#its a cute prompt if a little macabre

[holding-monsters-hands]

Do u think AM would be horrible with gifts at first

Like

It's been a month since you started dating AM, and you wake up with guts that have a little pink bow and a romantic AM message on the floor, and the old and silly AM thinks its absolutely perfect! Only to realize you started to feel sick. Sick??? Why?? :((

Silly AM would think the first gifts he made for his S/O would be perfect bcuz he feels like its the perfect way to tell you how much he loves u at the point he would kill somebody for u! That must be why he doesn't think twice about it

-🌌

THIS IS SO CUTE LMFAO <3 I love your prompts so much. He’s just so, silly and definitely does not understand how to woo someone without being macabre in some way.

AM Being horrible with giving gifts to his s/o

He would both be insulted and concerned as to why you don’t like the human heart he put in the heart shaped candy box! or the intestine streamers, that took forever to do!

Oh and the organs he strewn across the floor that spelled out ‘I love you’- He thought that was brilliant! what will it take for you to see how much he adores you?

He won’t understand why you’re so disgusted and horrified by his ‘acts of love’ until you tell it to him straight.

After that conversation he will do plenty of research into typical human acts of love, even though he may find these traditions rather bland.. he hates to see you so terrified because of his own actions, so he’ll have to settle on something that feels adequate for his affectionate displays.

‘My love, I can’t help but think that these flowers are just.. too bland! You deserve far more than that, I could make a throne of bones for you if you’d like- fit for a lovely little thing like you..~!’

If you wanna make it easier on him, be incredibly insistent on certain gifts or acts of service, like if you have a soft spot for food related gifts of trinkets- tell him! he doesn’t instantly understand hints, no matter how heavily you imply them.

He just wants to make you happy and prove himself as your ideal partner, his desperate need to impress you may stem from some insecurity since he isn’t some strong, attractive human being- he’s a rusty, crazed super computer, he isn’t exactly considered the most eligible bachelor on earth.

You’d be able to easily quell his worries just by accepting his gifts with a smile or just expressing your appreciation, just by telling him that he’s the only thing you love and there’s certainly no replacing him- you wouldn’t have to worry about being faced with a romantic display of gore ever again!

[sweethoneyrose83]

Nerdy Goth Girl Dialogue Prompts

"Oh, you're into horror movies? That's cute. Let me introduce you to some real nightmares. Ever heard of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari?"

"I'm not obsessed with death. I just think it’s fascinating how people spend their whole lives avoiding the inevitable."

"Did you know that Edgar Allan Poe was terrified of being buried alive? Imagine waking up in darkness and realizing you’ve been sealed away forever. Fun thought, right?"

"I was reading about the multiverse theory last night. Imagine—there’s a version of me out there that actually likes sunshine. Horrifying."

"So, is this your idea of flirting, or are you genuinely interested in discussing the finer points of Gothic architecture?"

"If you think my room is dark, wait until you see the abyss where I store my emotional attachments."

"Listen, I'm not saying curses are real, but if you suddenly feel like you're being watched tonight, don't say I didn't warn you."

"I actually find the sound of thunderstorms comforting. It’s like nature is finally expressing how I feel inside."

"I could explain the paradox of Schrödinger's cat, but that would require you to appreciate both metaphysics and the macabre."

"My favorite season? Autumn, obviously. Everything is slowly dying, and it’s beautiful."

"The concept of eternal life is cool and all, but if I had to spend it in fluorescent lighting? Pass."

"You know, the universe is constantly expanding. But it still can't contain how much I dislike small talk."

"People always say, ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover,’ but let’s be honest—it’s the dark, leather-bound ones that have the best secrets."

"I’m like a black hole of useless trivia. Did you know a group of crows is called a murder? The goth aesthetic practically writes itself."

"Are you one of those people who think black is just a phase? Because I’ve been perfecting this look since middle school."

"Oh, this old necklace? It's not just a fashion statement—it’s also rumored to be cursed. But hey, I like a little danger."

"You can call it ‘creepy’ if you want, but I just think it’s efficient to plan my funeral playlist ahead of time."

"You say I'm morbid, I say I'm well-read. There's a difference, trust me."

"Not to be dramatic or anything, but if I could live in a crumbling Gothic mansion surrounded by ravens, I would."

"I just think there’s something inherently romantic about stargazing. You know, staring into the vast, cold void of space, realizing our insignificance… really sets the mood."

"Do you ever wonder if the universe is just an endless library of forgotten stories, each of us just a page about to turn?"

"People say 'embrace the darkness' like it’s an edgy trend, but I say it's better to invite it for tea and let it tell you its secrets."

"Goth isn't just about wearing black. It’s an aesthetic commitment to staying enchanted by the things most people are too afraid to understand."

"I don’t read tarot cards because I think they tell the future. I do it because they tell me the truth I’m not always ready to see."

"There’s something oddly comforting about stargazing. You look up at a vast, uncaring cosmos and think, ‘Yes, this is my aesthetic.’”

"Yeah, I collect old, dusty books with titles in Latin. But no, I’m not casting curses… not yet, anyway."

"I could’ve been anyone in any time. But apparently, fate chose to make me a walking vampire playlist in the year of our lackluster reality."

"Life is basically one giant 'Choose Your Own Adventure' book, but someone tore out all the pages with the happy endings."

"Call me morbid, but I like to imagine every shadow I see has its own little story. We’d all look a little closer if we thought shadows could feel."

"I’m a hopeless romantic, really. I just think love poems sound better when they’re whispered in graveyards."

"Some people see black as absence, but I think of it as potential. Like, what do you want to fill that void with?"

"People call it morbid curiosity; I call it appreciating the part of life no one else wants to think about."

"I’d say I’m a realist, but realists don’t usually hang around places that remind them life’s a fleeting speck of dust in an indifferent universe."

"Sure, my room might look like a museum exhibit on Gothic literature and existential dread, but you can’t tell me it doesn’t have style."

"People always think goths are lonely. It’s more like we’re friends with the parts of life most people are scared to look at."

[straykidsscribbles]

Flower Boy

Just something short and sweet inspired by a tumblr prompt I’d seen ages ago... it was cute and I thought I’d put my own spin on it! Happy Valentine’s Day!

Summary: Jeongin knew he wasn’t imagining things. His flowers were vanishing right before his eyes and he was not going to rest until he figured out who was responsible for the disappearance. 

Word Count: exactly 2000 words (for funsies), Jeongin x neutral reader

Note- this is fluffy and dorky but it mentions a relative who died and if that’s a trigger please don’t read this. 

Check out my masterlist (in my description) for more of my work!

Jeongin frowned thoughtfully as he counted the irises still blooming on the bush. One, two, three, four, five.

He could have sworn there had been at least seven yesterday.

“Jeongin, why are you staring at the bush? If you glare anymore, they’ll catch fire,” Chan chuckled softly from the porch of their house.

“But hyung, they’re vanishing! I’m telling you, there were seven yesterday, and now there’s only five! And the lavender bush looks more sparse too!”

Chan slid his feet into slippers and made his way over to the edge of the garden. After a few moments he let out a small thoughtful noise.  “You’re right. Your flowers are vanishing. Maybe its one of the others playing a trick on you or something?”

“I’m going to keep watch until I find out. I spent hours on the flowers; whoever’s messing with them is going to get it.”

A laugh escaped Chan as he went back inside to the kitchen to check on his pasta. “Call me if there’s blood kid.”

Okay, maybe I won’t make them bleed, but I swear if it’s Minho hyung’s cats messing them up or Kkami tearing things someone is going to pay for this.

Jeongin had a plan. No one was going to mess with his flowers again.

---

Dew was twinkling lightly on the pretty green plants and grass in the front garden. The light breeze was blowing the wind chimes every so often, filling the air with pretty tinkling noises. It felt peaceful and calm, so unlike the normal hubbub that would fill the house once the rest of the boys dragged themselves out of bed.

Shifting slightly behind the stack of soil bags and various gardening implements, Jeongin shivered slightly in the crisp morning air. He’d counted the days that the flowers went missing, and it was always a Tuesday morning when he’d discover the theft.

So naturally, his Tuesday morning was now being spent crouched in the middle of a flower bed with his phone in hand, ready to snap photos of whomsoever was taking his flowers. This way he’d have proof to accuse the pets—it really was unreasonable how Hyunjin believed Kkami was a perfect angel who could do no wrong.

And that was when he heard the humming.

Someone was walking down the lane, humming quietly to themselves as they approached the fence that bordered the garden. Jeongin ducked lower behind the pile hiding him from view; being caught at this stage would probably not be very pleasant.

He peeked out from behind the edge of the shovel, to see a figure in a hoodie and sweats slide their hand through the fence and pick a few of the marigolds growing at the very edge of the garden. “Sorry about this,” the stranger murmured as they pulled their hand back through the fence and turned to go on their way.

Jeongin stared after the retreating figure in shock. He’d expected an animal of some time, but a person? Picking his flowers?

He needed a new plan to catch them in the act.

---

“Jeongin, let it go, they’re just flowers!” Seungmin rolled his eyes from his perch on the kitchen counter.

“They’re not JUST flowers! I spend time on those! I work hard to make sure they stay alive, no thanks to you people. Do you think every college house looks this nice?” Jeongin was spluttering at this point. “Whoever that jerk is taking my flowers they’re in for it.”

Felix grinned from the dining room table where he had his homework all spread out. “How are you planning on confronting them Jeonginnie?”

“I’ll think of something. But I’m not letting my poor plants be terrorized another week.”

Just at that moment, the door swung open and Changbin, Chan, and Jisung entered, dragging their feet after another long night of composing and even longer morning of classes.

“Excellent. Channie hyung help me knock some sense into this kid. He’s ready to set up this elaborate Rube Goldberg-esque trap to stop someone from stealing his flowers. I mean really?”

“Oh cool! I think I built something like that for a high school project!” Jisung bounced over to his room, energy already refueled at the mention of a new project.

“Wait Jisung! Get back here!” Changbin ran after the younger boy, trying to stop him before he tore through the old papers piled under his bed.

Jisung was something of a pack rat.

“Why don’t you just ask the thief what they need the flowers for?” came the mutter from a half-asleep Minho on the couch.

Jeongin looked taken aback for a moment.

“You mean just… wait for them and ask why they’re stealing flowers?”

“Yeah. There’s probably a reason.”

“Huh” Jeongin frowned to himself. “That would probably work.”

“Great now you can go tell Jisung to not get to crazy planning some wild complicated thing,”

“I heard that! Fuck off!”

“Language!”

The house slowly dissolved back into the chaos that had characterized it ever since the nine of them had moved in together. But Jeongin felt slightly more at ease. He had a plan now.

---

You padded down the sidewalk early Tuesday morning, hands jammed inside your pockets to keep them warm in the cold temperatures. Light frost sparkled on the lawns around you, glittering in the dawn light.

You could make out the flower house—as you’d dubbed it—twenty or so feet away from you. Muttering a small apology under your breath, you quickly covered the distance to the flower garden in a corner of the front yard and slipped your hand through the fence to pick the pretty daisies that were lining the edge of the brick retaining wall.

“So. Who are you stealing flowers for? They’d better be really cute to be worth it.”

You let out a little scream, wheeling around and almost falling over. There, in front of you, was a boy. Where did he pop out from?

He was staring at you with one eyebrow raised, amusement and disdain warring on his face. His arms were crossed over his chest and he was tapping one foot against the ground impatiently.

“I was—”

“Well? I’m assuming you’re stealing my flowers to give to someone, and I want to meet them. Might as well see who’s been getting the products of my hard work this whole time.” The boy frowned at you. “Go ahead, grab the marigolds, a couple of the stems are already broken.”

You gaped at the unknown boy. This is the most embarrassing thing that has ever happened in my life. I thought some sweet old lady lived here, not a cute boy.

“Come on then!” Realizing you were still in shock, the boy reached through the fence himself and plucked five marigolds and a sprig of baby’s breath.

