is named Travis for some reason) goes back to normal, albeit with a slightly diminished population. For those keeping score, that’s Human/Cat Alliance 1, Shapeshifting Were-cats 0. It is clear triumph for the felis catus/people team! Unless we’re going by kill count, in which case it is closer to Human/Cat Alliance 2, Were-cats 26. I arrived at this figure through my own notes but also through a helpful video that takes a comprehensive and complete “carnage count” of all kills in Sleepwalkers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmt-DroK6uA

II. Santo & Johnny “Sleep Walk” (1959) Because Sleepwalkers is decidedly not known for its good acting or its well-written screenplay, it is perhaps best known for its liberal and sometimes contrapuntal use of Santo & Johnny’s classic steel guitar song “Sleep Walk,” possibly the most famous (and therefore best) instrumental of the 20th century. Some might say “Sleep Walk” is tied for the #1 spot with “Green Onions” by Booker T & the M.G.’s and/or “Wipe Out” by The Surfaris, but I disagree. The Santo & Johnny song is #1 because of its incalculable influence on all subsequent popular music.

I’m not saying “Wipe Out” didn't inspire a million imitators, both contemporaneously and even decades later…for example here’s a surf rock instrumental from 1999 called “Giant Cow" by a Toronto band called The Urban Surf Kings. The video was one of the first to be animated using Flash (and it shows):

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So there are no shortage of surf rock bands, even now, decades after its emergence from the shores of California to the jukeboxes of Middle America. My old band Sleep for the Nightlife used to regularly play Rancho Relaxo with a surf rock band called the Dildonics, who I liked a great deal. There's even a Danish surf rock band called Baby Woodrose, whose debut album is a favourite of mine. They apparently compete for the title of Denmark’s biggest surf pop band with a group called The Setting Son. When a country that has no surfing culture and no beaches has multiple surf rock bands, it is safe to say the genre has attained international reach. As far as I can tell, there aren’t many bands out there playing Booker T & the M.G.’s inspired instrumental rock. Link Wray’s “Rumble” was released four years before “Green Onions.” But the influence of Santo and Johnny’s “Sleep Walk” is so ubiquitous as to be almost immeasurable. The reason for this is the sheer popularity of the song’s chord progression. If Santo and Johnny hadn’t written it first, somebody else would have, simply because the progression is so beautiful and easy on the ears and resolvable in a satisfying way. Have a listen to “Sleep Walk” first and then let’s check out some songs it directly inspired.

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The chords are C, A minor, F and G. Minor variations sometimes reverse the last two chords, but if it begins with C to A minor, you can bet it’s following the “Sleep Walk” formula, almost as if musicians influenced by the song are in the titular trance. When it comes to playing guitar, Tom Waits once said “your hands are like dogs, going to the same places they’ve been. You have to be careful when playing is no longer in the mind but in the fingers, going to happy places. You have to break them of their habits or you don’t explore; you only play what is confident and pleasing.” Not only is it comforting to play and/or hear what we already know, studies have shown that our brains actively resist new music, because it takes work to understand the new information and assimilate it into a pattern we are cogent of. It isn’t until the brain recognizes the pattern that it gives us a dopamine rush. I’m not much for Pitchfork anymore, but a recent article they posted does a fine job of discussing this phenomenon in greater detail.

Led Zeppelin’s “D’Yer Maker” uses the “Sleep Walk” riff prominently, anchored by John Bonham and John Paul Jones’ white-boy reggae beat:

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Here it is again with Del Shannon’s classic “Little Town Flirt.” I love Shannon’s falsetto at the end when he goes “you better run and hide now bo-o-oy.”

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The Beatles “Happiness is a Warm Gun” uses the Sleep Walk progression, though not for the whole song. It goes into the progression at the bridge at 1:34:

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Tumblr won’t let me embed any more videos, so you’ll to travel to another tab to hear these songs, but Neil Young gets in on the act with his overlooked classic “Winterlong:” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RV6r66n3TFI On their 1996 EP Interstate 8 Modest Mouse pay direct homage by singing over their own rendition of the original Santo & Johnny version, right down to the weeping steel guitar part: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VT_PwXjCqqs The vocals are typical wispy whispered indie rock vocals, but I think they work, particularly the two different voices. They titled their version “Sleepwalking (Couples Only Dance Prom Night).”

