#HE LOOKS SO TINY COMPARED TO SUSIE

[lilistuff]

SOBBING, THIS IS SO CUTE

theyre on a date.

[utaxnanami]

Help, I didn’t know Ghostie was so small ?!?!

[inkdemonapologist]

Ok. A hypothetical scenario if you'll indulge me. You are a casting director on the movie. You are familiar with the material and you are asked to present some actors to the crew- *besides JK Simmons who everybody thinks should play Joey I guess?* who do you suggest and for what role?

I don't know any actors other than The Guy With The Cool Lips Who Played Scarecrow That One Time, so setting me up as casting director would be a questionable decision! I feel like the very tiny amount we know about this movie also makes this difficult; like, am I casting Sammy in 1932, Sammy in 1946, Ink Sammy, all three?

So, rather than picking specific famous people, some broader thoughts on what elements to prioritise?? as hypothetical casting director. For sake of this exercise we're going to take this all very seriously and pretend that the writing for this movie is already great lmao.

Joey: Ironically for the first BatIM character to get a canon human appearance, I think Joey's acting chops are more important than his looks; as long as makeup can do a decent moustache and the voice is good, the energy is what will really sell him. Joey Drew is both VERY important to get right and also the most complex character in the Bendy Franchise, but he's also really really easy to turn into a stereotype, and I feel like this implication of "obviously he should be played by the guy who played J Jonah Jameson" kinda speaks to how easy it is to see just one side of him. Joey is simultaneously ruthless but also disarmingly charming, likeable but also punchable, confident but also pathetically insecure, genuine but also manipulative -- it seems like a tricky energy to nail. If he doesn't have a sharpness to him, that Curiosity Where Empathy Should Be element, you've erased a really important part of the man behind so many nightmares; if he's a cartoon evil capitalist, then everyone who believes in his dreams looks stupid for falling for something so obvious. Whoever plays him has to be able to get in his head AND ALSO convey that nuance. But if you have the luxury of nitpicking appearance after that, I think it's worth noting that Joey doesn't look the way he's trying to look. I keep saying I'm obsessed with his overbite in BatDR, but like:

See? Henry's the one with that aggressive strong jaw facial structure. Compared to him, even this less-aged Joey has facial structure more like mine, with a weaker chin that gives the impression of an overbite and a shorter face (which, to be clear, are attractive traits, but they are definitely not the Stereotypical Energy for this character archetype) -- he just knows how to carry himself to give off that j jonah jameson energy. I think attention to that kind of detail would also help him be his own fascinating character instead of just shoving him into an existing archetype.

Henry: If it's Ink Henry, his vibes are the most important. This character is famously non-emotive, often to an inappropriate extent, and frankly I think whoever plays him should keep that as part of his character. Henry strikes me as someone who wants to be kind but he's so, so tired, and just looking at this guy needs to sell that because Henry's actual behaviour and dialogue won't.

If it's Actually Worked In The Studio Henry, then I think his voice and appearance need to be SPOT. ON. so that they can play him a little differently and it still works rather than just not feeling like Henry. If he sounds like a perfect Henry but he has more energy, he's still quiet but he's more confident, he's not the follower Joey tried to sell him as... that would be such a neat thing to leave as an implied reveal for fans -- that the Henry we know is either a dishonest representation, or changed by his experiences, and is actually a bit different from the man Joey worked with.

Susie: they won't do this because they're cowards, but I personally think Susie would be such a good candidate for protagonist of a Bendy movie..... anyway if human Susie is in it, she doesn't have a canon appearance so you have a lot of freedom here. Most important thing is that She Has The Range; she needs to be able to be both believably naive and starry-eyed in a likeable way rather than coming across as desperate or annoying, and she ALSO needs to have a ruthless energy in her so that her later Womens Wrongs don't come out of nowhere. If Twisted Alice AND Susie both make appearances, I'm torn on whether they should be played by the same person... it could be cool if they were, since then you could see a lot of Susie in Alice even when she's behaving VERY DIFFERENTLY, which I think would humanise Alice in a good way (and also humanise Susie as more than just a Sweet Naive Girl Who Was Tricked)

Either way Twisted Alice NEEDS TO BE HOT. IM NOT JOKING I THINK THIS IS THE PRIORITY. Yes yes half her face is melting, but her vibes are UNIRONICALLY "hot and evil and wants to vivisect someone." Like, it would also be nice to get someone who can play her with dimension, with an implication that she has reason to be a cartoon evil sexy person who flies into a shrieking rage beyond just women be crazy (which is kind of what she is in the games), but also, she IS a cartoon evil sexy person and you CAN'T lose that; she needs to be able to pull off EVIL AND HOT with half her face gone without it feeling like a parody. Lesbians in the audience need to fan themselves. ITS VERY IMPORTANT.

I don't have a ton of thoughts about Allison. We have a pretty specific physical description of her human self. She needs to have enough ethereal poise to justify the lovesick way she is described in every novel lmao. Allison Angel, though, is where I would put a priority of Needs A Character Actor i think; she's a fairly major character but it's so hard to get a good handle on what she actually like..... wants or feels beyond Helping The Protagonist and Being A Good Person, but if she could really sell the bits and pieces so well you believe it, so that she really seems like she's been harshened by the brutal world she lives in but genuinely values a hope she won't let go of, it could make the character really good.

Sammy.............. Well, it's hard to not be biased. But human Sammy has no canon appearance, so I think you can't go wrong there as long as you pick someone who could conceivably be described as "pointy", and I PERSONALLY think based on the little crumbs of description we've gotten that a human Sammy should be fairly distinctive and intense, attractive in a Strange way - but I think the really really important thing for Sammy (ink or human) is his vocal performance. This is a character who took off in popularity in large part because of a couple of really compellingly delivered monologues; Sammy's voice NEEDS to be right, especially when he's speaking quietly. I think physicality in the sense of How He Moves is ALSO really important for him; Sammy's wiggle-fingers in game and constantly odd descriptions in the novels and complete lack of personal space in both all imply that he moves Strangely, and I do think he should have an unsettling Renfield energy, but it's also so easy for Character Who Is Losing His Mind to get portrayed so over-the-top that it becomes goofy or unbelievable or weird for the sake of being "creepy". Sammy's energy shouldn't be Insane Batman Villain, it should be Doomed Guy In A Lovecraft Story -- it's just that nobody but him is in a lovecraft story.

there are other characters but I think these are all the ones i have thoughts on

[survey--s]

673.

What were you doing before you started taking this survey? Picking a photo for the header and watching Wallace & Gromit.

Do you live somewhere where it’s completely safe to walk alone at night? I do, but I pretty much never walk around alone at night anyway.

Have you ever lived with someone who was a total slob? Yeah. He was a flatmate and really gross - when he got kicked out we had to clear his room and there were LAYERS of mould everywhere. Eurgh. It took weeks for it to be habitable again lol.

Would you rather be able to talk to animals or be fluent in every language? If you were fluent in every language surely that includes animal ones?

Does your kitchen have a pantry? Ha no. Our kitchen is TINY.

Do you live below your means? Or do you spend every penny you have? We live well within our means. We're lucky that we live in a cheap area and have a cheap mortgage. Our bills come to less than half my total salary each month so we have plenty left over as Mike earns way more than me. Which is good as we have four animals and like to buy stuff, lol.

What are some foods you enjoy cooking? I don't enjoy cooking,it's just something that has to be done.

Have you ever watched Battlestar Galactica? Yeah,my mum used to like that show but I never got into it. She used to watch it on rainy Sunday afternoons when I was a kid.

Can others often tell what you’re feeling by your facial expressions? Ha - sometimes. I definitely have resting bitch face.

Have you ever interviewed a job applicant at your workplace? Yes, several times actually. I always hated doing interviews though.

Did you ever skip class when you were in school? If so, was there a particular class that you skipped the most? No, because they'd have just rung my parents and I'd have been given a massive bollocking lol.

In your opinion, what is it that makes someone a good person? Behaving decently when they know nobody's watching.

Are you happy with the life you’re living? Yes.

How do your political beliefs compare to those of your parents? I'm much more liberal than either of my parents, but they're not that right-wing really. Just set in their ways.

What do you think of the Baby Boomer generation? Nothing. I mean, everyone is different. I don't think stereotyping an entire generation as a certain characteristic helps anyone, tbh.

Have you ever gone over 3 months without shaving/waxing your legs? In the past, but personally I enjoy the feeling of being clean-shaven so I don't like to leave it longer than a day or two.

Are you high-maintenance? No.

What was the last non-fiction book you read? I can't remember. Probably a textbook.

Would you ever consider being a foster parent? No. I have zero desire to have my own kids, let alone look after someone else's.

Are you able to crack any of your joints? Yeah, all of them except my fingers.

What’s your favorite movie genre? Comedy or fantasy.

What’s something that’s been on your mind a lot lately? Christmas, work, my birthday.

What was the last thing someone asked you for advice on? I honestly can't remember.

Have you ever kissed 3 or more people in the same day? Yes.

What’s your opinion on lottery tickets? Waste of money, or no? Lottery tickets are a waste of money.

What are some things that make others cry, that don’t make you cry at all? I'm not sure about cry, but I can read stories about crimes and stuff without them really impacting me. I'm not sure if that's good or bad lol.

Are you a very detail-oriented person? Or are you better at seeing the big picture? I'm both, depending on the circumstances.

Do you have any upcoming plans with friends? Next month, yeah. Susie and I have our annual Christmas afternoon tea coming up!

What was the last picture message you received, and from whom? It was an advert for a dog dental chew thing from my mum.

Have you ever swam in a saltwater pool? Yeah, I really didn't like it.

What kinds of leisure activities did your family do together when you were growing up? Hiking, swimming, skiing, skating, bike rides, board games.

What color suits you more: teal or black? Black.

What continent do you live on? Europe.

[venenumvanilla]

...okay rambling time~

So here are the sprites again only in their original resolution from when I edited them in MS Paint. I just have been using Pixilart website to help scale them up and make the earlier gif.

So if anyone uses the sprite sheets just send a link(?) of your work, so I can come over and enjoy your stuff (^v^)

Here are also the transparent images from earlier just tiny... and not so transparent

This was a fun learning experience, and am quite happy how most of Magolor's outfits turned out. Definitely my favorite Magolor so far is his western one and here is a interesting fun fact about his outfits. Compared to most of Magolor's outfits his Merchant, Sad Kitty Epilogue, Ninja, and Cowboy outfits all lack the purple on his gear motif. (Although, I am unsure if the purple is on the Manger outfit?)

As I wrote before, this project really got out of hand since I miscalculated just how many outfits Magolor now has with RTDLD (10 outfits for one snazzy fellow).

If I kept working on Magolor sprites I would want to give the Music Festival Magolor a guitar and looking through some of the merch he also has a violin?... and another hat for Merchant Magolor?!

THis is all just for Magolor without the Boss stuff?!?...

Another reason why I am so happy with how the Cowboy Western? Magolor truned out is I was able to pose him as he appears in the mini game. Most of the others I just tried to complete their outfits, palettes, and basic hands so if I come back to this I have a continue point.

...here is the original png from my previous post as an reward to getting past my rambles again.

Welp, time to continue lurking on the internet. Not sure when I will post something again. My original plan was to work on Magolor for around Easter and umm that plan kinda fell through.

Really want to work on Susie's and Taranza's sprites. *cough* definitely not biased towards the wave 3 friends *cough*

Until next time~

What started as a simple project, and I then realized just how many outfits Magolor has now (not even including his other forms).

Going to do a follow up post where I ramble, but here are some enlarged sprites for you until then.

....I also have this

He definitely would need more frames (and hands), but look at him go!

[huecycles]

jevil & noelle friendship post

hi, i want to talk about how noelle and jevil would definitely get along well or even be friends! also how their characters contrast nicely with each other and could possibly have a dynamic as interesting and engaging as spamton does with kris. this is quite a long post, so yeah grab a seat lol. first off, take a look at noelle’s reaction to both of jevil’s items:

noelle likes horror movies, and jevil definitely fits that scary clown trope. the description for jevilstail is “a j-shaped tail that gives you devilenergy”, and it can be equipped on noelle. considering her comment, and how she compliments susie’s tail later, this could mean she thinks tails in general are cute (perhaps longer ones? susie is often headcanoned to have a lizard-esque tail while jevil has his j-shaped devil one. noelle has a deer tail which is pretty small lmao, kinda unrelated but i’m sure it could be for a silly reason like that, and in susie’s case, highlighted by her crush on her).

the fact noelle can equip jevilstail and say she likes an item that gives her “devilenergy” is very interesting too, and kinda goes along with what she said in the ferris wheel cutscene, how she wishes she could break the rules and be more like susie who isn’t afraid to do that. compare that to ralsei’s “i’m a good devil, ok?” and susie’s “figured i’d grow one someday” and you’ll see how noelle likes the idea of being “devilish” but is pretty shy about it as she mutters it.

now let’s talk about devilsknife. devilsknife is a susie weapon, it is pretty powerful and the name itself is already scary sounding. of course, noelle can’t equip it since her weapon type is supposed to be rings, but she doesn’t seem that scared when presented with the item, unlike ralsei who says it feels “too evil”. this is what she has to say:

devilsknife, as in jevil, smiles at her. now, how could she be seeing that? most people interpret this smile as the blade deforming itself to resemble jevil’s face, or his own smile being reflected in the blade. however, there’s a detail a lot of people have missed (as well as this little moment altogether which is one of few the indicators of jevil’s actual and current presence in chapter 2).

this is devilsknife’s description:

there’s a skull symbol emblazoned in the blade (which is a hybrid between a scythe and an ax, aka what lets susie equip it due to her weapons all being axes). 

now, according to my own headcanons due to certain wording jevil uses in his fight, like “EVEN DEVILSKNIFE IS SMILING!” and “LET’S MAKE THE DEVILSKNIFE.”, plus how tasque manager has the exact same reaction to both of jevil’s items, meaning she knows it’s him/knows of his presence there - contradicting the common idea that jevil is not the jevilstail and thus not in the inventory due to his wording in chapter 1 - but still regarding the devilsknife with some strange familiarity which could imply she knows it is a weapon and has possibly not only met jevil but fought him before: “silly tail” vs “silly Devilsknife”, capitalized...