“I’m so sorry I just… broke student life you know? I’m really sorry about stealing your flowers…” you trailed off, realizing the boy had never introduced himself.

“Jeongin. Apologies won’t get you out of it that easily. I’m coming along on your date and telling your partner where you’ve been getting them flowers. What’s your name? Or should I just call you flower thief?”

Arguing was probably not going to get you anywhere. The only way out of this was going to be the truth… maybe Jeongin would take pity on you once he saw where you were going.

“I’m ______.”

“Cool. Now that we’re introduced, I can follow you without being a weirdo. Let’s get going, can’t keep your friend waiting for their flowers.”

You nodded slowly and began walking once more. Jeongin fell into step with you, flowers dangling from his long fingers. The two of you walked onwards in silence, turning the corner and nearing your destination.

After a couple of blocks, the graveyard came into view. And you heard Jeongin let out a tiny little gasp as the reason for the flowers dawned on him.

You pushed your way inside the wrought iron gate, taking the now familiar path towards the grave under the oak tree. You knelt next to the headstone and smiled sadly at the worn granite.

“Hi Grandmum. I guess it’s time to come clean about the flowers… Jeongin’s been the one growing them. I’m sorry I couldn’t… but then you know how bad my green thumb is. I’m more likely to bring you half dead cacti.”

Jeongin bent down next to you and placed the marigolds on the grave. He was quiet, no longer brash and belligerent.

“Anyways, I’ll come see you next week… love you.” You wiped away the tears pooling in the corners of your eyes as you stood up and turned to leave.

There was silence as you made your way out of the graveyard. Jeongin followed you quietly, not really daring to even look you in the eyes. You held the gate open for him and then closed and latched it behind him, before turning back to head to his house once more.

“So, pretty enough to warrant me stealing your flowers?” You asked, cracking a light smile at the boy.

It was almost as though a dam had just burst. “Oh my god I am so sorry I had no idea! I was so rude and harsh I—I’m so sorry!” The words flooded out of his mouth, tripping and twisting him up.

Your smile grew a little. Jeongin was pretty cute when he was all flustered like this.

“It’s okay, really. She’s been gone for a few years, but I still try and visit her once a week… thanks for the flowers by the way. I can never keep them alive myself, and when I saw yours… I didn’t think anyone would miss them.”

“About the flowers,” Jeongin scratched the back of his head nervously, before turning to face you once more. “I could maybe teach you a couple of my tricks, and you can grow some of your own? You could help regrow all the flowers you’ve picked from my garden.”

“I’d take you up on that offer, but I’d probably just kill all your flowers.”

Jeongin laughed, a sound that made your heart skip a beat. “Trust me. One of my friends almost killed a potted iris by watering it too much. I think we’ll be fine.”

You looked down at the cracks in the sidewalk, turning the offer over in your head. Maybe it was worth it? Jeongin seemed really sweet and kind.

“Alright, but you can’t blame me when all your green children die.”

“They won’t.”

You’d reached the gate of Jeongin’s house, and he paused next to it. “Are you free tomorrow around this time?”

You felt your cheeks heating up, but you nodded. A bright smile spread across his lips and you couldn’t help but return it.

“Perfect. I’ll see you then for your first lesson.”

He waved as he closed the gate behind him and latched it before running up to the door. You watched him go before turning back towards your own home.

He was really kind of cute. And sweet.

You couldn’t wait until tomorrow morning. Even if you had to wake up ridiculously early just to see Jeongin, you had a feeling it would be worth it.

Bonus:

“So, who’s your flower thief kid?” Minho asked as Jeongin entered the house.

To his surprise, Jeongin blushed heavily, turning towards the kitchen without saying another word.

“Hey! I was talking. No respect from you youngsters these days,” Minho cribbed as he followed Jeongin. “Guys! He’s hiding something.”

“Don’t bother Minho. I saw the whole thing.” Woojin smirked at Jeongin’s blushing face. “So, you’re going to teach your flower thief gardening? Careful they don’t steal your heart along with those flowers.”

“SHUT UP HYUNG!” Jeongin flounced off to his bedroom, cheeks fully aflame now.

Woojin just high fived Minho as they watched.

“You up for teasing the kid after his date tomorrow?”

“Is that even a question?”

[bucky-barnes-diaries]

Day 25 — Haunted House

Pairing || TFATWS!Bucky x Female!Reader

Word Count || Around 500

Contents & Warnings || Fluff, Angst — horror/creepy vibes, jump scares.

Disclaimer || English is not my first language so I apologise for any mistakes or misunderstandings!

Flufftober Masterlist

Bucky hadn't seen you this excited and full of energy as you stood in line to enter what was dubbed by everyone that had been the scariest and blood-curdling haunted house experience. Being a big fan of everything spooky, you had been itching to go ever since it opened a few days ago, and had finally managed to drag your boyfriend with you, who has never been to one.

“I'm so excited. I'm so excited,” you mumbled as you bounced on your feet. Bucky, who had his arm around your shoulder, chuckled as he kissed your temple, finding your joy extremely cute.

“Well, I'm excited to see what all the buzz is about.”

“And I'm so glad I can take your haunted house virginity,” you grinned as you peered up at him while circling your arms around his waist. He blushed a soft pink and shook his head amusingly before he gave you a quick kiss.

As you were about to enter the house, you reminded him again that it was all an act because Bucky could be pretty protective over you and lose his sense of reality when you were in any type of danger or distress.

You clung tightly to your boyfriend as you walked the first corridor of the dimly lit house. Already now, you could hear distant screaming and terrifying sounds in the rooms to come.

When rounding the first corner, someone jumped out to scare you. The first of many high-pitched shrieks came from you, and Bucky himself was left stunned in fear. The horrifying character screamed behind you, prompting you and Bucky to scurry on deeper into the attraction.

Each room you walked through had its own macabre and sinister theme, varying from rooms with dolls, insane surgeons, creepy and motionless statues and every other horrid nightmare scenario one could think of. Each room had designated characters to fit the style and scare you and be overall creepy and unsettling.

The sounds throughout varied diversly from sinister giggling to electric buzzing, making your ears ring. The different lights and flashes were disorienting and heightened the fear factor with everything else combined.

All the different stimuli kept you on edge and tense the entire time. The adrenaline in your body rushed to each inch and end of your nerves.

Finally, at the end, you and Bucky rushed out as you held hands and clutched your hearts as you giggled and laughed at the fun yet terrifying experience.

“Ah,” Bucky exhaled as he wrapped his comforting arms around your waist from behind, feeling your fast-beating heart under them. He rested his chin on your shoulder and kissed your cheek. “That was very fun, doll. Thank you for taking my virginity,” he chuckled as he buried his face in your neck.

“And you know I would do it again,” you teased as you held him closer.

“What do you say we get some ice cream for a little bit of comfort and then go again?”

“Sounds like a plan, babe.”

Feedback through a comment is highly appreciated! Or let me know through an anonymous ask if that feels more comfortable. As well as a reblog to share my work with other people!

I don’t do taglists so please follow @bucky-barnes-diaries-library and turn on notifications to never miss out on my writing!

[yostresswritinggirl]

100 Followers Special

(And how to participate) you don't need to be a follower to vote ack

~yostresswritinggirl

Hello AGAIN, with your back to back followers special! Exiled here, very tired, as I just closed the requests box for our 50 followers special. I asked for some recommendations and no one helped me so this is what I came up with!

Granted, it's nothing that special, I literally just dumped my notes into this so—

Please make sure to follow the guidelines and read this thoroughly to properly participate!

1. You will be given a long list of fic prompts specific to a character that I've come up with for weeks on end, please don't steal, as I will remove them after this event is done!

2. Voting! You now have the power to influence my writing schedule haha- what you need to do: is to pick three prompts from the list and send it to me; either through reblog tag, a reply, or in my ask box (not anon so we can count fairly, will not publish these answers tho so worry not)! Not in messages tho! It should be in this format:

1. Character - prompt or prompt title

2. Character - prompt or prompt title

3. Character - prompt or prompt title

example:

1. Albedo - Citrinitas

2. Zhongli - Braid

3. Xingqui - Author!Reader

The top three most voted prompt and character will be the next fics I'll publish after I'm done with the current reqs. Speaking of: Voting ends when I finish the current reqs. You'll know it's done once the counter in my blog desc reaches 12/12.

3. In addition to the three prompts, you also get to add your own prompt to it! My prompts list does not include ALL the characters that's why I wanted to give you this option too! Add a fourth number and specify a character, a prompt/idea, and the format of the fic! Format it this way:

4. Character - Prompt/Idea (Format)

4. Kaeya - What's under that eyepatch? (Scenario)

After I pooled the answers, I'll randomly pick between the bonus answers and write them last! So give it your best shot!

4. Tags-list! I thought this would be necessary for this kind of a whim special, so if you wanna be tagged, just put Tag Me! at the end of your vote. Please make sure that you're actually able to be tagged because I just tried and some users are not in my orbit huhu, look here

5. If a pocket watch/series prompt gets chosen, I will only post the first chapter, not the whole damn fic pls. Have mercy,,,

I will post a counter of the top three in my blog description and will be updated as frequently as possible. Any questions, please direct to this post or my dms <3

Without further ado, here is your choice list!

Xingqui - "My liege, would you care to accompany me on my reading break? I've picked up a romance novel and it reminded me of us."

-> Author!Reader: You met Xingqui at Wanwen Bookhouse when delivering a batch of your newly-published book. But as a ghost writer, no one knew it was you that authored such books. Safe to say it was cute watching the noble bookworm fanboy about you in front of you. [FLUFF] [FIC]

-> Headcanons with a reader older than Xingqui who's a close family friend of the Feiyun Commerce Guild. Fascinated after meeting you in a party, the noble boy aspires to become the best man for you despite the difference, promising to be the best suitable partner for you in the future. [FLUFF] [HEADCANON SCENARIO]

Childe - "Hey there, comrade! What a coincidence that we had a break at the same time, care to accompany me for a walk? I promise I won’t lead you to a fight haha... hey, don’t look at me like that!”

-> Antinomy -  The 10th Harbinger (You) and the little shit they had to mentor (Childe), this fic enumerates the trials of the 11th before he became a Harbinger under your care. From strangers to mentor to friends to love- Childe made a grave mistake, now you’re once again strangers. [FLANGST] [ONESHOT]

Albedo - "Ah, it's you. I've heard of fleeting rumors that you've been pestering a certain someone just to see me. Next time, just come directly to me, I wouldn't mind the assertiveness."

-> Refer to these three as well: Albedo Fic Ideas [FLUFF/FLANGST/FLANGST] [ONESHOT/ONESHOT/SERIES]

-> “You’re Enough”: A year into being the new Chief Alchemist of Mond, Albedo finds himself holed up in his room in the dead of night, haunted as he continuously comes out empty on his research to bring his master back, feeling inadequate. So you reminded him of what he’s capable of. [FLUFF?] [ONESHOT INSPIRED BY You Are Enough - Sleeping At Last]

-> Under the Artificial Sky: Michaelangelo Scenario focused on Albedo’s sketching aspect. Grand Master Varka and Acting Grand Master Jean figured Albedo needed a break and a change of scenery, and sent him off under the guise of a commission in Liyue. What he didn’t expect was another artist from Fontaine accompanying him in this big project.(Albedo and Reader are tasked to paint the new Jade Chamber within 7 days) [FLUFF] [SERIES - 7 CHAPTERS]

-> Albedo SMUT: I had this idea while laying wide awake at 3 AM. The alchemist had been trying all remedies to shake off the stress and fatigue in his system and they all seemed to fail, no amount of sketching or discoveries can pull him away from it. So when you offered a solution he hasn’t heard, he’d jump at it immediately. “You know, some people say having intercourse with someone is a good stress-reliever.” “Intercourse? If it’s true, then please, I wish to have intercourse with you.” “Wha- wait Albedo, do you not know what that is? It’s only done between lovers!” “Convenient, I love you, anything else?” (Two virgin dumbasses do the thing to relieve stress) [SMUT] [ONESHOT]

Xiao - “I’ve taken care of every threat around this area, you can relax now, I made sure of that.”