Dwight Yoakam’s “Thousand Miles From Nowhere” makes cinematic use of it. This song plays over the credits of one of my all-time favourite movies, 1993′s Red Rock West feat. Nicolas Cage, Lara Flynn Boyle, Dennis Hopper, and J.T. Walsh https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tu3ypuKq8WE

“39″ is my favourite Queen song. I guess now I know why. It uses my fav chord progression: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kE8kGMfXaFU

Blink 182 scored their first hit “Dammit” with a minor variation on the Sleep Walk chord progression: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sT0g16_LQaQ

Midwest beer drinkin bar rockers Connections scored a shoulda-been-a-hit with the fist-pumping “Beat the Sky:” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSNRq0n_WYA You’d be hard pressed to find a weaker lead singer than this guy (save for me, natch), but they make it work. This one’s an anthem.

Spoon, who have made a career out of deconstructing rock n’ roll, so that their songs sometimes sound needlessly sparse (especially “The Ghost of You Lingers,” which takes minimalism to its most extreme...just a piano being bashed on staccato-style for four minutes), so it should surprise nobody that they re-arrange the Sleep Walk chords on their classic from Gimme Fiction, “I Summon You:” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teXA8N3aF9M I love that opening line: remember the weight of the world was a sound that we used to buy? I think songwriter Britt Daniel is talking about buying albums from the likes of Pearl Jam or Smashing Pumpkins, any of those grunge bands with pessimistic worldviews. There are a million more examples. I remember seeing some YouTube video where a trio of gross douchebros keep playing the same progression while singing a bunch of hits over it. I don’t like the smarmy way they do it, making it seem like artists are lazy and deliberately stealing. I don’t think it’s plagiarism to use this progression. And furthermore, tempo and production make all the difference. Take “This Magic Moment” for example. There's a version by Jay & the Americans and one by Ben E King & the Drifters. I’ve never been a fan of those shrieking violins or fiddles that open the latter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bacBKKgc4Uo The Jay & the Americans version puts the guitar riff way in the forefront, which I like a lot more. The guitar plays the entire progression once before the singing starts and the band joins in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKfASw6qoag

Each version has its own distinctive feel. They are pretty much two different songs. Perhaps the most famous use of the Sleep Walk progression is “Unchained Melody” by the Righteous Brothers, which is one of my favourite songs ever. The guy who chose to let Bobby Hatfield sing this one by himself must have kicked himself afterwards when it became a hit, much bigger than "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling."https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiiyq2xrSI0

What can you say about “Unchained Melody” that hasn’t already been said? God, that miraculously strong vocal, the way the strings (and later on, brass horns) are panned way over to the furthest reaches the left speaker while the drums and guitar are way over in the right, with the singing smack dab in the middle creates a kind of distance and sharp clarity that has never been reproduced in popular music, like seeing the skyscrapers of some distant city after an endless stretch of highway. After listening to “Unchained Melody,” one has to wonder: can that progression ever be improved upon? Can any artist write something more haunting, more beautiful, more uplifting than that? The “need your love” crescendo hits so fucking hard, as both the emotional and the sonic climax of the song, which of course is no accident...the strings descending and crashing like a waterfall of sound, it gets me every fucking time. Legend has it that King George II was so moved by the “Hallelujah” section of Handel’s “Messiah” that he stood up, he couldn't help himself, couldn't believe what he was hearing. I get that feeling with all my favourite songs. "1979." "Unchained Melody." "In The Still of the Night." "Digital Bath." "Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?" "Interstate." "Liar's Tale." “Gimme Shelter.” The list goes on and on. Music is supposed to move us.

