i'm a kicker.

A STUDY IN + TRIGGER WARNINGS FOR: REVENGE, VIOLENCE, IMPRISONMENT, THE SEXIST HISTORY OF HYSTERIA AND MENTAL HEALTH, SEXISM AND MISOGYNY, RELIGIOUS / OCCULT THEMES AND DEMONOLOGY, SEXUAL CONTENT INCLUDING MENTIONS OF SEXUAL ASSAULT AND THEMES OF SEXUAL MANIPULATION, TOXIC / ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIPS, JEALOUSY, FEMININE RAGE, BEING THE BITTER END TO A VIOLENT CYCLE.

HIGHLY AFFILIATED WITH... BOYEATS.

¹ META. ² DOSSIER. ³ PROMPTS.

─── GUIDELINES BELOW.

"yeah. the bsaa didn't exactly prove helpful to my friend. i had to -- handle her. myself." she's become so prickly and cynical - hard to touch, and consumed by grief. something once kind is now cold in her. the shape of a happy, unexceptional life lived with jennifer burns a hole in whatever remains of her soul.

she isn't thrilled about being recruited to @worthystill 's team. or any team. but she's got these powers, and no other point to her. living among the ordinary is too painful. after all: they all think she's the killer. they all think that she murdered the innocent jennifer, and a slew of boys in her town. no one knows that jennifer had devolved. no one knew she'd been infected, and ate others, and infected anita. not until it was too late. not until anita put an end to it all herself.

needy goes still as the lights flick on. her eyes go hard as she fixes @bewitchingbaker with a stare. something very cold flickers on her face. she's not meant to be here, having broken into this quiet bakery late at night. they both know that. its been days since she killed the men who turned jennifer into what she eventually became.

her world feels purposeless. eating is the same. but eventually, just as it had for jennifer, the hunger overwhelms her. the best move here is to knock the man out. move away. unseen.

"hey dipshit." she says, baiting him.

your neuro-pathways just degraded listening to that. the documentary guy drones on and on in a voice to rival every self-obsessed male teacher with nothing truly meaningful to say you've ever had, describing all the intimate secrets of the overgrown fish swimming across needy's television right now. watch your only best friend from where you lay on your side across her bed like a string of diamonds, twice as expensive and five times easier to attain. even demonstrate something like patience as you listen to her speak over the documentary she thought would make such a great study backdrop. patience like a wolf in disguise. patience which keeps your gaze on her mouth as you wonder, wonder, wonder.❛ does science ever make you wet? ❜ smile something weaponized and defensive when she flashes a shocked expression your way. ❛ what? sorry, bill needy the science guy, i was just wondering if you actually get something out of knowing so much about the ocean's ugliest mermaids other than high fives from the nerd table and virginity. ❜ tap your pen against the notebook you've done little but doodle in, an overly detailed eye watching you from the page. ❛ come on. does it ever make you horny? does talking about sperm whales make you want to take a load yourself? ❜

what the hell, jen. your face drops, but you pick it up just as quick. every conversation with jennifer always feels like a knife fight where your hands are bound. she's quick to poke you again. jennifer loves sex, and you love jennifer ( like a friend ! ) but you know yourself, too. you'll have sex when you feel ready, and it won't be to the thought of whales. you think of your sixth grade school tour, where they took you to a museum and you stood in the rib-bones of a whale. you reached up to touch the porous bone, but at the last minute turned it into a wave for jennifer. you look at her clavicle and then your eyes flick back to her face.

you laugh, a little hurriedly. ❛ jennifer. ❜ you say, equal parts stern and disbelieving. but adoring. always, always giddy with adoration. you worry the second you stand up to her that she'll be gone. so you appease her as best you can. but you don't lie, either. right? ❛ you can love something for more reasons than sex. ❜ sandbox love never dies. you look down at jennifer's face and you're taken aback by her beauty. you always are.

helena has a vibe that fits the music aesthetic of the music and is about the protagonist singing about their lover self-destructing and dying. ( and what's the worst you take from every heart you break? and like a blade you'll stain. well, I've been holding on tonight )

you can't rush jennifer. you've known that all your life, but this is nothing short of farcical. you're in the background of her car mirror, watching from afar while she reapplies her make-up to cover a stinging pink welt on her face. not that you're watching, per se. that's too intimate. you're... observing. something academic, almost dismissive. she's gotten older in the years since you last spoke, and so have you. the fluorescent light casts a ghoulish blue over all of it. her. you. the body rolled in the carpet. why did you come? you're a scholar of historical feminism. hardly someone useful to the current situation - chad, jennifer's husband, dead - but also someone who hardly seeks out heart-pounding, thrilling violent mystique. 'n- needy?' jennifer had called you, and you'd come. that's why. the second you'd heard the shake in her voice you were there.

you're stooped, hauling the carpet through the garage toward jennifer's truck - she drives, and you live in the city so you still haven't learned. your mom implores you every christmas, and you cite that that's exactly what big oil wants: more cars, guzzling gas and stepping on the neck of biospheres everywhere. you wish you could now, though. it isn't fair that she has to drive right now. it isn't safe, either. jennifer has had a glassy look in her eyes since you got here, only momentarily dispelled when she saw you. i

you. with your hoodie traded in for a collared shirt that hangs too loose around your neck, and jeans traded for unobtrusive slacks. your eyes once again drift back to observe jen. she's even thinner, and that nasty bruise on the side of her head aside, she's got the ability to make almost anyone believe she's leading a glamorous life. but you know her better. you know the dead man too, who you're lugging toward the door while she adds beauty product to her face that you, with your PhD, couldn't begin to figure out. this is just like school, where she'd leave the partnered projects all on you. anyway. you know jen best of all, and she's painfully unhappy. that's obvious to you because you made her happy first. jealousy flickers in you. you can't explain it.