...make me believe devilsknife and jevil are not one in the same, and are only “fused” (metamorphosis?) in the inventory. while i know certain details are hard to portray in a tiny sprite, you can see there’s no skull symbol anywhere in the devilsknife’s blade which has more empty space, and given how it’s “emblazoned” it would mean it’s a printed/engraved symbol somewhere.

so my small tangent here is that the skull only appears once jevil and devilsknife are fused together and in your inventory. considering how scythes are often seen as a grim reaper's weapon and associated with death, having jevil become the actual devilsknife and clearly maintain his conscience would nicely translate into a skull symbol appearing. the “THIS BODY CANNOT BE KILLED!” line also gives this some more depth. given how jevil’s "mind" is chained to his "body", as he gives a lot of emphasis to his body (”THEY CRAVED TO IMPRISON MY BODY”) and the association of how his mind is “free” while his body stays locked up paints a grim picture on how he was deemed insane, yet found a loophole in that, and thus “freedom”.

scythes are also famous for beheadings. jevil has no neck, his head separated from his body. and bringing all that back to noelle, THIS is how he smiles at her. pretty morbid, right? cool as fuck too :o)

of course, these are noelle’s only direct interactions with jevil through his items, but i’d also like to bring attention to how her themes and symbolism go along so well with jevil’s, just like spamton’s go with kris’s.

kris is often likened to demonic imagery, aka their creepy red eyes, the use of the horns headband, how they have an interest in summoning demons due to their search history, and finally: king calling them "lightbringer" which is just what “lucifer” means in latin + that word itself is generally associated with lucifer, satan, what have you. noelle has obvious ties with angels: being called one by both spamton and pink addison while on a snowgrave route, her comment about growing big angel wings in the ferris wheel cutscene, the angel doll her and dess made which rudy keeps around as a good luck charm, and so on. spamton and jevil, respectively, are the opposites in that regard when compared to kris and noelle, so the contrast here is really damn fun to think about and explore.

another thing is how both noelle and jevil are incredibly powerful and involved in violent acts (though you know how snowgrave goes, of course), and how kris and spamton are in a very similar predicament as puppets who try to fight back. i believe just like how spamton and kris both managed to relate to each other’s despair and tried to help each other out (albeit in a very warped way in spamton’s case), i think noelle and jevil would have a similar thing.

lemme talk about something interesting in the snowgrave route. there is a pattern going on with noelle that is slightly overlooked, which is this:

1) a order is given by the player through kris, often “proceed”. 2) the screen goes black, the iceshock sound is heard. 3) noelle is completely confused about what just happened.

in the weird route, there are several times where noelle zones out, and while the moment people focus on is when she’s using snowgrave on berdly, the iceshock on the puzzles + the pink addison to get the freeze ring are very important. she comments later on how the battles are blurring together and how she cant remember a lot of details, she just followed "kris's" command and acted accordingly. a similar thing might have happened when she iceshocked spamton neo too, as the screen goes black again.

considering how she says “there was so much snow, i couldn’t see anything” after berdly is in the ice, i believe whenever she uses her power while aided by the player (and later, her own, as seen in the last puzzle where she does it by herself, leading to when she encounters berdly where she was just about to freeze him, completely on “automatic mode”, seemingly just waiting for the actual order) her mind goes blank, and she just acts as instructed. noelle might even look like this while the screen is black, which is a bit haunting to me:

going back to jevil, and knowing how prone to violence/chaos he is, i believe he would be able to sense her affinity for power and maybe even help her control it, likely for his own gain as he is hypocritical (strips the player of choice once you arrive with the key and refuse to open his cell), though similarly to spamton and kris, jevil could feel some kind of connection with noelle’s power and how dangerous it can be.

i believe jevil could help noelle get a hold of herself when using her magic and not just follow someone else’s commands, as well as keeping a clear head through it all. he’s pretty damn powerful himself, so he would instead help her come up with her own strategies and willpower, even if his teachings might fall flat due to his own insistence on having her cause chaos. i believe that can overruled by noelle's kindness and gentleness, and due to jevil's own influence on her (to be more bold and assertive, as she expresses she wishes she could be more like susie and break the rules like i said before), whatever "plan" he may have on turning her into this powerful killing machine backfires simply because she says no to him. lol his own strong personality boosts her shy and scared one so that itself is his own failure, i think that’s hilarious and a great character study for the both of them!

i headcanon jevil calls her "headlights" as a reference to how she's easily scared + a cruel nod to the “deer in the headlights” thing, which fits with his character who has probably a morbid sense of humor. noelle would definitely be intimidated by him at first, but i think she’d warm up to him due to her own interests in “scary” people, firstly her crush on susie and secondly her strange friend jevil who looks like a killer clown in the flesh. an easygoing, kind kid in jevil's life would also brighten it up :) he could definitely use a gentle presence in my opinion, i mean. guy’s said to be a loner, even if he had seam.

long post, but yeah! i know the susie and jevil connection is easier to make because of their brief interaction, devilsknife etc, but i feel like noelle and jevil being friends is very unique and more interesting to me personally. if kris has their scammer puppet uncle, noelle has the silly, slightly intimidating clown (also uncle coded) who helps pick out her fits for halloween and do her makeup. she also gets to wear out five hairbrushes on the wavy mess that’s under his hat, then braids his hair during the afternoon and shows him different hairdos, choosing the one jevil’s eyes dilated at. kris takes a picture of him looking handsome under noelle’s care and hits ‘send’ saying “ey uncle spamgton check out ur lover boy” while spamton tells them to “del3te THIS”.

it’s nice it’s cool!! let jevil and noelle be friends!!

[gay-jesus-probably]

Hey, so something I think we've all been overlooking in the Spamton Neo fight is the significance of the soul going yellow. I mean, yeah fun gameplay mechanicl insert big shot joke here, but if you'll remember how every other soul colour change has gone down in canon, that one was really fucking weird.

Souls changing colour is a form of magic. That's why every single time it happened in Undertale, it was because a monster caused that to happen in a fight. Papyrus and Sans turned the soul blue in their respective battles, Undyne turned it green, Miss Muffet turned it purple, and Alphys turned it yellow so that you could fight Mettaton.

Now, we know Spamton didn't turn the soul yellow, because he was surprised to see it happen at all. And Ralsei and Susie would have said if they'd done something, so they couldn't be involved (especially since it still happens without them on the Snowgrave route). Which means that Kris and/or the player (aka the soul itself) must've been responsible for it.

Which begs the question of what made that fight so different compared to all the others? Why didn't the soul change colour to fight the King, or Jevil, or anyone but Spamton? What was different about that one fight in particular?

I think that the Spamton Neo fight is the only time we see Kris and the player in full agreement and actually working together. Look, we know Kris is rightfully pretty fucking upset about being puppeted around, and who knows how many of our actions they ever really agree with? Even if they do agree with what we do, they still resent not being able to make their own damn choices. But Kris is scared of Spamton Neo. They back up in fear without our input when he starts approaching them, they're described as being badly shaken after the battle, and if you choose to let them say they're not okay, they'll literally scream the words out... the whole thing makes it obvious that Kris personally was terrified.

And I mean fuck, of course we want to fight Spamton Neo, he literally wants to rip us out of Kris. Not cool. But I think Kris also wanted to fight him, just out of pure self preservation. The soul turned yellow because Kris wanted to work with the player, at least for that single battle.

That'd also explain why there's a powered shot option now when it wasn't in Undertale; Kris and the player are working with the strength of two human souls (since Kris presumably has one, and we're an interloper), of course they get a new ability from that. Maybe Kris's soul is naturally yellow, and they were able to override the player's red with their own yellow?

Further evidence for this theory, by the end of the chapter Kris seems a little more chill about the player soul; at the end of chapter 1, they rip us out, and physically throw us into the bird cage, closing the door behind us. But at the end of chapter 2, despite taking... let's say certain drastic actions, they just put us away under the bathroom sink and then shove us between the couch cushions. Those are upgrades. And when they come back into the bathroom, they willingly put the soul back in. Kris obviously still isn't happy about us being there, but we might have found a tiny shred of common ground.

Idk man, these are just thoughts, but interesting ones.

[valleyfthdolls]

how TALL is everybunny I need to know

Well, you’d think for the Aftons, since Amalie is only 5’2 and William is 6’7, her short stature and his freakish height would make most of their kids average height.

You’d be wrong.

Cassidy, shortest of the family, is 4’0 at age 8. (The average 7 year old is 4’1, and the average 8 year old is 4’3. Also he’s close to 9, which is 4’5 on average.) Elizabeth is 4’4, setting her a bit on the short side for a 10 year old, but nothing dramatic.

Michael, at age 21, is 6’5, 5’7 at 14 when his siblings died.

Susie is 4’3, Jeremy is 3’5, Gabriel is 3’11, though short for a 7 year old he probably would have shot up like a weed as he got older, Mitzi is almost 5’0, and Charlie, age 10, is 4’7.

At age 19, Charlie is 5’9. Up against the absolute freak of nature that is Michael Afton, she looks short, but among Jessica, Carlton, John and Marla, she’s the tallest.

The animatronics range from 7-9 feet tall. Real life CEC animatronics are usually 6 foot at most, but I like making the fnaf guys huge. I think oversized objects are gross so it definitely makes them more creepy to me. The biggest one is DJ Music Man at almost 30 feet long. The shortest is Baby at 7’6.

The Nightmares are like fifteen, sixteen feet tall. They don’t fit into the halls and rooms of the house at all. They’re bent down and cramped up against the ceiling trying to get through the house. (Again, I do not like oversized objects.)

Glitchtrap is about ten to eleven feet tall. Poor Vanny is only 5’7. Vanessa is 5’10, and Gregory is about 4’3.

As for other slightly less relevant characters:

Beatrice Fitch (“Bee”), the Chica bully, is 5’8. Noah Park, the Bonnie bully, is 5’5. Jeremy Fitzgerald, the Freddy bully, is 5’10 in 1983 and 6’1 in 1987.

Scott Leskowitz (Phone Guy) is 5’4, and Shadow Bonnie (Scott Leskowitz (Phone Guy)) is roughly 8’0.

Caleb Martz (an OC) is 5’8, also looks tiny compared to Michael.

Henry is 6’1, his ex wife Melissa is 5’4, and Sammy, as of age 10, is 4’6.

Amalie’s sister Nicole, the Afton kids’ aunt, is 5’0. She’s a reference to an oc character named Nicolette who served as an early version of Mrs. Afton. I never get the chance to talk about Nicolette anymore cuz I dunno what to do with her lmao

Pizzaplex employees Mark Cho, Raha Salib, Anna Kwento, and Nora Pacheco are 5’8, 5’1, 5’7 and 5’5 respectively. I am bringing them up because they are irrelevant to the plot but I like them. They’re funny.

[boxboysandotherwhump]

Ilya's first day at the ranch

Thank you so much @orchidscript for helping me with this one <3

CW: past whump mentioned, scarring mentioned, past abuse mentioned,

Last week, Ilya’s world consisted of nothing more but a fuggy room and dusty window. Of dinner leftovers he’d tried to eat with mangled hands.

Now, a hospital visit and some nights spent on a fold-out couch in the welfare office later, he followed a blonde young man around the ranch's property on legs still wobbly from the six hour drive to this new placement.

That social worker, Miss Maria Mullens, hadn’t been the one behind the steering wheel, but she’d pressed a backpack into his hands full of clothes that weren’t coming apart at the seams and wished him good luck. Ilya had nearly teared up on a pitstop at a pull-in, where he’d changed into a new soft sweater and pants that hung only a little too loose and found a pair of brand-new leather gloves neatly folded atop the clothes.

They felt so much more pleasant against his skin in the late July heat, compared to the scratchy wollen ones.

“Ilya,” the blonde guy’s -- Matthew -- work boots clicked over the stone path to what looked like stables. “Say, do you have any experiences with horses?”

“No,” Ilya murmured upon entering. Soft sighs and snorts echoed through the long, wide hallway flanked by spacious boxes. BIgger than most rooms he's ever been kept in. The smell of hay and heated skin was intense here and the floor was stained in some places with something Ilya hoped wasn’t poop. He squashed down his urge to side step them. Not wanting to appear too big-city. “Only ever seen them on tv. Horse holidays aren't-... They’re not really foster-life, ya know?”

“They’re part of yours, now.” Matthew beamed.

Almost blinded by the others' sunshine brightness, Ilya peered into the box next to him, and froze. He knew the creature inside existed, of course he did, but he hadn’t really thought they would look so-

“...tiny.”