King George II stood because he was moved to do so. Music may be our creation, but it isn't our subordinate. All those sci-fi stories warning about technology growing beyond our control aren’t that far-fetched. Music is our creation but its power lies beyond our control. We are subordinate to music, helpless against its power and might, its urgency and vitality and beauty. There have been many times in my life when I have been so obsessed with a particular song that I pretty much want to live inside of it forever. A house of sound. I remember detoxing from heroin and listening to Grimes “Realiti” on repeat for twelve hours. Detoxing from OxyContin and listening to The Beach Boys “Dont Worry Baby” over and over. Or just being young and listening to “Tonight Tonight” over and over and over, tears streaming from my eyes in that way you cry when you’re a kid because you just feel so much and you don’t know what to do with the intensity of those feelings. It is precisely because we are so moved by music that we keep creating it. And in the act of that creation we are free. There are no limits to that freedom, which is why bands time and time again return to the well-worn Sleep Walk chord progression and try to make something new from it. Back in 2006, soon after buying what was then the new Yeah Yeah Yeahs album, I found myself playing the album’s closing track over and over. I loved the chorus and I loved the way it collapses into a lo-fi demo at the very end, stripping away the studio sheen and...not to be too punny, showing its bones (the album title is Show Your Bones). Later on I would realize that the song, called “Turn Into,” uses the Sleep Walk chord progression. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exqCFoPiwpk

It’s just like, what Waits said, our hands goes to where we are familiar. And so do our ears, which is why jazz often sounds so unpleasant to us upon first listen. Or Captain Beefheart. But it’s worth the effort to discover new stuff, just as it’s worth the effort to try and write it. I recently lamented on this blog that music to me now is more about remembrance than discovery, but I’m still only 35 years old. I’m middle-aged right now (I don’t expect to live past 70, not with the lifestyle I’ve been living). There’s still a whole other half life to find new music and love and leave it for still newer stuff. It’s worth the challenge, that moment of inner resistance we feel when confronted with something new and challenging and strange sounding. The austere demands of adult life, rent and routine, take so much of our time. I still make time for creative pursuits, but I don’t really have much time for discovery, for seeking out new music. But I’ve resolved to start making more time. A few years ago I tried to listen to and like Trout Mask Replica but I couldn’t. I just didn’t get what was going on. It sounded like a bunch of mistakes piled on top of each other. But then a few days ago I was writing while listening to music, as I always do, and YouTube somehow landed on Lick My Decals Off, Baby. I didn’t love what I was hearing but I was intrigued enough to keep going. And now I really like this song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMnd9dvb3sA&pbjreload=101 Another example I’ll give is the rare Robert Pollard gem “Prom Is Coming.” The first time I heard this song, it sounded like someone who can’t play guitar messing around, but the more I heard it the more I realized there’s a song there. It’s weird and strange, but it’s there. The lyrics are classic Pollard: Disregard injury and race madly out of the universe by sundown. Pollard obviously has a special place in his heart for this track. He named one of his many record labels Prom Is Coming Records and he titled the Boston Spaceships best-of collection Out of the Universe By Sundown. I don’t know if I’ll ever become a Captain Beefheart megafan but I can hear that the man was doing something very strange and, at times, beautiful. And anyway, why should everything be easy? Aren’t some challenges worth meeting for the experience waiting on the other side of comprehension or acceptance? I try to remember this now whenever I’m first confronted with new music, instead of vetoing it right away. Most of my favourite bands I was initially resistant to when I first heard them. Queens of the Stone Age, Kyuss, Guided by Voices, Spoon, Heavy Times. All bands I didn’t like at first. I don’t wanna sleepwalk through life, surrounding myself only with things I have already experienced. I need to stay awake. Because soon enough I’ll be asleep forever. We need to try everything we can before the Big Sleep comes to take us back to the great blankness, the terrible question mark that bookends our lives.

#sleep walk #santo & johnny #neil young #queen #dwight yoakam #led zeppelin #the beatles #betterdaysareatoenailaway

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saltoftheao3 · 5 years

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AO3 tags 101

So to classify its content Archive Of Our Own uses a system called “tagging”, and I’ve seen quite a lot of people puzzled as to how exactly it is used. This is going to be a long post trying to clear that up, and hopefully providing some help and orientation.

(i am going to use a lot of fanfiction terminology in this post – you can look a lot of it up in this post)

What is tagging?

To cite the AO3 FAQ: “A tag is a keyword or phrase that you add to your works to make them easier to find.“ Tags also have the, at least as important purpose, of helping readers avoid content they don’t want to read.

