#I think they’re ghouls who don’t give a fuck about the dead children

[starredforlife]

the fucking democratic administration is going to maybe 50% chance throw us into a war before the general election if it doesn’t back the fuck off and cut the support for Israel. They are going to drop kick any and all momentum they have from a new candidate because of this. this Harris campaign becomes a complete lost cause.

[ms-demeanor]

My friend says not to vote in the upcoming election because our liberal establishment is no different from fascism and because Trump's policies are merely an extension of existing policies (like the ICE concentration camps that were established under Obama). How would you, being a leftist like me and my friend, respond to this attitude?

When I was in high school there was one cataclysmic, catastrophic, Very Important school board meeting.

It was a perfect storm of religious freedom, LGBT Rights, and Holy Shit You’re Talking About Taking Daycare Away from Students Who Are Parents.

The first thing, religious freedom, was exceptionally stupid but I think it’s a great example of how shitty the suburb I lived in was and what we were dealing with. Basically the D&D club that I started was accused of being Satanists and the Campus Christian Club was trying to get us shut down for worshipping satan. (I live in the fucking WORST part of LA County, I swear). The defense for the D&D club was pretty simple: If we’re worshipping satan as an on-campus activity at lunchtime we have every right to do so just like the Campus Christian Club an in fact if the Campus Christian Club got us shut down for practicing a different religion they’d made a very effective argument for shutting down their Praising Christ on-campus lunchtime activity.

The second thing was ANOTHER conflict with the Campus Christian Club - this was more serious. This was “High schoolers shouldn’t be exposed to deviant lifestyles and therefore we need to shut down the Gay/Straight Alliance.” At that point the GSA was also very new and I was also the VP of it. Spoilers: we were allowed to continue existing and we had speakers come in from time to time - we had grownups who talked to us about dealing with homophobia and resources for what happened if your parents kicked you out; we had a trans woman in her 50s come and talk to us (in 2003!) about transphobia and dysphoria and how to cope. The adviser handed out a packet to all of us that had the suicide hotline number right at the top, I know at least three people used that number the first year. The defense for the GSA was actually another handy-dandy page out of the ACLU handbook: The Campus Christian Club’s definition of deviance is something they have a right to hold but not to impose on other people - if you ban the GSA based on being ‘deviants’ you are imposing someone else’s belief system on us so knock it off unless you want to be a fun LA Times story.

The third thing didn’t have ANYTHING to do with the Campus Christian Club and was much worse because it had to do with funding and teen moms. The third thing was “The district believes it’s a waste of money to continue to pay for childcare at the district continuation school; if you can’t afford childcare you should have thought of that before becoming a teen mom, good luck getting a babysitter while you’re trying to finish high school.” Four of the students from the continuation school had showed up with their children and their defense of the daycare program was basically (and understandably) “What the fuck you fucking ghouls we just want to finish school and it’s one fucking daycare provider on campus you already have to pay the insurance for childcare providers for other schools in the district what the fucking fuck.”

The D&D Club, GSA, and Childcare for Teen Parents Program were all allowed to continue existing.

By one vote.

By someone who had recently been elected to the school board.

By four votes.

Four people went out and voted that November. Four people filled in a bubble on a ballot.

The GSA did fundraisers to pay for STI testing and suicide prevention. My friend Michelle graduated on time with her daughter waiting in the crowd. Knowing that adult trans people could survive and exist and thrive and love themselves was lifesaving information for a few kids in the GSA.

Four votes. If four people stayed home that’s a hundred fewer STI tests, that’s wondering if Michelle would ever be able to get a job when she didn’t have a diploma and couldn’t hire a babysitter. That’s three dead queer kids and another two homeless.

And it didn’t happen. Because four people filled in a couple of bubbles one night in November.

Voting is not activism but it is by no means useless. If your friend is incapable of distinguishing fascism and liberalism that sounds like a them problem and it sucks to be them; that amount of nihilism is hard to carry around.

People who criticize leftists for “electoral apologism” or whatever for voting are the “yet you participate in society, curious. I am very intelligent” comic

Yeah, the system’s shitty. Yeah, it sucks and should be overthrown. But it’s not overthrown YET so we may as well take advantage of the few areas of harm reduction the system allows. Voting doesn’t mean you STOP doing direct action or that you stop pushing for change, it just means you’re doing the single easiest real-world thing to alleviate suffering. And if it doesn’t work who gives a fuck - you did the bare minimum and it cost you a small amount of time.

Vote and then go hand out food in the park or cut the valve stems off a cop car if you’re feeling angsty about conceding to the system.

(also FUCK, you have no idea how much I hate having to defend the Obama administration but please go talk to a trans person about whether it is easier or harder to get healthcare in their state under Trump or under Obama. I fucking hate liberals but I don’t think that they’re actively interested in overturning Roe V. Wade. Fuck this political purity culture and go learn about harm reduction.)

[cactusnymph]

Prompt fill #5 for @dimension20alphabet:

Escape

[part two to this]

Usually it goes like this:

 The Bad Kids eat lunch together in the cafeteria and otherwise Fabian doesn’t talk much to any of them over the course of his day. It’s not like he’s actively ignoring them, but he’s more on the side of the popular kids. The cool guys. The jocks.

 Meanwhile, the others—well, maybe except for Fig—don’t exactly fit the bill.

 Sure, Fabian would die for any of them, but somehow the social structures at school still feel restrictive in a way that gives him a hard time moving against them.

 Now though, now the unthinkable has happened.

 The Ball is ignoring him.

 Well, not as much as ignoring Fabian as he’s actively fleeing from him the second Fabian comes into view. At first Fabian thought that The Ball had just forgotten something in his locker when he turned around and ran—ran—in the opposite direction of Fabian.

 But it happens again during the first break and Riz is not at their usual table when Fabian joins the others for lunch.

 Everyone is looking at him.

 “What?”, he asks.

 His mood was bad all weekend. After the ridiculous dare he received on Theo’s party The Ball was nowhere to be seen. Both Adaine and Theo—Theo of all people, as if he was The Ball’s friend—followed him out of the room while everyone continued to stare at Fabian accusingly.

 Even Gorgug looked somewhat perturbed, like it was Fabian’s fault that a room full of people had chanted about him kissing The Ball. That hadn’t been his idea!

 “Hey man, you know, you could’ve said ‘no’ without making it sound like, you know, Riz was like, a slimy ghoul or whatever”, Ragh had said to him quietly.

 As far as Fabian knows, Theo and The Ball had ended up making out in one of the empty rooms or behind the house. Those pictures in his head didn’t lead to his weekend getting any better either.

 He trained way too much with his mother. He ate so many kippers that Cathilda asked him if he was feeling alright—which he wasn’t, but he couldn’t exactly explain why. He went for a run three times on Sunday and was still feeling on edge about everything that had happened.

 In the end he crashed on his bed with sore muscles and a scene of The Ball and Theo kissing playing on repeat in his mind that followed him into his dreams.

 And now his friends were looking at him as if he had personally murderer The Ball. With his bare hands. For fun.

 “Did you talk to Riz?”, Adaine wants to know.

 “No.”

 Silence answers him and he looks around the table.

 “What? He saw me in the hallway, turned around and ran away!”, Fabian exclaims angrily. His face is getting hot. He hates all this emotional bullshit and almost wishes he could just go back to being his father’s darling boy instead of his own man, because somehow that seemed way easier.

 “Oh no. Poor Riz”, Kristen says and Fabian almost loses his shit right there.

