– “Remember the Alamo,” people say. They glance toward the horizon with fear in their eyes and plan their yearly pilgrimage to San Antonio. The Alamo does not like to be forgotten.
– The lake is not natural. It was built as a reservoir, everyone says, but when you go out on your cousin’s boat, you always see strange movements in your wake. In summer, when the water level drops low and lower still, bare branches reach from below the surface, strangely twisted and contorted. The lake lodges close down. Your cousin puts his boat in storage. No one mentions that there are more branches this summer than last. No one mentions how they move even when there’s no wind.
– Each winter, the Northerners come, driving in by the dozens from Michigan and New York and Oregon, even Canada. “We’re getting too old to brave the snow,” they tell you. “It’s so warm here! Such balmy weather. You must love living here year ‘round.” They look somehow thinner than they were when they arrived, eyes fever-bright and fingers twitching nervously. “Such nice weather,” they whisper. “So warm.”
– “Everybody’s somebody in Luckenbach,” proclaims a T-shirt in the back of your closet. You have never been to Luckenbach, and neither has anyone you know. The shirt hangs there as a reminder: someday Luckenbach will call to you, and you will not be able to resist.
– It is fifty degrees out and everyone you pass in the street is in heavy winter gear, as though their skin feels a chill that the thermometer doesn’t register.
– In the night, you hear gunshots. “It’s okay,” your mother says. “Just dove hunters.” You know it’s not dove season, but you go back to bed anyway. It’s better than thinking of alternative reasons for the gunfire.
– After a day of excruciating heat, the skies open and rain pours down. At first, you’re delighted, but as the rain goes on and on, you start calling family members to make sure they’re on high ground. The rivers rise and flow over the roads, dividing the town into a series of islands, and still it rains. There’s a dip in the road at the entrance to your neighborhood, and it fills with water. You count your canned foods and check the weather-proofing on your doors and windows. It is still raining. You no longer remember what dry ground looks like.
– You pass a recent roadkill on the highway. In the split-second glimpse you get of it, it seems too big for a deer. There are too many limbs. A high-pitched ringing starts up in your ears and you quickly look away. When you drive past the spot again later that day, there’s nothing there.
– “Texas-sized,” says the 64-ounce cup you bought at the gas station. “Texas-sized,” brags the diner about its burgers. “Texas-sized,” whispers your neighbor, pointing out the tracks in your lawn. They look like coyote tracks, but they’re ten inches across.
AO3 Gothic.
You have already left kudos here.
You have already reached into the well of ideas and thoughts, of yearning and romance, of sweat and angst and laughter, and pulled out this particular variant. You have already allowed these words to dip inside, to touch you in that insatiable place where your id resides. The OTP has already murmured their words of love and devotion, their commitment and passion like a comforting, calming wave of clarity washing over you. They are sure, so you can be sure. They have found love, so love exists. They are the sun and the moon and stars to one another, so the universe is not infinite, after all; it is a known entity, soft and reassuring as the look on your fave’s face when he hands his soulmate that first cup of espresso during their first coffeeshop meetcute.
Except.
You have already left kudos here, haven’t you.
Haven’t you.
Haven’t you returned to this place, desperate for confirmation, eager to feel what you felt the first time, eager to feel something, anything, to feast on the belief that love is real and you are safe? Anything to reassure yourself that there is only one pairing, and it is true, it is truthful, and you can trust it, it would never lie to you, never make you cry and laugh and wring you out of emotion only to build you back up and promise you happy endings, endings that never come because *you have already left kudos here,* you have already tasted the pain and exuberance of this story, already let it settle over you like a blanket, and yet now look at you, back for more, you starving, insatiable, useless creature, clicking the kudos button like Pavlov’s dog, click, click, click, as if the click can save you, can fill the emptiness that descends the moment you stop reading.
How many times have you read the fic? How many times have you come to it begging for validation, only to go away unsatisfied, always craving more? Do you remember it? When was the last time you read it—was it a day, a year, an hour ago?
Or have you always been reading the fic?
Have you always been returning and returning, grasping at tropes, wearing your carefully cultivated “reading slashfic in public” mask, drawn over you, so that no one will see?—
So that no one will realize that you have never been reading the fic.
