#im pretentious

[quillkiller]

thank fuck i always download the fics i wanna read

[maxrowave]

Snippets of KYD pretentious writing stuff that’s kind of pretentious and composed of 99% bullshit jargon...

sometimes late at night, i want to write and pretend im super deep and meaningful, what better way to use kill your darlings (film) as an outlet? All of these r from Lucien’s perspective because it means i get to use my fancy words, but at the same i cant hold a candle to his thoughts so if it gets weird, just hang on mate :P im probably using ; wrong lmao and a lot of grammatical errors i repeat stuff a lot too there is no order to this, its all just random bits of writing put together (1) Their complicated relationship taunted Lucien from a distance, because he was ever-present in the notion that Allen was intrigued in him in the wrong way. It was inappropriate for what the two of them were, maybe in different circumstances, in a different life, maybe he would've. If he weren't so spontaneous and abhorred even the slightest hint of being forced to be chained down by something so, permanent and that it didn't resemble a certain someone; then maybe, just maybe, he could love himself enough and return the same favour. While Lucien was always one for venturing long past the societal subject to normalcy, this was the exception that haunted him. A heavy drum in his heart that weighted him down, the notion that he could ever be seen in a light that glorified him into some sort of benevolent heaven sent was dreadful. It confused him, how Allen could somehow wade through his labyrinth of bullshit layered upon alter ego after another. He still sought out the beauty in this sewage, it was a skill Lucien himself lacked, and envied. Allen Ginsberg was in love with him, a queer. He'd used Allen's dangerous comfort by him against the other on occasions, primarily as pivoting points to tease him when the opportunity arose. However, he was unsure if Allen was aware, that he was too. He had already surpassed the thin line they often teetered on, and now Lucien could only kick himself for not seeing the signs earlier, preventing this whole dysfunctional relationship. This was not a fickle love story, this was a parasitic weed choking the plants beneath it to survive. He could only pretend as if he were completely unacknowledged about the state of their bloody and bruised romantics for so long. "Queer." He begun, the first word in what felt like decades of silence, a blessing to cut through the uncomfortable tension developing; and not particularly in the way he lived off of. "Aren't you? "Lucien's eyes never diverged off of the passing ocean in front of them, the breeze had crept down his spine but the bottling ball of nervousness was keeping him far more occupied than the chill of the wind ever could. He didn't know why that was the first word he uttered, why he would confront the elephant in the room that they both had to be so aware of and never mentioned. They could've lived in that silent acknowledgement for the rest of their days, Allen was a homosexual and did little to hide his attraction to Lucien. He would've had to be an idiot to not figure that out. Those three words was all he would allow himself to say for tonight, refusing to elaborate on how much he knew. Like how it was deliberately obvious that Allen was pining and Lucien didn't know how to go on about it without resorting to drastic measures. It was one thing to sneak off away with him one night past curfew to drink a little, it was another to so easily toss away his lively hood and any chance of success for someone like him. How could Allen ever love someone like him and consciously feel good about it too? He felt guilty, that was new and he quickly found a distaste to the new emotion. Lucien wished Allen could hate him in the way he did to David, maybe then he would leave, allow Lucien to rot and fester in the manifestations of his poor decisions. Hate him while he still could, before he sank too deep and got choked by the weeds, perhaps Allen would be able to return back to Columbia, write little poems that would conform to the rules of rhyme and meter. How was Allen simultaneously the most brilliant man he'd ever met and yet so reckless. How could he ever find the heart in himself to love Lucien Carr? Lucien's head hung low, miserable, but now with the absence of sobriety, his eyes swelled up, god he fucking regretted a lot and had dragged someone like Allen; wonderful Allen Ginsberg who had so much potential, into the dirt and stomped on his legs so he could never run again. "I'm sorry." (2) Lucien unable to place a label on what he and Allen were, lingered not too far from Jack; his mind half stuck on the leftover scraps of their previous moment where they'd just held each other. The more he kept Allen around, the more the line that was their friendship began to blur. He made friends spontaneously, he wasn't a long-term man, dropping people as he went along with the motions of life. Even better yet, if they resigned from the friendship first, beating Lucien to the inevitable separation he would've done anyways. Faces he'd met along the years began to blur a long time ago, the only ever prominent one being David. But pray as he might, no matter how much he drank or befriended, dropped, he could still see him as clear as day when he closed his eyes. At least that was how it was before meeting Allen, now he could see beyond the distance, past the mosaic blur. Perhaps it was the fresh abandonment, the lacking of support that had caused him to act so sporadically. Because he wanted to follow Allen to the edge of the Earth too, blindly; he wanted to trust again. The cold persevered, Lucien glanced at Allen manoeuvring through the crowd to the best of his abilities. Jack stood out, practically towered, he was like a light-house of sorts and that notion made him grin, just a little. As far as the eye could see, the ocean kissed the star-filled sky, without the lights around, it was easier to see the constellations. He was never an astronomy man, but he still found appreciation, perhaps more metaphysically. Lucien turned to look at Allen, just managing to make him through the dark and the dimly lit lanterns scattered across the boat. He didn't utter a word, just staring at the other. It was supposed to be a glance of reassurance, or at least a cry for one without the messy combination of loosely fitted words. It had yet to occur to him why Allen had kept around him so long with an undeterred devotion. It ached him, that Allen yearned for him so similarly. (3) "Christ Allen, you're not gonna make me say it are you? "There was that half-hearted attempted to make his voice appear as if it weren't cracking at the