thebitterflamingo

[thebitterflamingo]

writing be like

[thebitterflamingo]

[thebitterflamingo]

RIP I’m literally the opposite.

Give me all the angst to watch/read but make me write it and I WILL cry

me writing angst: haha this is fun I hope someone cries reading it

me when my favorite show has even the slightest bit of angst: OH NO

[thebitterflamingo]

when i die theyre going to bury all my tumblr followers with me like im an ancient pharaoh

[thebitterflamingo]

How sure are you that it’s a cookbook?

Umm maybe 99%?

Is that a question or a statement?

Well we won’t really know til you try it.

I swear to gods if I slurp magic poison and not chili I’m going to kill you.

Everyone else is positive that the dusty, ancient tome you found on your last expedition is a long-lost spellbook, with the grimoire containing magics long thought lost to this world. You, however, are pretty sure it’s just a cookbook.

#writing prompts #writing practice #humor

[thebitterflamingo]

Welp time to get creative with the cleaning supplies

You haven’t vacuumed for over two years. Not because you don’t want to, but because the dust bunnies have unionized. Part of their terms is no vacuum or broom will ever decimate their population again.

[thebitterflamingo]

The best part about having no super powers is having no weaknesses.

Supers seem to forget the small matter of their intrinsic Achilles heels until I strike.

My ability to discover, obtain, and utilize supers’ weaknesses has made me very famous in the assassin world. It’s a skill that isn’t bought or bred. However, perhaps I too got too caught up in the spotlight, forgetting my weak points. Though I don’t have an inbuilt weakness like supers, it seems someone has finally found the next best thing - my sister.

Everyone has a weakness, and I will find theirs. Whether super or human, ‘hero’ or ‘villain’ I will find their weakness, and I will find my sister.

You are an assassin that hunts superheroes. You haven no powers yourself.

#writers #writing prompts #writing practice

[thebitterflamingo]

When I gasp back to life this time, it’s mildly less traumatizing than the previous 16 times. The slightly familiar environment helps and I sigh with relief when I realize that I am not only still in the same state but quite possibly in the same city. I am not looking for a repeat of the Japan incident and I still wake up in cold sweats remembering my trip to Philadelphia.

‘Phone- I need a phone.’

That’s one of my first coherent thoughts. I look around dumbly for some kind of payphone before realizing I don’t have quarters and I’m also under an overpass. I smack the side of my head.

‘Get it together, Sam. You were shot in the stomach not the head.’

I snort at the thought. Tracie would probably say it was an improvement if I had gotten shot in the head. ‘Maybe it will knock some sense into you,’ she’d say. I need to get in touch with her quickly, if only to avoid her waiting on me for dinner. She has a real temper when she misses a meal.

Payphones are out for obvious reasons. I have no change and also it’s not like 1997. I’m not sure where I’d even find a payphone nowadays. So that leaves the much more logical, if less appealing course of action-look for my body.

More specifically, I hope I can find my cell phone. Coming back relatively close to where I’d died means I have a decent chance at getting rescued tonight. Of course, it also carries the risk of running into the same guys who’d shot me, getting shot again, and then having to do all of this over again except this time from Philadelphia.

I. Can. Not. Go. Back. To. Philadelphia.

However, I have to either risk it or risk my wife’s wrath and surprisingly, Philadelphia is the less scary of those two options.

Gritting my teeth, I head for the docks where I’d died.

————————

Thankfully, the docks are quiet.

The goons had probably done the smart criminal thing and gotten the hell out of there when the drug bust turned into a murder.

Thankfully, they had not done the smart criminal thing and gotten rid of my phone. I find it in my bloodied jacket pocket, right where I left it, undisturbed.

The first contact on speed dial is Tracie and I press ‘Dial’ with tacky, bloody fingers. That’s going to be a bitch to clean.

She picks up on the second ring and speaks before I have the chance. “You’d better have a good reason for skipping taco night,” she says.

“Hey honey! How about takeout?” I answer lamely. It seems I was too late to avoid the problem of dinner. “I think Taco Bell is on the way to the docks.”

Tracie sighs but I can hear the telltale jingle of car keys.

“Fine, but we’re getting Italian tomorrow, your treat.”

The gun goes off and you double over as the bullet hits you in the stomach. This will be the 17th time you’ve died and you wonder where you’ll wake up next.

#writers #writing prompts #writing practice

[thebitterflamingo]

The first time it happened I chalked it up to a fluke. Sure, the ice skating accident had been bad and there sure did seem to be a lot of blood. However head wounds always bleed a lot (at least according to my paramedic brother) and I woke up five minutes after the fall without even a concussion. I didn’t let the fact that I also had no wound left on my scalp phase me either.

My girlfriend and I went to get ice cream after and both tried to pretend it wasn’t an awkward second date.

The second time it happened, we’d been dating for three years and I had a ring in my pocket. I’m not entirely sure what happened. One moment, I was leaving the grocery store, cart full of the necessary ingredients for a romantic dinner, and the next moment I was lying in the street. I don’t really remember it hurting, which is probably the greatest indication to me that it was bad. People were freaking out and shouting in my face but none of them were the person I wanted to see.

I have a very interesting dream about the devil giving me the shovel talk, but before I can reply that I’ll treat his daughter very well, I’m lying on the couch in my girlfriend and I’s apartment.

She’s sitting by my feet on the couch, looking at me in concern. It’s not the kind of concern however for a partner who almost died. It’s a fraught, embarrassed concern.

The first words out of my mouth are, “Can I have a glass of water?” My mouth was impossibly dry. Apparently dying does that to you. The next words were, “You saved me from death at least twice because you didn’t want me to meet your father??!”

