#I could be a true artist genius is only my brain wasn’t constantly throwing my ideas out the window

[casually-eat-my-soul]

I am haunted by the prompts and ideas that I was not quick enough to write down. If only I could totally forgot, but noooo that’s too much for my brain. Instead I only remember glimpses like a dream slipping through my fingers, or like a dead dumb ghost playing ding dong ditch with my fucking head.

[coeurdastronaute]

Essays in Existentialism: San Francisco III

could you do more of nerdy writer lexa? she gives me life.

Previously on San Francisco

There was a way to the city after dark, so that something was always happening. But on the rainy, dreary Friday night, Clarke had something in particular in mind to occupy her time. That was how she found herself skipping over puddles and tightening her raincoat up against the squalls and wind of San Francisco’s wind and rain as she made her way downtown.

There was a little invitation that hung on her fridge at her apartment, and Clarke tried to ignore it every single day. She didn’t want to go to the reading. She hadn’t heard from the cute, nervous author since Clarke snuck out of her bedroom a few weeks ago. It all made sense, as to why, but she kind of hoped she’d made enough of an impression to hear from her.

It was a packed event, but Clarke wiggled her way and took a seat in the middle of the crowd as everyone awaited the first reading of the newest novel from wunderkind Lexa Woods. She listened to people around her as they beamed and speculated and conversed about their favorite parts of the last novel.

While Clarke skimmed the room and saw the novel-types that wrote important articles about things like this, she looked at the hand out and the picture of the author that was tucked on the page. People were beaming and dissecting her work, and yet Clarke was the one that knew about the cat she didn’t like but loved anyway, and who knew about the whiskey and the glasses and what Lexa’s sheets smelled like, and how her voice sounded at four in the morning after three orgasms.

Across the crowded room, Clarke caught sight of Anya and tried to make herself blend in. She didn’t want to have a conversation, and she didn’t really know what to say.

Luckily, the host for the evening Q and A, and reading came out as the lights dimmed somewhat. Nervously, Clarke settled in and cheered when Lexa emerged a second later, once her accolades were recited.

She was mildly self-effacing, in a somewhat humble sort of way. She was brilliant, but maybe didn’t know how much so, and Clarke found herself captivated by the author on the stage as she sat there and took questions from both the audience and the moderator.

Halfway through, Lexa did a double-take in the middle of answering something about being a young, female writer. Clarke smiled a smile reserved for the writer, and Lexa adjusted her glasses and returned it slightly after stumbling slightly on her train of thought. From that moment on, her eyes drifted to about six rows back and the blonde, curious, confused, and encouraged.

“How much does your life influence what you write?” the moderator continued down a line of questions. “You write along the themes of family, pain, past, secrets, and the intersection of the uncertainty of the future and society. You write of these secrets, and you are very secretive.”

“I’m private,” Lexa corrected, adjusting slightly in her seat. “I think anyone who says they aren’t influenced by their life is lying. It’s formed how I view the world, but I don’t purposefully address things. I just tell stories.”

“Some have claimed that your first work, your Masters thesis, was as close to an autobiography as could be, is that true?”

“I told a story that I had to tell.”

“The secrets continue,” he smiled, sensing her discomfort and electing to switch paths.

Despite herself, Clarke was only more intrigued by the writer who now nervously avoided looking in her direction. She smiled and watched Lexa relax.

After the reading, Lexa felt impossibly eager to find the girl who proved to be a figment of her imagination. When she woke up exactly twenty-three days ago, she was certain she’d never hear from the artist again. It made her afraid to go out to Anya’s events, and it made her afraid to call.

But she locked eyes with Clarke during the question segment, and she felt a little skip in her brain, as if she’d died for an instant, and all neurons refused to work. It might not have registered as more than searching for an answer to a question, but Clarke knew, and Lexa knew that she knew.

But whatever bravery she had left in her, was gone the moment the applause died and she joined the mingling. Inundated with more conversations and oddly enjoying herself, Lexa was constantly on guard. She was convinced one of two terrible things would happen, namely that if she didn’t pay attention, Clarke would sneak up on her, or worse yet, disappear without a word, leaving her wondering what it all meant for another extended amount of time.

When she woke up alone, exactly twenty-three days ago, Lexa didn’t know how to feel, and if she were being honest, she still hadn’t unpacked it. And it was because of that, that she excused herself to the bar.

“You look like you have the right idea,” a voice joined her as soon as she got her drink and savored the first sip. “Gin and tonic.”

They were quiet until the bartender slid over another glass. Lexa looked at Clarke slightly before drinking again.

“The glasses and nerdy thing, right?” Lexa grinned, almost devilishly, if she would have had that in her.

“I can’t stop thinking about you. I’ve tried.”

“You left.”

“I’m good at that.”

“I stay,” Lexa finished her drink and stood up a little straighter. “I’m someone who stays. I’m good at it.”

Clarke swallowed and nodded. Stern as Lexa was, she adjusted her glasses and sighed, betraying some nerves and an unsteadiness to herself in the situation. She couldn’t meet Clarke’s eyes except in tiny glimpses.

“I want to stay, if that’s okay?”

Very seriously, almost too seriously, Lexa weighed the words, furrowing with the new information. Clarke smiled because she was absolutely crazy for someone who thought like that.

“What if you leave again?”

“I’ll do my best not to.”

“The last time I asked someone, they lied and said they’d never leave. I like your answer better.”

It was that instant, that moment, after twenty-three days and just a handful of meetings, after listening to the humble, talented, wondrous genius of a nervous girl introduce her book to the world, after finding her in the bar, with just those words, that Clarke realized she was in love. She would look back on it fondly, she decided. That even when Lexa looked away to order another drink, unaware as to what was happening beside her, that Clarke decided she’d tell her one day, because as much as it was simple, witty banter, she was telling the truth. She had no good reason to leave that day other than fear. She had no good reason to offer to stay, except for the exact same reason.