 Why is it ‘poor Riz’? Why is no one acknowledging what a shit weekend he had? And how fucking dumb that dare was? And how it’s offensive to consider that Riz and Theo made out behind the house while Fabian was being stared at like someone who strangles puppies? And also, he fucking hates it to be ignored.

 He is Fabian Aramais Seacaster.

 He refuses to be ignored!

 “Did you try to text him to apologize?”, Gorgug asks.

 Fabian stares at him.

 “For what?”

 “I mean. You know, because. He looked pretty hurt and like. Isn’t he your best friend?”, Gorgug says quietly and Fabian feels like someone has dropped an iron weight into his stomach.

 “I mean, I guess we’re friends, I wouldn’t go as far as to say that, you know—best friends is maybe a little—“

 A voice in his head whispers “Why would you say that, isn’t that a lie?” but Fabian doesn’t get to listen to it as Fig lowers her fork and looks past Fabian at someone right behind him.

 “Oh, no”, Gorgug says very quietly and Kristen gets up halfway from her chair which leads Fabian to turn around just to be faced with The Ball’s very pale and very unhappy face. For a split second Fabian has the opportunity to notice that Riz looks as if he hasn’t slept or eaten for the past two days, but then he notices Fabian looking at him and escapes immediately.

 “Okay, Fabian, I know talking about your feelings is super fucking hard and everything, but get a grip, man”, Fig snaps at him.

 “My feelings are perfectly fine, thank you”, Fabian grits through his teeth but he doesn’t touch the rest of his food and instead spends the rest of his lunch break cursing the universe for having The Ball turn up right at that moment when Fabian announced that them being best friends might be a bit of a stretch.

 Fabian never really had a best friend before.

 Fuck if he knows what that’s even supposed to mean.

 Riz always just went ahead and announced it to the whole world after they’d barely known each other for a week and back then it had been completely ludicrous.

 Now, though.

 Fabian doesn’t know.

 He might have announced that toxic masculinity is dead, but the truth is that it’s still hard dealing with all this emotional bullshit when no one ever really taught him how it works. And he’ll rather be shot than admit that. At least for now.

 It was hard enough to deal with the fact that he never really did anything on his own and was nothing but a pale shadow of his father, but now that he managed to work through that, everything else was still as difficult as before.

 And who the fuck are you supposed to talk to about these things?

 His father is a madman flying a dead dragon through hell.

 His mother heats up whole cantaloupes in hot pans, because she doesn’t even know how to cook some fucking scrambled eggs.

 Cathilda would probably know a thing or two about this stuff, but Fabian has yet to fully grow into the whole Cathilda-is-basically-his-surrogate-mother-and-not-just-his-maid-thing.

 And how is he going to explain this whole mess anyway?

 “Hey Cathilda, I went to this party and someone told me to kiss The Ball and I was like ‘No, that’s ridiculous’ and now everyone is acting like I’m a complete asshole and The Ball doesn’t talk to me anymore, which is quite frankly offensive, because he always says that I’m his fucking best friend.”

 Even to Fabian that sounds ridiculous. And it doesn’t take into account his obsessive thoughts about Theo and Riz kissing or how The Ball might have overheard Fabian saying that they’re not best friends. And his bloodshot eyes with dark shadows under them. And his pale green face with all those freckles.

 And...

 Fabian decides that school can suck his dick on this terrible Monday and he leaves the Aguefort Academy directly after lunch break instead of going to his fighter class.

 It’s not like he needs it, anyway.

 He could probably wipe the floor with his teacher at this point.

 On his way home he receives multiple text messages from his friends.

 “Hey Fabian, where are you? Are you okay?”, from Gorgug.

 “Just text him”, from Adaine.

 “Maybe Jawbone can help you out, he’s really good at this relationship stuff”, from Kristen.

 Relationship stuff?

 What relationship stuff?

 The Ball is not his boyfriend.

 Fabian laughs as he passes a mother with her two kids and she looks slightly concerned about his well being and tugs her children further down the sidewalk.

 What if The Ball wants Theo to be his boyfriend?

 Fabian stops in the middle of the road and stares at his phone. He doesn’t want to talk to Jawbone. Sure, Jawbone is cool and everything. But talking to Jawbone feels too much like admitting that he might have a serious problem, more so than if he maybe just talks to one of his friends.

 For a split second Fabian thinks that wants to talk to Riz until he remembers that that’s not possible right now.

 Because Riz doesn’t talk to him. And also Riz wouldn’t want to talk about anything related to kissing or—or—

 Fabian stuffs his crystal back into his pocket and turns a corner that leads him towards Mordred Manor instead of home.

 Ragh is outside in the vast garden of the manor, wearing a straw hat and some shorts and nothing else while he waters some plants.

 “Hey, what’s up, bro?”, he calls over to Fabian, turns the hose and hits Fabian square in the chest with a jet of cold water. It only takes a few seconds until he’s completely drenched.

 Ragh laughs loudly while he turns off the water and throws the hose down into the grass.

 “You good, man?”, Ragh asks as he walks over to him. Fabian feels like on any other day he might have simply punched Ragh in the face for getting his expensive sneakers wet, but today it just seems like maybe he deserved a shower of cold water.

 “Um—yeah. No. I don’t really know”, he says and his voice reminds him of the time when the whole Leviathan debacle went down. He clears his throat and wipes some water out of his face. “Do you—uh. Have some time to talk?”

 “Sure, dude. Let’s find a spot with a little more shade.”

 Fabian hates the feeling of water in his shoes, so he takes them off and follows Ragh through the garden and into the shade under a big maple tree.

 “What’s up, dude?”, Ragh asks and throws himself down into the ground, pulls the straw hat off his head and leans against the thick trunk of the tree. Fabian sits down cross-legged and puts his sneakers to the side.

 “So—uh”, he starts and then closes his mouth immediately because he hasn’t actually thought this through at all. Ragh looks at him curiously and Fabian wonders if there is a good and nonchalant way to ask the things he wants to ask. Instead of acting cool and composed how he wants to, what comes out of his mouth is:

 “Do you think The Ball and Theo made out?”

 There is a beat of silence in which Fabian considers just getting up and running out of the garden and into traffic. This was not what he is supposed to ask.

 This is not—

 “Dude”, Ragh says and he leans forward to look at Fabian. “You look like you’re about to puke, man.”

 Fabian doesn’t feel great. His chest feels like someone installed iron clasps around it and is pulling his ribs tight and his stomach is doing some acrobatics that it’s absolutely not supposed to do.

 Why did he ask this?

 And what if Ragh says yes?

 Why the fuck does it even bother him?

 The Ball can kiss whoever the fuck he wants!

 “I’m—sure. Fine. Yeah. It’s all—uh. Fine.”

 “Yeah, dude, no offense, but like, it doesn’t look particularly fine to me. So—what you’re asking me is. If Riz and Theo got it going after that whole Truth or Dare thing?”

 Fabian takes a deep breath, which seems particular hard for some reason. This is ridiculous.

 He’s Fabian Aramais Seacaster. He knows how to fucking breathe.

 “I—guess?”

 “Hm”, Ragh says and leans back again. “Not sure if that’s my story to tell, bro. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sorry you feel like shit, but, like. Isn’t that something you should talk to Riz about?”

 Fabian thinks that, if one other person tells him to talk to The Ball, he might actually commit cold blooded murder.

 “Great suggestion, seeing as to how he keeps running away from me like he’s afraid I’m going to breathe fire at him any second”, he growls and crosses his arms in front of his chest. Ragh sighs and cocks his head from side to the other.

 “Would it like, bother you if they actually had made out?”

 Fabian wants to snort and say “No”. What comes out instead is a garbled noise as his brain is bombarded with pictures about Riz and Theo kissing.