seams with all the loose threads coming undone. He inhaled a deep breath, shuddering as it exhaled past his lips and for Allen to hear just how low Lucien had finally descended, now he knew who he truly was; An imposter of an angel, feeding off of the whims of life for as long as his legs could still move and his mind could still rummage through the slums. "You shouldn't be here, or at least besides me. "It came out quieter than he'd preferred, he knew he sounded antagonistic with the way he was wording his sentences. But if it meant that this was the very last gift he could provide Allen, past the whirlwind of late night escapades and hungover mornings, through the poem recitations, he would do it. Allen would be safer else where, perhaps happier too, and it ached him to admit that he was finding himself developing an attachment of sorts. This would end badly, both of them knew it and yet they continued to light the flame on all their matches, waiting for it to burn their finger tips. He sniffed, still quite unsure how he was supposed to go on about with Allen's infatuation with him. To fall in love with Lucien Carr was a sin of its own, the many people that had came before Ginsberg had met unfortunate fates as a by product of hanging around him. Once they'd tasted the freedom he was able to provide at the sacrifice of all stability, the moment he diverged from them, they were no longer able to function on their own; always striving to try achieve that same feeling. Like David trying to revive their long overdue relationship that had ended the moment he'd left the state, resorting to desperate measures to glue onto him like a parasite. (4) Lucien was stuck, he had clung deep to the old habits of his past self, refusing to change in favour for an fruitless ambition that if he persevered for long enough, he may just be rewarded. His present self, the one enduring the brunt of it all and ever so aware of how Allen's fingers snuck around his back and pressed into him, thawing the chill that was beginning to bite at his skin. He knew he himself was aching for the fresh abandonment, a clean white slate after he'd so recklessly treated the last one. Without hesitation, he brought his own hand back up trying to desperately hide from the swimming memories still haunting him. How Allen tolerated him was a feat of its own. He wonders what Allen thinks of him too, after his grandiose displays of artificial knowledge that border on the line of pretentiousness to the common eye and could only be understood by someone who had bared in the same footsteps he'd followed to a path of misery. Because he'd be lying if he said that he wasn't actively aware of what he did had its share of consequences, he'd taught himself to strand all glimpses of attachment just so he could continue preserving his unhealthy habits. His conviviality is lost and he hopes Allen will still continue to stick around despite that, once realising his personality is made up of loosely threaded bits of false truths constantly spewing out of his lips. (5) Allen is a patient soul that has spent too much time for him, and it gets his deserted hopes, the ones he'd purposely buried under thick layers of impulsivity and the clumsy gambling of his life, running. He's shaky in his arms, the material of his coat is cheap and itchy against his cheek, the obvious signs of coming from a lower middle class, and he yet he still continues to caress himself into the embrace despite that. Ironically as a self proclaimed writer, he has yet to develop the skills to properly come up with the words to communicate his exact thoughts without masking it in some vague metaphor. He hopes Allen's brilliant mind can crack this puzzle, and understand Lucien's appreciation in more ways than one. His companion is generally standard in terms of physical aesthetics, he could see how some girls may lean into him, being more the type to bring back home to your parents. Lucien recognises Allen's partial-innocence is attractive to others, it was what drew him in the first place, a victim to Ginsberg's charms it seems; an untainted soul yet infected by the old verses of a generation blinded by their false intellectual merits. (Technically, he's dressed in the same traits as the generation he so abhorred, but the difference between him and them were that they were old bigoted fucks rooted in their own cages of confliction that only they may be right).  Their library heist had only continued to backed up his claim with the librarian being ever so inclined because of his inexperience. But Allen has now been grounded with a dozen experiences under his belt, and Lucien enjoys that his participation has now become a big contribution for the other's new mindset, for the better or worse. No longer an unbloomed stalwart, he loves how Allen thinks, how it almost mimics his and yet deviates in the best possible ways, enough to keep him on his toes, still enough space left to argue for a point. (6) Lucien parted his mouth, getting ready to spill the poetic injustices that he just so abhorred, that would eventually pivot into a vessel of knowledge in his own self-righteousness and inserting his own opinions into them regardless if they're relevant. A rhythmic knocking instead places itself where Lucien's voice should've been, it echoes from behind them and it sends chills down his spine. There's a beat of silence that remains between him and Allen, eyeing the door in hopes it was potentially the hall monitor or some lost freshman trying to find their way. "Lucien, please, I know you're in there.” It's David, pitiful and no longer sounding like the same man he did just a few weeks ago; when he was imbibing on the cups of egotism because he held all the strings to Lucien's feeble fate, regardless of where the gazelle escaped, the lion would follow until the prey felt weary. It was in his weakest moments would David present himself as a last resort, like some Guardian Angel. Lucien bats an eye at Allen, freezing up and looking for the next best thing to do. He's about half-way through packing and if he rushes to grab the remnants of his soul scattered around his dingy dormitory, then he might have a chance of escaping the circle. "I know I messed up, I'm really really sorry. Let me in, and we can talk about it, we can be just like we used to.” It's a leverage David uses often because he understands that's all that Lucien yearns, is for someone to rely on. David expects him to be sympathetic, attempting to twist the narrative of their bitter past into some lost-love story meant to fate in a happy ending. There's still a part of Lucien clinging onto what they used to have, this is what the result of their relationship was; still expecting sugar when given salt.