It happened gradually, and all at once, and for that, Lexa was grateful. When she woke up the morning after her reading, and found an artist sketching in her favorite chair with a cat curled up against her side, she didn’t want to believe it.

Instead, she poured herself a cup of coffee without saying anything, sat down in her usual spot at the usual end of the table with her usual red notebook and regular old, usual pen, and let herself jot down notes and ideas and things.

Clarke wasn’t dumb though. She sat stark still and refused to move, as if doing so would make Lexa bolt or something. Instead, she drew the same line, over and over again with the flourish that artists sometimes give for no reason at all, and she took little peaks at the girl at the table in the old, bleach-abused track shirt.

And like that, there was almost a routine.

Lexa liked routines, Clarke learned, which was an adventure. She hated how much she loved her cat, despite how much she’d argue otherwise. She was very particular about her methods, and Clarke respected that.

But when they were together, Lexa was different. She kissed like she was desperate for nothing more than that feeling. When she wrote, she was maniacal. But all other times of her life, Lexa was so restrained. She was absolutely fascinating.

To make matters worse, she said things that made Clarke’s head and heart explode. The third week of dating, Lexa mumbled something about liking the order that came to traffic jams. A few days later, as she hovered in the kitchen with the cat, and Clarke cooked and made a mess, she muttered an old spell that her grandmother once prayed and sipped her wine. Not long after that, Clarke learned that one of her favorite things was to win an argument by making Lexa throw her hands up in the air at the illogical nature of Clarke’s insistences.

Dating Lexa was filled with learning things.

It was hard at times, with the shows and the book tour that came with inevitable success. And though Lexa refused to believe that Clarke would stay, she did. She stayed so long, in fact, that Lexa got used to it.

The notebook exploded into dozens of pages against the wall, like a sad, lonely kind of firework. The cat wasn’t even bothered, blinking slowly and turning its head to the side after adjusting slightly. Not even the stalking owner of said notebook and semi-owner of said cat, huffing through the room, shoulders hunched and hands gripped, face stoically full of wrath, bothered the feline who had grown accustomed to such things. The apartment was pristine, was perfectly packed and placed without precariously situated possessions and filled with purposeful placements. The mess on the floor was an anomaly that wouldn’t last long. But it did stay there, untouched and bitterly rotting as the hurler ignored it completely after the outburst. Frustrated and furrowed, Lexa walked once more through the mess and poured herself a drink. For a week, Clarke was away visiting her parents. Lexa was home and eager for more staying, but something messed with her head, and she just couldn’t… couldn’t… word, right.

She looked at Clarke’s coffee cup that sat, unwashed and a reminder of their last night together a few days before, and she realized it was difficult to write when she was happy, which then led to the realization that she was, in fact, for the first time in her life, happy.

And it absolutely left her fucking irate.

“Lexa! What the fuck am I just hearing about Clarke Griffin and you?” her sister stormed in a moment later as Lexa stared at her notebook on the ground and debated arson.

She felt her muscle tense between her shoulder blades.

It should have been expected, for her sister to appear. She heard her phone buzzing almost non-stop in the other room for almost two hours before the inevitable explosion.

Everything was changing, and everything was different, and she felt the tight grasp of control slipping out of her hands despite her stranglehold on it.

“Please get out,” Lexa sighed and grit her teeth as she gripped the counter.

“I will not get out,” her sister pursed her lips and stepped over the notebook on the ground. “This is insane. Months, and you haven’t told me anything!”

“Please get out.”

“Are you kidding me? This is amazing news, and I need to know everything. You can’t--”

“Get out!” Lexa bellowed, shaking her head from side to side. She closed her eyes and tried to take a deep breath.

“Hey, don’t you start yelling at me--”

“Anya! Leave me alone!”

“If you’re having an ep--”

“Get out!” she barked again, finally facing her sister. “Get out! Get out! Get out!”

The silence that followed was enough.

But Anya weathered storms like that before, and it did not surprise her that it was happening. Instead, she just nodded to herself, crossed her arms, and waited for her sister to relax somewhat.

“You’re up in your head, aren’t you?”

“Please.”

“You know how to deal with this,” Anya softened. “I should be able to talk to you about dating someone. I can be mad at you. You don’t get to hold the monopoly on feeling things. Get over--”

“You think I haven’t tried to be different? You think I haven’t wanted to not be like this?” Lexa scoffed and shook her head. “It’s not from lack of effort.”

It was things like that, that broke Anya’s heart. And as much as she wanted to hug her sister, she couldn’t do anything like that. It would have been counterproductive. Instead, she moved to pick up the notebook.

“Don’t. I have to,” Lexa murmured.

“Okay.”

Instead, Anya sat at the table and waited the fifteen minutes it took her sister to regain herself.

“What if she figures me out, and leaves?” Lexa sighed. “That’s why I didn’t tell you.”

“Not everyone is Costia.”

“Clarke isn’t,” she nodded, almost to herself. “Anya, there’s a beautiful girl who likes me and smiles and makes my heart feel like its tap dancing, and she often doesn’t wear pants and my old rowing shirt from college, and that’s all, and what if she leaves?”

“She won’t.”

“She will.”

“From what I’ve heard-- you know-- the only reason I found out about you dating my client,” Anya guilted, half with a smile, “Clarke can’t stop talking about you. She beams. I saw one of her pieces, and it’s… it’s... “

With a shake of her head and smile, Anya pulled out her phone and found a picture before sliding it across for her sister to take a look at.

“I don’t know what this means,” Lexa furrowed and stared at the art that didn’t make sense to her.

“She’s in love with you.”

Lexa just furrowed harder with the answer and stared more intently, looking for something like that in the brush strokes. Once, she almost tricked herself into seeing it, though she just couldn’t.

“I don’t see it.”

“Yeah, you wouldn’t,” her sister grinned.

Almost a year after her sister found out, almost a year of thinking and not thinking and growing and becoming someone who was happy and still lived, Lexa realized that she had to do something.

