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mad-bird-writes · 3 months ago

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Better To Reign In Hell: The Arrival of a Stranger

Another WIP-snippet, directly continuing from Susannah in the Churchyard which can be found and read here. For those of y'all with such interests, this is the part where things start to get whumpy, so buckle up, chucklefucks!

***

Susannah's quiet evening is quickly derailed by the arrival of a wounded man on horseback. She offers him sanctuary, but what is she risking by doing so?

(content: aftermath of violence, blood, infection/fever whump, historical medicine limitations in effect but being glossed over rn because I'm a coward)

The dull sound of hoofbeats on packed dirt in the near distance startled Susannah a little, and she glanced up, blinking as she shifted focus. In hindsight, she��d never know why; sleepy as her small town was, it was common enough for drifters and riders to use the main street as a thoroughfare at all hours.

The church and churchyard sat atop a small hill, her position giving her a near-perfect view of the road which ran perpendicular to it. From this angle, that broad ribbon of reddish dust looked like a river, the churchyard its mouth.

She saw the horse, black as the night, as if it were charging straight for her. Despite the distance that separated them, she leapt to her feet, leaving her book at the graveside.

She saw the rider too, sat precariously in the saddle. From here, she couldn’t make out their face, nor indeed anything but their silhouette, but she could clearly see how they listed and swayed, even as the horse slowed from a frenzied gallop, as if it knew it had reached a place of safety.

They were going to fall, she realised with dull surprise, and found herself running before she could consider what she’d do when she reached them, or what they fled from.

They fell just as her feet touched the dirt road, and there was something final about it, anticlimactic, a quiet loss of consciousness, the snuffing out of a dim and unimportant candle. Susannah ran, ready to drop to her knees beside this stranger and offer what little, meagre aid she could, but the horse stopped her dead in her tracks, charging and half-rearing, its blunt teeth fully bared and white-rimmed eyes blazing. The sounds it made were like nothing she’d ever heard – something between a whinny, a snarl, and a scream, which chilled her blood to hear. Accustomed to horses but in no way familiar with them, she took a sharp step away, holding up her hands and shushing with frantic care. Lord, she just hoped she wasn’t about to have her skull kicked in for trying to be a Good Samaritan.

“Easy, easy…” she soothed in nervous imitation of one of the Pearsons’ ranch hands, her palms raised without reaching, without touching. “It’s okay, boy, I mean no harm… I just want to help your master, there…” She gestured to the fallen stranger, so swept up in her shock that the absurdity of speaking to a horse as if it understood her simply didn’t register. Surprisingly, whether by grace or luck or sheer coincidence, it seemed to hear her. It eyed her, sizing her up with an unsettling intelligence. Then, as if it understood her intentions if not her words, it calmed a little. Its eyes were still stretched warily wide, its ears pinned right back as it whickered and snorted, but at least now she could approach the rider without being trampled.

At first, she could see little. A tall, wiry figure wrapped in a long black coat, tarnished with reddish dust. She could smell sweat, blood, smoke. Nothing of use, nothing that told her anything helpful.

No sooner had she laid a careful hand on the man’s back than there was a quiet sound of approaching footsteps. She braced herself.

“What on Earth…?” Susannah relaxed a little at the familiar, rough voice of Cordie Maitland, owner of the nearby Lamplight Hotel. Really no more than a saloon with a few rooms upstairs, it was nonetheless the best and only such place in town.

Ms Maitland, who was seldom seen anywhere but behind the bar this time of night, bustled up to take a look for herself. She leaned in a bit, frowning, her hands braced on her stout knees. The horse quickly made its feelings on the matter quite clear, whinnying sharply at her, teeth once more bared. Cordie, not one to be intimidated by man nor beast, ignored it.

“If he’s drunk, girlie, lay ‘im on his side and leave him to it. He’ll wake up right quick when someone throws a pail of water on him in the mornin’.” She chuckled hoarsely, leaving no doubt as to who would be throwing that water when the time came.

Susannah shook her head.

“No ma’am, I don’t think he’s drunk, he…” She hadn’t noticed at first, but the dim and ruddy light from nearby buildings picked out a certain dark stain on the man’s tattered vest, what little of it she could see. From beneath his torso, a red-black finger of liquid spilled into the dirt, and her voice trailed off into horrified silence.

“He’s injured,” she concluded lamely, already scrambling back to her feet. “I’ll call on Doctor Clayton – will you stay here?”

“You’d be better off callin’ for your pa; poor sonofabitch don’t look long for this world,” Cordie muttered grimly, though she did nod. Susannah thanked her and fled, only now cursing her decision to venture out barefoot.

Doctor Clayton’s surgery was at the far end of the main street, a mercifully short distance away, but to Susannah, it felt a mile away. Panic slowed her pace to a hysteric’s stumble. Shivering in the warm night air, she knocked as loudly as she dared. For a moment, there was silence. She chewed her lip. Then, blessedly, the doctor’s shadow appeared in the cloudy window, and his strident voice pierced the quiet.

“Who knocks so late?” he demanded. Though his clear impatience shook her a little, she wet her lips and spoke up.

“It’s Susannah, Doctor.” Even through the window, the sudden shift in his demeanour was clear and striking. He opened the door at once, his steely eyes intense behind his spectacles, not a hint of sleep in them.

“Miss Lawrence, what has you awake at this hour?” He frowned down at her, but fortunately she knew the man well enough to read that severe and hawkish expression as concerned rather than angry. “Not your father, I hope?”

“No, he’s well enough – there’s a man down the way who’s hurt, badly… I-I believe he’s been shot, or stabbed, certainly beaten…” She made herself stop, not wanting to waste time. “Will you come, please?”

All the while she’d been relaying what little she knew, the doctor had readied himself, stepping into his shoes and taking his overcoat down from the nail in the wall. Now, he picked up his leather bag – he must have left it by the door in case of a night call – and fixed her with a brisk look as if he’d been the one waiting on her.

“Come then, child,” he bade her calmly with an imperious gesture, striding off. She followed close at his heels.

The scene outside the saloon had changed some in her brief absence. The man now lay on his back, though whether he’d moved under his own power or Cordie had taken the liberty remained to be seen. The horse kept a close eye on its master, though it was safely hitched to a nearby post now.

Doctor Clayton wasted no time, handing Susannah his bag and kneeling stiffly to examine the wounded stranger.

“He came round, for a moment,” Cordie put in quietly, and Susannah noticed that the usually unshakeable woman looked a little stricken. Her hands were bloodstained now, too. “Thrashed about a bit, muttered somethin’ ‘bout angels, then passed right back out.” She shuddered briefly, toying with the tarnished silver cross she wore. “Poor bastard’s hot as a furnace under that fancy coat o’ his, too…”

“Infection, no doubt,” Doc Clayton muttered absently, sitting back on his heels. “I can’t see a damned thing in this light. Ms Maitland, will you help me carry him to the surgery? Though he’ll need to stay while he recovers, and I have Louisa to think of…” Susannah stared. While she knew Louisa Clayton was a shy, timid woman, wary of strangers, and expecting a baby besides… surely, this was a matter of life and death? Surely principles could wait, at least until the stranger either lived or died, whichever the Lord had planned for him?

By the grudging, remorseful look on the doctor’s face, she knew he wouldn’t so much as consider the notion. And Cordie… well, she had the saloon and three children to manage, and a dying man would be bad for business, wouldn’t he? She could hear that phrase on the woman’s lips. There was no point in asking her.

So, Susannah spoke up before her own selfish fears and doubts could prevail.

“We’ve a spare bed. We’ll take responsibility.” As expected, both Cordie and Doc Clayton looked at her as though she’d gone quite mad.

“Are you certain, miss? Won’t your father object?”

“I don’t see why,” she replied with a great deal more confidence than she felt. “He’d see it as no less than our Christian duty, I’d wager.” Cordie nodded in a way that was somehow both approving and sceptical, and evidently the doctor had heard enough too; he made a spare, one-handed gesture in Ms Maitland’s direction, and she helped him lift the unconscious man as if she’d been doing so all her life.

Though they were both meticulously gentle, Susannah braced for the man to wince, to groan, to make some sound to show that he was alive and in pain.

The silence was somehow far more sickening.

***

There was indeed a spare bedroom in the Lawrence house, a small, plain room holding nothing but a narrow bed (thankfully made up and ready for use), a nightstand, and a curtained window. Humble enough, but clean, and well-suited for housing unexpected guests.

Now, however, it looked impossibly paltry, fit for entertaining distant relatives but certainly not for a gravely wounded, possibly dying man. Susannah’s hands trembled as she rushed in ahead to light the lamp, turning it up high as she recalled what Doc Clayton had said about needing light. The warm, bright glow failed to comfort her as it usually might.

Cordie and the doctor laid the unconscious man on the bed and, between them, removed his long, battered coat. It was lined in red silk, the kind of thing a stage magician might wear, the red stained in places with darker, wetter crimson flowers. Cordie stepped back and away from the bed, raising her blood-smeared palms as if to place a barrier between herself and the situation.

“I’d better be gettin’ back to the saloon, ‘less I want those damn drunkards to bleed me dry while my back’s turned.” She shook her head with a grim and mirthless chuckle, giving the unconscious stranger a final, solemn glance. “I’ll pray for him and take his horse to the stable while I’m at it, if the ornery thing don’t try and bite me for the trouble.”

Susannah thanked her with quiet sincerity and turned to the doctor for further instructions. This was her house, and she knew he’d expect her to assume some responsibility, since bringing the man here in the first place was her idea. Of course, she’d never turn from her duty, but knowing the right thing to do and following through with it were two wildly different things, trouble being that most folks only ever had reason to consider the former. They’d hear a homily and take its lessons to heart, as they should, but feel safe in the knowledge that they would most likely never be called upon to cross over the road, to offer aid in someone else’s time of need.

Doc Clayton was already busy, unbuttoning the stranger’s vest and shirt with an impersonal ease that Susannah envied.

“Right then, son, let’s see what the damage is,” he murmured by way of explanation as his hands moved, his tone somewhere between brisk and comforting, like hot tea laced with brandy. Susannah let herself relax a little; clearly the doctor had things well in hand.

Then, he swore. In his hands, sudden as a magic trick, was a length of crumpled, bloodstained linen. An improvised bandage. Sickened, she drew closer.

“Explains the fever,” he said nonchalantly without glancing up, dropping the soiled cloth. With surprising gentleness, he probed lightly at the edges of a weeping, blood-crusted wound beneath the stranger’s ribcage. “He must’ve treated himself, albeit poorly, and it reopened when he fell from his horse…”

The doctor turned to her, and she quickly tried to mask her horrified disgust.

“Be some help, will you, Miss Lawrence?” he instructed her firmly, and she nodded without waiting to hear what he’d ask. “Start boiling some water; this wants stitching, and I’ll need to sterilise everything first. We’ll also need cool water and some cloths, to control the fever and tend some of the smaller injuries.”

The “we” cheered her somewhat, made her feel more like a willing assistant than a frightened witness. She hurried to do as he’d asked her, glad that neither of them was alone in this.

As she lit the stove, she heard a soft creak overhead, followed by quiet, shuffling footsteps on the stairs. A sound she had been dreading since she arrived back here with the others in tow. She bit her lip and focused on filling the kettle, fervently hoping that her confident words about their Christian duty would hold up to scrutiny.

“Susannah? What has you up so late?” Turning away from the full kettle on the stove to face her father, she fixed him with the most respectful look she could muster under the circumstances.

“I’m sorry, Father… we didn’t wake you, did we?” He shook his head, waving off her apology with a wan smile.

“No, no, it’s merely been a restless night…” For half a moment, she thought he might simply pat her on the shoulder and shuffle back to bed. At least, she hoped he might. Then his eyebrows rose sharply, a sudden shift in expression which, in conjunction with his sleep-mussed shock of greying hair, made him look quite wild.

Fortunately, Susannah knew her father’s bark to be far worse than his bite, and mostly reserved for show, anyhow. He was good at frightening penitents and sinners alike, but he’d never so much as raised a hand to her, let alone his voice.

“We? Are you hosting a party down here, my girl?”

She flushed guiltily and shook her head.

“No, Father… Ms Maitland and I found a wounded man in the street, outside the saloon. I thought to bring him here, Doc Clayton’s tending to him now, in the guestroom.”

“Is that so?” he asked her, seeming more baffled than disapproving. For a moment or two, he was silent, but she could practically hear the gears grinding in his head as he pondered just what to make of the situation she’d brought into his house. In all likelihood, he was recalling the box of orphaned kittens she’d hidden under her bed when she was eight…

At her back, the kettle began to shrill, effectively cutting off any potential protests dead in their tracks. Whipping round, she lifted it off the stove and, tucking an empty basin beneath her free arm, made for the guestroom once more. Her father followed close behind, but she was far more concerned with bringing Doc Clayton the water he’d requested than his opinion of their unexpected houseguest.

Indeed, once she’d handed off the kettle, she left the room once more to fetch everything else, so she missed the bulk of the hushed conversation that began between the two men. From the kitchen, she could make out the cadence of their voices; Doc Clayton’s firm and strident, Nathaniel’s a little softer, less certain than it sounded from behind a pulpit. To her relief, though, they didn’t seem to be arguing. Neither man had the conscience to throw a gravely wounded stranger back out into the street to fend for himself.

Even so, her hands shook a little as she walked back in once again; water dripped from the brimming bowl she clutched onto her bare feet, soberingly cold.

