#short: goldfish

[neil-gaiman]

Hello!!

First of all, THANK YOU!!! The world has been feeling harder and more hopeless to me in recent years, and individuals like yourself help more than I will ever be able to express to bring light and hope back into my world. Loving and obsessing over gems like Good Omens, and American Gods (the novel at least, I must admit I never saw the show 🙈) have always given me motivation, sparked my creativity, and made me feel so much love for this, often unfortunately cruel, world. I can't express the solace it brings to me when the creators of the things I love are thoughtful and decent human beings. So, again, THANK YOU 🫀🫀🫀

I just finished my second viewing of Season 2 and have a question for you (my apologies if it has already been asked and/or answered and I missed it)!! 

How did you select the song "Everyday" by Buddy Holly? It is absolutely perfect on so many different levels, and for so many different threads and characters, all while still encompassing the perfect feelings of this show. I always include playlists with the stories I write, and often agonize over which song is the best choice for certain moments. You had to pick one song to encompass the entirety of it, and it truly blew me away! 

Thank you this Season and for everything you do; it really does mean the world to so many of us 🫀🫀🫀

In February of 1991 (I think) Terry Pratchett and I were staying in the Chateau Marmont hotel in LA. These days it is a very fancy hotel but back then it was pretty manky and run down. We were being put up by a film company and each morning we would fax over an outline for a new version of Good Omens the Movie and each afternoon we'd go to the studio for a meeting and we would realise that nobody had actually read what we had sent over that morning. Then we would go back to the hotel and work on trying to incorporate the studio notes on the outline they hadn't actually read into what we were doing.

We worked up in Terry's room because it had heating, and it was incredibly cold in LA that February, especially cold because I was in a chalet out in the grounds and there weren't heaters or extra blankets or anything in the chalet.

And at some point in there we were talking about music, and I suggested a few scary and ominous songs that might work to signal the end times. And Terry said "What about Buddy Holly's song Everyday? It sounds so upbeat and cheerful. But what if it was about the end of the world?" And I got all excited at the idea of Everyday being the Good Omens theme song.

So it's really just there to make Terry happy.

[colourofthekites]

I'm gonna need someone to call me a good boy for putting up with my job

[mamawasatesttube]

alright it's time! without further ado i present to you, the premise of the timkon and clois mermay fic i probably won't write.

in a world where mers are known to exist but are extremely rare - hunted to near-extinction in the past, perhaps, and mostly very reclusive - cadmus labs manage to get a tissue sample from a mer sighted in the sea nearby, although he evades capture and is never observed in the area again. it's enough for them to make a few attempts at cloning - the first twelve are unsuccessful, but the thirteenth... the thirteenth grows beautifully.

tim drake is an intern working directly under lois lane at the daily planet. he's only recently started his job, but he's great at it and he's thriving, and he really likes lois. her husband is nice, too, even if he privately thinks the man kind of lacks personality - he's just not as much of a go-getter as lois. his columns are great reads, though. tim just thinks lois's are better.

as usual, clark kent has a secret. a sea-cret, in this case - he came from the ocean. he was a little baby mer, tacky with the blood of his dead parents, who washed up ashore by the lighthouse the kent family has kept for ages. of course they took him in and raised him as their own, as best they could. he disappeared to sea again for a while when he met lori lemaris. though their romance didn't pan out in the end, they parted as friends, and she gave him a gift: a magic spell to let him transform into a human while on land, to have legs, but to always return to his true form in the water.

lois lane, of course, knows her husband's secret. lois lane would do anything to protect her husband and his secret. she nearly lost him once, a few years ago, when he tried to go for a swim to meet his old friend lori but was nearly caught by hunters. he escaped, but was injured; his tail still bears the scar. she still has the occasional nightmare about finding him on the docks, bleeding, mourning.

the thirteenth experiment - the cloned mer - escapes.

he doesn't know where to go - he doesn't have anywhere else to go - but he's never been in the open ocean before, with no tanks or barriers or nets to hold him back, and he revels in it. he's free! he has so much space to swim, he can leap from the water and twirl in the air! there are so many stars in the night sky, and the sun on the rocks is so warm and nice, and there are so many new kinds of fish he's never eaten...