“Yes, meet our newest family member -- apart from you. This is Susie. She’s four whole days old, as of today.” Matthew ran over with pride. Voice warm and steady, breast swollen, and a stupid blissfull expression plastered over his face. As if he’d born that small spindly legged thing himself. It was ridiculous, really.

Tiny soft looking nostrils flared, inhaling Ilya’s scent. The small creature left its mothers side, stalked over with stumbling steps, ears perked up in interest.

Ilyas fingers twitched with the urge to pet it. He burrowed his hands deep into his pockets instead, bit back a smile. “They’re called, uhm, foals? Right?”

“So you do know a bit about horses.”

Bristling under the tease Ilya snapped, “I lived in the city, not under a rock,” but it lacked any real bite.

“Alright, alright, city boy.” Matthew lifted his hands, cheeks dimpling and chest trembling with suppressed laughter that spilled past his lips in a breathless chuckle. “Wanna pet your very first foal? Their noses are the softest thing you’ll ever touch.”

“No!” Ilya blurted, stumbled backwards, eyes snapping to the foal. It answered his wild eyed stare with curiously twitching ears. A friendly nicker.

“No I- '' Panic prickled up his palms. His hands grew clammy, the leather gloves stuck to his skin. Ilya swallowed. “That wouldn’t be- I can’t.”

“Hey, hey there. It’s alright. You don’t have to do anything you don’t wanna. But-.” Straight, white teeth worried at his plush lips. His broad hands fidgeted with the drawstring of his grey hoodie, wrapped it around his finger and let it go, letting it flop against his chest. “Listen. I know it’s weird but I read your file. Have to for every newbie, and... If it's because of your scars you really don’t--.”

“Itain’tboutthat,” Ilya spluttered. Panic frenzied shame compressed his vowels and syllables into one single hectic exclamation. The solid stone ground felt more like a waterbed under his feet and Ilya took one deep shuddering breath. “My scars-. It has nothing to do with my scars. It’s- I…” Shame chaffed away at his voice until it cracked, more rasp than whisper. “I’m wicked. Cursed.”

“Ilya. You’re magic, not cursed.”

That flicker of sadness in Matthew's tone hit him like a kick in the chest. Ilya didn’t need to look at him to know his face was pinched with pity. He failed to hold back a snort. All derisive anger. It made an honest man of him.

Matthews boots clicked over stone as he took a step towards him. “There is no shame in being different.”

“Oh and what do you know about it?! Wannabe social worker, taking care of some strays, working for a good cause, living the pony farm dream life. Zatknis!” The words burst out of Ilya’s mouth like an angry bee swarm. Eager to sting, to pump poison under Matthews skin, to scare him off.

There was no way to take them back, to unhurt the boy staring at him, blue eyes blown wide in bewilderment. Those stupid dimples had vanished alongside that stupid charming smile. Ilyas pulse picked up, hammered in his throat, quick as the footsteps of a frightened child running to its mother.

He had no mother to hide behind, no arms to find solace in. Hanging his head Ilya prepared for the yelling sure to come, the blow, or kick, or spit in his face.

“Sorry.”

Please forgive me.

“I’m the one who should be apologizing. I overstepped.”

Ilya glanced up, heart stopping, skip-stutter-starting into another wild frenzy. This wasn’t how things were supposed to happen. His face crumpled in confusion over the honest concern in those blue, blue eyes.

It suddenly became very hard to breathe around the tight, burning knot lodged in his throat.

How the hell was he supposed to answer?

His mouth opened, closed, opened again, like a petrified fish, hauled out of water and slapped onto the cutting board.

Ilya turned on his heel and ran from this place he wouldn’t ever belong.

There was no way to build a life filled with soft things and fragile creatures and warm smiles, not when his hands were destined to destroy everything they touched.

[hello-im-not-a-possum]

You caught my attension with the "Bad end Wizard Wally" Au, what else goes down in there?

A lot of things anon, a lot of things:

-Instead of even so much as humoring the thought of telling Conner, Wally straight up quits and gets a job elsewhere.

-A few years later both Wally and Henry get letters asking them to come to the old studio; one from Joey asking Henry to ‘come visit the old workshop’, the other from Thomas begging Wally to destroy the machine because he can’t do it himself.

-Henry and Wally show up to the inked studio.

-Curiosity leads the pair to activate the ink machine. (Wally thought that Thomas was referring to the other ink machine, not the one suspended by chains.)

-The Ink Demon breaks down the boards and chases them through the studio before the floor breaks beneath them.

-Post-machine activation: the studio fucks with Wally’s magical powers, often having spells backfire on himself. (i.e. if he tries to make something levitate, it automatically flings itself into his face.)

-Due to the fact that Joey found out how to successfully make living cartoons out of people early on, there are no searchers in the studio.

-The Lost ones are still here but they’re much rarer, they flee from sight whenever you see them, and they aren’t made by the machine like canon implied, instead they’re human beings who drank the ink.  

-The two unwilling heroes try to escape via the music department’s flooded stairwell, but they get stopped by Sammy and dragged deeper into ink hell.

-Sammy doesn’t worship the Ink Demon in this AU. In fact, his mind and body are not affected by the ink at all.

-Instead, his mental decline is brought on by his own psychic abilities which he became aware of due to Joey’s meddling. He can’t even think about the past and present anymore, only the future.

-Thus, the man’s new role is not of a desperate madman clinging onto a false savior, but instead a cold and calculating wildcard of an oracle who constantly stalks the two heroes from the shadows and throws wrenches in their escape plans, but also keeps them safe from the wrath of the ink demon whenever he can.

-Boris is still a friend, but he’s a little less chipper and much more on edge than canon.

-Either Wally or Henry can find a tape recorder buried in Boris’s stuff that was made by a gofer who’s talking about the fact that while the living cartoons came out of the machine looking exactly like their animated counterparts, they often try to change how they look, behave coldly and are hostile towards everybody, and are especially hostile towards Joey Drew.

-“The Cameraman is probably the worst out of all of them, it’s almost like he’s trying to make everybody quit their jobs!”

-You know how dogs sigh like they had the roughest time in the world? The only noise Boris makes is that sigh and he only makes it when that tape recording is played.

-Who attacks our heroes if searchers aren’t in the enemy roster? Simple: a hoard of deformed toons.

-We’ve got our classic Butchered gang members, Sliced-Split-n-Stitched Back up SSSB members, and Woolly troubled trios.

-But these appear in the music dep, Bendyland, the village, and the administration offices. Instead of being regular deformed, the enemies in the Heavenly toys department have seemingly been forcefully fused together.

-This makes them slower and weaker, but they also have three times as much health now.

-Susie is referred to as “Twisted Alice” in the studio. This is because she doesn’t look like a more human-proportioned Alice Angel with a deformed face, but instead a mashup of Alice Angel and Miss Twisted.

-Looks like misery loves company.

-Instead of seeking ‘perfection’ Twisted Alice sends Wally and Henry to do tasks for her because she’s trying to make herself be one or the other, she doesn’t care which one she’ll end up as anymore but trying to be two (technically three) different people at once is really messing with her.

-The tasks she gives are still the same, instead of the swollen searcher task, that’s instead replaced with “Gather thick ink from the flooded level”.

-You know how the Projectionist is already scary?

-Imagine him with the ability to raise the dead.

-Like, Henry and Wally are in level 14 gathering severed hearts...

-And then an ear-splitting scream echoes through the area.

-And.

-Then.

-The.

-Fucking.

-Corpses.

-Of.

-The.

-Dead.

-Toons.

-Start.

-Rising.

-And.

-Attacking.

-Norman’s ‘I sees everythang’ tape is slightly altered to include more corpse puns.

-When all the chores are done, Twisted Alice does keep her word and lets Henry and Wally up.

-When they’re *this* close to seeing daylight again, *BAM!*

-The Elevator drops like a hot coal.

-Was it sabotaged? Was it just old and dangerous? Was this just bad luck? That’s up for interpretation depending on who you believe first.

-Boris is kidnapped by a much more Miss Twisted-looking Twisted Alice while the old men are out.

-Intentional murder to commit dog theft, or Miss Twisted being opportunistic?

-Giant cavern? Lame carnival minigames? Air vent maze? Nah, screw that, instead Bendyland gets some more rides.

-Fight off foes in the ferris wheel!

-Avoid killer bumper cars with running chainsaws attached to them while trying to get the haunted house’s power back on!

-Can’t forget Bertrum! In the fight, if he puts down all four of his arms and pushes down hard enough, he can actually walk around the room.

-Kinda like a giant mechanical spider with only four legs.

-This makes it harder to hit his weak points and makes it easy for him to fucking stampede over “Joey”, which is why he does it. But it takes a lot out of him, so he can’t do it for very long.

-And he can’t do it anymore if two or more of his arms are ripped off.

-The Projectionist’s section is the same but with more toon corpses around.

-And if you didn’t get caught in his light or touch the hearts, when Wally and Henry pile into the miracle station and The Projectionist is *just* about to open the door until getting interrupted, instead of screaming at the ink demon and getting into a fight, the Projectionist opens the door and fucking squeezes himself in there.

-Not very comfortable, but better than the alternative.

-Congrats to Henry and Wally, who graduated from ‘trespassing thieves’ to ‘weird but sorta okay flesh things who didn’t take my hearts again and let me in their safe territory in spite of me trying to kill them’.

-Boris actually can be saved.

-Did you give the dog a bone back at the safe house?

-Good, now give him three more.

-The Janitor and the Animator have no fucking clue why throwing bones at this deformed, beefed-up version of Boris managed to melt off the excess ink and junk, or why he can speak now, but they’re not going to look a gift wolf in the mouth.

-Did somebody say back-to-back boss battle?

-I did!

-Sadly, it’s kind of a short fight as it can range from ‘three on one and one of them is a fucking wizard (just because recoil is hell doesn’t mean it’ll stop Wally in dire situations)’ to ‘four on one and one of those four can bring back the dead by screaming’.

-Allison and Tom wrangle the team up and stick ‘em in the “guest room”.

-Tom chews Wally out for re-activating the ink machine, Wally can’t take him seriously when he’s that fucking small and sounds like a mechanical snob.

-It’s even funnier when the Projectionist has been befriended.

-Let him have his tiny camera-headed son back, Allison.

-The river boat chase is longer and there seems to be more than just one hand coming out of the ink.

-Wally swears he sees a bunch of teeth in the river while the hands are down.

-In the village, the group are immediately attacked by a swarm of deformed toons when they approach the boarded up hovel.

-They shout things like “STAY AWAY FROM THE PROPHET!” and stuff like that in their garbled voices.

-When all of them are gone, peering through the boards in the hovel the team approached in the first place reveals that Sammy is indeed in there, just staring off into space and muttering about something the team can’t quite make out.

-Breaking down the said boards might seem logical, but it triggers a brutal boss fight against him. That musical bastard is fast and hits like a freight train. Also psychic powers, you have to be the luckiest person in the world to win a fight against a man who sees your every move before you can even think of it.

-Just... leave him be... and focus on getting outta here.

-The administration maze is as annoying as ever thanks to not having any weapons and the maze itself being magically disabling.

-Beast Bendy gets some bigger legs to go with his giant torso and head.

-Now he’s even faster and more annoying!

-but can’t do shit against the team.

-Good Ending: getting the biggest team you can in game, breaking the machine and punching Joey in the face for doing ...that. It sucks that everything got this bad but at least you helped the others make it outta there.

-Neutral ending: “Come by the old workshop, there’s something I need to show you”

-Bad Ending of the ‘Bad end Wizard Wally Au’  (Worst possible ending): Henry and Wally have fully succumbed to the ink through a path of violence, evading death by the toons, and have fully lost themselves, they do not remember their lives and families before the ink anymore. And Joey couldn’t be more tickled pink! It’s a shame that making perfect demon toons is such a complicated process compared to making an object-headed toon, a ‘human’ toon, or an animalistic toon, but all the trouble was worth it as a trip through the machine later, Joey finally has the last two he needs: A Perfect Papa Pluto and a Perfect Bendy.

[donaidk]

This isn't really F1 related but I really hope you don't mind me asking. I saw you mentioning first hand experiences with sexism and how you think about giving up dreams because of fears. As someone who's about to go into university could you tell me what you mean with those experiences. What happened? Ofc if it's triggering for you please just ignore this but thank you for your help if you can talk about it 💝

Hi Anon! Luckily it’s not triggering me in a way that I can’t talk about, just mostly makes me angry and tired mentally. But if it can help someone I will gladly talk about it and show you how it affects me personally. I wanna highlight the word personally because we are all different and what hurts me could be nothing special for someone else. Also, one more important thing, I don’t think that every male human being is the devil and please never think about everybody as someone who wanna hurt you, as most of them are probably normal people. But maybe let’s start from where it all started as I want you to see the whole picture if you’re asking for true help ☺️

Warning: Long, not so happy post mentioning different kinds of sexism around university studies and working somewhere that’s usually filled with mostly males

To start off: I'm not someone to take unhelpful and toxic criticism from anyone. I like to think that I'm aware what I'm capable of and who I truly am, without others trying to tell me how someone should act, speak and think. My family raised me to make my own decisions and navigate life in a way that makes me happy and not others who think they have a say in my life. That's why, most of the time, I did achieve what I set out as a goal for myself. It's never easy and everyone has breakdowns, sometimes more than they should when they tend to overthink situations. However, hitting your goals and getting to live a life which you imagined for yourself never comes easy, but people will never see the behind the scenes struggles you had on the way to your current position. So please, take my experiences with a grain of salt and if you wanna try yourself at something don’t hold back just because someone had bad experiences in the field. (Although, please do not choose it if you know for sure it will only hurt you!)