Her father and the doctor seemed to have reached a consensus by the time she returned. If nothing else, they were no longer talking. She set the basin on the nightstand and a pile of clean cloths on the bed, and once more faced her Nathaniel, ready to hear his verdict.

Nathaniel, looking notably weary, raked a hand through his wild hair and gave her a little smile.

“This poor soul can stay here as long as he needs to,” he told her, and there was a certain, undeniable pride in his eyes that warmed her to see. He squeezed her shoulder lightly, and decorously stifled a yawn behind his hand. “I should retire, I’ll have to be up early for the service tomorrow.” He stepped back and cast a brief, troubled yet compassionate look towards the stranger on the bed. “I’ll have the congregation pray for his recovery, I think…” Giving Doc Clayton a respectful nod, he retreated from the room.

Feeling better about things, Susannah nonetheless did not relax until she heard the floorboards above her head creaking and the silence that followed, mercifully unbroken by coughing.

As if he hadn’t been interrupted at all, Doc Clayton returned to work, pouring boiling water over the suturing needle in the empty basin and carefully slipping the man’s open shirt off. Susannah politely closed her eyes, only to open them again just as quickly, hoping the doctor was too busy to catch her slip-up. How could she be of any use to him whilst averting her eyes like somebody’s maiden aunt?

Doc Clayton swore. The total lack of politesse was refreshing, but by no means reassuring.

Grappling with that foolish urge to protect the stranger’s modesty, she forced herself to look.

The man was lean, almost excessively so, all hollow cheeks and sharp collarbones, the ridges of his ribs just visible through the pale white flesh of his torso. He reminded her of a stray cat, of an animal that had run too much and eaten far too little, driven from every sanctuary it had claimed for itself.

His leanness was not what had drawn such a bitter oath from the doctor’s throat, no; almost every visible inch of skin was littered with livid bruises the purple-black of storm clouds, painfully stark against his pallor.

Susannah felt ill. She’d seen street brawls before, of course, and their sometimes-bloody aftermaths: great, arcing, clumsy roundhouse blows that missed as often as they struck home and resulted in blackened eyes and broken noses, sore ribs, and split lips.

Nothing like this.

Whoever was responsible for these injuries had clearly been trying to cripple the man, if not kill him outright.

Shuddering, she stood sentry at the head of the bed, quickly moving to the far side so as not to block the light. Doc Clayton worked quickly and thoroughly, cleaning fresh and dried blood alike from that deep gash. The water in the basin beside him was soon stained an ugly shade of pink.

“Here, miss…” The doctor offhandedly passed her a small glass bottle, his eyes already back on the task at hand by the time she could glance back up. “See if you can get him to take a little of that while I prepare this needle; this next part will hurt, so don’t be too delicate with the dosage, yes?” She examined the bottle, small but heavy with implication and responsibility in her hands.

“What is it?”

“Laudanum. An opium tincture, it’ll dull the pain and help him sleep some, with any luck…” Up until that point, it hadn’t even occurred to Susannah that the man was awake, that he could hear or feel a thing around him, but with the doctor’s words, his state of consciousness became clear to her, and she felt a little ashamed not to have noticed sooner. Still, she nodded obediently and moved to do as Doc Clayton had asked, slipping her hand gently beneath the man’s neck and lifting his head slightly from the pillow.

To her surprise, he tensed at her touch, though he clearly lacked the strength to pull away. His eyelids flickered and he made a sound that could have been the beginning of a word or could simply have been a moan of pain. Was she hurting him?

“It’s all right,” she soothed, feeling wrongfooted and childishly afraid. “You’re safe now, sir, I promise you…” The slight, trembling tension did not leave his body at her words, but he drew a deeper breath and forced his eyes open, just for a second.

In the warm lamplight, his irises looked almost black, darker than any eyes she’d ever seen.

A slight, confused crease formed between the man’s brows as he tried to size her up in those brief moments his eyes remained open. She did her best to smile reassuringly every time their eyes met.

“You’re safe,” she repeated, still carefully cradling the back of his neck. He was indeed, as Cordie had grimly reported, burning hot as a furnace. She thought back to her stock of herbs, hoping she at least had some feverfew in stock. Of course, he’d have to survive this night first…

“I have some medicine here,” she explained softly, holding up the bottle to show him, as if he’d be able to make sense of the label in his condition. His dark eyes flicked dutifully towards it, and that crease in his brow deepened with thought, but to her relief, he seemed more befuddled than suspicious or fearful.

Finally, with a faint, rasping sigh, he nodded. She smiled lightly.

“All right, then, take it slowly now…” She lifted his head again, gentle and cautious, and poured a careful dose of the tincture between his cracked, parted lips. Tense, she watched his fingerprint-bruised throat for movement as he swallowed, drop by bitter drop. His face contorted slightly at the taste, and a brief flash of pure panic ignited his dark eyes before finally, mercifully, he relaxed. The tension steadily bled out of his body and his eyes slipped shut as he sank into an exhausted, opium-laced sleep.

Glad to have been of some help, Susannah brushed back his wet, tangled hair, then stepped back to allow Doc Clayton to finish his work.

#writeblr #writeblr community #creative writing #better to reign in hell #work in progress #whumpblr

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onsiteairconditioning · 6 months ago

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10 Questions to Ask Before Hiring an Aircon Technician

When your aircon shows signs of trouble, hiring the best tech is key. Homeowners with aircon issues need a skilled and trusted expert to get their unit back on track. How can you find the right aircon services in Maitland that meet your needs? Here are ten key questions to ask before you hire an aircon tech so you can make a smart choice.

1. Are You Licensed and Insured?

One of the first steps is to check if the tech has a license and insurance. A license shows the tech meets key skills and follows the rules. Insurance keeps you safe from costs if mishaps or harm happen during the job. Always ask air conditioning services in Newcastle to see proof of both before moving forward.

2. What Experience Do You Have with My Air Conditioner Model?

Aircons come in many forms and styles. Each has its own traits and needs. You must find a tech who has worked with your model. With this know-how, they can spot and fix the issue fast. Ask them right away about their past work with your system.

3. What Services Do You Offer?

Various aircon services in Maitland offer different types of aid. Some focus on installs, while others handle repairs or upkeep. It’s key to hire a tech who meets your needs, be it for fixing an issue, fixing a fault, or doing regular upkeep. Ensure their skills match your needs.

4. Can You Provide a Written Estimate?

Before work starts, ask for a clear quote that shows all costs. The quote must list the price of parts, labour, and any other fees. A clear quote helps stop mix-ups and keeps pricing clear. It also gives you a way to compare quotes from different aircon services in Maitland.

5. Do You Offer Any Warranties or Guarantees?

Warranties and pledges show the skill of the technician. Check if the air conditioning services in Newcastle give any pledge on the parts or the labor. This promise gives you peace of mind, knowing that if things go wrong after work, you’re safe.

6. What is Your Availability?

Aircon problems often need quick care, more so in the hot Aussie summer. Ask about the tech’s availability and response time. A good aircon service in Maitland should match your schedule and offer quick service to stop long discomfort in your home.

7. Can You Provide References or Reviews?

A trusted tech should have a list of happy clients who can back their work. Ask for names or look up web reviews to gauge their standing. Hearing from other owners can boost your trust in your choice and help you skip hiring a new or shaky tech.

8. What Tools and Equipment Do You Use?

Modern aircon units need tools and gear to diagnose and fix them correctly. Ask the tech what tools they use and if they are up-to-date with the latest tech. A well-equipped aircon service in Maitland is more likely to give quick and good service.

9. How Do You Handle Unexpected Issues?

Fixing air conditioning can show hidden issues that weren’t clear at first. Ask the tech how they deal with problems that may come up during the job. A skilled aircon service in Maitland will talk through these problems with you before going on and will give solutions that fit your budget and needs.

10. What is the Process for Payment?

Knowing the payment steps helps avoid surprises. Ask the tech about their payment ways, when payment is due, and if they offer finance plans. Clear talk on payment keeps things smooth and stops any mix-ups.

Benefits of Hiring a Reliable Aircon Service

Hiring a trusted Aircon team gives you key perks, such as making sure your aircon runs well and lasts long. Here are the main gains:

Right skills and hands-on experience can fix all types of aircon units

A good team acts fast to solve your air con woes.

With a trusted team, you get first-rate work.

Help stop high costs by spotting faults early with good care.

Give clear rates so you know the cost with no hidden fees.

Receive a warranty so you know the work is done right.

Good care and the right fixes boost your air con’s energy use

The right care and fast work add years to your air con’s life

Well-kept air con cools your home right

Meets the top safety rules, so all work is safe and meets all local rules.

Lowers the risk of harm or loss.

In short, hiring trusted aircon services in Maitland not only keeps your aircon in top shape but also gives you long-term perks like cost cuts, ease, and a calm mind.

About Onsite Air

Onsite Air is your trusted ally for aircon supply, setup, checks, fixes, and upkeep. Our team of skilled and licensed experts is set to give top-tier Aircon services to homes all over Australia. We focus on your ease and joy by giving solid fixes made for your needs. Reach out to learn more about our help.

#air conditioning installation #air conditioning maintenance

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huntercoalfieldsremovals · 7 months ago

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10 Ways to Prepare Your Kids for a Big Move

Moving to a new home can be a daunting experience for anyone, but it can be especially challenging for children. Leaving behind familiar surroundings, friends, and routines can cause anxiety and stress. However, with thoughtful preparation and a positive approach, you can help your children navigate this transition smoothly. Here are ten effective ways to prepare your kids for a big move with removalist Maitland professionals:

Open Communication

Start by having an open and honest conversation with your children about the move. Explain the reasons behind the decision and what they can expect. Encourage them to ask questions and express their feelings. This transparency will help alleviate their fears and uncertainties. Discuss the move well in advance, so they have ample time to process the information. Be prepared to revisit the topic multiple times as new questions and concerns arise.

Involve Them in the Process

Involving your children in the moving process can make them feel more in control and less anxious. Take them house hunting with you, let them choose their new room, and encourage them to participate in packing their belongings. This involvement can turn a stressful experience into an exciting adventure. Allow them to make decisions about their new space, such as picking out new decorations or choosing the colour scheme for their room. This sense of ownership can make the new home feel more like theirs.

Visit the New Neighbourhood

If possible, take your children to visit the new neighbourhood before the move. Show them around the local parks, schools, and other places of interest. Familiarising them with the new environment can help reduce anxiety and build anticipation for the move. If a visit isn’t feasible, use online resources to explore the area together. Look up pictures, maps, and even virtual tours of local attractions. Highlight exciting new opportunities and activities they can look forward to.

Read Books About Moving

There are many children's books that address the topic of moving. Reading these stories together can help your kids understand and cope with their emotions. Books like "The Berenstain Bears' Moving Day" by Stan and Jan Berenstain or "Alexander, Who's Not (Do You Hear Me? I Mean It!) Going to Move" by Judith Viorst can be particularly helpful. These stories can provide comfort by showing your children that their feelings are normal and shared by others. They can also spark discussions about their own thoughts and fears.

Create a Moving Calendar

A moving calendar can help your children visualise the timeline and understand the different stages of the move. Mark important dates such as the packing day, moving day, and their first day at the new school. This visual aid can make the process feel more structured and less overwhelming. Include fun countdown activities, like a family movie night or a special outing, to create positive associations with the upcoming move. A visual countdown can also help younger children grasp the concept of time better.

Host a Farewell Party

Organise a farewell party for your children to say goodbye to their friends. This event can provide closure and allow them to create lasting memories. Encourage them to exchange contact information with their friends to stay in touch after the move. Consider making a memory book or scrapbook where they can keep photos, messages, and mementos from their friends. This can serve as a comforting reminder of their old home and help ease the transition.

Establish a Moving Day Plan

Prepare a detailed plan for moving day to ensure everything runs smoothly. Assign specific tasks to your children, such as packing their favourite toys in a special box or helping with last-minute preparations. Having a plan in place can help reduce chaos and make the day feel more manageable. Keep essentials like snacks, water, and entertainment within easy reach to keep them comfortable and occupied during the move. Reassure them that everything is under control, even if unexpected issues arise.

Maintain Routines

Try to maintain as many of your children's routines as possible during the moving process. Familiar routines, such as bedtime rituals or weekly family activities, can provide a sense of stability and normalcy amidst the changes. Consistency is key to helping children feel secure. If some routines must change due to the move, explain these changes in advance and involve them in creating new routines that fit the new environment.

Set Up Their New Room First

When you arrive at your new home, prioritise setting up your children's rooms first. Having a familiar and comfortable space ready for them can ease the transition and make them feel more at home. Allow them to unpack their favourite items and arrange their room as they like. This can give them a sense of stability and ownership in their new surroundings. Encourage them to make their space their own, perhaps by hanging up their favourite posters or setting up their toys just the way they like.

Be Patient and Supportive

Understand that adjusting to a new environment takes time. Your children may experience a range of emotions, from excitement to sadness. Be patient, offer support, and provide reassurance. Encourage them to express their feelings and remind them that it's okay to feel a mix of emotions. Listen actively to their concerns and validate their feelings without dismissing them. Share your own experiences with moving to help them feel understood and less alone.

Preparing your kids for a big move involves careful planning, open communication, and a lot of empathy. By taking these steps, you can help your children embrace the change with confidence and optimism. Remember, the key is to make the move a shared family experience, turning a potentially stressful event into a positive and memorable journey for everyone. With patience, support, and a proactive approach, you can transform the moving process into an adventure that strengthens family bonds and creates lasting memories.