Everything happened so slowly, so calmly, so easily, that it snuck up, right into her lap. She realized it as she had her hand on the small of Clarke’s back at some dinner party of a friend of a friend. She realized it as she snoozed on the grass at the park with her head in Clarke’s lap while she read or sketched or napped herself. She realized it in the morning when she woke up with lips on her neck and a thigh already between her own, in that lethargic kind of need that settled between their bodies.

She had a cat from a girl she once though she loved, but that girl got sick of her brain, sick of her mind, and she left. Plain and simple, she marked Lexa unloveable, and she disappeared to be happy.

Clarke got irrationally angry and protective after hearing that story, which was the funniest thing that Lexa had ever seen.

That was a moment, too.

As the water ran, and Lexa brushed her teeth, she thought of all those things, and she thought too much about something she was trying to write, and failed to see. She spit and stared at Clarke in the mirror as she tried to have a conversation despite flossing. It was about her father’s birthday, and by now, Lexa was good at deciphering such things, though that was the last thing on her mind.

“I’m difficult to love,” Lexa swallowed and nodded to herself, pushing the glasses up on her nose as they slipped with the movement. Clarke stopped.  “I’m a difficult person to be around sometimes, and no matter how hard I try, I can’t fix it, not completely. It’s okay if that’s not okay. But I love you. I know I love you because I didn’t love Costia, and what I feel for you is so much more. It must be love, logically. What I want you to know, is that you don’t have to love me. I just hope that despite me, you’ll still love me.”

There was never really a moment when Clarke knew why or what Lexa was talking about. Sometimes conversations just happened, right there in the middle of something as mundane as making breakfast or walking to the grocery store.

Lexa put her toothbrush back in her mouth and resumed her routine, avoiding Clarke’s eyes in the bathroom mirror. Clarke was stuck, rigid and frozen, and very unsure of where it’d come from, only learning Lexa well enough to know that to have that many words meant she’d been thinking it for a while.

“I’m difficult to love,” Clarke promised. Lexa kept brushing her teeth. “I am. I get moody and irrational and I like a nice mess from time to time. It wasn’t hard to fall in love with you. It happened right under the red light the first night I met you. It happened again at your reading. I love you. I’m in love with you, and I’d like to stay.”

She smiled. Clarke smiled, too, and went back to flossing as Lexa finished, spit, and rinsed her toothbrush.

Clarke rinshed her mouth, and despite their normal routine, Lexa didn’t move from the bathroom door. Instead, her smile was busting her cheeks and she swallowed Clarke in a hug, twirling her around the small room.

The party was the same crowd that asked her what the ending of her last book meant because they only skimmed it. Lexa excused herself and made her way to the bar, dissatisfied with their nonexistent selection of snacks and eager to find her girlfriend and escape to that fish taco place down on Lynn Street.

She absently wondered if there would ever come a day when she told her sister no when it came to those boring parties she threw. The answer was obvious, but still, Lexa allowed her imagination to flex with the thought as she smiled and sipped her whiskey.

Her goal shifted to getting slightly drunk and taking Clarke home after getting a very unhealthy snack by the bay, and breaking in the new bed Clarke made them get in her ongoing quest to help Lexa modernize her home. Modernize, Lexa was learning, simply meant buying actual furniture.

“Looks like you’ve got the right idea,” a voice joined her, earning a smile.

“Gin and tonic for the beautiful lady,” Lexa told the bartender. “Another double for me.”

“Did you know,” Clarke whispered, the sultry slipping into her voice as she leaned her chin on her girlfriend’s shoulder, “how absolutely sexy I find it when you order me a drink?”

“Is that why when I order smoothies for us, I get lucky.”

“We all have our kinks,” Clarke chuckled before thanking the bartender and earning a wary look from Lexa.

“I wish you’d stop calling everything kinks.”

“Where’s the fun in that?”

With a roll of her eyes, Lexa allowed Clarke to win the battle and tug her toward a familiar group of friends, stuck in an intense debate about something that Lexa actually enjoyed. She even outlasted her girlfriend, past their normal signal to try to sneak out was initiated.

“I just want tacos,” Clarke groaned as she tugged Lexa toward their coats. “I don’t care if they’re good or bad. Tacos are always good.”

“It’s ten minutes farther, but much better,” Lexa argued. “Why does proximity have to dictate what we eat when we know superior tacos are down by the bay?”

“But our house is the opposite way, and our house is where the bed is, and these heels are killing me and I just want food, sex, and sleep, in that order-- oh, sorry.”

The whine that amused Lexa to no ends was immediately cut off as Clarke bumped into another body with a little more force than usual. The amusement ended almost instantly, to some degree, as the body turned around.

“I’m so sorry, I was just-- Lexa?” Costia cocked her head and stared at the writer, ignoring the body that bumped into her own, catching her off guard and spilling some of her drink.

“Hello.”

Both just stared at each other, sizing up what time had done to them, picking out the parts that changed, that stayed the same, and then debating whether or not they’d always been that way, or if their minds had crafted littler alternatives and imperfections.

Clarke cleared her throat and rubbed Lexa’s back.

“Oh, sorry. Yes. Um. Costia, this is my much more talented, much less graceful better half, Clarke Griffin. Clarke, this is Costia.”

“Much less graceful,” Clarke repeated with a smile. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Likewise,” she forced a smile.

She was gorgeous, but Clarke knew that already. An intense afternoon of weakness was spent looking into Lexa’s ex, as any normal person would conduct upon entering a new relationship. A writer herself, she was not as good as Lexa, in Clarke’s literary opinion. She certainly wasn’t a nice or good person either, in her personal estimation.

“It’s been… what? Three years?”

“Four years,” Lexa quickly interrupted. “Four years.”

“How’s Simon?”

“Who’s Simon?” Clarke interrupted.

“The cat,” Costia furrowed. “You didn’t get rid of him, did you?”