Some of the AO3 tags are more or less mandatory: you have to chose a fandom, a rating, an archive warning from the available options (and be it “chose not to use those options”).

Those mandatory tags have pretty detailed explanation boxes, which is why i’m focusing on the more puzzling domain of “Additional tags”, or “Freeform tags”:

(As said in its name, those tags are “freeform”, which means the author is entirely free to chose whatever keywords and catchphrase they want, be it some common tags, misspelled common tags, or new tags they’re introducing. If it’s a new tag, the AO3 tag wrangling staff then checks if it fits into a more common category, or if it stands on its own.

I’ve seen people asking the following questions:

Why do i have to use freeform tags?

Well first off you absolutely don’t have to. But it gives readers additional info on whether your fic fits their taste, and can therefore get more people to read it.

I know sometimes i look at the summary, think “meh”, but then i see in the tags that the fic uses some of my favorite tropes and end up giving it a shot.

Also, it helps people find your fic again! A former reader is wondering “Oh, dang, i don’t remember the name nor the author but it had unicorns and mutual pining”? If your fic uses those tags they can find it without any problem through the search engine.

And, and i can’t stress this enough: it helps people that absolutely loathe the kind of content you create (because sensibilities are different, so sometimes it’s bound to happen) to stay waaay clear of it. Which is good for everybody involved.

But what if it spoilers my story?

Fear not! AO3 offers the neat option to hide the freeform tags as a default (for logged-in users); so whether your readers decide to look at the tags or not is completely up to them.

Me? I very rarely look at tags. I dislike being spoilered, and i accept that i’ll probably end up reading things that don’t really float my boat as a consequence. And on the contrary i have friends who’d much rather put up with spoilers if it means they know what they’re getting into. Matter of personal taste, really!

As an author you can merely provide that option for readers who enjoy additional info beforehand. It’s a bit of a friendly courtesy.

How many tags should I use?

Again, it’s completely up to personal taste. I’m not a big fan of huge walls of tags, because i don’t think they’re read in details by most readers, so i’d recommend between 3-7 tags for shorter stories (<5k words). For longer stories, readers often want to know in more details in what journey they’re getting into, so up to twenty tags is game in my books. More than that tends to look cluttered and distracting (again, my biased opinion).

What kind of tags should I use?

*rubs hands* This is where I suggest my neat lil’ classification of freeform tags (with some minor overlaps here and there). It’s based on observations and my own fandom experiences, so obviously it has no objective value, but i think it’s still a good summary of the different types of freeform tags used for most fics. Some kind of fics (i’m thinking PWP) have slightly different tagging conventions, but the following typology applies to most stories.

You can use it as a checklist, or simply as inspiration on what kind of tags might apply to your fic.

Here’s my typology!

1. Format

These tags specify if your fic follows a particular fixed format in regard to length and style. Here’s some of the most common “format tags”:

(Double/Triple) Drabble

Epistolary

Ficlet (Collection)

Imagine

Novel/Novella

(Short) One Shot

Poetry

POV First Person

Self-Insert

Screenplay/Script Format

Songfic

Stand Alone

Vignette ...

2. Genre

This one’s already a bit more tricky because so often there’s no over-arching “genre” in which your fic might fit (which is why there’s all the other tags to help you put some kind of label on your content!). Still, genre is a pretty important descriptor for your content; hence here are some of the common “fanfic genres”:

Action/Adventure

Angst

Badfic

Character Study

Crack

Dark(-fic)

Fluff

Friendship

Humor

Horror

Kidfic

Romance

RPF/RPS

Porn Without Plot/Plot What Plot ...

3. Relationship to Canon

That’s one super cool in my books, because it’s sooo unique to fanfic. It specifies in what kind of relationship to the original content your story operates. Most common tags:

Alternate Timeline

Alternate Universe

Alternate Universe: X (e.g. werewolves)

Backstory

Canon-compliant

Canon-divergent

Crossover

Fix-It

Fusion

Missing Scene

Post-Canon

Pre-Canon/Pre-Series

Reboot ...

