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#do I still love it
19thsentry-blog · 2 years
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Anarka, Meet Jagged
Miraculous Ladybug Fanfic (Anarka Couffaine/Jagged Stone Oneshot)
AO3 Link
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"I mean, there's always the Raincomprix kid, right?" Fester's feet were straight in the air, resting against the back of the ratty ass couch in his garage; his mohawk grazed the concrete from where his head was hung off the seat. He had a jar of imported cheese puffs in hand, shoveling them in his mouth with big handfuls, and a couple fell out between his fingers and rolled underneath the drum set that they had somehow managed to make fit around Fester's dad's golf kit and tool chests.
Anarka stared at him, mouth agape. "…Are you fucking kidding me?"
The last thing their band needed was to get laughed off the stage when they introduced themselves:
Fester!
Anarka!
Raven!
…And fucking Roger.
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Johnny finally decided to stop being a colossal douche and actually agreed to book them to play at Fuzzies, the CBGB knock-off every band of hooligans ached to headline at. This was it. It wasn't just a badge of honor to play at Fuzzies--it was a sign that you were worth your shit, and now it was their turn. They had finally made their break. …Only to have their lead singer and guitarist, Serge, pull a disappearing act because he was a horndog, got a girl pregnant, and didn't want to end up part of some shotgun wedding.
Fester sucked cheese dust off his black-painted fingertips. "He knows a few of our songs. He could learn to scream--"
Anarka threw her guitar pick with force, landing it squarely in Fester's mouth, causing him to cough and hack like a moron. "Absolutely fucking not. We are not letting that nancy ass choir boy in the band. He wouldn't know rock if it bit him on the ass!"
Raven tossed her magazine on the wobbly three-legged table next to her and clapped her hands, dropping them between her knees. "Narky. Baby doll. I'm fucking tired of auditions. If you're so opposed, you go find someone--but you're teaching them the set. At this point, I'm willing to slap Roger on the ass and call it good."
Anarka grit her teeth. There was no way that in the entire city of Paris there was not one person better than Roger. Anarka grabbed her guitar rougher than intended, the strings letting out a twang of discomfort. "I am not giving up on our sound like my shitty bandmates!" she shot back, although it didn't have the desired effect. Raven rolled her eyes at her, popping bubble gum while Fester looked entirely unbothered at the insult, rubbing his throat from his hacking fit. "Am I the only one who cares here?"
Fester and Raven shared a look--that Anarka-is-having-another-shit-fit kind of look, which suspiciously reminded her of the one Ma Gracie and Pa tended to share. "Ach, fuck it, you guys are worthless!" 
Anarka marched the twenty minutes down to Fuzzies alone, her guitar banging against her back, slamming open the door to the record store so loud that the rarely perturbed Johnny actually jumped at her entrance. The other patrons turned to look at her as she stomped up to the counter and slapped her hand down. Johnny stared down at her frowning face, his half-lidded eyes watching with a subtle spark of interest behind his small circular black lenses. He leaned back on his stool and blew cigarette smoke out between slightly amused pursed lips.
"Yeah?" He said lazily, prompting her to speak.
When Anarka first met Johnny, he had kind of impressed her. He was the mysterious shopkeep, the guy with all the 'forbidden' records Ma Gracie would have had a heart attack over, and he could talk about any band with a casual firmness that indicated that he was a guy who knew music. And that was the exact opposite of who she had been, the nervous pre-teen in braces with imposter syndrome. But that wasn't her anymore.
"You know everyone." She said flatly, hand still splayed out on his desk.
His smirk became more pronounced around his cigarette. "Yeah."
"We need a guitarist--you're gonna give me someone." She could sing the lyrics her-damn-self; it wasn't like she was asking for a miracle here. There was no way Johnny didn't know someone that could play for them, at least for their gig at the shop.
Johnny tapped ash into the tray on the counter while he held one long pointer finger out behind her. "You've seen the board. You can post whatever notice you want up there. I'm sure someone would be interested."