“Oh, you must mean Jeff.”

“You renamed our cat Jeff?” the ex shook her head and frowned.

“He likes it better,” Lexa nodded.

Clarke sensed the impending weirdness as the standoff commenced. She felt Lexa squeeze her hip as she held her close.

“How long have you two been together?” Costia asked, ignoring Lexa’s simple explanation, hiding the sting of moving on.

“Oh, about two years now?” Lexa asked, looking to her date for confirmation. “Going well, wouldn’t you say?”

“Going great,” Clarke chuckled and nodded.

“Wow.”

“Yeah.”

There was an awkwardness between them all, and no one knew how to escape it. There were years and years and miles and time and distance between where they’d once been, and where they were, and yet Clarke couldn’t shake the nagging protective anger against the Ex, as irrational as it was, and she certainly couldn’t shake the feeling of contempt that she’d seen her girlfriend naked. That was the real kicker.

“I read the novel. It was impressive. Well received. I could see little bits in it of all those things you kept raving about,” Costia offered. “I didn’t get it, but you saw it. I meant to say congratulations, but it felt weird.”

“Thank you,” Lexa smiled. “It’s still doing well. Been trying something new with the current project.”

“Care to share anything?”

“You know the answer already.”

Despite the time and place and distance, they shared a knowing smile.

“And what is it that you do?” Costia turned to Clarke and waited.

“Oh, not much, I paint--”

“She does these big, beautiful, colorful paintings,” Lexa interrupted the modesty. “And I didn’t get them at first, but then, it clicked. And they feel like… they feel like things.”

“And you’re talking about feelings,” Costia whistle quietly, amazed at the display. “They must be something.”

“They really are though,” the writer nodded eagerly, beaming.

“I can’t beli--”

“I’m sorry,” Lexa stopped her. “But we have a date with a fish taco truck, and I see Anya making her way toward me.”

“Which means we have to run,” Clarke chuckled.

“It was nice to see you.”

“Pleasure to meet you, Costia,” the artist smiled. “I’m sorry for being clumsy.”

“No harm no foul,” Costia nodded, perplexed at the almost happiness and joy on her ex’s face, a state of which she’d never seen it before. “Nice to see you. Keep in touch.”

“Alright,” Lexa nodded.

Before she could offer anything else, she watched Lexa begin to slip through the crowd. Bewildered, Costia stood there and watched them leave. She watched Lexa kiss Clarke’s temple as she put her arm over her shoulder, and they both laughed at something meant just for them.

She wasn’t jealous, or at least that was what she told herself. More so, she was simply amazed.

[animationresources]

An Unique Point Of View One of the things I’ve learned about animation history over the years is that you can’t count on general knowledge derived from books to understand the dynamics of the way people worked together. Each person had his own point of view, and you understand the situation better by putting yourself in the head of each participant and understanding their personal motivations and what they saw as the goal. Likewise, you can’t trust general knowledge derived from books to know what is good and what is bad, or even what the strengths of a studio or artist were. You have to look at the films themselves and compare them and judge them according to a set of criteria designed to reveal the aspect you’re looking for. When I was in college, I watched every animated film or TV show that I could get my hands on. I ran a VCR constantly. I didn’t judge or analyze, I just watched and absorbed. I tried to expose myself to as many different kinds of films as I could…. from Pluto and Underdog cartoons to Faith Hubley and Oskar Fischenger. After I had a fairly broad frame of reference, I started categorizing things in my head… impressive examples of effects animation, or dialogue driven cartoons, or snappy limited animation techniques. My head was full of all this stuff. Then I went to work in an animation studio. I learned the dynamics of directors and their crew. I found out about working under deadlines. I began to understand what things were created by one individual and what ones were created by teams. I saw the complex watchworks of interpersonal relationships within a studio- competition, cooperation, personality conflicts. I realized that there isn’t just one point of view, there is a different point of view for every person involved. Lastly, I started hanging out and talking with the old timers in the industry- picking their brains, getting them to be frank about the people they had known and the work they had done. I spoke to people on opposite sides of the battle lines, and I spoke to people who belonged to no camp other than the love of making animation. I learned a lot of things that will never be written down in books. It gave me the ability to judge and decide what was good and what was bad and where strengths lay. A big problem with animation history books is they try to make it one unified story- the story of Bugs Bunny, or the story of the Disney Studios. That wasn’t the way the stuff we regard as history was lived though. It was lived by individuals with their own bias and goals and personalities. Some of these individuals really stand out from the rest. They were the catalysts and the ones who pushed the whole thing forward. Probably the most written about influencer in animation was Walt Disney. I never met Disney. I waved at him once as a child as he drove down Main Street at Disneyland in a antique car. But I knew a lot of people who worked with him closely, and I asked them about him. Some of them loved him, some of them hated his guts, but all of them were talking about the same man. I don’t find that in books. Some books talk about a genius/saint who did everything himself. Others talk about an evil monster who exploited and abused the people working under him. I have no idea who these books are describing. It sure isn’t Walt Disney! Generally, the basic facts of names and dates are correct, but none of them seem to portray at him in the way I learned to see him- through the eyes of the people around him, friend and foe. There is a biography of the low budget filmmaker Ed Wood called Nightmare of Ecstasy. It was later adapted by Tim Burton to make the film, Ed Wood. I mention it because it is the only book that I’ve ever seen that tells the story of an interesting person solely through bits of interviews from people who knew him. The book is organized into a chronology of events, but the description of the chronology is all from individual points of view cobbled together from a bunch of interviews. The image of Ed Wood projected is vivid and multifaceted and real… more real than anything I read in animation history books. It’s too late to do that now for Walt Disney. Most everyone who worked with him is dead now. We’re stuck with the largely false image of Uncle Walt perched on the edge of his desk telling us about nature or outer space. I don’t think the average person will ever know who he was, regardless of how many books get written. But maybe the internet and social media will get preserved and someday future historians will cull through our comments on Facebook looking for nuggets of truth about all of US to stitch together into a narrative that is more true than the stuff that’s written in books. Of course they’ll have to wade through a whole bunch of dumb memes and blather. I’ve been on the internet since the very dawn of the WWW. It’s weird to think that was over 20 years ago. I’ve been on usenet and chat boards and social media that whole time, trying to share things I think are important. Maybe someday it will provide something useful to an internet archaeologist somewhere. I think it’s important to take social media and interaction on the internet seriously. My life may someday be part of someone else’s history. People often tell me that I should write a book… I think I’m doing something better than that. I’m throwing down breadcrumbs to follow each and every day of my life. Stephen Worth Animation Resources

