#I am rooting for the spooky supernatural | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

nie7027 · 1 year ago

Text

So because I'm in the mood for spooky stuff I'm once again here posting an idea for a supernatural fic but this time I'm making it Hetalia (YAY LETS GO BACK TO THE ROOTS)

I came up with this like months ago (in June) when I was barely getting back into hetalia(because of PRIDE) but left it there until I realized Hey this is perfect for the season and also who I am kidding this research paper isnt getting written anytim- ANYWAY HERES MY FIC IDEA JUST AS I TOLD IT TO MY BESTFRIEND!

For reasons Italy and Germany (it's important that Japan isn't with them) are playing with sobrenatural stuff and Veneziano ends up accidentally breaking something that triggers some kind of guilt curse and becomes haunted by the ghost of HRE seeing him sneaking around and of course freaking the hell out.

It's most probably Japan's old stuff they are fucking around so it makes sense its magic/spiritual and that they want to keep it a secret. (Also guilt onis are very in tone with japanese mythology).

Italy being Italy doesn't talk with anybody about it (HE WONT DARE TOUCH THAT THEME) and just gets scared outta nowhere and whimpers and cries and is miserable to the point he isolates himself in his house.

Nobody knows what's up with him.

Nobody except Germany.

Germany of course gets worried and suspects it has something to do with they thing they did as it was then when everything started but he's not surewjy or how so he tries to reach out and eventually goes to Italy's house to drag him out himself...except...

Except when he gets there he sees a child.

And not just any child. Lol nop

He sees a child version of himself.

Germany is rightly confused.

What is a child version of himself doing there???

He tries to chase the boy but he is unable to catch him and also Italy still doesn't answer to him so he decides to keep coming both to try to talk with Italy and to figure out what's up with the kid.

And finally on one of those days he goes he hears an interesting conversation...

Roderich (Austria) and Erzebeta(Hungary) being the closest thing Italy has to guardians strong arm their way into his room (obviously Hungary is the one who does most of the work) and force him to talk to them so Italy reveals he has been seeing HREs ghost

Hungary and Austria are like 'BUT THATS IMPOSSIBLE ITALY! YOU KNOW HES..." and yeah he knows he's dead. He knows France himself killed him (Austria and Hungary looking super uncomfortable during the whole conversation) but he's there, following him and everytime Italy sees him his heart constricts and he can't bear to look at him.

Austria and Hungary get outta there believing Italy's is having some kind of late response to repressed trauma. That he's having hallucinations.

And it makes sense!

Of course they know the boy has been developing feelings for the German and they also know how much he loved HRE... It can't be easy to fall in love again after going throught something like that

And OH GOD THIS WAS LITERALLY THE FIRST TIME THEY HAD EVER ACTUALLY TALKED ABOUT HRE WITH ITALY AFTER HIS DEATH* AND FUCK THEY DONT EVEN KNOW HOW HE KNOWS HE DIED....

Of course Italy would try to find out, of course he would do his research... canonically-sh it was France who told him but italy also has his own historians and he looked into it until he couldn't anymore and FUCK THEY CANT BELIEVE THEY REALLY FELL FOR ITALYS CHEERY FACADE AND HAPPILY LET HIM DEAL WITH THAT ON HIS OWN.

THEY WERE YOUNG YES BUT THATS NOT AN EXCUSE

No wonder Italy is having issues...

Especially when taken into account that Germany...

..they never were sure... and-

NO ERZEBETH

THE PAST IS IN THE PAST.

THERES NO POINT IN DIGGING UP OLD CORPES.

HRE IS DEAD. HE WASNT THERE TO HELP HIM AND THATS ALL THERES TO IT -Roderich argues, practically screams, the guilt still gnawing him in his insides

All they can do is help Italy go through his issues now.

Germany of course only hears the last part of Italy's conversation with Hungary and Austria before he has to hide so he only learns that yes its the kid, his child self, the one that's causing Italy to suffer so much and

FUCK

Fuck

He knows

(Kinda? )

He knows he had a troubled childhood but he really wasn't expecting just the sight of him could cause Italy so much grief...

In fact... why is his child self even haunting Italy in the first place? Shouldnt he be haunting himself?

Germany tries to confront the child, he chases and chases the child and it's not until he corners him and orders the child to get away from Italy that he gets a reaction

"ITALY IS HIS!" The child screams with all his might

"He won't ever leave Italy!" and "Who does he believes he is to try to separate him from Italy?!" are some of the things the child keeps screaming

And boy Germany might not remember much of his childhood but he's pretty sure Prussia had never told him he was such a brat

But at least this brings a little more of light on the issue.

Germany isn't dumb, he knows himself.

He's aware of his... complicated feelings towards the italian. The memories of a failed valentine date coming to haunt him...

BUT

He also knows he can be a little too selfish and ambitious.

A war mongering state fully capable of starting wars just to get what he believes is his.

A fact he isn't proud of himself

Fully capable of hurting others.

A fact that causes him a lot of guilt to this day.

So, he concludes, his child self somehow became aware of his own feelings for the Italian, latched onto them and is doing what he knows best.

Chasing after the Italian. Unwavering, unstoppable. Hurting him in the meantime

But what's he's supposed to do now?

The child won't leave Italy's side.

He doesn't know how to get rid of him.

He could try distancing himself from Italy.. see if the child somehow also senses this and gets away from the italian... but he isn't sure.

But he can't think on any other option

Now Germany believes he's the one being haunted and that Italy's suffering because of him.

In the meantime Japan as all the other countries is confused as to what the heck is happening.

Suddenly his friends started acting strange with Italy locking himself in his house and Germany looking more and more stressed every day

Of course he found the broken vase in his house, the one talking about a guilt oni.

But canonically Japan doesn't remember magic was an actual everyday thing in the ancient times.

To him is just another of his many relics.

The only thing that made special this case was how well preserved it was despite it being really old, back from his young days he barely remembers

From when he was still under china's care.

But Japan doesn't have any other clue.

All he knows is his friends started acting strange after they visited his house and that the vase is somehow related so he has no choice but suck it up and go ask China.

China whos ancient and remembers everything, even the times when magic was real, immeditaely recognizes the vase and goes OH NO.

"So... Who did you say was closest to the vase when it broke?" China nervously asks.

"I don't know. I wasn't there when it broke" Japan calmly responds, unsure why that would be important. "It could be either Germany or Italy. They both were there."

China who knows he's is in front the remnants of the broken guilt oni container yelps: "Germany?! FUUUUUUUCK"

China also isn't very willing to talk about what's happening with Japan.

Talking about the jar would mean talking about magic with Japan, and THAT would mean talking about old times they both would rather ignore ever happened.

China knows this is also part of the guilt oni doing but fuuuuck he really doesn't want to talk about this.

And because the guilt oni/curse spreads like an illness, infecting everybody that's gets close with guilt and feeding from it, growing and growing until there's no more...

There's another player in this.

Prussia

Prussia who doesn't regret what he did.

Prussia, who, if he were put under the same circumstances would do it again and again. 1000 times over if it was necessary.

Prussia whose only regret is knowing it would break his little brothers heart (and maybe even more) to learn the truth

Prussia who one day comes home to find his little brother clearly trying to hide how much he's freaking out and after hours and hours of pushing and poking finally manages to get him to spill the truth

And when Prussia hears from his brothers lips that Italy is being haunted by his child self he's running out the house as if being chased by the demon himself screaming about ghosts and how super scary that is.

And don't be mistaken.

Prussia isn't a bad brother.

He's an awesome brother who will support his brother in his time of need but first....

This is too risky.

WAY TOO RISKY

As much as he loathes the idea of poor little ita chan suffering he loathes more the idea of what could happen to his brother...

No way I'm hell he was going to take that chance.

He would rather never see Italy again than to lose his brother.

If he couldn't do anything back then when he was powerful much less now than he is barely more than a mere mortal/a shadow of his former self.

And here Gilbert/Prussia is exaggerating.

As much as it would break Germany to know he wouldn't disappear, he's too solid of a state for that...

But Prussia was there.

Prussia saw the last days of HRE. He watched him agonize and no way in hell he's going throught that again.

No way in hell he's abandoning his brother. (No way in hell My boy doesn't have trauma over this)

No, Prussia will deal with this on his own.

He will fix it, just like he has done before.

He will fix it before anything happens and he will be there for his brother once all this is over.

But first he needs information

So, knowing Erzebeta and Roderich had been able to speak to ita chan, he goes and sneaks in Austria's house and has his worst fears confirmed when he hears ita chan has been hallucinating with HREs ghost.

Except now he's the only one who knows that that isn't an hallucination and that both Italy and Germany can see him.

And if Hungary catches him sneaking around and demands to know what he's doing there he will only say that that he was there to execute a surprise attack on the uptight austrian.

And Hungary tries to bring up the card of long formed warrior bonds to get him to talk about that , that that shall not be talked about and he would divert the theme and laugh to her face

Because this is something he is planning to take to his grave.

And that's what I got so far.

*it's my head canon that HREs death became something of a taboo topic in the house. Everybody knew but nobody dared to speak about it. Hungary and Austria never found the way to sit down with Italy and talk with him and Italy while he was still in Roderich's house never asked them not wanting to hear it coming from their mouths, preferring to be in negation and pretend he's still waiting for him to come back even though he knew it wasnt going to happen

Eventually the truth will have to come if they want to get rid of HREs ghost but aint no way in hell Prussia will reveal it so Italy and Germany (and others) have no choice but to face the demons of their past and discover it themselves

The whole every country has a deep seated guilt and the guilt curse will spread like an infectious illness was a nice surprise for myself.

They way it touches on everyone ...

Italy and Germany dealing with the ghost (the lover Italy lost, the reminder that Germany really know who he is and what he is capable), Austria and Hungary's not being able to save HRE nor help Italy. Japan and China having to deal with their broken relationship...

PRUSSIAS EVERYTHING.

God just thinking about Prussia also facing HREs ghost, the failure to save him, to what could happen to Germany if the truth comes out... the ANGST IS SO GOOD in this one.

Even France and Romano (and therefore Spain) could enter into the game with Romano feeling guilty with not knowing how to help Italy despite being his brother and heck even the potato dumbas seemed to know more about what was going on with his brother, as always romano being the last to know his own brother... and Spain is just there watching romano suffer knowing he's partly responsable for the distance between the Italy brothers and once Hungary and Austria learn it was France who told Italy about HREs fate they will eat him alive.

Except France won't stand for that.

1 it was centuries ago when France told Italy that! It's not his fault what's happening to Italy now and 2 Italy deserved to know! He loved him! They loved each other! He wasn't going to stand there and keep quiet for centuries just like Austria and Hungary did.

He wouldn't stand for such disservice to love .

And Frances is obviously being dragged down by the guilt of causing HREs death. France might be Prussia's best friend but i highly doubt Prussia would let him know what really happened with HRE considering the circumstances... Then again even if it hadn't been Frances fault it really is the thing Prussia is the most secretive about.

He himself could have told France that HRE died. Specially because if HRE was super weak and had too many enemies that wanted him dead it would be convenient for him to spread the rumor of his death and who better than France, who both had struck the fatal blow and was connected to every part of the world and had such a stronghold on knowledge after his revolution, to do it.

Once the truth comes out i really need a scene of Germany approaching Prussia and asking him to tell him how was he before... when he was... How was he back then?

And Prussia who has never talked about this with anyone.

Prussia who for centuries kept all that happened to himself.

A burden to never share.

Who even now that the truth is out still doesn't want to talk about it relents.

Because it's his brother who asked. And he will always do whatever Germany asks him

"Truth be told he isn't that different now from how he used to be" he says his heart breaking a little when he sees the brief glimpse of desolation crossing Germany's features.

"He isn't that different but he enough for it to matter. To be another person" Prussia ammends quickly. No way he isnt aware of Germanys identity crisis.

"He has always been serious. Too dutiful for his own good. But... he wasnt as guarded as he is now. It was easier to know what he was feeling.... Even the foot soldiers knew about his crush on little Italy" Prussia says snarking while recalling the last part

And yeah that.

Germany is really surprised to know it turns out he has loved italy his whole life... Then again if he thinks about it it isn't really that surprising. It makes sense

It makes sense even if he's now avoiding the Italian as much as he can since the truth got spilled.

Germany can't help it. He doesn't think he would be able to tolerate it if he sees disappointment in the italian eyes, yearning for a person who doesn't exist anymore.

"Try as he might he wore his heart on his sleeve... And that was part of the reason for his downfall." Prussia keeps saying, wondering not for the first time if Germany had unconciously developed the way he had as a defense mechanism. "More feisty, easily flustered."

"Unlike Germany who was a well behaved boy, HRE wouldn't listen to Prussia... Not in the sense that he would ignore him/dismiss whatever he said but rather than unlike Germany who did whatever Prussia asked him to do without question HRE would have to ponder it. HRE would have to consider all the options and act according to what he deemed best....He had to. He was the head of the empire. He was in charge of all of them... Highly capable and yet so weak. A fragile constitution" Prussia says with finality.

They were nearing on hard topics he really REALLY didn't want to talk about. The brief talk already taken it's toll on him and as much as he owe it to Germany he had already pushed himself too far in one day.

Germany understood it. They had time.

Despite Prussia's worst fears that have been proven wrong... they had time after all.

A huge relief washin over prussias entire being, the relief of putting down a burden he had carried for so long.

They could keep talking about it later

And here the mic drops.

So... how do you like it?

It's good to be back 😎

21 notes · View notes

kandisheek · 4 months ago

Text

FIC REC WEEK 44 – HORROR

SERIES: Spooky Stony by jacobby

Pairing: Steve/Tony Rating: M Words: 11,538 Tags: Supernatural Elements, Parenthood, Murder

Summary: A series of spooky stevetony stories. Each fic is contained within its own universe unless otherwise stated.

Reasons why I love it: All of these stories are equally gripping, well-written and terrifying. jacobby also blessed us with some truly excellent art in the last fic, and it genuinely sent chills down my spine. If you're looking for some excellent scares during spooky season, you've definitely come to the right place.

This series consists of:

the drive back home

Pairing: Steve/Tony Rating: T Words: 8,395 Tags: Angst, Time Loop, Superfamily

Summary: "Regrets and urges. The pros and cons. To check the time or to accept another can of root beer. Tony feels a push and pull in all different directions. He has been dancing over this fragile atmosphere for the better part of a year now. Walls close in on him whenever he’s inside, but the moment he steps out for some fresh air, he feels naked, too vulnerable." -- Tony Stark is tired, but he's not about to admit that. His husband won't look at him. His son won't speak to him. So on the drive home from Clint's farm, he is forced to face his demons by a road that never ends.

Reasons why I love it: I swear to god, this fic had me biting my nails the entire time I read it, wondering what was going to happen. The tension is so good, and I really love how ugly and real the problems between Steve and Tony are. Poor Peter gets the worst end of the stick though. This fic is amazing and haunting, and you should definitely read it.

so about the cult that lives in your attic

Pairing: Steve/Tony Rating: T Words: 2,881 Tags: Dark Comedy, No Powers AU, Parent Tony

Summary: There's a cult in Tony's attic. His son doesn't believe him.

Reasons why I love it: Okay, the formatting in this? Perfection. It's so cool and effective that it literally gave me goosebumps. Especially those big letters at the end, just – chills. Chills down my fucking spine. Definitely check this one out if you haven't, it's the perfect mix of comedy and horror!

of the wild

Pairing: Steve/Tony Rating: M Words: 262 Tags: Demons, Murder, Art

Summary: Tony feels the hand caress his cheek, its long fingernails barely digging into his skin. Gentle, he thinks; the hand is so gentle. Gentler than his father's, more present than his mother's. It leaves a trail of ice and frost, the cool sensation dissipating as quickly as it appears.

Reasons why I love it: When I tell you that the look on Tony's face in this drawing followed me all the way into my nightmares, I am one hundred percent serious. And the accompanying drabble makes it all even more terrifying. This whole thing is sinister as fuck, and I love it to bits, so I really hope you check it out!

#marvel #fanfic #a year in fanfic recs #fic rec #fanfic rec #stony #ficrec

2 notes · View notes

theaistired · 1 year ago

Text

Blog introduction

Hello, my name is Thea (she/they), I’m acespec, arospec, and autistic. I speak German and English and I am trying to learn Italian, Swedish and Arabic (learning three different languages at once is complicated, so trying instead of actual learning). I’m a big fan of the fantasy genre and like to read, write, draw, play the piano, and occasionally play video games. I also love birds and science.

Now, this is my main blog where I post about my writing, my art and also stuff in general. I might also post about some of my own music in the future. You can find a short introduction to my WIPs under the cut.

Hope you enjoy and I'll see you around on tumblr!

Galidean: A fantasy series that was supposed to be a trilogy but has grown into a much longer series. But I guess that is what happens when you look a three different projects and think to yourself "wouldn't it be hilarious if the took place in the same setting". So, the series can be divided into three different "eras" with their own little "main plot", but there is also a plotline running through all of them mostly in the background.