Yeah, as if he didn't already know they'd done that weeks ago. "No, fuck the board. Your board fucking sucks."
"Hey!" he said back in mock offense.
"You've gotta know somebody. I know you do."
Johnny stood on his lanky legs and jammed his cigarette into the ashtray. "And what makes you think I'd give you a name?" His tone had turned sharp, eyes challenging her from behind those black lenses, making Anarka's stomach flip despite herself. She wasn't scared of anyone, and she took great pains to remind people of that fact, but…alright, yeah, she was still just some snot-nosed kid compared to the other musicians that Johnny let play here.
He was right, and she knew it. She wasn't Iggy Pop or anything; Johnny had no obligation to help her out of the hole she had found herself in. Fuck, it would probably be more entertaining for him to watch their rag-tag team of idiots fall apart on stage. But still. Anarka's hand balled into a fist, and she clenched it a few times before letting her other hand drop from the counter.
"Because I need this." Anarka didn't want to sound desperate, but it came off as desperate anyway.  
It was the truth, though. Anarka didn't just want to make music. She didn't just want to play at Fuzzies, the very place that had given her the first taste of something real on this shitty floating rock--she needed it. She'd finally have some way to mark her progress, a way to prove that she was a real musician, that she was making it work. It wasn't fair that her dreams would be ruined just because Serge wanted to get his dick wet.
Johnny looked at her for a second, head tilted a little to the left, before he chuckled low and slow, shaking his head. "Come with me, kid," he said, shuffling out from around the counter. Anarka practically chased him as Johnny sauntered up to the shop's second floor. They passed the shelves of classical music, the bluegrass records, and the folk shit, and she almost rammed straight into Johnny when he randomly stopped in front of one of the aisles.
"Hey, kid," Johnny called out to the person in the aisle. Anarka had to move around his lanky frame to see who he was talking to, nervous that he was fucking with her--which she might have expected.
The boy in the aisle was frowning over a record in his hand, and he jolted a bit at Johnny's voice, turning to look at the hippie shopkeep and the not-so-tough-looking-at-the-moment-but-could-still-kick-your-shin-in punk girl, one dark brow lifting in confusion. To Anarka's relief, he at least looked the role of a real rock and roller--crazy stupid purple hair, black leather jacket, boots. He even wore black eyeliner and eyeshadow. And he was kind of hot, in a sallow sort of way, but more importantly? He wasn't Roger, so even if he sucked gravel through a curly straw on the guitar, she wouldn't even care.
Johnny looked down at Anarka (who was still slightly hidden behind him, trying to look unbothered and aloof and utterly failing) with an all-knowing smirk. "Kid just shipped in from New York. I think he might be able to help you out. Anarka, meet Jagged."
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datingtrees · 2 months
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maya angelou saying the funniest thing anyone has ever said about editing, which i can never let myself forget EVER AGAIN [x]
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inkskinned · 8 months
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because sometimes there are invisible tests and invisible rules and you're just supposed to ... know the rule. someone you thought of as a friend asks you for book recommendations, so you give her a list of like 30 books, each with a brief blurb and why you like it. later, you find out she screenshotted the list and send it out to a group chat with the note: what an absolute freak can you believe this. you saw the responses: emojis where people are rolling over laughing. too much and obsessive and actually kind of creepy in the comments. you thought you'd been doing the right thing. she'd asked, right? an invisible rule: this is what happens when you get too excited.
you aren't supposed to laugh at your own jokes, so you don't, but then you're too serious. you're not supposed to be too loud, but then people say you're too quiet. you aren't supposed to get passionate about things, but then you're shy, boring. you aren't supposed to talk too much, but then people are mad when you're not good at replying.
you fold yourself into a prettier paper crane. since you never know what is "selfish" and what is "charity," you give yourself over, fully. you'd rather be empty and over-generous - you'd rather eat your own boundaries than have even one person believe that you're mean. since you don't know what the thing is that will make them hate you, you simply scrub yourself clean of any form of roughness. if you are perfect and smiling and funny, they can love you. if you are always there for them and never admit what's happening and never mention your past and never make them uncomfortable - you can make up for it. you can earn it.