[yallreddieforthis]

I Can’t Believe It’s Not Richie

Fandom: It (2017)

Pairing: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier

Rating: T (for language)

Words: 2.7k

Pre-relationship. Movie canon-compliant but not book. Also posted on AO3

The Greater Fool Series: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 4.5 (NSFW) | Part 5

It seems impossible that a person can be both that shitty and the shit at the same time but like...it’s Richie. And since Richie doesn’t give a single fuck about following any kind of rules, Eddie guesses the ones that govern Eddie’s emotions don’t apply to him either. Greaaaat.

Sometimes Eddie can't believe it's Richie.

Maybe even most of the time, like when everything out of his mouth is your mom and my wang and it's just words, it's not even funny, and Eddie can only tune him out or try to talk over him. Richie cannot shut the fuck up for one goddamn second. And it's not even like Eddie can pin it to anything specific—like, oh, Richie talks more when he's angry or nervous or excited—because he does it when he's every one of those things and any other thing besides. The tone may change—the subject matter even—but the talking. Never. Stops.

Eddie doesn’t really consider himself a beacon of cultural knowledge, but he does own a TV. So he at least has a vague idea of what a British person might sound like, which is more than he can say for Richie. Richie also owns a TV, and yet his British Guy impression is so god-awful that Eddie has to assume he’s basing it on someone’s description of a fever dream they once had about a London street urchin from the eighteen hundreds. This only applies to the actual words though, not the pronunciation—which is pretty much indistinguishable from just Richie being Richie—and that’s across the board for all the voices, not just the British Guy. For someone who loves imitating other people as much as Richie does, it’s unbelievable how remarkably all his Guys sound like they’re from Derry, Maine. Because shouting out mangled phrases he half-remembers from the time he watched Mary Poppins six years ago—in the most American voice imaginable—is still somehow Richie’s interpretation of a British accent.

That isn’t even the worst part of The Voices though. The worst part is that Richie seems to have a sixth sense that alerts him to the exact moment at which it would most infuriate Eddie for him to do one, and invariably it’s as if a little light goes off in the least-developed part of his brain that says Time To Be Italian! (or Southern, or German—he has a constantly expanding, but not noticeably improving, repertoire) and it’s like he just has to do it right then. Sometimes it makes Eddie want to scream at him. Sometimes Eddie does scream at him. But screaming makes no difference; Eddie knows perfectly well that Richie will absolutely do it again the second the urge strikes him, no matter how inappropriate the timing or what Eddie does in reaction.

He's fucking gross too. Not necessarily grosser than the rest of them, but he certainly subscribes to the teenage boy brand of hygiene that dictates that he only really has to shower when Eddie finally shoves him away with a you smell like a sweaty nutsack. Of course then Richie inches closer and it's all how would you know, huh? and Eddie has to be like because I have nuts too, dipshit, and if you never wash them you'll—

And then all his warnings about bacteria and fungal infections are drowned out in the your mom and my wang and vague, half-heard rumors Richie repeats about people from school that Eddie knows aren't true, and he's pretty sure Richie doesn't even believe himself. Fuck him and his terrible, nasty-ass jokes.

Some days he thinks Richie purposely doesn't shower specifically so that he can torment Eddie with his unbearable boy stank. Or how he'll like, step in dog shit and just sort of shrug and wipe the sole of his shoe in the grass and then keep going with whatever he was doing like he's not literally tracking shit everywhere. If Eddie were to step in dog shit—which he wouldn't because he watches where he's going like a sane person—it would bring his entire day to a screeching halt. He gets that he's in the minority when it comes to these kinds of things, but he doesn't get why.

And then Richie has the audacity to suggest that Eddie's just as bad as the rest of them—when he says things like you’re convinced your shit doesn't stink, or it’s the smell of your own breath wafting back in your face—like he thinks Eddie is kind of gross too. Which shouldn't bother him, but it does. Somewhere very, very deep down in his gut he has a nagging suspicion as to why that might possibly be, but he's hell-bent on ignoring it at least until the inevitable destruction of the planet Earth, if not even longer. And that’s going like...pretty well for him. Reasonably well. Maybe a little less well than it used to be, but he's almost fourteen now and he thinks he should probably have a solid handle on the whole thing within the next couple of years.

But even if Richie wasn't either of those things—annoying, disgusting—there's nothing really exceptional that he is. It's not like he's a genius; the gigantic, goofy glasses make him look smarter than he actually is, and he gives as few shits about school as he does about anything else. Eddie is sure that Mrs. Tozier has never been to a parent-teacher conference where she didn’t hear the phrase if he only applied himself, and he’s equally sure that every one of the teachers who said it knew that they were wasting their breath. If Mrs. Tozier—or anyone else—stood even the slightest chance of motivating Richie to care about pre-algebra, there would have been upward mobility in his GPA long before now. Eddie has to assume he does at least some homework—if for no other reason than because he hasn’t been held back yet—but as far as he can tell, Richie bent over a textbook at home is a sight as yet unwitnessed by mankind.