A hundred years after the joined victory over the Dark Sun, the human nations gather together in celebration. Future leaders attend a journey through each other's home, during which it becomes clear that scorching raids have left their marks over all the territories. With no apparent culprit, a prince, an orphan, a lord, and a sorcerer band together to find the power that turns banishment into death. With the help of a friend and a sibling, they start chasing mysteries and legends across the world, unaware that they all take root from the wounds of the world itself.

Old Gods: A fantasy series consisting of 3 – 4 books, while I also wanted it to be horror, that part has gotten somewhat lost while developing it. Oh well.

Cyr was young when the war started, he was young when he joined it and he was not so young anymore when the enemy captured him. After four years of imprisonment, he comes to terms with his inevitable fate. Surrounded by enemies, hated by his allies, stripped of his magic and will, there is no escape for him. While the voices and visions invade both day and night, Cyr prepares for his final day. His only true solace is the new courtesan who has endless stories of hope and rebirth to tell him.

The Human in Us: An urban fantasy series, that really is just two characters and my investment in their relationship in a trench coat. All started by me looking at different supernatural YA stories and going “wonder how I would do that”.

Students, alcohol and an abandoned house should have been the set-up for a fun, maybe spooky anecdote in their future. It should not twist and turn and talk, it should not turn nightmares real, it should not make Josephine’s hallucinations even more vivid and grotesque. Yet it does, and one month later, a burning girl appears to give her an envelope containing an address and a promise of answers.

There Are Voices In the Void: A sci-fi horror story, set in the same setting as a different sci-fi project of mine, but story-wise not connected to it.

While investigating a nebula, the scientists of the crew gather samples of cosmic dust, finding an unknown organism on it. The head biologists determines it to be deceased and proceeds with further testing. The death of two of his colleagues soon afterwards is just the beginning of the nightmare.

Little Remains: A bit of crime fiction/thriller, that happened by me looking at YA mystery series and going “wonder how I would do that”.

Detective Morgan has worked on many gruesome cases in the past, most of them took place in bigger cities with an anonymous population. When a teenage girl is found dead in the fields of a small town nearby, Morgan first assumes an outsider to be the murderer of the unidentified victim. However, with the murder of a local student a few days later, even the tight-knit community quickly realises that one of them is far more familiar with the gruesome case than the rest of them. Unwilling to sit back, the student’s friends start their own investigation, while Morgan begins to struggle with old ghosts.

#blog intro #writing #writeblr #writeblr intro

8 notes · View notes

peacefiction · 11 months ago

Text

@pach1-pach1 left this reply on my post about avoiding using words like "degenerate," so I wanted to talk about it a bit more in depth.

Quick disclaimer that I am not black, and my opinion on words that were specifically used as anti-black slurs should be taken with a grain of salt because of this. Additionally, I'm from the U.S. and English is my only language. This is likely an influential factor in my takes. Not everything I say may be relevant to other languages or cultures.

Personally, I think that it's kind of difficult to make a one size fits all rule about an ever-shifting language and culture. Something that was offensive a long time ago may not be offensive today, and vice versa. Time stops for no one, and it definitely doesn't stop for language; language will naturally alter significantly over time.

I'm going to use the specific words from my previous post and the reply—"degenerate" and "spooky"—as examples. When you take a step back from it and look at the history, yeah, it's pretty sinister that a word we know to mean "scary" was used as an anti-black slur. I think it would be ignorant at best to deny that. But it's also true that the directly offensive iteration of the word has mostly fallen out of use in modern times. Many people aren't even aware of the word's racist history. When a slur falls out of use, but the words it inspired remain in the language under a new meaning, what do you do?

With the gradual shift in language over time, it's hard for me to say when exactly it crossed the line from antiquated slur to being mostly detached from its previous context. But I generally believe that once a word becomes so detached from its offensive roots that the majority of people would never make the connection between the current word and the old one, it has pretty successfully taken on a new life. (This isn't to say that it's never used as a slur these days, just that its pretty rare, and in those cases there's sort of an element of surprise that the bigot would choose such a dated term.) The argument could be made that it shouldn't have, but it's the kind of incredibly common word that would be hard to eradicate from the vocabulary of society at large by this point.

I also think that it's relevant that the origin of the word spooky predates its use as a slur. The word "spooky" can be traced back to the Dutch word for apparition, or specter, and this use was common before it began to be used as a racial slur during World War II. You could argue that it's less that the word is inherently racist, and moreso that racists took a word that meant something scary and supernatural and then applied it to black people.

Again, I'm not black, but I was aware of this history, and I have yet to meet a single black person who believes that the word "spooky" shouldn't be used at all by its modern definition. (Which doesn't mean no black people feel that way! Fell free to chime in on this post if you're black and disagree.)

The more obvious problem with words like degenerate, to me, is that the harmful usage never actually went out of style or got replaced by a new meaning. "Degenerate" has seen consistent use by conservatives for a long time, most often to refer to anything kinky or queer, OR as a tool to lump kinkiness and queerness together with something like pedophilia. Think about how conservatives have been using the word "groomer" in recent years–they're trying to alter language at will to push their bigoted political stances. Most people would consider themselves anti-grooming, I'd say, but they're not all defining "grooming" the same way. Laws they push as "anti-grooming" are really just anti-queer, like saying that drag queens shouldn't read books to children, or that teachers shouldn't ask students their pronouns.

(There is also more than one definition to the word degenerate. I don't think there's anything wrong with utilizing the other definitions, such as to say that a crumbling building is degenerating.)

Words like "degenerate" are somewhat intentionally vague: "someone who is morally corrupt." With no context for what the speaker personally deems morally corrupt, this could mean anything. It's meant to put an idea in your head of what the supposed degenerate in question is like. You may be picturing "a degenerate" as a pedophile, or an incel, or a racist. They're more likely picturing "a degenerate" as someone kinky, queer, or polyamorous.

The non-specificity of the word "degenerate" is why conservatives love it so much. They can trick some of their opponents into agreeing with them if they claim to be anti-degenerate instead of anti-queer, or anti-groomer instead of anti-trans. "I'm not a bigot, I just believe we need to think of the children." That's why I think it's usually for the best to replace it with something more specific. It's only uniquely useful as defamation if you're hoping to obscure exactly what you're talking about.

"Degeneracy" was adopted by the Nazis in the 1920s to refer to art by Jewish people, Freemasons, or communists. In 2024, Trump still refers to his opponents as degenerates.

Tl,dr; I think this is a super case-by-case basis issue when it comes to different words with questionable histories. Some are distanced enough from their past that it could be mostly a futile waste of time and energy to try and convince others to stop using them. Some are far too fresh and active to ignore. It's an important conversation to have, about which words are worth the battle.

Maybe I'm missing information, or my perspective is flawed, and we shouldn't be using "spooky" anymore, either. I'm open to that possibility, should someone teach me otherwise.

#linguistics #language #politics #not fandom #not fictional #not peacefic #nazi mention #evolution of language #read more #thanks for reading! and thanks to the replier for giving me the opportunity to expand upon my thoughts on this

4 notes · View notes

megzeppelinn · 1 year ago

Text

Last weekend I got to see not one, but TWO horror play readings - both written by two of the most riveting, boundary-pushing Los Angeles theatre artists I know - Alexis Roblan and Chelsea Sutton. Ali’s exponentially brutal, actively nightmarish play “Javelina” - about how when an indie horror movie’s writer visits its disquieting Texas set she must confront the wild external and internal violence that moral culpability ignites - was Echo Theatre Company’s inaugural New Play Competition winner. Chelsea’s “I’ll Be Your Villain” - a darkly beautifully gothic type of ghost story about a woman who loses control over her true self as it wrestles with the warping nature of grief, betrayal and exploitation - was a part of Road Theatre’s New Play SlamFest. Women writing horror is not new, but something about the freshly unsettling spiritual provocations of these plays and the dark psychological/sociological screws they’re boldly twisting with their female protagonists’ uncompromisingly, almost terrifyingly authentic self-actualizations is thrilling to me as an audience member and playwright stoked for spooky storytelling and restless for groundbreaking genre vocabularies. While I’ve always loved ghost and gothic stories, it’s only been a year or so that I’ve become obsessed with the cultural impact and resonance of horror movies and specifically the way women are utilized within them. I’m still watching and learning, but in the ones I’ve seen so far the majority of the female characters (if they’re not victims killed off early on) are singularly intuitive in sensing a malignant supernatural entity, and have a hell of a time convincing others (especially their husbands/partners) that their child or loved one is in danger. Their rally cries to stop the ensuing threatening forces are silenced or ignored, so they must confront evil on their own, leading to either a gloriously badass obliteration of this evil, or a somber “I told you so, but no one listened” succumbing to it.

While the plays are uniquely themselves - Ali’s is viscerally unsettling, a masterful construction of a psychological unraveling, Chelsea’s a powerfully haunting, hilariously ominous reflection-myth on what makes a woman “bad,” they are both so compelling/refreshing in that they radically subvert the limiting binary character resolution for women in horror as outright hero or victim by not only dirtily spelunking through its meaning’s mines to unveil monsters of unpalatable moral truths never before made visible through a female lens, but outright upend it by challenging me as a viewer and woman to wrestle with my connection to these monsters and my complicity in their societal dubiousness - disturbing me into wondering what complex horrors I am capable of, but not so pointedly judging me for recognizing those terrible possibilities within me that I poisonously repress them.

I so appreciated that I didn’t feel asked to simply root for or pity the female protagonist, but to see her as someone complex with horrors - the monsters, ghosts and duendes thrashing inside her soul in the human attempt to know itself. That this revelatory storytelling of reenvisioning women in horror is happening in the L.A. theatre space makes me quiver with excitement. Shoutout to the Echo for recognizing/honoring Ali’s brilliant play, and to theatre genius/masterful conjurer of the dark and divine Carly DW Bones’ tender, playful and fearless direction of Chelsea’s play - her brilliance of uplifting the mythic voice is unmatched. Keep an eye out for more Ali and Chelsea radness, and sláinte to more women in horror!

#los angeles #playwriting #theatre #horror #women in horror #strong female lead #gothic #new work #writing

4 notes · View notes

more-than-a-princess · 2 years ago

Text

@hitobanju asked: ( hurt ) sender is hurt and is being comforted by the receiver for comfort. ( from Raoul )

Let's Cuddle RP prompts - Still accepting!

For once, it seemed that the Mythological Society had chosen a topic of discussion that was very much rooted to reality: the reality that one of their most prominent members and friend, Raul Aconite, had missed the past three weekly meetings of the organization. With the media having gone suspiciously silent on the whereabouts of the Sillywood star, the only relevant coverage being what the rest of the club had asked ("What happened to Raul?"), they had now taken it upon themselves to, in their spare time, comb the city of Los York to find him.

A vast departure from discussion of mythological and supernatural creatures, but no less a mystery: instead of lore, they focused on celebrity hangout spots, as many as they could access in any case. That was where Sonia had come in: two dozen pairs of eyes had turned on her when the club president had, as gently as he could manage, asked the Princess of Novoselic to venture where the rest of them could not: the likes of bars and clubs that catered exclusively to the VIP and the elite, and Raul's home: unlisted online and for the masses...but for the likes of a Princess who had visited before for a movie night? That was a simple task, as long as she requested her schedule be rearranged for the venture.

That was how Sonia had discovered him: Raul had been, for all intents and purposes, hiding in plain sight at his home. Except like so many in the spotlight, few knew precisely where that was. Still, it had only been when she'd held up the bowl of ambrosia she'd brought (that she hadn't prepared herself) in front of the front door camera that he'd deigned to let her in. And after the food had been put away in the refrigerator, Sonia was finally made privy to what had led to his self-imposed house arrest for the past few weeks.

"So you did not get an important role for a big upcoming Sillywood film..." She repeated, frowning, seated beside him on the sofa. Frankly, it was odd not to see the man enthusiastic about something, whether it was whatever project he was working on or whatever Greek and Roman myth had captured his attention that day. "Oh Raul, I am so sorry. You really wanted this role, yes? It is why you spent months exercising, is it not?" Their alcohol bar outings had turned into juice bar outings, something that Sonia's own team had been happy about: anything to inflict less chocolate, carbs, and alcohol in her diet and more hand-pressed juice and lean protein.

"You worked really hard, you know," She assured him, pulling him into a hug. Something they couldn't have done at either the alcohol bar or the juice bar, not without rumors circulating that neither of their PR teams wanted to handle. "And just because you were not selected for this role, that does not mean you cannot play...ah...what was it-" She considered aloud, glancing at the bit of sample script he'd read from at the audition. "Ah yes: a 'blonde, tan, muscular man who spends much of his time at the beach and supporting the female protagonist, as he tries to uncover his reason for living in the midst of his unrequited love for her. A sweet 'hype man' who does not care for the female protagonist receiving attention from other attractive, muscular men.' Well, they only said they went a different direction for the role, yes? They chose someone with a little more experience and age: that is not something you should find fault with in yourself, Raul. I am sure you would have made a wonderful Ben for the Margie film."

Sonia nodded against his shoulder, patting his back. Even she was familiar with the doll line: she had liked the Halloween or other spooky-themed dolls as a child, though she'd always been given Princess Margie dolls, from the corresponding Princess Margie films. Despite the fact the doll could be anything, her most popular movies had her in the role of some sort of fairytale or ballet princess. Naturally, it had given Sonia reason to resent the doll the closer she'd gotten to adolescence.

"But the entire Mythological Society is worried about you, including me," She smiled, letting go of him gently. Even with an entire team at one's disposal to coordinate all aspects of life, the simple gift of a hug from a friend could be hard to come by. "If you do not return I am afraid I may commandeer another meeting to discuss the similarities and differences between biblical demons and Japanese oni. A tragedy, no?"

Her sweet smile had turned into a grin and chuckle: Sonia hadn't lied, she'd been asked to suggest topics in Raul's absence and that one had always been fascinating for her, and she'd wanted to know what other enthusiasts thought of them. But for Raul, it would likely be a horrifying thought. "And, you cannot possibly return to the Mythological Society or continue auditioning for the next incredible film project with nothing in your stomach. I brought some food with me."She nodded towards the kitchen, seemingly barely touched for the past few weeks. He'd eaten something, but Sonia doubted it was anything resembling a meal. "Nothing I cooked of course, but: souvlaki, rice, salad, spanakopita, pastistio, and both baklava and the ambrosia. I thought you might have been able to eat either, with the audition and all. And I have the new International Graphic documentary series about Ancient Greece on disk: all five episodes! Perhaps we could watch one while we eat? What do you think?"

#more-than-a-princess answered #hitobanju #(Let's Cuddle RP prompts)#Non-Despair AU: The Princess of Novoselic #(I had a cursed idea and ran with it I apologize for -nothing-)#(Tell me Raul would not bring the Benergy/Kenergy though)#(For those unfamiliar with Cu.Pid Pa.ras.ite and/or Ba.rb.ie...this is your sign to play and watch these things)#(Sere I am not sure what you were expecting with this ask but have this)

1 note · View note

jacobb99 · 2 years ago

Text

I saw something strange at my local Astro-Mart pt. 4

Sorry for the lack of uploads recently, things have been weird as hell. So I won’t delay too much and just get right into this.

EDIT: Hey, so things got even crazier this was supposed to go up last Friday but my ISP flipped me the bird so now until further notice I’m uploading these from the local McDonalds.

First off apparently the store has some kind of time warpy altery effect? Okay, so my shift is supposed to be only 9 hours long including my two half hour breaks. However, it always feels like its longer, and my phone doesn’t really work right while in the store, and we don’t have a clock inside so I thought it was just that making it seem longer, kinda the reverse of the thing casinos do. But nope it really started bothering me so I did the first thing I could think of, check the security footage since it has a timer on it. And what do you know turns out my feeling was right, while only 9 hours have passed during my shift there is 11 hours of footage from when I come in to when I clock out. I’m slightly tempted to see about contacting my boss and maybe use that to get more paid hours but at this rate I would be surprised if it turned out the owner can’t melt my brain by thinking it. Are there any laws about this? I’m pretty sure Florida doesn’t have any laws that prevent employers from sticking you in a time warp but it feels like there should be.

The Smorgasbeast is back, turns out I was right when I thought I saw it creeping around outside the store, its apparently been eating out of the dumpster. I have also learned it really likes hot dogs, so now I bring some with me incase its hanging around when I take the trash to out back. Also, before I continue I’m still confused by all the comments saying that the Smorgasbeast is a Caudate, still super confused cause when I look that up I just get brain scan images.

I’ve had a few more “supernatural” customers since the last post, mainly a cyclops, What may have been a skinwalker or something, a walking pile of what I think were the cardboard tubes from toilet paper rolls, and someone who I think is probably my favorite customer. But first lets go over the others.