 “Woah, dude, okay”, Ragh says and he looks alarmed. “Breathe, man.”

 Fabian can do that. Breathing is really easy, except that it’s not.

 “Okay, dude, Imma just say it now, okay? It’s like ripping a band-aid off!”, Ragh says loudly, grips Fabian’s shoulders and stares at him very intently. “I think you’re totally into Riz.”

 Fabian’s brain feels like it’s suffering from a bad case of frostbite. His thoughts turn sluggish as he tries to process what Ragh just said, but it doesn’t make any sense. Fabian is not into The Ball. He’s not in love with Riz. That is insane.

 “Okay, so, hear me out, bro. Remember how I was totally in love with Dayne? And it took me like a million years to like, get that? Feels pretty similar to what’s happening with you right now, right? Because we’re like, these manly dudes and we’re supposed to be into hot girls and all that stuff, right? So it doesn’t really fit the picture, but it’s totally fine, dude. It’s all good. You can be in love with Riz.”

 Fabian blinks at him. He can hear the words and he can feel the corners of his mouth turn upwards as if to try to form into a grin.

 “Don’t be insane, Ragh. I’m not—That’s—“

 “It bothers you when he’s with other people because you’re fucking jealous, dude. I’ve been there, okay? And it’s like this weird thing of—you’re not allowed to be jealous because that’s fucking weird, right? Because that’s like, your best bro and everything. But then you keep obsessing about him making out with other people and then it’s like, okay, but what if he kissed me and then you feel really fucking bad, right? Because you’re brain shouldn’t go there?”

 For the very first time Fabian imagines what would have happened if he, instead of saying “No, that’s ridiculous”, had actually kissed The Ball.

 He thinks about Riz’ sharp teeth and how he keeps chewing on his bottom lip when he’s nervous and the second Fabian’s brain arrives at Riz’ bottom lip it feels like there is a dam inside his brain breaking.

 He imagines grabbing Riz and pulling him into his lap, pressing his lips against his and hearing Riz make a choked noise against his lips—

 “What the actual fuck.”

 Ragh lets go of his shoulders and nods.

 “Yeah, dude. Intense, right?”

 “But—why?”

 Ragh shrugs and rubs the back of his head with one of his hands. Somehow the cold water drenching Fabian’s clothing feels like a blessing now because his skin seems to be on fire.

 Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck—

 “Because, dude.”

 “But like—what the fuck am I supposed to do with that?”

 “I mean. Sounds to me like you should totally kiss your Ball, bro.”

 Fabian’s stomach does multiple somersaults.

 “But he’s not—into that kind of stuff.”

 Ragh chuckles.

 “Dude, I love Riz, I really do, but I feel like now that you figured this part of the whole deal out I can just tell you, that like. Riz doesn’t want to make out with Theo or pretty much anyone, right? Which is totally fine, bro, don’t get me wrong. But also, like. I’m a hundred percent certain that he would totally kiss you, man.”

 Fabian’s first response is “Of course he does, why shouldn’t he” but then his brain catches up and his skin starts to tingle.

 Maybe this is why kissing Aelwyn for the second time wasn’t really working out. Maybe this is what Aelwyn meant when she said “Well, I suppose we’re not a good match after all”.

 “Riz... wants to kiss me?”

 Ragh nods and grins.

 “Yeah, dude.”

 “Okay. Well—uh. I have to go.”

 “Don’t forget your shoes!”, Ragh shouts after him but Fabian doesn’t give a rat’s ass about his shoes as he takes off.

 Maybe he can unpack all of this shit later. Maybe he should actually talk to Jawbone. Maybe this is going to be yet another thing that makes him different from his father and as soon as he has some time to think it through he can maybe arrive at the conclusion that that isn’t a bad thing.

 At some point he stops running because he actually has no idea where Riz is. Is he still at school? At home? At his damn office? Fabian pulls out his crystal and hastily types a message to Riz.

 “Where are you???? We need to kiss!”

 He deletes the last word and types “talk” instead. Fabian watches with his breath held as three dots appear on his screen very shortly before they disappear again. He waits in the middle of the street, no shoes on, dripping wet. People passing him by look as though they’re concerned for his mental state but Fabian couldn’t care less.

 Maybe now is not the time to be manly about his feelings if he actually wants to fucking kiss his damn best friend.

 “I need to talk to my best friend”, he types.

 The dots reappear immediately.

 “at the office”

 Fabian stuffs the crystal back into his pocket, considers calling the Hangman to drive him over there but then decides that he doesn’t want to wait for him to arrive.

 The last time Fabian was in Riz’ office there was a terribly creepy doppelganger of Riz trying to kill him, but he pushes the thought to the side as he rushes into the building, dripping water everywhere as he heads up the stairs.

 Fabian doesn’t think he can manage another emotional talk today because the last one left him completely drained and exhausted, but the second that he spots Riz behind his desk ripping some papers in a nervous craze his heart leaps into his throat and goes into overdrive immediately.

 Fuck.

 He rips open the door and Riz flinches so hard that he sends all the papers flying. Then he stares at Fabian with his huge, yellow eyes.

 “Why are you wet? And where are your shoes?”, he wants to know, looking completely confused.

 “Doesn’t matter”, Fabian says, rounds the desk and grabs Riz by the shoulders. “We need to talk about Saturday.”

 Riz turns his face away and there is a dark green blush on his cheeks and the back of his nose. Now that Fabian knows what his damn problem is he realizes how fucking badly he actually wants to kiss Riz.

 “Oh—well. Yeah. Haha, weird, right? Don’t worry about it, it was totally ridicu—“

 “I should have done it”, Fabian interjects. Riz’ eyes grow impossibly wider.

 “Wh—what?”

 “I should have done it. Kiss you, I mean. We should have kissed.”

 Who would have thought that the son of the famous Bill Seacaster would die of a heart attack at the age of eighteen while wearing no shoes and dripping wet clothes.

 “Wh—why?”

 “Because I—“

 Fabian didn’t actually get that far in his head. He grabs Riz’ shoulders tighter and fuck, he can’t bring himself to say the words.

 “Because I don’t want you to kiss anyone else”, is what he manages in the end and he watches closely as Riz’ swallows and the dark shade of green on his face grows impossibly darker still.

 “Did you mean it?”, he asks quietly, his voice raspy and hoarse.

 “Mean what?”

 “That—in your text message. About—you know. Being best friends or whatever.”

 Fabian takes a deep breath.

 “Yeah.”

 Riz makes a very small “Oh” sound and then, all of a sudden, Fabian stumbles backwards with his arms full of Goblin. It occurs to him that this is the first time they actually hugged.

 “So—uh. Can I? Um—kiss you?”, he asks and his voice sounds like he swallowed a bunch of sand.

 “Yeah. Yeah, okay.”

 It turns out that kissing someone you’re actually into is better than winning a Bloodrush game, better than dancing, better than pretty much everything he’s ever done before. Riz holds onto him as if his life depended on it and Fabian feels like he won’t let his best friend down anytime soon or he might just fall over and die.

 It occurs to him that this must be Riz’ first kiss and something inside him purrs contently at the thought of that as he lets himself sink down into Riz’ chair so Riz is sitting in his lap.

 “Thought you were into that Theo dude”, he mumbles against Riz’ lips.

 “’m not.”

 “Yeah, I get that now.”

 “I’m uh—pretty much only into you. So...”

 Fabian’s heart is doing a very silly little dance in his chest but all he can bring himself to say is “Yeah”. All the other words that he probably should say get stuck somewhere half the way up his throat because his heart is beating too fast.