Richie’s not athletic either—by any definition of the word—at least not until they decide to make Competitive Talking an Olympic sport. He’s really good on his bike, but that’s a skill he developed out of practicality because the alternative is being stuck walking all over Derry, and it’s not like being able to ride a bike is something to brag about because even Eddie can do that. But Richie’s not a fast runner. He can’t do a push-up unless it’s the kind that only count as push-ups when girls do them, knees on the ground. He can’t even throw a spitball into a trash can from three feet away (his performance in the Rock War against Bowers and his goons was a crazy, adrenaline-fueled exception)—and like, okay, the bad aim can probably be chalked up to his horrendous eyesight, but even beyond that there’s this general, overall lack of coordination. Eddie has what amounts to a universal pass that effectively excuses him from participating in PE for his entire school career, so he’s never been physically present for what goes down on the yard, but he can pretty much piece it together from the scrapes and bruises all over Richie’s arms and legs. It doesn’t matter what unit they’re on—dodgeball, baseball, soccer, tetherball—Richie plays only one position: target.

He doesn’t fare any better in the kind of extracurriculars that teachers and parents care about, like music. Richie is an aggressively bad singer—a fact Eddie is forcibly reminded of every time anyone has a birthday because Richie always makes a point of sandwiching Eddie between himself and someone who won’t run away (usually the birthday kid’s mom) while he belts out an eardrum-shattering rendition of Happy Birthday at the top of his lungs. Richie seems to interpret birthday party invitations as personal challenges for him to sing louder and worse, challenges he has so far risen to spectacularly on every occasion. The song gets longer each time too, because he never forgets to include Frankenstein on channel nine and the big fat lady on channel eighty and whatever new, ruder verses he’s scrounged up out of nowhere between the last birthday party and this one. Richie’s singing is actually one of the most obnoxious things about him, in Eddie’s opinion, which is really saying something.

He is so unrestrainedly, deliberately awful that Eddie could honestly imagine some idiot adult who doesn’t know Richie listening to him screech the chorus of Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go over and over in Eddie’s ear (the newest sabotage tactic he’s been deploying at the arcade to try to make Eddie lose at Street Fighter) and thinking wow, maybe that kid actually has a beautiful singing voice but doesn’t want anyone to know because he’s worried people will make fun of him. They would be wrong, of course, because even when he’s not actively trying to suck, Richie can’t sing for shit. Eddie doesn’t have to know anything about music to be able to tell that Richie’s real singing voice—the one he almost never uses—is flat and off-key. And forget about instruments because whenever someone makes the mistake of letting him get his hands on one, he immediately tries to shove it down his pants—or worse, Eddie’s pants—and pretend it’s a wang.

There’s art—and Eddie has noticed that being a really good artist can absolve someone of the sin of sucking at everything else. Bill, for example, is talented enough with watercolor pencils that if he drew people’s attention to his sketches, he could probably get away with not knowing how to write a half-decent thesis statement or multiply fractions (even though Bill does know how to do those things) because people would just affix the tortured artist label to him and stop giving him shit about the stutter. And Richie actually draws a lot—probably as much as Bill if it’s purely a question of quantity over quality—it’s just that the only things he seems to be interested in drawing are dicks, and the places he chooses to draw them are all technically the property of the Derry Public School District. Also, his fine motor skills are at least as bad as his gross ones, because his handwriting looks the way his singing voice sounds, and the dicks he draws make Eddie question if Richie has ever even looked in his own pants before.

And yet, despite all of the incontrovertible evidence that Richie is actually a walking disaster, there are other times that Eddie can't believe it’s not Richie to everyone else. Or even like anyone else.

It could be argued that it’s almost inevitable due to the sheer volume of jokes he tells, but every so often Richie will get one absolutely, unassailably right. His timing, his word choice—the heavens open, the planets align, and suddenly everybody around him is laughing so hard they can't breathe, Eddie included. His eyes usually end up watering when it happens, but he squints through them to look at Richie because in those moments, Richie glows like nothing else. He tries to act like it isn’t a big deal that everyone is pissing themselves from whateverthefuck he just blurted out of his incessantly flapping mouth hole, but Eddie can tell how thrilled he is when people actually find him funny. It's happening more and more often nowadays, enough so that Eddie sometimes wonders if maybe Richie is wasting his time at school after all. And who needs sports or music or art anyway?

And he could be a whole lot worse about Eddie’s germ thing if he wanted to be, like how some people give him hell about the pills and the inhaler and the hand washing. Richie doesn’t have detergent hands but he sure as shit will mouth off to anybody who gives Eddie a hard time about his. He can’t say Richie doesn’t at least try to look out for him, in his own weird way. Or Bill, or Stan, or Mike, or any of them. It causes more trouble than it’s worth more often than not, especially because Richie doesn’t have any discernable muscle with which to back up his shit-talking, so it probably would honestly be better if he would just like...not. But Eddie can’t really help appreciating it all the same.

But the hardest thing to ignore about Richie—and Eddie wouldn’t admit this to anyone, even under threat of death by clown—is that his memories of what Richie did for him over the summer have become a kind of personal, private shield against fear. They all try to avoid thinking about It as much as they reasonably can (which isn’t much; it’s not like you just go and forget about the time you and all your friends climbed down a haunted well so you could almost get eaten by a demon clown in the sewers), but Eddie’s positive he isn’t the only one who lies awake at night when the sound of his own pounding heartbeat is making him too nauseous to sleep.

The lights are off because it’s almost worse when they’re on. Maybe if he can’t see It coming, it’ll just eat him real fast and get it over with before he even knows what hit him. Still, he doesn’t want to die—instantly is preferable to slowly, but even better is not at all. So he’s developed a set of dozens of little rules for himself to follow—like no turning over, no breathing too deeply, no limbs outside the covers, no long, slow blinks (quick ones are okay; otherwise it’s eyes all the way closed or all the way open). Realistically he knows that not a single one of these rules means jack shit to anyone outside his own brain, but somehow no-ing himself into what amounts to a vegetative state eventually bores him to sleep. Okay, usually it does. More like occasionally. Actually it’s only worked like twice, but whatever. He’ll take what he can get at this point.