The fic has been reading you.
You have already left kudos here.
You have already left kudos here.
You have already left kudos here.
East Texas Gothic
There’s a hidden cemetery on the road to the park. There’s a hidden cemetery behind the Community Center. There’s a hidden cemetery in your backyard.
“It’s a dry heat,” the grocery store clerk reminds you as you buy your 6th bag of ice. “It’s a dry heat,” your second grade school teacher says as she refuels her SUV, white hair tangled with sweat. “It’s a dry heat,” the old man on the corner says as he rolls up the sleeves of his poplin shirt. “It’s a dry heat,” you repeat. The humidity is only 97% today.
“You’re Ol’ Mike’s granddaughter, aintcha?” you hear. You are. You have no other name. You don’t know who Old Mike is. You’re his granddaughter.
Mr. Miller owns a soda shop on the town square. From the window you can see the courthouse in the center. It burned down in 1937.
The night sky is vast with no streetlights. Buck Hooten disappeared last year after he got a telescope for Christmas. You don’t look up for fear it will swallow you.
“Watch for coyotes,” they say. You live in town. You have no pets. Still, you lock your door at dark and listen. You can hear them howling. You pray for coyotes.
The Pink Mansion is haunted. You ride your bike past every day, tar sticking to your Keds. The “For Sale” sign sways gently. The July air is still.
It rains for three hours. The forest weeps for joy. The sun drinks up its tears, leaving it parched again.
The house next door is abandoned. The house across the street is abandoned. The house catty-corner to yours is abandoned. The house you live in is abandoned.
There are cracks in the soil. Some of them have marks from scrabbling hands at the edges. You scuff them with the sole of your shoe.
There is a church across the street from another church. The stained glass is red like blood, and when the doors open you can hear the choir. No one attends on Sunday morning.
The football stadium fills with the entire town on Friday night. “Budge over,” a third cousin says. “We need more room. There’s not enough room. Gotta see them boys play!” Outside, people crush at the gates, trampling one another to get into the stadium. Their screams sound like the Fight Song. We need more room. There’s not enough room. Gotta see them boys play.
You walk into the woods to get out of the heat. The woods are hushed and still around you, a sea of green and brown the doesn’t end. When you turn back toward home, you only see more trees. The woods have you now.
Middle American Gothic
- You’ve heard of mountains, but everything around you is flat. You don’t believe.
- It’s summer. You must park in the shade or you will die. You drive for hours, searching for a space. You forget what day it is.
- Thin clouds cover the entire sky. You can make out the shape of the sun. You are staring at it. Your eyes aren’t burning. Everything looks the same.
- Your brother swears he met a democrat once. You’re not sure if you believe him. You don’t have a brother.
- You’re in a place where the buildings are close together. Everyone pretends it’s downtown, everyone pretends this is a city. You don’t say anything. You know the truth.
- You’re in a mall. You decide to leave. You walk through the exit. You’re in a mall. You decide to leave. You walk through the exit. You’re in a mall.
Johnlock Gothic
- You live alone. Your desk drawer contains two items: an apple and a gun. You can’t decide which one to eat.
- He is whipping a corpse. A woman offers him coffee. He looks up, surprised, because he didn’t know she was there. All he can think about is how thin her lips are. He returns to whipping the corpse.
- Two men eat dinner by candlelight. London passes by the windows. A cab stops across the street and waits. It waits, and they wait. When it leaves they chase it. They run like wind, air stinging their lungs. Later they go home together and laugh side by side, but someone is waiting upstairs.
- He sits inside an empty school room late at night. A man is waiting for him to kill himself when you pull the trigger. There is blood and the killer screams a name that is never said aloud. You pretend you didn’t save the other’s life.
- The swimming pool is dim. You are wearing a bomb and threatening him, but they are not your words. You are just as trapped as he is. He tears your clothes off, and you collapse. The bomber enters. With a silent nod you agree to die with him.
- You are taken in a strange car to an abandoned warehouse. A woman in black tells you things you don’t want to hear. Someone is watching you. Someone is listening.