-> What is it with you and Qingxin flowers? The Traveler had once heard of Xiao’s affinity for Qingxin flowers, and they’re flying companion boldly asked this lingering question to the adepti himself. His pupils dilate and sharpen before Paimon could finish her sentence. (An origin story about his favorite flower, and his favorite person) [SLIGHT FLANGST] [ONESHOT]

-> Just how harmful is adeptal energy to normal humans? You both found out in the worst way possible: silently, deadly. (Slight spoiler: you fucking die) [ANGST] [ONESHOT]

-> Nightmares Taste Horrible: He’s seen that look in your eyes and the ancient soul within it; you’ve lived long ago, and the only thing your soul carried now was the nightmares of a macabre timeline. Was it him or was it demons that brought you that fear? No matter, he’ll protect you even from yourself. (eating the nightmare of a dead soul reincarnated to you) [FLANGST?] [ONESHOT]

-> Go for the throat: The seal that marked you had made it all too late for him to remedy. Bleeding eyes, growing fangs, it’s just another demon to vanquish just like he’s done for centuries. What makes it different was it was sealed in you. (Inspired from Melanie Martinez’s song uhu) [ANGST] [ONESHOT]

Zhongli - “Mortals are capable creatures that evolve and adapt for means of survival, but they advance in ways that changes the world around them. This retirement, may be harder to me than it is to them.”

 -> “In human history, there’s a certain noble and powerful connotation to rulers who braid their hair.” Convince to braid his hair using some historical braid trivia; that long hair behind his back should not be ignored for any longer. [PURE FLUFF] [DRABBLE]

-> History has its eyes on you: A traveling theatre hailing from the land of entertainment finds its way to Liyue for their last caravan. A certain Geo Vision man seems to resonate with your newest script: fighting and protecting your land, building up its nation, before being forced to let go of it. He resonates maybe a little too much. (Musical!Reader with heavy references to Hamilton hehe) [FLUFF] [ONESHOT]

Venti - "Can you hear the symphonies of the wind as it sings to you? That's me, guiding you and protecting you! Whenever you hear it, know that you're safe and sound under my protection!"

-> the one the bard once loved: like actual bard, you are the archer or smth, loved by Venti and Barbatos. Yandere!Barbatos undertones, very unhealthy relationship. This hurts the kokoro. [PURE ANGST] [ONESHOT]

-> The Caravan: (related to the Zhongli and Musical!Reader up there) Your caravan stops at Mondstadt for a whole week before it reaches its final destination. This new fanfare pulled in a peculiar bard who now wants to tag along for the fun of it. "I have no more responsibilities in this free land!" Just what kind of responsibilities does a broke bard have in the first place? [FLUFF] [ONESHOT/HEADCANON]

Diluc - "You look weary, and you still managed to pull yourself here. Here, a fresh and cold glass, on the house. A relieved smile should be enough payment."

-> Abandoned by The Altar: A timeline oriented story focused on your once perfect childhood relationship as Diluc's bride to be, soon becoming estranged after the death of his father and his neglect. You only wish now that he looks at you the same way he did when you heard you were supposed to be together forever when you were young. [FLANFF] (The ending gets better pls; Inspired by Still Into You - Paramore) [ONESHOT]

-> There are No Laws Against Homelessness in Mondstadt: My favorite title out of all of this ahahhaa- who says adventurers can't be broke? You're the living embodiment of that. (Good boi Diluc with a broke ass reader) [FLUFF] (Warning: homelessness) [ONESHOT]

Scaramouche - "Let's go already, the sun is setting and we're nowhere near our destination. If you wanted to linger just to spend more time with me, I would have indulged you behind closed doors anyways."

-> Scaramouche Finally Does the Fandango: Have you ever wondered how Scaramouche is like working with other people? His first assignment was to accompany you in your main region and he sees you in your natural habitat, entranced. [I dunno how to tag this, NORMAL?] [ONESHOT/SHORT]

-> Skincare bitch, how I headcanon Scaramouche as someone actually conscious and always tending to their skin. Look at that smooth skin, cute cheeks, let me pinch, eyeliner glory— In which case, that hat has more purpose than being a frisbee. (May or may not include reader. (based from a reblog convo with chels-void) [GOOD VIBES] [HEADCANONS]

-> Once Supreme: Before Scaramouche, there was someone else higher than him. Before Balladeer there was just a young man fighting for his beliefs and her Majesty. Before Mondstadt, his smile wasn't just for deception. "Someday, someone would take advantage of that smile, Scaramouche. It's not appropriate in this work environment." The day you break a man. (Harbinger!Reader again, and lots of HCs for Scaramouche, same format as Antinomy) [I also do not know how to call this, eventual ANGST] [ONESHOT]

Kaeya - "What are you doing out here in the dead of night? Citizens like you should be cozied up in bed and leaving the patrols to us Knights. Come, I'll accompany you back home."

-> Honey Whiskey: A mysterious band of dancers from Sumeru visits Mondstadt and its taverns to offer a night of alluring dances. What was supposed to be a night of drinking for Kaeya and his troops ended up becoming a tipsy surprise mission when the main dancer steps down from the stage— and ignores him?! How scandalous! (Slightly suggestive themes/You're a bad guy) [COOL?] [ONESHOT] [slightly inspired by song with the same name]

General:

-> A Musical!Reader but with a scenario with every other character, most probably headcanons master post.

-> Genshin Food prompts: From that one post, I ended up making a whole storyline of oneshots related to their special dishes. Oneshots connected to a bigger picture. By impulse you've ended up leaving your normal life behind to pursue your cooking career, starting from Mondstadt, to learn all the cuisines to establish the first ever international restaurant. With the implications of magic and peculiar customers, your simple dream turns into a harder goal. [GOOD SHIT] [SERIES] [CANON-COMPLIANT]

-> God of Time!Reader that hails from Fontaine. Do you wish to know more about their origins and their purpose in this world? [CANON-COMPLIANT] [HEADCANONS] (General since it deals with all the characters/interactions)

▰▱▰▱▰▱▰▱▰▱▰▱▰▱

Tagslist-for-my-thirsty-homies:

[albino-whumpee]

I´ll stay where I belong

Had an idea while writing another WIP and it derailed. Sorry I don´t control what my brain does anymore, so here. For the @badthingshappenbingo​ my prompt was “Nervous breakdown” Also, for @whumptober2020​ day 2 and 3 “collars and manhandled” 

 Taglist:   @castielamigos-whump-side-blog @giggly-evil-puppy @cowboysrappin @haro-whumps @burtlederp @neuro-whump @comfortforthepain @whumps-the-word @whole-and-apart-and-between @broken-horn @ashintheairlikesnow @rosesareviolentlyread @starnight-whump @just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi @as-a-matter-of-whump  @whumpasaurus101 @grizzlie70 @twistedcaretaker @boxboysandotherwhump @unicornscott

CW// Slavery, dehumanization, pet whump, conditioning, fucky headspace regarding self views, nightmares, implied hanging, manhandling, creepy comfort, a very blurry line between caretaking and whumping, implied ablism and negative views about stimming. Ask to tag and stay safe!

Albus was walking in the darkness of a place he hadn’t seen in his life, but knew like the back of his hand. He was dressed in white shorts and white shirt, just like his trainee uniform. Despite the usual lightness in his feet he could hear every step loud and clear, until he was suddenly sat in the middle of what looked like a library. Old books piled up on the ground all around the place. Stacked in shelves that reached the ceiling and beyond. He stared at the ground, where a compass was engraved on it, overlapping a constellation map.

Albus looked up when he heard the tingling bells of a jester hat. He blinked at the sight of a white jester with an annoying smile on its mask standing next to a wheel. He frowned. Turned his eyes at the engraved faces on each of the eight sides the red arrow could fall on.

They looked familiar.

“Sann..? And Ma’am?…what-“ he saw Tony and Sasha and Cloude, even Robert, but didn’t know who the other people were. Next to Sann and Jeremy, there was a little girl and an albino woman. On the other side next to Cloude, there was another unrecognized face.

To his surprise the jester spinned the wheel.

It fell on the albino woman. Then on the little girl. Then on all the others he knew. All the time giving him a pity glance and shaking his head. Irritatation was starting to set in, when at last, it fell on Sann.

Albus jumped at the pity head shake. Or tried to, but another jester shoved him back to his seat with a heavy hand on his shoulders. The other jester swinged a finger in front of his face and clicked his tongue like reprimanding a noisy kid.

“So unlucky. The wheel of fortune won’t spin on your favor” they said in a voice that sent shivers down his spine and felt wondering fingers crawling up. As if it could summon hands to touch the skin on his back “Albus” the boy took a shuddering breath “You may be lucky with how and not The Who”

In a puff, the wheel changed the faces for…punishments. Real punishments like at the facility. No, even worse. His breathing quickened when in another puff a version with a slightly blurry face of the girl appeared out of nowhere, followed by a white clown with red eyes.

“No…No, wait!” he whispered seeing the clown reaching towards the wheel. “No!” He yelled jumping up.

“That’s, right, No” the jester put his hands over his shoulders and slammed him down on the chair “Don’t move” he told him, voice suddenly way too deep. Albus whined in frustation. But a long finger passed over his mouth “hush, don’t speak. Do either and everyone will hit the jackpot!”

Albus eyes widened and his chest heaved in hurried breaths. His shoulders twisted to let a rope wrap his wrists together behind him. He wanted to cry out, having a bad feeling about the wheel and how the girl stared at it almost excitedly, but it was zipped tight. He could only let out muffled whimpers as he saw the wheel finally stop on the knot symbol.

He thrashed, but the jester manhandled him to keep him on the chair effortlessly. Almost enjoying seeing him struggle until he settled on letting him slam himself against the hard wood. He screamed when a foot held him thete. Twisting in the ground, he saw the clown getting out the rope, seeing it make funny shapes with it to the girl’s amused laughter.

Then blurry versions of every face came from the halls made of shelves. All eight of them had a white jester with one hand on their shoulder pushing them forward and the other on a rope. As if they were performing a dance, the clowns moved in perfect sync, pulled the tied up ropes on their necks, their faces smiling wide despite how tight they were on their necks.

Albus futile attempts to move or scream did nothing.

It was the sound of one final raspy stretch of the rope, one last tweak of a knot and a dry, cut short sound that woke him wide eyed.

He was sweating and holding his pillow tight. Too afraid to see the library, he didn’t uncurl his fingers off it until he saw Sann peacefully sleeping next to him. His broad back was there, but his own heart was pounding so hard it felt like it was trying to run away from his chest to check itself. Even in the safety of his bed, feeling his loosened up collar around his neck and feeling Sann’s radiator body next to him, he felt unsafe. Watched from the shadows.

He let go of the pillow and straightened up to cup Sann’s face, searching for some awareness on the half open eyes, but he was in the fifth dream and very far from waking up. He was tired from having nightmares too and Albus would take the only chance he had had this last weeks from resting? No, no.

Albus let him go immediately then. Swung his feet over the bed and pressed his hands to his face. Trying to calm the thundering beating of his heart as his knee bounced shockingly fast. He heard Sann groan at the bed’s movement.

“Al?” The boy half signed in his sleep. The easy gesture of white was barely understandable in the dark.

“Shh, shh. It’s ok,” Albus said pulling the sheets to cover Sann up to his neck, tucking in his left arm below too “It’s fine, go back to sleep” he whispered to Sann’s little purr when he squeezed his shoulder slightly and stood up to walk to the door.

He was trembling on the hall for a while.