[sentate]

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[inkskinned]

at some point it's just like. do they even fucking like the thing they're asking AI to make? "oh we'll just use AI for all the scripts" "we'll just use AI for art" "no worries AI can write this book" "oh, AI could easily design this"

like... it's so clear they've never stood in the middle of an art museum and felt like crying, looking at a piece that somehow cuts into your marrow even though the artist and you are separated by space and time. they've never looked at a poem - once, twice, three times - just because the words feel like a fired gun, something too-close, clanging behind your eyes. they've never gotten to the end of the movie and had to arrive, blinking, back into their body, laughing a little because they were holding their breath without realizing.

"oh AI can mimic style" "AI can mimic emotion" "AI can mimic you and your job is almost gone, kid."

... how do i explain to you - you can make AI that does a perfect job of imitating me. you could disseminate it through the entire world and make so much money, using my works and my ideas and my everything.

and i'd still keep writing.

i don't know there's a word for it. in high school, we become aware that the way we feel about our artform is a cliche - it's like breathing. over and over, artists all feel the same thing. "i write because i need to" and "my music is how i speak" and "i make art because it's either that or i stop existing." it is such a common experience, the violence and immediacy we mean behind it is like breathing to me - comes out like a useless understatement. it's a cliche because we all feel it, not because the experience isn't actually persistent. so many of us have this ... fluttering urgency behind our ribs.

i'm not doing it for the money. for a star on the ground in some city i've never visited. i am doing it because when i was seven i started taking notebooks with me on walks. i am doing it because in second grade i wrote a poem and stood up in front of my whole class to read it out while i shook with nerves. i am doing it because i spent high school scribbling all my feelings down. i am doing it for the 16 year old me and the 18 year old me and the today-me, how we can never put the pen down. you can take me down to a subatomic layer, eviscerate me - and never find the source of it; it is of me. when i was 19 i named this blog inkskinned because i was dramatic and lonely and it felt like the only thing that was actually permanently-true about me was that this is what is inside of me, that the words come up over everything, coat everything, bloom their little twilight arias into every nook and corner and alley