The “cyclops” is kinda simple, this short dude, probably 3 ft. and some change, and buff as hell. If you told me this guy could pic up a car I would believe you. Anyway he walks gets himself a cup of coffee, and a bottle of oil (the kind for a car). And that was kinda that, he didn’t really say anything.

The skincrawler guy on the other hand was an, interesting one, so its about 11 pm on Wednesday and this dude with a deerskull on his head, complete with antlers, wearing nothing but furs and carrying a spear. He walks down the isles as I try not to make eye contact and comes back to the counter with a tin of spam, a bag of pork rinds, a hershy bar, and a Frostie Root Bear. He hands me a $50, then he says something in a language I don’t recognize, picks up his goods and leaves. It kinda sounded like he said aeiou afgan kid?

Alright, now he have to get the downright most bizarre thing I have seen since taking this job, the TP guy. Alright so its like 3 am, I’m chilling out listening to Moon Base Alpha songs cause I was bored as hell and hoping my shift would just end, when the door opens and in walks in this guy made of cardboard toilet paper tubes with a roll of TP for a head. Like this guy looked like a stick figure. So at this point I’ve paused my music cause, well there is a customer, and cause I kinda like to all my senses when the spooky stuffs happening. Anyway so it goes skipping down the isles like a shitty extra for the sound of music or something, and kept doing so for probably about 25 minutes, I was about to ask if I could help or something like I’m supposed to when it sticks its arms straight out to its sides (think like a T-pose) and it freaking sprints down the chip isle knocking. EVERY. SINGLE. BAG. Off the shelves, all of them. It then runs like its going to go out the door, but instead just runs into the door, exploding and sending cardboard tubes everywhere. Needless to say, after I regained my composer I spent the rest of my shift cleaning up the mess it left behind. If anyone has any ideas what that thing was some info would be appreciated, I’m partly wanting it cause I’m just confused, and partly because I’d like it to never return.

Alright, now onto Cloyed. My new favorite customer. Okay, so normally I’m fine with not being talked to by the customers, mostly cause on a given night most of them are just the creepy locals, and that one guy from the local church who comes in exclusively to preach at me how incest isn’t a sin and is the only way into heaven. So yeah, I’m usually pretty glad my more paranormal visitors aren’t talkative. Then I met Cloiyed. Now I want you to imagine this, its like midnight, you’re listening to Peper Steak while cleaning up a bottle of vegetable oil that decided to explode to make your night more interesting. You go sit down at the counter when a skeleton walks in. I’m not talking like a really skinny person, I mean what looks like one of those skeletons you’d have seen in your biology class on a stand, wearing a Hawaiian shirt, khaki shorts, the classic socks and sandals combo, and wearing a pair of those stupid sunglasses, the ones where the lenses are made to look like a pineapple that you’ll find some of the tourist trap places down here selling, also the glasses still have the tag from wherever he bought them from still on it. Anyway so this guy walks up, leans on the counter and says

“Howdy Ho there pal, The name's Cloyed, and I'm just clawing my way through life. Say, mind if I shell out some dough for a pack of those smokes? I'm just dying for a puff."

Now as weird as hell this was I honestly having a hard time keeping from laughing, not quite sure why but I was just kinda over taken with a sense of. Humor? Laughter? Not sure, anyway I managed to keep my composure and ask what brand he wanted.

"Ah, the brand question. I don't want to sound like a broken record, but I'm looking for something that won't make me feel like I've been buried six feet under. Any recommendations that won't leave a bad aftertaste or a skeleton in my closet?"

So, I ask him if he would like some Winston brand ones, (we are supposed to recommend Winston for some reason even though I’ve never met anyone who smokes that brand)

"Well, I don't mean to sound like a pinchy penny, but I've had a few bad experiences with those before. Let's just say they left a bit of a crabby taste in my mouth. But, hey, I'm not here to point fingers or wave claws. If that's all you got, I guess I'll just have to grin and bear it, or in my case, grin and shell it.”

I then let him know we also have Newports, and to be honest I was starting to wonder if he was blind cause you know there’s a huge cigarette display right behind me.

"Absolutely! You've been such a great help, I'll definitely take a pack. Mind if I pay with cash? I know it's not the most modern way to pay, but I'm just an old-fashioned fellow. I promise it's not counterfeit, I wouldn't want to get caught in a shell game, you know?"

I let him know that he can and he pays me with a Hamilton and waves at me telling me to stay safe as he leaves.

Needless to say that is one of the more pleasant encounters I have had recently.

So uh a few things before I disappear again, first I again want to thank everyone for the comments and likes.

I’ve been thinking about calling the Smorgasbeast “Smorgy” for short, both cause Smorgasbeast is a pain to spell and cause that’s kinda what I’ve been referring to it internally for a bit now, cause Smorgasbeast was just the name I slapped on the thing. Not sure, let me know what you think about that.

I made a shitposty kinda image to show you what the TP guy looked like. I’ll post it on my tumbler and my subreddit r/AstroMartStories

Saw the Tall man again this week, still creepy as all get out.

To u/Katters8811 I’m thinking your theory about Antonio and this job is correct.

To answer some other questions I am 24 years old. Not sure why that is such a popular question.

I do not smoke, never have and don’t as of now plan on picking up the habit.

I’m sleeping a little better now.

#astro-mart #astromart #retail #creepypasta #horror #reddit #smorgy #Newports #TP

1 note · View note

gideongriddle · 2 years ago

Text

fave reads of the past year (2022)

kind of a wild one!!! three books i read because i had to review them in my top nine, nice mix of 2022 releases and older stuff, big wins in my october spooky reading era, and most importantly, i never stopped thinking about melanthe from the second i started reading for my lady's heart.

in the order that i read them:

for my lady's heart by laura kinsale unspeakably grateful to @chelsebooks on tiktok for starting me on my vintage historical romance journey with this beauty. medieval knight/lady with very sexy repression, devotion and revilement intertwined, political shenanigans, and one of the hottest romance heroines of all time

calling for a blanket dance by oscar hokeath one of the most moving depictions of how a community shapes a single person's life that i've ever encountered and how complicated but worthwhile it is to break cycles of violence. every narrator was totally arresting

transgender history: the roots of today's revolution by susan stryker such a smartly organized and profoundly accessible overview of the transgender experience in the u.s. a nice personal reminder of how affirming it feels to read about the queer past!!

last exit by max gladstone gladstone hive never loses. a rip-roaring urban fantasy that so so smartly interrogates the corrosiveness of the american cowboy ideology. made me cry about the possibility of making a better world than the one we live in (complimentary)

the sleeping car porter by suzette mayr fast-paced but richly detailed historical fiction about a queer Black man working on a train in 1929. the most visceral depiction of fatigue and the surreality of sleep deprivation i've ever read

i keep my exoskeletons to myself by marisa crane i need everyone and their mom to read this when it comes out in jan 2023. speculative fiction about queer family and grief and the failure of punitive justice with a striking poetic sensibility. maybe my favorite child character in fiction that i've read recently??? invites deep thought about abolition and what it means to resist the state by loving and protecting others

burnt offerings by robert marasco absolute banger of a horror novel. 99% creeping dread (complimentary), with the kind of 70s pulp prose that i just love. excellent entry in the hungry house genre and a very fun exploration of anxieties around stay-at-home moms feeling stifled by their role

carrie by stephen king hot take but this guy is kind of a good writer!!! i live in a society so i knew the broad strokes of the story but i didn't realize there were epistolatory elements—we love lil experiments in form!!! honestly felt more like a tragedy than a horror novel—there's such a dreadful sense of inevitability throughout, even as you can see glimpses of a world in which carrie could be happy and protected from cruelty and violence

even though i knew the end by c.l. polk honestly???? huge win for gay ppl who were raised catholic, anyone fixated on barbara stanwyck in double indemnity, and those who have a fake good version of the cw's supernatural that lives in their head (me)

i've read 64 books total (just shy of my goal of 69!!!), only 6 of which i had included in my list of 2022 releases i was most excited, so the clown nose stays on for the foreseeable future.

books i am most excited kick off 2023 with:

tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow by gabrielle zevin (my irl book club's january pick). zevin's YA novel elsewhere freaked my bean as a teen, and i'm thrilled to finally read the book that literally every outlet has included on their best of 2022 list

the city we became & the world we make by n.k. jemison (got halfway through the first book and purchased the second during my december trip to nyc). handshake meme between this duology and dimension 20's the unsleeping city and the dnd game i'm in rn. it's about places being made of people and what it means to resist commodification!!! very close to home while living in austin in this economy!!!

the stars undying by emery robin (just got from my library hold list). queer space opera adaptation of cleopatra's life???? i'm often skeptical of shakespearian adaptations bc i feel like they often flatten the plays but a friend loved and blurbed this one so curiosity has gotten the better of me. also i am not immune to dyke marc antony

the spear cuts through water by simon jimenez (i need to pick up the copy i ordered from bookwoman today or tomorrow). stories about stories??? on MY tbr??? it's more likely than you think

fingers crossed for 69 books FOR REAL in 2023, a lil more nonfiction, and more restraint re: buying books so i can make more headway on the enormous pile of books by my bed

#book blogging on main #sincerely making this post was one of the most satisfying ways to say goodbye to this year

5 notes · View notes

thecaffeinebookwarrior · 4 years ago

Text

Monster of the Week: The Undead!

From spooky scary skeletons to the original zombies, let’s have a look at the undead who have risen around the globe! This will not include vampires (which I have already compiled a post on) or ghosts (which I plan to compile a post on.)

Note that many of these can best be understood -- or only understood -- in their original cultural context, and I encourage you to continue your research if the lore interests you.

Skeletons/Skeletal Creatures

I am, for whatever reason, enthusiastic about skeletons. There’s a drama to them. They look like they’re perpetually grinning, or grimacing, which makes them oddly relatable. As an artist, I’m always thinking about them as the framework for poses.

More importantly, there’s one in all of us -- sorry if that made you uncomfortable -- which makes them a universally recurring being in global folklore. Let’s take a look at just a few.

Gashadokuro

Literally translating to “rattling skull,” the Gashadokuro is also called Odokoru (giant skull) or simply “the hungry skeleton.” That basically tells you all you need to know.

These big boys (and I mean REALLY big) wander around the countryside at night. Their name derives from the eerie rattling noise produced by their giant skulls. As chill as this may sound, the Gashadokuro is not actually chill at all, and if you come across them they will not hesitate bite your head off. This may seem like a jerk move, since they don’t even have a stomach, but they need the energy of the living in order to sustain themselves.

Like most undead fellas on this list, the Gashadokuro has its origins in the real world. They are thought to originate from the mass-graves, usually of those who died under violent or inhumane circumstances, the supernatural byproduct of countless skeletons.

The first Gashadokuro was thought to have originated after a specific bloody rebellion, in which the bereaved, sorceress daughter of a samurai summoned a giant skeleton from the mass grave of the rebelling soldiers and used it to attack the city. Queen behavior, if you ask me.

Santa Muerte

Image Source

Let’s conclude this portion with my favorite skeleton (excluding Baron Samedi, who doesn’t count, as he is often depicted as a man, or a man with a skull-like face), the goddess/folk saint Santa Muerte.

I still have a lot to learn about the rich folklore surrounding Santa Muerte, but to my understanding, she was born of a combination of pre-Columbian Indigenous religions and Mexican-American folk Catholicism.

Depicted as a skeleton in beautiful, feminine attire and considered to be embodiment of death, Santa Muerte is a healing and protective figure. She is beloved by legions of worshippers, despite condemnations from the Catholic church, and symbolizes a culturally positive relationship with death.

Despite appearances, she is a life-affirming figure.

Zombies and Reanimated Corpses:

The Draugr

When we hear “zombie,” we don’t traditionally think of “Norse mythology.” And yet, the Nordics had their very own zombie mythos, boasting some truly terrifying undead.

It is said that they first emerge from their graves as little more than wisps of smoke and a stench of decay, before adopting a humanoid form that boasts superhuman strength, the ability to change size at will, and the ability to shape-shift.

They aren’t mindless -- far from it. They boast an anthropomorphic intelligence, which makes them all the more dangerous.

As to what drives them from their graves? Jealousy and bitterness towards the living. Relatable, honestly.

The Jiangshi

(Note: I wish they were all as adorable as the one in this gif.)

This Chinese hopping corpse may have evolved into more of a vampire by Western influences, but it was originally far more zombie-like. And a unique zombie at that.

Due to rigor mortis, the Jiangshi hops stiffly from place to place, holding its arms straight out. What’s even more singular is their origin. Try to guess. Go ahead, try. You won’t be able to.

The Jiangshi is what occurs when a bereaved family, lacking the proper funds to send their loved one’s body back to their ancestral land for burial, hires a necromancing corpse driver to reanimate the cadaver and guide it as it hops back to its resting place. They’d travel at night to avoid or minimize decay, either prodded by a stick or to the beat of a drum.

Other ways to create a Jiangshi include improper burial, suicide, or possession.

Looking upon a Jiangshi is said to be bad luck, and presumably very unpleasant. However, the real problem is their insatiable appetite.

But fear not: if you see an unhealthy looking fellow hopping towards you with pasty, possibly decaying skin, you can protect yourself with mirrors, the hooves of a black donkey, or the wood of a peach tree. They can also be scared off by the sound of a crowing rooster, though that would require a bit of planning, and the cooperation of the rooster in question. Which, knowing roosters, is unlikely.

Haitian Zombies

All legends of the undead have roots in real tragedies, but this one is particularly upsetting -- and the source of the zombie legend in the Western world today.

The enslaved people of Haiti believed that death would set them free, sending them back to an idyllic version of their homeland unburdened by colonialism. But only if death came naturally. Suicide would turn them into mindless husks, carrying out the drudgery of their captors. A haunting parallel to the practice of slavery itself.

The concept was introduced to a contemporary audience by the 1932 film White Zombie, which sees a white “voodoo master” (who clearly didn’t know anything about the actual Voodoo religion) using witchcraft to create obedient slaves. He eventually uses this (ahem) “”voodoo”” on a white woman to try and force her to fall in love with him.

With the term “zombie” in public consciousness, it became an applicable allegory for all of society’s ills, and can now be used to refer to anything from mob mentality to consumerism. But few are as haunting and as disturbing as its origins.

Videos on zombies:

The Origin of the Zombie, from Haiti to the US

Where Zombies Come From

100 Hundred Years of Zombie Evolution in Pop Culture

Best Contemporary Zombie Movies*

*That I know of. Will update with more.

Night of the Living Dead - Though White Zombie introduced the term, it was arguably this film that popularized zombies as we know them today, particularly as an allegory for herd mentality and consumerism. Its successors, including Day of the Dead and Dawn of the Dead, prove similarly influential.

The Evil Dead Trilogy - Established that zombies can be fun, while also serving as an allegory for various societal problems. Also features undead that are refreshingly ravenous and evil without necessarily being mindless.

The Re-Animator - These days, the average zombie movie pushes the bounds of creativity is “make ‘em faster!” The Re-Animator’s take on the genre, however, would make Mary Shelley proud. Based loosely on the Lovecraft story, “Herbert West - Reanimator,” the films greatest triumph is its ability to have fun with its grisly premise, and compel the audience to have fun, too. It’s also a cautionary tale about why it’s important to be careful while getting a roommate.

Shaun of the Dead - I’m not kidding. This film is great, and shows that you don’t need a serious tone to be heartfelt, scary, or provide a thought-provoking social commentary. Way back when I was a sixteen-year-old college freshman, I turned up to class as a zombie cheerleader, and my psychology professor recommended Shaun of the Dead to me. She’s a woman of impeccable taste, and it did not disappoint.

28 Days Later - Before Cillian Murphy gave us Tommy Shelby, a gangster so pretty he could give Al Capone a sexual identity crisis, he was proving his mettle in the zombie-addled UK. For 2020 reasons, watching him wander the abandoned streets of London with a questionable haircut feels very topical. Add a stellar performance from Naomie Harris, and there’s a reason it sent me into a bisexual panic it’s considered a modern classic of the genre.

Little Monsters - An egregiously underrated flick, featuring a kindergarten teacher (who happens to be, you know, Lupita Nyong’o) protecting her class during a zombie outbreak. A must watch if you want a zombie movie with a powerhouse lead, a happy ending, and perhaps the most badass kindergarten teacher in cinematic history.

#monster of the week #writers reference #writers resources #skeletons #zombies #blood for ts #racism mention for ts

155 notes · View notes

jackest-jack · 4 years ago

Note

I would very much like to hear about your spooky scary Sirens, pretty please 🥺

AJKSJAKISJAJAJF Ok so I almost had a heart attack when I saw you were following me because YOU’RE SO COOL so thank you

I already wrote about my spooky scary sirens over here, and they have pictures and I would be willing to write a short thing with them later but for right now I’m gonna pick a different thing and blab about it.