 “So... no more Truth or Dare”, Riz says sheepishly.

 “No, definitely not.”

 “Cool.”

 Very cool indeed, Fabian thinks, as he kisses Riz again.

[canonloveinterest]

Hi, I was fucking around in AI D/ungeon in the Ghost-based world/scenarios I had on there from a while back. Don't mind me.

These got angsty at some points and it shouldn't have made me as (crying cat.jpg) as it did. #long post

> You say "Who?"

"Papa Emeritus II," he says.

You scrunch your face up, and roll your eyes. You rest your elbows on the desk across from Miach, and put your chin on your hands.

> You say "I heard he's an asshole."

"He's a great leader," Amadeus says. "And pretty friendly when you get to know him."

> You say "Is he friendly with you?"

"Yes." Amadeus smiles, before nodding.

"Alright," you say. You stand, and nod to Amadeus. He smiles, and reaches out to shake your hand. You shake Amadeus's hand. His grip is too tight and it hurts a little bit.

"Bye, Amadeus," you say.

"Bye," he replies. You walk over to the door, opening it.

You stick your head out, looking up and down the hallways.

> You go to meet with Papa Emeritus II.

You walk along the hallway, trying to remember the way to the Papa Emeritus II's office. Eventually, you reach the large doors leading to it. You reach up, and knock on the door. There is no answer. You knock again.

"Hello?" you say.

You wait, but there is no reply. You shrug, and walk into the office, looking around. You're not seeing anything out of place.

There is no reply.

You sigh, and continue looking around. You spot Papa Emeritus II's coat on a chair by the desk, and smile. The sight of the coat is comforting. You feel a fondness in your chest. You and Papa Emeritus II have had a number of pleasant conversations at this point, but you still don't know him very well. He is intimidating.

> You sit on the couch and wait for Papa Emeritus II to return.

You sit on the couch, and wait patiently. Papa Emeritus II still hasn't returned. You begin to worry.

> You check the papers on his desk.

There is a large amount of papers on the desk, all of which you've read before. They're Papa Emeritus II's way of keeping up with events in the church.

> You text Zaffre the ghoul and ask if they have seen Papa Emeritus II anywhere in the cathedral.

You stand from the couch, and begin to open up your phone. You type out a message to Zaf, quickly tapping out the message.

> You wait for a reply.

A minute passes. Still no reply. Frustrated, you slam your fist on the desk. The papers flutter down, and your hand tightens around the phone. You wait for a reply from him. After an hour, your patience wears thin. You get frustrated and throw the cell phone across the room.

> You leave the office and go to Papa Emeritus II's personal living quarters.

You enter Papa Emeritus II's bedroom, and look around. You spot his coat on the chair he usually sits on, and smile. You walk over to the coat, and pick it up, hanging it in the closet.

> You look at the clothes in his closet.

You walk over to Papa Emeritus II's closet, and run your hand along the back of his suits. You wonder where he is.

> You call Papa Emeritus II's cell phone.

Papa Emeritus II's calm voice comes in on the other line.

"Yes?" He answers.

You pause for a long second.

"Hi," you say.

He doesn't respond.

"I...um...just wanted to see how you are."

"I'm fine, Cirice."

You pause again.

"Are...are you at the office?"

"Yes."

> You say "No you aren't. I was just there."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"I see..." Papa Emeritus II says slowly.

"Are you mad at me?" You ask.

"No."

"Are you sad?"

Papa Emeritus II doesn't answer.

"Well, okay," you say. "Well I was just calling to make sure you were okay."

"I'm fine, Cirice."

> You say "Can you come see me? I'm in your room. "

"No."

"Please?"

"Can you come see me?"

Papa Emeritus II continues to remain silent.

"Please?"

> You cry.

Papa Emeritus II laughs.

"I'm hanging up now, Cirice."

You wait for Papa Emeritus II to hang up, but he doesn't.

> You say "Okay. That's fine. I'll be at my apartment when you're ready to talk to me, then. "

"See you later, little one," Papa Emeritus II says.

"Bye Papa."

You hang up the phone, and sit on the bed in Papa Emeritus II's room.

Papa Emeritus II's bedroom is a large, luxurious room. The wall in front of you is covered in photographs taken over the years. Most of the pictures feature Papa Emeritus II with various people. You punch the wall, and some frames shake and tilt crookedly. A few photos flutter off the wall. You do not feel better. Papa Emeritus II's bedroom is dimly lit, but the sun sets behind the office tower, so the room is cast in shadows. You sit slumped on Papa Emeritus II's bed, starring at the wall of photographs.

> You go back to your apartment.

You stand up from Papa Emeritus II's bed, and pick up your coat from the chair in the corner by the door. You slip into your coat, and walk outside. On your way out, you run into Papa Emeritus II coming home. You accidentally make eye contact and desperately try to make it seem like you weren't just crying in Papa Emeritus II's bedroom.

"Cirice, are you okay?" he asks.

"Yes, Papa."

"Do you need something?"

You look down at your feet, avoiding his gaze.

"I was just leaving," you say.

After a brief pause you look back up at Papa Emeritus II and remember what he said on the phone.

"Why were you acting like that?" You ask him.

"Like what?"

"You know, sad."

"I wasn't acting sad. I was just thinking, is all."

"About?" "Things."

> You say "If there's anything wrong, I want you to know you can tell me. Or not, if you don't want to. Whatever."

"There's nothing wrong, Cirice. Go on, now."

You stand awkwardly for a few moments longer, looking him hard in his eyes. You furrow your brow and look at his mismatched green and white eyes.

"I'm sorry you're... occupied, with your thoughts," you say. "But I don't appreciate you being so dismissive. It hurts, you know? And I love you." You say.

Papa Emeritus II looks at you. You can't tell what he's thinking behind the green and white eyes.

"We'll talk later tonight, okay?" he says.

> You say "Right. Call me when you're ready to talk, then. I'm going to my apartment. "

"Very well, Cirice. I love you."

> You take your leave.

On your way out of the office building, you walk quickly through the offices.

> You go home to your apartment.

You go home to your apartment, wondering what Papa Emeritus II's problem is. You go home to your empty apartment and turn on the TV, only to continue thinking about his harsh words on the phone and then your terse meeting in the hallway outside his living quarters. Papa Emeritus II is a single man who has shown no interest in love or romance. He has no wife and has no children of his own. He seems to only pursue people who he finds sexually appealing, but they never remain for long. He only keeps them around long enough to be satisfied in the bedroom, and then they break up. So why has he been showing you this amount of romantic interest? Surely he would have given up or gotten bored after a while, pursuing you, a nervous wreck of an office worker. You've denied him at every attempt to become sexually intimate.

Maybe it's because you remind him of a dead lover or ex-flame.

But you can't know for sure.

The man never opens up, and when he does he's just as quick to shut you out. Maybe you should give up trying to figure him out. Now that he's not interested in you, why bother? Those thoughts make you cry a little more. But if he wasn't interested, why would he kiss you? Why would he say that he loves you as often as he does, when he does that with no one else but you?

> What does it mean?

You've been trying to figure out the hidden meanings in Papa Emeritus II's words and actions ever since he first showed them to you. Papa Emeritus II is mysterious and no one ever knows what his intentions are. Surely, he has no ill will toward you. He said he loved you when you spoke outside his office. He kissed you, even though he was harsh over the phone earlier. You decide to continue waiting for him to either visit your apartment or call you to explain himself.

> You turn off the TV and go to bed.

The next day, you enter your office as usual. All is normal, nothing is wrong. Papa Emeritus II did not speak to you that night. His exact words were "I'll speak to you later".