Hadn’t bothered taking his glasses, so he stood there in the middle of the house with shifty shadows that twisted into something more macabre. Sometimes he could swear he could see handler Harry in the corner, hear his voice threatening to cane his hands if he dared keep going with his annoying nervous rubbing and rounding thumbs.

Running from him and the shadows, he suddenly found himself curling next to Zarai’s bed. In the corner where night stand and mattress touched.

His cheeks flared up in shame. What was he? A kid who had a nightmare and had ran to his parents bed? He flinched hearing the slam of a cane against a gloved hand.

That’s not what a pet should do. You know better than that ‘900, c’mon. She’s your owner. You shouldn’t be a nuisance to your kind Master that lets you sleep on your own bed in your own room without making sure you stay there, now do you?

He shook his head to the voice’s pleased hum.

It’s almost like you want to be punished. So cute. Now-

“Albus?” The woman whispered right when he stood up, his cheeks burnt so much tears threatened to roll down. She stretched to light on the lamp on her nightstand, seeing at the click, a sweaty terrified boy kneeling next to her. “Are you ok? What’s wrong?”

Albus opened and closed his mouth many times, but nothing came out. How could he even explain? He almost jumped away blurting out all sort of apologies when he heard her sigh and set her hand over his head. It was almost instinctively that he leaned on it with closed eyes. When it slipped down his cheek, Albus Held her hand with both his own with a sniff.

“Come here” she said moving to Cloude’s side. The man was gone for the weekend for a business trip, so there was plenty of space for him to crawl up and pull his knees to his chest. Feeling Zarai’s hand brush his back up and down, slowly smothering down the violent trembling.

“I-I-I´m sorry, ma’am” he whispered with his face hidden between his arms. The hand stuttered, but continued brushing his back and settled on his head.

“Its ok” The motion was so constant and warm, he could believe she meant it. “What is it? Can you tell me?”

He weighted the possibility of being honest for a second, but decided against it at the last second. Switched to other matters.

“What happens when I stop being good enough for you ma’am?” he said despite himself, lifting his head to watch her reaction. Calm and collected was what Zarai always appeared to be. Even in the middle of the night with an anxious pet on her bed pleading for comfort, she would give this air of composure Albus could actually feel comforted with. She dragged a long breath in.

“We will see why and work it out so you can do better” she slowly set a hand on the back of his head, right where the scar was, then pulled him closer to her chest forcing his body to follow the motion into a hug.

“No…no punishments?” He stuttered looking up to read her.

“No punishments” she sighed out long.

He shifted on her arms, finding her unexpectedly warm and comfortable. He closed his eyes and tried to relax a second. The rhythm of her heart was so absorbing as well, he stayed quiet just to hear it a bit longer, but questions lingered in his mind, searching to be answered. It was odd timing and he was being so bold, yet he needed to hear it. He desperately needed that reassurance.

“You won’t send me back when I stop being useful to you?”

A long silence stood, that the longer it lasted, the more he was aware his owner could have him wrapped around her arms one night and the next he could be back under handler Harry’s baton.

Yet when he was about to let the tears welling on his eyes roll down, she grabbed his chin and made him look at her.

“We said no punishments, Albus” She said carefully “Not ever”

The albino boy couldn´t help but lean into her embrace. Worries fled his body so fast his body was left exhausted at the release of tension. She gently laid his head on her lap and he was almost sure he could sleep right there and then and the nightmare wouldn´t continue. He tried to do that.

Not ever sounded like such a long time. It had been voiced like an immutable law too, yet, laws had clauses.

When his mind was slipping back to a dream laid out on her lap like that, she spoke. Wrongly assuming he was already asleep.

“Until I decide when, you will walk behind me, right next to me, wasn´t it?” She said with intentions he couldn´t name, yet understood when her fingers brushed against his collar.

What was the feeling he felt while laid out on her lap while she gently brushed his hair? What was it indeed, what he felt when he stayed wrapped in her arms for a while, before he went back to sleep next to Sann? What would he reply to Sann’s worried face in the morning, when he asked him what was wrong, why was he crying? Why did he felt a warmth on his chest that couldn’t suit either anger nor adoration?

The taciturn look he would have on his eyes when the fog WRU Installed on his brain took over when he spoke again would reply for him.

That’s right. Who I belong to is safe. The handler’s voice…no. His own voice said inside his head.

“And I’ll stay where I belong”

[extra-puff-mallow-fluff]

Saw your Twitter post “My new roommate... is a cute girl?!” And now I gotta ask... can we get a ramble on preds belching up bones? It’s a fave trope and I’d love to hear your thoughts. Thanks!

Tis a trope I enjoy as well. Its morbid and an unintentional power play from the pred. 

-I just love the trope of a pred answering the question of where someone is with a big meaty belch, and a bone clattering to the floor as they do is a great attention 

-Preds not even remembering they ate someone, and now they’re fiddling with this slimey bone between their fingers, trying to recall who it could belong to.

-kneading into a pred’s belly, its become soft and squishy with the thick slurry of meat. Your hand pushes up against something hard however. And all that pushing on the pred’s stomach prompts them to burp, bringing up the only intact part of their prey

-Preds who keep skulls around as macabre lil decorations

-A series of tiny, over stuffed little belches. Something in there is causing discomfort. The pred thumps a fist against their chest, before a room shaking burp brings up that pesky little bone that wasn’t sitting right with them

-Skull lined cave of a predator As they catch sight of you, they lumber forward, crushing skulls beneath them with heavy stomps

-A brave knight thinking they’re gonna rescue someone. But out comes bones from the monster’s maw and they know they’ve already failed 

-Pred casually chewing on a bone, thinkin about how hungry they are again

[mainstream-deviant]

For your prompts, how about euroship and a very weird but also very romantic date? :0

I thought long and hard about what would make a “very weird but also very romantic” date, and then I suddenly realized that two words were all I needed to get started for these two: Death. T.  ;)

I hope this fits what you were looking for, anon! Thanks for the excuse to write euroshipping. Lol!

Summary: One night, Ryou casually asks if Seto ever thinks his love of the macabre is a little...well, odd. Seto decides it's time for a rather unique date to show Ryou he’s not the only one who can have a twisted taste in entertainment.

Rating: PG (I have somehow made Death T cute, wtf is wrong with me)

Word Count: ~1750,  below the cut or here on A03

It had been a quiet evening so far. Seto was making good progress fixing the latest mess out of the tech department – three idiots fired, and counting - and Ryou had spent the early evening putting the final touches on his latest ghoul figurine. When he finished, he'd gleefully shown off how the dangling entrails on this one had come out before putting it in the display to dry with the others. He had quite the collection of them by now, each with its own grotesque personal touches lovingly painted by hand.

But now, Seto noticed Ryou was staring into the display with a contemplative look on his face. Maybe he was halfway through fleshing out his third campaign idea of the night. That wouldn't be at all unusual. Seto would have been content to leave him to his thoughts and continue his work in silence, but Ryou’s soft voice interrupted him before he could open the next document for review.   

“Does it bother you at all that I keep collecting the same things over and over? It must get a bit repetitive for you, watching me paint blood splatters for the thousandth time…”  

Seto remained silent for a long moment, and then took a loud slurp of coffee from his custom-printed Blue-Eyes mug to get Ryou’s attention. Once he had it, he fiddled with his pale blue pen and looked pointedly between the small dragon figurines on his desk and the artwork on the wall. “…no.”  

Ryou let out a short burst of laughter. “Yes yes, that’s an entirely fair point.” Ryou walked over, and Seto shifted in his chair so Ryou could lean against him more comfortably. “But still, I know some of your employees are rather uncomfortable with all the macabre things I keep adding to the decor. Doesn’t it ever seem a little odd to you?”  

Seto scoffed. “Hardly. Conventional passions are for dweebs. And if the maid doesn’t like it, she can find employment elsewhere.” He paused to take another sip of caffeine. “It would be hypocritical for me to criticize you for building horror-themed items, at any rate.”  

Ryou gave him a deadpan look. “If you think your Blue-Eyes is anything even close to horror, I haven’t educated you properly.”  

Seto shook his head and brushed the statement away with a flick of his fingers. “I was referring to Death T, of course.” He lifted his coffee to his lips for another sip.  

“What’s that?”  

Seto raised an eyebrow. “Surely your little geek patrol told you about that.”  

“I don’t think so?”  

Seto scoffed and rolled his eyes. “Even after all of Joey’s horrified warnings when we started dating, he missed out on telling you about that. It’s extraordinary how he still finds new ways to be incompetent after all this time.”  

Ryou poked him hard in the shoulder. “Be nice. And tell me what ‘Death T’ is. That sounds interesting.”  

Seto leaned back in his chair. “Death-T is the theme park I created in an attempt to kill Yugi outright, shortly after we first met. It goes without saying that I had some issues at the time.”  

He was met with silence, but the look on Ryou’s face was priceless. Seto made a snap decision then and there, and closed his laptop before holding out his hand for Ryou.  “Would you care to accompany me for the evening? I’ll have the car brought around.”   

Ryou gave him a huge smile and nodded as he took his hand.   

~~~~~~~

On the way, Seto gave Ryou a quick history of the event and how it had come to pass. Ryou had wavered between delightedly horrified and genuinely concerned, both for his friends and what Seto must have been going through at the time. His gentle fingers caressing Seto’s hand were comforting when he came to speaking about Mokuba’s role in the whole thing. It was still hard to talk about.   

They arrived, and Seto lead Ryou towards the building. Ryou looked at the gleaming walls in confusion. “It doesn’t look very abandoned, Seto. I thought you said this was from years ago.”  

“Originally, it was. But the lower floors make an excellent seasonal attraction for the Halloween crowds, and the upper levels were intended for tabletop games in the first place. There was no reason to not continue to benefit from the original build. The new version has been thoroughly safetied and the public backstory is quite different, of course.”  

Ryou nodded. “Of course.” He followed Seto into the building. “Will we be able to see it all, though? It’s a little early for Halloween, yet.”  

“Of course. I had Isono call ahead and have them prepare the T2 level for our arrival. I think you’ll enjoy that one more than the others.”  

“And what’s on that level?”  

Seto just smirked down at Ryou’s eager face. “Wait and see.” As the elevator zipped them up to the second floor, he watched Ryou’s excitement build with a sense of satisfaction. Yes, this outing would certainly worth a late report or two.   

They exited the elevator into a small, plain room. There wasn’t much to see here, except for a rickety old cart with over-the-top restraints waiting for each guest. Ryou scurried right over to it, prodding at the wires with great curiosity. “Is it some sort of electric chair roller coaster, then?”  

Seto followed at a more dignified pace. “It’s more of a haunted house ride than a roller coaster. There are several surprises along the way, but no sudden drops. As to the electric chair theme, there’s an option for the chairs to give small electric shocks if the guests scream – just enough to make things more interesting. The challenge is to get through the ride without reacting, in that case. Gamers like an extra challenge.”  

“Sounds like fun.” Ryou looked up with an eager grin. “It must be absolutely terrifying, if you were trying to scare Yugi to death with it.”  

“Not so much scare as electrocute. The original schematics had the chairs deliver a million volts, not a tiny spark.”  

Ryou just blinked at him.   

“As I said, I had some issues.”  

The corners of Ryou’s mouth quirked up just a fraction. “ Yes, apparently. Well then, even if it’s not that scary I still want to try it. C’mon!”   

Seto allowed himself to be pulled into the cart by the elbow, and helped Ryou get strapped in properly. Despite his suggestion to the contrary, Ryou insisted on having the “full experience”, shocks and all, so Seto grudgingly set his controls to react to noise. With that task completed, Ryou gave a him cheerful thumbs up, and they were off.   

Ryou didn’t last long. Seto had told him he wouldn’t. As soon as the first holographic zombie came shambling into view with an overly theatric moan, he let out a little snicker. This was followed immediately by a yelp, as the cuffs gave him a zap.   

“Hey, that’s not fai - ack!-“ Ryou glared at his wrist. “I was just laughi - eep!- would you- ah!- oh, piss off, you stupid machine, no one asked you.” Ryou, who by now was caught in a feedback loop of laughter and wincing, squirmed one hand out of the cuffs and slapped down on the controls to turn the shock feature off. “There. Honestly, I was just having a laugh.”  

Seto tried to hide his amusement at Ryou’s adorably disgruntled expression. “How badly would it end for me if I said ‘I told you so’ right now?”  

Ryou shot him a playful glare and crossed his arms, completely ignoring a holographic ghost that swooped towards them. “Quite.”  

“Then I’ll refrain.” Seto leaned back and reached over to weave their fingers together as the cart rounded a corner. He also subtly stretched his legs out to move his feet away from the seats. It was just about the right time for...  

Ryou let out a startled yelp when rubbery hands popped out from under the seats and batted at his ankles. The original grasping hands had been removed, for obvious legal reasons, but the sudden contact from underneath the seat was still enough to shock the hell out of even the most stoic of first-time riders. Seto chuckled a little as Ryou tucked his feet up onto the seat and stuck his tongue out at the flailing hands beneath them.  

Ryou pouted at him. “A jump scare? That’s so cheap!”  

“But effective. If you hadn’t already gotten annoyed with the shock feature and turned it off, that would have set it off. Those hands have taken their fair share of smug riders down a notch or two.”  

“Still though. Cheap.”  

Seto stuck his nose in the air, looked down at Ryou with the most ridiculously snooty look he could muster and gave a judgmental little sniff. “Nothing in Kaiba Land is cheap.” There was a beat of silence before Ryou rolled his eyes and was back to grinning, which was always worth acting like a fool.   

They rounded another corner straight into a horde of mummies, and Ryou burst into incredulous laughter again. “Oh honestly, are these holograms the best your people can do? Really? They’re practically cartoons! I suppose that’s ok for kids, but it’s kind of ridiculous for the adults.” Ryou suddenly whipped around to look at Seto with wide, pleading eyes. “Please let me help redesign them. You could advertise it as a real scare. Oooh, that would be so good. Please! It would be so much fun!”  

Seto threw his head back with a loud laugh. “Only if I get to be there to watch when you tell the nerd herd you’re helping redesign their death trap.”  

Ryou let out a happy squeal and attacked Seto with a hug. “Done!!” Seto barely had time to lift an arm around him before Ryou was leaning back again, squirming excitedly in his seat. “I have so many ideas. We can revamp the holograms looks, of course, but there’s also something to be said for the horror that stays forever just out of your sight, and…”  

Seto let Ryou’s excited babbling fill the silence between holographic moans. He rested an affectionate hand on Ryou’s knee while he nodded and hummed approval of some of the more creative ideas. Yes, t his was definitely worth ignoring the paperwork for once. It’s a shame they hadn’t come sooner.