So the whole story: Back in May last year I imagined the last past months quite differently. I envisioned my family being proud of me for reaching a milestone successfully, meeting new - more mature - people who will finally look at me for who I am inside and not outside and also getting to study something that brought a smile to my face every second of the day when I was thinking about it. I choose my university carefully, knowing full well how none of them will be easy to complete, but at least wanted to enjoy the years I was about to commit to the community there. I had friends and aquintances, from both genders, telling me how much they enjoyed spending their Bachelor and Masters study time here and how it was such a loving community all around. I was ecstatic when I got the text that I got in, and throughout the whole summer I couldn't wait to start my first semester.

Fast forward to September/October right before all hell broke loose. I made quite a few friends, got to be part of a fantastic study group which stayed together even when we changed to online learning and most importantly loved everything I got to study. Yes, there were a few classes which were hard or seemed unnecessary but I still enjoyed them and thought I did quite well compared to how it was such a deep dive after high school. Then I slowly got a taste of a side of everything I knew will be there but hoped will somehow stay away from me. These are the first hand experiences I also mentioned under this Susie post as it was the whole point where I thought back to everything. The list goes like this:

Almost failing a class just because our female teacher thinks all girls sleep around or flirt their way through uni with all the male teachers/tutors, and thinks we have to be punished through making us fail no matter our knowledge of the class. I got given a thesis that i knew word-by-word, which was my fave to learn, and I still was clawing for the second grade in our system. Fair, right?

We have a teacher who's known for letting girls who dress pretty just for his class pass his class easier while he makes it hell for the others (girls, boys are graded for what they actually give in). It's common knowledge and looked at like it's completely normal behaviour.

In one class we have to send in homework and we can get 0-1 point for it, depending on how well it works. If you don't send it in you get -1, and at the end of the semester you have to have at least 0 points all together. But if you can't send it in, you have one more chance to do so in the next 7 days for 0 points no matter if it works or not. This is something every student gets to use and it's not a personal advantage. However, one of the boys in my class probably didn't pay attention and didn't know about it. Why is it important you may ask. Well, because when he heard me ask about it in his opinion I'm 'a bitch who uses her gender to get better grades and pass uni easier than others'.

The same boy has been harrassing two other girls in dms and made fun of them for their tiny mistakes. He also called me a bitch once again right in front of the whole class and our young male tutor (who I have to add I love because he's always helpful and never looks at us different), making the whole situation truly awkward.

Getting told by another student that they would be willing to share notes to me if I wore more feminine clothing and laughing about his comment with his mates.

Family members saying I probably chose what I did because I would have mostly just boys around me and that I should just give up if I feel like this is my only chance at finding a partner. At the age of fucking 19, where I'm sorry, but I had more important things to experience than chasing after boys who were all immature compared to what I was looking for. Same person saying that he thought I wouldn't be one for adult work, as it usually ends with us sleeping around for titles and positions anyways.

I also have to add again that these are of course the extremes, and at the same time I know several fantastic students and teachers who I love with my whole heart from both genders. But every memory gets stained when you get into situations like the ones mentioned above. It also makes me scared about the male-oriented atmosphere I'll have to work in, if the one I have right now, which is deemed a safe environment for all, already showed signs for being dangerous. It's also probably worse online as people get bolder by not having to show their faces or name while making comments and saying shit. But I still don’t want to let this change my mind about something I spent years on building up the plans for. Even if it will be hard I want to show that their stupid opinions won’t break me and will never stop me from achieving the final dream of mine.

Even though we are living in the change, it’s still not fully here and in my opinion won’t be here for quite a bit. But you can take part in it and help it move forward. I do change back and forth between getting my energy from these and letting it break me as I’m a human with feelings and not a robot, but what matters is which side will win in the end. Even if you feel like giving up, just try getting on with the next day. If the bad side can’t stay for long it won’t be the winner.

It’s a lot easier to get through if you have friends who support you, but it’s never gonna be actually easy. Things like this will hurt you, but also make you stronger in my opinion. It’s important that you know who you are and what you are like, and not just take everything that’s thrown at you. People who are trying to hurt you are cowards and deserve no attention. You’re the one living with yourself and the only one who actually knows who are you inside. Never let them change you!

I’m sorry for the late answer, but I wanted to truly think about this and not just give a quick and short answer that means nothing to someone who reads it. I probably went in circles a little bit but hope it makes sense. I also truly hope that you will enjoy university and that situations like these will stay out of your experiences throughout the years. Remember, that these aren’t setbacks, just hurdles that you will be able to jump over either today or tomorrow or another day. Just take everything as it comes and make your decisions only for yourself. Love ya and good luck 🧡

[buttercupsfrocks]

So, tumblr, by popular demand, (Hah! Get me!), here’s a loooong post on my living room display cabinet.

I started collecting 1930s ceramics when I was 17, shortly after my grandfather died. My dad, as his only child, was given the job of sorting through the contents of his flat, which is how I first came into possession of a couple of Art Deco nicknacks - a plastic jewellery box, which sadly fell to pieces, a chrome and enamel powder bowl, and an electric clock with a peach mirror glass face. Also this amazing uplighter seen, along with the clock and few pieces from the china collection, in the living room of my previous flat. 

But back to my mid teens. At around this time I saw Cabaret on the big screen for the second time, and resolved shortly afterwards to reinvent myself as a Sally Bowles/Louise Brooks hybrid. 

Thus the 30s became my thing. For life it turns out. Since I was still living in my childhood home in my tiny childhood bedroom, it started with beads and earrings as I didn’t have room to collect much else. The necklace I’m wearing here was one of the first things I ever bought – from the long gone Twentieth Century Box in the King’s Road – and the dress belonged to my great grandmother. 

At some point though I bought this little Art Deco jug, which proved to be the thin end of the wedge. I knew it was a piece of cheap tat – it didn’t have a stamp on the base and cost a mere £1.75 from Camden Market – but I loved it then and I still do, crazing, cheap lustre finish, indelible stains and all 

Before long it had found a friend in a Shelley jug and they’ve been together ever since. I acquired a few small pieces of Carlton Ware here and there, as it was cheap and commonplace, but the china collection didn’t really get going in earnest till I came face to face with these ...

... and these...

... Paragon cups, saucers, and tea plates. It was the delicate flower handles that did for me. My heart literally stopped when I spotted the whole lot filling a display case on a stall in the Barrett Street Antiques Market in St Christopher’s Place. I’d never heard of Paragon, which is comparable in quality to Shelley, before; and I’ve only ever met one other person who avidly collected it. The colour work here is a combination of basic transfer and hand painting, and I’d never seen anything so beautiful, nor coveted anything quite so desperately, in all my puff. Back then were three trios in each design, and they would have cost entry-level graphic designer me two weeks wages so it was a no go. I chatted to the dealer for ages, heaved a sigh of resignation, and left. Then fate stepped in in the form of some freaky, life-changing events: 1) My paternal grandmother died and left me five grand, and 2) The company I was working for decided on a radical restructure and I was one of those made redundant. I decided to use the money to start my own business – an illustration agency – and marked this momentous decision by returning to Barrett Street to buy the Paragon. I didn’t have the space to display it all until I moved into my own place a couple of years later but there was no looking back once I did.

Most of these pieces are made by Paragon too, the exception being the Royal Doulton cup and saucer on the right, which was a gift.  The un-lidded sugar bowl on the left cost me two quid in a car boot sale while the lidded one in the front cost me under a fiver from another late King’s Road haunt called Eat Your Heart Out. With two notable exceptions, I’ve never parted with serious money for any of this stuff. I also rarely buy to sell, so not all of my collection is in perfect condition. Obviously it’s great when it is, but the cumulative effect of seeing it altogether is way more important. And the cumulative effect is pure joy. Which puts me in mind of the book I mentioned a couple of posts ago, which posits the idea that liking colourful stuff is not a mark of shallow, unsophisticated character, and that joy is not something innate without stimulus, but rather a reaction to the objects and environments that surround us. This resonated deeply with me.

I used to write in an alcove in the L-shaped hallway of my previous flat. It was a nicely decorated hall. Yellow-gold marbled wallpaper with paintwork a shade lighter and a yellow gold carpet to match. The light was good too. But I didn’t have many pictures in those days so the walls were blank apart from my grandmothers mirror; nor were there any shelves on which to house books or display tchotchkes. One day I started writing in my living room instead, which contained all of these things including my trusty display cabinet, and I realised I felt creatively stimulated; galvanised even. From then on I’ve always worked surrounded by colour, pictures, objects and books.

So, on with the show.

This adorable little person is a powder bowl from Germany. I don’t often go for figurative ceramics but I completely fell in love with her. She came from a junk shop and cost me about  quarter of what she was worth at the time I bought her. Behind her is a Parrot Ware biscuit barrel, a gift from my potter friend Steve, who is also an avid collector of ceramics, and has contributed many pieces to my collection over the years. Behind that is a Parrot Ware plate I found in a junk shop in Lye in the West Midlands. To the left of her is a Paragon chintz ware trio, another gift from Steve. 

The coffee cup and saucer is the only piece of Clarice Cliff I own. It was a present from a family friend back when I first started collecting. Then, as now, Cliff, Susie Cooper and Charlotte Rhead were the big names and overpriced accordingly, so I decided to concentrate on the more affordable end of the market. The hand painted Poole vase is, I think, from the 60s, as is the Royal Winton plate behind it, but I think they blend in well enough. The same can be said about this Brentleigh Ware breakfast for one set...

It came from a car boot sale many years ago. The rain was chucking it down and the sellers were so desperate to go home they practically gave it to me. How could I refuse? 

This is the only glass piece in the cabinet. I’ve occasionally seen these swizzle sticks for sale individually but this is the only set I’ve seen with the matching base. Behind it is a pair of hand painted Czechoslovakian vases of the type that Cliff clearly ripped off. For that reason alone I feel they should be worth a whole lot more than they are. Russian folk art, as reinterpreted by the likes of Natalia Goncharova for Diaghilev’s Ballet Russes, was also a huge influence on the Art Deco movement. The majority of my pieces are simply 30s as opposed to full on Deco but the colour palette is often in keeping.

The green cheese dish is a Royal Winton piece I bought in the 80s, while the yellow one, a more recent acquisition from a charity shop, is Crown Ducal. Which brings me to something else. Video may not have killed the radio star but eBay definitely murdered the antique market. Some time in the mid 90s I consciously stopped adding to the collection. It was harder to find at a reasonable price and I also felt I’d reached Peak Thirties so to speak. Contributor No 1: Knowing how much I loved the period, my stepgrandmother had promised me a pair of French bronze book ends when she died. And although my mum and stepfather were divorced by the time she did, he honoured her promise on the understanding that I’d never sell them.

(AS IF!! These are the balls-out Art Deco bookends of my wildest dreams. I will never, ever sell them. Excuse the dust, by the way. These live, along with a lot more china, in my hall book case, and are lucky if they see a duster once a year.)  

Contributor No 2: Prior to working in the World’s Loveliest Gift Shop® RIP, I worked for Steve for the six years he had one. But whereas Lynne restored and upcycled vintage furniture as a sideline, Steve's was vintage ceramics. His brother, who is also an antique dealer, occasionally sold stuff through the shop too. One day I came into work and had an instantaneous repetition of my Paragon experience. 

This immaculate, unused Deco-tastic tea for two set is the reason I painted my living room purple. It’s most likely Czechoslovakian too, as indicated by the tiny plate. Too small to be a plate for cake or sandwiches, it was most likely for lemon slices, lemon tea being the norm in that part of the world. The moment I clapped eyes on it I was a gibbering wreck. I didn’t care how many days pay it would take me to work off the debt; it was indisputably Meant To Be. 

Having thus snapped up the tea set and inherited the bookends, I decided I actually had sufficient on the 30s front, much to the consternation of my friends. But a handful of years later things began to change. eBay had stuck the boot in so hard that the vintage china dealers, who had previously pushed up the prices to you’re-’avin’-a-laugh-mate heights, started to throw in the towel on their businesses. And vintage ceramics started to show up in charity shops and car boot sales again – at it-would-be-churlish-not-to prices. 

I started to find pieces like this...

...and this...

...and this...

...and this...

...and this...

...and this...

...going cheap as chips in the chazzas. 

And those dealers who had somehow managed to weather the storm, were no longer charging stratospheric prices. (Unless they were flogging Cliff or Cooper or Rhead), so I was able to add things like this...

...and this...

...to the mix without feeling the pinch.

Should I emerge from this period of history with body and soul intact and raise the collateral I’m hoping to, one of the cosmetic changes I’d like to bring about in my home is to replace the built in hi-fi cupboard in the corner of the living room with another display cabinet, so I can move some of the china that’s languishing elsewhere in the flat into the living room too. Yes, I know it’ll end up looking like the ceramics wing of the V&A, but, frankly, what’s wrong with that?

Poor abandoned things. 

Can’t you see they’re gagging to come and join their friends?