...but mers are social creatures, and he's lonely. so he starts sneaking back towards the shore of the city he escaped from. he knows it's dangerous, but he just wants to see people. he's never met another mer. he hides near the docks, he swims by the beaches, he explores the marinas. he observes. he sneaks a little closer and closer day by day, growing braver with every venture that doesn't get him caught.

tim drake is eating a leisurely lunch by the waterside one day when he notices a creature in the water, staring at him.

"uuhhhh," he says. "hi?"

the creature ducks back into the water with barely a ripple and vanishes. but he's back, a minute or two later, and staring at tim's lunch. "...what's that?" he asks.

"this?" tim looks down. "this is some sliced mango. do you want some?"

he tosses a piece into the water. the thirteenth experiment takes a tentative bite. tim witnesses a being experience true bliss for the first time in its life, in real time. the next thing he knows, he's promised to come back tomorrow with more land fruits for the mer to try - and he's promised not to tell anyone. and there's a little thought in the back of his mind telling him that he really needs to look into any facilities in the area that might have the capacity to house a secret captive mer.

clark kent hears rumors that some people are claiming to have seen a young mer in the area recently. of course he has to investigate. of course he finds the thirteenth clone, swimming around the mouth of the river and playing in the currents. of course he looks into his face - his own face, years younger - and knows, deep in his bones, what has happened. of course he calls him family. gives him a name. offers him his home, as well, but kon-el declines; he's too in love with the ocean to want to abandon it to hide on land just yet.

clark is a master of keeping secrets. never from lois, but from the rest of the world? always. he tells lois about the boy in the water, about the facility that created him, about the scientists who kept him from the sea. lois swears that she'll stand by him no matter what, and that they'll do whatever they can to make sure this kid is safe.

what follows is a series of more and more ridiculous scenarios as tim and lois both attempt to keep the mer secret from each other, unaware that the other knows about kon because they both believe they can't tell anyone about kon for kon's own safety. kon, unaware that tim and kal-el's wife know each other either, is just having the time of his life swimming around and stealing bits and pieces of tim's lunch.

of course, the peace can't last. cadmus hears the rumors, too, and they want their prize back. early one morning, tim and lois see reports of a flotilla of strange, private fishing boats with unusual equipment and no markings, and they both know what that means.

kon is being hunted.

tim scrambles to get to their usual meeting spot, to tell kon to get away, to hide, but kon never comes. hours pass. the sun sinks below the horizon; the moon glimmers on the water. sick with worry, tim finally has to retreat. they must have found him already, he thinks. he has to find a way to get him back. he has some leads, about facilities that could actually hold a mer, and about those boats. he'll follow up on them. he will find kon.

(what tim doesn't know is that clark moves fast. clark knows all about being hunted. kon is safe, luxuriating in a bath bomb in clark and lois's apartment. he's got clark's laptop on a plank across the tub, and he's watching wendy the werewolf stalker with rapt attention. clark has gotten him some sushi. he's having a great time.)

lois, however, isn't home. lois followed one of those suspicious boats back to its dock, and lois is going to get some answers.

what follows: tim and lois both break into cadmus marine research labs and proceed to do a spiderman pointing meme at each other over a computer full of records about the mer-cloning experiments.

what follows: lois is so proud of tim. he's breaking and entering and getting to the truth without her lead at all! he's doing so good! good job tim!

what follows: lois puts tim in her purse and brings him home with her like a little dog.

clark, upon seeing tim with lois, is initially like ?!?!!?! why did you bring him here when you know kon is here?!?!? but then kon sticks his head out of the bathroom and goes "tim!!!!!" and clark is like. wait. you... the human friend you mentioned is tim???? and kon is like. you know him???? my mango dealer????

and then the falling action. lois spearheads cadmus getting shut down, and kon gets to splash around without fear. he gets clark to come splash around with him too. and he kisses tim :)

[hiyaluronic]

I just—I just need a minute because Letters just learned he was a real boy in time to have his big damn hero moment and it’s…😭

It’s not fucking fair.