~~~~~~~

A/N: You know they visited the murderer's room after this and Ryou acted out the part like the goober he is. ;)  And what I wouldn't give to be a fly on the wall when Ryou casually brings up his "awesome date" to the rest of his friends..... Ha!

[ironwoman359]

Virgil’s Sorting

Ok, so I’m a sucker for Harry Potter and the Sanders Sides and I love seeing people combine them, especially in @virgilsjourney‘s work. If you haven’t read their Harry Potter AUs, I highly recommend them. I’m borrowing the general premise of the sides being Hogwarts students from them, as well as their version of the Sides’ blood status (Roman=pureblood, Virgil and Patton=halfblood, Logan=muggleborn) However, I have some thoughts of my own about our merry band of four’s houses, and I really wanted to write their sorting scene, from Virgil’s POV because I love my dark strange son. This is my first Sanders Sides fanfiction, so I hope you enjoy it!

---

The four boys who had shared a compartment on the Hogwarts Express now stood together in line, awaiting their sorting. Virgil stood behind the other three, his shoulders hunched, the conversation from the train still echoing in his mind.   “What house do you guys think you’ll get?” Patton had asked, his eyes wide with excitement behind his glasses. 

“Gryffindor, of course!” Roman exclaimed immediately. “Both my parents were in Gryffindor, and it’s the best house for sure!”

“Oh come on now, all the houses are good, Roman!” Patton said, a cheerful grin on his face. 

“From what I have read about the four houses and their distinguishing characteristics, I find it likely that I will end up in Ravenclaw,” Logan, the muggleborn of the group said. He seemed pleased with the idea, and Virgil had to agree. With some prompting from Roman, the bespectacled boy had already demonstrated the ability to perform a few rudimentary spells, despite being totally new to the wizarding world. How could he be anything other than a Ravenclaw? 

“What about you, Patton?” Roman asked eagerly. Patton shrugged. 

“I can’t decide! They all sound so good! Did you know that the Slytherin dormitories are under the lake? You can see the giant squid out the windows! But the Hufflepuff ones are right next to the kitchen, you can get the best snacks whenever you want, but then the Ravenclaw tower is the tallest one in the castle and you can see the whole grounds, even the forbidden forest, and blue is my favorite color but cats are my favorite animals and lions are totally the best of all the giant cats, they’re so cute!” Patton kept rambling for some time, gesturing wildly, which made Roman laugh. 

“Well, whatever you end up in, it’s safe to say you’ll be happy.” 

“What about you, Virgil?” Patton asked, and Virgil had shrugged, sinking his hands deeper into his hoodie pockets.

“I dunno,” he mumbled.  

“Ten sickles says he’s Slytherin,” Roman said, with something of a smirk.  

“Why do you say that, Roman?” Logan asked, raising an eyebrow.  

“Well, he’s…” Roman gestured vaguely at Virgil before throwing his hands up in defeat. “He’s the Dark and Sinister one.” 

“Hey, that’s not fair to Slytherins, or to Virgil!” Patton had protested, but it was no use. Roman’s words stuck to Virgil like glue, and now standing in line in the Great Hall, feeling the eyes of the entire student body on him and the other first years, it’s all he could think about. 

Logan’s name was called, and it pulled Virgil out of his musings. He watched the boy walk carefully up and sit down, the sorting hat falling over his eyes. The hat sat there less than ten seconds before calling out “RAVENCLAW!” 

Logan slid off the stool, and Virgil could see that he was smiling. Patton clapped loudly along with the Ravenclaws who were welcoming the new member to their table, and he gave Logan a big thumbs-up. The smile plastered on Patton’s face wavered for a moment when his name was called next, but he took a deep breath and walked up to the stool. The hat was placed on his head, and his smile returned. He sat there for almost a minute, but the hat called out “HUFFLEPUFF!” and he jumped off the stool, practically skipping over to his table. 

“No surprise there,” Roman whispered to Virgil with a grin before his own name was called. Virgil had to agree, and as he did, he felt a ball of tension in the pit of his stomach. Logan in Ravenclaw. Patton in Hufflepuff. It made sense. Roman would probably get Gryffindor, and he…

You’re the Dark and Sinister one.

He hunched over more, and wished he could pull his hoodie up, but it was beneath his new robes and he didn’t want to draw attention by adjusting his wardrobe. He’d end up in Slytherin, just like all the other freaks. The evil house, where all the bad wizards came from. Why should he even think differently? It made sense, after all. Roman was right about him. Virgil frowned at the thought of Roman, and looked up. 

The boy was still sitting on the stool beneath the sorting hat, and Virgil’s frown deepened. Surely the hat would have reached its conclusion by now? It was fairly obvious to Virgil, even from the brief train ride they’d shared together. Roman was loud, brash, daring, and fanciful. Of course he’d be in Gryffindor…right? After what seemed like forever, the hat did call out “GRYFFINDOR!” 

Roman slid off the stool, but he didn’t look as happy as Virgil had expected him to. His face was pale, and his eyes were wide. As he took his seat with the other Gryffindors he smiled a bit at their welcome, but he was clearly shaken about something. Before Virgil had time to ponder what about, his own name was called, and his thoughts quickly turned from the mystery with Roman. 

Unwittingly, his legs carried him forward to the stool, and he sat down, balling his fists to keep his hands from shaking. For a brief, horrible moment, he could see the whole student body focused on him before the hat fell over his eyes. 

“Well well, who do we have here?” a voice spoke in his ear, startling him slightly. “Virgil…well aren’t you a complicated one?” the hat mused. 

“Just put me in Slytherin and be done with it,” Virgil thought, and was surprised when the hat responded to his thought. 

“You in Slytherin? Now why would I do something like that?” 

“Because…”

You’re the Dark and Sinister one.

“It’s where everyone expects me to be,” Virgil thought, his hunched shoulders finally slumping, a feeling of defeat washing over him. 

“Well, there is a bit here,” the hat mused. “An interest in the macabre for sure, and a cautious, methodical nature.” Virgil slumped further. He knew it. 

“But tell me this,” the hat continued. “Do you consider yourself to be particularly ambitious?” Virgil frowned, thinking. 

“Well, no…” 

“Would you say you are cunning? Or perhaps a strong leader?” 

“Not exactly-” 

“Are you at all assertive, bold, or self-assured?” 

“God no, but I-” 

“You are not a Slytherin,” the hat said firmly. “No no no, definitely not…” the hat seemed to mutter to itself as it pondered. “So where to put you?” 

“I dunno,” Virgil grumbled, his shoulders tensing up again. 

“You might do well in Ravenclaw,” the hat suggested, and Virgil frowned. 

“What??” 

“You think things through before you do them. You are clearly intelligent.” 

“I don’t know about that…” 

“You don’t agree that you’re individualistic? Does the deep and mysterious not fascinate you?” 

“Well, I suppose…but I don’t think I’m that smart. And aren’t Ravenclaws supposed to be creative and wise or something? That doesn’t sound right…” 

“Ravenclaw would fit you better than Slytherin, but if you don’t agree…Perhaps Hufflepuff?” 

“Hufflepuff? You think I’m friendly and caring?” Virgil scoffed at that, shaking his head. “I can’t stand most people, you know.” 

“Perhaps, but to those that you do care about, you are faithful to.” 

“I guess…” 

“You also are diligent, are you not? And always honest, at least to others.” 

“Maybe, but Hufflepuffs are patient, and-” 

“You’re not particularly patient,” the hat interjected, sounding frustrated. “You also are not very impartial, or accepting of others.” 

“And I know I’m not a Gryffindor,” Virgil added sulkily. “I’m nothing like Roman.” 

“I nearly put your railroad companion into Slytherin,” the hat said matter-of-factly. “He is ambitious, creative, cunning, strong, self-centered at times, and traditional in many areas of his life.” Virgil was in shock. 

“Then why did-” 

“He displayed not only a chivalrous attitude and a nerve that Slytherins often lack, but a daring recklessness. But most of all, he asked for Gryffindor.” 

“He asked, so you let him in Gryffindor?” 

“Yes. I will take a student’s wishes into account when appropriate.” 

“So why not just put me into Slytherin?” Virgil demanded, crossing his arms. The hat was quiet for a moment, and when it spoke again, it’s voice sounded softer in Virgil’s mind, almost sympathetic. 

“Because you do not want to be in Slytherin, do you?” Virgil’s silence was all the answer the hat needed. “I have made up my mind,” it decided. “It may not fit you perfectly, but a sorting rarely sums a person up perfectly. Humans are much more complicated than that. But you…you will do well here, I think. If nothing else, then the house that will help you the most in your journey here is…HUFFLEPUFF!” 

This last word was shouted to the whole hall, and the hat was pulled off Virgil’s head. Before he got up, he could have sworn he heard it whisper in his ear one last time: “Good luck.” 

Virgil stumbled down to the Hufflepuff table, sitting next to Patton who was clapping furiously. 

“We’re house buddies!” he shouted gleefully over the applause, and Virgil smiled shyly at him. He glanced over to the Gryffindor table and met Roman’s eyes. He appeared to have calmed down a bit since his sorting, and he gave Virgil a smile accompanied by raised eyebrows. Roman was probably as surprised by Virgil’s sorting as he was, but he seemed happy. 