#removalistmaitland #removalists #removals #moving

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wizisbored · 3 years ago

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Tell me things about the feral goblin child pls

hell yea the gremlin child. bugebroph. buggie. soup.

so where im at currently, lydia was basically the kidnapping equivalent of an impulse purchase. beetlejuice was just vibing in the living world, hanging out i guess, and realised that this fuckin baby could see him. kid kept pointing at him and saying shit like "a". and he was fuckin obsessed. hell yeah, "a". he decided he liked the kid, so he just kinda... took her. there was some vague justification that he could teach her to summon him at some point in the future, but it was mostly just because hed taken a shine to her and he has awful awful impulse control.

lydia was always aware of the fact that she was stolen from the living. but she was raised on stories of juno and beetlejuice telling her that parents are dumb and she doesnt need them, so she doesnt particularly care. in fact, she thinks her life with beetlejuice - basically being raised as a demon - is much better than any life in the living world could be. all her clothes are conjoured for her by him and grow with her, and he makes her new ones whenever she wants them. up to a certain point she knew him solely as lawrence, since he didnt have any way of getting 'beetlejuice' across to a baby. he heared her parents say her name a few times before he took her, decided he liked it, and kept it. he didnt catch her surname.

she was raised primarily in the netherworld, with beetlejuice smuggling her in and out to bring her with him when he leaves and keeping her hidden. but eventually there comes a point - around 5 or 6 maybe - that shes still too young for him to leave by herself without worrying she'll be found out, but getting too big to easily smuggle. and after a near miss with juno, he decides that she needs to graduate to hiding in plain sight.

his plan basically boils down to 'make lydia a fake id and pass her off as a young demon'. in order to make the cover as convincing as he can, he binds her to a name in the same way he's bound to betelgeuse. he tries finding another star name, gives up, takes a thesaurus to his own name and then messes around with the spelling. hence, bugebroph - pronounced bug-broth. shes a little more particular about the spelling than beetlejuice, which is why i dont write it as bugbroth. its only until after he binds her that he remembers that it will prevent her from using his name to invoke, but he doesnt really care at this point. with her demon name and forged papers shes significantly safer, though beetlejuice still tries to keep her out of juno's sight.

when shes a little older, and hes gifted her a knife, beetlejuice starts leaving her in the netherworld while he visits the world of the living. its mostly due to the fact that shes visible, which complicates things for him. so little bugebroph, lacking even beetlejuice's lax supervision and hanging around the entrance to wait for him, begins making a habit of terrorising the recently deceased. the ghosts who are there regularly, such as miss argentina, come to know and recognise her. a few even know shes alive, but none have the heart to rat her out to juno. if beetlejuice wants to keep a pet breather thats his business, her fake id is convincing enough to let slide, and shes kinda cute in a distincly feral way. nobody brings up her mortality. but after a few too many comments about how she's oddly rosy-cheeked for a young demon - she doesnt get much sun but shes not quite as pale as the dead - she starts wearing masks that cover all or most of her face, just in case the wrong ghost gets too good a look at her. of course, these have the added bonus of aiding in her terrorising of new ghosts. ive sketched a few possible designs for em:

nobody's keeping track of her age, but shes a teenager when she finally manages to persuade beetlejuice to let her help with a haunt. and that's how she ends up in the home of adam and barbra maitland, shortly after it was purchaced by one charles deetz.

#bugebroph #arran draws things #would like to talk more about the gal if anyone has follow up questions

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route22ny · 5 years ago

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I grew up in the Bay Area at the height of AIDS panic, and all of that era’s sex paranoia remains burned into my brain, repurposed for Covid-19 and the act of commingling wet breath. A few weeks into this crisis, I found myself having a ten-foot-distant conversation with my neighbor Patty, both of us incredulous at people who still tried to talk to us in-tight face-to-face, like we weren't all suddenly barebacking reality with everyone they'd chit-chatted with that day and everyone in their lives, etc. Patty allowed that she should be able to strike people she considered a threat. I mentioned Florida's attitude toward this legal principle and firearms. I suggested she become militant. I tell that to a lot of people, but I attenuate the humor of it for the audience. I tell every teacher I know to strike.

There are more sirens now. It's hard to tell, because unlike New York, everything isn't quiet. Cars are out on the road—fewer, but enough that hearing a siren can still be vehicular idiocy and not a more sinister house call. But I still hear more of them.

I don’t know why Luke asked me to write about Coronavirus in Florida. I mostly stopped writing last year when a good friend dropped dead in front of his family. (Subscribe to my Substack—we don't update regularly!) Before that, I felt increasingly overborne by events. Things ground to a halt in 2019, but the machine began to break down long before. I ended the 2016 campaign periodically sitting under my desk, high, feeling secure because I wasn't writing anything stupid and feeling good because I was appropriately afraid of everything, but people thought I was exaggerating when I mentioned it.

I wish I could say my seriousness about the novel coronavirus stems solely from believing in science and peer review and that I would take it seriously regardless, but my spouse is immunocompromised, and my father, who lives out in the Bay Area, had Covid-19, back in March or early April. He didn't tell us kids until he was out of the woods, but for days he had fevers over 103º. My stepmom, a former emergency room nurse, couldn't get him admitted anywhere, because he wasn't having respiratory problems. He woke up the same every day: It felt like someone had parked a Volkswagen on him.

We're supposed to say he's out of the woods. I'll believe that when he dies of old age, or something more reasonable that kills men in my family, like colon cancer or car accidents. Sometimes I think about him dropping dead like my friend, only from whatever post-Covid-19 effect triggers the brain’s forgetting to tell the lungs to breathe—or from the one that leads to storms of strokes, like a brain's blood vessels recreating the burning energies depicted on a CRISS ANGEL MINDFREAK poster. Then I wonder how I would die, or my wife, or my friend in Atlanta, or my brother. I think about drowning in open air, alone in a hissing world, and being incapable of saying the overdue apologies I ran out of time for.

After a while I realized that basically all Luke wanted was to hear from a coward living in the mismanaged kleptocracy of Florida, and the thing is, I can do that! I’m frightened right now!

I considered opening with, Every day I wake up frightened, to throw a fucking jolt into a piece about facing down a pandemic in a place where they have a paradise just for the cheeseburgers. But the joke is, I'm not wastin' away here in Coronaville. Sometimes I wake up and just have to pee, on the rare days when I don't wake up from the sensation of my son elbow-dropping my head because—how rude of me—it's 6:45 already.

In this respect, I am serene: My son and I exercise outside to burn off his energy, so I'm out in the sun for hours a day. I'm tanner, I've lost weight, and my phlegm feels looser. I grew a lushly indifferent goatee. My haircut looks like something that belongs on the gatefold cover of a concept album about a form of locomotion by a band named after geography. While the term "Lebowski Phase" has been applied to my appearance and to the fact that my leg injury and medical-marijuana prescription have collided with the reality of never having to drive anywhere again, I must insist that in many respects I have come to look like Jesus Christ. I am pro life and take no pleasure in reporting this.

As I have said, I am frequently awakened by my son, whose full name is My Beautiful Five-Year-Old Son Maitland. He is a treasure who spends quarantine within earshot of 24-hour news, regurgitating West Wing Democrat observations of mine with five-year-old precocity to harvest follows for Instagram. Maitland is an influencer already on record as supporting L’Oréal, opposing Medicare For All, and, when I first read him the shaggy start to this piece, he said, "Not a good look." He's a natural.

Waking up is violent but easy. The problem is everything after that. By the time I close my eyes, I'm not sure what I felt most on any given day—anger, sadness, impotence, a resentful churning need for vengeance, despair. Any one can seem like a day's dominant emotional dysfunction and then suddenly be overwhelmed by the dread that suffuses prolonged thought about the world outside.

I am one of the people who is Taking It Seriously. Seriously Taking It Seriously, though—not the people who say they're taking it seriously and then tell you about:

• Going to a recent indoor birthday party.

• Having a multi-course dinner at a fancy restaurant, "But it was okay because it was [extremely not-worth-a-life celebration]!"

• A full-contact playdate their kid had recently with two other children.

I abhor these people. I have an existential loathing of these people, and a granular scientific indictment. I enjoy reading new articles to learn new ways in which they are a danger to me. My apprehension is rich and exquisite. May their friends shun them, and may they be abandoned by their gods.

Sooner or later, every day, I think of the threats arrayed against me and my family. Each day, I see the most recent thing said by my governor, Ronald Fuckface DeSantis, in which he explicitly endorses and declares his intent to pursue actions that all available data say will kill Floridians by the thousands. Each day, I think about how, if I do so much as suggest fostering a free exchange of ideas about the proportional value of using every means to stop him, I will be arrested.

Every day, I bounce the "Evil or Moronic?" debate around my brain. I check in with an alumna buddy in Atlanta to see whose governor has shown more recent determination to murder his citizens. I gotta give Brian Kemp credit, because he's really holding his own. Naturally, this leads to wondering if either of them have a natural or acculturated advantage in terms of idiocy and malevolence. DeSantis' enrollment at Yale and Harvard and service in the military problematizes the idiocy narrative only for as long as it takes to remember all the people you've met who've gone to any of them and were dumber than dogshit. It would seem like fate to be murdered by an oaf, but I don't know that it's not merciful to at least be murdered purposefully rather than contemptuously and indolently.

Eventually, this leads to spending some time thinking about DeSantis as a kind of lethal bro angel. It's hard not to see his shitchyeah, brah, people are dyin', it's classic! expression and recognize that the state's chief executive resembles a lout you don't want to run into walking alone at FSU after a home loss. I prefer my jokes about the governor, but my friend David Roth nailed it when he said that DeSantis seemed like a person who would describe himself as “kind of a DUI guy.”

I know there's supposedly a culture war out there. There's a truck in my neighborhood with a Q sticker, and another with a Three-Percenter sticker, and there are more than a few neighbors of the "easily victimized white dude who owns a $50,000 truck he rarely takes off the pavement and who becomes physically belligerent when you correct him" variety, but there's a reason why you really only see “war” shit on YouTube. Few Americans are hostile to general safety protocols, and even fewer act out against them. I live where hate groups and old fashioned unaffiliated redneck trash drive in from the county to make a show of rebel flags, rolling coal and honking to intimidate protests, but people line up six feet apart at Home Depot, wear masks at Publix and get takeout at the pizza place outside without insisting on barging in. Most wars don’t need one side of them to be this manufactured.

Most of my friends and colleagues from this gig live in New York, so I've already sat through weeks of descriptions of streets silent except for ambulances, and I’ve already woken for weeks to the half-twilight of nightmares where friends died in a spare white hallway. There aren't a lot of surprises in store for Florida, and no images I can describe that would make you want to turn back now. It's like we're waiting for the rolling premiere of a franchise blockbuster. The dead won't really start packing them in for a few more weeks, but all the scariest shit hit YouTube when it opened in New York a thousand years ago. The coronavirus as an image, what it functionally is, as a horror, feels as familiar as the Scream mask, and the context that makes that scary as hell already feels dangerously been-and-gone, like an apprehension that Florida had for too long before the actual scare came.

There's a hope that all this will come to little again. Despite Governor DeSantis' refusal to take the initiative on shutting down the state until the last dollar was wrung from the last snowbird, the original shellacking never came. The Tampa Bay Times sampled smartphone data and concluded that Floridians overwhelmingly took the initiative to stay home, and they were aided in their quarantine process by the fact that Florida is car-dependent and atomized.

The heartbreaking realization, as you gradually run across more people who are Not Taking It Seriously or are Expressing Moronic Skepticism, is that for a month there about 80 percent of America was on board with doing the right thing. We, a people who suck at doing the right thing even for the wrong reasons, stood on the side of doing the harder thing if it helped people who weren't even us.

I really can't tell if I feel more anger than sadness at the fact that those who were meant to encourage us in safety, to serve us by offering difficult guidance, wasted our sacrifice and our trust. They squandered the patience given by a beggared and exhausted people. All they had to do was the right thing, and if they weren't sure what that was, they could have erred on the side of saving people’s lives and hoping it counted, and they failed.

Instead, more people will die, and we'll be shut down again, and we will realize we are fundamentally unequipped for life with Covid-19. Florida is built on enclosed air-conditioned spaces: It's dependent on divorcing yourself from Florida as a climate and place. Asking Floridians to generate a public life under the unshielded rage of God’s angriest sun and baked from beneath by a sprawling pave-ocalypse requires asking them to rebel against everything their infrastructure has taught them for as long as they can remember. It is a car culture to the flesh and bone, and a restaurant relocating indoor tables to a road patio would park its diners inches away from eternity.

A picnic day like that is months off, again. It's time to go back inside and resume Inside Time. Inside Time melts away. I saw a headline around the Fourth of July, from the New York Times, that read, "In the Covid-19 Economy, You Can Have a Kid or a Job. You Can’t Have Both," and I remember seeing colleagues tweet, mmmm, so true, and, gets at something crucial we aren't talking about, and shit like that, and I was like, "Buddy, let's get in the DeLorean and visit March." I have nowhere to go, anyway, and all life is timeless.

We have no family in the area and have had no break. It's the three of us, like No Exit, but if most of the dialogue was the word "no" and a lot of stuff about poop and butts and farts, good guys and bad guys, and what Lego Star Wars would do, but with a lot of excruciated pleading for silence because Mom and Dad Are Working Right Now and We Love You Very Much but Jesus Christ Please Stop for the Love of God I Will Give You a Dollar If You Go in Your Room and Be Quiet and Play That Kindle App That Teaches You to Read That You Pay Attention to More Than Us Even Though I Would Read You a Fucking Novel If You'd Just Shut Up and Sit Still.