Sometimes Eddie thinks he has it worse than anyone else. Well, maybe not worse than Bill. But the rest of them—he isn’t sure if any of them can really understand exactly how fucking useless he felt down in that god-forsaken lair with his arm in a cast. Bill and Beverly were awesome, Mike was like a goddamn soldier, Stan was great after he’d finished crying and even Ben, who Eddie basically thinks of as the most inoffensive kid on the planet, was tough as balls. And Eddie felt like a worthless piece of shit. He hates his arm for being broken, and he hates his nightmares for always including the broken arm. It’s coming at him—just him—and his arm is hanging limply and there’s not a goddamn thing he can do—

And that’s where Richie comes in. Only when he thinks about Richie bitching Bill out for getting them all into this shit situation while inching toward the mountain of broken toys, Richie grabbing a baseball bat and saying now I’m going to have to kill this fucking clown...only then does the terror that surrounds him all through the night start to ease up.

And then he thinks a little further back about when he fell through the floor and broke his arm in the first place, about how all his friends were crowding him and freaking the fuck out, and Richie just looked at his arm and said he was going to set the break and snapped his bone back into place while Eddie shrieked at him to do not fucking touch me. Just like, grabbed his arm where it was dangling the wrong way and fucking did it.

Sometimes… Sometimes Eddie is positive that if It were to show up in his house on any given night, Richie would immediately come crashing through his bedroom window, swinging a baseball bat. Because somehow Richie would know if It returned, would know It was coming for Eddie, would show up in time. He’d show up and keep his shit together while Eddie couldn’t. He’d probably sometimes miss with the bat, but Eddie kind of suspects that it wouldn’t matter. Richie would stand between Eddie and It and just sort of suck all the scary out of the room with his endless, pointless trash-talking. And when Eddie thinks about it that way, it’s like you know what? Screw John McClane; Richie Tozier is Eddie’s hero.

And then Richie sticks his sweaty armpit in Eddie’s face and goddamn it Eddie can’t believe it’s Richie.

[ktrsss1fics]

AU Art School One Shot Series

Do you know what’s more fun than sitting through a lecture about Cubism?

Just about anything. Actually I take that back. Sitting in a crowded lecture hall while some middle-aged art history professor drones on and on about the stylistic differences between Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso is more fun than any course involving letters disguised as numbers. I don’t understand why anyone would want to pursue studies in maths. Another thing I don’t understand is why in the hell Harry Styles is so keen on being my friend. We first met in our First Year Drawing course. He made some idiotic joke about pencils and I unfortunately laughed at it. It’s been two years and I still can’t go anywhere art related without his stupid face popping up. It’s ridiculous. Harry is the type of guy that probably should be down in the liberal arts wing studying literature or psychology. He should be the leader of the decathlon team and president of the anti-bullying club. He should be spending his weekends hanging out by the pool before doing a pub crawl. He shouldn’t be buried knee deep in plaster gabbing on about how fantastic the Italian Renaissance actually was. He shouldn’t be sleeping on the floor of the printmaking building on a Friday night because his orange just isn’t right. He shouldn’t be walking in the door of this overstuffed lecture hall with his perfectly sculpted man-bun and a spool of chicken wire under his arm. But he was. “Hey Huckleberry.” He chirped slipping into the empty seat beside me. “That’s not my name Harry.” I mumbled annoyed. “For me it is.” He laughed grabbing his notebook from his bag. “Did you do the reading last night?” I shook my head before yawning, “Spent the entire night planning out my piece for Davidson’s final.” “You haven’t done that yet?” He asked shocked. Harry and I were taking an intermedia course that attempted to bridge the gap between various mediums. For our final project, we had to do some sort of performance piece around campus. Performance art might seem easy but it’s the real deal. Every ounce of energy in your body is poured into performing your piece. The projects performed so far had been brilliant. “I had the gist down but after yesterday I feel like I’m not doing enough.” I explained. “When’s your performance date?” He asked searching for a pen. “Next week.” “Lucky.” He sighed. “When’s yours?” “Uh an hour after this lecture.” Harry stated. “It’ll be out in front of The Hub.” I turned my full attention to him. “Well shit that’s quick.” “Tell me about it.” He smiled. I couldn’t imagine having to perform today. I still hadn’t truly finalised mine yet. Or gotten it approved for that matter. “What are you doing for it?” I asked throwing an extra pen at him. “I can’t tell you.” He smiled graciously. “You know the rules.” “I didn’t think Harry Styles played by the rules.” I smirked. His smile grew. “He doesn’t… usually. Davidson is making me.” “Oh right.” I nod. “ Blame it on him.” “Its true. He said its a genius plan and he doesn’t want any of you procrastinators to steal it.” Harry teased earning himself a dirty look. “I’m only joking Huck.” “All I can really say is that it’s going to make me look like a modern day Abramović.” He shrugged. I couldn’t fight the urge to roll my eyes. There was no way in hell this guy was going to create something that could even be compared to Marina Abramović. No offence to him but she is like the queen of performance art and Harry, well, doesn’t like doing Davidson’s warm up exercises. “I can already see the judgement in your eyes Sawyer Smith.” He smiled. “Go ahead and judge me.” “I’m not judging you Harry. That’s just a bold statement.” I explained. “Well I’m a bold lad.” He winked. I groaned. “Oh gag me.” He wiggled his eyebrows playfully. “If you come to it, maybe I will.” “Why do you keep trying to make this happen?” He looked confused. “What?” “Us.” I said pointing between us. “Being friends.” Before he could reply, the lights dimmed and our professor started to speak. I readjusted myself in my seat and prepared for what was going to be another hour of boredom. The TA started up a discussion about the reading assignment from the night before and as usual, the three aggressively opinionated kiss asses of our class fought for the spotlight. A battle of the pretentious perspectives had begun. Harry fidgeted in his seat. I could tell he wanted to say something. I did my best to focus all of my attention on the screen in the front of the room. I hadn’t meant to be offensive or rude but it was true. He was constantly making an effort to form some type of friendship with me and I never understood why. We were two different people. He was loud and friendly and I just wasn’t. I kept to myself and got my work done. I didn’t see how we could make it work so I always kept my distance. Apparently that didn’t sit well with him. A pause in the conversation came and I felt the boy beside me start to move closer. His arm rested on the back of my chair as his mouth moved towards my ear. “Sawyer, you know I like you right?” His husky voice whispered softly. “Like you are really really cool.” “Harry…” I sighed. “No don’t ‘Harry’ me. I’m trying to explain myself because obviously me wanting to be friends is such a horrible concept.” He stayed annoyed. “I never said that.” I glanced at him. “Well I’m pretty sure it’s been painted across your fucking forehead for years.” He said frustrated. “Look I’m not really asking for much. I just want to be friends with you. I want to be able to make late night coffee runs with you while we are waiting for our canvases to dry.” “That’s oddly specific.” I replied dryly. “Will you please just stop? This is hard enough for me. You already are the most intimidating girl in this entire department.” He blushed. “What?” “You’re scary.” “No I’m not.” “Yes you are. You always have been.” I could feel my cheeks starting to grow warm. Was I really that scary? “It’s because you are quiet but have a really profound opinion. Don’t try to fight me on that because its true. You have one of the most unique perspectives on life and um I just want to pick your brain sometimes because I think it’d help me grow as an artist and a person for that matter.” He admitted shyly. “You know that human form sculpture we had to do for Kinney’s class? I still can’t get over how you made it.” A full fledged blush attacked my face. I wasn’t one who took compliments well especially from guys like him. “It wasn’t that tough to make.” “Yeah because you’re the one making it. I’ve attempted it three times since then and it’s never worked out.” He laughed. “You’re something else, Sawyer.” “I’m really not.” I shook my head. “And I’m not intimidating either.” “And I’m not the funniest person you’ve ever met.” He said crossing his arms over his chest. “You aren’t.” “Funny you should say that because if my memory is correct you were the one dying from laughter at my hilarious pencil joke way back when.” “Oh fuck off.” I said fighting back a smile. He leaned in close once more, “Hour after class. The Hub. Be there.”