Perhaps he meant in the morning, at the office. You wait for him, thinking about him the entire time you're at work. He didn't know that you waited up for him. You watch as night after night passes by without any interaction from him.

> You return to his office and knock at the door.

You knock at the door, and after a few moments it opens, with Papa Emeritus II looking down upon you. He's in the same outfit as yesterday, and holds a small box in his hand.

> You look at him suspiciously.

"You're back," he says.

> "Of course I am," you reply.

"I have a gift for you," he says, handing you the box.

You take the chocolates gingerly from his hand. You give him a soft "thank you" before looking back up at him.

> "How are you feeling today?" You ask him.

His eye twitches and his lips press into a thin line.

"You were awfully short with me yesterday, you know. I hope everything is still... okay. Between you and me, I mean." You say.

"Yes, of course," he replies.

He looks down for a moment, and his eye twitches. After a brief pause, you begin to leave. "Wait!"

> You say "Yes?"

Papa Emeritus II hesitates, as if he didn't mean to call out.

"I..." he begins to say, before pausing. "I'll see you later, okay?"

Your hand clenches into a fist, crumpling the box slightly.

"You said that yesterday! And nothing! You didn't even call me back." You say, your voice becoming slightly louder than needed. Tears prickle at the corners of your eyes again.

For a split second, Papa Emeritus II looks absolutely furious at someone raising their voice to him. He is the Unholy Excellency. He is the leader of this church. Nobody raises their voice at Papa Emeritus II.

"Please just tell me what's wrong," you whisper.

The look of hurt and confusion on your face seems to strike a chord in him. He sighs, defeated.

"I'm sorry. I'm tired. I'm sick. I'm overwhelmed. I'm sad. Please, just leave me alone." He says, his voice breaking.

> You say "Alright. If that's what you want. I'm sorry that I disturbed you. "

> You say "Thanks for the candy. "

You turn around and return to your desk in the office. The candy in its crumpled box sits untouched at your desk. You can't think of anything else but the sorrowful expression on Papa Emeritus II's face. You hide your face with your hand. You're confused, and hurt, and don't know where to go from here. You feel something wet dripping down the side of your face. It takes you a moment to realize that it's your own tears. You didn't notice that you started crying again. You don't cry that easily.

The next day, you wait to see if Papa Emeritus II acknowledges you. You see him at the bottom of the staircase. He is looking up, staring off into the distance. You wave to catch his attention, but he does not wave back. You approach slowly, with your head down.

"Hullo, Papa." You say.

"Cirice." He says to you, nodding his head. "Did you need something?" He asks.

"No, I was just coming to see if you needed any help."

"No, I'm fine. I wanted to speak with you though."

"Of course. Anything you need." You say.

> You wince internally at the desperation in your voice.

"I need you." He says. Your face turns bright red and feels warm under your skin. You wince and cross your arms, looking away.

"I don't know what to do with you." You say.

Papa Emeritus II has the self awareness to look ashamed. Not many people have seen Papa Emeritus II in this state; forlorn, remorseful, and entirely human.

"You can do what you like," he says. "You can do anything you like."

You turn to look at him and uncross your arms. You close the distance and put a gentle hand on his chest and on his arm.

"I want to help you." You say.

"You already do." Papa Emeritus II says. And there it is. The faintest ghost of a smile. You touch his cheek and turn him to face you.

> You say "Can I kiss you?"

He stares at you with wide eyes, before smiling faintly.

"Yes." You kiss him.

You kiss him again. And you keep kissing him until you're both breathless. You remember that you're standing in the stairwell of the office building. You hold him with your hands on the sides of his face, stroking his cheek. Papa Emeritus II looks at you with shining eyes.

"Thank you." He says, before leaning in for another kiss.

[themanicgalaxy]

SPN 4X19 Jump the Shark

Oh hey is this the illegitimate brother plotline

boy I love me some sweet sweet ANGST

whelp she's fucking dead

picture of JOHN?

Sam's peacefully brushing his teeth and Dean's Not a Morning Person

boy he's having a bad morning

to be fair, living out of the car is kinda not fun either

"I'm his son" Dean: I'm gonna fUCKING KIL-

he's..premed?

they're going to ruin his life too aren't they, Aren't The-

Dean is taking this really well

I mean he did get the brunt of John's Issues, so I get it, yike

ASDFPIHP them discussing their dad's ~sex life~ is very funny though

Dean was...preteen? when this kid was born? Sam was under ten definitely

Dean Please

No that's your Actual Brother guys PLEASE

hunting accident "ah fair enough"

"who is a nuclear family these days" FEELS SO LOADED

Dean...Dean please don't fUCKING KILL HIM DEAN

THE IMPALA NOOO

"he took you to a baseball game" IDSFHAPF

He's Trying not to CRY OH MY GOD NO WAIT

Sam resonates with the away from college thing oh NO

Dean is trying SO HARD not to snap

at least he's...trying..to keep adam out

corpse snatching => HEY LOOK IT's THE BONE STEALING WIT-

I think I need to stop being online jesus christ

the [both sigh] was so good

well...that's a lot of blood

How the hell do you break it to your illegitimate brother that you're ~technically Wanted by the FBI

at least he's not an idiot

HE'S SO MUCH YOUNGER THAN THEY ARE

I mean obligatory dead mom

"do i get a say in this?" "NO!"

no..no SAM DEAN HAS A POINT

Middle sibling + younger sibling gang up on elder

"have u thought about eternity" "bro i've literally been to hell Idk what to tell u"

Dean doing it solo but Sad is...:(

Oh he worked the old case, that's neat

"so it's over for you" welllllll

OO THE TRUCK SHOT WAS COOL

dean + long dark coat truthing tonight HE LOOKS G O O D

it wants revenge

YOU FUCKERS AND YOUR REVENGE BELA WAS R I G H T

and Adam Instantly wants revenge, you sir are definitely a Winchester

"it's life" WELL IT SHOULDn'T BE

the stupid isolationism I hate it

NO GO CONNECT WITH PEOPLE KRIPKE WHY

Sam's becoming his dad, and Dean isn't

...SAM WHAT THE FUCK

DAD MOST CERTAINLY DID NOT DO RIGHT BY YOU

HIS GODDAMN GRIEF SPIRAL GOT BOTH OF YOU

LET HIM BE NORMAL! HAPPY! IT IS TOO LATE FOR YOU RIGHT NOW(NOT ALWAYS)(Also very close to the thing with zachariah in placement(eye emojis) BUT LEAVE HIM ALONE!

I do appreciate Dean Eldest Sibling'ed it up even if he didn't like the kid/was jealous. Goddammit I wish we got connection in this stupid show

I was expecting a jump scare but somehow the squish is worse

sOn oF aBitcH

Ah FUCK NOT ADAM TOO

I do like the little angel Icon though, that's what's Dean's way out

Ghouls is a racist term?what????

no john winchester was 100% a monster

ah it was their father

yada yada father killing circle idk

YAY! DEAN'S INGENUITY IS BACK!

Ghoul!mom is really really good. I liked Scared Adam better though

the slicing sam scene is BRUTAL jesus christ

So...John got his own son killed in the end...

SERIOUSLY HE WAS TERRIBLE

Dean JESUS CHRIST

awww caring Dean is nice

AWW HUNTER'S FUNERAL

"Adam's in a better place" :(

Dean tried to fit himself into the Dad box, Sam's actually him

"you take it any way you want" oh for FUC- HE- I-

he looked so Sad, so like...he's stopped idolizing him

jesus christ.

boy there's gonna be overlap ok here we go.