The most fleshed out and cohesive thing I have is the vampire band nerd slasheresque story with a police chase followup as well as a separate zombie apocalypse thing, so ig I’ll go with that. More under cut and warning for like a lot of gore and death and angst. I’m also only doing the first part of that because this is taking a long ass time

I came up with this in junior high, and I was in band, and I noticed that each instrument section had different personalities sort of, so I made characters around that and put them in a horror plot where they all die horribly, because what else are you gonna do? This is gonna be a plot rundown and it might get real long. (It is no longer a rundown. Its just unedited word vomit.)

anyways a bunch of friends, who I’m just gonna call by their instrument names, go camping in the woods for a couple weeks. They all take one car and set up in the middle of fuckin nowhere.

Clarinets a vampire pretending to be a high schooler for kicks, because she was 15 when she turned 5 years ago and got dragged away to the magic underworld (basically a series of safehouses and towns for the supernatural) and she wants a letterman goddamnit.

She gets adopted into a friendgroup despite her best efforts, and gets dragged along on the camping trip in the small car and close quarters with a buddy system and she hasn’t eaten anything substantial in like two months and its proving to be a problem when she starts thinking of her friends as snacks instead of people.

one night, percussionist gets up to go on a 3 am lake walk. But, the buddy system. So he takes Clarinet, who never seems to sleep anyways, with him.

They’re on the edge of a lake littered with huge old chunks of driftwood, looking out over the water, when Percussionist steps on something sharp. It went straight through his sandal and he pulls it out without much trouble, but “that nail looks kind of rusty and I’m Pretty Sure I’m bleeding a little bit, oh I hope I don’t need a shot-“

she falls on him like a cat on a wounded songbird. She has enough of her mind left to cover his mouth and stop the screams as he slowly loses blood.

He tries to fight back. He does. he jams the nail deep into her throat and twists away, but she catches his wrist and slams him backward, a sharp stick going through his stomach, sticking him bloody at the base of an old driftwood branch still attached to its old tree.

She stops draining just before he dies. And she waits, and waits, and waits. Finally, hours later, the corpse takes a deep gasp and its eyes fly open. It begins the excruciating process of pulling itself off the tree.

his wound is closed less than a minute later.

he comes to and sees her sobbing on the ground, bloody streaks under her eyes from where she tried to wipe away her tears with hands soaked from putting pressure on his stomach in a feeble attempt to save him.

“Vampires, huh?” He says, half joking, half looking for an explanation.

—-—

they’re sitting around a small campfire, and Clarinet tells him that he’s a vampire, he needs blood, he cant go back to camp or he will eat his friends. She leaves to find him something substantial before he loses it.

back at the original camp, its around sunrise. Flute notices a small trail of smoke not far off, realizes that Percussionist is missing, and gets French Horn to help him look for their idiot friend (and maybe put out a small fire.)

They make it about 3/4th of the way to the smoke when flute trips on a tree root and scrapes his knee. About a mile away, Percussionists head perks up.

He distantly realizes that he just left the campfire that he’s supposed to stay at, but he can‘t seem to care. The hunger doesn’t gnaw at him or hollow him out. Its not like looking for a fix either. Its an itch in his whole body, a near unavoidable function of his being. The hunt is as natural as a cough, a spasm of muscles to take away the awful itch.

He moves faster than he ever could before, and just to see if he can, he jumps up and begins running across the branches of trees. Its slower, but sneakier; his prey won’t see him coming.

Finally, he reaches them. He jumps on the smaller one, sending it crashing to the ground. It’s blood is what brought him here. He sinks his hollow teeth into its neck and begins feeding.

There is a scream and a crash as the taller one runs away. Thats ok. He only needs one.

———

French horn, for her part, is freaking the fuck out. The sun had just peaked over the horizon and orange light was streaming through the trees when everything went to shit.

The pale thing had fallen on Flute, and the noise he made… she was almost certain he was dead now.

She kept running. If she could make it back to camp, then maybe she could get help, or maybe leave before the rest of them died too.

She charges through a thicket, sharp thorns scraping and tearing every inch of her as she shoves her way through. She shuts her eyes as she goes, to avoid the thorns poking them out.

When she comes out the other side, she feels her gut sink.

She doesn’t recognize the trees or bushes around her. She doesn’t see a path.

She’s lost.

She wants to break down, to scream and cry the injustice to the heavens, to kick and punch and fight the thing that killed her friend, to sit down and rest and have a moment to breathe, to be home-

She picks a direction and runs.

———

Percussionist stops draining Flute just before he‘s dead, following the instinct that drove him to where he is.

He wants to be horrified. He does, really. But he was so hungry, and the itch is still there, waiting beneath his skin to pounce on him again. But for now, its gone, and he can think clearly. He can move without the instinct tainting his every twitch.

He turns to look at the person he drained and sees-

He sees his friend. And it hits him all at once.

He killed a person, a person he knew, a person he cared for, and he had been powerless to stop it. He didn’t even know- he didn’t realize- he would never have done it if he-

but he knew he would have. Even if he knew. He would’ve killed Flute, and he hates himself for that.

So he sits by the body of his dead friend, maybe in solace, maybe because some instinctive tick tells him to. He doesn’t want to know. He refuses to.

When Flute sat up and gasped, Percussionist could‘ve sworn he had a heart attack (even without a functioning heart.)

To Flutes credit, he made it through Percussionists halting and confused explanation before letting himself ask about the smell.

”what smell?” Percussionist asked, and lifted his nose to the air.

He got his answer. The smell of blood, salty and sweet and with a coppery tinge to it drifted through the air, leaving a hunger and odd comfort sitting in his gut. It reminded him of smelling baking cookies from the kitchen as a kid.

A leaf crunched, and he snapped out of his trance. Flute had stood up and broken into a run, faster than any human could’ve gone. After the person that had been with him.

After his friend.

Percussionist sprinted after him.

——

He had the chance to notice how fast he was really going, now that he could think through the hunger. He practically flew through the forest, leaping over a fallen log half his size that blocked his way. He ducked and dodged branches that threatened to slash his face, and if he were running for something else he may have threw his head back and laughed.

As it was, he was following the occasional red flash of a windbreaker that he could barely keep up with without being hit by a tree.

He could heal now right? Did he really even need to be worried about being hit by trees?

He let one slap his face just to test, and he felt the stinging pain all across his face as a deep cut opened across his nose and eyes. He faltered as his vision went red with blood. A second later, it was gone, and he could see again. ….And he‘d lost flute. Great.

He sniffed the air, remembering how he’d been able to smell the blood, and tried to look for his friend.

He could smell the whole forest. Sap and pine and rotting leaves, rotten flesh and mushrooms and a skunk miles and miles off, the sweet sting of honey and dew and campfire smoke, and over it all, the most lovely smell-

Well, looks like he couldn’t find him that way. He thought for a moment, and groaned. He could just follow French Horn and get to her first!

He began running again.

———

Clarinet had just made it back to the campsite, a live deer kicking around over her shoulder. She would’ve killed it, but she couldn’t quite figure out how without losing any of its blood, and since she drained and seriously injured Percussionist he would need a lot of blood-

and the campfire had a suspicious lack of vampires around it. Great. She could only hope that no one had cut themselves-

She stopped as the scent of blood hit her nose. She cursed and took off running, dropping the deer as she did.

——

French Horn thought she was going to die when she heard a bush rustle and snap behind her. She had stopped for a rest, thinking she was safe (if very lost). She was braced for her death when Percussionist crashed through the bushes.

”Oh, good, you’re still alive. We need to go like right now.”

Before she could protest, he grabbed her wrist and began pulling her away. With his very cold, very pale hand.

”Wait. Was it you?” She said, planting her feet.

”Yes.” his voice was solemn, and his eyes downcast. “But unless you want Flute to get you, we need to go”

She tore her wrist out of his grasp.

“Flutes dead. Flute’s dead and you killed him!”

And Flute hit her from the side. He sank his teeth deep into her neck, but only for a moment. Then he pulled back, looking horrified and ran away.

French Horn stands up dazedly. “That was…”

”Yeah.”

she lifts a hand to her bleeding neck where the bite is still gushing blood.

A rustle of trees comes from the side, and Clarinet skids to a stop in front of them. She takes in the situation and drops to her knees, tearing loose a piece of her shirt and holding it to the holes in French Horn’s neck.

”Wheres the third?”

French horn points to the copse of trees he disappeared into.

”I think we might actually be jinxed.” A pause, then “That was supposed to be a joke. Go after him. He’s heading towards the camp, and chances are he won’t be able to stop himself a second time.”

Percussionist nods, and then stops. “How do I get there?”

”just run straight! GO!”

and he does.

———

Clarinet gently explains to French Horn that vampires are real, and that she is one. When asked why she isn’t bloodthirsty, Clarinet answers that she has a lot of blood left in her still, and that she’s not all the way changed, and that the change will, in her words, “Stink. Its kind of the worst thing you’ll have to go through, and it’ll take way longer since you have blood, and you may not notice at first.“

French Horn pursed her lips. “Theres no way to stop it?”

Clarinet shook her head.

”Okay. Okay, shouln’t we help Percussionist?”

Clarinet swore. “You won’t be much help in the state you’re in, but I can drop you off by the camp. Pack our things and be ready to go.”

Clarinet scooped French Horn up and took off into the woods.

———

Percussionist got there just as Tuba was ripping Flute off of his neck.

Despite Flute being the smallest out of all of them, and Tuba being the strongest, he was struggling to keep the scrabbling, biting Flute away.

So, Percussionist did the only logical thing and full body tackled Flute, trying to hold him down. It worked, sort of. Long enough for Tuba to start running. Long enough for Sax and Trombone to see what the ruckus was.

Flute burst out of Percussionists grip, grabbed Trombone and ran.

Sax sprinted after them, and percussionist was left in the dust, standing dumbstruck as they all dashed off. He snapped out of it when Trumpet pressed an axe to his shoulder and told him to not move.

———

Flute knows this: he is very hungry. He also knows that blood tastes very good.

His last two meals escaped. He thinks he let the first go, but he can’t seem to remember why. The second was ripped away from him by someone like him, which was rather rude.

But this one won’t get away. He is far to hungry to let that happen.

He feeds as he runs, draining the squirming thing dry, pinning its flailing limbs against his chest. It stops wailing eventually.

He slows as he becomes able to think clearly again. He holds the body in his arms and revels in the fact he is no longer hungry. Then, he looks at the thing he drained.

And it’s his friend. He feels his stomach drop, and a hollow pit grow in his chest. His friend is dead, and it’s his fault. He tells himself there’s nothing to do but run, so he does.

Really, though, he just doesn’t want to see what she’ll become.

———

“What did you do to them.” Said Trumpet, each word slow and dangerous. She lifted the axe off his shoulder, and he felt relief before he realized she was lining up to take off his head.

He may be able to heal, but he did not want to see how far that ability stretched. Not like this, at least.

He swallowed his fear and asked, ”What makes you think I did something?“

She barked out a harsh laugh. “You go missing in the middle of the night with Clarinet, who still isn’t back. Flute and French Horn go to look for you and have mysteriously disappeared. Tuba came running from this direction, bleeding like a stuck pig. And here I find you, in the center of it all.”

Ah. He was fucked. Time to implement the worst plan ever, considering how fast Trumpet was.

”that’s- that sure is some pretty overwhelming evidence that I did something. I swear I didn’t, though but I know you won’t believe me so I’m just gonna RUN!”

He ducked under the axe she swung at his head, and took off running into the trees. He glanced behind him to see her struggling to keep up, and grinned. He was actually getting away with his head, and beating Trumpet in a footrace for once-

He turned back around just in time to see the tree that crumpled his skull.

———

He wished he could say he didn’t feel every excruciating twitch of his skull righting itself as he laid there. As it was, it was painful enough he was functionally passed out.

Which is why he was surprised to see trumpet dragging him by his feet deep into the woods.

Not half as surprised as trumpet, who dropped his feet and swore when he sat up and gasped.

”What the hell? You were dead! that killed you!” She yelled.

Percussionist was still reeling from how much growing his skull back sucked, and latched on to the first thing he noticed.

”Did you steal my shoes?”

”what are you?” She asked in a tone that was decidedly horrified.

He fiddled with a piece of grass somewhere to his left. “A vampire, as of yesterday. Really though, why do you have my shoes?”

“Not important. What do you mean as of yesterday?”

”Last night, really. Me and Clarinet-“

”Clarinet and I.” She said.

”Whatever. We went on a walk and turns out she’s always been a vampire, and then she did the vampire thing, and now I’m a vampire, and things have just been spiraling from there-”

”That explains a lot, actually. Who else is a vampire?”

Percussionist, feeling slightly more alive, realized they weren’t by the camp anymore.

”Where are we? Why do you have my shoes, and why are you so calm about this?”

”oh.” She said. “I may have made an action plan for something like this. You know, in case of murderers, or if supernatural stuff was real.”

”thats cool. Why steal my shoes?“

”I was framing you for murder.”

an awkward silence settled over them.

”We should get back to camp. Stop more people from getting vampired and all.”

”Yeah. Lets do that.“

———

Sax skidded to a stop in front of Trombones body. She was limp, and pale, and by all accounts dead. He whipped out his phone to call anyone, anyone at all, and pitched it into a tree when it read no service.

He sat, and he cried by his best friend, who always made the shittiest puns, who was the worst at sports, who thought anything with soulmates was stupid but still read all the stuff he suggested her. Who was dead.

He was still crying when she sat up and latched onto his neck, draining him dry.

———

French Horn and Clarinet ran across Tuba, who was holding gauze to his neck where he had been bit. French Horn was starting to feel slightly feverish, but otherwise okay.

”Guys! Are you okay? The weirdest thing just happened.” He said.

”We need to leave.” Said Clarinet. “Now.”

”No argument here. Have you guys seen Flute? He was with you last time I saw him.“

French Horn and Clarinet shared a look.

“I’ll go find him. You two pack. we leave before dusk.”

They watched as she disappeared into the leaves.

”Whats going on?” Asked tuba, a hint of worry in his voice.

French Horn took a deep breath in before saying “Vampires are real.”

Tuba burst out laughing.

“Oh. You’re serious.” He said as he hefted a tent into the back of the van.

”you don’t believe me.”

“How could I? I haven’t seen any proof that they exist.”

She threw a bag of trash in the van with more force than nessecary.

“What attacked you then?”

At this he paused. “I don’t know. But I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a vampire.”

———

Percussionist and Trumpet made it to where Trombone was crying over Sax, the late afternoon sun reflecting off of their now pale skin.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay. He’ll be alright.”

Trombone looked up at him and snarled, all teeth and rage, and Percussionist jumped back.

”He’ll end up like me, won’t he.”

Percussionist nodded.

”I don’t know what world you’re living in, but this isn’t fucking alright!”

Trumpet walked over and knelt in front of Trombone. She held out her hand, and Trombone scrambled away.

”I don’t believe you would hurt me. Not right now. I know you didn’t do it on purpose.”

”so what?” She scoffed. “I still did it. Should I just go on existing as whatever I am now? Just kill people so I can live?”

”Actually,“ Percussionist said, “we can live off of different types of blood.”

Trumpet looked back and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Shut up you twatwaffle, can’t you see this is a delicate moment?”

”just figured it would be some good information to have.“ he said.

“Are you seriously telling me my angst fest was for nothing?” She asked.

Percussionist leaned against a tree. “Oh, don‘t worry.” He said. “Theres still plenty of angst about the immortality.”

“Sax did always say he wanted to be sixteen forever.”

Trumpet rolled her eyes. “Lets go home.”

Trombone reached out to take Trumpets hand, and Sax shot up and clamped his jaws around her throat. Trombone grabbed Trumpets wrist and pulled her away as Percussionist peeled Sax away.

”Let him.“ choked out Trumpet. “I‘ll be one of you either way.”

”Absolutely not!” Said Percussionist. “Trombone, go find literally anything else with blood.” Sax kicked and snarled in his grip. “Hurry! I’m not sure how much longer I can hold him.”

———

“Flute!” Yelled Clarinet. She had been looking for him for an hour now, and still couldn’t find him.

She was walking along an old trail that went out of use years ago when she almost tripped over him. He was curled up in the shade of a tree, hiding away in a hollow.

“What do you want.”

”I want to take you home.” She said.

he laughed. “Something like me doesn’t deserve a home. I killed people, and I knew there was another way, but I did it anyway. Just leave me here to rot.”

She remembered when she’d been like this. She had forgotten to eat, had slipped up. Its not a hard thing to do. When you’re a vampire, you brain tricks you into feeling fine by your old standards until you‘re so hungry you can’t stop it.

She believed it was all her fault, though. The only way someone had gotten through to her was something they had called twisting the knife. She had always called it shitty.

She sighed. “I wanted to say sorry.”

He poked his head out a little, peering up at her. “You didn’t do anything.”

”But I did.” She said. “I drained percussionist dry last night, and then I left him to find you. I watched while you attacked your friends, and now, I’m giving you a chance to fix the harm we caused. What will you do with it?”

”You made me like this?” He asked.