4. Fandom-specific tags

These tags are particularly relevant for book or movie series where the overarching fandom tag covers a really broad amount of content. Those tags give orientation in regards to which part of the canon content we’re talking about. For example, Harry Potter fandom may use terms like “Marauders’ Era” or “The Golden Trio Era” to specify what part of the original timeline the fic takes place in.

But they also apply to fandom-specific events like Big Bangs/Reverse Big Bang, or fandom-specific tropes, genres and fanfic conventions. These are different for every fandom!

5. Common Fanfic Tropes

There’s a slight overlapping with “genre”, but all in all those tropes are a bit more specific, though widespread enough to be recognizable to avid fanfic readers.

Domestic

Everyone is alive

Fuck or Die

Getting together

Hurt/Comfort

Pining

Sex Pollen

Slow Burn

Soulmates

Time Travel

UST

Whump ...

And last but not least:

6. Content Warnings

Reminder that there’s mandatory archive warnings for AO3’s big four (underage sexual content, non-con/rape, graphic depictions of violence, character death) that you have to use, or at least indicate to readers you chose not to use them.

You are not required to use further content warnings and no one can blame you for it, as long as you used the mandatory warnings properly. But there are some benefits to additional content warnings:

1. It frames the “problematic behavior XY” (e.g emotional blackmail) you depicted as a problematic behavior, which makes readers both aware that it’s Bad™ (important especially for younger audiences) and that the author knows it’s Bad™.

2. It helps people that wouldn’t enjoy that content avoid it, which, good for them, good for you

3. It helps people that are actively searching for specific dark and difficult topics, for whichever reason, to find them.

All in all i’d say it has established itself as a widespread fandom etiquette to tag content commonly viewed as squicky/triggery. Here are some of the most common ones:

(Past/Implied) (Child/Emotional) Abuse

Age Difference

Alcohol/Drugs

Body Horror

Coercion/Jealousy/Manipulation

(Very) Dubious Consent

Gore

Kinks

Mental Health Issues (Eating Disorders, PTSD, Depression etc.)

Pregnancy/Abortion/Miscarriage

(Internalized) Racism/Homophobia/Misogyny

Explicit Sexual Content

Terminal Illness

Torture

Suicide/Suicidal Thoughts ...

(and here’s a far more complete list of content warnings, but you get the gist)

Voilà!

#ao3 #tagging #ao3 tags #writing resource #writing ref #long post #fanfiction #could you believe i've wanted to write this post for almost 10 months now #content warnings

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zombiequincy · 4 years

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THE MEGA RP PLOTTING SHEET / MEME.

First and foremost, recall that no one is perfect, we all had witnessed some plotting once which did not went too well, be it because of us or our partner. So here have this, which may help for future plotting. It’s a lot! Yes, but perhaps give your partners some insight? Anyway BOLD what fully applies, italicize if only somewhat.

MUN NAME: Hela AGE: 21 CONTACT: IM

CHARACTER(S): Giselle Gewelle, Yumichika Ayasegawa (inactive)

CURRENT FANDOM(S): Bleach

BLEACH FANDOM(S) YOU HAVE AN AU FOR: I have gory Bloodborne au but that one just exists in my head on my lonesome.

MY LANGUAGE(S): English and one very specific Middle Eastern dialect.

THEMES I’M INTERESTED IN FOR RP: FANTASY / Science fiction / Horror / WESTERN / ROMANCE / Thriller / MYSTERY / DYSTOPIA / ADVENTURE / MODERN / Erotic / Crime / MYTHOLOGY / Classic / HISTORY / RENAISSANCE / MEDIEVAL / Ancient / WAR / FAMILY / POLITICS / RELIGION / SCHOOL / ADULTHOOD / CHILDHOOD / APOCALYPTIC / GODS / Sport / MUSIC / Science / FIGHTS / ANGST / Smut / DRAMA / etc.

PREFERRED THREAD LENGTH: one-liner / 1 para / 2 PARA / 3+ / NOVELLA.

ASKS CAN BE SEND BY: MUTUALS / NON-MUTUALS / PERSONALS / ANONS.

CAN ASKS BE CONTINUED?: YES / NO only by Mutuals?: YES / NO.