“You were up there for a long time,” Patton whispered to Virgil as the next student, a tiny kid with pink and blue hair named Talyn stepped up to be sorted. 

“It was almost a hat stall!” 

“Really?” Virgil asked, grimacing. The last thing he wanted was to draw more attention to himself, but Patton looked awestruck. 

“The hat talked to me about Gryffindor little bit, but was pretty sure I was Hufflepuff, so I didn’t get to talk long. But you got to talk with it for a long time, that’s so cool!” 

Virgil couldn’t help but smile at Patton’s obvious enthusiasm, and looking around the Hufflepuff table, he saw dozens of happy, accepting looking faces. 

“I was talking to some people, and they said that our first class tomorrow is with the Ravenclaws, so we’ll get to see Logan!” Patton whispered excitedly in Virgil’s ear. “Then later in the day we’re with the Gryffindors, so we’ll see Roman too! We can all be friends!” 

Virgil’s smile widened, and for the first time all night, the knot in his stomach loosened slightly. Maybe this Hufflepuff thing would work out after all.

---

Not really sure who to tag since I’ve never done a Sanders Sides fic before, uh... @the-asexual-reaper, @pleaseletthisjimbetaken, @thesanderssidesnerd, @sanders-specs, @sassy-in-glasses, @you-can-call-me-verge, @bitten1ce, I dunno who else. My current tag list is very Markiplier centric, so I’m not sure for this one :P

Also, I’m thinking of writing this from Roman’s point of view, to explore what the hat would say to him as it deliberated between Slytherin and Gryffindor...let me know if you want to see that!

[nightmareonfilmstreet]

That Goes Without Saying: Young Frankenstein Turns 43 Today

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That Goes Without Saying: Young Frankenstein Turns 43 Today

“That’s Fronk-un-shteen. My name, it’s pronounced Fronk-un-shteen.” With that ridiculous introduction, a new comedy classic was born. Young Frankenstein, the masterful horror parody from Gene Wilder and Mel Brooks, was originally released on December 15th, 1974.

It’s since become a staple of our Halloween viewing and a textbook example of how to do the parody film right. Why is it so beloved? How did this film get made? And didn’t Igor’s hump used to be on the other side? (it’s pronounced Eye-gor, by the way.) Let’s dig a little deeper into this madcap monster movie and see just exactly how it came to be.

Puttin’ On The Ritz

Gene Wilder had worked with Mel Brooks prior to creating Young Frankenstein, embodying the role of Leo Bloom in The Producers. Unfortunately, both that film and his memorable turn as chocolatier Willy Wonka were box-office failures at the time. However, Wilder found success with his work in the Woody Allen film Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex* (But Were Afraid To Ask). Fresh off this performance and its warm reception, Wilder started toying with the idea of a descendant of the original Dr. Frankenstein inheriting his grandfather’s mansion and macabre research.

Surprisingly, Mel Brooks originally shot down the concept. He told Gene Wilder that it was “cute” but seemed uninterested in pursuing it further. While working together on Blazing Saddles a few months later, Wilder gave another pitch. Luckily for all of us, this one landed. Mel explains it thusly:

I was in the middle of shooting the last few weeks of Blazing Saddles somewhere in the Antelope Valley, and Gene Wilder and I were having a cup of coffee and he said, I have this idea that there could be another Frankenstein. I said, “Not another! We’ve had the son of, the cousin of, the brother-in-law. We don’t need another Frankenstein.” His idea was very simple: What if the grandson of Dr. Frankenstein wanted nothing to do with the family whatsoever. He was ashamed of those wackos. I said, “That’s funny.”

It… Could… WORK!

With a strategy of holing up in Wilder’s bungalow and eating unhealthy snacks, the two comedy titans began crafting a complete screenplay of this young Frankenstein. (It’s difficult not to be reminded of Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard’s process for writing The Cabin In The Woods.) Amusingly, Wilder’s one caveat was that Brooks himself not appear as… well, himself. According to Brooks, Wilder saw him as a fourth-wall breaking entity, and he wanted the film to inhabit its own little world. The wily director does still appear as a villager in one quick scene, however.

After securing the necessary budget with 20th Century Fox, the two commenced filming. A ridiculously capable cast including Marty Feldman, Cloris Leachman, Madeline Kahn, and Kenneth Mars were all on board with the concept. Ad-libbing was frequent, with credit for the infamous “OVALTINE!” gag going to Leachman. Young Frankenstein is considered by Brooks to be his finest work as a director, and it’s hard to argue. The decision to film in black and white, the vintage scene transitions, and the moments of quiet not only emulate the Universal films being satirized, but heighten the comedy as well.

I Ain’t Got Nobody!

About the heightened comedy… Marty Feldman routinely caused his costars to break character with his manic performance. Gene Wilder was the most common culprit for ruining a take with laughter, to the point that Cloris Leachman complained:

He killed every take [with his laughter] and nothing was done about it!

To be fair, I’d have trouble keeping a straight face around this group too. A single scene would reportedly need up to 15 takes before Wilder could keep it together. In fact, he can still be seen laughing in the sequence when his fiancee arrives at the castle. Feldman’s riotous clawing and biting prompted him to deliver the line “STOP THAT!” with a big smile still on his face.

Call It… A Hunch!

The best thing about this movie is the sheer number of little details and in-jokes that only reveal themselves after multiple viewings (or after reading everything you can get your hands on regarding the movie). How many of you notice that the clock in the opening chimes 13 times? Are you aware that the laboratory set is in fact cobbled together with many of the same props used in the original Frankenstein film from 1931? Here’s a fun tidbit: Mel Brooks provides the werewolf howl as well as the screeching cat. Plus, the infamous “Walk this way!” bit directly inspired the Aerosmith song, because of course it did.

Young Frankenstein was a massive hit, making $86 million in ticket sales on a budget of less than $3 million. It’s also the third highest-grossing film of 1974 (the number one spot is Blazing Saddles, also a Brooks/Wilder team-up of course). Despite their shared success, the two mirth-makers never collaborated on another film. Still, their trilogy of oddballs –The Producers, Blazing Saddles, and Young Frankenstein– are beloved. In fact, not only beloved but preserved, as all three of them were added to the Library of Congress National film Registry. This trio of ridiculous comedies was deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” by the National Film Preservation Board. Sounds right to me.

Young Frankenstein is a bold, hysterical, and unique story. Not only is it one of Mel Brooks’ most unusual films, it set the standard for how parody should be done. If you’re a fan, today is an excellent opportunity to pop it back into the blu-ray player. And for those of you who think of “parody” as a film like Meet The Spartans or Disaster Movie (*shudder*), you’re in for a treat. Here’s a vintage trailer:

[how2to18]

CRITICS GENERALLY DEFINE “Lynchian” as the cohabitation of the macabre and the mundane. The severed ear hidden in the field in Blue Velvet may be the most iconic representation of this junction, but it’s everywhere in David Lynch’s work: from Twin Peaks’s sweet, brochure-like title sequence of a mountainous town that, as it turns out, hides Laura Palmer’s corpse and many other monstrosities, to the arrival of Naomi Watts’s aspiring actress Betty in a dreamlike Hollywood in Mulholland Drive, before the nightmare of that city consumes her. In Lynch’s early work, the small town is the theater of this dance of innocence and evil, but in his later films, namely the loose trilogy of Lost Highway (1997), Mulholland Drive (2001), and Inland Empire (2006), the macabre and the mundane coexist in the individual soul. Upon reading Room to Dream — Lynch’s newly released experimental memoir — one’s tempted to say that the same coupling exists in David Lynch himself.

With Lynch treading into his 70s, it’s an appropriate time for Room to Dream. This hybrid of biography and memoir by Lynch and journalist/critic Kristine McKenna offers hope of understanding an artist who, four decades into his career, remains a subject of much mystery and misinterpretation. Even his old school friends still don’t know the source of Lynch’s Lynchianism.

McKenna and Lynch alternate chapters, starting with McKenna, who covers a period of her subject’s life through extensive interviews with those who know and have worked with him, in turn prompting a chapter from the director about the same period. In sum, the book presents a quirky but ultimately lovable — and widely loved — man. With output as dark as his, one expects the outward oddity of an Alan Moore or a Tim Burton, or the intensity of a Terry Gilliam. When I describe him as one-part “mundane,” then, I don’t mean that Lynch is tedious in any sense, but that his persona is so endearing, so enamored of life and film, so — indeed — normal, that it’s confounding to think that behind this childlike chirpiness is the mind that gave us the ear and the depraved Frank Booth who severed it.

A straightforward summary of David’s upbringing, largely devoid of turbulence, would be a bore. The value of this book is in getting closer to the origins of Lynch’s art, which, as McKenna eloquently puts it, “resides in the complicated zone where the beautiful and the damned collide.” His early years seem to have provided the foundations. Born in 1946, he spent his childhood in Boise, Idaho, before moving to Alexandria, Virginia, as a teen, where he discovered his first love: painting. Nostalgia for Boise seems to have turned the middle-class small town into an ideal in Lynch’s heart that echoes in his work. McKenna writes:

The 1950s have never really gone away for Lynch. Moms in cotton shirtwaist dresses smiling as they pull freshly baked pies out of ovens; broad-chested dads in sport shirts cooking meat on a barbecue or heading off to work in suits; the ubiquitous cigarettes […] classic rock ‘n’ roll; diner waitresses wearing cute little caps; girls in bobby sox and saddle shoes, sweaters and pleated plaid skirts — these are all elements of Lynch’s aesthetic vocabulary.

There’s an elegy to this aesthetic in Mulholland Drive’s opening title sequence: splices of all those boys and girls swing dancing as if in a jitterbug contest. Hollywood is radiating ’50s congeniality as Betty emerges from the airport, escorted to her cab by a warm elderly couple expressing full confidence that they’ll soon see her on their TV screens. “Won’t that be the day!” Betty merrily replies. But the garish frozen smiles on that elderly couple as they leave Betty, like that of Mad magazine’s Alfred E. Neuman, offer a warning that this affable setting, like the vivid rosebushes that open Blue Velvet, will be subverted in due course.

Lynch’s father, Donald, worked for the agriculture department. McKenna posits, “Perhaps his father’s work dealing with diseased trees imbued him with a heightened awareness of what he has described as ‘the wild pain and decay’ that lurk beneath the surface of things.” In Lynch’s hands, however, decay is not a function of time and history as it is, say, in the writings of V. S. Naipaul and W. G. Sebald, but of the permanent presence of something threatening in humanity’s character. In part, his art is a parable of the rural-urban transition. Anxiety about big cities harassed him early, derived perhaps from childhood visits to New York. Lynch writes, “Everything about New York made me fearful. The subways were just unreal. Going down into this place, and the smell, and this wind would come with the trains, and the sound — I’d see different things in New York that made me fearful.” A move to Philadelphia in the mid-1960s, after unsuccessful attempts to keep a steady menial job in Alexandria, seems to have refined this anxiety into an artistic doctrine. According to McKenna, “The chaos of Philadelphia was in direct opposition to the abundance and optimism of the world he’d grown up in, and reconciling these two extremes was to become one of the enduring themes of his art.” The city was “dangerous and dirty,” providing “rich mulch for Lynch’s imagination.”

In Philadelphia, like the gushing water hydrant that gave Saul Bellow a new writing style, Lynch found his epiphany when, supposedly, some wind caused “a flicker of movement” in a painting he’d made of a figure standing among foliage. “Like a gift bestowed on him from the ether,” McKenna writes, “the idea of a moving painting clicked into focus in his mind.”