I'm resigned to staying in here until 2022. I’m screaming, but I will do it. I'm lucky in that I have access to a community pool and a neighborhood where my son and I can roam around on bikes and romp and look at water and birds and turtles. When we're lazy, we have a porch where we can feel nature without feeling exposed. We have a dependable (ok!!! haha!!!) income, and I can do irregularly scheduled work that allows me to be Parent rather than Employee. Exercise, meals and stories take up enough hours that I might as well lean into it.

But we’re lucky. We have a house and prescription mood-altering drugs and one thousand years of undersleep, but we are in less immediate danger than most. The state, almost reflexively, reaches out to open more doors even as Covid-19 blows past reopening benchmark after reopening benchmark.

The inexorable march for commerce doesn’t even come from malice in many cases; people in charge just don’t know how to do anything else but extort and scold people into working under any conditions, so long as it devours most of their time. All the exploitive principles are expected to work the same even if the world they built is fraudulent. We feed meat and the virus into the machines, irrespective of what the data says, and pray for rain. Watching Florida government on the state and local level is like watching two parents bring an alcoholic home after he got kicked out of rehab and deciding that the best course of action is leaving him with $5,000 in an apartment up the street from a dive bar and then going to Cancun for the week. It was on the calendar already, there wasn’t any choice, he looked very healthy at the time!

We have friends who are teachers, and we are scared for their spouses and kids. I don't know what Florida's plan for its teachers is other than to murder them. Again, I don't know if DeSantis is an idiot for flirting with giving enormous bipartisan sympathy to arguably the most effective labor group in the state, or a genius for flirting with finally eliminating a lobbying obstacle to conservative governance by simply liquidating its members as a class.

I worry if I start listing all the things I'm scared of, they'll never stop, but every day I see my son reach for something he should be able to reach for, and I either have a low-grade panic response and stifle it, or I have the panic response and yelp at him to get his attention and tell him to stop, startle him, and add another layer of gun-shy haunting to his day. I'm afraid he'll eventually become an animal in a Skinner Box in which all the buttons and levers are electrocuted, and there are no prizes.

I'm afraid that my son will always be emotionally arrested at two years behind the development of people the same age who had siblings in their house, or who, like many kids in my neighborhood, had parents who thought kids were invincible to Covid-19 and let them play with whomever they wanted. I worry that he may pay a price year after year even into adulthood because other kids got to practice socializing as we rode past. They got to hang out with people their own age and run around and do vitally stupid shit and say "butts" a lot, and he got look at me heartbroken and knowing empirically and epidemiologically that he couldn't play with his friends anymore but still needing to know why, and knowing that I couldn't tell him anything more sophisticated and anything less terrifying than, "So we don't get sick."

The other day he started crying and then screaming, "I hate the sickness! I hate the sickness!" repeating it in a higher and higher register, until he was up even past that piercing birdlike screech that prepubescent boys make whenever trying to sound like lasers or dinosaurs or squealing brakes. Every day I worry that I see another little bit of his capacity for happiness is dying—that the same awkward process of terror that took me from happy little kid to profoundly unhappy teen to scarred adult is even more rapidly at work, and each day another sparkling and joyous little light of childhood winks out in him, replaced by fear as a necessity of life.

I know that there is no plan for us. Conservatives don't want to be taxed or have their businesses lose money, so people are being kicked off unemployment and sent back to work with no test and trace protocols, irregular access to PPE, overwhelmed hospitals and often limited access to any care. We're doing all this as Florida blooms scarlet like paint being spilled into a mold shaped like the state. We're sending the men in the gasoline suits right at the heart of the fire.

It's a cruelly lazy little culling genocide of the working class, a Wall Street gamble that the blow to the labor force won't be more than a blip on the Dow and, a little recession aside, the One Percent will come out ten years later owning an even greater percentage of the United States. To the extent that there is a plan, that's the plan, and whether you land on the dead or the living part of any of those exchanges is more of a Your Problem than a Their Problem.

For now, it's enough to be hermits and hope the rest of Florida goes on strike by going inside and staying there and writing letters to representatives threatening to never come out. Cooking the same things, getting the same exercise in the same places, having the same awkward conversations on VOIP delay, and living every moment outside like we're three drinks in so we’re ready to get belligerent with anyone who is getting too close. Living every moment with some low-level neurasthenia that grows spine-deep and for the rest of our lives sends shuddering disequilibrium at the thought of air that never seems to move, hallways that lengthen without exits, and objects that seem both unavoidable and unclean. It’s fine. We’re all fine, here, now. How are you?

I feel a sudden Git Offa Mah Land thing about my son, a resolute commitment to homeschooling for the foreseeable future and to keeping the gummymint away. It sucks so much. I was so happy to send him to the public school just a few blocks away, instead of the shitty little charter schools nearby, but now that it’s Plague or Parents, he’s got his parents. Between us, he'll have access to 1.5 first-class educations. I still have my grandpa's service weapons from WWII, the last time America was in a war with fascism, when we took the opposing side. I'll empty a couple magazines into anyone who comes onto my property and tries to stop me from teaching my son critical race theory, Howard Zinn, and Leonard Levy's Jefferson and Civil Liberties: The Darker Side. I refuse to turn my back on the heritage of my youth, of watching thousands of hours of MASH, by refusing to wear a mask outside or in fact any time I am doing anything other than drinking gin that I made in a tent.

Outside, records fall and progress rolls on. A governor whose go-to pejorative for opponents of all ages and sexes is very likely still “queef” watches as even the president concedes that a Republican National Convention here would be too lethal, as the state repeatedly sets records for daily deaths, beats out all of Europe in terms of new daily cases, leads the nation in cases per day, then tries to set them again. And then, every day, our governor makes his ahegao-but-for-ethnic-cleansing face and psychotically clangs a bell indicating that Florida just became the 15,000 customer at Leadshoe Larry’s Kicked-in-the-Dick, and it’s time for all us lucky winners to line up and drop our pants.

Florida’s lethality is so tacky that it’s almost camp, but there is no satisfaction in being right about how wrong everything is. Nobody gets a prize for correctly guessing the surplus death toll. All you have to do is look someone else in the eye working in life under Covid.

I’m old now, so I have Humiliating Injury Syndrome (HIS), and somehow in the month between the Super Bowl and the pandemic, I tore a rotator cuff, a labrum, or both, by throwing a (mini!!!) football with friends. After four months, I broke down and went to get an MRI. I skulked down corridors and lurked in a corner of a waiting room, like playing spies with an opponent who was the air. Even the clean and modern fixtures felt miasmic and corrupted, like they were a parking garage in an Alan Pakula film.

Eventually a nurse emerged from an office, crinkled her brown eyes, waved and surprised me by asking after my family by name. She lives three blocks away from me and had hosted me at a party once. Later that day, as my car coasted down the approach to my house, I saw a garage door open and my neighbor’s son walk out on his way to his shift at the same grocery store that I treat emotionally like a Superfund site.

I thought about how much I unconsciously held my breath where they work, and how I unconsciously associate those places with poor choices. The danger of the world outside is so massive that I reflexively need to cordon off the threat into areas of blame and blamelessness. In a moment of crisis, years of conservative rhetorical conditioning in the discourse have taught me to reflexively pathologize those in harm’s way. There is less chaos if someone is at least responsible for something. There is less risk to me, if it turns out someone else’s epidemic is someone else’s fault.

But it is someone else’s fault. And it’s not some poor fucker doomed to sit in a box somewhere and accept paper money and hand metal money back and point at where toilets are, because that’s how he keeps the lights on. It’s not the person consigned to some life-sucking task that, on the best of days, is too humiliating and cruelly impoverished of purpose to ever be a reason why someone should die. It’s not the person around whom you hold your breath because you don’t know where they’ve been. It’s the person and people who put us all in position to suddenly feel like we’re suffocating together.

I hate that I sometimes unconsciously hold my breath around strangers, and I hate that they have heard it. I think of my neighbors, and of the workers on whom we’re dependent, and the permanent uncertain shortness of breath I feel, and I want every moment of their anxiety and mine gathered up and then rained on those who shepherded it into being, those who nurtured it and feasted on it, those who profited from it and were indifferent toward it. Those who consider themselves DUI guys and those who pay to elect them and give them sinecures and who are simply too rich to be arrested for boating under the influence anymore.

I think of how I hold my breath near good people and near vulnerable people in places I am wary of and that we all need to share, and I wonder if we will simply hold our breath for the rest of the year, and if we’ve bargained for standing near each other and holding it for all of the next. And I wish so eagerly that all our suspended futures and the air between us might catch at the throats of those who put us here. That justice for a man like Ron DeSantis might be a permanent and sucking terror: stuck always in an involuntary startled gasp at the sight of responsibility, afraid at the approach of every stranger, incapable of drawing a full and restful breath, and never knowing peace again.

Jeb Lund used to write about politics for Rolling Stone, The Guardian and Gawker, and a bunch of other places, and was the Spectacle of Trump Editor at 50 States of Blue. He and David Roth have a podcast about Hallmark original movies that is mostly funny and exasperated and not unkind, and it's not ultimately about the movies anyway. It's fine and people enjoy it. Don't make it weird. He also has a podcast where he watches every Dennis Quaid movie in a row. That is also completely normal.

Ok here’s me again with a couple more things.

You’ll want to read this in the New York Times today about a forthcoming documentary on ICE. After it was completed the filmmakers were apparently threatened with legal action by the agency over the inclusion of parts that made ICE look even worse than they already look doing literally everything else they do.

Some of the contentious scenes include ICE officers lying to immigrants to gain access to their homes and mocking them after taking them into custody. One shows an officer illegally picking the lock to an apartment building during a raid.

At town hall meetings captured on camera, agency spokesmen reassured the public that the organization’s focus was on arresting and deporting immigrants who had committed serious crimes. But the filmmakers observed numerous occasions in which officers expressed satisfaction after being told by supervisors to arrest as many people as possible, even those without criminal records.

“Start taking collaterals, man,” a supervisor in New York said over a speakerphone to an officer who was making street arrests as the filmmakers listened in. “I don’t care what you do, but bring at least two people,” he said.

Here’s one disgusting detail among many.

They followed Border Patrol tactical agents who took pride in rescuing migrants from deadly dehydration even as the agents acknowledged that their tactics were pushing the migrants further into harm’s way. They showed how the government had at times evaluated the success of its border policies based not only on the number of migrants apprehended, but on the number who died while crossing.

***

source:

https://luke.substack.com/p/all-they-had-to-do-was-the-right?utm_source=Brooklyn+Today&utm_campaign=dd6f63665c-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_07_28_01_15&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1ba554d7d5-dd6f63665c-125128182

#long reads #florida #covid #genocidal dystopia #Jeb Lund

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suninagarajan · 4 years ago

Text

Governor - General

Twenty Seventh Day of February, In the year of our lord 1816

Honorable, my lord Allen, Lord Speaker

Director, East India Company

Leadenhall Street

England

Your Lordship,

Though I have been put asunder from our blessed plot these five years past and the endless exile of my doom has left me low of spirit and poor of ink I take my pen in hand and like an avenging angel with sword of justice held aloft, address those matters my lordship made fit to unburden himself of in your letter to me of the twenty seventh last.

My lordship makes further enquiries of your humble servant as to our progress among the Hin – doo and the Mussel – men, alas my lordship must first permit me to trespass on his patience a trifle longer and with dew stained eye, like Euripides before the Athenians, keep alive the light of justice.

My lordship is aware that it was in the fifty-second year of the glorious reign of his blessed Christian majesty George of the third that it first pleased my lordship to bestow upon me the title of Governor - General of Kangalhi. And though I may have sought and would have surely gained greater reward on the fields of Flanders, I have for my lordship’s sake forsworn mere mortal glories, which my natural sensitivities and talents would have of certain revealed in time, and like Pilgrim walked the harder road to salvation. My lordship will perceive my astonishment therefore, that word has reached your gentle ear of transgressions.

And that I, who as a babe forshew my home to march with brave North against the king’s enemies, should be so cruelly used.

It is suggested, by whom I know not, but surely some dog in want of a kick, that I did appear on parade sans perruque.

This is an accursed slander!

But my lord must, by virtue of being a man of some understanding, concede that Kangalhi is damnable hot and the European is not built to stand in the sun in such contraptions as is likely to send a man mad with wanderings and distract an English gentleman from his Christian duty. Further my lordship is perhaps unaware that such contraptions being comprised largely of hair, can in the Kangalhi heat heap such odours and substances of a diabolical nature down upon one’s head which might preclude a man from his senses.

I am at pains to press upon my lordship that the removal of said contraption was solely for the benefit of the Company and my lordship, and was done, if it was done, as ever in service of one’s duty to God, England and the King!

My lordship further requests of me to account for the Claret account as issued last.

My lordship will surely not expect any man of such strong religious feelings to comport himself in wig and coat without a small emolument to soothe the brow and becalm the raging thirst that hammers at his soul. For does not St Paul urge Timothy thus - no longer drink only water, but use a little wine for the sake of your stomach and your frequent ailments.

I am sure my lordship doth require no further account safe in the understanding that as an honest good and true Englishman I follow the example of our Lord and his Christian teachings. I throw myself on my lordships tender mercies and beg that he, in his wisdom, doth dismiss these cruel commentaries and allow your humble servant’s character to be bescumbered no more.