I imagine you’re losing the will to live now so I’ll sign off with my two Beswick fish, which are from the late 60s/early 70s and, despite having no connection with my other treasures, have lived on top of my display cabinet for aeons.  Group similar colours together and you can get away with murder. Toodles!

[realm-sweet-realm]

To act in your stead

Sorry this chapter took so long. I hope you enjoy it. It is chapter 3 of the body swap to the death Au.

---

Susie looked up at the ink pipes she’d installed. A child would have been able to tell where the professionally-installed pipes ended and hers began. They were crooked, going up and down like a zigzag at every joint. As a result, a few of them leaking slightly. Hopefully, they were easily fixed and she was doing more than wasting a week or more of Tom’s work schedule. Hopefully, they’d stay together for another four days. She’d reduced the ink pressure to make that a little more likely, at least. “Hey, Tom! Get over here!” An irritable voice came from behind her.

It was Sammy. Tom hated Sammy, so she rolled her eyes and gave him a sharp look. “What?”

“Come with me to my office!”

Susie just nodded. Normally she would have been intimidated, but she was beginning to see why Tom wouldn’t have been. Sammy looked tiny compared to her now, and wasn’t scary in the least even as he was stomping and angry like this.

Once the two of them were in Sammy’s office and the door was closed, Sammy uncurled his fists and stopped looking so angry. “Sorry about that,” he said. “So... without giving too much away, I’m a person who knows a thing or two about mechanics, and it looked like you needed help. Can I help you?”

Susie tried not to look too happy. This was a godsend. “Yes, that would be nice.”

“Excellent. So, obviously I can’t just go on out there and start getting my hands dirty, but I could tell you what you’re doing wrong. First, are you cutting the pipes?”

“They need to be cut?”

Allison had no idea, but suspected they didn’t. “Of course. If they’re the wrong length, they’ll all be crooked, and they’ll wear out in a matter of weeks.”

“What do I cut them with?”

“An electric hand saw. Do you have one at home?”

“I don’t know. There’s a lot of tools in the garage. Some looked electric. One might be a handsaw.”

“Well, I’m sure that there’s something there that we can use to cut pipes. If you want me to come over, I could show you how to use it.”

“Sounds good, thank you. I’ll come find you at six,” Susie deadpanned. Once she left and immediately found a quiet place where she could let her happiness out. Thank goodness, now she’d be able to actually do this properly! Unfortunately, whoever “Sammy” was hadn’t dropped any hints, though. The kindness sheer lack of emotionality suggested Henry, but the mechanical knowledge suggested Thomas. It must have been Lacie. She seemed like she had the capacity for both.

That evening, “Thomas” took Allison back to her and Tom’s house. Allison knew where the handsaw was, but she pretended to search the shelves until “Thomas” fished it out of the drawer.

“Okay,” Allison said, setting a board up on the sawhorse, “Let’s practice with some wooden boards before moving on to pipes. So, you’ll want to have it on a solid surface when you turn it on, like this.” She pressed a button on it and it came to life. “Want me to demonstrate how to cut a board?”

“I’d love that,” “Thomas” said, still in his gravelly voice. He wasn’t giving away any hints. Well, reaction to fear might end up being a giveaway.

Allison transferred the saw to her left hand and held the board with her right. “Alright. Just like this.” She began cutting, spraying sawdust and making that horrible saw noise. She was so uncoordinated with her left hand that she wasn’t sure she could pull this off.

Susie watched, disturbed that Sammy was cutting towards his hand. But, he probably knew what he was doing. Once it got close enough, she couldn’t take it anymore. “Sammy, move your hand!”

“What? I always-“ and then it happened. The handsaw was spraying blood, and her hand was being cut between the thumb and index finger. It was no small feat of willpower to force the blade a little further before turning it off. Allison was screaming. Susie was screaming. She ran into the house.

“Sammy!” she called “Get the first aid kit!” Oh, this was too good. Allison had noticed how irritable “Allison” had been, and she’d suspected that a lot of people were switched in pairs, but now she had confirmation.

“Thomas” and “Allison” came back into the garage. The look on “Allison’s” face was priceless as he caught sight of the mess of his hand. “What have you done?!” he yelled. “How will you play instruments like that?!”

At this point, Allison realized that she hadn’t actually looked at the damages yet. They were bad. The blood running down it and squirting from some ruptured artery she’d been able to feel, but the sawdust trapped inside of it- well, that was a bonus. It would probably get infected. The cut was long and deep, too. He was lucky that all the fingers were still attached. She was lucky it was throbbing so hard, or she would have had trouble hiding her satisfaction.

Twenty minutes later, Allison’s wound had been washed and bandaged, and the look of terror still hadn’t fully left Sammy’s face. He couldn’t express anger at her without revealing himself, of course, but Allison could sense it in him. When he looked at her, she could just see him silently yelling out the question: “who are you? Why did you do this to me?!”

—-

Aside from Allison’s revenge, the only notable thing that had happened on Wednesday was that “Joey” had proposed to “Henry” that they gather the players at his house a few hours before seven, so that none of them would be doing anything dangerous when it happened. This served several purposes. For one, it would allow Henry to see his kids, maybe for the last time. For another, it would give him an opportunity to drop off evidence at his house. He’d bring it in champagne boxes and slip them into his room when no one was watching. Joey was happy with the arrangement as well: he had several hunches but was only certain of three identities at the moment, and packing everyone into a closed space where they’d be all but forced to interact seemed like a great way to figure some out. He was getting a little desperate, and he wasn’t the only one.

Come Thursday morning, Bertrum was running out of time and he knew it. Not survival-wise, of course: decades in the public eye had left him with some excellent people-reading skills, and he had fair guesses on at least three or four identities. He was also quite the actor, and, since he had no idea what Jack Fain was like, had been pretending to be a different person every day that week to throw anyone off his trail. Yes, survival-wise, he was doing great. But he still hadn’t caught a single glimpse of himself, and the meeting was tonight. And so, Bertrum was standing at the only entrance to Joey Drew Studios in wait.

Finally, “Bertrum” came in, and “Jack” didn’t hesitate to stop him. “Can I speak with you?”

“Oh, uh, sure. I’m in no particular rush.” Whoever this was, they were putting no effort at all into being the Great Bertrum Piedmont, aside from a poorly faked deep, British voice. But now wasn’t the time to be guessing identities.

“This will take all day.”

“Oh, okay. Well, first I need to go check on the Bendyland employees, and have an in-depth meeting with Lacie. Can I meet you back here later?”

Bertrum supposed he could use an opportunity to see what he had to work with. “I’ll come with you,” he insisted.

“Well, okay,” Jack replied, chirpy but a bit nervous. Jack was not a good actor, and he knew it. He definitely didn’t think that he could project Bertrum Piedmont-levels of bravado and confidence. His strategy had basically been been to avoid everyone except for Lacie, whose identity he hadn’t figured out yet, but that’s what the meeting was for. Well, now it seemed like he’d have to act the best he could for whoever was inhabiting his body.

The two arrived at Bendyland, where three Bendyland employees were slacking off, playing the target shooting game. Lacie was one of them. Jack cupped his hands together. “Hey!” he snapped, trying to get their attention. Was that a Bertrum-like way to get attention? He didn’t know, and with whoever was in his body breathing down his neck, he was getting really nervous. If they heard him, they didn’t listen, so he walked up to them. Even the way he walks is self-effacing, Bertrum thought to himself, almost offended at this... parody of himself. “Hey,” Jack said, quieter now that he was closer to them. The Bendyland workers finally looked up from their game to him.

“What?” One of them asked casually. All three of them were grinning, the two non-players wondering if Alzheimer’s had caught up to their boss and made him go soft.

“Are you, uh, fellows doing your quota of work?” There was no anger or accusation in his voice.

“Yeah.”

“Do you need me to do anything?” Jack truthfully had no idea what he was supposed to do. He’d designed some attractions and checked on the employees every day. That seemed like the right thing to do, or at least, the closest he could figure out.

“Nope, we’re good.” Bertrum could tell that they had barely done a thing. The crates of decor that they were supposed to put up this week were sitting next to the game, most not even opened.

“Okay, then. I’ll check in on you tomorrow.”

Jack turned around and stumbled over an ink pipe on the floor, which made the Bendyland workers laugh. Bertrum couldn’t take it any longer. “That’s it! You do not laugh at the great Bertrum Piedmont! Now get to work before he comes to his senses!”

The workers froze, then frantically went over to one of the crates and began decorating.

“Now you’re coming with me,” Bertrum said to Jack.

“Uh, sure. Hey, Lacie? I’ll come find you when I’m ready, okay?”

Lacie shrugged, not looking away from her work. “Sure.”

As soon as Jack and Bertrum were out of the studio, Bertrum spoke up. “Alright. No need for fancy introductions. I am the great Bertrum Piedmont, and I happen to have a very important meeting tonight. A meeting with the great Clifford Clines, CEO of Cedar Springs Entertainment. He’s considering me as the creator of his brand’s first theme park. Do you know how long it takes to create a theme park? If he wants an especially large park- and I assure you, he will- this could be the project that my son takes over for me once I retire or- or retire. This could be the first project in the next stage of the Colossal Wonders legacy! But that’s only if I can whip you into shape. Stand up straight. Puff your chest out. Stop holding yourself like you’re halfway apologizing for your existence. For the next four days, you’re pretending to be someone whose presence is a gift. Now, who are you?”

Jack had been obeying him, but he couldn’t answer that. “Sorry, I want to live. I can’t-“

“No. I mean, who are you?”

“Bertrum Piedmont.”

“Say it like you’ve been him all your life!”

“I am the great Bertrum Piedmont!”

“Good! Yes! Or at least, I’ll teach you to be him!”

That afternoon, as Bertrum taught Jack how to behave at his meeting, it finally came time for ink to be run through the ink pipes that “Thomas” had installed. Susie really wasn’t sure about this. She’d been too afraid to call and ask about cutting the pipes because of how obvious a question it probably was. Of course she shouldn’t cut the pipes- who would think of such a thing? And she had some serious doubts about the purity of “Sammy’s” intentions. But by deciding to ignore his advice, she was stuck with those crooked, zigzag pipes.

After she put the last pipe in, she looked back to see if “Henry” was still watching her. He was. Alright, no hesitation, then. She walked over, threw the switch all the way instead of inching up the pressure. Not fifteen seconds later, the resulting cacophony made her duck for cover on instinct. Pipes clattered to the ground, struck her, or shot at the walls. Ink was spraying everywhere. And “Henry” was still standing there with an expressionless look on his face. Not even Norman was this creepy! What would Thomas do in this situation? Don’t cry. Don’t freak out. Don’t cry. Do something you idiot! Turn off the ink pressure.That’s what Susie did, before making her way to the music department, where five of the players would be. As she passed it by, she also noticed that the ink machine was making some very concerning clunking and creaking noises.

Right in the middle of a recording, an ink-covered and very distressed-looking Thomas Connor burst into the the recording studio. “I need some backup,” he said, trying not to sound distressed “I can’t handle the ink machine anymore and I need someone who does to help me. “Jack” and “Alice” weren’t even there, so there wasn’t a great chance that anyone there would even be able to help. “Norman” quietly slipped out.

Lacie knew that she couldn’t help with this without narrowing down everyone’s quarry when it came to her, so she went off to find herself. There she was, decorating a Bendyland game booth. “Hey, Lacie. Come with me. Bring your tool kit.”

“Okay.”

As they made their way from the the Bendyland department, Lacie explained the plan. “Alright. Now, I have some hidden depths. My father was a mechanic. And right now, things need fixing. So I need you to pretend to be the one fixing them. I’ll quietly follow you at a distance and do the actual fixing, alright? First thing’s first, go to the recording studio and ask Thomas where the problem is.”

Shawn agreed to it, and Lacie fell behind him, walking softly as though she were stalking him.

When they got back to the music department, “Thomas” was on the phone with GENT. “What do you mean, ‘I’m the only one who knows how to maintenance the ink machine? That can’t be right.”

Shawn grabbed "Thomas” by the shoulder. “Hey. You show me where the problem is, I’ll fix it.”

As Lacie followed the two to the scene of the disaster, all she could think of was two things: first, “Lacie” must have known her pretty well, because he was doing one hell of an acting job. Secondly, his voice sounded off. Suppressing an accent, maybe? Both pointed to the same two identities: Shawn and Bertrum. She’d figured out who the other music department players were aside from Alice, but she could always use another layer of protection, and with how different Shawn and Bertrum were, chances were she was going to get one.

“Right here,” “Thomas” said once they arrived at the location. “And please, check on the ink machine, too. I don’t think I’m maintaining it properly. I can’t thank you enough.” Lacie had to hide around a corner from “Thomas” and “Lacie” until “Thomas” split from them.

As soon as Lacie saw the mess of the hallway, she knew that there wasn’t much to be done about it. For some pipes it would have just been a simple matter of adjusting, but others had been twisted from all that pressure, and almost half of them had fallen straight off the wall. It would take easily a day to fix, and the projectionist couldn’t just disappear for that long. “Yep. Let’s go to the ink machine,” Lacie declared.

After turning the ink machine off and opening it up, the problem became obvious: the gears were too clogged with thick ink to turn properly. As a result, the machine was overheating to the point where it almost burned to touch. “You’re gonna have to have to handle this one, Lacie. It would be awfully hard to explain why the projectionist has this kind of ink on their hands.”