Some well-received shorts at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts yielded an opportunity, upon moving to Los Angeles, to make his poem to urban horror, Eraserhead (1977). An underground success, the film caught the attention of influential studio players, including Mel Brooks, who gave Lynch the opportunity to make The Elephant Man (1980), which would go on to be nominated for eight Academy Awards. Dune came next in 1984, an artistic and professional debacle that ended up being a necessary turning pointing, from which Lynch emerged more resolute to fully own his material. “You die two deaths […] And that was Dune,” he writes. “You die once because you sold out, and you die twice because it was a failure.” (Whereas with the 1992 critical and commercial flop, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, he feels he only died once, since it was authentic Lynch.) Two years later, he got his revenge with a movie that was completely his.

Three things comingled to produce Blue Velvet in Lynch’s mind: Bobby Vinton’s song of the same name, which on a second hearing (after finding it “schmaltzy” the first time) summoned the image of green lawns, red lips, and, finally, a severed ear in a field. “I don’t know why it had to be an ear,” Lynch writes, “except it needed to be an opening of a part of the body […] The ear sits on the head and goes right into the mind, so it felt perfect.”

It is indeed captivating to read both McKenna and Lynch on the origin of his stories. Many like Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks, and 1990’s Wild at Heart (based on a Barry Gifford novel), do have a basic plot, but their artistic merit is in their accumulation of effects and moments. As Julian Barnes wrote of a net in Flaubert’s Parrot: rather than “a meshed instrument designed to catch fish,” each can be seen as a “collection of holes tied together with string.” Room to Dream shows us how Lynch went about collecting his holes — from dreams he barely remembered, to a mysterious line spoken at the other end of a receiver, to people spotted on the side of the road who move him in some way and end up playing a role in one of his films. Collaborations were equally critical to his career. The most famous of these are Mark Frost, who co-created Twin Peaks and its reboot, and Angelo Badalamenti, who composed the series’s musical score, but others like Jack Fisk, a fellow painter and friend since the Alexandria days, and Dean Hurley, who mixed the sound of Inland Empire, also get their due.

As Lynch’s net gets wider, so, too, do the holes. By Lost Highway in 1997, the narrative barely coheres. Instead the pleasure is in a growing radicalism in Lynch’s storytelling: the Mystery Man who tells Bill Pullman’s Fred Madison not only that that they’ve met before, at Fred’s house, but that he, the Mystery Man, is at Fred’s house at that very moment, and goes on to prove it; Fred’s metamorphosis in prison into Pete, played by Balthazar Getty, a young man with a completely different life, though it does ultimately intersect with Fred’s again, at which point Pete turns back into Fred. Lost Highway offers a kind of quantum theory of personality, where you’re only probably who you are. Inland Empire, the most encrypted of all of Lynch’s movies, largely abolishes narrative altogether and instead ties disparate Lynch ideas — a sitcom of people in rabbit costumes, Polish prostitutes, psychosis — to a central story about a cursed film set.

¤

Lynch’s prose has all the innocence of the deceptive first part of a Lynch movie. The same guy who, McKenna tells us, finds pleasure in collecting human remains — embryos in bell jars, for example — and who once asked a woman who was about to have a hysterectomy if he could have her uterus, addresses the reader with things like, “I’ll tell you about a kiss I really remember.” About that encounter: “That was a kiss that got deeper and deeper, and it was lighting some fire.” About masturbation: “So I thought, I’m going to try this tonight. It took forever. Nothing was happening, right? And all of a sudden this feeling — I thought, Where is this feeling coming from? Whoa! The story was true and it was unbelievable. It was like discovering fire.” He doesn’t sound the least bit boastful when he says, “They thought I was so handsome. It was really great.” Or the least bit intimidating when he describes how “[a]nger came up in me like unreal.” His writing is sprayed with “sort ofs” and “kind ofs” and “so cools.” The hard work required to get Eraserhead into Cannes “almost killed me” — not because of the long hours themselves but because this meant giving up milkshake breaks. That, for Lynch, is one of the crises of fame.

There is, however, a problem with this kind of charm. It’s ultimately a performance, not in the sense that it’s inauthentic, but because it’s the voice of a raconteur; there’s something inevitably impersonal about it. Lynch doesn’t make you feel like you’re in a one-on-one with him, but instead like you’re one among several sitting on barstools around him. When McKenna writes of a divorce, she prepares us for Lynch’s perspective, but that never comes. His mother’s 2004 death in a car crash gets little attention from McKenna and none from Lynch — even as his ex-wife Mary Sweeney suggests “he was changed by his mother’s death.” Meanwhile, Lynch, a transcendental meditation devotee, devotes but a few pages to the death of the Indian guru Maharishi, whose funeral he flew to India to attend.

McKenna ends up not being too big a help here. While she understands her subject well, she’s also too close to him. Her fondness for her subject is not in itself a problem, especially given how universally loved Lynch seems to be. But when McKenna says, “Lynch is good at tuning out static,” or that “you’ve got to hand it to him” that he could make a film like Lost Highway, or that “[h]e doesn’t like it when things get too big and unwieldy, and he wants to be left in peace to make whatever it is he’s decided to make; it’s never been about fame or money for him,” she sounds less like a biographer than a friend. Even in discussing flops like Fire Walk with Me, McKenna seems keen not to hurt Lynch’s feelings. She seems much more comfortable calling a Lynch film a masterpiece.

Indeed, once we get to start of Lynch’s movie career, Room to Dream is less a biography than deep reporting of each of Lynch’s major projects, and some minor ones. Divorces are mentioned, for example, because they coincide with a film. Part of the problem is conceptual. Because Lynch would read the preceding McKenna chapter, it’s unsurprising that McKenna isn’t inclined toward too probing an account. But this sacrifices candor and revelation, and it’s hard to see the value of this peculiar framework. The fault may lie more with Lynch than McKenna, since he isn’t given to confession. His current wife, Emily Stofle, says, “We’re still very sweet to each other […] but he’s selfish, and as much as he meditates, I don’t know how self-reflective David is.” This comes not long after McKenna claims Lynch “has a unique gift for intimacy.” What draws readers to a biography or memoir like this is the question of how a great artist lives in and with the world. We don’t get the whole story here.

We do nevertheless get a sense of how Lynch’s imagination works, and how he brings that imagination to the screen. Blue Velvet’s editor seems to represent the majority view when he says, “It’s an honor to work with his material, because that’s sacred clay he produces.” If we don’t get enough of Lynch’s warts, at least we get to see him and the people around him playing with that clay.

¤

Shehryar Fazli is a Pakistan-based essayist, political analyst, and novelist.

The post David Lynch’s Sacred Clay appeared first on Los Angeles Review of Books.

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[topmixtrends]

CRITICS GENERALLY DEFINE “Lynchian” as the cohabitation of the macabre and the mundane. The severed ear hidden in the field in Blue Velvet may be the most iconic representation of this junction, but it’s everywhere in David Lynch’s work: from Twin Peaks’s sweet, brochure-like title sequence of a mountainous town that, as it turns out, hides Laura Palmer’s corpse and many other monstrosities, to the arrival of Naomi Watts’s aspiring actress Betty in a dreamlike Hollywood in Mulholland Drive, before the nightmare of that city consumes her. In Lynch’s early work, the small town is the theater of this dance of innocence and evil, but in his later films, namely the loose trilogy of Lost Highway (1997), Mulholland Drive (2001), and Inland Empire (2006), the macabre and the mundane coexist in the individual soul. Upon reading Room to Dream — Lynch’s newly released experimental memoir — one’s tempted to say that the same coupling exists in David Lynch himself.

With Lynch treading into his 70s, it’s an appropriate time for Room to Dream. This hybrid of biography and memoir by Lynch and journalist/critic Kristine McKenna offers hope of understanding an artist who, four decades into his career, remains a subject of much mystery and misinterpretation. Even his old school friends still don’t know the source of Lynch’s Lynchianism.

McKenna and Lynch alternate chapters, starting with McKenna, who covers a period of her subject’s life through extensive interviews with those who know and have worked with him, in turn prompting a chapter from the director about the same period. In sum, the book presents a quirky but ultimately lovable — and widely loved — man. With output as dark as his, one expects the outward oddity of an Alan Moore or a Tim Burton, or the intensity of a Terry Gilliam. When I describe him as one-part “mundane,” then, I don’t mean that Lynch is tedious in any sense, but that his persona is so endearing, so enamored of life and film, so — indeed — normal, that it’s confounding to think that behind this childlike chirpiness is the mind that gave us the ear and the depraved Frank Booth who severed it.

A straightforward summary of David’s upbringing, largely devoid of turbulence, would be a bore. The value of this book is in getting closer to the origins of Lynch’s art, which, as McKenna eloquently puts it, “resides in the complicated zone where the beautiful and the damned collide.” His early years seem to have provided the foundations. Born in 1946, he spent his childhood in Boise, Idaho, before moving to Alexandria, Virginia, as a teen, where he discovered his first love: painting. Nostalgia for Boise seems to have turned the middle-class small town into an ideal in Lynch’s heart that echoes in his work. McKenna writes:

The 1950s have never really gone away for Lynch. Moms in cotton shirtwaist dresses smiling as they pull freshly baked pies out of ovens; broad-chested dads in sport shirts cooking meat on a barbecue or heading off to work in suits; the ubiquitous cigarettes […] classic rock ‘n’ roll; diner waitresses wearing cute little caps; girls in bobby sox and saddle shoes, sweaters and pleated plaid skirts — these are all elements of Lynch’s aesthetic vocabulary.

There’s an elegy to this aesthetic in Mulholland Drive’s opening title sequence: splices of all those boys and girls swing dancing as if in a jitterbug contest. Hollywood is radiating ’50s congeniality as Betty emerges from the airport, escorted to her cab by a warm elderly couple expressing full confidence that they’ll soon see her on their TV screens. “Won’t that be the day!” Betty merrily replies. But the garish frozen smiles on that elderly couple as they leave Betty, like that of Mad magazine’s Alfred E. Neuman, offer a warning that this affable setting, like the vivid rosebushes that open Blue Velvet, will be subverted in due course.

Lynch’s father, Donald, worked for the agriculture department. McKenna posits, “Perhaps his father’s work dealing with diseased trees imbued him with a heightened awareness of what he has described as ‘the wild pain and decay’ that lurk beneath the surface of things.” In Lynch’s hands, however, decay is not a function of time and history as it is, say, in the writings of V. S. Naipaul and W. G. Sebald, but of the permanent presence of something threatening in humanity’s character. In part, his art is a parable of the rural-urban transition. Anxiety about big cities harassed him early, derived perhaps from childhood visits to New York. Lynch writes, “Everything about New York made me fearful. The subways were just unreal. Going down into this place, and the smell, and this wind would come with the trains, and the sound — I’d see different things in New York that made me fearful.” A move to Philadelphia in the mid-1960s, after unsuccessful attempts to keep a steady menial job in Alexandria, seems to have refined this anxiety into an artistic doctrine. According to McKenna, “The chaos of Philadelphia was in direct opposition to the abundance and optimism of the world he’d grown up in, and reconciling these two extremes was to become one of the enduring themes of his art.” The city was “dangerous and dirty,” providing “rich mulch for Lynch’s imagination.”

In Philadelphia, like the gushing water hydrant that gave Saul Bellow a new writing style, Lynch found his epiphany when, supposedly, some wind caused “a flicker of movement” in a painting he’d made of a figure standing among foliage. “Like a gift bestowed on him from the ether,” McKenna writes, “the idea of a moving painting clicked into focus in his mind.”

Some well-received shorts at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts yielded an opportunity, upon moving to Los Angeles, to make his poem to urban horror, Eraserhead (1977). An underground success, the film caught the attention of influential studio players, including Mel Brooks, who gave Lynch the opportunity to make The Elephant Man (1980), which would go on to be nominated for eight Academy Awards. Dune came next in 1984, an artistic and professional debacle that ended up being a necessary turning pointing, from which Lynch emerged more resolute to fully own his material. “You die two deaths […] And that was Dune,” he writes. “You die once because you sold out, and you die twice because it was a failure.” (Whereas with the 1992 critical and commercial flop, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, he feels he only died once, since it was authentic Lynch.) Two years later, he got his revenge with a movie that was completely his.

