Cardboard Cutouts


                                            >"What is it this time?"

                                            "No good, not now. I need to review it sober, and then it'll probably still suck."

                                            >"Why review when you could just post it?"

                                            "Because to quote Gaben, suck is forever."

                                            >"You hold yourself in too high of a regard."

                                            "Why not? I'm one of less than ten people who writes here anymore. I can afford to think highly of myself."

                                            >"Your last 'stroke of literary genius' was an SCP that's a tranny that splits by mitosis and then fights itself to the death. You're cliche at best."

                                            >You tack away at the keys with your hooves, a skill that takes fucking millennia to accomplish

                                            >Sometimes you wish you hadn't taken your own fingers away

                                            "Cliche is cliche for a reason... there we are. Read it and weep."

                                            >"A rip-off of Gunslinger Girl with petponies... what the fuck is this?"

                                            "It's edgy."

                                            >"You care about more than that now."

                                            "Try me, I'll hit enter."

                                            >"Do it, see if I care. But like you said, suck is forever."

                                            >You let out a string of literal and figurative slurring.

                                            >Your clone, staring at you as if through the leak, smirks at you.

                                            >She presses a hoof to your cheek and you feel her pulsing heartbeat

                                            >"If you call me that, you mean it for yourself too."

                                            "No, no. I'm even less than you are."

                                            >"We're both a literary exercise."

                                            "Damn, I'll bet you feel cool for breaking the fourth wall. Next you'll be begging for anal like that faggot Deadpool."

                                            >"God is dead and Stan Lee raped his corpse."

                                            "Amen."

                                            >The two of you look around the shitty little motel room laboratory

                                            >True to other you's words, you're in a story.

                                            >The bunsen burners are lit, but the alcohol flames look like that faux fabric fire shit

                                            >and everything is just generally desaturated except for the two of you

                                            >Not that your coats aren't boring damn colors

                                            "Nothing satisfies you anymore."

                                            >"You haven't even given the Meslam story a fair shake. It's always some excuse about how you'll get to it when you finish the next thing. Then, just a few minutes ago, I see you digging through archives from 2019 for scraps of some sort of far-flung nostalgia. What the fuck do you think we'll find there?"

                                            "I don't know! But it's sure as hell got to be better than this rotting corpse of a general. No wonder everyone but you moved on."

                                            >"and you. Hey, let's get a third clone and we can be the three stooges."

                                            "Fuck you."

                                            >"No, fuck you leathermare!"

                                            >You growl and pounce on her, a knife materializing in your muzzle from nowhere

                                            >"Woah! Secure contain protect my dude! Didn't know we were cannibalizing ideas."

                                            "It would be too cliche."

                                            >"But cliches exist for a reason."

                                            "Okay, I've changed my mind."

                                            >You drive the knife into her throat and she grins at you devilishly.

                                            "Lemme take the fun out of it for you. You were either going to ask if this is suicide or murder, or just say 'I always come back.'"

                                            >She frowns, then quickly and unceremoniously bleeds out and dies

                                            >The door breaks down

                                            >"Mobile task force delta-9, we've got the anomaly on optics."

                                            "I'll go peacefully. Can't be any worse than here. Have you been briefed on my properties?"

                                            >They chatter further, clearly not paying your words any attention

                                            >You sigh, considering rendering enough space for an SCP arc where you try to escape like it's containment breach and you're thumbnail clickbait faggot markiplier

                                            >But you're tired, it's been a long life

                                            >So you go willingly into the doggy crate and lay down your head on the single, uncomfortable pillow like a good girl as they walk you out into the non-space parking lot

                                            >Into oblivion

                                            End of line.


                                            PASSWORD: MASTER.

                                            >You died again

                                            "Well, that's life..."

                                            >Stupid bitch, she didn't know you even if she was you

                                            >Speaking of, where was she?

                                            >You open up the notebook that's resting between the flask of boiling Temporalase and fuming Bechtel acid

                                            "Mobile task force arrives, takes the living clone into the void where nothing is written... well, shit. I guess that's why I got brought back"

                                            >Though you kinda wish the setting hadn't bothered

                                            >Well, enough of this shit for the night. You've got a long day of being a neet tomorrow.

                                            >You birth yourself from the realm of fiction you control into the one you don't like a drowned cat gasping for air

                                            >The process never does lend itself to complacency, especially post-post-mortem

                                            >You fill up a glass with cold water and drink deeply, a bit spilling down your muzzle and onto your worn hoodie

                                            >Maybe every stereotype about troons like you is true, but you'll be damned if you admit such a thing

                                            >Besides, you are biologically female now by pure technicality. The narrative contrivance that brought you to this plane made sure of that.

                                            >You look in the mirror and groan

                                            >The mark where she skewered your neck is sticking down, you'll have to wear a scarf from now on

                                            >In this summer heat? Unpleasant, but at least better than worried questions about your mental health.

                                            >You almost envy the dead Redenbachers, your clone and your namesake.

                                            >You rub your hoof against the enchanted notebook, carefully caressing the runes on the surface before you open it to the last page that was written on

                                            >You think you'll do this next one fully naturally, better the characters don't see you.

                                            >You hid yourself decently enough behind the veterinary hospital curtains, you think.

                                            >You pick up your pen and continue where you left off.

                                            >"Ferri?"