”Yes.”

he lunged at her face, fingers clawing for her eyes. She turned around and ran for the campsite, making sure he was behind her, and praying that he would forgive her for the stunt she just pulled.

———

The campsite was packed, and Percussionist and Trombone had made a game of who could catch the best songbird for Sax. Sax was less murderously inclined, though it was hard to tell if it was because the blood he had consumed or trumpets growing nonhumanness.

After the third or fourth time of watching Sax suck down a bird or squirrel like a juice box, Tuba was forced to admit that maybe vampires were a little real.

(He noticed his neck wound had already scabbed over and was halfway gone. He was afraid to ask if he was becoming one.)

The sun was slipping behind the tops of the trees when Clarinet charged out of the forest, leapt over the van, And yelled “Flutes trying to kill me!”

Flute burst into the clearing and lunged at Clarinet. Percussionist stepped in the way.

”What happened?“

”She did this in purpose! She said she dropped you in the woods to kill us!”

Percussionists blinked. “No she didn’t. She told me to stay where I was while she got something for me to eat.”

he stopped yelling. Now, he just looked confused. “But she turned you.”

”Yeah? It was an accident. She obviously regretted it.”

Percussionist backed off, and Flute looked at clarinet.

”why did you say all that then?”

“You were’t gonna come with me if I didn’t. Besides, you were spiraling and this was the easiest way to stop that.”

”Sounds like the shittiest way to stop it, too.” Scoffed Tuba.

She sighed. “Yeah. It was.”

”Hey,” asked sax. “Are any of us still human? I know me, Percussionist, and Trombone aren’t-“

”Percussionist, Trombone, and I.” Said Trumpet.

”-And I saw you two jump over my van, but whats up with the rest of you?”

”Basically,” said Clarinet, “anyone who was bit is or will become a vampire, depending on how much blood they had left in them after the bite. Was there anyone who wasn’t bit?”

everyone was silent as they all glanced at each other, looking for anyone who could say yes. It quickly became awkward, and was broken by Clarinet muttering “Fuck.” quietly under her breath.

”Who all, um, died today?”

Flute, Sax, and Trombone slowly raised their hands. Clarinet squinted at Percussionist, which prompted him to say “What? I died last night.”

French Horn yelled “past twenty four hours, dingus.”

He rolled his eyes and raised his hand.

”Alright. You three,” -she made a sweeping gesture towards the three with their hands down- “Are going to have the worst couple weeks of your life. Take a few days off of everything. Don’t go to the hospital. Stay isolated. Call me when the pain’s mostly over.”

Tuba’s lips pursed. “What, exactly, is going to happen to us?”

”The way it was explained to me was that your body slowly cannibalizes itself. It sucks.”

”hm.” He said. He looked very troubled.

They got in the van and drove through the night.

For now, they rest. A short break, before they have to figure out the rest of their lives.

#Not a super satisfying ending I know #Not the best writing I could’ve done either #I’m already planning out a sequel for how things go that will get into the nitty gritty of their character #And hopefully give them real names #THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A PLOT SUMMARY WHAT WHENT WRONG #(It started out as a kiss how did it end up like this)#Its still basically the bulletpoints version of this story with some banter mixed in #I did actually have a concrete well thought out(ish) plan #Then the characters (mostly trumpet and tuba) said “no thanks we’re too cool for your shit/to much of a himbo” respectively #And honestly? They’re right #Please keep in mind I made this when I was like 12-13 and havent developed it much since then but I love em all the same #I could be persuaded to attempt to draw them #Or at least picrew them #Anyways that took way too long thank you for sitting through this with me #Writing #my writing #oc #ocs #my ocs #writeblr #Bandpires

19 notes · View notes

holy-honeybees · 4 years ago

Text

Snowdrift

AO3

Rating: T+ (for swearing)

Summary: Three friends and their dog get lost in a snowstorm while investigating the paranormal. Amidst swirling flurries of white, some lose their way and get lost in their memories, others lose sight of their friends and loved ones, and an unforgiving winter quickly fills in the footprints one would follow to get back home.

Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

Chapter One

Chapter Nine

It wasn’t long before the trees had closed in behind them as Vivi and Mystery headed deeper into the dark forest. The blue-haired girl trudged forwards relentlessly, ignoring the snow that trickled into her boots, making her socks cold and wet. With the heavy canopy of clouds overhead blocking out the moonlight, the trees melted into the inky black night. The only source of illumination was the flashlight Vivi held, the white snow it reflected off of almost blinding in comparison to their dark surroundings. Normally she would have been thrilled to be exploring spooky woods in the middle of the night, but now, her sense of unease over her missing friend was only compounded by the unsettling atmosphere.

“Arthur!” Vivi called. Her words were quickly snatched away by the wind whistling between the tree trunks. Mystery quietly padded through the snow beside her, vigilantly observing his surroundings. He scented the air frequently for a trace of the missing mechanic, but all they had managed to find was their way deeper into the foreboding woods. She couldn’t believe how much things had changed since yesterday, feeling almost foolish for how they had frolicked and played in the snow which now seemed so menacing.

“Arthur!” she cried again, hugging her friend’s abandoned hoodie closer to her chest. She could only hope that the howling winds would carry her words to the mechanic rather than further away from him.

“We’ll find him,” Mystery said, but Vivi could see how his ears were pressed back, flat against his head. A clear sign he was worried, despite his assurances.

“I know, I know…” Vivi said, trying to summon her confidence, “But what if we don’t? We have no idea how long he’s been gone. We don’t even know where to look. What if…?”

“It’s not like you to doubt yourself so much,” Mystery replied.

“It’s just…What are we even doing out here?” Vivi said, “We’re only out here because I wanted it to be like before. Before the cave. Back when our friendship was easy, when everything was easy. With road trips and ghost hunts that usually didn’t have any ghosts at the end and Arthur and Lewis were best friends and everything was okay. But it’s not okay.” Mystery regarded her thoughtfully.

“I too wish things could be different,” he replied, “I know our experiences have been very different over the past year, though painful for us both. It’s easy to look back on something to say it was okay then when it isn’t now, regardless of how true that may be.” By the faraway look in his eyes, Vivi knew Mystery wasn’t only thinking of the cave just then. She wondered, not for the first time, just how deep his roots with Shiromori had run.

“Not even I can turn back time,” Mystery continued, “All we can hope to do is to learn from that which haunts us and use it to keep moving forwards. While it won’t bring us back to yesterday, you may find yourself with a new kind of ‘okay’.”

“That’s just it,” Vivi said miserably, “I haven’t learned. I’m supposed to be the leader, but all I ever do is lead everyone into danger. First the cave, now this!”

“Don’t punish yourself for not knowing then what you know now. I have centuries more experience dealing with the supernatural than you do, extrasensory abilities far above your own, and I missed it too. Yet you don’t blame me.”

“No, I don’t,” Vivi agreed softly, “It’s just… Am I selfish? I know Arthur gets scared so easily, yet I’ve been pushing him to go on these ghost hunts for years. He and Lewis are still trying to get used to each other again, but now I’ve dragged them out to the middle of nowhere, just because the memories of what we were are so fresh in my mind and I want it back so bad.”

“I don’t think you’re selfish, no,” Mystery replied evenly, “Bold about what you do and don’t want. Passionate about the things you care about, including your friends. Exuberant in wanting to share what brings you joy with others. But you’re not forcing anyone to do anything or be anywhere they don’t want to be. They love you, Vivi, and Lewis and Arthur would do almost anything for you. They are capable of making their own decisions though. They want to fix this as badly as you do.” Vivi sniffled, blaming her runny nose on the cold and her stinging eyes on the wind that still whipped about.

“I can’t lose them again,” she said, “I just got back our memories together, I just got them back.”

“I know,” Mystery said, “And that’s why we’ll keep searching until we find him.” Vivi nodded vigorously in response, turning away from the kitsune to resume her scan of the surrounding forest.

Despite her earlier protests, Vivi was glad Mystery had accompanied her in the search for Arthur, his familiar presence comforting. She wondered if she would have been as open with her concerns had it been Lewis by her side. She was certain her ghostly friend would be supportive through whatever insecurities she voiced, but Vivi struggled to balance vulnerability and leadership. Sometimes it felt as if everybody expected her to be happy all the time. She was thankful that, frequently, she was, but sometimes it felt like she wasn’t allowed to not be okay. As if she had to carry on like nothing was wrong and be the same bold, brave, bubbly Vivi she always was. How could she be anything but when someone else needed her to be strong? Mystery was always there for her though, even when she couldn’t muster up her usual smile. Despite her outgoing nature, she had at times struggled to fit in and make friends, considered to be too strange or unusual. But Mystery would be at her side, ready to comfort her, whenever she felt sad or lonely. He was a great listener, even before she knew he could talk. She remembered hours spent quietly confessing her worries to her pet dog late at night, running her hand through Mystery’s fur as she talked, curled up on the couch with a mug of hot tea and B-rated horror movies playing in the background. Vivi shook her head, willing her focus to return to the task at hand. The harder she tried to pull herself out of her recollections though, the further she found herself sinking into them. She was back in her childhood home, curled up cozy and warm on the old couch in the living room, rain hammering on the windows as thunder rumbled in the distance. She hugged Mystery tight as she described her latest encounter with the mean girls at school, the static of the falling snow in the forest and the TV screen blending together.

---

“I know, and that’s why we’ll keep searching until we find him,” Mystery said as he continued to pad through the snow. He wished he could take more time to reassure Vivi. It was rare for her to be so plagued by self-doubt, but he too was worried for the mechanic. He hadn’t told the others, not wanting to frighten them further, but Arthur’s scent had already begun to fade by the time they had discovered him missing. Mystery couldn’t be certain how long the mechanic had been gone, but with the frigid temperatures, any amount of time could already be too long. I was so sure they were safe this time, he thought, I was so sure I would keep them safe.He wondered at what point he had come to care for humans so much. As a young fox kit, he held little appreciation for humanity and their short lives. Meeting Mushi and being bound to the service of the Yukino family had done nothing to change his mind at first, but over time, he’d gone from reluctant guardian to best friend of an excitable, blue-haired little girl. Mystery refocused his attention on his surroundings, straining all his senses for a sign the mechanic had passed this way. While the tree branches hung low with their heavy burden of snow, the kitsune had yet to see any that had been broken or left askew to indicate someone had passed this way before them. His sense of smell was overwhelmed by the color white, and Mystery had little hope of being able to detect the mechanic that way. Even Vivi’s presence, less than ten feet away, was clouded by the supernatural snowfall. His ears were pricked, but all he heard was the howling of the winter winds.

Mystery came to an abrupt halt as he realized that he was no longer hearing the crunch of snow under his companion’s boots.

He knew before he even turned around that something was wrong, but seeing the confusion on Vivi’s face confirmed it. Mystery wondered if she was having another memory lapse. While she had regained her memories, occasionally something slipped out of place. Sometimes she remembered things slightly wrong, or there was a blank space where there hadn’t been before. Despite her progress with recovery, Mystery knew it frustrated the blue-haired girl to no end. Still, the lapses were getting less frequent, and the problem usually corrected itself shortly after discovery with some gentle encouragement and prompting from her friends.

Something was different this time. Something was off.

“Mystery, where… Where are we?” Vivi asked, looking around with a puzzled expression. The fox spirit regarded her uneasily.

“Are you having a lapse?” He asked.

“I…yes? No? Maybe, I don’t know. What are we doing out here? How did we get out here?”

“What’s the last thing you remember?”

“Me and Arthur are getting together to plan Lewis’s surprise party. He’d be turning 23 this year, and after everything that’s happened, I think we deserve a break.”

Mystery remembered that night. It had been almost two months ago.

This wasn’t just a memory lapse, it was memory loss.

“Vivi, try to remember. Last week, you gathered everyone together to look into a new case—”

“Last week? But Arthur said the repairs to the van might take a month or more after we dealt with that creep with the tarot cards. He couldn’t have fixed the van already.”

“Vivi, it’s December,” Mystery replied. The color drained from the girl’s already pale face.

“No,” Vivi said, vigorously shaking her head, “No way. I can’t be missing that much time!”

“Try to remember. Last week, you met with Arthur and Lewis at the Pepper Paradiso to look into a new case to investigate. You and Arthur ordered milkshakes, and Cayenne spiked his with hot sauce again.” The kitsune told her everything he could about the week leading up to them wandering in the woods, hoping it would trigger her memories to return. He talked about planning and packing for their trip. Arthur seeing something in the road. The almost car crash, the snowball fight, and getting snowed in. Arthur going missing. As Mystery finished his tale, Vivi suddenly doubled over, her face screwed up in pain and her hands clutching her head. The kitsune was by her side in an instant.

“What’s wrong?” Mystery asked, alarmed, “Are you hurt?”

“No, I’m okay. I…remembered. Ugh, it feels like brain freeze but worse. Stabbier,” Vivi groaned, massaging her temples, “Mystery, what was that? That didn’t feel like a lapse, not a normal one at least. I didn’t just forget something about the cave or Lewis, that was a couple of months just gone.”

Vivi peeled her head away from her hands, looking up into Mystery’s face, her worried eyes searching his for answers.

“What’s wrong with me?”

“I… I’m not sure,“ Mystery replied honestly.

“It was so strange. One moment I was here in the woods with you, but then the temperature dropped suddenly, and it was like I was transported somewhere else. Back to my childhood home.” Even as she spoke, Vivi had a pensive, faraway look in her eyes, and Mystery feared she would slip away again. The choice he had to make settled like a lead weight in his stomach. Even with the possibility that Arthur could be only ten feet in front of them, he would put Vivi first, as painful as that decision was to make.

“We should return to the van,” Mystery said. Vivi immediately straightened at his words, glaring at the kitsune.

“Absolutely not! Arthur’s still out there, we can’t just leave him!”

“Vivi, something isn’t right, and I don’t know what it is,” Mystery said urgently, “I don’t want to stop searching either, but we can’t help Arthur if we don’t first help ourselves.”

“We don’t have time! He could be in danger right now, or hurt, or—!” Vivi cut off abruptly with a violent shiver, curling in on herself tightly with a gasp. As Mystery watched, a thin, silvery wisp escaped from the girl’s mouth, disappearing into the night. When Vivi lifted her head again, the kitsune saw that the furious expression she’d had on her face just moments ago had gone curiously blank.

“What…?” The blue-haired girl mumbled. She looked around at her surroundings as if seeing them for the first time.

“Vivi?” Mystery said, padding forwards cautiously. The girl’s eyes snapped to his as soon as she heard his voice, the beam of the flashlight moving to shine on him like a spotlight. Vivi gave a yelp of surprise when she saw the kitsune. Stumbling backwards, she tripped over the thickly piled snow and landed on her rear. She continued to scramble further away until her back was pressed against a tree, refusing to take her eyes off the large fox spirit before her.

“What… What are you?” She asked, her shock tempered by curiosity. The kitsune was frozen in his tracks, too stunned to answer. He’d always dreaded this moment. Worried that the humans he had come to love so dearly would turn away from him if they found out the truth, feeling frightened or betrayed. In some ways, the events of last year had been a blessing. The frantic situation between Shiromori and his own possession had left little time for hurt feelings to surface over his secret, and the joy of having survived and reunited had swiftly washed away the worst misgivings. At the time, Vivi had quickly accepted him for what he was and just as quickly moved on, more focused on his immediate well-being than long-held secrets. He wondered if she would be so blithely accepting this time. Mystery was so preoccupied with his thoughts, he missed the look of recognition that had settled on Vivi’s face.

“…Mystery?”

---

“What…” Vivi said breathlessly, “What are you?”

The large white beast stopped advancing toward her. Had she been standing instead of sitting in the snow—when on Earth had it even begun to snow?—her head would have been at shoulder-height on the wolflike creature. Condensation billowed out of its muzzle, and she could just see the razor-sharp teeth peeking out of its mouth. Its coat was plush in appearance, with a mane of red and black fur erupting from the creature’s head. On second thought, she decided it was more foxlike in appearance, with a narrow snout and long, fluffy tails. Tails? Kitsune, then, her mind helpfully supplied, drawing on the knowledge her granny had imparted with her stories about fox spirits. Despite the creature’s size and what she could see of its fearsome set of fangs, the kitsune standing before her wasn’t all that scary. It seemed almost sad somehow. The fox spirit’s ears were drooping, and his tails hung limp, swaying in the wind. Even his brow was pinched, giving him a worried expression that looked almost human. Vivi continued to scan the creature before her with her flashlight, pausing for a moment when the beam of light glinted off of a familiar golden tag adorned with a question mark.

“…Mystery?” She recovered from her shock quickly, and Vivi couldn’t help the grin that began to spread across her face.

“I knew it! I knew you weren’t just a normal dog. I knew you were special!” She gushed, “You’re a kitsune, right? What am I saying, of course you’re a kitsune! Just look at all your tails!”