“Lacie” made a face, but nonetheless got in there with his hands and started shoveling out the hot sludge.

“Oh yeah. One more thing,” Lacie said before stomping down on Shawn’s foot.

“Eejit! Mo fecken chos!” Shawn screamed before realizing that he’d outed himself and turning redder than a beet.

“Hi, Shawn. You do one hell of an impression.”

“Ah, well, I’ve figured you out, too, Lacie. I know you better than you know yerself.” he plucked, annoyed but playful and in full Irish accent. He threw a glob of ink at her, which she dodged.

She already knew three identities. Was the extra safety worth selling out Shawn?

Lacie laughed a little. “Well, I have to get back to my projector booth before someone gets suspicious. Meet me after work, alright?” —- “Another brandy, barkeep, if you please,” Bertrum called out across the way. If he was going to have a younger liver for the next little bit, he might as well use it. It was evening, and Bertrum had coached his little body snatcher on everything there was to know about being the Great Bertrum Piedmont. Through all that teaching, though, he’d seen enough of the man to figure out who he was.

It had been a hard week for Bertrum, not only because of the professional stress and mortal danger, but because everyone seemed to expect him to just go along with whatever they said. Like he had no desires of his own. It’s how non-players treated him. It’s how players tested and needled at him. And Bertrum had snapped at a few of them- hopefully not hard enough to give him away. But that kind of behaviour that they expected of him seemed to be exactly what came naturally to his student. It was Jack Fain. Self-effacing, kind-to-a-fault, laid-back, embarrassed-to-be-alive Jack Fain. And those upper crust business men were going to eat him alive.

“Barkeep! Another, please!” At least this body was good at handling liquor. He must have drank six of these things and he didn’t feel inebriated in the slightest. When would Jack get here?

Finally, Bertrum heard Jack’s voice, using a now much less fake-sounding accent. “Hey. Want some news?” Strange- he sounded fairly perky. Bertrum turned to him. He looked pretty pleased with himself and was holding an envelope. Bertrum allowed himself some hope.

“Go ahead.”

“You got it. He wants the biggest theme park the world’s ever seen!”

Bertrum nearly fell out of his seat. He snatched the letter out of Jack’s hands. It contained the date and location of what would be their first meeting to discuss the park. “I- well- thank you!” Bertrum stuttered. Maybe he wasn’t handling the liquor as well as he thought. “Can I buy you a drink?”

“Sure,” Jack replied, sitting down.

“How have you been handling the game?” Bertrum asked friendily.

Jack grimaced. “Yours is the only identity I’ve figured out.. But I don’t think anyone’s guessed me, so I think I’m alright. I just need to keep a low profile, and that shouldn’t be hard, aside from Henry’s party.”

Bertrum knew that if Jack played like that, he was surely dead. He put on his gentlest voice and said, “Actually, I think I’ve figured out who you are. Are you Jack Fain?”

There was fear in Jack’s eyes for a moment, but he quickly forced it out of them. “No. You’re wrong.” He got up and left, stopping a moment to look back. If he hadn’t said that, he could have asked how his family was. But it was too late for that. In that moment it sunk in that he needed to find another identity if he ever wanted to see them again.

Bertrum got up to chase after Jack, and tell him one of the identities he’d figured out so that he would be safe. After Jack had nailed the meeting, he deserved that much. But Bertrum fell over almost immediately- his legs were just too unsteady from booze.

[bittykimmy13]

What Trinket? (GT Horror)

WARNING: This story contains ideologically sensitive material, dehumanization, and vore in a GT context.

So. This is part of an AU that combines the Print universe and the Shot in the Dark universe. Sylvia is a rebel who helps prints (barbie-size smols) and trinkets (3-inch smols) escape to freedom, which is a big no-no. Capture for this crime results in size change and being revoked of all freedoms. As you can see in the last scene, Sylvia and Jon end up crossing paths somehow--but their early days aren't exactly ideal :') BAD Jon. You do not keep ya girl in a jar. Even if you don't know she'll be ya girl one day. Jon is like?? SEMI justified in being wary of her. But he's just ignorant. Propaganda states that trinkets are being punished for being the worst kind of criminals, when in reality they're usually: a) prints who tried to escape to a better life, or b) humans who have tried to help prints and trinkets escape to a better life. Don't worry, he'll learn :') Characters belong to me and the lovely @little-miss-maggie <3

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Getting into the building was laughably easy. Sylvia slipped in behind a chattering group of people her age. Some of them had to be visitors, and she blended in seamlessly, a quiet one among the others. She smiled right at the doorman as she passed him—a friendly, “thanks for keeping the building safe” smile. He nodded at her, arms folded importantly in front of him. She joined the group in the elevator and kept to herself, pressing the button for the sixth floor. The others got off on the fourth, utterly unaware of the intruder they left behind. Perhaps they were also oblivious that they had a monster living two floors above their heads. If they did know, perhaps they were content to look away and gossip instead of doing anything about it. She couldn’t judge them too harshly if that was the case. She’d encountered enough monsters to understand the risks of getting between them and their prey.