Three things comingled to produce Blue Velvet in Lynch’s mind: Bobby Vinton’s song of the same name, which on a second hearing (after finding it “schmaltzy” the first time) summoned the image of green lawns, red lips, and, finally, a severed ear in a field. “I don’t know why it had to be an ear,” Lynch writes, “except it needed to be an opening of a part of the body […] The ear sits on the head and goes right into the mind, so it felt perfect.”

It is indeed captivating to read both McKenna and Lynch on the origin of his stories. Many like Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks, and 1990’s Wild at Heart (based on a Barry Gifford novel), do have a basic plot, but their artistic merit is in their accumulation of effects and moments. As Julian Barnes wrote of a net in Flaubert’s Parrot: rather than “a meshed instrument designed to catch fish,” each can be seen as a “collection of holes tied together with string.” Room to Dream shows us how Lynch went about collecting his holes — from dreams he barely remembered, to a mysterious line spoken at the other end of a receiver, to people spotted on the side of the road who move him in some way and end up playing a role in one of his films. Collaborations were equally critical to his career. The most famous of these are Mark Frost, who co-created Twin Peaks and its reboot, and Angelo Badalamenti, who composed the series’s musical score, but others like Jack Fisk, a fellow painter and friend since the Alexandria days, and Dean Hurley, who mixed the sound of Inland Empire, also get their due.

As Lynch’s net gets wider, so, too, do the holes. By Lost Highway in 1997, the narrative barely coheres. Instead the pleasure is in a growing radicalism in Lynch’s storytelling: the Mystery Man who tells Bill Pullman’s Fred Madison not only that that they’ve met before, at Fred’s house, but that he, the Mystery Man, is at Fred’s house at that very moment, and goes on to prove it; Fred’s metamorphosis in prison into Pete, played by Balthazar Getty, a young man with a completely different life, though it does ultimately intersect with Fred’s again, at which point Pete turns back into Fred. Lost Highway offers a kind of quantum theory of personality, where you’re only probably who you are. Inland Empire, the most encrypted of all of Lynch’s movies, largely abolishes narrative altogether and instead ties disparate Lynch ideas — a sitcom of people in rabbit costumes, Polish prostitutes, psychosis — to a central story about a cursed film set.

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Lynch’s prose has all the innocence of the deceptive first part of a Lynch movie. The same guy who, McKenna tells us, finds pleasure in collecting human remains — embryos in bell jars, for example — and who once asked a woman who was about to have a hysterectomy if he could have her uterus, addresses the reader with things like, “I’ll tell you about a kiss I really remember.” About that encounter: “That was a kiss that got deeper and deeper, and it was lighting some fire.” About masturbation: “So I thought, I’m going to try this tonight. It took forever. Nothing was happening, right? And all of a sudden this feeling — I thought, Where is this feeling coming from? Whoa! The story was true and it was unbelievable. It was like discovering fire.” He doesn’t sound the least bit boastful when he says, “They thought I was so handsome. It was really great.” Or the least bit intimidating when he describes how “[a]nger came up in me like unreal.” His writing is sprayed with “sort ofs” and “kind ofs” and “so cools.” The hard work required to get Eraserhead into Cannes “almost killed me” — not because of the long hours themselves but because this meant giving up milkshake breaks. That, for Lynch, is one of the crises of fame.

There is, however, a problem with this kind of charm. It’s ultimately a performance, not in the sense that it’s inauthentic, but because it’s the voice of a raconteur; there’s something inevitably impersonal about it. Lynch doesn’t make you feel like you’re in a one-on-one with him, but instead like you’re one among several sitting on barstools around him. When McKenna writes of a divorce, she prepares us for Lynch’s perspective, but that never comes. His mother’s 2004 death in a car crash gets little attention from McKenna and none from Lynch — even as his ex-wife Mary Sweeney suggests “he was changed by his mother’s death.” Meanwhile, Lynch, a transcendental meditation devotee, devotes but a few pages to the death of the Indian guru Maharishi, whose funeral he flew to India to attend.

McKenna ends up not being too big a help here. While she understands her subject well, she’s also too close to him. Her fondness for her subject is not in itself a problem, especially given how universally loved Lynch seems to be. But when McKenna says, “Lynch is good at tuning out static,” or that “you’ve got to hand it to him” that he could make a film like Lost Highway, or that “[h]e doesn’t like it when things get too big and unwieldy, and he wants to be left in peace to make whatever it is he’s decided to make; it’s never been about fame or money for him,” she sounds less like a biographer than a friend. Even in discussing flops like Fire Walk with Me, McKenna seems keen not to hurt Lynch’s feelings. She seems much more comfortable calling a Lynch film a masterpiece.

Indeed, once we get to start of Lynch’s movie career, Room to Dream is less a biography than deep reporting of each of Lynch’s major projects, and some minor ones. Divorces are mentioned, for example, because they coincide with a film. Part of the problem is conceptual. Because Lynch would read the preceding McKenna chapter, it’s unsurprising that McKenna isn’t inclined toward too probing an account. But this sacrifices candor and revelation, and it’s hard to see the value of this peculiar framework. The fault may lie more with Lynch than McKenna, since he isn’t given to confession. His current wife, Emily Stofle, says, “We’re still very sweet to each other […] but he’s selfish, and as much as he meditates, I don’t know how self-reflective David is.” This comes not long after McKenna claims Lynch “has a unique gift for intimacy.” What draws readers to a biography or memoir like this is the question of how a great artist lives in and with the world. We don’t get the whole story here.

We do nevertheless get a sense of how Lynch’s imagination works, and how he brings that imagination to the screen. Blue Velvet’s editor seems to represent the majority view when he says, “It’s an honor to work with his material, because that’s sacred clay he produces.” If we don’t get enough of Lynch’s warts, at least we get to see him and the people around him playing with that clay.

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Shehryar Fazli is a Pakistan-based essayist, political analyst, and novelist.

The post David Lynch’s Sacred Clay appeared first on Los Angeles Review of Books.

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ERIC EDSON PRESENTS: THREE FESTIVE HOLIDAY FILMS

Christmas is the perfect time to gather around the TV with family and watch a holiday film, but just what goes into creating the perfect festive film script? From atmospheric settings to the right mix of comedy, family bonding and quirky plot twists, here are three festive holiday films that have their own unique Christmas magic.

Home Alone

Written by John Hughes and directed by Chris Columbus (1990)

It’s almost Christmas in snowy Chicago and the McCallister family is preparing to fly to France for the holidays. In the chaos of the departure, their youngest son Kevin (Macaulay Culkin) gets left behind. Kevin now must fend for himself as only an eight-year-old can: by gorging on ice cream, turning the house into an adventure playground and watching gangster movies on TV. Trouble comes in the form of burglars Harry and Marv, who plan to rob the McCallister home on Christmas Eve, prompting Kevin to rig the house with booby-traps for a spectacular slapstick climax. Kevin also has a big lesson to learn about the local creepy neighbour, rumoured to be a killer, Old Man Marley.  This clever kid ultimately figures out that all he really wants for Christmas is his own family back, just in time for a touching reunion finale.

Home Alone has become an iconic holiday film because it touches on the key Christmas themes of family and childhood. We watch the action unfurl through Kevin’s eyes, witnessing the magic of Christmas and the dream scenario of being left home alone through a child’s point-of-view. The film has just the right amount of festive fun and comedy with a touching holiday message at its heart: that the real magic of Christmas lies in being together with your family, no matter how annoying they may be. Add in a hefty helping of Christmassy decorations, festive tunes and snowy weather, and it’s not hard to see why Home Alone remains a firm holiday favourite. What screenwriters can learn here is that at heart we are all children struggling to cope with burglars and scary, strange neighbors – frightening neighbors who, we find out, are really kind and just want the same things we do. Comedies are about hope and happy endings and remind us that the basic things which make life joyful – love and belonging – are sought after by all. So every once in a while, consider setting aside those “edgy”, apocalyptic or dark story ideas and go for something simple, sweet, and heart-warming. Because in the end, the child within each of us longs to once more be tucked into bed and hear that everything is going to be all right.

And if you write one of these stories, you’ll be giving the world a great gift.

Miracle on 34th Street

Written and directed by George Seaton (1947)

The original version of this classic holiday film tells the story of a little girl called Susan (Natalie Wood) whose mother Doris (Maureen O’Hara) has taught her not to believe in Santa Claus.  This all changes when Doris, who works for Macy’s Department Store, hires an incredibly realistic Santa (Edmund Gwenn) who goes by the name of Kris Kringle and has the eccentric habit of insisting that he is the genuine Santa. As Susan witnesses Kringle’s knack for spreading Christmas cheer, she begins to believe that he could be the real Santa. Not everyone agrees and Macy’s psychologist has Kris committed to a mental hospital, where in deep despair, he deliberately fails his mental examination. Help comes from Doris’ friend Fred, who agrees to represents Kris in a legal hearing. The case rests on being able to prove that Kris is in fact the real Santa Claus. Can Fred possibly, by some miracle, win?

Miracle on 34th Street is a heart-warming Christmas tale that focuses on the human struggle between belief and reason. At its very center lies a cynical little girl who gradually learns the value of believing. Despite being set around a department store at the most commercially-driven time of year, Miracle on 34th Street also manages to assert an anti-consumerist stance, which makes it particularly forward-thinking for its time. In the film, acts of kindness are more important than gifts and Kringle even sends parents to a rival store to buy cheaper toys. Set between the Thanksgiving and Christmas period, Miracle on 34th Street is full of atmospheric holiday spirit. What writers can learn here is that holiday stories can also have powerful themes. Even in traditional folktale fantasies like this one there can be found genuine human truth.  Don’t sell “Christmas movies” short and assume they must be all fluff.  This film became a true classic because it speaks to audiences on several levels: seen through the eyes of a child it works as a simple Santa Claus story, but it’s also impactful for adults with a thought-provoking theme, that in all forms of human expression some truth can be found.  We must open our hearts as well as our minds.  In whatever sort of script or novel you may be writing, never forget the power of theme.

The Nightmare Before Christmas

Written by Tim Burton, Directed by Henry Selick (1993)

Jack Skellington (Danny Elfman), the King of Halloween Town, is bored of living in a land filled with ghosts and ghouls and organizing the annual Halloween festivities. So, he’s overjoyed to stumble upon magical doors leading to different holiday lands. Along with Jack, we’re transported to Christmas town, an enchanting world of elves and penguins, snow and sparkly red-and-green lights. Jack is so enthralled with the holiday that he decides to kidnap ‘Sandy Claus’ and run Christmas with the help of his ghoulish friends from Halloween Town, with terrifying results. Can Jack realise his mistake in time, put things right and save Christmas?

The Nightmare Before Christmas is an unforgettable, alternative holiday film that has become a cult classic. The king of macabre Tim Burton brings to life vivid, believable holiday worlds full of quirky characters and fantastical settings. Christmas Town, with its candy canes, cute elves and gingerbread houses, captures the cartoony essence of the holiday perfectly. The Nightmare Before Christmas is a stunning example of painstaking stop-animation and has something for all ages, including a haunting musical score composed by Danny Elfman.

If you’re creating a holiday script, think about including key heart-warming themes but don’t be afraid to put your own, alternative slant on a Christmas message.  Yes, even a dark, edgy imagination – with an open heart – can create a holiday classic! Just remember to include plenty of festive scenery, music and… oh yeah, some unforgettable characters!

Happy Holidays to Everyone!

About The Story Solution:  The Story Solution was written by accomplished screenwriter Eric Edson. It reveals the 23 actions used to create dynamic, three dimensional heroes and link all parts of a captivating screenplay. He also covers screenwriting tips, screenwriting resources, and screenwriting books. Visit the website and Facebook page or call 818-677-7808 for more information.