“Vivi—”

“And you can talk! This is incredible!” Vivi struggled to stand up from the deep snowbank she’d fallen into, eager to get a closer look at her kitsune companion. She must have seriously spaced out to not realize how nasty the weather had gotten or how late it was. She always had been a little scatter-brained, but the news of her father’s new job and their impending move to Tempest or Cadence or whatever this new town was called had her even more distracted than usual.

“What else can you do? You have to tell me everything!” the blue-haired girl continued as she approached this larger, fluffier version of Mystery, “Well, maybe once we’re out of the cold. It’s freezing out here! Where are we anyways?”

“Vivi, you have to remember.”

“Remember? Remember what?” She was only half-paying attention, instead eyeing Mystery’s fur, eager to know if it was as soft as it looked. She paused when she saw a large scar on his side. It was almost completely obscured by his thick fur, but she was certain it hadn’t been there before. Maybe it only appears when he takes this form, she pondered with a small frown.

“We’re in Nebraska right now, on a ghost hunt. Lewis was driving the van when—”

“Nebraska? Ghost hunt?” Vivi repeated, bewildered, “What are you talking about? Who’s Lewis?” She was so confused. None of this was familiar or made any sense, yet Mystery looked stricken by her response.

“Look down at your arms,” Mystery responded, looking at Vivi hopefully as he padded closer to her, “That hoodie, do you recognize it?”

“What hoodie? Oh!” Glancing down, Vivi saw she was clutching tightly to an orange hoodie. She hadn’t even noticed she was holding it. She examined the soft fabric and its yellow star pattern carefully.

“The only person I know who would wear a color this bright is mom, but I don’t remember ever seeing her wear this,” Vivi replied. A heavy pulse had begun in her head, and Mystery’s intense, worried gaze was starting to frighten her.

“Vivi, you have to try to remember.”

“But I don’t know what I’m supposed to be remembering!” She cried.

Mystery bowed his head so he could look her in the eye. Then, in a voice she could only just hear above the sound of the wind, he began to speak. The kitsune’s voice settled into a steady rumble, the sound washing over her, as he recounted the last few years of Vivi’s life. Years she thought she had not yet lived. The kitsune spoke of a little town in Texas called Tempo, and the life Vivi had made for herself there. Everything Mystery said felt unfamiliar, like he was talking about someone else entirely. With every word, the pressure in her head built up more and more until it was almost unbearable. Her hands clutched at her temples, as if that would keep her skull from splitting apart. She wanted to tell Mystery to stop, but she couldn’t keep from grinding her teeth in order to do so. Vivi felt as if her head might burst at any moment. Still, the kitsune continued to murmur to her, his voice low and melodious, though it had taken on a frantic edge. He talked about the friends she had made, Arthur and Lewis, and how she had started her own paranormal investigation group with them, the Mystery Skulls. The kitsune spoke of the adventures they’d had together, and he only hesitated for a moment before he began to tell her of the cave. The mention of that fateful night felt like an icepick driven into her brain. With a cry of pain, she collapsed to her knees in the snow. She thought she heard Mystery calling her name, but she could scarcely hear him over the keening sound in her ears. With her eyes squeezed shut against the snowy landscape, she saw the last few years of her life pass before her eyes in flickers and bursts.

It was over mercifully quick. One moment, Vivi didn’t remember, and the next, she had. The excruciating pain that had accompanied the return of her memories was subdued to an aching throb, and slowly, the world came back to her. She first became aware of a cold, wet nose poking at her face. Opening her eyes, she blinked away spots as Mystery and the snowy landscape came back into view. Vivi didn’t think she’d ever seen him so worried.

“Are you alright?” The kitsune asked. She nodded her head wearily, letting out a shaky breath.

“I…I remembered,” the blue-haired girl replied.

“That doesn’t answer my question,” Mystery said softly. The fox spirit’s eyes were filled with such gentle concern, Vivi couldn’t help it as her lower lip began to tremble.

“I can’t do this, I can’t lose my memories. Not again,” she sobbed, her voice wavering as tears spilled down her cheeks, “What if… What if I don’t remember next time?”

“I will do everything in my power to make sure that doesn’t happen,” Mystery vowed, “But first we need to go back to the van. It’ll be safer there.” Vivi was caught in indecision as she looked down at the orange hoodie still clasped in her arms.

“But what about Arthur? We can’t give up on him. Not yet, not ever.”

“We’re not giving up on him,” Mystery soothed, “But if we endanger ourselves now, we may not be able to search for him later. We’re just returning to the van so we can regroup. Once we’re better prepared, we can resume our search.” Part of Vivi still wanted to argue. She couldn’t help but feel like she was letting Arthur down or leaving him behind. She knew the kitsune was right though. This new experience with memory loss was terrifying, and they would never be able to progress in their search if Mystery had to keep reminding her of who she was and what they were doing every step of the way. Wiping at her eyes with her mittens, she conceded defeat.

“Okay,” Vivi mumbled, trying to convince herself she was making the right choice, “Okay, let’s go back to the van.” Mystery gave a slow nod in response. He watched her intently as she climbed back to her feet, bracing her with his shoulder when she stumbled.

“Are you hurt?” He asked.

“Just a headache,” Vivi replied, rubbing at her forehead, “And a little dizzy.” The kitsune regarded her for a moment before lowering himself to the ground.

“Here, get on,” Mystery said. It was a rare offer from the fox spirit. His stubborn pride typically prevented him from even considering giving any of them a ride, not without a hefty amount of bribery or pleading first. Normally, Vivi would have taken the opportunity to tease him about it. As it was, she only nodded mutely and swung her leg over the kitsune’s back, storing her flashlight in her coat pocket. She was sure her lack of response would only worry Mystery more, but he didn’t comment on it as he stood back up from the ground with the blue-haired girl on his back. Vivi swayed as he did so, her head pounding. Her shivering increased as the already freezing temperatures seemed to plummet even lower and static began to encroach on her field of vision.

“Ugh,” Vivi groaned, “It’s happening again!”

“Hold on tight,” Mystery said, “We’ll be moving fast.” She buried her mittens into his thick white fur, desperately clinging to the kitsune’s back and the memories she could already feel sliding away. Mystery began to sprint back the way they’d come, agilely weaving between tree trunks that disappeared in a blur as they quickly lost the progress they’d made journeying into the woods. She could already see the clearing through the trees, and in the blink of an eye, they had left the forest behind and were dashing across an empty white field of snow.

“Hold on, Vivi!” The kitsune called over his shoulder.

The static in her vision worsened, and a painful shudder passed through her frame. She could just make out the shape of the van in the distance.

“Hold on!”

Then her vision whited out entirely and she knew no more.

#mystery skulls animated #msa #msa fanfic #mystery skulls animated fanfic #arthur #lewis #vivi #mystery #arthur kingsmen #lewis pepper #vivi yukino #Snowdrift

36 notes · View notes

current-mcr-news · 5 years ago

Text

Behind the Scenes: The Umbrella Academy - Episode 1

BRANDON JENKINS: In 1953, a 25 year old director named Phil Tucker had $16,000 and just four days to make his first sci-fi film. The plot? A creature comes to Earth with a death ray and wipes out all of humanity, except for eight people who are immune to the creature’s weapons. He called the film Robot Monster.

Movie clip: With the swiftness of a deadly cosmic ray, the Earth is inundated by indestructible moon monsters. Their ghastly mission? Death for all humans.

B: The film was so low budget, Tucker couldn’t even afford to get alien costumes, so he had the monster in a gorilla suit with a TV for a head.

Movie clip: What astounding technical developments are being made to protect mankind?

B: The release was a disaster. It was widely panned. Its lasting legacy would’ve been that it was one of the worst movies of all time. But in the early 2000s, a kid from New Jersey with a knack for drawing comics saw a picture of the Robot Monster and it stuck with him.

Gerard Way: I’ve never even actually seen the film, but I saw pictures of this creature over the years, and they’ve got a TV set, kind of circular space looking head, and they have a gorilla body, and I was like, “I want a superhero that’s kind of inspired by this.”

B: The kid’s name was Gerard. He’d been writing comics since he was 15 and was on his way to making it as a professional comic book artist.

WAY: I went to art school and I was an illustration and cartooning major, so comics were kind of like my major, and I was like this perpetual intern. I interned at DC, I pitched a cartoon to Cartoon Network, and then I landed a job as a toy designer at this place called FunHaus in Hoboken. But that’s like right when the band took off.

B: That band, Gerard’s side hustle, would become massive alt-punk sensation, My Chemical Romance. Seemingly overnight, My Chemical Romance and Gerard were making some of the most popular music in the world, getting spins on terrestrial radio, dominating music video countdowns, they were even nominated for a Grammy. But while he traveled across the globe leading a rockstar life, Gerard kept up with his first love - drawing.

WAY: So I really missed comics and we were in Japan and we did a signing at a shop, and one of the fans gave me a little marker set and it was Copic markers. They were like the greatest markers that I’d ever used before, and so I started to create Luther.

B: Luther, a superhero with a gorilla body and space helmet who lives on the moon was the very first character Gerard drew in what would become his hit comic The Umbrella Academy. I’m Branden Jenkins and this is Behind the Scenes: The Umbrella Academy. This season, we’re going backstage and inside the making of season 2. The first season of the show, based on Gerard’s comic of the same name, launched in February of last year and quickly became one of the most beloved series on Netflix. Now it’s back for its second season with bigger effects, bigger characters, and bigger drama. We’re going to catch you up on everything that’s gone down in The Umbrella Academy universe so far, and we’ll spend the next five episodes breaking down how the team shot the multi-million dollar superhero production across two countries, and how in the midst of a global pandemic, they managed to finish it from inside their own homes. But first, we wanted to take a look back and dig into the roots of The Umbrella Academy. So today, I’m catching up with the creators of the comic and the guy tasked with making the TV series. We talk about how the graphic novel was adapted for your screens.

B: Alright, so if you haven’t watched season 1, go back and watch season 1 on Netflix. For those of you who just need a quick recap: At 12pm on October 1, 1989, a supernatural event occurred. Forty-three babies across the planet were born to mothers who were not pregnant just seconds before. The world was confused, intrigued, and one eccentric billionaire wanted to find the babies and adopt them. He ended up with seven. Each baby had a superpower, and what do you do when you’re a billionaire with a group of kids with superpowers? You train them to become a crime fighting family.

Reginald: I give you the inaugural class of The Umbrella Academy!

B: When Gerard Way started creating the members of the Academy, he started with the most fundamental material.

WAY: I created a list of all the things that interested me. It could be anything from ouija board, fortune teller, spaceman, gorilla body, just a list of stuff.

B: Then he drew from that list and started creating these characters. All in all, he would draw seven. The first, Luther, the half-man half-gorilla, was the team’s defective leader. He was also the child closest with their father.

Luther: Just at Dad’s favorite spot. Allison: Dad had a favorite spot? Luther: Yeah, you know, under the oak tree. We used to sit out there all the time, none of you ever did that?

B: Next, he created Klaus and Allison, the boy who talks to the dead and the girl who can make people bend to her will with just a few words.

WAY: Klaus, he has some pretty serious addiction and addiction is something that I dealt with in my life. He’s also a little bit spooky and supernatural, and my personality in My Chemical Romance was very similar to that.

Klaus: I can’t just call Dad in the afterlife and be like, “Dad, could you just stop playing tennis with Hitler for a moment and take a quick call?” Luther: Since when? That’s your thing. Klaus: I’m not in the right frame of mind! Allison: You’re high? Klaus: Yeah yeah! I mean, how are you not listening to this nonsense?

WAY: He was kind of my version of Doctor Strange. I find Allison to be the one that is easiest to write and I put the most of myself into Allison.

B: Her superpower is that she can make you do pretty much anything she tells you with a few magic words.

Allison: I heard a rumor you want to be my friend. I heard a rumor that you like Bradley. I heard a rumor that you left me alone. I heard a rumor that you stop crying.

WAY: There’s a bit of a tragic nature that comes with her power.

B: Allison, out of all of her super powered siblings, is the only one grasping for a normal life - career, husband, children. In a way, she’s the most human. The fourth character Gerard created is Diego, a guy with an uncanny ability to throw knives. He’s also stubborn as hell.

WAY: I knew early on he was gonna be the one that was gonna be really difficult with the leader. I figured that.

Diego: You know, you of all people should be on my side here, Number One. Luther: I am warning you. Diego: After everything he did to you, he had to ship you a million miles away. Luther: Diego, stop talking! Diego: That’s how much he couldn’t stand the sight of you!

B: The fifth character, a kid who can travel through time and space, who simply goes by Five. Despite the other character growing up into adults, he has remained a teenager, sort of.

WAY: He was a time traveler who then got stuck in his young body when he traveled back in time because time travel is complicated.

Klaus: Where are you going? Five: To get a decent cup of coffee. Allison: Do you even know how to drive? Five: I know how to do everything.

WAY: So then came The Horror.

B: The Horror, aka Ben, aka the dead sibling who only Klaus can see.

WAY: I imagined this character that had all these monsters living under his skin that came from another dimension. And he was very tortured to me. It actually kind of hurts him and it’s scary to him.

Ben: Do I really have to do this? Klaus: Come on, Ben. There’s more guys in the vault. Ben: I didn’t sign up for this.

B: And then finally, Number Seven, Vanya, who seemingly has no powers besides playing the violin.

WAY: I was at this cafe in Manhattan when I was living in Brooklyn, and it was called The Sidewalk Cafe I believe, and on the wall they had a white violin just as decoration. And I remember looking at that and thinking to myself, “That would be a cool superhero.” And Vanya was always kind of designed to be a character who wasn’t special, that was going to transform into that.

Vanya: Look, if I was special I would’ve been in The Umbrella Academy. I’m so sorry you got stuck with the ordinary one.

B: These seven adopted siblings forced together by supernatural events formed The Umbrella Academy. Both the original comic and season 1 of the show start at the funeral for the Academy’s patriarch, the eccentric Sir Reginald Hargreeves. We learn that while the siblings ventured away from home as teenagers, after years of fighting and a toxic upbringing, they’ve returned home, back together for the first time in years, and all their dysfunctions and old conflicts come bubbling to the surface.

Diego: He was a bad person and a worse father. The world’s better off without him. Allison: Diego! Diego: My name is Number Two.

B: When he started writing the comic, Gerard was focused on his own strained relationships. He saw his band as his own dysfunctional family at the time.

WAY: When you’re a baby band, you’re in this van and it’s like a submarine but it’s smaller. It’s like a closet that you're all living in and sometimes you’re going on seventeen hour drives, and you have very strong personalities. This dynamic starts to develop between all of the members and you really do kind of become a dysfunctional family. Like, there’s times where I felt like I was the mom.

GABRIEL BA: They know each other’s weaknesses.

B: Turns out, family dynamics was a theme with everyone who joined the Umbrella team, including the illustrator and Umbrella’s co-creator, a Brazilian artist named Gabriel Ba.

BA: And sometimes they say it to hurt the other intentionally and they do that a lot in Umbrella because they’re all angry at each other all the time. And even though I have a great relationship with my brother, I have that. We have a younger sister as well, so she’s very opinionated and she’s strong. I wouldn’t say we fight a lot, but sometimes we- I just know how to hurt her if I want to say something.

B: Family is present in Gabriel’s life more than for most people. He works every day with his twin brother, fellow comic book artist, Fabio Moon. But his work made him an unconventional choice for Umbrella.

BA: In the mid 90s, we moved away from superheroes. We, my brother and I, we figured the type of story that we liked to tell and wanted to tell was more real life, day by day life relationship, this kind of stuff.

B: Gabriel grew up in Brazil and now lives in Sao Paulo. His brother had been making experimental comics for well over a decade.

BA: But The Umbrella Academy was a superhero book with this day by day life relationship drama, and that was really interesting for me.

B: What excited Gerard about Gabriel was his style. His characters weren’t macho. They didn’t have big ripped muscles. They’re the kind of comics you could imagine being drawn in the margins of a notebook. There's nothing stereotypically super about them.

BA: It was not a straightforward American superhero artstyle. It was a mix of European and more fluid, but also could handle action and crazy stuff. And also, I can’t deny The Umbrella Academy was my first paid job in the U.S.

B: Wow.

BA: For the first ten years of our career, my brother and I were making comics for free. Just for ourselves, just getting [?], if there were any. So when I got the invitation to get involved with The Umbrella Academy it was this whole package of factors.

WAY: Gabriel climbing on board was a huge thing for us because he’s such a fantastic artist. He brought these characters to life. The interesting thing about Gabriel, he didn’t have to make Umbrella Academy. He was doing really well on his own and making really experimental artistic comics, but he liked the idea so much that he said, “I’m gonna do superheroes.”

BA: The superhero aspect of The Umbrella Academy is really just a layer in the story. I like the development of these characters, their struggles, their relationships, there’s romance, there’s deception.

Vanya: You are unbelievable, you’re trying to dig up dirt on a guy I like? Who does that? Allison: Look, I’ve had my fair share of stalkers and creeps, I don’t trust him! Vanya: You mean you don’t trust me.