[feralsunspotandtincan]

Luke can get away with wearing criminally tight outfits with no pockets so they don't ruin the silhouette, because his husband is a walking utility belt.

[roseandgold137]

Roseandgold the profile pic change freaked me out so hard for a sec (I love the little guys though)

dw it freaked me out too (forgot I changed it within like ten seconds and couldn’t for the life of me figure out who was on my dash) (it was me)

[bewildered-galaxy]

Reading Tomihiko Morimi's short stories has been a lot of fun but his short story, Child Peering into Goldfish Bowl really touched me the most.

The fear of being out of sync and uncomfortable after reconnecting with an old friend is written and described so bittersweetly in this short story.

Got me thinking of the friends I've lost touch with over the years from primary school and across my time spent away from home.

Morimi wrote Tatami Galaxy, Penguin Highway, Eccentric Family etc but his unadapted works are just as awesome!

[blmpff]

Every time I see your tag ‘great set op thank you’ on a gifset or photoset or something, it reminds me of that one video, the one where they’re like ‘another one thank yew. Another one thank yew’ and marking off rallies on a board. Idk where I was going with this

I love how I got these in a span of just a few days from each other lol

@mineonmain it does have that repetitive vibe since I use it on all gif sets, but I don't mean it in that Be Done And Over With It way. I couldn't possibly think of a different thing to say in all of them, so I just keep it simple

@the-iron-queen it's the least I can do for our dear gif makers who grace us with their treasures. I'm genuinely grateful for each and every single one for their time and efforts 🫶💞

[arttsuka]

In the Star Trek mer AU, are the different alien races instead different types of merpeople based on varying sea creatures?

Yes, based on different species or just completely imaginary (aka based on vibes), although I do want to insert real animal characteristics if not to their appearance then to their habits or abilities(?).

[myothertardisisonthemun]

Ads I don't want to watch: honestly most of them

Ads I basically willingly watch: a small business owner shows you an interesting, snipit of their day, making something, designing something, raising pet animals, shipping their stuff, basically a fun, honest (hopefully) little story

[applesauce-drawz]

Some riddle sketches 🥰 (I never drew this child in my life other then him mentally dying help)

[papermint-airplane]

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Send this star to 10 (or more 👽) mutuals to let them know you love them ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐💗

Aaaaah this has been sitting in my inbox for a while. I am so sorry. 😭😭 But thank you! Right back at yoooou! 👽 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

[ifyourereadingthisblinktwice]

i need to stop forgetting things exist the fucking second they leave my field of vision. why is is impossible for two things to occupy my mind at once especially when im tired. like. i feel like a sim. i feel like actions are being canceled and i just. move on. and completely forget what i was doing moments before. i fucking hate it

[ceph-the-ghost-writer]

Oh my god I forgot it was Renato's birthday in May. HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY, SEXY VAMPIRE FISH MAN!

Hahaha, he always forgets the day too. So really, we're kind of honoring him by bringing it up late.

[shortstorytournament]

Short Story Tournament

THE MESSY JOY OF THE FINAL THROES OF THE DINNER PARTY by Helen Phillips (2016) (link)

What an odd, odd joke for them to play on her - all seven of them frozen in place, the host half-standing to pour cream into coffee, forks held in various positions between apple pie and mouth, a hand thrown upward in emphasis, a head thrown backward in laughter, fingers wrapped fervently around wineglasses: a flawless tableau of the messy joy of the final throes of the dinner party.

AT NIGHTFALL, THE GOLDFISH by Melody Mou (2021) (link) - tw: death

My flowers asked me to leave the fact behind and give myself roses.