PREFERRED THREAD TYPE: CRACK / casual nothing too deep / SERIOUS / DEEP AS HECK. (i love it all sorry I am quite the mixed bag lmao)

IS REALISM / RESEARCH IMPORTANT FOR YOU IN CERTAIN THEMES?: YES / NO. i gotta know what certain human body parts taste like u know

ARE YOU ATM OPEN FOR NEW PLOTS?: YES / NO / DEPENDS.

DO YOU HANDLE YOUR DRAFT / ASK - COUNT WELL?: YES / NO / SOMEWHAT. it’s SO BAD FOR ME RN ASGLDKJDJKA i’m very inconsistent i’m so sorry.

HOW LONG DO YOU USUALLY TAKE TO REPLY?: 24H / 1 WEEK / 2 WEEKS / 3+ / months / years. / a lot of it has more to do w my general writing mood and if the thread im writing catches my interest, and rn im writing a TON of really wonderful and fascinating threads so they’re all super captivating for me and i try to reply asap

I’M OKAY WITH INTERACTING: ORIGINAL CHARACTERS / a relative of my character (an oc) / duplicates / MY FANDOM / CROSSOVERS / MULTI-MUSES / self-inserts / people with no AU verse for my fandom / CANON-DIVERGENT PORTRAYALS / AU-VERSIONS.

DO YOU POST MORE IC OR OOC?: IC / OOC. (i have a lot of stupid shit sorry)

ARE YOU SELECTIVE WITH FOLLOWING OTHERS?: YES / NO / DEPENDS.

BEST WAYS TO APPROACH YOU FOR RP/PLOTTING: just send me a tumblr instant message, i know it sucks shit but im not comfy releasing my discord w everyone just yet cause i use it for personal use as well. i check tumblr on the daily so if you send me a message chances are i’ll see it and respond!

WHAT EXPECTATIONS DO YOU HOLD TOWARDS YOUR PLOTTING PARTNER: i guess just be able to put up with my rambling and stopping and starting, a lot of characterisation choices i do go through various stages and its pretty messy so when i communicate that with others it usually ends up equally messy. just be patient with me please.

WHEN YOU NOTICE THE PLOTTING IS RATHER ONE-SIDED, WHAT DO YOU DO?: i don’t mind! sometimes ppl have more ideas that they want to share first and i’m always super happy to listen to those ideas !! sometimes its nice to have someone with a clear guide or structure and be able to work around that rather than trying to fumble through a plot together.

HOW DO YOU USUALLY PLOT WITH OTHERS, DO YOU GIVE INPUT OR LEAVE MOST WORK TOWARDS YOUR PARTNER?: i try to map out some basic info abt their characters that i otherwise don’t know from their bio or verses and try to pick out points of confrontation or similarities to expand on with giselle that can be used as points for like a starter to happen. its either that or sometimes i have really stupid ideas i just toss out there like ‘LMAO THEYRE BREAKING SHIT AT DISNEYLAND’ and go buck wild from there if the other person is down. i also always try to warn people or get a gauge for what subjects to avoid and steer clear of considering that giselle is a bit of a Freak(tm) and will say and do bad things.

WHEN A PARTNER DROPS THE THREAD, DO YOU WISH TO KNOW?: YES / NO / DEPENDS. - And why?: if there’s something giselle did or said that upset you, i would love to know not to repeat it again (since i do still feel pretty new to the rp game, theres still plenty of time for me to make stupid mistakes). if its just a general lack of interest or uncertainty of where the plot should go, then you dont have to tell me i wont take it personally i promise !

WHAT COULD POSSIBLY LEAD YOU TO DROP A THREAD?: sometimes i can be made uncomfortable by certain things mentioned... it happens but its rare

- WILL YOU TELL YOUR PARTNER?: YES / NO / DEPENDS. i don’t want to upset anyone personally and sometimes explaining the ins and outs of my discomfort make things ten times worse so i just. would rather not.

IS COMMUNICATION IN THE RPC IMPORTANT TO YOU? YES / NO.

- AND WHY?: i am the most nervous person you can meet and my brain is always giving me misinfo abt paranoia and random shit so i having clear concrete communication between two parties abt if something is going wrong or is being received poorly means the world to me.