1. poor dean. Ok couple things: 1) he elder sibling'ed it SO HARd! he didn't even like Adam, but he still tried to keep him safe(I think). he gave him a hunter's funeral! I just. It was nice to see. It was also INCREDIBLY painful to hear the realization of "you were always like dad, I never could be" and the fact that he didn't even see it as a good thing anymore? fUCK man, that huRT me. Dean tried so hard to be something he wasn't, he got probably the brunt of the abuse(because he didn't measure up to that metric like Sam always would), and in the end all it got him was...just. so much pain. Like it felt like John left his Broken children behind to get a new one, and just turned them into his quest for revenge. It was SO So fucked

Hey actually speaking of

2. AM I SUPPOSED TO LIKE BEING A HUNTER/JOHN? WHAT HTE FUCK?

YALL ALREADY MARTYRED HIM BUT UR MAKING HIM WORSE?

LIKE ok listen. John's kinda set up as the ideal of hunting. They martyred him! And I was halfway sold provided they didn't mention him again. Then! he did this thing where he abandoned his kids, seeing them only as tools to fulfill his quest for revenge, literally broke them(that too late thing+zachariah saying "it's in your blood" when really it was just trained from a young age), got a NEW family he treated a lot better. I just. I have...NO idea how I'm supposed to see him as a good guy here. Maybe I just kin Dean, or his plight is WAY more sympathetic(it is, Sam is kinda pissing me off), but John's just...coming off worse and worse and they KEEP doing it!

Also! this whole cycle of revenge thing! about how if you keep taking an eye for an eye, everyone ends up blind! they barely escaped this time, and I think this was the second revenge plot that I can think of with MONSTERS alone! it was a BIG theme! Like!! hunting sucks! revenge makes you end up in worse places! it's like this one episode was made to show how SHIT hunting was!

wait who wrote this

Dabb+lofflin. The hunting sucks always comes from-

this GODDAMN INCONSISTE-

3. Fuck John Winchester

4. Individualism. Ok this is a big one. Alongside the whole revenge plot thing(which is BIG, and a hunting sucks), this one drove home the sheer individuality of hunting. But while some of the writers see that as Badass, this one made it seem lonely, and painful. Like the flip side to American Individualism is American Chronic Loneliness. I know this one was used to process the ennui of the post recession/post 9/11 time, and it's doing very well for that, but it kinda ends up like this show is EVERYONE'S therapy all at once! the gang's all here! and we're gonna traumatize you in the process as well.

EDIT: and yeah yeah yada yada american individualism is King and then so is it’s accompanying loneliness in the post 9/11 post war in iraq post recession world(we were not having fun in 08/09)

and I get that this show is the writer’s therapy and whatever

(I just thing this is phrased better)

5. bring him back. Connect! Look. I know it breaks the core ethos of this episode. But having Weird Esoteric Hunter siblings would have been SO FUNNY!

give me more sibling content! Sam+Adam teaming up against the Eldest Sibling Dean WAS SO FUNNY! I WANT MORE OF THAT

6. SAM WHAT THE FU-. Look. I hate John. I very much hate John. They set up the Sam/Dean dichotomy in regards to John first episode, and Sam acting more like an ass+like his dad is. Not making me like him. Also I feel like this was written to sympathize with Dean. Which makes the finale even more ironic, I feel.

7. Listen. Listen. One of you has to keep track of continuity. Like I know this becomes a WAY bigger problem later in the series, but if a certain writer wants to process/examine a certain part of the Life/Story(and they should, they set up a lot of interesting stuff), they have to keep track! Because then the show becomes everything all at once.

Like this show has ALREADY started feeling like fanfic of itself, where it just kinda does whatever it wants with its own concepts. And the concepts are GREAT! but you can TELL how inconsistent it is, even in the kripke era

like it ends up being Study of X, Riff on X! and I think that's where the inconsistency comes from. It's also why it's so fucking Excellent in places.

whelp this was a lot holy hell.

OH AND ONE MORE THING!

Bela didn't fit the narrative. That's why they didn't like her. I said at the beginning that an Int'l art thief does NOT fit the vibe of "grungy Angsty American Midwestern gothic" and I was right. With the lucifer story and the vibe she didn't fit, and so they just killed her as foreshadowing, and only used her like that. God I wish they'd riffed on her, especially because her callouts were all completely correct

we're Bela Salting again

listen she was preppy Jack Sparrow with some spiritualism, how dare you tell me not to like her.

[fallout4reactsblog]

hello yes i am here to enable your further reinhart blurb writings

Anon has enabled me further it’s over for y’all

also I got a little long-winded so this isn’t so much a blurb as it is a whole-ass short story I guess

He’s pacing. A habit of his whenever he gets flustered, or irritated, or generally put off by something, and this was definitely putting him off.

There's no chance in hell Pearl will actually manage to not only find a detective but also get them here alive, is there? The Island is inhospitable to anything but the most experienced, and there’s no way she finds someone to fit the bill. No, he’d be fine, they’d all be fine, no one was coming.

But if they were, it would be from Far Harbor. That would be the worst. He doesn’t know if Chase even told them about him, or if they remember if she did, but if they do and find him here, that’s going to be a mess. 

To think this was going well, too. Sure, all these robots are snotty and polished and living a couple centuries behind, but to tell the truth, they’re not much worse than the Institute scientists were, just dumber. He can live with them.

But Pearl isn’t going to bring anyone back. No one in their right mind is going to trek all the way out here on the premise of being a detective to solve a mystery. There are no detectives on the Island, and nobody’s coming to visit, of course. Who would make the trip over here unless they were forced to? No one. He’d be fine, they’d all be fine-

The equivalent of the vault’s doorbell echoes through the halls, and he breathes a sigh of relief. If Pearl’s back so quickly, she’s given up on finding anyone. Everyone in Far Harbor probably told her to fuck off, if they didn’t shoot at her first. He dusts his hands off on his pants and goes to greet her at the door, already thinking up his words of sympathy.

She comes into view around the corner, and his heart sinks. Because there they are, ghoul guts splattered up their arms, standing in the foyer like they should actually be here. Under their armor, he sees glimpses of a familiar blue: a vault suit. God, the irony of an actual vault-dweller showing up as a detective.

“Reinhart. I was about to go looking for you. I have found a detective.”

The human sticks out a hand. “Sole. Nice to meet you.”

“Reinhart.” He tries not to let his voice betray his nerves. “Pleasure to have you here.”

He notices, when they shake, their hands are calloused strangely. Their skin is too smooth in general; it should be rougher if they were from Far Harbor. The salt of the sea isn’t kind to the complexion, and neither is the fog. They can’t be from around here.

“I’m sure you’ll want to see the crime scene, detective. First, though, perhaps we could have a word?”

They nod. “Alright.”

He leads them into the security office and closes the door, still eyeing them. They don’t look particularly nervous, just the expected amount, which probably means they don’t know who he is. Probably.

“Listen,” he says, turning around to lean against the door. “Cut the shit. Who are you really? And don’t tell me you’re a detective; there’s no detective in Far Harbor, or anywhere else on this mess of an island.”

“I’m not from Far Harbor.” They eye his jacket. “Are you going to try to kill me?”

He blinks. “Are you going to try to kill me?”

“No? Why would I?”

“Let’s just say I’m not exactly Far Harbor’s golden boy. But since you’re not from there, that’s fine. Did you hear anything about me? I think they’re supposed to shoot me on sight over there, or something.”

Sole shakes their head. “You’re in the clear. Only courser I’ve heard of on the Island is Chase.”