I come at last, with a heavy heart and burdened soul to the wickedest liable of all. I know not where my lordship has found out these defamation's but am comforted in the knowledge that all great men have their detractors.

I am accused of lewd practices, to whit – fornication!

And with a native

It is true I keep two mussel-women in my house merely to see to what little needs I possess and often think, perchance the compensations of serving a great cause may be better kept in one’s pocket than given to two such maids with so little to show for it. That such innocent understandings have been turned to slander is a matter for pistols – for my lordship must agree that while the practice of employing natives in one’s house is acceptable to society a man can hardly be hung for it!

And individuals who have so little to do but to question how a man of good character and judgement – and an Englishman too, spends what little leisure hours he possesses is beyond the patience of any man and I will trouble no more to besmirch my lordships ears with such offensives.

Having thus unburdened my conscience I shall protest no longer, confident that my lordship as a man of such sweet and tender understandings will no longer allow himself to be troubled by such piffling trifles.

Having slain the dragon of calumny and removed the cursed stain from my Christian heart I turn to the matters on which my lordship has requested an elucidation and assure my lord that such matters would have reached your ear sooner but for the want of decent ink and good paper.

I shall dispense with the items briefly for I know my lord is most pressing of time and is not disposed to spend endless hours on wanderings.

Item 1. My lordship bids me to report on the broader situation in India – my lordship is aware that of the five kingdoms, which for propriety's sake, my lordship has deemed fit to prefer provinces, three are now under operational control.

My lordship will remember the long and tedious war that did bring this Leonidas to these shores that saw the demon sultan torn from his false throne and will no doubt be keen to bestow such honors as befits a Christian warrior when I tell his lordship that Andhra - Gho with the benefit of a battalion of 400 loyal British bulldogs under the command of Major Hamilton remains loyal to the Company.

Equally the Raja of PoohoRi has brought his mind to the excellent understanding that those men of valor who have for so long traversed the oceans and brought reason and Christian charity to so many who might otherwise find themselves in want of a civilizing influence, and who finds himself beset by hill tribes and lacking protection has, after consideration signed the agreement which my lordship was at pains to resolve, and is now firmly attuned to our way of thinking. My lordship may choose to consider such progress has been purchased on the cheap when he learns that we have expended less than 200 men total in the endeavor and have gained a province!

The Nawab of Kul, who, when not in company, one might describe as an excellent fellow, though not a Christian or a gentleman, has given up the fight that so many are called to and so few can answer and agreed to the terms my lordship set out in his past correspondence. We have, at the Nawab’s request quelled the murderous hordes who would beset this kingdom province with the fire of a thousand hells and are, as my lordship will be comforted to hear, at present very comfortable situated within the Queen's Palace at the indulgence of the Nawab and with an excellent view of the harbor and ample room to house 500 in the barracks below.

As for Dadra-Bo, my lordship may be aware that the question of succession following the demise of the previous Nazim has for some time gone unanswered. Nawab Abdallah who is the older of the only living sons of the former Nazim has, one might determine correctly, claimed that title from his now departed ancestor. His situation however is confused as the Nazim finds himself bereft of male offspring and as peculiarities with Indian law require at the very least that a Nawab can do his duty, his brother Nazim Abbas who is the younger although both were brought forth from their mother on the same day, has had himself declared Nazim!

As he is, dissimilar to his brother in at least one regard, cursed with an excess of Adams.

Unsurprisingly those perfidious dogs and acolytes of La Bonaparte have attempted to exploit the situation to their own interests and favour the younger Nazim. The hated Dutch Company have, as your lordship is aware, hopes of a monopoly on pepper, and have for some time now backed a different horse. The situation in Dadra-Bo remains confused therefore and the port city of Barsaat remains a “freeport” – for neither Frenchie nor Hollander can agree on who should charge what fee for what packet and who should have which warehouse, and as your lordship was kind enough to express previously since Flanders field the French have found their ship is leaking and may perforce find that a client in India stretches their resources a little far. As neither Castor nor Pollox are able to gain the advantage my lordships excellent policy of patience, patience, patience remains the byword of every company man, myself included.

Item 2. My lordship asks for news of the province of Kuru – Panchala and what progress we have made in that regard. Alas our progress has been slowed by the damnable heat, the lack of water supply and that insufferable bounder the Maharaja of Kuru Panchala.

The ride to Kai Purija is of five days hence, and for a European to partake of such a journey without the Maharaja’s support would surely be madness and certain death. Kai Purija, as your lordship will learn from the enclosed maps, sits in the middle of a fertile desert and water in the region is controlled by the Maharaja through a series of irrigation structures erected by his ancestors which pepper the province.

Our excellent surveyors Colonel Rawlings and Major Maitland have been about the province with the aid of guides from Kangalhi and Kul in Dadra-Bo, and believe they may have stumbled upon an excellent situation, some two days ride from the very spot from which your correspondent now toils at his labors.

However, the situation in question, a remarkable palace (and according to Major Maitland a rather fine example of middle Mahariti architecture built by a Mahariti Maharaja, unknown) is serviced by a single well, the aqueduct which serves the palace having long since fallen for lack of attention. And if a man wishes to live long enough to see his maker or to spend any time in Kuru Panchala without expiring immediately from heat, exhaustion or thirst a new conduit is necessary and such matters require express permission from the Maharaja.

We have as requested made a number of geological surveys in the area of Kuru Panchala directly adjacent to the border with Kul and in Dadra-Bo in the south of Kangali going eastward, and I enclose copies of these for your lordships perusal.

I hesitate to suggest that my lordship may consider these achievements quite enough for any man and may be tempted to recall his Hector to spend his days in the Elysian fields to reflect on well won glory.

I close your excellent friend and humble servant

My lord I hesitate to amend this well-crafted missal with what my lordship may consider to be an irrelevant adjunct but am reminded that whence last we had occasion to correspond you did request of me those matters of a personal nature which might from time to time fall into the ear of your humble servant.

Colonel Rawlings who has just returned from a three-week sojourn in Kuru Panchala where he attempted to reach and survey the great forest, has reliably informed me that Prince Lakshmana is gravely ill. My lord will no doubt remember that Prince Lakshmana became heir to the throne when his elder half-brother Prince Indranil-Ghok along with a sizable number of court officials and members of the Royal family were struck down by the pestilence some years ago. This event occasioned the unusual and some might say unchristian practice of the Maharaja putting aside his then Rani (the mother of the deceased) in favour of her sister who is in fact the mother of the current heir! - What ways these people have!

I will endeavour to perceive more of the situation at what I hesitate to assume is your lordships pleasure but Colonel Rawlings informs that the news of Prince Lakshmana’s condition is well known amongst the common people and they make liberty to discuss the matter freely not knowing that Colonel Rawlings having spent some time in this land following the rather unpleasant events of the regimental dinner which shall as ever remain unspoken, has sufficient Hin – doo, a smattering of Persian and some Maharati which allows him to travel quite naturally amongst the natives. Rawlings informs that according to the common people the young prince has in fact been ailing for some time and Maharaja Riphender Narayan – Goi has now sent forth his palace agents and instructed them to find a cure.

They say none dare venture near Kai Puriji empty handed!

I make at liberty to add this news to my previous endeavors merely out of respect to your lordship

And now I close,

Your Humble servant

Brigadier – General William Spencer Harcourt

Governor- General Kangalhi

Queens Palace,

Hundyrabha

Kangalhi

India

#fiction #india #my writing #story #creative writing #books #bookslr #booksblr #reading #fictional history

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mintea-in-space · 5 years ago

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Tar in His Veins Part 1 of ?

Just as a warning, this fic will deal with suicide. I’m just gonna put it right up front. I don’t want anyone getting hurt. There isn’t anything in this chapter, post, thing, but it will be prominent in this fic.

Lydia Deetz stood on the sidewalk. It had been a year, an entire year, since the events she fondly called the Juicening. And life was good! She had started school, and made friends just as strange as she was. Her grades were high, and she loved her teachers. There were a few boring classes, but there always are. And she loved her family. Her ghost mom and dad, her step mom, and her dad. They were happy. She was happy. And although she still wore black, her heart was lighter. And so she stood, face turned to the sun, and smiled.

And then she thought about him.

She’d be lying if she said she didn’t miss him. He was sporadic, funny, and listened to her when no one else would. It would be a complete lie if she said she never thought about summoning him.

But....

He had said he was going on a journey.

What was it he called it? A spirit quest?

To find his dad. Frowning Lydia recalled that moment, remembering that even as he said the words, she knew he didn’t believe them. That he just needed an excuse to leave. Because why would he want to stay?

Maybe he wanted to make an entrance, he did love his theatrics. Or maybe he was busy! Surely if he wanted to come back he would have already, right? He was probably living it up in the netherworld, fucking with people and making crude comments and-

And sickening thwap broke through her thoughts.

The sound of a wet body hitting the sidewalk.

Lydia froze.

It was broad daylight in butt fuck Connecticut.

These things didn’t just happen. In fact, they never happened. And Lydia kept telling herself this, telling herself she imagined it, knowing that she hadn’t, even before she turned around.

And then she screamed.

The first thing Lydia noticed was his hair.

Shock white.

Deadly white

And the sickening streaks of yellow. She had never seen white before but she knew what that yellow meant.

Self-loathing.

The second thing she noticed was the black.

She told herself it looked like muck, or tar, knowing that it wasn’t.

Knowing that it was blood.

Lydia feel to her knees. Choking back a sob, she flipped her bffff forever on his back.

His eyes were open, thank whatever god was up there, but they were vacant. Staring at nothing. And more black. It dropped down his chin, covered his chest. The once striped jacket now the color of tar.

“Beej come on,” she shook him gently. “Come on say something please. Beej! BEEJ!!”

Hands clutching his collar, she cried.

“Please say something. Anything.”

Nothing.

Shaking, she pulled his head onto her lap, cradling it. She yanked her phone out of her pocket. And called the one number she knew could help her.

“Lydia!” Delia’s cheery voice broke through the phone.

“How are you hun? You’re heading home now right? Did you want me to pick y-“

A strangled sob burst from the girl’s throat.

“Mom.”

All movement on the other side of the phone stopped.

“Lydia.” It was said with barely contained panic.

“What’s wrong?”

“I- I”

And the flood gates broke.

“Mom there’s black! It’s everywhere and I can’t stop it and he won’t talk to me Mom it’s everywhere he’s gonna die and it’s everywhere and I can’t get him to say anything and I can’t move him by myself and he’s gonna die!”

“Lydia. Where are you?”

Lydia scrubbed at her eyes, and looked at the street sign.

“Off blackberry and hazel.”

“Listen to me. Don’t move. I’ll be there in two minutes.”

Delia’s car screeched to a stop next to the side walk. Practically flinging herself out of the car, she fell to her knees and grabbed her step daughter’s shoulders. She looked horrible. There was black covering her hands, and her lap, and a streak of it across her cheek.

She didn’t even see him at first, too focused on my daughter to even look for him. But when she noticed that Lydia was fine, she frantically searched the side walk. Finally, he shimmered into view like a mirage and

“HOLY SHIT!”

She didn’t remember much about the demon that terrorized her and her family, but she knew that this was bad. The black blood seemed to just, keep coming. Even as it pooled around him and Lydia. And his hair.

Wasn’t it red before? Or green?

A strangled sound forcing its way out of Lydia’s mouth made her snap her eyes back to her daughter’s face.

“Mom. I can’t move him. I can’t do it my self I-“

“Shhh.”

Delia stood, and pulled a blanket from the trunk of her car.

“Help me get this under him, and then we can lift together all right?”

Lydia nodded.

Delia thought her heart was about to explode. As calm as she was on the outside, she was absolutely panicking on the inside. Her ears were ringing, and she barely registered Lydia rolling him onto the blanket. The two girls hoisted the demon into the back seat of the car, and Lydia crawled in after him. Placing his head on her lap, she began running her fingers through his hair. Muttering. Whispering words that Delia couldn’t hear.

Climbing back behind the wheel, Delia Deetz proceeded to break just about every traffic law known to man.

The Maitlands were simply sitting in the attic, enjoying the peaceful day and each other’s company. Adam had begun making a model of the town, and he and Barb were softly talking about the dimensions of the hardware store.

All was calm.

Until the sound of screeching tires and the front door slamming open abruptly silenced them both.

“ADAM BABARA WE’RE GONNA NEED YOUR HELP IN A MINUTE!”

Delia’s voice screamed through the house, panic in her voice evident.

The two ghosts looked at each other, fear dawning on their faces, and raced down the stairs to the living room.

Adam yelped. Barbara let out a strangled gasp and grabbed her husband’s arm.

Beetlejuice was laid out on their couch.

And he didn’t look good.

Lydia still had his head in her lap, stroking his hair and quietly sobbing. Delia was flitting through the house, and when she passed by they could hear her muttering to herself, grabbing crystals and bottles. Barbara moving first, taking Adam with her.

“Lydia, sweetheart. What happened?”

“He just fell,” she croaked. “Right on the sidewalk. Ghost mom he’s not answering me and he’s bleeding and I can’t make him stop and-“

The ghost wrapped her arms around the girl.

“Whatever this is, we’re going to figure out. I’m sure that Delia has a book, or something that can help. Or maybe you do? We’ll find it if we have one, Lydia he’s going to be okay.”

The goth shook her head.