"we're gonna replace you". that is okay. you think that i am writing to fill a space. that someone said JOB OPENING: Writer Needed, and i wrote to answer. you think one raindrop replaces another, and i think they're both just falling. you think art has a place, that is simply arrives on walls when it is needed, that is only ever on demand, perfect, easily requested. you see "audience spending" and "marketability" and "multi-line merch opportunity"

and i see a kid drowning. i am writing to make her a boat. i am writing because what used to be a river raft has long become a fully-rigged ship. i am writing because you can fucking rip this out of my cold dead clammy hands and i will still come back as a ghost and i will still be penning poems about it.

it isn't even love. the word we use the most i think is "passion". devotion, obsession, necessity. my favorite little fact about the magic of artists - "abracadabra" means i create as i speak. we make because it sluices out of us. because we look down and our hands are somehow already busy. because it was the first thing we knew and it is our backbone and heartbreak and everything. because we have given up well-paying jobs and a "real life" and the approval of our parents. we create because - the cliche again. it's like breathing. we create because we must.

you create because you're greedy.

[westwoodgirls]

today i take 5 total of books just because i want to be elle woods

[closetsof-backlogged-dreams]

as sad and disappointing as this is, look me in the eyes and tell me that this isnt the absolute funniest shit youve ever seen. like, they changed their bio to ONE vaguely implicative sentence and posted some promo statement about where you can find it on streaming services, and this little shitty cockroach fandom (affectionate) absolutely BLOWS THE FUCK UP. like, within the span of 2-3 days, we completely took over tumblr so that this 15-year-old fandom was trending, their twitter account gained roughly 6k followers, and everyone is theorizing about a season six a reboot a spin-off a red white and royal blue crossover every thing under the SUN and it literally gets so bad that the poor intern (thats probably gotten two hours of sleep this week and is running solely on celsius and coffee) and the two-person marketing team that managed this whole thing had to scramble to clarify that WE'RE NOT ACTUALLY DOING ANYTHING WE'RE JUST ADVERTISING THE SHOW AGAIN

like. thats the funniest shit EVER.

[redonionlover]

sunstone..? perhaps???

anon ur so real for this... they're my faves since i first played rw

havent drawn them in a loong time though so i doodled these real quick :^)

[dansemacabre]

i’ve been thinking about “sixer, it would eat you alive” since i read it and. man. every layer you peel back makes it worse. im not a bill apologist but. shit

if you (1) take it at face value, it paints bill as an apologetic murderer in his single (and maybe sole) open moment of regret. he doesn’t let his walls down often- only with ford do we even get to see the remnant of his galaxy, see the “actual remorse” ford describes, get just a hint of his origins. but he does it, because he thinks ford should know.

if you (2) take it from ford’s point of view, as something he committed to journal three, like. wow. imagine being so committed to a being that you’d hunt down and kill the monster that destroyed his home, only to (assumably) figure out later that that being was the monster. the small moments of trust, the “good times”, are so key to manipulation. how long did ford hold onto that one shred of vulnerability? no wonder ford stayed for as long as he did. in his eyes, bill was a survivor. ford wanted to survive too.

(slight tw below for unreality- any time i mention our reality, i mean “our reality” as a narrative device used in the book of bill as a proxy for the idea of bill being in our reality, since he can’t actually be in our reality. all of this is a fictional theory about a show/book with fictional contents!)

but if you (3) remember that “even his lies are lies” and absolutely Nothing bill says should be trusted. Whoo boy. if i read tbob right the book itself is being created in the theraprism (even tho it shows up with the ciphertologists at some point? idk that’s a whole other post). it’s meant to show what the reader wants to see; it manifests in our reality as what the collective fandom wants to see. so if we want to see truth, if we want to see where bill ended up and who he actually is, there’s a non-zero chance that the whole interaction was a complete fabrication.

imagine bill, stuck in the actively harmful, probably earth-illegal theraprism, once again being forced to be “fixed” and molded into something more palatable, being forced to conform no matter how much it hurts. (i know natural uncontrollable mutation ≠ just so much murder and destruction and chaos, but. you can’t ignore the similarities. bill has obviously been thinking about those silly straws.)