That was why her heart raced even when she saw nobody in the hall. Luckily, apartment 6A was right next to the elevator. She’d seen his car leave the parking garage, had to be leaving for work. Now it was just a matter of getting in and out. Her lockpick slid neatly in the lock, and she had the door open in less than a minute. She took one more look up and down the hall before slipping inside and gingerly shutting the door behind her. James Benton’s apartment was sprawling and luxuriant. Nicer than a bartender could afford on his own, that was for sure, no matter how generous his tips were. But Sylvia knew for a fact that it wasn’t his main source of income. He was selling trinkets under the table, and rumor had it that he was a fan of his own product, too. Either way, she had to get them away from him. She made her way hurriedly through the apartment. Even if he was gone, the sooner she got out, the better. She scanned the tables and corners for any sign of captives, but he must have been smarter than to have them out in the open for guests to spot. The place looked as innocent as any other upscale apartment. Until she peeked into the bedroom. Her eyes were drawn straight to the nightstand, where a thick hardcover book was balanced atop an overturned glass. Trapped beneath was a tiny, huddled form with shamrock green hair. “Hi there,” Sylvia breathed as she approached with soft steps. She dropped to her knees in front of the nightstand, bringing her eyes level with the glass. The imprisoned girl flinched and ducked, covering her head with her arms. “No, it’s okay,” Sylvia said in an even softer voice. “You don’t have to be scared of me.” When she received no response, Sylvia lifted the book away and then the glass, setting them both on the floor beside her. The poor girl didn’t move, other than to timidly peek past her arms. She was naked, and slick with something that Sylvia was too squeamish to identify. There were faint indents on her arms, legs, and middle. Teeth marks, Sylvia noted with a sinking heart. It took a moment for Sylvia to find her voice again. “I’m Sylvia. What’s your name?” The girl lowered her arms, eyes wide and distrusting. “S-Susie.” “Susie. You’re going to be okay.” Sylvia pursed her lips sympathetically when Susie remained curled tight, covering herself as best she could. “Do you know where your clothes are?” A sob hitched her minuscule shoulders. “He t-tore them off. Threw them away. Said I wouldn’t be needing them anymore.” “That fucking…” Fury uncurled in Sylvia’s core, and she dug into her pocket to produce a folded handkerchief, holding it out to Susie. “Are there any other people around? Where else does he keep them?” Susie’s face twisted with sorrow as she stood shakily and drew the scrap of fabric around herself. “There’s no one left. I’m the last of the batch.” “No…” Sylvia shut her eyes for a moment, sick to her stomach. “I’m so sorry. I… I wish I could have come sooner and gotten everyone else out.” Susie raised her somber gaze to meet Sylvia’s. “You’re going to… save me?” “Consider it done.” The smallest of smiles tugged at Sylvia’s lips, and she laid her hand out for Susie to climb on. “I can get you somewhere safe, with others who’ve been rescued. You won’t have to be afraid anymore. You can just… live.” Looking like she might collapse into tears, Susie staggered onto the offered palm. Sylvia cupped her fingers gently and ferried her off the nightstand. Susie tugged the handkerchief tighter around herself, slumping wearily into the curve of Sylvia’s hand. “Thank you,” Susie whimpered. “Thank you so much.” A noise came from the front of the apartment. Sylvia stood up and froze. She heard the front door click and swing open. Snapping out of it, she brought Susie close to her shoulder and nimbly made her way to the first hiding place in sight—the open closet door. She ducked into the shadows and held her breath, brushing a fingertip down Susie’s trembling form through the handkerchief to comfort her. For a few minutes, sounds came from another room in the apartment. The scent of food wafted into the bedroom, and Sylvia wanted to kick herself. She should have made sure he was at work instead of barreling in the moment he left the apartment. It hadn’t occurred to her that he had only gone to get dinner. “Just you and me today, lovely,” James called cheerfully from outside the bedroom. “You lucky girl. I’ll let you choose where you want to keep me company, since you’ve been behaving—in the drink, or on the plate.”   Susie muffled a whimper into Sylvia’s shoulder. Unable to risk murmuring reassurance, Sylvia gave her a gentle squeeze. Footsteps trailed into the room. From the shadows, Sylvia caught a glimpse of him and saw the moment he stopped in his tracks. “Shit!” Sylvia internally shared the curse with him, recalling that she had set the book and glass neatly on the floor next to the nightstand. It was glaringly obvious that Susie had not been the one to free herself. Cursing again, he moved all around the room, even ducking to look under the bed. Then he stood and fished his phone from his pocket, punching in a number. “This is James Benton from 6A,” he barked into the phone. “Someone broke into my apartment—how the fuck is that possible?” There was a pause, and when he shouted again, Sylvia and Susie flinched in unison. “Damn right I want security sent up! Call the cops too! And I want to know who the fuck is on doorman duty right now!” He stormed from the room. Sylvia slipped out from behind the closet door immediately. If she couldn’t get out of the apartment before security arrived and search the place, she and Susie would be screwed. So would James, for harboring a trinket. But that would be a small victory compared to the consequences. Peering past the bedroom door, Sylvia saw James stalk into another room. A steaming plate of food sat on the counter alongside an ice-filled glass, forgotten. She inched toward the sofa, strategizing the most inconspicuous way to reach the door. She’d have to come up with a way to get out unnoticed by security once she was in the hall, but that would have to wait. Barely a foot away from the sofa, the floorboards creaked beneath her. She scrambled behind the furniture as James strode back into the room, following the noise. She pressed her lips into a thin line, eyes still locked on the door. A long beat of silence. “You’re still here, aren’t you?” he said. His footsteps hurried into the kitchen. A drawer opened and shut. Before Sylvia had time to bolt for the door, he came back into the living room, moving slower. She stifled a curse when she caught a glimpse of him moving toward the door, blocking her only exit. There was no time to try and outsmart him. “Hang tight,” Sylvia whispered to Susie. One steeling breath was all Sylvia allowed herself. She charged out from behind the sofa. She might have been able to take James by surprise and dart past him, but he was brandishing a kitchen knife. Startled as he was by her sudden appearance, he recovered quickly and shoved her away from the door, pointing the knife threateningly. His eyes lit up with recognition when she staggered back and braced her hand on the front table. “Hello again,” he said. Without a blink of hesitation, he came at her and brought the knife down. The blade plunged straight through the back of her hand and part way through the table. Sylvia howled and tried to pull her pinned hand free, but her agony flew to new heights when she only succeeded at widening the massive gash. James easily snatched Susie from her other hand. The trinket wailed and struggled. He plucked away the handkerchief with a sneer and let it fall to the floor. “N-no! Leave her alone!” Sylvia grabbed the lodged knife handle, vision going spotty with pain from the contact alone. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t stand to pull it out. “All this fuss, and over what?” James cocked his head and rolled Susie from one hand to the other, like a cat toying with a mouse. She bumped against his palms, helpless to stop herself from being played with. Weeping, she fought in vain to straighten herself, only to be passed to his other hand. He smiled down at her, then raised his eyes back to Sylvia. “Is she really worth what’s going to happen to you now?” Sylvia panted. “Y-you… you’re going down too, you know. It’s—it’s illegal, what you’ve been doing. You can’t keep trinkets.” He raised his eyebrows innocently. “What trinket?” James took a step back to be entirely out of Sylvia’s limited reach. Susie received relief for only a moment, sprawled on his open palm, before he took hold of her by the calf. He lifted her to his mouth. Sylvia went perfectly still. He had to be bluffing. Bile rose to the back of her throat when he parted his lips and brushed them up against Susie in some kind of twisted kiss. She screamed and fought to lurch away from him. Then he opened his mouth wider. His tongue slid out over Susie’s dangling body as she sobbed and begged him to leave her alone. “Stop it!” Sylvia yelled, taking hold of the knife handle, this time forcing herself not to let go. James tilted his head back and raised Susie a few inches above his open mouth. He let go. Susie’s screams became shriller. He brought his face level again and kept his mouth open for Sylvia to see Susie frantically scrambling to turn around and face the light. She crawled desperately, fighting to climb past his teeth. “Help!” Susie shrieked. “S-Sylvia, please!” She was halfway out when a smirk curled at the corner of the lips surrounding her. Sylvia was given a final glimpse of Susie’s inconsolable face before James’ tongue effortlessly reeled her back. He closed his mouth and shut his eyes, savoring the squirming lump in his cheek. Someone banged on the door. “Mr. Benton?” James opened his eyes, looked triumphantly at Sylvia. And swallowed. All understanding fled her senses for the span of a second. It felt more like a year. “You fucking freak!” She knew anger, but this was different. Waves of wrath crashed over her, granting her a panicky strength. Her spine turned to steel, and she wrenched the knife straight from her wound, blind to the pain. She got the jump on him quickly enough to take him by surprise. Slashing the bloodied knife at him, she nicked his side. Hissing, he jolted back, which allowed her a window of opportunity to claw at his face, to try and shove her fingers down his throat. Susie wasn’t going to die this way, no, no, no— The door unlocked from the outside and swung open. She flinched, and James kicked her off him. Before she could sit up, he was standing over her. He stomped down on her mangled hand. Wailing, she barely heard his voice over her own. He said something about a crazy intruder. That he had to defend himself when she’d taken the knife from the kitchen. The pressure on her hand eased, and Sylvia was wrenched off the ground. She gasped as her hands were pulled behind her and forced into handcuffs, blood dripping from her fingertips. The pain came at full volume, along with her voice. “Killer!” she shrieked at James, then turned desperately to the security guard. “He’s a killer! H-he swallowed a trinket!” James pulled a face of disgust. “I’ve seen her down at the bar before—she’s not a fan of the whole trinket system. She got kicked out for trying to smuggle some of them out. We gave her a break, but it looks like that was a mistake.” “Police are on their way,” the security guard grunted. “Make sure you mention that in your statement. They’ll want to know about any previous interactions.” “Of course.” Sylvia was shoved onto the sofa to wait. The guard stood at the door to block her exit and watch for the police. James prowled in front of her and stooped down to whisper in her ear. “It’s a shame you’ll have no identity and a new face soon. It would’ve been lovely to see you again. It’s heartbreaking, really. Think of all the fun we won’t get to have together… But I have an idea.” He cupped her face, tracing her jaw with his thumb. “I’ll just have to pretend the next one is you.” Howling, Sylvia threw herself against him. He moved out of reach, snickering—between the pain and the handcuffs, she had little means of pursuing him. Before she knew it, the security guard came over and dragged her out the door. “Sir, please,” she said the moment they were alone in the elevator. “He keeps trinkets in his apartment. He tortures them, kills them. He eats them. Right before you came in, he had one. He didn’t think twice about—” “I suggest you shut your mouth before you make this worse on yourself.” Two squad cars were parked outside by the time he led her into the foyer. The doorman was being reprimanded by another security guard in the corner. A couple of cops walked past the murmuring crowd that had gathered by the doors. She was handed off and pushed into the backseat of one of the cars. She tried again to plead her case, but the door slammed shut before she could get a sentence out. She sat in silence for a few minutes, burdened with the stares of onlookers. When she peered through the window, she found James standing in front of the apartment building’s doors, one hand on the cut Sylvia had given him. He was speaking to one of the officers. While the cop typed notes into his tablet, James met Sylvia’s gaze. He slowly brought his other hand to the front of his throat, then dragged it down to his chest, then to his stomach. A smug grin dominated his features. She didn’t scream this time. The screams were too big to come out. Her mind emptied of thoughts, worries, and hopes. She stared blankly at him while the wound he had carved through her hand throbbed out fresh blood with each heartbeat.

~~~

A scream cut across the quiet bedroom like a hot knife. Jon’s eyes snapped open. For a moment, the darkness was filled with silence, and he thought he had dreamed the noise. But then it came again louder, and this time, it didn’t stop. Kicking the sheets off, Jon bolted out of bed. “Sylvia?” His voice, though urgent, was rough with sleep. His first thought was that she had found a way to get out of the jar. That she had lost her footing in the darkness, fallen from the dresser, and shattered every bone in her body. After fumbling for the switch on his lamp, he peered across the room and found that she was still in the jar, huddled in the middle of the fabric nest. “Sylvia?” Relief softened his tone, and he hurried over to her. The relief was short-lived. She went on screaming, laying on her side in a fetal position. Her voice ricocheted off the glass around her, creating an unsettling sort of echo. That made it sound at first like she was screaming wordlessly, but as Jon listened closely, realization iced his bones. She was actually wailing three words over and over. “I’m so sorry.” “Sylvia! What’s wrong?” No reply. He grabbed the jar as urgently as he dared and brought it up to his face. Her eyes were squeezed shut, and she didn’t seem to react at all to her container being moved. She was sleeping. She had to be. As he mulled over what to do, he realized he had no option but to make contact—no way he was going to jostle the jar in an attempt to wake her. Setting the jar back down, he reached in nudged her arm. She gave another shriek and flinched away from the contact. Her eyes snapped open, and she scrambled as from from his hand as she could, burying herself under a corner of a blanket and pressing herself down against the bottom of the jar. “S-stop,” she gasped. “Don’t touch me!” “I had to.” Jon wrenched his hand out and leaned over the opening to see her. “You were screaming. You must have been having a nightmare?” Sylvia didn’t answer. Through her panting sobs, he could hear her repeating herself again: “No, no, no…” Sitting up, she stayed cowered away from him and clutched her hand tenderly. “Did you hurt your hand?” Jon asked, frowning. She swallowed hard and shook her head, finally turning up to acknowledge him. Her little face was ghost-white. “Not this one,” she said. When she didn’t elaborate, Jon sighed. “Look, I want to help you. I really do. But I can’t do that if you’re going to roam between the silent treatment and being cryptic. Why can’t you tell me what’s going on?” “Because.” She hiccupped and dropped her gaze, looking more scared than angry at his prying. “You could be just like him.” The pain that croaked through her last word made Jon lean back. After a beat of hesitation, he reached his hand back into the jar and brushed a fingertip to her shoulder lightly. She shuddered, but didn’t panic this time. “I have no idea who you mean,” he said, lowering himself to see her through the glass. “But whoever he is… Believe me, I don’t know how I’d live with myself if I gave someone nightmares like this.” She peeked at him, and for a moment, he saw a longing and loneliness so fierce that he was certain she was about to open up. Instead, she hissed and tried to shrug him off. He complied, and that made her pause again. “Leave me alone, and I…. I’ll tell you tomorrow,” she conceded. “Right now, I just—I can’t, okay?” “Okay, he said readily. The promise was more than he could have hoped for after all her stubbornness. He started to pull away, but lingered a second longer. It didn’t sit well with him to keep her trapped when she was so vulnerable. “Do you, uh… want to sleep somewhere else? There’s plenty of room on my extra pillow over there.” She pulled the fabric closer and stayed huddled far back from him. “Go away.”

[eurynome827]

The Fair

Pairing: Hal Carter x Reader

Warnings: 18+ vague smut (this was a lot worse in my head)

Word Count: 1,675

A/N: I bought a dress. My brain went wild. This happened. Posting on mobile so if anything is bonkers I'll fix it tomorrow. (edit - I added word count and a “keep reading” the day after posting, so I’m sorry about all the reblogs without the keep reading! I had no idea it was that many words. Hal is very inspirational....)

BY CLICKING THE READ MORE LINK BELOW YOU AFFIRM THAT YOU ARE 18+ AND UNDERSTAND THAT THIS STORY CONTAINS ADULT CONTENT.

You finished buttoning up your brand new dress and smoothed your hands over the skirt as you appraised your reflection. It's the first new dress you've worn in a while and you are very pleased with yourself. You look perfect for the fair.

After kissing your mother good night and promising her that you won't be home late you bounce down the porch steps and head out down the path to the main road.

"Evenin', miss."

You turn your head toward his unmistakable voice. There he is, leaning against the door of his truck, his eyes watching your approach. You can't help rolling your eyes as you answer, "evening, Hal."

"Need a ride?" He asks, with a grin, and you roll your eyes again at his double meaning.

"No, thank you," you push your hair back off your shoulders and sidestep Hal, continuing past him as his eyes follow. "Susie and her father are picking me up. I'm sure I'll see you at the fair."

Your eyes are on the path ahead of you when he catches your attention again.

"New dress?"

You turn and curtsy a little, which brings a grin to his face. "Why yes, thank you for noticing." You ignore his wink, and continue to the main road. 

Susie's father is waiting in the cab of his truck when you reach the road, and he waves at you as you hop up into the bed of the truck and hug your best friend. Hal's truck turns out onto the road towards town.

"You girls settled back there?" 

"Yes, papa!" Susie answers.

Before he begins to drive, Susie's father has a question for you. "That Carter boy still working out for you and your mama?"

"Oh yes, sir. We're very lucky to have him working the farm."

You can hear the million unasked questions. No one need worry - you are more than capable of handling Hal Carter.

At the fair you can't help rolling your eyes again when you spot Hal volunteering in the kissing booth. "Color me unsurprised!"

"Gonna wait your turn?"

"I have better things to spend my money on!" You smiled at his answering wink and kept on walking, not sparing a glance back.

Susie shook her head at you. "I don't understand how you do it. He's SO handsome! Will you ever give him a chance?"

You shrugged. "I'd rather be the only one, than one of many."

By the time Hal caught up with you, it was your turn to volunteer at the church pie stand. He stood off to the side while you helped a few of the neighborhood ladies, and nodded politely at them as they passed by. 

"Can I interest you in a pie?" You couldn't help smiling at your innuendo, especially as he answered you with his own smirk. One of Hal's hands reached out toward the skirt of your dress and gave it a little tug.

You giggled. "You get out of here before someone sees you talking to me!" 

Hal winked again, and walked away.