“He’s not though! He’s not.. he’s going to be really dead and it’ll be my fault again and-“

This time Adam moved, gently cradling her face in his hands.

“Lydia. Listen to me. He will be okay. We are going to help him. I swear. He’s going to be okay.”

He was trying to convince himself as much as he was Lydia.

Beetlejuice never looked so...

Dead.

His face was pale, and those eyes that always glittered with mischief were dull. Even his hair looked bland. Faded almost. The hands that would twitch with excitement. The mouth that always had a toothy grin.

It was all gone.

The demon couldn’t have been more still.

It was so... not Beetlejuice.

“OKAY!”

Delia burst back into the room, a book in one hand and a bowl of crystals and vials in the other.

“Okay! I’m going to try a healing spell. I don’t know if it will work, this is human stuff for humans and it might not work for demons and-“

Barb put a steady hand on the frazzled woman’s shoulder.

“Right. Okay. This is the best I can do. First, he needs a little first aid.”

If the mood had been lighter, Lydia would have rolled her eyes. As it was, however, she snapped to attention.

“Lydia, I need you to get his jacket off and press it to the wound.” Adam leaned over and helped the teen, carefully maneuvering him out of the jacket.

“Okay. Okay. Uh, Barbara, I need you to place these quartz’s in a circle around the couch, and then you and Adam need to stand back please.”

Barbara did as was asked, then gently pulled Adam with her out of the circle.

Delia took one of the vials, and made a circle, connecting each of the stones Barbara had placed.

And now for the hard part.

“Lydia,” she began to worry her bottom lip.

“Lydia I need you to come out of the circle.”

At that the teen snapped her head to glare at her step mom.

“I’m not. Leaving him.”

It was said through gritted teeth, rage and fear simmering under the surface.

“Lydia, have you properly summoned him yet?”

She blanched.

“No, I, I didn’t think of it.”

Delia sighed.

“Then I need you out of the circle. I need to bring him into the world of the living, I think, in order for this to work. And I don’t know if he’ll be in control, or what will happen.”

Lydia stares back at the demon in her lap, then let out a shaky breath.

“Only if you let me say it.”

With a nod from Delia, she gently placed his head on the couch, and stood.

As she brushed past Delia, she muttered,

“I hope you know what you’re doing.”

Me too honey. Me too.

“Lydia, you can say his name now.”

The name tumbled out of her so fast it was almost a blur.

“BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE!!”

And hell broke loose.

#mintea writes #fanfic #beetlejuice #beetlejuice the musical #sorry not sorry #this has been in my head for too long #so uh #yeah #tw blood #definitely #not beetlebabes #tihv

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hvaudiology · 13 days ago

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#Hearing Aids in Maitland #invisible hearing aids in muswellbrook #hearing aids in muswellbrook

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d3adguyy · 5 years ago

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ok so this headcanon/au list is weeks of me randomly writing down stuff. (i may make a list of some more uh... nsfw headcanons later on, but idk)

also, some of these aus are very dumb and unrealistic, but whatever, so

there is no beetlebabes shipping in this at all. don’t even try. the only shipping is charles/delia (do they have an official ship name?) and adam/barbara/beetlejuice, which is beetlelands and/or goldenrat!

(some of these are very unrealistic/basically just me projecting but this is my list and i’ll Do What I Want)

also, fuck formatting, i’m too lazy

- au where higher powered demons/ghouls have wings. naturally, beetlejuice has them and he is a fucking disaster. he knocks shit over, gets them caught on everything, and will knock people over. (somehow, they’re the only thing that’s actually clean)

- au in which the netherworld had a more lasting effect on lydia, and causes her to have sort of “fainting” spells (there’s a whole long and convoluted explanation but i’m too lazy to type it out.) since this is obviously bad for multiple reasons, beej turns into a “service” dog to help her at school (the fact that he knows lydia is being bullied may have influenced his decision)

- lydia and beetlejuice share one, very very damaged brain cell between them. they’re both smart in their own ways, but the second they try and solve something together? nothing. they usually end up almost going through with a stupid scheme until someone stops them last minute

- they may not have a dog, but (big) sandy the sandworm is just as happy to play fetch

- they also have a “girls” night once a week, in which they watch crappy horror movies, paint their nails, talk shit about people, and beetlejuice gushes complains about the maitlands

- bj can actually speak quite a few languages (he’s been around quite a long time, after all) however, he chooses to hide this fact until a time where he can a) freak someone out or b) show off

- bj follows lydia to school occasionally and will either make snide comments about the other students, or tell lydia what they’re doing on their phones (lydia sometimes hears things she wishes she had never known)

- lydia and beetlejuice stay “married”, but only in a convinient way (financial aid and tax benefits ftw, beetlebabes fuck off)

- beetlejuice plays the ukulele (as shown in the musical) and you can sometimes hear him playing on the roof (if he sees anyone listening he’ll immediately stop and go pink and disappear)

- bj and lydia go to pride every year, and Fuck Shit Up in a (mostly) legal way. once the maitlands figure out how to leave the house, they accompany them and let loose and join them in their chaos. delia eventually starts coming as well. charles stays home to preserve his sanity.

- beetlejuice figures out the maitlands can leave the house so long as they have a piece of it with them, and so makes them bracelets with wood from the house. they’re both extremely happy and grateful.

- beetlejuice and miss argentina are pals, and hung out together when beej used to spend all of his time in the underworld (he still pops by to visit her occasionally, and even helped her with the backlash/work after juno died)

- au where it’s now book of mormon, and lydia and bj are paired up for a mission. chaos ensues. (don’t ask me how this one would work, because i honestly don’t know.)

- lydia has a sleepover at her house with school friends. one of them brings a ouija board. beej and the maitlands decided to have time fun with it, and lydia tries not to crack up watching them.

- delia and beetlejuice are friends (bc they lowkey have a decent amnt in common ngl) and delia will occasionally join in on beej & lyds’ schemes

- delia treats beej like a son due to him acting like lydia’s crazy and feral (yet very loving and overprotective) older brother. charles doesn’t get it, but it makes her happy so he goes along with it.

- just like beej and lyds have “girls night”, delia, barbara, and beetlejuice have something similar where they drink wine, gossip about the neighborhood moms, and watch shitty reality tv and yell at the screen. charles tried to interrupt once and got a bottle of wine thrown at him (courtesy of delia)

- beetlejuice and lydia are Trans As Fuck (lydia’s lesbian and beej is pan) the maitlands are both bi, delia is pan and charles is Straight.

- souleater au where lydia is the meister and bj is her weapon

- beetlejuice has a love of all things circus. (he’s surprisingly good at trapeze, and not-so-surprisingly good at fire eating and breathing)

- beej has a big fat crush on the maitlands, but him being the emotionally stunted demon he is, has absolutely no idea how to express this

- the maitlands suspect that bj is crushing on them, but they aren’t completely sure (they still think he’s adorable, though)

- beej loves cuddling. that’s it, that’s the headcanon. he is a very touchy person (and not just in a perverted way.) he and lydia can be seen cuddling in bed binging horror movies, and bj is known to get comfy on the couch that is definitely not big enough for both him and the maitlands. (also, beej loves being the little spoon.)

- lydia and delia share a very niche interest in astrology, and it’s probably one of the only things they have in common. (delia still loves lydia and lydia loves her too, even if she would never admit it)

- au where lydia dies in some accident, and beetlejuice pulls a bunch of strings to make her a demon. he now has to train her to use her newly gained powers. (to make her a demon, they had to be related, so he adopts her as his younger sister)

- to mash together the au above and the wing au from the top of the list, one day lydia starts growing wings and beetlejuice couldn’t be prouder.

- the maitlands have really dumb (but cute) nicknames for beetlejuice (gummyworm, teddy bear, marshmallow, etc. they occasionally call him lawrence, which makes him melt.) lydia has borderline insulting nicknames for bj (trash man, hobo, stinky bastard, etc.) and charles and delia just call him random variations of his name (mr. juice, beetleman, mr. beetle, etc. they will use his full name if he does something too chaotic, and it’s then he knows to run)

(i just lost a bunch of headcanons and aus because tumblr unexpectedly closed :( i’m gonna try my best to re-write them all. i’m also grouping all the aus together before i re-write the headcanons, so get ready lol)

- pjo au!

• lydia is a daughter of persephone, and starts attending camp at age 12 (persephone doesn’t actually have a kid with charles, she just lends her magic to lydia’s mom in order for them to have a kid, as she actively was a worshipper of persephone, and that ends up making lydia a half blood.)

• beetlejuice was a son of hectate, but died after performing wayyyy too many rituals to increase his magic, and it eventually got too much to control and the strain killed him. he keeps his powers when he dies though. (he got banished from the underworld and was tied to a living soul for as long as they lived - it was lydia, so now they Fuck Shit Up together. hades regrets his choice of punishment.)

• barbara is a daughter of harmonia

• adam is a son of hephaestus

• delia is a legacy of eros

barbara and adam are instructors at camp halfblood (barbara teaching pottery and adam teaching woodworking)

they take lydia under their wing when they notice she doesn’t really have friends, and so they eventually meet beetlejuice (he has a Big Crush on them but refuses to do anything about it. for now.)

- hunger games au time! (at this point i’m just doing aus of all of the old young adult series i used to read)

• beetlejuice and lydia were the tributes chosen from district 12 (with beetlejuice volunteering to protect lydia during the games)

• their mentor is juno, who is an asshole and is utterly useless, as she doesn’t think they have any chance

• the maitlands are a couple that live in the capitol, even if they really don’t agree with the morals and lifestyle. they are huge sponsors for bj and lyds during the games.

• beej and lyds are the last ones standing, and after all the trouble that beetlejuice has made the capitol go through during the games, they decide it isn’t worth it to try and kill them, so they both win.

• the maitlands secretly take in both of them after the games

• charles flips houses and delia is an artist, they know about the maitlands and help keep the secret

- time for the divergent au nobody asked for!

• lydia was born erudite and transferred dauntless (she could’ve stayed erudite as well)

• beetlejuice was born dauntless and stayed (he did have an aptitude for amity, but he’ll take that to the grave)

• barbara was born erudite and transferred amity

• adam was born abnegation and transferred amity

• charles was born erudite and stayed

• delia was born amity and transferred erudite (she had aptitude for candor as well)

beej is lydia’s trainer when she joins dauntless, and they become inserperable during and after training. (lydia graduates top of her class - she would’ve despite beetlejuice, but it didn’t hurt to have him)

(taking some liberties here and making it so that factions can interact with each other outside of school and mandatory events, however intermarriage and dating between factions is a no no)

the maitlands find beetlejuice doing Stupid Shit in the woods near amity. this happens a few times, with bj and lyds running away each time, until they finally catch them and they all meet.

the maitlands take lyds under their wing, but don’t know what to think about beetlejuice (they secretly adore him, but won’t be telling him that anytime soon. bj has a Humongous Crush on them, and tells them. eventually. they end up dating despite the illegality of it)

the deetzes end up finding out about the dating, and keep it secret, even though hey aren’t particularly fond of beej. yet.

- and now time for a warrior cats au. time to bring up those repressed memories :)

(ok so again, more liberties, cats can choose to join another clan when they become apprentices, and the clans interact a lot more outside of meetings and battles. also the only one i have a warrior name for is beetlejuice, because his would literally just be Beetlejuice)

• beetlejuice was born a loner and eventually joined shadow clan as an apprentice

• lydia was born thunder clan and transferred to shadow clan, and was chosen to be a medicine cat

• barbara would be river clan and stay there

• adam would be thunder clan and transfer to river clan to be with barbs

• charles and delia were both born and stayed in thunder clan

beej is lyd’s mentor for non-medicine cat stuff (as shadow clan teaches their med cats to fight, and i feel like they would get all of the same training normal apprentices did, such as hunting)

lyds and the maitlands get along and hang out a lot, and beetlejuice just kinda trails along. yet again he has a crush on them. however, he minimizes his time with them so that they don’t find reasons to dislike him (in his eyes)

- ok so we’ve done one cat au, time for a much more niche one! this one is based on the book claws, by mike and rachel grinti. (it’s a middle school level book for sure, but i picked it up sometime in elementary school and i still love it now that i’m older)

• beej as jack (although he still has magic, his magic is just super chaotic and hard to control) lyds as emma, and they go on a quest for how lydia’s mom died (something to do with the faries)

• beetlejuice only agrees to do the quest because he wants a friend, which was really the whole reason behind giving lydia the heart.

• the maitlands are part of the pride that lyds takes over. they were wary of her at first, but backed her up when she needed it. they warmed up to her quickly after that, and they take her under their wing to show her the ropes of how prides work

beej continues to hang out with lydia, but isn’t really accepted by the pride for the most part, with the maitlands being the closest to being his friends. this eventually changes, and they grow closer over time.

- small httyd au: lydia is a viking, her dad is a high ranking official, her mom killed in a dragon raid, delia still does art ig.

• the maitlands are dragons, and lydia befriends them. she later befriends another dragon, beetlejuice. she eventually teaches the villiage dragons are good and all that jazz.

- ok back to headcanons now: adam rescued injured wildlife when he was alive, and that hasn’t stopped now that he’s dead. a section of the roof is dedicated to little habitats/enclosures for injured animals, so that they can rest up and heal

- although she isn’t so good at rescuing animals like adam is, barbara still loves animals. (beetlejuice will turn into different animals so that he has an excuse to cuddle her)

- bj secretly enjoys how vanilla/naive the maitlands can be, and thinks it’s really cute

- beetlejuice is actually pretty good at cooking, and will make dinner for him and the maitlands on date night. (he also cooks comfort food for people when they’re upset)

- bj is an internet troll. that’s it that’s the headcanon.