++

The hour long lecture flew by. As I left the building, I realized I had two options. The first being a selfish decision to head home and sleep. The second being the more obvious choice. I grabbed myself a warm coffee and a muffin before searching for a seat outside The Hub.

I wasn’t here because I wanted to be friends with Harry Styles.

I was here because I appreciated art and, as much as I hated to admit it, Harry was a great artist. I don’t know how he did it but he always seemed to put a quirky spin on things.

And that was admirable.

I bit into my muffin and scanned the quad. Familiar faces started to appear as the anticipation started to build. For many of us art students, this was the equivalent to a football match. All of our energy and spirit was poured into watching whomever was performing.

It wasn’t long before a sign appeared. The message was simple, “Pick your weapon and induce war.”

Piles of pens, tubes of paint, and mounds of markers lay at the feet of a man who was Manchester’s version of Christ the Redeemer. With arms outstretched, he was dressed in white from head to toe. His hair was pulled into a perfectly sculpted bun and a blank stare adorned his features.

It was game time.

A few of our classmates were the first to make their move. It wasn’t long before random people passing by stopped to contribute to the chaos. They gathered round Harry with pens and markers hoping to create something great. They didn’t though because that wasn’t the point.

This wasn’t about the things that were created or the way his clothes looked in the end. This was more than that. Harry was the Messiah bringing modern art to the masses. He was educating a stubborn class of people on the beauty of creation and that was nearly mindblowing.

The boy who made a lousy joke about pencils first term had assembled one of the most thought provoking pieces in our entire class and I really couldn’t believe it.

The pain in the ass who always tried to get my attention finally had in the best way possible.

A good hour into the piece, there was a lull in the activity. No one had come up and scribbled something on him in a while. Everyone just sat watching and waiting. Waiting for him to move or speak or breathe wrongly.

The size of the crowd that had formed and the amount of whispers being shared throughout the quad really said something about the way our culture was. As people, we rarely investigate things on our own. If something abnormal is taking place, we don’t try to find out what it is. We stand back and gossip about what we think is going on.

And I think that was one of things Harry was trying to talk about.

Our ancestors were adventurers and thinkers and doers. They didn’t sit around waiting for things to be explained to them. They went out and sought answers. They dug in the dirt until artifacts were found. They swam in the sea until things made sense. They went into the world and thought for themselves.

They weren’t glued to their computers or mobiles or trashy magazines. They were glued to their imagination and life and curiosity.

At the end of it, isn’t that really what art is? Life, imagination, and curiosity wrapped into a single piece. It’s doing something to make others think. It’s getting a reaction from a planned out action. It’s standing in front of the busiest building on campus with your arms outstretched while people attack you with words and actions. It’s attempting to befriend the one girl in class that everyone’s afraid of. It’s proving that you’re worth it.

And after seeing the concentration on his face, I had a feeling that Harry was. Being his friend wouldn’t be as horrible as I originally intended. He wasn’t just that annoying guy in all of my classes. He wasn’t the know-it-all with the obnoxiously perfect hair. He was a serious artist trying to make the world a little less shitty and that in itself was somewhat appealing.

He closed his eyes. The pain of keeping still was obviously started to set in. This was the perfect time to make my move. I threw away my trash before heading towards the table to find a tool to use. I settled on an orange calligraphy marker and walked towards Harry’s back. After a few moments of planning, I decided on what I was going leave scrawled on his body. A simple “Huck” and a string of numbers that I knew Harry would appreciate took up the space between his shoulder blades.

I dropped the pen off at the table, sent the focused boy a nod, and was on my way.

++

My phone buzzed loudly on my desk. A text message from an unknown number appeared across the screen. A tiny smile formed as I read what it had said.

I knew you’d come around Huck x