he looks back on everything that went wrong, back on his relationship with ford, back through every dimension where he wins. would that one moment, that one truth amid centuries of lies, have saved him from purgatory? if he had just been open? shown his damage? maybe he did think of his parents, or his henchmaniacs (especially the oracle). people who he might have once opened up to. maybe he just wanted to open up to someone again.

so in his own weird way, stuck in a cell, he reshaped reality again. in this reality, for this fleeting moment, he had been someone worth believing. and ford had listened, hell, ford had wanted to help. looking back, knowing how he treated ford, knowing how ford ended up because of it, maybe bill would have said the most honest thing he’d ever told ford: i am the monster, i am not worth your time or belief, and i will eat you alive.

[autizmotbh]

"Tiny statuette, metallic but porcelain I watch your journey As I intertwine with this world wholeheartedly"

long time no posting but... hiii! :3

[anyahita]

If your feminism doesn't include Iranian and Afghan women, then you're not a feminist.

If your feminism doesn't include women suffering in highly patriarchial societies, then you're not a feminist.

If your feminism doesn't include honour killing victims, then you're not a feminist.

If your feminism doesn't include women suffering at the hands of a zealot religious ideology, then you're not a feminist.

If you support women who want to wear the hijab, but don't support women who don't want to wear it, then you're a morally corrupted person.

[valtsv]

Do you have any tips to get better at writing? Your word usage is so amazing. the way u describe things are so utterly unique, it’s so mesmerizing. You motivated me to write more but I want to reach your level of skill

i'll be honest, i personally find my writing to be rather subpar and lacking in the necessary technical skill to justify its overly stylised prose and excessive wordiness, so i wouldn't necessarily recommend taking inspiration from me. that being said, i'm my own worst critic and i am very flattered that my writing resonates so strongly with you. i'm not a professional writer, so i can't offer much in the way of advice beyond what has, through trial and error and years of practice, worked for me.

something that people often point out to me when complimenting my writing is that i have a rather lyrical style, which i can see. i try to pay attention to the way that words flow together - which words best complement one another - and choose how to structure and order sentences based on that. i do have a fairly extensive vocabulary thanks to reading a lot from a young age, but i also frequently make use of the thesaurus (my most dearly beloved). obviously, trying to beef up your writing by simply using more obscure words that you found in a book will come across as clumsy, and detract from your writing rather than enhancing it, but if you learn how to stitch words together in a way that has a pleasing ear or mouthfeel, you can mitigate that somewhat, and even make it part of your repertoire of skills.

speaking of vocabulary, the more expansive it becomes, the more doors it opens to you in terms of what you can write and how you can write it. this is pretty straightforward common sense stuff, but you'd be surprised by how effective is if you actually start paying attention to it. likewise with grammar. not everything you write needs to sound like it was written for a sophisticated publication in a well-respected 19th century newsletter, but if you read widely and often, you'll find that your understanding of just how many ways the scaffolding of phrasing and punctuation can be used to support incredible linguistic architecture there are grows immensely, and start seeing opportunities to make all these little adjustments and additions and substitutions that enhance your work's overall presentation.

with regard to the above, i'd also recommend considering how you want your audience to feel. you can alter a reader's entire undercurrent of sensational experience simply by changing a few words, according to whatever emotional (or even more primal) response you intend to provoke. you can also mix your palettes, and flirt with crossing the wires (horror tinged with eroticism and vice versa, fantasy with a dose of down-to-earth pragmatism, tragicomedy, and so on). the more you experiment, the more your confidence will grow, and your skills begin to take shape, from crude instruments to refined, specialised tools.

one word of caution i'd offer you, based on my own shortcomings, is that my style of writing does very much neglect realistic-sounding dialogue. the way that i write and the way human beings talk to one another clashes without much grace or redemptive quality (at least in my opinion), and i have yet to find a satisfactory solution to this. i'll let you know if i ever figure it out.

