The Lovely Dark

you kiss my lips, i think you're god by Andrea Gutiérrez Arcas, ph. Sarah Moon, for Acne Paper 20 Glaugust yet again Winslow baby. Today: "Kill them with sadness." I like that. It could mean anything. HERALD FLESH MELTING IN THE KISS OF OIL SLICK WITH RED DESIRE CRACK OF BONES UNDER PISTON WEIGHT STINKING LEATHER BOOTFALL HEAVY CHOKING EXHAUST BELLOWED BULGING LUNGS FALCONS WINGS SPIRALING OUTWARD OUTWARD EYES MOUTHS FLOODLIGHTS EXPELLING They run and jump FWA-KLANG! like piston-powered lions and shoot special ray guns like freeze rays SWOOSH and lasers ZAK ZAK and sonic blasts BWAAAA and plasma fire VOOM that are part of their bodies and they are stronger than everybody in the world and love to show off to each other but they jam and sink in mud and water and find it super scary but they're not afraid of anything. Heralds want to jump and punch and run and be big and brave and good and kill scary monsters.  VORTEX! RANGER! GO GO VORTEX RANGERS GO!!! SHINING ST...

cracked open in the waves, its emptiness loose metamorphosis pt 2 by carmine3  ( commissions ) For the lovely coming  glaugust : An HP-less system. There are really exciting replacements for HP, sloppy drippy and such - like . This is something else, I think. A largely deathless, potentially bloodless system, depending on how it's used. ——— When you get hurt, take a wound. It's a d4. When you roll to do something that hurts, roll all your wounds together afterwards. If they come up higher, take a wound. When you roll to do something that leverages suffering, you can roll all your wounds together instead. This usually hurts. If you have 2 wounds or fewer, you can give them back with nourishment and rest. If you have 4 wounds or fewer, you can give them back with safety and time. If you have 6 wounds or fewer, you can give them back with medical attention. If you have 7 wounds or more, you can give them back with sacrifices. Sacrifices like: Something precious you're carryi...

 i say cling to rocks and i mean hold my hand   Ole Lukoje Rode to War, by korintic   Being bound to someone is like the screaming wind calling out for you and you don't know where from; plummeting away from yourself forever into darkness; being alive and not being dead. It's maybe the only thing that's like being alive and not being dead, and it's still a little like being dead.    These rules also apply to friends who need to carry you a while. Even just from one day to the next.   Each bearer has three things they LOVE and three which they FEAR. For each Love you detour or stop for, mark one BOND at journey's end.  For each Fear you encounter, roll 1d6 under bond or else erase one bond. If bond would drop below nothing, then your bearer abandons you however they can. Your bearer's SPIRIT and HEART add up to bond: raise or lower them as needed. Compared to walking, being borne cuts journey time in half and lets you carry twice as much.  Your bea...

the haruspex Another night at this miserable fucking restaurant. No, no. You’re lucky to have it. Lucky lucky lucky in a triangle shape over your head as you go through the door so your mind doesn’t get clean. You go through your checklist about halfway and then start over and then a third of the way and then start over as you lock up. It’s important to do things right- there’s a momentum that needs keeping up and if you miss a catch or a check or a click click click you need to turn back to the start, not like turning pages which are soft but like the click click click of a puzzle box. Click click click a third time to finish the shape. Fuck him and no no, he’s doing his best. You’re inches from getting fired. You’re inches from getting fired. It makes the puzzle box important– this is an idea you can paint with, but it dries a different color. You work through the checklist. You work through. Okay. You have work to do. Okay. Your whole body is shaking, a little. Is it always shaking?...

 hallowed, lightless (for my mother) photography by 02vin No face in the wine-dark mirror. No light in this room. No lights under the skin and bone. She tilts her head owlish. Textures in the dark suggesting motion. Soon an eerie light wavers behind her eyes, at the back of her throat, beneath her greasy skin. Something is always coming off her, misting candle wax and paper ashes. She runs terribly hot. What was inside of her that had to make room for this? Something that grew in her and something she swallowed. Something old: drive in creature feature trailer or stones under skin. Stacking stones in driveways and sliding them in gas tanks. B thriller with A list stars. What’s in her is out of her. She replaced it with a tongue of rotten flame. Fire’s nothing nowhere. It’s in her but it’s out of her. When autumn ends at last and winter falls over the earth like a rain of ashes the fire will go out and she’ll be gone. She’ll deliquesce into drool and darkness. But autumn won’t end. ...

christmas leaves and codine falling through the cracks in my ribs Hide Me by Sasha Shaderski Swords are uncommon in the Lovely Dark. Firearms, less so. Most use colored glass bullets and piezoelectric liquid propellant capsules. They fire with a dreadful ZOK and leave a trail of glittery pink smoke. But there are others. They work like so: Guns have multiple weapon actions. To attack with a gun, choose one action. LOCK X means load your gun with X rounds, up to the maximum it allows. BURN X means that the weapon action requires and consumes X rounds. A single inventory slot can hold 100 rounds. Guns must select their targets within a limited RANGE. Guns require direct line of sight. They cannot target through smoke or darkness. If you are darting in and out of an opponent's range, ducking into smoke, and hiding behind bookcases, you are COVERED. If you're just standing there cackling, you're OPEN. Your gun has an X-in-6 chance to JAM when fired, where X is the number of ...