ARE YOU OKAY WITH ABSOLUTE HONESTY, EVEN IF IT MAY MEANS HEARING SOMETHING NEGA1TIVE ABOUT YOU AND/OR PORTRAYAL?: i need it !! i still feel relatively new to all this and i need to know whats going wrong to improve !!

DO YOU THINK YOU CAN HANDLE SUCH SITUATION IN A MATURE WAY? YES / NO.

WHY DO YOU RP AGAIN, IS THERE A GOAL?: to help with my confidence in writing! i have v bad anxiety when it comes to sharing my works and i write a lot of other pieces alongside this blog on ao3 and i want to develop my writing skills just in general. when it comes to like the nuts and bolts of why i rp giselle specifically, its mainly to just have fun and have a laugh w my friends who are really awesome quincy writers

WISHLIST, BE IT PLOTS OR SCENARIOS: OH SO MANY! ive managed to fulfil a lot of my wishlist threads with like, giselle talking to characters she’s already zombified and i love all that angst but i want to do more stupid shit. i want to make it my personal goal to bully every quincy man and woman on sight. although a REAL dream would be if i got to write a thread zombifying a character who managed to escape giselle’s clutches. and more fighting! i want to get better at describing action and fights and i love to write giselle getting beat up and beating people up! more more more!!

THEMES I WON’T EVER RP / EXPLORE: hohoho theres a LOT... uh r*pe/dubcon threads for one, even if yeah i know writing it doesnt condone it, it makes me intensely uncomfortable to put my muse in that scenario, i feel like i have an obligation to like, protect her from that shit you know? racism is one i don’t want to transgress, even though i’m a poc, its not really cathartic or groundbreaking to write abt racism in threads its just... really fucking upsetting. also i know the quincy’s have this very close parallel to the whole n*zi imagery and ideology thing going on and i am not about to start even daring to thread that into my writing or bring those allusions and references of real life tragedies into giselle’s threads. i’ve already talked at length abt exploring giselles trans identity in rp and why im not comfortable doing so, so.... yeah! all those i guess.

WHAT TYPE OF STARTERS DO YOU PREFER / DISLIKE, CAN’T WORK WITH?: i like starters where giselle can just immediately get right into being a piece of shit. mise en scene and all that! cut out the build up and just get to the intense horror !! i don’t like starters where its not immediately clear where the characters are standing and what they’re doing and what’s happening around them. those really disorientate me and leave me kinda floundering because i always need some allusion or mention of a setting to ground giselle in a time and place other wise i cant tell what her response should be

WHAT TYPE OF CHARACTERS CATCH YOUR INTEREST THE MOST?: EVIL WOMEN EVIL WOMEN EVIL WOMEN. also just characters i can wholeheartedly clown on, or also characters who have hidden depths to them and have a single panel of screentime. honestly it’s just all over the place!

WHAT TYPE OF CHARACTERS CATCH YOUR INTEREST THE LEAST?: angry old men GSADJDKSJA i could never rp yhwach for example or yamamoto because idk. theyre just so crummy and boring to me. i also couldnt rp characters who always have an upper hand in battle like aizen. i like my dumbasses and i like them stupid and adaptive not just, ‘yes i know this because i Know this.’

WHAT ARE YOUR STRONG ASPECTS AS RP PARTNER?: i think im nice...? FKSJDKDJSA idk i hate trying to toot my own horn. sometimes i also think i make funny jokes and im pretty chill and laid back

WHAT ARE YOUR WEAK ASPECTS AS RP PARTNER?: my writing style is inconsistent and adapts to whatever i’m reading so sometimes it’ll be really good and i love it and other times it reads like really bad fanfic and i get carried away far too easily and write novella lengths for threads which should be much shorter. i also get shy a lot and dont think i communicate very effectively but HEYO we’re working on it!

DO YOU RP SMUT?: YES / NO/ DEPENDS. haven’t had anybody brave enough to try yet lol

DO YOU PREFER TO GO INTO DETAIL?: YES / NO / DEPENDS.

ARE YOU OKAY WITH BLACK CURTAIN?: YES / NO.