don't fuck up. they're all testing you, always. they're tolerating you. whatever secret club happened, over a summer somewhere - during some activity you didn't get to attend - everyone else just... figured it out. like they got some kind of award or examination that allowed them to know how-to-be-normal. how to fit. and for the rest of your life, you've been playing catch-up. you've been trying to prove that - haha! you get it! that the joke they're telling, the people they are, the manual they got- yeah, you've totally read it.
if you can just divide yourself in two - the lovable one, and the one that is you - you can do this. you can walk the line. they can laugh and accept you. if you are always-balanced, never burdensome, a delight to have in class, champagne and glittering and never gawky or florescent or god-forbid cringe: you can get away with it.
you stare at your therapist, whom you can make jokes with, and who laughs at your jokes, because you are so fucking good at people-pleasing. you smile at her, and she asks you how you're doing, and you automatically say i'm good, thanks, how are you? while the answer swims somewhere in your little lizard brain:
how long have you been doing this now? mastering the art of your body and mind like you're piloting a puppet. has it worked? what do you mean that all you feel is... just exhausted. pick yourself up, the tightrope has no net. after all, you're cheating, somehow, but nobody seems to know you actually flunked the test. it's working!
aren't you happy yet?
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punkeduppirate · 8 months
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same old married couple, another adopted child
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mokeonn · 8 months
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"But if college was free, then people would abuse that and get useless degrees" hell yeah I would! If I could go to college without debt I would make it my job to get a degree in every little thing that interested me. I'd get a doctorate in film studies. I'd have a bachelor's degree for every science I like. I'd try to learn at least 5 languages with varying results. I would learn something "useful" like coding and then follow it up with a ""useless"" degree like art history. I'd be the world record speed run holder for getting every degree possible.
But I can't afford college without going into massive debt, so instead I spent the last 5 years trying to figure out what I am passionate enough about to consider going into debt over, because unfortunately being passionate about everything is extremely expensive to pursue.
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soyochii · 7 months
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Quick doodles before I evaporate.
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andthebeanstalk · 10 months
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Today my therapist introduced me to a concept surrounding disability that she called "hLep".
Which is when you - in this case, you are a disabled person - ask someone for help ("I can't drink almond milk so can you get me some whole milk?", or "Please call Donna and ask her to pick up the car for me."), and they say yes, and then they do something that is not what you asked for but is what they think you should have asked for ("I know you said you wanted whole, but I got you skim milk because it's better for you!", "I didn't want to ruin Donna's day by asking her that, so I spent your money on an expensive towing service!") And then if you get annoyed at them for ignoring what you actually asked for - and often it has already happened repeatedly - they get angry because they "were just helping you! You should be grateful!!"
And my therapist pointed out that this is not "help", it's "hLep".
Sure, it looks like help; it kind of sounds like help too; and if it was adjusted just a little bit, it could be help. But it's not help. It's hLep.
At its best, it is patronizing and makes a person feel unvalued and un-listened-to. Always, it reinforces the false idea that disabled people can't be trusted with our own care. And at its worst, it results in disabled people losing our freedom and control over our lives, and also being unable to actually access what we need to survive.
So please, when a disabled person asks you for help on something, don't be a hLeper, be a helper! In other words: they know better than you what they need, and the best way you can honor the trust they've put in you is to believe that!
Also, I want to be very clear that the "getting angry at a disabled person's attempts to point out harmful behavior" part of this makes the whole thing WAY worse. Like it'd be one thing if my roommate bought me some passive-aggressive skim milk, but then they heard what I had to say, and they apologized and did better in the future - our relationship could bounce back from that. But it is very much another thing to have a crying shouting match with someone who is furious at you for saying something they did was ableist. Like, Christ, Jessica, remind me to never ask for your support ever again! You make me feel like if I asked you to call 911, you'd order a pizza because you know I'll feel better once I eat something!!