You are perfectly immortal. You can’t age, you can’t get any wounds, you can survive anything, and even if the universe were to end you are immediately taken to another universe. Not because you are demi-god or a wizard, but because the god of death’s daughter is in love with you.

#writers #writing prompts #writing practice

[thebitterflamingo]

Welcome to Nightvale

The orb may originate from something beyond human comprehension, but no one can deny that it reduces heating and air bills by 70%, if you would just accept it into your home.

[thebitterflamingo]

✨Dick Grayson my beloved✨

#fanart #batman #robin #dick grayson #dc

[thebitterflamingo]

Was in a Eugene mood today so gave him an alternate outfit. ✨

#drawfee #fanart #drawtectives season 2 #drawtectives #eugene finch

[thebitterflamingo]

You’re an enchanted suit of armor, completely hollow on the inside. After gaining sentience, you left your haunted keep & began to adventure. As you gain notoriety across the land, making friends & connections, it gets harder to keep it a secret that there’s nothing behind your visor.

[thebitterflamingo]

Many young wizards have taken to transmuting swans into humans and marrying them. One day, you are lucky enough to find a swan in the wild, and without hesitating, you turn it into a beautiful lady. Unfortunately, that ‘swan’, was a goose. You have just given a goose a human form.

[thebitterflamingo]

This is just Alfred for Bruce. 😂

No superhero works alone. Everyone has a “Keeper,” someone to help the paragons with their darker moments. Of the two, criminals and villains fear the Keeper more.

[thebitterflamingo]

“Please,” the woman implores, and I answer her, for I cannot refuse.

Still, nothing is free.

“Everyone pays up front,” I rasp, extending a bony hand.

The woman stares, owl-eyed, and hesitates. The tree-like silhouettes around us rattle ominously and she gasps, seizing my hand. She grasps it like she’s drowning. Her breathy voice matches the gesture.

“Anything.”

At her word, I grasp her right hand, in a mirror of her grasp on my right. As I complete the gesture, the world pauses.

The shifting shadows of the nightmare forest seem to straighten and sink, solidifying into something slightly less threatening. As they retreat, I release the woman and she uncurls her fingers, revealing a glowing blue vial. At the vial’s light, the shadows sink further into the ground, curling themselves into the woman’s silhouette like a circling hawk returning to roost.

“Thank you,” she says, though the words merge with the hollow wind that is omnipresent in the void. The words have just as much substance as the breeze or the now amorphous shadows.

She should not thank me.

Nothing is without a price.

“Drink it,” I instruct, motioning to the vial. She frowns at her purchase, uncertain now that the immediate danger has passed.

She eyes my form warily, finally taking in my concerning features with an air of mistrust. Smart, but she has already made the deal.

“Drink it and they disappear forever,” I continue.

She stares at her feet or perhaps her shadow. Perhaps she has noticed that I cast no shadow or that we occupy an impossible space. The human mind does not cope well with noticing too much.

“Drink,” I insist with more fervor, “It is the only way to leave.”

Finally, she uncorks the vial, gulping once before downing the thing in one go. She gags once (the concoction is not sweet) and then she’s gone.

I let out a sigh of relief, the sound joining the wind echoing in my ears, and finally uncurl my own hand, the one the lady held.

In it is a compass.

I curl my impossibly long fingers around it, until my knuckles are white and the metal groans. The compass shatters into cinders, falling to the ground where they extinguish one by one. I am left in shadows again, empty handed and alone. I walk into the darkness.

~~~~ I never see a customer twice, for the price is too steep.

Many realize when they wake. At first they feel refreshed. Theres a new lightness in their step, their burden forever lifted. However as they walk, they may miss the weight. Their steps feel so light that they may skip and find themselves in the sky, as if the burden they once carried helped anchor them to their world. They will likely dismiss the feeling, but they may flinch when someone with slightly too long fingers shakes their hand, and they will steer well clear of anywhere I may trod. And If their shadow seems lighter, well, that may just be a trick of the light.

Only one of my customers has ever come back.

~~~~ I do not know what he was running from, when he ran into me. All I know is that the first dream I crushed was in the form of a daisy. It disappeared easily and with it, the man, looking little comforted.

The second time I encountered him, he ambushed me. He came into my room, calling me ‘boss’ and apologizing for some project he was turning in late. I of course told him it was quite alright, largely because I was expecting no such project from him. However, he insisted. I told him I’d grant him an extension and sent him on his way with a firm handshake, hoping to never see him again.

Left in my hand was a nametag emblazoned with “Jim.”

That was how I learned his name. I felt guilty crushing that one but of course I had no choice.

From then on, I unfortunately encountered Jim constantly. Each time I urged him that I was not the solution to his problems but each time he insisted. I gained a watch, a birthday candle, and a candy heart from him, each crumpling easily in my hand.

The final time Jim came to me he had nothing left to give. We both uncurled our hands to find them empty. Yet he still begged me to set him free from his nightmares, born of uncomfortable reality.

I warned him that the price was steep, as I had so many times before, the only warning I was allowed to give. The only thing I had left to give.

Yet again he insisted.

“Anything,” he said, like the lady before him.

Like I had said before him and many others before us.

I had no choice. I could not refuse.

But nothing comes without a price.

I took his hand and he took mine.

You’re a shopkeeper who sells liquid dreams. People come to your shop for many reasons; self revelation, escapism, to see a gone loved one or for a precious good night sleep. Your shop is located between dimensions so no visitor can come twice. However, recently you’ve seemed to gain a regular.

#writing #creative writing #writing prompts #dreams

[thebitterflamingo]

🫶🏼 Eugene

#eugene finch #drawtectives #drawtectives season 2 #drawfee #fanart