- WHEN DO YOU RP SMUT? MORE OUT OF FUN OR CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT?: more for fun i’d imagine because that’s just giselles own attitude to sex and relationships where she doesnt want anything deep. it might show character development in one way of just showing how she regards others in a romantic sense to be used rather than actually appreciated as their own person and show how selfish she is but yeah, more out of fun

- ANYTHING YOU WOULD NOT WANT TO RP THERE?: theres a few kinks and such but i dont think they’d ever really come up. again, just mainly no r*pe/dubcon.

ARE SHIPS IMPORTANT TO YOU?: YES / NO lets hope this doesn’t make me sound like an asshole, but its more like a fun little side thing than anything important to giselle’s actual development and characterisation.

WOULD YOU SAY YOUR BLOG IS SHIP-FOCUSED?: YES / NO. again, hardly anyone is brave enough to try to romance this evil cannibal.

DO YOU USE READ MORE?: YES / NO / SOMETIMES WHEN I WRITE LONG STUFF.

ARE YOU: MULTI-SHIP / Single-Ship / Dual-Ship — MULTIVERSE / Singleverse.

- WHAT DO YOU LOVE TO EXPLORE THE MOST IN YOUR SHIPS?: more how giselle likes to give over her power or dominate in different circumstances depending on who she’s with and what’s being done. BUT AGAIN, not a whole lot to explore yet.

ARE YOU OKAY WITH PRE-ESTABLISHED RELATIONSHIPS?: YES / NO. - i mean im down for p much anything if it vibes w giselle.

► SECTION ABOUT YOUR MUSE.

- WHAT COULD POSSIBLY MAKE YOUR MUSE INTERESTING TOWARDS OTHERS, WHY SHOULD THEY RP WITH THIS PARTICULAR CHARACTER OF YOURS NOW, WHAT POSSIBLE PLOTS DO THEY OFFER?: if you want an evil woman to taunt and mock and hurt your muse, she’s your gal. you want her to zombify and ruin your muse, shes also your gal. you want her to insult and maim and injure, she’s also YOUR GAL. basically, if you want to do anything fucked up or sad or scary, she can help with that.

- WITH WHAT TYPE OF MUSES DO YOU USUALLY STRUGGLE TO RP WITH?: uh muses who get really angry quickly or don’t rise or respond to her jabs and are just kinda like a flatline. theres only so much pestering and annoying she can do until realises its not working and just wanders off

- WHAT DO THEY DESIRE, IS THEIR GOAL?: to find a goal worth living for.

- WHAT CATCHES THEIR INTEREST FIRST WHEN MEETING SOMEONE NEW?: appearance she always takes an interest in girls almost right away. age as well because she judges old people.

- WHAT DO THEY VALUE IN A PERSON?: a good set of guts to ruin and strong muscles.

- WHAT THEMES DO THEY LIKE TALKING ABOUT?: women, gore, murder, herself, music, stupid memes, gossip.

- WHICH THEMES BORE THEM?: politics, history, quincy ideology, soul reaper ideology, hollow physiology.

- DID THEY EVER WENT THROUGH SOMETHING TRAUMATIC?: her family tried to force the burden of upholding the quincy lineage onto her shoulders, she was thrown into the wrong prison and held in isolation, then pressured to become an undying monster in service of a god and then was nearly killed by that same man and left wandering without guidance or purpose. so, yeah?

- WHAT COULD LEAD TO AN INSTANT KILL?: transphobia. even a whiff of it in her direction and she’ll gut you like a fish.

- IS THERE SOMEONE /-THING THEY HATE?: the twink soul reaper who outted her.

IS YOUR MUSE EASY TO APPROACH?: YES / NO. - Best ways to approach them?: if you’re smart, you’ll bring a big bone for her to chew on and distract her while you ask whatever you want.

SOMETHING YOU MAY STILL WANT TO POINT OUT ABOUT YOUR MUSE?: i love my evil queen!

CONGRATS!!! You managed it, now tag your mutuals! ♥

Tagged by: @bazzardburner cheers chicken boy !!

Tagging: @hyouketsu @blooming5th @viciousvizard @glacies-tempestatem and whoever else wishes to do this!!

#dash games #// this took ages....

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