BA: And it had the fun explosions and action scenes. So that’s the good mix.

B: The first book of the comic is called Apocalypse Suite. After their father’s death, The Umbrella Academy gets a warning from their time traveling brother that the world is going to end in 10 days. They don’t know how, they just know that it will. And now, back together for the first time, they’ve got to figure out how to save the planet and learn how to look past their differences. Which sounds dope, right? But when it first published back in 2007, it wasn’t immediately clear that people would dig it.

WAY: So one of the things I was dealing with when Umbrella Academy came out was a lot of people in the press before the comic came out saying things like, “Here’s a musician and he’s writing a comic.” They didn’t really know my background, they didn’t know that I’d written at 15, they didn’t know I went to art school. All they knew was that I was the singer in this rock band that a lot of teenagers liked. So, all I really wanted was a fair shake. I didn’t write The Umbrella Academy to become a TV show or a film. I wrote it to be an amazing comic. But we knew that first issue, and we knew it was good, and we knew that if you didn't get it by the first seven pages you just weren’t gonna like it, and I was totally fine with that. But then it came out and then the response started to happen and then reviewers loved it and people loved it.

B: The comic went on to win an Eisner award, which is like the Oscar of comics, and pretty quickly, Gerard gets an offer to turn the comic into a full length movie.

WAY: I got swept up in the Hollywood thing.

B: But it doesn’t pan out.

WAY: That’s actually one of the reasons why there was such a big gap between comics, is because I was really, you know, I was trying- at the end of the day, I was trying to be helpful. If this was gonna be a movie version of what Gabriel and I had made, I wanted it to be great so I put in a lot of time and it kept me away from the comics.

B: But then Netflix hits you up and is interested in making this into a series.

WAY: Right.

B: I guess I'm curious, as someone who just initially wanted to make just a really good comic, what about turning that project into a television show was interesting?

WAY: Straight up, I want to make a great comic and that’s all I’m really interested in. If I can write great comics, you’ll have great material to make TV shows. So let me focus on that.

B: In other words, Gerard wanted to focus on the comics and let someone else adapt it.

WAY: And that’s when Steve came in and he changed things and he ran with it.

STEVE BLACKMAN: I’m Steve Blackman, I’m the showrunner and I’m executive producer.

B: Steve is a master at adapting books, comics, and film into television. Before The Umbrella Academy, he’d worked on shows like Fargo, Legion, and Altered Carbon, all of which originated from other sources. So he knew coming in that adaptation can be tricky work.

BLACKMAN: At first, I think Gerard and Gabriel, who co-did this with him, were very protective of the work like parents of their baby. And I think I had to prove to them initially that I would love and protect this child that they had worked on for so many years, so here I am, an outsider coming in and they were very nice to me, but I could see there was like, “Is this guy gonna totally screw up our baby here?”

B: Is it something that you can come to the table with Gerard and be like, “Hey, here’s my arsenal of adaptations, this is why it will work.”

BLACKMAN: Yeah, I worked on the show Fargo for three years. Fargo was obviously based on the Joel and Ethan Coen movie from 1996. I don’t think Gerard had ever seen my shows, I don’t think he watches a lot of television, so for him, it didn’t matter what I’d done before. It’s just what I was gonna do in the here and now on this show. I wasn’t intimidated by the challenge but I really did sort of have a sense of I know which direction I’m going.

B: What was your first initial reaction? Were you sort of like, “Oh, maybe I’ve never done anything like this, or this does feel familiar to other work that I’ve done.” Or, “I can do this, this is right up my alley.”

BLACKMAN: Well, what I liked about it from the beginning was what I saw in the subject matter and I saw a dysfunctional family. But right away, I was very inspired by Wes Anderson’s work. The Royal Tenenbaums is one of those movies that really was always something I truly loved. So, I saw that in this show.

Five: An entire square block, 42 bedrooms, 19 bathrooms, but not a single drop of coffee. Vanya: Dad hated caffeine. Klaus: Well he hated children too and he had plenty of us.

BLACKMAN: It was a family show, it was a very relatable dysfunctional family show that I wanted to tell.

WAY: Steve’s a great collaborator. Steve Blackman, the showrunner, he had a vision. I respected him and his vision. I realized it was gonna be different from the comic, and I let him run with it because he cared deeply about it.

BLACKMAN: My first conversation with Gerard over the phone, I said to him, I told him one of the words was subversive, we wanted to subvert the expectation of what a superhero show could be because there were many other shows, either on the air or coming down the pipe to be next, and we wanted this to stand out. And that was sort of the first hurdle with me, was to say to Gerard that I could do that and I could definitely make this thing feel special. And right away he said, “Okay, yeah. You get it.”

B: You’ve adapted something like Fargo which is a unique adaptation, right? You’re adapting from a different medium, like a feature film. Does that change the way you understand adaptation?

BLACKMAN: At a story point of view, no, I don’t think they’re that different. I think adapting a story, whether it's a graphic novel or the source material comes from a movie, a book, there’s a lot of care into doing it that the tricky thing is, I need to put my creative spin on it. I had Gerard and Gabriel, who lived with this for ten years, and then I have to come in and say, “Look, I’m going to honor you. At the same time, what is the Steve Blackman part of the show? How can I add my spin to it?”

B: For fans of the comic who’ve seen season 1 of the show, you’ll recognize some of that Steve Blackman spin. For example, the group who governs the laws of time in the comics, the Temps Aeternalis, in the TV show they become the Commission, an entire bureaucratic system running and adjusting linear time. Steve made some other changes too.

WAY: One of the things that I thought was an ingenious idea was making Ben a ghost that Klaus could communicate with. I was most impressed by that change.

Ben: You know what the worst part of being dead is? You’re stuck. Nowhere to go, nowhere to change, that’s the real torture if you gotta know. Watching your brother take for granted everything you lost, and pissing it all away.

B: Perhaps the biggest change from the comic to the show is the diversity of the characters. Diverse in race, diverse in region, diverse in sexual orientation, these characters on screen look a lot more like what the world actually looks like.

WAY: It’s built into it. They’re all from different places, they’re all from different countries, so I think that’s really the biggest improvement on the source material, is how diverse it is.

B: Steve felt the pressure of both fan expectations, and Gerard and Gabriel’s trust in him.

BLACKMAN: There’s nothing worse than having pre-existing source material and having the fans dislike it. You want to make the fans feel honored and respected, at the same time I felt it was incredibly important that Gerard and Gabriel walked out of this thinking, “He did a good job.” If they hated it, I would’ve been crushed. If the fans hated it, I think I’d also be crushed. I knew I couldn’t make everybody happy, but I wasn’t doing a page for page translation. My adaptation wasn’t gonna be that.

B: The adaption worked. Season 1 was a massive success. In the finale of the first season, the Academy thinks they’ve managed to stop the end of the world from happening, but unintentionally, they’ve actually just initiated it. The moon has been destroyed and its remnants are now heading directly for Earth.

Five: We might as well accept our fate because in less than a minute we’re gonna be vaporized. Diego: What’s your idea then? Five: We use my ability to time travel, but this time I’ll take you with me. Luther: You can do that?

B: The family, latching onto their time traveling brother Five, manage to escape the chaos. But we’re left to wonder where and when they’ll turn up, and that’s where season 2 begins.

Five: We brought the end of the world back here with us. Klaus: Oh my god, again?

BLACKMAN: It’s a pretty crazy journey this year and I think people will be hooked. I hope they binge the hell out of it and love every second of it.

B: Coming up in this season of Behind the Scenes, we’ll be taking you on that crazy journey with the people who make it happen.

“We hired meteorologists, we knew that snow was gonna come, but we had planned it. We went away for a day, we came back, and there was four feet of snow on the ground.”

“It’s 60s Dallas. Okay, so that’s a very different story for Allison. We have to talk about this somehow. Her experience is just different from her siblings.”

EMMY LAMPMAN: And a lot of people would come up to me and apologize for doing their job and I was like, “Please stop apologizing.”

“That was a wishlist fight scene that Steve had always wanted to do.”

“So we actually had our guys throwing plates up in the air and taking photos of them to try to get these UFO imageries.”

“You know, we have a new point in our resume: Can produce and deliver a show during a pandemic.”

B: Behind the Scenes of The Umbrella Academy is a Netflix and Pineapple Street Studios Production. I’m your host, Brandon Jenkins. Make sure to subscribe, rate, and review this podcast. It really does help other people find it. Thank you all for listening.

#behind the scenes of the umbrella academy #episode 1 #gerard way #gabriel ba #steve blackman #full transcription

77 notes · View notes

musicallisto · 4 years ago

Text

without fail tag

THE “WITHOUT FAIL” TAG — List five things that you, WITHOUT FAIL, weave into or explore in your stories, whether it be specific themes or tropes, character archetypes, allusions to other literary works, what have you! It really can be anything that you consistently include in your narratives for whatever reason. Then invite others to share theirs by tagging them!

I was tagged by @deadlymodern - thank you so much for tagging me, this tag is amazing and I loved reading your answers! I can tell you have a very thorough approach to your writing & themes, it’s so cool!

(tagging people at the bottom of the post if you want to skip)

1. flowers, skies & words

grouping them together since they're all related to a wider, general literary device: symbols and allegories in my stories. Without fail, I’ll always use flower symbolism to evoke certain themes, places, characters... withered petals for death, blossoms for youth, you name it, it’s probably been in one of my stories. just consider my main WIP’s title, The Grave of Roses (Le Tombeau des Roses). It’s a little basic, and has been used time and time before in literature, but I still love it.

Other elements that often make it into my stories as symbols are planes (because I love aviation obviously, but also as a symbol of breaking free, independence, of man’s domination on mortality, what with having tamed the skies, but also his frail condition and how everything hangs on a thread). Also, the sky is pretty.

And lastly, words, stories, novels always have their place in my stories, and more often than not one of my characters is a writer, or someone who uses words and stories as some kind of comfort, outlet, or a driving force.

At its [the tombstone] foot, below the name, red roses piled up, enough of them to cover ten graves. A single vermilion bud, a wind-swept poppy, clashed with the rest of the bouquet, and Samuel knew that it was William's children who had placed it there. Only they knew that he didn't even like roses anymore, and that he would come to lay poppies on his father's memorial every time he returned to London...

The tomb was both smaller and prettier than Samuel imagined, less opulent than England would have wanted to give its precious child. The morning sun, like a caress, illuminated the epitaph, a Latin verse that Samuel had known in the past. “Bury me southward,” he heard William say so clearly that he almost turned around, "so that I can look at England and France in the same breath." His name, however, was drenched in full light, facing east, and inexplicably this saddened Samuel.

“And there it is... it's pretty, don't you think? I don't know if he would have liked it... You probably know it better than I do...”

“And why do you care about that, huh? You don't even believe in God.” “He's a writer. He believes in symbols.” “He believes in vanity, alright.”

“I think he would have liked it anyway,” he nodded in agreement, his eyes glued to the lonely poppy. (Translation)

2. parental roughnesses

this was bound to come, because I feel like we were all pretty fucked up at some point in our lives from our upbringing. I didn’t go for straight up “parental issues” because I don’t deal with like, abusive or absent parents or anything, just complicated relationships between parents and their children, but who still love each other. Oftentimes it has to do with one of the children idealizing the heck out of their parent and slowly realizing that they make mistakes and are not a hero at all, and/or unmeetable expectations and parental pressure. but it’s not like I’m projecting or anything lol

“You never knew Father, William,” Grace stopped him immediately [...]. “Don't you dare pretend you know what it's like.”

“Growing up without a father is not necessarily better than losing him in childhood! Everyone here has suffered from his disappearance, Grace. You have no idea how much I miss him, despite never meeting him. But that's all in the past now. And there's no reason for there to be another war.”

“Of course there is!” she retorted ferociously, despite the tears spilling from her eyes. “Of course there is, and they're going to send you there like Father, and you'll want to play hero like Father, and then you'll get shot down like a dog! Where's it going to be this time, huh? Above Luxembourg, just like him, or maybe somewhere in your beloved France?” (Translation)

3. patriotism

One way or another, all my stories always deal with patriotism, nationalism, pride in one’s country and more broadly speaking one’s relationship to it. It questions what it means to belong to a country, to share one culture, one language; does it justify acting in the benefit of one’s country, and where do you draw the line before you intentionnally harm others’; what even is a country, a nationality, and it what sense do you belong to one, and what do you owe it, if you even owe it anything? Is it wrong or right to feel love and attachment to your place of origin? And what does it mean to fight for your country, for its values, for its people? & other things of the like. It probably stems from my own experience as a binational person; growing up, I was always asked stuff like “but who do you root for in a football game” “but are you like really French or not?” “if Spain and France got into a war what would you do?”, and this all lead me to question “am I more French or am I more Spanish - which one am I, and which one would others perceive me to be - do I need to pick a side? And how can I express my affection to these places that raised me both differently, without undermining the other - or others? can I still be proud of my heritage given the horrors my countries have committed in the past?”. I still haven’t found a definitive answer, so my writing is just me throwing trails out to the world and hoping I’ll figure it out someday. that’s why my stories often have a war setting; firstly I just love historical fiction, and secondly it’s the perfect backdrop for all these questions to unfold.

William laughed at the idea - he, a true Frenchman! It was a very silly thought. He may have loved what he had seen of Charlotte's country, but England was not to be ashamed of any other land, for it was the only one he would love until his last breath. (Translation.)

4. just a hint of supernatural

I love me a good ghost story, and I’m a fan of everything spooky, but what’s subtly spooky, and not the gory, in-your-face horror. This particular theme may have increased since I saw The Haunting of Hill House which completely OBLITERATED ME with how it uses the house and its ghosts to tell a story of family and trauma and memories... but I’ve loved ghost stories forever. Another piece that truly resonated with me was One Hundred Years of Solitude (Cien años de soledad) by Gabriel García Márquez. It was my first dive into the world of magical realism and I didn’t make it out of there the same person I was when I entered. This one is not necessarily included in every piece without fail, because some are just too anchored in reality, but if it’s not a straight-up spirit or an otherworldly creature, I’ll always find a way to include an aspect of superstition, a myth, a legend, a tale from faraway that is neither proved nor disproved throughout the story. It truly adds to the atmosphere of the world, even in a very realistic and gritty setting, I believe.

I hear murmurs of legends among the soldiers. [...] One of those stories caught my attention, I must admit... It is not very special, nothing more than a children's tale, but I thought it was beautiful enough to please your Romantic soul. Some pilots speak of a cemetery, somewhere in the countryside north of London, which has something mystical about it, lost in the flowers that sway as far as the eye can see, in the calm rhythm of the wind, wrapped in the heady scent of eternal spring, and where the bravest warriors would go to rest forever, tired of their exploits and the continual explosions. No one knows exactly where it is or what to do to be buried there, but this beautiful image simply floats like a dream in the minds of many and, I confess, in mine as well since I first heard about it.

It is said that there only flowers dare to disturb the heroes in their sleep... This fragment of silence is called the Grave of the Roses.

So if I were to leave you, if you were to hear that I am gone...

With a bit of luck, that is where you will find me.

5. love

this one is broader and less obvious than you might think. Of course, I’ll always, always implement an element of romance to my story (and more often than not it’s angsty with star-crossed lovers or insurmountable obstacles or forbidden romances and whatnot), but there’s more to it. I don’t think I have ever written a story that is entirely grim and bleak, simply because I do not believe the world is built like that. I’ve said time and time again that love is my favorite thing in the world, and I believe it is the force that drives us all forward and connects us all together; love is, to me, the truest power of humanity, and its inherent purpose. And love covers all subjects and all types of relationships, but my absolute favorite ways to explore and show love in my stories is through long-lasting, rock-solid friendships (because friendships are often overlooked both in fiction and real life), and just a grandiose love letter to humanity as a whole. I’m an optimist, and many people who have suffered more than I have would deem me naive for thinking this - and I cannot blame them -, but as Anne Frank put it more bravely than I ever could, “despite everything, I still think humans are good at heart”. My stories are always born out of love and made for love. For the love of humanity and kindness and literature and love of myself, too, because sometimes I just like rereading the words and thinking, “wow, I’ve made it this far. look at me go.” In a word, yes, I would say that is what it boils down to; my work, but also what I hope my entire life and being will be. An ode to love.

“He admired you and truly loved you, you know. You were a good leader, I'm sure, and a good friend, above all.”

He thought she was going to put her hand on his shoulder, and prepared to bend to avoid it, but instead she came to rest on the polished marble of the tomb, which was already beginning to erode at the corners. The soft light bathed her hand, and Samuel's on the other corner, still resting above William's surname, the only thing he had been proud of from beginning to end.