- He takes you hostage but it is a ruse. You run through London clasping hands until a double-decker bus barrels toward you. A stranger saves your lives, but when they shake your hand a bullet lodges in their brain. The stranger is dead, and you have no where to go.
- Your phone rings. It is him and you answer and he tells you to look up. You look up. And then your eyes travel the height of the building and you run to the pavement where he lies in blood. You cannot feel a pulse. You cannot breathe.
- You stand beside a black gravestone. You say things you could never say before. A dead man is watching from behind the tree.
- You tell yourself you are in love. You bring the ring to dinner. You stumble over words. His ghost appears. He is corporeal and you fight him. You hate him. His nose is bleeding and you are angry. Your fiancee says she likes him.
- You write a waltz and practice dancing to it. You always dance alone. It is not until the morning of his wedding that you realize you are a ghost. He can never love you.
- A bullet is in your chest. You feel blood and cold. You are falling over and your mind is running through corridors looking for a memory of the man you love. You cannot find him. Instead you are locked in a room with a madman. He mocks you. He sings you a lullaby. This is when you realize you are dead.
- It is Christmas and everyone is sleeping and he whisks you away in a helicopter. He has made a deal with the devil. He asks if you have your gun. Later he steals it and fires. The sun is setting and you are stood in the wind with the man you love and a corpse.
- It is a blustery day on the tarmac. A dead man is trying to tell you his secrets, but instead he shakes your hand and leaves. You think of your old desk with the apple and the gun. You do not think about eating the apple. Relief washes over you, until you remember that your wife is pregnant.
tumblr gothic
you see a drawing on your dash. it’s a conventionally attractive blond man doing sexual things with a conventionally attractive brown-haired man. you have no idea what pairing it is. it is every pairing. it is no pairing at all.
MCU Gothic
There is a big new announcement. There is a huge new announcement. There is a terrifyingly large new announcement.
Marvel has posted a new teaser video. It appears to be 1:36 of static and incoherent screaming. It already has over a thousand comments.
Sebastian Stan has extended his contract. It extends to death. It does not specify whose.
Six new Chrises have announced starring roles in upcoming pictures. There is a rumor swirling around that soon they will have enough. Enough for what, no one is sure.
Everyone is smiling extra brightly for the press tour. They seem to be blinking an awful lot. You think it looks like Morse Code, but that cannot be right. Why would they be asking for help?
There is finally more Black Widow merchandise. The merchandise consists soley of boxes filled with spiders.
Joss Whedon is discovered wandering the backlot, clutching a bloody knife. “I just need people to realize that no character is safe,” he insists.
Chris Evans hasn’t been seen in months, yet new gifsets of him keep appearing. They are all posted from the same account, which has no other activity.
There have been even more delays surrounding Ant-Man. Something does not want the film to be seen.
RDJ’s clothes all seem to be coming from some parallel universe, even more so than usual. Your favorite is the tuxedo with Lisa Frank lapels and an unsettling usage of paisley.
morgan-leigh WELP
tumblr gothic
- You are nightblogging. You have always been nightblogging. You have forgotten the warmth of the sun.
- You have never witnessed the origin of a meme, only parodies of parodies of parodies, endlessly twisting through the void. You like them, you reblog them, but you do not know what mineral they crave, and you are too frightened to ask.
- The interface changes daily. Sometimes the post button says something else, something in an arcane script that squirms beneath your cursor. You click it anyway.
- Your dash does a thing. You wish it hadn’t.
- You forgot to feed the Tumbeast. He is sitting in the corner, gnawing on broken wires. Red, wet wires. When did you last see your cat?
- You cannot even. You are not sure you ever could.
- You have an extra hour in the ballpit. You have unlimited hours in the ballpit. You can never leave the ballpit.
- The science side of tumblr cannot explain the creatures that have risen from the sea.
- You try to make John Green find the thing. The thing finds John Green, instead.
- staff are searching for a new intern. Do not apply. They look hungry.
- You are the outlier. You will not be counted.
- Taylor Swift’s smile begins to look strained. Her red lipstick is fading. You hope she is strong enough. She is the last hope.