[lesbiandarvey]

i love the fact nix makes it a point to pronounce the french location names correctly and then pronounces them with the american acccent for clarity while rolling his eyes to show he’s not one of you uncouth americans. he is so the american who studied abroad for a semester and came back over pronouncing croissants as lay cwehsahn

[theriverbeyond]

DANGER WARNING and other poems better left unsaid (2024) ft. early morning hotel views and my travel sized sharps container

[daistea]

𝐋𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐞 - 𝐌𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐮𝐧 𝐱 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

Mithrun x gn Reader

2,300 words

suggestive / tw kissing / tw choking

◇─◇──◇─◇

 The world was separated by fine lines. They ran through civilization, rarely with a discernible beginning, and rarely noticed by anyone but those who approached them. They were tangled and knotted and digging into the skin of society— and when released, the mark they left was red, bruising. 

 You wanted to snap one of those lines. You wanted to run it across your palm, wrap your fingers around it, and squeeze. You wanted to watch the tension grow, to tear it apart, to leave it ragged and broken and ready to be yours. 

 Yours, as you were his. 

 You felt the fine line grow taut as Mithrun’s good eye searched your face. You’d done something bad. His chest rose and fell as he held himself up with both arms on either side of you. Those arms could’ve been the bars of a jail cell, or the columns of a temple. His palms were flat on the cold ground, his fingers were splayed, one knee was between your legs and you were doing your best to make no noise. 

 Mithrun’s good eye narrowed. He was doing his job, he was the Captain. You could only wonder if he ever stopped being the Captain, if he was ever just Mithrun. Knowing him, most likely not. Another line. Did he ever let it bend?

 As if he could see through your skull and right into your brain, his shoulders tensed and his lips twitched. He knew. He always knew. You inhaled through your nose with hyper-awareness of the rise and fall of your chest. You were far too considerate of how precisely how little room there was between Mithrun and yourself. He smelled like basic soap, like familiarity. 

 “You did something stupid,” Mithrun broke the silence. He didn’t sound particularly perturbed by the fact that you’d done something stupid, but you caught the hint of gravel, the hint of a rough scratch in his throat that told you all you needed to know. 

 You knew. You always knew. His shoulders relaxed a little as if saying his thoughts aloud helped him come to terms with it. 

 The truth was: you did a lot of stupid things. Despite the self-awareness you possessed upon the matter, you still did them. The source was not genuine stupidity, but rather a quality that you and Mithrun shared; single-minded determination. You thought he’d understand. 

 You managed to raise your right hand and gently press it against his chest. Yet, no amount of pressure would push him back. He steeled himself and leaned in closer, shoulders rising as silver curls fell forward to brush across his jawline. 

 “I’m fine,” you argued, and you could not help but avoid the black-eyed gaze that dug through your brain. You settled for glaring at a misshapen brick on the wall of the dungeon. 

 Mithrun seemed to relent. He sat up on his knees and folded his arms over his chest, though you were still on your back in front of him. You’d ended up in that position by accident. You did not stay in that position by accident. It was like pulling teeth, but you ripped your eyes away from the wall and looked up at him. The rays of the light spell above washed him in pale yellow. And the fine line regained its strength with every inch of space created between your bodies. 

 “You’re fortunate I was there,” Mithrun observed with the nonchalance of someone who believed he did not care. 

 That was what you knew so well; Mithrun could care. Mithrun could desire. He wasn’t aware of that, but even if he were, he wouldn’t bother with it. What point was there in desiring anything unrelated to the demon? 

 Another line, though it was not fine like the others. The Captain had simplified himself so much. And simple things were easy to understand. If it didn’t involve revenge, he did not care. That was a line you knew you could not bend, twist, or snap. You didn’t try.

 However, you did walk it like a tight-rope.

 “I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself,” you informed him. You weren’t sure how you sounded, most likely defiant, most likely argumentative. Judging by how he slightly tilted his head at you, it was one of those two descriptors. Yet, the room to care had run out. Your rooms were filled with fire, flames licking at every inch of you and turning you into ash. Your lower abdomen felt as if it was a rubber band being pulled. 

 You liked being pulled. 

 “You put people in danger,” Mithrun responded almost immediately, “you could’ve died.”

 He said the word ‘died’ as if he wanted to spit it in the dirt. 

 You and Mithrun had been separated from the Canaries and your party on account of your own horrible decision making. You couldn’t quite recall what you had done. Was it pathetic that all you knew was Mithrun’s arm around your waist as he yanked you away? One track-minded, surely, but Mithrun had the ability to create new, far more exciting tracks to follow. 