“And I loved him too. I loved them all. If you only knew...”

well, I got carried away, as I always do when talking about my writing, but it made me miss it so much. I haven’t worked on any of my projects since literally October and I’m feeling the void rn. anyway, thank you again for enabling me to ramble about what I love most, Thais! and I’m tagging @softeninglooks, @lxncelot, @myriadimagines, @swanimagines & @randomfandomimagine + plus any writer who wants to talk about their marvelous work <3

#tag game #mywriting #long post #writing #ltdr

8 notes · View notes

sleepysmolbunny · 4 years ago

Text

Recommendation List For Psychological Horror Games (With Links!)

I played - Angels of Death - it is just awesome tho tw for suicidal person, gore Fran Bow - depicts psychosis and it is very good Goetia - it is a puzzle game but with suspense and some good story telling, demonology Inunaki Tunnel - this unknown gem is just so good, it is inspired by a Japanese urban tale, there are evil spirits, supernatural but creepy Masochisia - depicts the imagined childhood of Albert Fischer, a known serial killer, tw for gore, psychosis, CSA and so many stuff tbh, disturbing as hell Misao - damn traumatic, tw for sexual abuse Neverending Nightmares - the developer has OCD and tried to depict what it is like, so good! Steins;Gate - tho not really a horror, but there is psychological messed upness, visual novel, damn heartbreaking Stigmatized Property - more like horror and short but super creepy The Survey - short and creepy The Town of Light - this is heartbreaking and a must play tbh, tw for old psychiatric hospitals The Vanishing of Ethan Carter - this might be my favorite, it is just awesome, mystery, occult and that story telling, so good

I am playing/watched a little&bought - Alien: Isolation - this is too scary omg, i should warn the AI is too smart The Cat Lady - tw for suicidal protagonist not gonna spoil Chaos;Child - tw for gore, terrifying as hell, idk what will happen but i am hooked and long af Corpse Party - 8bit but terrifying, tw gore Only If - trippy af game, i played few hours still have no idea what it is about but it has horror tag and it makes you uncomfortable Yomawari: Midnight Shadows(2) / Night Alone(1) - cute style but survival horror, monsters included I bought on steam sale after looking into them, horror/psychological - The Convenience Store - short and looks scary Darkness Within: In Pursuit of Loath Nolder - Lovecraftian horror Detention - I was warned about drama in it, apparently a tear-jerker, survival elements Distraint - "In order to secure a partnership in a famous company, Price seizes the property of an elderly woman. In that very moment, he finds out the price of his humanity." God's Basement - "Uncover the secrets of an afterlife shrouded in mystery, as an entity known as "The Operator" leads you deeper into the fringes of a seemingly eternal purgatory." Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice - tw for audio hallucinations Investigator - "The main character used to be a private investigator, but now he is but a mere stranger forced to roam from house to house in search of food and an overnight stay." more horror than psychological Interrogation: You will be deceived - you investigate a terrorist organization, how far will you go? Juken Jigoku - it is about exam stress in Japan Left Way - "Nampung found herself in a strange place. What is really happening?" Okaeri - "VHS type Japanese psychological horror game about a middle school girl and her mother who recently moved to a new house." ParanormalHK - it is a game about urban legends of Hong Kong, very scary monsters QuietMansion2 - "A horror game made by high school students has finally arrived at Steam. Escape from the monster in a spooky mansion, find the key and escape!" Roots of Insanity - classic run away from the psych yard survival horror probably has jump scares, tw gore Silence of the Sleep - a person commits suicide but wakes up without the memories of his entire life, tw suicide Song of Horror - place exploration game, survival horror, ppl love this game btw so many positive reviews Spirit Hunter: Death Mark - it is gore and weird, i will play the first chance i get The Suicide of Rachel Foster - exploration of a house and the truth hidden from the past, no jump scare, no monsters but probably very traumatic Tokyo Dark - Visual novel, tw gore Unheard - "What if you could hear every word spoken at the scene of a crime?" is the only thing i will say, it seem so good When the Darkness Comes - depicts depression and anxiety and it is free Yuki Onna - inspired by a Japanese folk tale

These games are mostly indie and cheap af. You might’ve noticed more Asia horror than others bc in my opinion Asian horror is more subtle usually. And I love me some subtleness. English is my second laguage, there might be mistakes just fyi. Links are on the name of each game. I hope you guys find it useful! If you know any good games let me know!

22 notes · View notes

squeeneyart · 5 years ago

Text

Breathe in the Salt - Chapter 2

AO3

It's pouring outside, and expectations are met with varying success.

There are new faces in the lighthouse.

Martin, big as he was, didn’t get much mileage out of umbrellas, especially when the rain decided that falling straight down would be too convenient. There was just too much of him to cover, and as he walked his way up the cliff side that morning, umbrella in hand, he considered just turning back and leaving the day’s work for Saturday. It wouldn’t be so terrible, skipping a day. With no one to check in on him, he had every right to finish things up later.

He thought of his home on the rocky beach and kept moving upward. Already soaked through, there wasn’t much point turning back, now was there? And he had already made it through the worst of the muddy path anyway. He would just hang his jacket up somewhere in the kitchen when he got to the lighthouse, maybe his shoes too while he was at it.

The walk was loud with the rain and splashing footsteps of the usually morning passerby. The weather gave Martin ample reason to keep his head down, and if it hadn’t been for a loud crack of thunder making him jump and peek up at the sky, he wouldn’t have looked up at all. The lighthouse was stark white against the storm clouds, and in the small lot tucked to the right side of the building, were several unfamiliar cars and one very nice familiar one.

Martin groaned. “Peter.” He mentally patted himself on the back for not giving into his lazier impulses. Of course Peter changed his plans with no notice. He was so rich that the concept of people having time for anything other than his use probably never occurred to him. Hopefully this time it wasn’t another weird congregation of his fellow old rich men from the next town over. The last time Peter had had to postpone a boating trip for business, it had left him in a foul mood for weeks, and Martin was the one to deal with it.

The other cars in the lot didn’t read as particularly nice, but Martin didn’t know much about cars and couldn’t judge on a clear day, nevermind one like this. He considered using the back entrance, but he was already tired and wet and ready to make himself from tea. Up the dark stone steps, he found the main door unlocked and quietly let himself inside, hoping that Peter and whoever his guests were had already-

“Martin! A bit late, aren’t we?” Peter’s voice rang out through the building, making Martin wince. Martin closed his umbrella and looked across the main room to see Peter and three distinctly not-old-men staring at him. They looked somewhere around his age, though at his ripe age of twenty-nine, it was hard to tell between early twenty-somethings and those pushing forty. “Hope this doesn’t mean I have to figure out a clock-in system. You know how bad I am with such things.” Peter was smiling in a way that told Martin instantly just how pissed he was to be dealing with whatever this was. Great.

“Oh, um. Yes, the rain made the walk up a bit- sorry. Um, what’s going on?” Martin stumbled through with his usual grace, wanting to shrink down and die with the way the four of them were staring. “You were-”

“Supposed to be on the boat this morning, yes,” Peter said through his teeth.

One of the strangers, the tallest and by far the best-looking with perfectly styled hair despite the rain, raised an eyebrow and shared a glance with the short woman with dark, curly hair pulled back into a half ponytail. Next to her was the shortest of the three, a man with dark skin and even darker, shaggy hair that was just turning gray at the roots, who looked at Martin for a moment before apparently deciding that there was nothing of interest there and impatiently turning back to Peter.

“Some quick introductions and then I’ll be on my way,” said Peter, moving around the three newcomers to walk towards Martin and the door. “One of my beneficiaries, Mr. Bouchard, has requested at very little notice to have some of his own come here for a week or two for research purposes. Incidentally, I will be out for that exact time, starting in a few minutes! Your work documents will be delivered as usual. Just let them do their work, stay in your space, and it’ll be over before you know it.” Before Martin could utter a sound, Peter brushed past him and said, quietly, “Stuffy academic types, the lot of them. Very judgmental I’ve heard.” And then he was out the door. Martin watched him leave and then turned back awkwardly.

“Um. Hi?” Martin waved stupidly, feeling the horrible burn of their gazes. The good-looking one smiled brightly and brought up a hand in friendly recognition.

“Y’know, he said he’d do introductions, but last time I checked my name wasn’t ‘work documents’,” he said, coming forward and putting a hand out, which Martin shook in a daze. The woman behind him snorted. “My name’s Tim Stoker. Behind me is Sasha James, hereby dubbed ‘research purposes’, and our head leader man, Jonathan Sims.” Tim put up a hand in a secretive manner. “A big longer title, ‘It’ll be over before you know it’, but it fits all the same.” He winked, and Martin laughed despite himself. Jonathan rolled his eyes and walked over to the folding table to sift through his work bag. Martin saw this and wanted to kick himself.

“I’m Martin Blackwood, Peter’s assistant. You’re all researchers then? What-” and at that moment, Martin sneezed. “Oh, gosh, excuse me. I’d better at least stop dripping all over the place.” Martin sheepishly walked past Jonathan to the kitchen, shedding his damp coat to hang in the corner. He could feel the wetness in his shoes and socks and for a moment resented his unexpected company but shook the thought away. Taking stock of the cupboard in his mind, Martin popped his head back into the main room.

“I’m making tea if anybody would like some,” he offered. Tim and Sasha were receptive and followed him back to the kitchen, taking off their own coats to hang next to his own and sitting down at the uncomfortably small table.

“Is this thing made for people to sit at?” Tim asked, his long legs bumping against Sasha’s.

“One person, maybe? God, it’s like a university desk.” Sasha replied, purposefully bumping her knee into his to make him move and laughing when we gave an exaggerated noise of pain. Martin smiled a little to himself as he placed the kettle on the stove. Sasha leaned onto her elbows and looked up at him. “So, Martin. Does anyone else work here?” He frowned, keeping his face away from them.

“Oh, um, no. Just me,” He drummed his fingers on the counter. “Peter keeps a pretty small staff and they work in other buildings, so. Yeah. Just me.” Martin could feel the awkward pause coming and continued, turning to lean next to the stove top. “So, researchers! Can’t think of why you’d come to a big old lighthouse. Is this some sort of, I dunno, architecture thing? Testing saltwater? Coming to find a sea monster?”

“Actually, not a terrible guess!” Tim tilted his chair back and linked his fingers behind his head. “Probably not a sea monster, though it would be pretty cool.”

“We’re researchers looking into the supernatural,” Sasha interjected in a more serious tone. “The three of us were sent out here to take some statements and do some investigating into local occurrences. Usually it would just be one of us, but Elias, the Mr. Bouchard Peter mentioned, wanted us all on the ground for this one.”

“It’s ridiculous.” Martin jumped at the sound. Jonathan stood in the doorway, keeping his displeased look trained on the paper in his hands. Tim glanced at Martin in a way that seemed to say here we go. “Just one of us would be good enough to take some statements and be on our way. It’s just a waste of resources.” It was Sasha’s turn to roll her eyes. The way Tim and Sasha seemed to include Martin in this small moment of exasperation made him feel equal parts warm and ashamed at taking humor at Jonathan’s expense.

Sasha replied, “Look Jon, the fact that we were all sent out means there’s probably something really interesting about this place.” Jonathan snorted, finally looking up at her.

“Sure, because Elias has never wasted our time.” He looked back down, content with leaning against the doorway. “We’ll talk to some locals, get some childhood campfire stories, and leave knowing a little bit more about local culture and not much else.” There was a lull in the conversation as Jonathan seemed to check out, satisfied with his point.

“What do you think, Martin?” Tim asked eventually.

“What?”

“Any weird things in this town? Spooky hauntings? Creatures of the deep?” Tim asked further. Before Martin could answer, the kettle began to squeal and he began his tea preparations.

“Oh, nothing that I know of, no. It’s a quiet place.” The sea folk here are definitely quiet, he thought, which he knew was unfair to think. His mother didn’t talk much, certainly, but it’s no reason to be mean. “Oh, Jonathan-”

“Just Jon.”

“Oh, um, okay. Jon, did you want any? Tea, I mean?” Jon looked up at him for a moment and then down again.

“Yes, I suppose so. Whatever is fine.” And then he turned and left the room.

“Oookay.” Martin sifted through the decent amount of tea he had collected over the last few months. He asked for Tim and Sasha’s preferences and did his best to follow them. “Anyway, yeah, I’m not super involved in what goes on in town, to be honest. I live down the cliff side by the shore, so local stuff kind of goes over my head,” Martin said, laughing a bit before biting his tongue. What an awful joke. He carried over the mugs of tea.

“Darn, and here I’d hoped you’d be able to make our jobs a bit easier for Jon’s sake. But hey, we’ll let you know if there’s evil lurking around the corner.” Tim sipped at his tea and seemed satisfied. Sasha did the same.

“If you think of anything, let us know. We got a bit of direction, but it’s not much. We’ll take just about anything,” Sasha said. Martin picked up Jon’s mug.

“Hmm. Well, I guess there’s this one weird thing? It’s probably nothing, but, y’know, it could be helpful.” Sasha and Tim looked at him expectantly, and the tips of his ears grew hot. “It’s just, you guys drove in right? Well, if you start from further away and head toward this building on foot, it doesn’t look right.”

“How do you mean?” Sasha asked, her brows knitting together. Martin struggled for a moment to find the words.

“Like. Like the perspective, I guess? It gets bigger but it feels like it’s going too fast, to the point where I can’t look at it when I come to work. Could just be a weird vertigo thing I have going on, but it would be easy enough to check when it’s not, y’know, pouring outside.” Martin looked at Sasha; she didn’t look entirely impressed, and Martin looked away. “Anyway, it’s probably nothing. I’m gonna-” and as he walked through the doorway, Jon appeared with a much larger stack of documents only for Martin to stumble into him and splash tea all over the papers. Jon jumped back and dropped them, freezing for a moment before looking up with such indignation that he couldn’t speak.

“Oh god, I’m-” Martin began, his face burning hot enough that it should’ve fogged his glasses. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t see you coming back and-” And then he shut his horrible mouth at the sight of Jon’s withering glare.

“Yes, well. It’s as Mr. Lukas said.” He bent down to pick up the soiled papers. “‘It’ll be over before you know it.’” Martin looked back at Tim and Sasha who gave him twin pained expressions.

No words left, Martin grabbed a towel to clean up the mess he’d made. He would do as Peter said, then. Let them do their work, stay in his own space, and, as a bonus step, keep out of Jonathan Sims’ way until things went back to the way they were.

The three researchers worked together at the folding table, grumbling at the lack of space, though Tim at least stopped complaining when he saw Martin’s tiny tray of a desk tucked away into the corner.

Martin got through his work, though the extra sounds echoed so much louder than when it was just him, and his pace was slowed a bit as he struggled not to eavesdrop. Still, he finished early as he had intended and began his trek up the spiral stairs to complete the list.

“Oh, are you heading up to the top? I’ve never been in a lighthouse before,” Tim said, stretching out of his cramped position at the table. “Mind if I tag along to stretch my legs?”

Martin thought for a moment and said, “I guess that should be fine? Though it’s not gonna look like much right now.”

“I’ll take it.” Tim stood and looked at his coworkers. “You coming, Sash’? Jon?”

Sasha stretched as well and got up, elbowing Jon lightly and pointing her chin towards the stairs. “C’mon, let’s take a break.” Jon stared for a bit before sighing.

“Fine.”

Martin led the way up, conscious the whole way of how slow he walked in comparison to the others. The walk itself was quiet only for the echoes of their footsteps bouncing around the cylindrical structure and the rain battering from outside. Martin kept his eyes on his feet, making sure to use the handrail. Tim, who started the climb up in the middle of the stairs, soon found himself clinging to the rail as well.

“I definitely believe you about the whole vertigo thing. I can feel it just walking up this place, and I don’t even have a thing about heights,” Tim said, doing his best to keep his tone upbeat.

“Yeah, I’d say you get used to it, but I still haven’t after months of this.” Martin let them lapse back into total silence, and when they reached the top, the researchers breathed a sigh of relief. Martin walked to his work station while they looked out the large panes of glass. Jon sniffed.

“Well, Tim, I hope it was worth it to see more fog.” He stepped away from the glass, tapping his foot impatiently. “We might as well start back down.”

“Oh, calm down,”” Sasha said. “We’ll let Martin finish. Besides, we need a break from all the walking.” Sasha walked past the window panes and then squinted as if in thought. “It was still raining, wasn’t it? When we started up here?”

“Must’ve stopped at some point,” Tim said, looking up in the direction of the sky.

“Yeah, but, there’s no droplets.”

“What?”

“On the glass. There should be rain droplets, right? There isn’t a large enough overhang to block the rain from hitting them.” Jon stopped tapping his foot and came to stand by them. The three looked out into the fog and then back at Martin, who was too busy with his tasks to pay attention to their conversation.

“Martin?” Sasha asked, jostling him from his concentration.

“Wh-yeah?” Sorry, I’m almost done-”

“That thing that happens when you walk here. Could you show us?”

#tma #the magnus archives #breathe in the salt #martin blackwood #jonathan sims #timothy stoker #sasha james #jonmartin #fanfic #au fanfic #peter lukas #technically a #Selkie au

18 notes · View notes