After you hugged Susie goodnight and hopped out of the truck, you began the walk back to your house in the moonlight. The cicadas humming in the tall grass kept you company. You noticed Hal's truck parked in it's regular spot and smiled to yourself, veering off the path and heading closer to the barn. Sure enough, Hal was leaning against the wall of the barn, facing the path, waiting for you. 

Each step carried you closer and brought you memories. When you let your guard down, you remembered all the other times.

The first time he kissed you, in the early morning before the sun was up as you desperately held on to the basket holding the eggs you'd collected.

The day your mother left you alone and went on a visit, and you had both been so eager to feel each other that you couldn't even make it to a bed and dropped to the floor just inside the front door.

When you had hoped that no one else would wander down to the swimming hole at dusk and you had held him tight with one arm, your bathing suit clutched in your other hand as Hal rutted up into you, floating in the cool water.

Endless nights in your room, both of you silent and terrified to wake your mother, blankets and pillows spread on the floor because he was too tall to fit in your tiny bed. Touching and tasting and feeling you all night until the rooster told him it was time to crawl back out of your window and get back to his room in the barn without being caught.

You approached your lover step by step, smiling at him in the moonlight until you were close enough for him to grab your skirt with both hands, tugging you close to him. 

"Don't you rip my new dress," you whispered against Hal's lips and shivered when he licked against your bottom lip. You let out a shivered breath against his mouth.

"Wouldn't dream of it, baby. You look awful pretty."

"Stop sweet talking me and kiss me already."

He did as you requested, starting off slow. You were as always intoxicated by him, licking into his mouth and letting your fingers unbutton his shirt as quickly as you could. His skin was hot as you traced his muscles and you caught his gasp in your mouth. You began to unbutton your own dress but his hands pushed yours away to do the job himself, panting against your lips. Not wasting a moment of this stolen time you traced the lines at his hips. With your dress finally pushed open Hal turned to hold you against the barn wall, molding his hard body to your soft curves. 

"Hal," moaning into his mouth, you begged, "don't make me wait."

"I got you, baby," he pushed his jeans and your undergarments down as fast as he could and you held on to his shoulders as he lifted you by the back of your thighs, "I got you."

When he pushed into you, hot and hard, your moans and whimpers were swallowed up in the sounds of cicadas and night birds. The heat of summer could barely compare to you and Hal racing to a sweet end against the barn wall. 

"M'close, sweet girl," and you whined against his lips, feeling your walls tighten around him inside you and you bit his lip as you came in a hot rush, hard and out of breath. Hal pushed into you a few more times before pulling out and letting one of your legs down to the ground. You braced yourself between his chest and the wall, watching him pump his cock in his fist until he came over his fingers and onto your belly with a groan, his head falling to your shoulder and the other hand holding your thigh drawing little circles over your skin. 

Both of you tried to take deep breaths, holding on to each other for dear life. 

Gently he lowered your leg and you tried to maintain your balance. You watched him pull off his shirt to clean up your skin and then his hand. When he noticed you staring he winked at you. You bit your lip with a wicked little grin. 

"Your body is a sin, Hal Carter."

"Well yours looks like heaven, baby."

You couldn't help your giggle, pulling Hal in for another kiss as he grasped your hips and brushed his thumbs along your ribs. 

He made you so happy. But how long could this last? Sooner or later something would happen. Your secret would be discovered. You'd get pregnant and he would make an escape. Something, anything could ruin this bliss. This happiness had an expiration date.

As you pulled back from his lips you couldn't help but tease him. "So how many girls did you kiss in the kissing booth tonight?"

"Wasn't counting, could only think of you, baby."

"Sure, sure," you nipped at his lips, "I know you were true to me."

Hal pulled away from you to look at you fully in the moonlight. "You know I love you, right baby?"

"Of course." All of a sudden everything stuck in your throat. You remembered your excuse to Susie. You would rather be the only one, than one of many. Of course you knew you weren't the first.

It would be lovely to be the last.

Your fingers went to the buttons of your new dress. You were clumsy, and careless. When you realized you had skipped several buttons in your haste you unbuttoned everything to start over. 

"Hey." Hal brushed his fingers over your cheek and you caught your breath and looked into his eyes. "I love you."

No matter what he felt from moment to moment, right now he loved you. It was shining from his eyes and radiating from his fingertips. You leaned up and kissed him softly.

"You'll come up tonight?" You asked him with a hopeful lilt to your voice as you attempted to button up your dress properly.

"Of course, baby." He fastened the button on his jeans and pulled you closer. "Need to take my time with you."

You kissed him again. "I love you."

"I love you too, sweetheart. Now you get inside, so I can get inside." Hal winked at you and pinched you at your waist and you jumped back out of his reach. With a giggle you checked the buttons down the front of your dress one more time, glanced back at Hal over your shoulder, and walked around the corner of the barn towards the house.

Your mother hadn't waited up for you. You walked through the dark house up to your bedroom and pushed your desk chair under the doorknob. You spread your blankets out on your floor. You unbuttoned your new dress and hung it up in your closet.

You opened your window, sat on your bed, and waited.

[transassbuttwriting]

My 27th Birthday: Pieces

Word Count: 2, 658 Warning(s): Drug use mentioned, overdose mentioned, depressing narrative

It may have been the time, but Geoff forgot just how much he loved sitting outside. Nothing, but a cup of tea in his hands, a radio on full volume, and the wind dancing through his hair. It reminded him of rehab and how he spent most of his free time there. He would sit in the courtyard, writing in his journal as other patients walked by in their own world. He only wrote in that book because he was told to. Writing down his thoughts didn’t help him a lot, but he did it nonetheless. Just to make his therapist happy with him.

He shook his head. He retrained his attention on the flowers in the backyard. They ranged from white to pink to purple to blue, all pastels. He couldn’t remember his mother gardening much. He just guessed the flowers were already there, planted for them. It didn’t matter to him. Even as a child, he would just pick the ones he thought were the prettiest, only for him to get tattled on by his sister and scolded by his parents. Looking back, he realized how bad that was for the flowers. However, a dandelion bouquet wasn’t appreciated either so, what was he supposed to do?

The song on the radio shifted along with his feelings, a low beat and soft acoustic strum started to play. Geoff took a sip of his tea, burning his tongue as he did. He couldn’t remember the last time he drank tea. Obviously before his death, but it was definitely before his 27th birthday. It must have been with Randy and his girlfriend, or was it wife?

He paused, his brows creased. He was forgetting a lot. That bullet must have done something to his head. He couldn’t even remember the most intimate details of his life. He wasn’t even an old man, not that he ever would be.

Geoff stood up, placing his tea down beside the radio before he walked into the living room. The photo album still sat where he left it ages before. He felt nauseous every time he looked in its direction. He never wanted to relive the emotions he felt looking at those memories, but if he was forgetting everything, he had to look.

He picked it up and brought it outside with him. The cursive introduction haunted him as he flipped through the pages. He would go slower this time. He would skip the parts he would hate and linger on the ones he loved. Yeah, that was the plan.

The first photo he saw was of one-year-old him leaning against his sister’s crib who at the time was just a few months old. His face was shmooshed between two bars, his lips pouted out. Geoff laughed at himself. He didn’t get any less annoying as his sister grew up. He turned to another photo. This one had both him and his sister, much older and in their Sunday best, smiling big at the camera. He faintly remembered a distant family member taking the photo, but out of the many cousins that were several times removed, it was hard to keep track of everyone. Underneath the photo, Geoff found cursive writing.

After Geoff & Kimberly’s First Performance

Oh yeah! Geoff smiled at the photo, tracing the letters with his finger. Kimberly knew piano and both were in the church choir. Possibly their parents started it or maybe a great grandparent, but Geoff remembered him and Kimberly performing songs they knew for their family right after church. Brunch was served by each member as they sang, the quality of their performance strengthening throughout the years. He believed they pranked the entire family once by performing The Bitch is Back instead of Bennie and the Jets. It didn’t end very well for either of them.

Geoff flipped through the pages, memories returning once he looked at the photos. He found more of him and Kimberly and more of him with David. Childhood memories he had forgotten due to his partying years. It was strange staring at his younger self. Possibly it was because it was so long ago and he couldn’t remember being that small. Maybe it was something in his eyes that changed. Maybe it was nothing.

His favourite out of the bunch was one of him, Kimberly, and David. It was Halloween and Star Wars had just came out earlier that year. David had insisted on being Han Solo, even though Geoff threw a fit about it. Now he didn’t understand why he was being so whiny. Luke was just as cool, possibly even cooler, than Han and he was a Jedi. Who could go wrong with being a Jedi? That meant Kimberly was Leia despite David and Geoff’s pleads for her to go as Chewbacca.

The photo was taken in the middle of them yelling trick-or-treat with their bags outstretched. It was a photo that must have been taken by some unknown being, but Geoff was glad it was taken. They all looked so happy.

He turned the pages again and the photos became newer as he grew older. He grew up along with Kimberly and it was obvious how different they became once they turned into teenagers. While she looked like a model teenage girl with long skirts and done-up hair, Geoff looked like he was a member of Mötley Crüe. He laughed at himself for looking so ridiculous.

Cautiously counting, Geoff skipped ahead in the photo album. He saw himself in rehab and after the treatment. The rest of the album was just of him and Needles. The makeup and big hair disappeared and their appearances changed. Age, weight gained or lost, bad decisions. All reasons for their looks.

The last photo he looked at made a small smile appear on his face. Needles was sitting at a long table in a restaurant, smiling at the camera. Geoff remembered a server taking the photo and that the food was pretty good. One side was David, Geoff, and Susie and on the other was Chris, Randy, and...what was her name? He looked down at the writing beside it to find the missing name.

Emilia! Randy’s wife! Oh, I wonder how she’s doing. Geoff thought, his finger unknowingly covering Susie’s face. He always thought they were a cute couple. He was glad they got married after years of dating.

There was a knock on the front door. Geoff turned off the radio and brought in the photo album and his now cold cup of tea. He wondered who would at his home at–he looked at the clock–only ten in the morning?

He opened the door and let out a huff of joy. Janis grinned up at him, her sunglasses and hair covering most of her face. Maybe he needed a friend to talk to.

“Hey, Jan.” He smiled, moving back to invite her in.

“Heyo, Geo. You wanna join me for a walk? I had a feeling you’re not doing much.”

Geoff stopped and wrinkled his nose at her. Of course he was doing something! He was sitting and staring at flowers. Okay, he wasn’t doing anything.

“Yeah, sure, I have time.”

Janis grabbed Geoff’s hand and pulled him along to the sidewalk. He barely managed to shut his door as he was startled by the fact that she had more strength than he originally thought. Janis’ grip loosened after a while, her speed slowing down until she was beside Geoff. She started to ramble about small things and he listened to each and every word carefully, even if she didn’t care about them.

The clicks of their shoes on the concrete turned into the crunch of leaves and pebbles as they turned onto a smaller trail, leading into a forest. The trees became thicker as they continued to walk and Janis’ voice ceased to leave. Geoff added his own comments every now and then, but he felt she wanted an ear to hear her. The day was calm, clouds covering most of the sky. It was peaceful and quiet, leaving the two to be in their own world.

A clearing, tiny compared to most, appeared in the middle of the trail and Janis’ voice faded. She grinned and spun around, her arms out, taking in every inch of the scenery. Geoff looked around and noticed a couple of flower bushes at the bottom of tall pine trees. He knelt down and smelled one.

Janis sighed, a smile still on her face, “You can’t get this from drugs, I’ll tell you that much.”

Geoff whipped his head up, “Excuse me?”

“Yeah, there’s Southern Comfort, but this,” she gestured toward the flora, “this is something beautiful.”

He looked around and stared at the trees and bushes. He had no idea what she was seeing, but he definitely wasn’t seeing anything spectacular. He grew up with nature like what stood in front of them and everything turned dull in the end. Why think something is beautiful if you’ve seen in everyday of your life?

Janis dropped onto the ground, sitting with one knee up. Geoff joined her, crossing his legs. She began to pick the flowers, peonies Geoff now realized, by the stems and started to tie them together.

“Drugs aren’t that good anyway. I mean...look where they got me.” Janis joked, adjusting each flower.

Geoff stiffened, his eyes avoiding Janis. It had been a while since he even thought about drugs. He wanted to avoid it as long as possible, whether it was unhealthy or not for him to bottle up his thoughts. There was always a sick feeling in his stomach when drugs were mentioned, as if it was retreating further into his back. He just felt nauseous.

Janis noticed how Geoff’s hands tightened on his thighs and frowned.

“Touchy subject?”

Geoff nodded.

Janis raised her brows, “Oh. Well, if you want to talk about anything, my ears are wide open, baby.”

She continued to tie the peonies together, placing them down once they were connected into a circle. She grabbed more and started to make another one.

Now it felt like a pot about to overboil. Geoff wanted to say so much, but he had only known Janis for less than four months. She didn’t need to hear any of his problems. That was his own business and no one else’s burden. He needed to keep his mouth shut. He needed to solve his own issues and not piggyback on others’ efforts. Besides, would she even understand his incoherent feelings?

“I had an addiction.”

Oh, goddammit.

Janis’ head perked up.

“I was an alcoholic and a heroin addict. It...It fucked me up to put it lightly.” He found himself laughing. At himself mostly.

As he started, Janis stopped fidgeting with the peonies, placing down the circle she was working on. Her attention was purely on Geoff.

“When you start, you never think that it would get bad. You always tell yourself ‘I’ll stop after this shot’ but you don’t. Parents always warn you about drugs and how they’re bad. They always say how they’ll disown you and how they would be disappointed. They never tell you how enticing they are.”

Janis slipped her hand into Geoff’s, squeezing it tightly. Her eyes hadn’t left his face and his were still staring at the flower bush. Everything was just spilling out. He couldn’t stop.

“I don’t remember much of my overdose, but I do remember bits and pieces. I remember drinking whiskey and shooting up. I closed my eyes and when I opened them, I was in a hospital. I was strapped to the bed because I apparently tried to attack the nurses. All I could remember from between was hearing someone screaming ‘All blue...They’re just blue…’”

Nothing. Janis didn’t respond. She waited for Geoff to continue. He could feel a lump in his throat as he tried to hold back tears.

“Randy and David found me and took me to the hospital...It was David yelling. He told me that he looked into my eyes and just saw blue.”

Geoff felt Janis’s hand tense up against his. He didn’t turn her way, but he could feel how her eyes widened. He crossed over and rolled up his sleeve over his elbow. He rubbed at the crease of his elbow, tracing the vein.

“This entire area was covered in track marks...I don’t think I was ever sober during my life. Even when I wasn’t, I felt miserable.”

Janis tried to smile, but it looked forced. She caressed Geoff’s hand with her thumb and he finally looked in her direction.

“I’m sure it did feel like it was horrible, but I’m certain there was good moments too.”

Before he could clearly think, Geoff shook his head. His stomach dropped when Janis’ smile fell.

“What’s with the shake, Geo?”

Geoff couldn’t think of an answer.

“Did you have friends who cared about you?”

“Yes-”

“Did you have a family who would die for you?”

“I suppose-”

“Do you remember any inside jokes you had with your friends?”

Geoff started to smile, “Yes-”

“Did your friends have fun with you or try to make you smile?”

“Of course!”

“There were some good moments!” Janis’ smile returned.

Geoff paused, his smile cracking slightly. Where was she going with this? “I’m not saying that your life wasn’t shit because I believe that you were unhappy. However, I refuse to believe that there were no good moments, even when you were a kid. I’m one hundred percent certain that your friends and family tried their best to make your life amazing. Your band cared about you. The way you talk about them, I hope they did! Just promise me one thing, baby. Don’t compare your life to others. Enjoy your life and afterlife by your standards.”

Her hands returned to the circle of flowers. She added one more peony and set the circle on her head. She grabbed the other one and placed it on top of Geoff’s head. They were flowers crowns. How could Geoff not see that?

“I know it will be hard to get over everything that happened while you were alive, but promise me you’ll remember the good. That you’ll remember that you enjoyed it.” Geoff nodded. He felt a weight off his shoulders that had been there for years. Even though he felt a sharp pain in his heart, it was far more tolerable than the dull and everbuilding pain of keeping quiet.

Janis looked Geoff over, a sly smirk appearing on her lips.

“The peonies are actually cute on you. Maybe you should have some at your house.”

He smiled, a petal falling from his crown. Staring at Janis with an identical flower crown, she looked like how people depicted Mother Nature. It made Haven feel more like home.

They stood up and began to walk back to Geoff’s house. They continued to talk, but instead, Geoff was one to talk Janis’ ear off. He told her stories of when he was younger and how he mended his relationship with his sister after his overdose. Janis just smiled, listening carefully to each word that he said.

Once they arrived back, Janis stepped on the tip of her toes and kissed Geoff’s forehead. Her hand rested on his cheek and he sheepishly smiled.

“If you need to talk, just know that I’m here for you and so is everyone in the club.”

Geoff nodded, “Yes, I know.”

Janis lingered for a moment before she started to walk off, waving back at Geoff as she did.

Geoff didn’t take off his flower crown when he entered his home. He didn’t take it off when he grabbed the photo album and sat down outside. He touched the crown and sighed as he saw at the end of the photo album a new photo of him and Janis sitting beside the flower bush.