 He’d teleported you both to a room nearby. It was stone and smelled of dust, and hints of green moss crawled up the walls like desperate fingers. You were, most likely, the one who desired the room into existence, a spot for Mithrun to teleport to where you could be alone together. If it was anyone else, Mithrun would’ve been on his feet and determinedly searching for the exit by then.

 But you knew. How could you not know? Mithrun never hid his feelings; a blessing and a curse for all involved. 

 The line appeared again and it was not the thick, simple line that you could never bend. The line that settled between you and the Captain was thin and weak and just asking to be torn apart. Without a second thought, the words were out of your mouth, “I don’t care.”

 You don’t care. 

 You don’t care?

 (You cared.)

 Mithrun’s lips parted and his brows slightly furrowed. He knew what it was like to not care. He had to know you were lying. Yet, the words wrapped around him and sunk into his veins like poison. Immediately, they spread through his body. For someone who cared about so little, he despised how you apparently did not care. 

 Which, in and of itself, was a desire. He felt something. He stared at you as if you’d just kicked a puppy and you knew, in that moment, that he desired— even if he didn’t realize it. 

 That was okay, you decided within seconds. He didn’t need to realize it. 

 “Do you not realize…” slowly, he lowered his body like an anchor dropping into water. His hands slid across the dirty stone, then his forearms, until he was only inches away from you. His breath mingled with yours and your abdomen pulled again. It was as if his proximity had captured your soul on a hook, and it was all you could do to stay grounded. Mithrun continued, “That if you died–”

 The line began to stretch. 

 His fingers wrapped around your throat. Your heart flipped rather gracelessly. His fingers were cold and firm and in the perfect spot, encompassing your pulse. He could most likely feel the increase of your heart rate beneath the pads of his index fingers, but that was fine. He knew. 

 It was nothing new. Yet, you’d seen flowers bloom a thousand times. You’d seen the oranges and pinks of the sunset a thousand times. But you always stopped for them, giving them a moment of your life. Who could possibly say they were tired of seeing the sunset? 

  “Do you not understand what that would do?” He asked. Mithrun’s voice was quieter than usual— he wasn’t trying to seduce you, he was trying to talk to you. For half of a second, you felt like a total pervert for melting beneath his touch. 

 Yet, pervert or not, you wanted that line to stretch further. 

 “Do to who?” You asked, despite the light pressure on your throat, “What would it do? Why do you even care?”

 “I don’t,” was his immediate answer. He had his hand around your throat and looked at you as if you’d ruined his life. Such vitriol, such hatred. “I can’t.”

 You began to thrive. “You’re being contradictory.”

 “Stop.”

 You immediately stopped thriving. “Alright.”

 There were certain lines you wouldn’t cross. Perhaps it was best to leave this particular one alone. 

 But he kept his fingers around your throat. 

 Mithrun’s expression turned slightly softer, though it was just a hint gathered from the shape of the lines between his brows and the slight flutter of his left eye. You could’ve written a book on the slight facial expressions of the ex-Dungeon Lord of the Central Observation Tower. 

 “Promise you won’t do that again.” It was technically a question, but Mithrun wasn’t asking. The Captain was commanding. 

 And as one-track minded and stubborn as you were, you were his. You tried your best to respect his set lines. 

 However, “I’ll try my best,” was all you could offer him. 

 Mithrun’s shoulders lowered, though not because he relaxed. His body arched ever so slightly as he pushed down further on your windpipe— there it was again, that pull, that ache, that burning. Consuming. What had you even done in the first place?

 He noticed, because he always noticed. He simply didn’t usually acknowledge it. His eye widened and searched your face as heat rose to your cheeks. You tilted your head back to give his hand more room. Grabbing people by the neck, using his teleportation magic to remove their heads from their bodies and replace them with stone was natural for him. And touching you, that was natural too. 

 Yet, this was one of those fine lines. As he exhaled softly and his fingers tightened, digging into your skin, your eyes fluttered. The line had been stretched again. Your muscles tensed and you couldn’t help but lift your hips. Through the layers of clothes, the room between your bodies closed and your flames brushed against him. Again, Mithrun exhaled, sharper. His head slightly dipped and his brows furrowed and his hair fell into his face. 

 You knew. 

 He slid lower until your breaths intermingled. You closed your eyes as his lips brushed against yours. It was like holding a monster back by a thin, weak leash. In seconds, it would snap. Rampage.