Chase. God, it’s been a long time since he even thought about Chase. Briefly, he considers asking how she’s doing, but decides against it. It doesn’t matter, after all. He might as well be dead for all she cares.

“You know her or something?” they ask.

“Not anymore.” He shakes his head to clear it. “Enough about me. Who are you?”

“Like I said, I’m sole. I’m a detective from the Commonwealth.”

“And your affiliations there are...?”

“I’m not going to call up the Institute and report you, if that’s what you’re asking. I came from Diamond City, probably the second-least friendly city toward the Institute. But what were you saying before, about Chase?”

He snorts. “With all due respect, we don’t know each other well enough for that. Buy me a drink, maybe.”

They roll their eyes, but he can tell they’re amused by the way their mouth twitches. “Alright. I guess if we’re done interrogating each other, I’ll need to see the crime scene.”

“Of course. It’s in the ballroom, right this way...”

He keeps a close eye on them as they check the crime scene and talk to the residents. It’s a mess of a case; he can’t imagine why this would happen so suddenly. It’s not out of fondness for any of the others that he finds this so worrying, but they might get the wrong idea and start blaming him for their troubles. That would be sub-par.

“Reinhart, right?” sole asks. “Mind giving me a tour of the rest of the place?”

“I can spare a moment.” He pushes off the wall he was leaning against to stand beside them. “Is there anything in particular you’d like to see first?”

“I’d like to get a look at the residents’ rooms, if that’s alright.”

He shrugs. “Be my guest. We have two residential halls here, if you’ll follow me.”

They’re politely quiet as he shows them through the vault. It’s only when they’re climbing the stairs to the Overseer’s office that they speak up.

“So, why are you here? Isn’t it safer in Acadia?”

The very notion brings the taste of old bitterness to his mouth. “Absolutely not. In fact, I’d say Acadia was one of the least safe places on the Island if the Children of Atom weren't literally sitting on a nuke.”

“Seems like more of a threat to everyone else than to them.”

“Not if they’re not the ones with the key.”

They narrow their eyes as he opens up the door. “How do you know about that?”

“Well, I didn’t come to this god-forsaken island to live in a vault with these rich pricks.” He leans against the desk. “I know a thing or two about Acadia.”

“So why aren’t you there? Because it’s not safe?”

He eyes them uncertainly. “I’m not very popular with them, either.”

They snort as they rifle through the desk. “Is there anyone on the Island you are popular with?”

“Well, the vault residents haven’t complained too much. And I don’t think the Children of Atom actively hate me, but they might. I don’t know what they know about me, really.”

“Man, your life’s just a mess, huh? Guess that’s why you’re holed up in here.”

“Guess so.”

“So why doesn’t Acadia like you?”

He chuckles. “Like I said, I’ll have to get to know you a bit better before we can have that conversation. It’s a touchy subject and, no offense, I’m not sure I can trust you.”

They glance up at him, gaze oddly intense. “Reinhart, are you happy here?”

He pauses. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Are you happy? I only ask because it seems to me like you’re only here to hide from all the enemies you’ve made. You don’t exactly fit in. So, if you had no enemies and didn’t have to hide, would you have chosen this life?”

“Of course not,” he huffs. “Who would?”

“Well, maybe when all of this is settled, you could take a break for a while. Stretch your legs. Breathe that irradiated, foggy Island air.”

“You seem to misunderstand me. It isn’t safe.”

They shrug. “I’ll vouch for you. Far Harbor kinda owes me a few favors at this point, and we can stay away from Acadia.”

He takes a moment to think about it. They seem genuine, and while it’s an odd proposal, he can’t deny it’s tempting. It would be nice to get away for a while, and he’s missed a degree of companionship while here.

“I guess if you can manage to solve this case, things would return to normal enough that I could get away.”

“It’s a deal.”

They turn to the terminal to begin tapping away, and he takes his leave to let them get to work.

Could he do this? Could he really step beyond those doors to face everything he’s been hiding from? The odds of being caught are slim, but not zero, and he’s not even sure what’s waiting for him. He’s been hiding for so long...

Forget that. He’s better than hiding, and he’s tired of letting Chase’s words decide his life. If he wants to step outside and go for an island adventure, there isn’t anything that can stop him.

He’s a courser, after all.

[always-and-forever-a-killjoy]

Hey fuckers! So I wrote this all today and liked it enough to post, please enjoy this minimally edited mess of a fic! But read the warnings carefully!! You also may want to read the other fics in the series to understand this? But it's not super necessary. (First three fics here, here, and here, mind the warnings.) Also shoutout to @wishiwasthemoon-tonight for encouraging my angsty bullshit, for this fic and many, many others.

Title: the last thing i see

Wordcount: 1734

Summary: Cherri Cola has died before.

It’s not a big surprise to him when he dies again.

Warnings: blood, violence, major character death, implied self harm, referenced suicide and suicidal thoughts, and a fuckton of swearing as usual. (How did I fit that all in less than 2k words? Talent.)

Taglist: @wishiwasthemoon-tonight @sleevesareforlosers @stressed-depressed-emo-mess @tasteofamnesia @dagger-queen (message me, send an ask, or reblog/reply to one of my posts if you want to be added or removed)

AO3 Link

(Actual fic under the cut)

Cherri Cola has died before. 

He remembers what it was like, his breaths growing more difficult as the hot sand burnt his skin and everything hurt-hurt-hurt. He remembers how cold the darkness felt, the oblivion it promised. He remembers fighting against it, remembers the fear and the pain and the voice in his head screaming ‘I don’t want to die alone’. The helplessness, he remembers, too, his arms aching from the cuts he put there himself and the way he had forced them to try and drag his weight. Helpless and alone, and scared. He knows what it’s like to die in the desert.

Cherri Cola has died before.

It’s not a big surprise to him when he dies again.

The Girl leaves him by the water cooler, saying she’s going to Dr. D’s for the night. He doesn’t believe her, not after her words at the concert, but Cherri Cola is wise enough to know that he has to let her go. Much as he would like to hold her and protect her forever, he’s already failed to do that when she really needed it. So all he can do now is support her in what choices she makes and not think about how he’s failing to protect her like he failed to protect the killjoys who died to save her.

She doesn’t come back, and Cherri knows he’s already failed. He leaves to help her anyways, that day, when the dreadful news comes that mom and dad are coming home at last. It’s broadcast on every radio station, a cry, a call, a desperate scream for help. 

For the first time in over ten long years, Cherri picks up a ray gun, the weight familiar in his hands. He flicks the safety off, ready to shoot, and flips the switch from stun to kill. Although it takes precious moments he can barely afford to waste, he takes the time to fire a few practice shots before he tucks it away in the holster. He can’t afford for his skill to be compromised at all for this mission- a single slip could cost the lives of many of the young ‘joys of the desert, hardly more than children. So once his ray gun is ready to fire, he pulls on his mask. Die with your mask on if you've got to, just as Dr. Death Defying said all those years ago.

He will die with his mask on, that day.

Cherri arrives to chaos, and he doesn’t hesitate a second before jumping into the fight. Within moments, he can see Motorbaby crouched, looking like she’s been hit by a stun shot as a Draculoid stands over her. There’s not a single second to think, so he doesn’t. He just acts, taking down the drac with a single well-placed shot. Cherri ignores the stares of the ‘joys around him, every ounce of his focus on the Girl.

“Cola?” Her voice is weak, but it’s present, and he breathes a tiny sigh of relief.

“I’ll take care of this.” He’s failed her so many times, he won’t fail her this time.