Edit: crediting my therapist by name with her permission - this term was coined by Nahime Aguirre Mtanous!
Edit again: I made an optional follow-up to this post after seeing the responses. Might help somebody. CW for me frankly talking about how dangerous hLep really is.
#hlep#original#mental health#my sympathies and empathies to anyone who has to rely on this kind of hlep to get what they need.#the people in my life who most need to see this post are my family but even if they did I sincerely doubt they would internalize it#i've tried to break thru to them so many times it makes my head hurt. so i am focusing on boundaries and on finding other forms of support#and this thing i learned today helps me validate those boundaries. the example with the milk was from my therapist.#the example with the towing company was a real thing that happened with my parents a few months ago while I was age 28. 28!#a full adult age! it is so infantilizing as a disabled adult to seek assistance and support from ableist parents.#they were real mad i was mad tho. and the spoons i spent trying to explain it were only the latest in a long line of#huge family-related spoon expenditures. distance and the ability to enforce boundaries helps. haven't talked to sisters for literally the#longest period of my whole life. people really believe that if they love you and try to help you they can do no wrong.#and those people are NOT great allies to the chronically sick folks in their lives.#you can adore someone and still fuck up and hurt them so bad. will your pride refuse to accept what you've done and lash out instead?#or will you have courage and be kind? will you learn and grow? all of us have prejudices and practices we are not yet aware of.#no one is pure. but will you be kind? will you be a good friend? will you grow? i hope i grow. i hope i always make the choice to grow.#i hope with every year i age i get better and better at making people feel the opposite of how my family's ableism has made me feel#i will see them seen and hear them heard and smile at their smiles. make them feel smart and held and strong.#just like i do now but even better! i am always learning better ways to be kind so i don't see why i would stop
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stil-lindigo · 6 months
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the fox god.
a comic about a trickster.
--
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all my other comics
store
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chikkenhawke · 3 months
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enraptured by the shape of this beast 🐣
get stickers etc -> here
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reasonsforhope · 21 hours
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Sometimes you just have one of those moments where the progress we've made as a culture get thrown into stark relief. You look at something and go "Holy shit, that would never have happened when I was a kid."
Today, I had one of those moments when I realized that the teenage boys I'm working with are just. genuinely, openly enthusiastic about going to Build-a-Bear for their outing.
These are sixteen and seventeen year old boys! They just had a whole conversation about what to name their "cute", mostly new squishmallows! They're genuinely excited that they're going to Build-a-Bear this weekend and asking other kids to pick up specific accessories for them!!
Holy shit, that never would've happened when I was 16. None of the boys would have dared to be visibly interested - and neither would most of the girls! There would have been a million gay jokes and "Haha, you're a girl" jokes and "What are you, a baby?" jokes. Teenagers weren't even supposed to care about anything back then!
Less than 15 years later, and I'm watching three 17 year old boys treat all that as not even worthy of comment.
So let's call that a reason for hope. Even when the kids aren't alright, in some ways apparently they are alright. Go Gen Z, honestly. It's so lovely to watch you guys just openly doing and saying stuff that, when I was a teen, would've been a social death sentence.
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poorly-drawn-mdzs · 2 months
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Happy Thistle Debut Day!
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ducktollers · 1 month
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best friends
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egophiliac · 1 month
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What do you like about the Diasomnia boys if I may ask?
I always love hearing about the different reasons people enjoy characters.