 With a slight lift of your hips against his, it snapped. You could practically hear the sharp crack of thread breaking away. The taut bowstring of his body released as he pressed his lips against yours. They slotted together. His teeth scraped harshly against your bottom lip and you gasped into his mouth, but he didn’t care. He never cared. He continued, holding himself up by core strength alone as his free hand went to your waist as if he wanted to pin you down to the cold stone floor. 

 You tilted your head so your noses wouldn’t bump. His breath drifted into your mouth; it was hot, but smelled like nothing. Mithrun slowed down for half a second to gently pull at your lip with his teeth, and it was as if he had pulled the rubber in your stomach too tightly, and it was snapping back with a force that wracked your body. The shiver was undeniable. His fingers on your hips dug in even tighter; he clearly wanted to pierce your skin and feel your flesh encircle him. Fingers were important, they were the parts of the body that controlled things, that reacted, that felt. He held you as if he desperately wanted to feel. 

 It hurt. 

 It would leave bruises, round, representing four fingers on your hips.

 The pain spread through you like a drop of dye in water. It branched out, reached out, ran out. It stretched to the edges and corrupted every inch of your body until you were colored Mithrun. 

 That was the line. It wanted to do more than simply bend. 

 One tendril loosened and pulled away. The frayed edges were happy to be free, to feel the air. 

 You raised your arms and wrapped them around his neck, yanking him down even closer. If it was possible to put a negative amount of centimeters between you both, you’d find some way to achieve it. In past relationships, kissing was a constant reminder to pucker, then deepen, then hold. With Mithrun, you didn’t think, you couldn’t think. It was as if he’d breathed something into you that scrambled your brain. 

 And his hand was still around your neck. 

 And his hand tightened. 

 And you let out a soft noise without deciding to do so. His left eye lowered slightly as he pulled back to look at you— admire you? Perhaps. It might not have been pure delusion on your part. 

 Another tendril of the line frayed and threatened to snap. Your abdomen pulsed. After meeting Mithrun, you started to believe that desire was a concept. After kissing Mithrun, you knew that desire was an emotion, a pulsating and raw and consuming emotion that liked to wrap its cold hands around your entire body, around your throat. Merciless. Ruthless. Apathetic to what was logical and right because desire had its goal in mind and would do anything to reach it. 

 He squeezed. You gasped. Something thrummed, threatening to break out of your skin. 

 And the fine line snapped. Pleasure mingled with its enemy: pain. Mithrun crashed his lips against yours again and you softly moaned into his mouth, helpless to his touch. For once, he put in the work. For once, he was motivated. For once, he wanted.

 It wouldn’t last, you knew. Your rightful spot in the race was clearly second, a silver medal. 

 Yet, for the moment, with the way he touched you as if he could kill you for daring to leave him…

 With the way he squeezed, with the way he bit, with the way he exhaled as if letting out years of stress—

 Your lines intersected and, for once, he was yours. 

[volkswagonblues]

here's my zamasian fic pitch if i ever write interview with the vampire RPF:

"Eric" and "Assad" make plans for a sexy rendezvous at their hotel room. As the evening progresses, it becomes increasingly clear that something is wrong with both of them: neither seems to know anything about how Wardrobe and Makeup works, or how scripts are sent out, or how TV filming schedules are made. Also the personal details are all wrong. Is it an open relationship or infidelity? Does Jo exist? And also the vampire stuff seems...maybe a little too hardcore?

And then one of them goes a bit overboard and "Assad" is like, oh my god DANIEL I prepared this scenario weeks in advance can you not LEARN your LINES. And "Eric" is like, "jesus christ ARMAND I'm trying...can you let go of the fuckass VAMPIRE THEATRE DIRECTOR for one night??"

And then it turns out that, no, actually we're inside the IWTV universe and Armand wants to do sexy roleplay stuff where he's a cute vulnerable human being seduced by his older coworker and Daniel is like, ok....but I'm not calling you Rashid.... so Armand has to invent "Assad Zaman" wholecloth but totally cut corners with this "Eric Bogosian" character so he's basically just Daniel Malloy with a career in theatre instead of journalism

[calam4r1]

I was in the middle of animating but then this one 0.5s frame looked familiar and I got sidetracked