- beetlejuice wasn’t born or anything, juno just kinda made him by accident, and that’s why she hates him so much. so, one day beetlejuice just came into existence, a full 5ft 8inches of pure chaos.

this headcanon is a bit odd for me, because it changes depending on the story/plot i’m thinking about, so i’m now reintroducing the trans headcanons so i can explain how it would work.

he presented as female for a while before saying “fuck that” and coming out. he would’ve done it sooner, but seeing as he just started existing one day, it took a bit for him to realize that not wanting to be the gender he was born as just Wasn’t Normal. idk if the netherworld has hrt, but im basing my version of it more off the cartoon, in which people have like houses and lives, i’m assuming it exists, so he got hrt surgery n shit

on the other side, when this headcanon doesn’t apply, he was about 16 when he came out, his parents said Fuck That because he was growing up pretty far in the past (idk exact time period, but trans people were a big No No) and he ended up offing himself. he ends up altering his appearance or going through hrt/surgery in the netherworld.

- in a human au, because i just thought of thi, he’d come out at age 16 still, and juno, shitty parent she is, kicks him out. the deetzes take him in, with lydia being about 14ish, and the maitlands are their tenants who become the second set of parents. (lydia is trans in human au)

- continuing the trans hc, lydia and her parents suspected when she was about 9ish, and so after having it confirmed by multiple doctors and specialists, was put on blockers until she could start hrt at 16. it’s a very happy day when she turns 16 and beetlejuice definitely doesn’t cry

- beetlejuice has a phobia of water and that’s one reason why he doesn’t shower (the maitlands eventually help him deal with it enough to be able to shower/bathe occasionally, because he still does like his trashy look)

- bj does drag. lydia and delia help him with makeup and clothing.

- beej also worked as a male stripper for a time at dante’s inferno in the netherworld. he’s amazing at pole dancing, and he can walk like a pro in heels.

- also, because heels autocorrected to heelys st first, beej owns heelys and will zoom around the house in them. lydia eventually buys a pair for herself and they Go Crazy

i think that’ll end off this list for now, as it’s gotten pretty long. there’s a good chance i’ll make another one in the future, but for now, thats all folks!

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thekillerblogofkillers · 5 years ago

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Ivan Milat (1944-2019) PART TWO

Ivan Robert Marko Milat was the son of a Croatian immigrant, Stjepan Marko Milat, and Australian Margaret Elizabeth Piddleston. The couple had 14 children, with Ivan being born 5th. The local police knew all about the 10 Milat boys, with Ivan (among others) displaying antisocial behaviour since childhood. This led to a period in borstal at the age of 13. When Milat was 17, he was in a juvenile detention centre for theft, and by 19 was involved in robberies. In 1964, Milat received an 18-month prison sentence for breaking and entering. A month after he was released, he was arrested for driving a stolen car and received 2 years’ hard labour. In September 1967, at 23 years old, Milat was sentenced to 3 years for theft. In April 1971, he was charged with abducting two 18-year-old hitchhikers and raping one of them. Whilst awaiting trial in this matter, Milat was involved in a series of robberies with some of his brothers, before faking his suicide and escaping to New Zealand, where he remained for a year. Milat was rearrested the following year but the cases against him failed in court thanks to family lawyer John Marsden. After getting a job as a truck driver, Milat met and married a 16-year-old girl who was carrying his cousin’s baby. She left Milat in 1987 due to domestic violence and the couple divorced in October 1989. By the time of the first murders, Milat had been working on and off for 20 years for the Roads & Traffic Authority all over NSW.

Police began surveilling the Milat house at Cinnabar Street on February 26, 1994. They learned that Milat had recently sold his silver Nissan Patrol 4-wheel-drive not long after the bodies of Clarke and Walters were found. Police also discovered that Milat hadn’t been working at the time of any of the attacks and many witnesses attested to his obsession with weaponry. Milat’s brother, Bill, who often had his identity used by Ivan for work or vehicle registrations, was questioned. When the connection with Paul Onions’ attack was discovered, Onions flew to Australia to assist investigators. On May 5, 1994, Paul Onions positively identified Ivan Milat as the man who attempted to assault him after picking him up on the highway. This was enough to arrest Milat. In order to do so, 50 police officers surrounded the Milat home, including heavily armed officers from the Tactical Operations Unit. A search of the home revealed multiple weapons, including a .22-calibre Anschutz Model 1441/42 rifle and components for a .22-calibre Ruger 10/22 rifle, both of which matched weapons used in the murders, as well as a Browning pistol and a Bowie knife. Also found was sleeping bags, a tent, foreign money, camping equipment and cameras, all of which belonged to his victims. Homes that belonged to Milat’s mother and 5 of his brothers were raided simultaneously by over 300 police, finding a total of 24 weapons, 250kg of ammo and several more items belonging to the victims. Milat was taken to court on May 23, but didn’t enter a plea. The following week he was charged with the 7 backpacker murders. On June 28, Milat fired his defence lawyer, Marsden, and asked for legal aid. Meanwhile, Richard and Walter Milat were tried on weapons, drugs and stolen items charges in relation to items found on their properties. Milat had a committal hearing which started on October 24 regarding the murders and lasted until December 12, during which more than 200 witnesses appeared. On March 26, 1996, Milat’s trial began at the NSW Supreme Court, prosecuted by Mark Tedeschi. His defence argued that, despite the evidence, there wasn’t any proof (other than circumstantial) that Milat was guilty and tried to shift the blame to other members of the Milat family, namely Richard. 145 witnesses took the stand, including members of the Milat family, who attempted to provide alibis, and on June 18, Milat himself testified. After 18 weeks of testimony, on July 27, 1996, the jury found Milat guilty of the murders. He received a life sentence on each count with the possibility of parole and was convicted of the attempted murder, false imprisonment and robbery of Paul Onions, for which he received six years’ jail each.

When Milat arrived at Maitland Gaol, he was immediately beaten up by another inmate. Around a year later, he attempted to escape along with convicted drug dealer and former Sydney councillor George Savvas. The plan was unsuccessful and Savvas was found hanging in his cell the following day and Milat was transferred to the maximum-security super prison in Goulburn, New South Wales. In November 1997, Milat appealed against his convictions due to a breach of his common law right to legal representation but the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal dismissed it. In 2004, Milat filed an application with the High Court to be allowed special leave to appeal on new grounds. This was dismissed, and in October 2005, his final avenue of appeal was refused. 2 appeals were rejected in 2006 as well as another in November 2011. On January 26, 2009, Milat cut off his pinkie finger with a plastic knife, with the intention of mailing it to the High Court to force an appeal. He was taken to Goulburn Hospital under high security and was returned to prison after doctors decided surgery wasn’t possible. Milat had previously harmed himself in 2011, when he went on a 9 day hunger strike, losing 25kg in an unsuccessful attempt to be given a PlayStation. In May 2019, Milat was transferred to Prince of Wales Hospital, Randwick, and was diagnosed with terminal oesophageal cancer. He was returned to prison after receiving treatment but on August 9, 2019, he was moved to a secure treatment unit in the hospital after losing 20kg in a matter of weeks. On October 27, 2019, Ivan Milat died whilst being treated at Long Bay Jail’s hospital wing. He was 74 years old.

#textpost #text post #serial killer #murder #ivan milat #australia #backpacker #hitchhiking #cancer #jail #prison #milat #death #hospital #serial

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blossem12 · 5 years ago

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Medieval maitlands part 4

Back again

And this main story is almost over! We dont know how many parts left but this is the main conflict soooo its all happiness from here.

This is probably our longest chapter so far but its been my favorite to write because of all the research i had to do.

That being said, some can totally be false and i apologize to any jousting experts.

Once again this au was created by me and @blind-band-geek

It was the day of the tournament. Barbara's house crowd was small in comparison to the others but she took the time to look for Adam in the stands, growing increasingly worried when she didn't see him.

He promised. He has to be here.

Yet no matter how much she searched, he couldn't be found. She grabbed her helmet, adorned with the green color that her and Adam had talked about the previous time they met.

Adam, dressed fully in his blue knight gear, was standing near Barbara. He saw her panicking but assumed it was from nerves, and as much as it hurt he stood still, trying not to blow his cover.

Barbara took one last glance at the booth before her coach called her over. She let out a shaky sigh as she stormed off.

"Time to ride Blue" The Horse Boy next to Adam called out while leading his horse to him.

Barbara, with her coach, also mounted her steed. And it was almost as if the horse could sense the sadness radiating from her.

If he lied about showing up, did he lie about everything?

Barbara shook her head to try and get rid of the feelings. She had to go joust, and win for the houses honor. No time for feelings.

"Head on out to the field my student." The coach said leading the horse out to the tournament, "the house of Aubellon is cheering for you."

All but Adam

---

Barbara was now on the field, down the line was the Adam, completely unrecognizable to her eye for she only knew him as her competitor.

The crowd roared as both approached, Barb lightly tapped her metal heel onto the horse to signal it to stop when she reached her sector. She watched as the blue helm did the same, simultaneously they both held out their hands and received their first lance and shield.

After a moment of adjusting, the two lovers were ready to face off.

Barbara glanced once more over at the Aubellon booth through the small slits of her green helm.

Still no Adam in the stands.

Her eyes shifted back to the list as the hand raised and signalled the start of the run. Barbara's and Adam's horses barreled down the line, She watched at the blue helm came close and dropped reign on the horse to hold her shield and strike her lance.

As she moved her hand towards him she saw the slight glimpse of the lances barely missing the tips. He's hit shield and split in half while his remained in tact.

"5 points to Aubellon House!" The judge yelled out. Barbara cheered as she repositioned herself at the end of the line.

The next two rounds passed smoothly, pointed gained on both sides by splitting but due to a misalignment of the lance Barb had lost 5 of her points. Meaning that both Adam and Barbara had 5 points.

The final round was upon them. They adjusted themselves and grabbed hold of their lances and shields.

The hand raised in the air and both horses took off. Although focused, Barbara's mind couldn't help but begin to wonder why Adam never showed. It put her defense down momentarily, causing her to miss the Blue Helm dropping his lance on the ground.

She quickly snapped back and aimed her lance, ready to strike when she heard Adams voice, it felt close.

"Barbara! Rule seven!" His voice yelled. Barbara immediately skid her horse to a halt and held her lance above her head.

She looked over to the stands in a hopefulness, ready to see Adam with a smile on his face as he aided her with the rules.

But he wasn't there.

It must've been my mind Barbara thought as she turned her horse around.

"Due to the fallen lance we will rerun the final course!" The judge yelled.

Barbara felt frustration rise within her. The hand raised once more and they charged.

Barbara aimed her lance and dropped the reigns earlier than most, aiming directly at the shield.

She let out a frustrated yell as the lance collided with the man's chest armor. Snapping in half and causing the man to be dehorsed.

"15 points to Aubellon! Aubellon has won!" The crowd erupted with cheers as Barbara glanced at the snapped lance in her hand. If was her most anticipated achievement and yet she wasn't happy.

She looked over at the blue helm and watched as he got up and walked his horse to the back area of the fields near the changing chambers. Within the loud cheers she followed him on horseback.

It wasn't until they arrived at the Chambers that the blue helm spoke, a deep voice that didn't suit Adam rang out.

"What do you desire."

Barbara slid off her horse and removed her helmet. A few tears were residing in her eyes as she looked back over to the booth where the fans of Aubellon were sitting.

No sign of Adam once more. She let out a shaky sigh and turned to her opponent. She threw her helmet on the ground and gave him a slight bow out of respect.

The armored man also bowed but refused to remove his helmet. Barbara felt the anger rise in her.

"Take off your helmet sir." She commanded. The blue helmet just shook its head in disagreement, "sir. I won, its courtesy to show your face."

The man just simply began turning away. Out of frustration, Barbara grabbed her helmet and threw it at him. The metal clanged as it hit his armor, causing him to turn around again.

"Listen you bastard!" She yelled, tears pouring down her face now. She walked towards him, her own metal creaking with every step, "I was waiting for this moment for weeks!"

"And you won." A low voice spoke from inside the metal helmet.

"That doesn't matter!" She cried, "the person I love didn't even come to support me. After he promised."

Adam felt his heart began to drop at the realization. She was crying because of him.

"The least you could do is take off your helmet. We are in a private chamber, no one around and my life feels like it has hit rock bottom and the only thing I ask is that you take off your helmet!" Barbara closed her eyes and swung her hands at the man.

But she didn't hear the clang of metal, she instead felt the metallic gloves grab her hand and guide her to the helmet. She opened her eyes to see the armor clad man knelt on the ground with her hands holding the helmet. The mam nodded and Barbara slowly removed the helmet,

Adams face looked back at her, his eyes just as bright as she had seen the day before, his hair messier than ever.

Only a soft whisper came from her,

"Adam?"

"Barbara… I didn't mean for this to happ-" Adam began to apologize, but he was cut off by Barbara kissing him.

After the kiss Barbara just hugged him, the two sat in silence in a hug for what felt like forever. The only noise being the clanging of each other's armor.

"Were you going to tell me?" Barbara asked, breaking the silence.

"Eventually."

"Why did you lie?"

"I don't know. I got scared, it's not an excuse, I know but just the way you talked about the blue helmet that night, I thought you were going to see me as a mean person."

More silence stung the air.