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I mean, c'mon. he has split custody over Sebek okay
also, Lilia in particular has maybe the best timeskip character development of all time
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#art#twisted wonderland#twisted wonderland spoilers#twisted wonderland episode 7 spoilers#twisted wonderland book 7 spoilers#twisted wonderland episode 7 chapter 4 spoilers#twisted wonderland book 7 chapter 4 spoilers#stage in playful land#i hope this is legible whoops#anon i am sorry but you made the fatal mistake of asking me to talk about diasomnia#insert 'i just think they're neat' jpg#i do like the other characters a lot but they are definitely my favorites#they just hit a lot of my favorite things in characters i guess!#yes even you sebek even though you keep shrieking NINGEN at me#(it's okay he gets Character Development™ later)#and their dynamic! it's great! these guys frikking love each other SO much and they WILL have terrible terrible angst about it#ohoho delicious#give me all your emotional hangups baybeeeee#also somewhere in there i went from 'i like them all equally (but lilia is the most fun to draw)'#to 'lilia is absolutely my favorite (and still the most fun to draw) (EVEN MORE fun now thank you swishy ponytail!)'#(it was probably when his candy coating got a little scratched and whoops all the tragedy fell out)#(where's that 'get loved loser' post because i need to staple it to lilia's forehead)#i am extremely bad at putting things into words so please don't ask me to explain it any further#just know that the diafam is everything to me and if we don't get more episode 7 soon i'm going to crumble into dust and blow away#we'll be getting the crowleytimes on monday and maybe there will be. idk. some foreshadowing or something in his groovy#probably not but LOOK i'm desperate
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inkskinned · 9 months
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at some point it's just like. do they even fucking like the thing they're asking AI to make? "oh we'll just use AI for all the scripts" "we'll just use AI for art" "no worries AI can write this book" "oh, AI could easily design this"
like... it's so clear they've never stood in the middle of an art museum and felt like crying, looking at a piece that somehow cuts into your marrow even though the artist and you are separated by space and time. they've never looked at a poem - once, twice, three times - just because the words feel like a fired gun, something too-close, clanging behind your eyes. they've never gotten to the end of the movie and had to arrive, blinking, back into their body, laughing a little because they were holding their breath without realizing.
"oh AI can mimic style" "AI can mimic emotion" "AI can mimic you and your job is almost gone, kid."
... how do i explain to you - you can make AI that does a perfect job of imitating me. you could disseminate it through the entire world and make so much money, using my works and my ideas and my everything.
and i'd still keep writing.
i don't know there's a word for it. in high school, we become aware that the way we feel about our artform is a cliche - it's like breathing. over and over, artists all feel the same thing. "i write because i need to" and "my music is how i speak" and "i make art because it's either that or i stop existing." it is such a common experience, the violence and immediacy we mean behind it is like breathing to me - comes out like a useless understatement. it's a cliche because we all feel it, not because the experience isn't actually persistent. so many of us have this ... fluttering urgency behind our ribs.
i'm not doing it for the money. for a star on the ground in some city i've never visited. i am doing it because when i was seven i started taking notebooks with me on walks. i am doing it because in second grade i wrote a poem and stood up in front of my whole class to read it out while i shook with nerves. i am doing it because i spent high school scribbling all my feelings down. i am doing it for the 16 year old me and the 18 year old me and the today-me, how we can never put the pen down. you can take me down to a subatomic layer, eviscerate me - and never find the source of it; it is of me. when i was 19 i named this blog inkskinned because i was dramatic and lonely and it felt like the only thing that was actually permanently-true about me was that this is what is inside of me, that the words come up over everything, coat everything, bloom their little twilight arias into every nook and corner and alley
"we're gonna replace you". that is okay. you think that i am writing to fill a space. that someone said JOB OPENING: Writer Needed, and i wrote to answer. you think one raindrop replaces another, and i think they're both just falling. you think art has a place, that is simply arrives on walls when it is needed, that is only ever on demand, perfect, easily requested. you see "audience spending" and "marketability" and "multi-line merch opportunity"
and i see a kid drowning. i am writing to make her a boat. i am writing because what used to be a river raft has long become a fully-rigged ship. i am writing because you can fucking rip this out of my cold dead clammy hands and i will still come back as a ghost and i will still be penning poems about it.
it isn't even love. the word we use the most i think is "passion". devotion, obsession, necessity. my favorite little fact about the magic of artists - "abracadabra" means i create as i speak. we make because it sluices out of us. because we look down and our hands are somehow already busy. because it was the first thing we knew and it is our backbone and heartbreak and everything. because we have given up well-paying jobs and a "real life" and the approval of our parents. we create because - the cliche again. it's like breathing. we create because we must.
you create because you're greedy.
#every time someones like ''AI will replace u" im like. u will have to fucking KILL ME#there is no replacement here bc i am not filling a position. i am just writing#and the writing is what i need to be doing#writeblr#this probably doesn't make sense bc its sooo frustrating i rarely speak it the way i want to#edited for the typo wrote it and then was late to a meeting lol#i love u people who mention my typos genuinely bc i don't always catch them!!!! :) it is doing me a genuine favor!!!#my friend says i should tell you ''thank you beta editors'' but i don't know what that means#i made her promise it isn't a wolf fanfiction thing. so if it IS a wolf thing she is DEAD to me (just kidding i love her)#hey PS PS PS ??? if ur reading this thinking what it's saying is ''i am financially capable of losing this'' ur reading it wrong#i write for free. i always have. i have worked 5-7 jobs at once to make ends meet.#i did not grow up with access or money. i did not grow up with connections or like some kind of excuse#i grew up and worked my fucking ASS OFF. and i STILL!!! wrote!!! on the side!!! because i didn't know how not to!!!#i do not write for money!!!! i write because i fuckken NEED TO#i could be in the fucking desert i could be in the fuckken tundra i could be in total darkness#and i would still be writing pretentious angsty poetry about it#im not in any way saying it's a good thing. i'm not in any way implying that they're NOT tryna kill us#i'm saying. you could take away our jobs and we could go hungry and we could suffer#and from that suffering (if i know us) we'd still fuckin make art.#i would LOVE to be able to make money doing this! i never have been able to. but i don't NEED to. i will find a way to make my life work#even if it means being miserable#but i will not give up this thing. for the whole world.
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kithj · 6 months
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happy friday the 13th here are some spooky text-based games for halloween:
contrition - As a priest, it’s your job to listen to your parishioners’ darkest secrets and absolve their guilt. But when a sinister stranger comes to the confessional one Halloween night, you realize it’s your soul on the line.
familiar - You are a familiar. Your mistress has some requests for you. Help her complete her ritual, or pay the price of failure.
jagged bone - A branching choose-your-own-adventure horror game about transformation and perspective. 
the forest of candles (and the man with a lighter) - follows Maggie, a young woman with a fear of forest fires sparked by an old town folk tale. She's spent years trying to escape her hometown and the fear it inspires in her, only to be called back for the funeral of an old friend.
mary's hare - Mary's Hare is short interactive horror story about a woman and a rabbit, based on the story of Mary Toft.
only this - "And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming / And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor..."
what girls do in the dark - a slumber party text adventure.
god is in the radio - you are death, one of 22 members of the major arcana, a cult dedicated to some far-off god. the night is halloween, and you watch in scorn as the unknowing dance among devils and dress to indulge in sin. the high priestess receives a message from the all-mighty himself: the arcana must gather in an abandoned house and find his song on an old radio receiver.
anchorhead - Travel to the haunted coastal town of Anchorhead, Massachusetts and uncover the roots of a horrific conspiracy inspired by the works of H. P. Lovecraft. Search through musty archives and tomes of esoteric lore; dodge hostile townsfolk; combat a generation-spanning evil that threatens your family and the entire world. (illustrated version on itch.io)
my father's long, long legs - An interactive horror story about family, unease, and loss.
beneath floes - Qikiqtaaluk, 1962. The sun falls below the horizon and won't return for months. You wander the broken shoreline, wary of your mother's stories about the qalupalik. Fish woman, stealer of wayward children: she dwells beneath the ice.
the silence under your bed - An interactive horror collection about the strange, the spooky, and the macabre. 
bogeyman - You can go home when you learn to be good.
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zoe-oneesama · 4 months
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Some "Special" Girls! And the late girls.
Ko-fi | Patreon
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