"You let me mock you at the festival."

"It made you happy."

Barbara shifted so that she was now sitting on the grass next to Adam,

"You should have told me. I am not letting you get away with that one. I'll think of my payback at another time. But tonight?" She grabbed adams chainmail covered hand with her own, "I say we ditch the armor and go home. We don't have to be jousters until the next tournament. So let's just be Adam and Barbara."

Adam smiled at the thought and then stood with his love, they changed out of the clangy armor and began walking hand in hand back to their house under the soft moonlight.

Not a green helm and a blue helm.

Not a princess and a knight.

Just them.

Adam and Barbara.

#maitlands writing #Barbara maitland #adam maitland #medieval joust au

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tornrose24 · 6 years ago

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So in the Cu Beetlejuice au, do the boys take on the role of the Maitlands or would they be a combination of Lydia? And if that’s the case, what would Edith’s role be?

Oi, I haven’t heard from @jackie-sugarskull and I guess she’s been missing. She first proposed the idea after I mentioned something to her so she has say over it too (maybe more because she’s been a fan of Beetlejuice longer than my recent interest in it). I asked her if Edith would be Lydia or someone else (because I don’t know what her stance is on that.)

But if it were up to me, I’d try to use elements from the film, what I know from the musical, and maybe what I know from the cartoon. (I still need to see the musical for myself, but I learned as much as I could about it). These are my ideas/my take on the AU until I hear back from Jackie:

When I think about it, the boys would be great as the Maitlands. While I am open to doing a nice big house like in the main storyline, I can see some potential for having it be the school. Like, the boys died in the late 1990’s but they are friendly poltergeists nowadays. I’m debating on if the school got shut down at one point or if it’s needing some financial aid.

Jackie said that Krupp would be best for Beetlejuice because in the books it’s hinted that he used to be a prankster. When you compare TetoCU!Krupp to cartoon!Beetlejuice, he tends to have some gross habits. And of course he’s got the jerk parts down (but none of the pervertedness, thank goodness). I think his situation would be what seemed to be spelled out in the musical–used to be a terror upon the world who enjoyed scaring people, but somehow cursed to be unseen like the rest of the regular ghosts (Beetlejuice is actually a demon who was born dead in the musical, apparently) and trapped in a specific location. Getting a living person to say his name three times makes him seen by all of the living, but marrying a living person lets him live in the regular world without the name thing to hold him back (like in the movie) and brings him back to life/become a living person (Which is a unique thing in the musical? I think it was in the film too).

(If I completely had my way, I’d have the name that needs to be said be Krupp’s ACTUAL first name, because it has a better flow when you need to say it three times).

Oh, and apparently in the musical, Beetlejuice ALSO has an abusive mom, so guess what Krupp’s back story involves. (The mom appears in the musical, but I won’t say who she is to avoid spoilers).

His relationship with the boys would be about the same and different all at once. The boys prank others either for the fun of it, to punish mean adults, or to amuse unsuspecting children. Krupp however would be all for making people suffer and would enjoy scaring people for the sake of scaring them. (Not sure about him being into murder like Beetlejuice though).

So the school route is where I have more of a plot. Melvin and Erica are both adults but were former classmates to the boys. Erica has a career in politics, but she’s in Piqua to try to make it better and she wants Melvin to help finance rebuilding the school/keep it alive and make it better than it was before. Melvin is of course a top scientist who isn’t completely on board until he finds out that the school is really haunted and wants to turn it into a paranormal research place instead. Oh, and I talked with Jackie on this, but we agreed that Poopypants would be Otho.

Now here is where Edith comes in. If you do the math, then technically she would have been in the same grade as the boys when they died or close to that grade level (if they died in, like 1997 and it’s a little over twenty years later), and when I think of it now, she could possibly be a former classmate in this scenario. (And it would be interesting if she recognizes the boys, but they don’t know her right away until she tells them a bit more about her).

My idea is that Edith’s parents died some time ago (in the musical, Lydia’s mom died not that long ago and she’s still grieving–it plays an important plot point for the story and the themes) and she’s probably dealing with some other depressing stuff as of now, but she is on Erica’s side. Oh, and due to her strangeness, that allows her to see the boys and, later on, Krupp. Of course I think he would have a crush on her (but without Beetlejuice’s pervertedness involved) and when he’d try to get her to marry him, he’d probably want more than just the ‘green card’ it’d grant him

At this point, it’s hard to say what could happen next. The Day-O scene needs to happen of course and so does the accidental exorcism.

(In the musical, Lydia meets Beetlejuice before the Day-O scene and she summons him when she hits her breaking point towards the end of the song, freeing him and scaring all the living except her out–it’s worth giving it a listen to. And then they get to have some cute bonding over scaring people, leading to the song ‘That Beautiful Sound’ which is my favorite of the songs from the musical so far. I could see Krupp and Edith getting time to genuinely bond somehow too, but I don’t know if it would COMPLETELY revolve around scaring people.)

There’s also a twist to the wedding scene in the musical that is tempting to incorporate... but it wouldn’t be pleasant either, considering how it ends. Unless I wanted to add my own twist to it or add a twist before the wedding scene has to take place.

#captain underpants #cu beetlejuice au #beetlejuice au

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gcthamqueen · 5 years ago

Text

Title: she’s like the den mother of hell.

Summary: “If Perse is here in the ass crack of nowhere Connecticut in the middle of winter, what does that tell you about what’s happening in the Netherworld right about now?”

———

A year after the events of the musical, a freak day of scorching sun in the middle of a Connecticut winter lands the queen of the Netherworld in the middle of the Deetz-Maitland household.And they thought letting Beetlejuice stay with them would put an end to the majority of their supernatural weirdness.

Link: [ao3]

***************************

chapter three: she never stays for long.

Persephone settles in as the family’s latest supernatural guest.

“Hopefully these should fit you,” Delia said as she took the clothes from Lyda out on the landing while Barbara helped Persephone into the bathroom to sit on the edge of the bath, “I might be a little taller though so the pants might be a bit long.”

“Anything that’s not this,” Persephone replied as she gestured to her ruined dress and leggings, “Will do just fine.”

Twisting to one side, she pulled the dress carefully up to one side, pulling a face as she got a good look at how deep the cuts were for the first time. Barbara crouched on the floor next to her with the first aid kit, making a small tutting noise.

“We can definitely clean these up, but in all honesty, I think they might need stitching. Whatever did this cut pretty deep.”

“I think I might be able to stop the worst of it. This is gonna sound really weird, but do you have a plant you don’t really care about by any chance?”

“I might have just the thing,” Delia smiled, disappearing down the hall to the master bedroom before returning with a somewhat wilted looking spider plant, handing the pot over to Persephone.

“Usually this is my mother’s speciality but since it’s winter, I might be able to just…”

Holding a hand over the plant, a soft golden light formed in Persephone’s palm and the plant seemed to wilt as though rapidly dying. As she focussed on the plant, the cuts on her side seemed to close up enough to the point where the slow ooze of ichor stopped, before she pulled back, offering the plant back to Delia.

“I think I can fix that up once I’ve rested, but thank you.”

“Charles should be home soon, I’ll go downstairs to let him know we’re going to have a guest,” Delia smiled before disappearing back down the hall, Lydia moving to close the bathroom door and sit on the floor as Barbara began gently cleaning the wounds.

“It’s certainly an interesting household you’ve got here,” Persephone said, giving Barbara a slight smile, “Two ghosts, a demon and…three humans?”

“Yeah, Charles is Delia’s husband.”

“And my dad,” Lydia piped up, “You’re not like...mad about it, are you?”

“About what?”

“The Maitlands and Beej being here.”

“The Handbook did say we were supposed to go straight to the Netherworld when we died,” Barbara offered.

“Oh that thing?” Persephone asked, “I wouldn’t take it as total gospel. I’m not sure that particular part has been properly updated since...yeesh, I wanna say about 1840? Back when the spiritualism movement was getting big. A lot of newly-deads took to following around mediums telling them all sorts of stuff they really shouldn’t have been and we had to try and nip it in the bud. The paperwork for it all was a nightmare.”

“So you’re not gonna take them to the Netherworld yourself or anything? Beej was really freaked at the idea of your husband finding out you were here.”

A flicker of an emotion Lydia couldn’t quite place flashed across Persephone’s face before it was gone just as quickly as she flinched in response to Barbara applying a bandage.

“Hades likes rules and order, but I promise you, nobody’s forcing anyone to go to the Netherworld right this second. It’s always going to be there for when people are ready to move on, be it as soon as they pass over, once they’re done with any unfinished business on this plane, or any length of time in between.”

Seemingly satisfied with her explanation, Lydia nodded and shot Persephone a smile as Barbara gathered up the first aid kit.

“We’ll leave you to get cleaned up. There’s toiletries and things in the cabinet you can use, and Delia’s probably started on dinner when you’re ready to come down.”

As she was left alone in the bathroom, Persephone waited for the sounds of Lydia’s footsteps to disappear down the hall before stepping over to lock the door, turning back to the mirror once she was sure she would be alone. She looked a mess, hair tousled in all directions and the dark circles around her eyes only seemed to be heightened by her paler winter complexion.

Examining the bruises around her throat, she let out a small sigh before pulling on the silver chain around her neck that had miraculously survived the attack until she was holding the chunk of aquamarine crystal at the end of it. Closing her eyes and focussing on it for a moment, she allowed the magic she’d ingrained in it centuries ago to reach out for its intended target, before pulling her mind back to the present, turning her attention to the prospect of a nice warm shower.

The clothes, as predicted, were a little large, but Persephone was more glad to be out of her own battered and bloody clothes than worrying about the size. The shower had been exactly what she’d needed to relax, the warmth easing much of the tension from her muscles. Pulling her damp hair into a loose braid over one shoulder, she picked up her ruined clothes and folded them up. She could probably fix them once she’d had a chance to rest, but that would have to wait for now.

Heading towards the stairs, Persephone could hear various voices talking as she reached the landing. Limping her way downstairs, she found the family setting the table for dinner, Lydia helping the Maitlands set the table as Delia plated up pasta, talking to a man she could only assume was Charles. Beetlejuice was floating in cross-legged over the coffee table with a pint of ice cream, making her pause for a moment at the odd sight outside of domesticity of the rest of the scene before he noticed her watching and shot her a distinctly chocolatey grin, making her let out a small snort of laughter.

“Ah, this must be our guest,” Charles smiled as she reached the bottom of the stairs, stepping over to shake her hand, “It’s a pleasure, Miss-“

“Just Persephone is fine,” she replied, “And same to you, Mister Deetz. I’m very grateful for you all helping me like this, though I can find somewhere else to lay low tomorrow.”

“Probably shouldn’t, Seph,” Beetlejuice piped up, gesturing with his spoon as he spoke, “Anything that tried murdering you of all people will be keeping a keen eye out for any sign of you, ‘specially if you try and head back down below. You’ve practically got a giant neon target on your back.”

If anyone had been paying close enough attention, they would likely have noticed the way Persephone seemed to bristle at the nickname, though it was quickly brushed off.

“I wouldn’t want to impose-“

“Oh no, you’re really not,” Delia exclaimed, “It’ll be a bit of a squeeze since we haven’t quite finished the other guest room yet but we can set you up down in the den.”

“She can have my room.”

Almost entirely in sync, the Deetz and Maitlands whipped around to stare in amazement at Beetlejuice as he scooped up another mouthful of ice cream.

“...what? C’mon it’s not that weird. You’re the one wanting to set the queen of the Netherworld up on the couch, Darla.”

“I’m not kicking you out of your bedroom, Beetlejuice,” Persephone sighed, “The couch is fine.”

“Nope, choice has been made, Your Highness,” he replied, grinning at her as he clicked his fingers, “My stuff’s already down there. You get the bedroom.”

Opening her mouth to protest again, Persephone narrowed her eyes at Beetlejuice’s smirk, deciding against escalating this whole thing into some petty argument that was likely to still end up with her taking the bed.

“Fine. It’s appreciated. And thank you all again for your hospitality. If it makes you feel any better, I did cloak my exit from the Netherworld so it should be next to impossible for anyone to find out I’m here. I don’t want to bring any of this to your doorstep when you’ve all been so kind.”

“You can do that?” Adam asked, “Cloak, I mean. So people don’t know where you come out of the Netherworld?”

“It’s an old trick a friend taught me a long time ago,” Persephone grinned, “Technically it works both ways but sometimes a girl’s gotta break a few rules to sneak off in the middle of summer to visit her husband.

———

By the time the meal was over, Persephone was admittedly exhausted, the chaos of the day catching up with her all at once. Barbara had left the table a little early since she and her husband weren’t eating to make up the bed since Beetlejuice had transported all of his bedding down into the basement, and by the time she had made her way upstairs, she was ready to sleep, even if it was relatively early in comparison to the rest of the household.

Shrugging out of the sweatshirt she’d pulled on after the shower, Persephone moved to fold it and set it on the dresser, before noticing out of the corner of her eye that one of the pillows seemed to be on the floor rather than the freshly made bed. Bending down to pick it up, she threw it onto the bed without paying it much mind as she sat down to pull off her boots and climb into bed. Adjusting the pillows so she could lie comfortably on her uninjured side, she was so tired that she barely even noticed the familiar scent of earth on the pillow she’d picked up from the floor before she was finally drifting off into a proper sleep.

#beetlejuice the musical #beetlejuice #beetlejuice fanfiction #beetlejuice fic #beetlejuice fanfic #that beautiful sound #My writing

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