“Cola, Val killed D. I didn’t get there in time to stop him, I-“ Cherri’s heart breaks at the anguish in her voice as she steadies and goes on. “I shouldn’t have left you like that. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” It’s more than okay; it’s his fault, really, but he doesn’t have the time or the words to express that. “Dr. Death Defying will be with our other friends soon. Now stay down!” 

It’s all the reassurance he has time to provide her as plasma bolts shoot past his head. Drac after drac falls to his ray gun, as easily as ever. Killing comes far too easily to him, or did. Now, it’s not quite the same, but he soothes the guilt that rises to choke him with whispers of ‘it’s for Motorbaby’. 

And he hardly has time to think, hardly time to breathe, before the Girl is trying to warn him. “Cola…behind you…”

There isn’t a second to move or dodge as a bolt hits him squarely in the back, and he knows he’s dead. Out of all the ways that he could have died, this one hasn’t been in his head for a long time, now. In his earlier days, in the Analog Wars, ‘in a fire fight’ would be a probable way for him to die, one he thought about often enough that he wouldn’t have been surprised. But by now, he’s been thinking he’ll fall at his own hands, not a scarecrow’s, for long enough that he’s still surprised as he topples to the ground. 

Dying in a firefight is nothing like the ways he’s died before. It hurts, of course it does, but in the detached way that means he’s already dead or close to that. It’s not a slow, painful death, it’s quick and fiery. Pain arcs through him, and he’s dead before he hits the ground. And despite the hint of surprise, he knows that he was never going to survive this fight. Like the Fabulous Four before him, he knew he would die for the Girl.

Cherri Cola dies, and he does not regret it.

The only thing he regrets now is that he can’t be there for the Girl as she stands up- or, rather, her spirit does. The Phoenix Witch scooped his mask off his face, and so Cherri is there too, but she keeps a firm grasp on his soul. There’s nothing he can do, nothing he can say, to the Girl his friends loved so and he loved just as much. They are not in the spirit world, nor even the borderlands, and Cherri is helpless once again. Helpless to speak, helpless to comfort her, helpless to resist as the Phoenix Witch sweeps away with him and countless other souls.

This time, there’s no Newsie to save him. She fell some three years back, and Cherri was not brave enough to quest into the Phoenix Witch’s domain as she did for him. Newsie wouldn’t have been able to save him anyways, he knows. This was his last chance, the Phoenix Witch told him oh-so-many years ago. His last shot at life, granted to him by the love of his sibling.

There may be no Newsie to save him, but when the Phoenix Witch crosses the last boundary of the borderlands where he once stood, there is a Newsie to welcome him. 

They laugh, presumably at his stunned face, running over to give him a tight hug with a “Finally, fucker!” 

“Newsie? Newsie, I’m sorry-“

“Why the fuck are you apologizing? You’re finally fucking here!” Newsie freezes. “Cherri, you didn’t-“

“I died fighting Better Living Industries,” he promises.

“Oh thank fuck. How is it out there?”

“Bad, Newsie, it’s bad. Motorbaby is alive, which is a ray of hope, but some asshole named Val killed D-“

“Oh, yeah, we know. He showed up and immediately started giving Pone shit for making the afterlife glittery.”

“I don’t understand it!” Dr. Death Defying is there, all of the sudden, looking quite distressed. “How do you even make the spirit world glittery?”

“Ey’s Pony, D.” Cherri can’t help but smile. “Ey can’t just not glitter-ify places.”

“That’s because I’m the gayest Pony in the desert!” Show Pony flashes him a smile as ey skates up.

“Sure are, Pone,” Cherri says softly.

Next is Hot Chimp, grinning as she gives him a small wave. “Hey, brother-in-law.”

“Hey, sister-in-law. Nice to see you again."

And finally, four familiar figures who he hasn’t seen in far too long step out, looking exactly how he last saw them but minus the grim determination. Instead, Party Poison is grinning as Kobra Kid gives him a small nod, and Jet Star’s gentle smile is just as wide as Fun Ghoul’s toothy grin.

“I’m sorry,” Cherri tells them.

“We forgive you,” Poison says with surprising gentleness. “We never resented you much to begin with, even if you are an insufferable bastard. We’d never ask you to die for us.”

"I would have." It's important that they know that; he never go to tell them when they were alive.

"We knew that." Poison cracks a small grin. “Pepsi.”

Cherri isn’t even sure if ghosts can cry, but they must be able to because his cheeks are wet and words suddenly seem very difficult as he takes a few shuddering breaths.

“Oh Witch, I think I broke Pepsi,” Poison mutters. 

Newsie flips them off and gives Cherri a playful glare. “Come on, don’t start crying now, asshole! We’re finally all here, or mostly, anyways!”

That only makes him cry harder, burying his face in his hands just as he did the day the Fabulous Four died. It's been a long time since he's cried like this, utterly vulnerable but happy for once, a bittersweet cry as opposed to one of sheer pain.

As it turns out, ghosts can’t only cry, but also hug, and Cherri finds himself wrapped in so many sets of arms he can’t even tell whose are whose. He thinks it’s Newsie’s shoulder that his face ends up buried in, is pretty sure that the hands rubbing his back are Jet’s, but he really doesn’t know. It doesn’t really matter, in the end, because he’s here with his family and that’s all that really matters.

Later, they’ll trade tales of what happened while they were all apart and Cherri will tell the Fabulous Four everything about the Girl he can remember, from her cat to the fight with the exterminators. He’ll pretend not to notice Poison sniffling or how choked Ghoul’s voice is, and they’ll pretend not to notice how his voice breaks when he talks about the day they died.

Newsie and Hot Chimp will update him on all the ‘tea’ of the land of the dead and how Newsie almost punched the Phoenix Witch, and D will give him a surprisingly (given the fact  that they’re both dead) warm hug, and promise that it’s not his fault for failing to stop Val. And of course, Show Pony won't let him get away without a little bit of shittalking his fashion sense and catching up on what's happened since eir death.

But all of that will come later. For now, Cherri’s family holds him tightly, and that’s all Cherri needs.

[visenyatargaryn]

— OC INTERVIEW

tagged by the lovely @chuckhansen​​ and @queennymeria​​!! thank you both so much!! 💖💖

tagging: @aryastrks, @troyebakers​, @tyvians​, @callmeredhood​, @sonyarebecchi && @myrcella​ (if you’ve been tagged already, then ignore this!)

Name: Evangeline... Zotova

Are you single: No, I’m not. 

Are you happy: I... I think so, yes. Definitely yes. To be honest, I haven’t felt true happiness for quite some time. Ever since... well, you know. I had almost forgotten what it felt like... to be happy that is.

Are you angry: Right now? No. I think I’m finally at peace now, thankfully. If you had asked me that a few months ago... my answer would have been different. Back then... I was so angry at everything. The world... the Institute... and myself.

Are your parents still married: I don’t know how to answer that since they’ve been dead for over 200 years now. My mother died while giving birth to me, and my father... well, let’s just say he wished it was me that died that day. However, if it wasn’t for me being born and the world ending... I do believe my parents would still be married.

Nine Facts

Birthplace: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Hair color: Black

Eye color: Vibrant green.

Birth date: September 21, 2048

Mood: Currently? Exhausted since Hancock didn’t let me sleep much last night. Shit.. sorry, that was a bit too much information wasn’t it?

Gender: Female

Summer or winter: Summer. I hate the fucking cold, although the alternative does give me the excuse to snuggle up with Hancock.

Morning or afternoon: Mornings. I like how peaceful they are... a fresh beginning to a new day.

Eight things about your love life

Are you in love: Yes, and honestly? It’s the best feeling in the world. It’s strange... you think you loved someone in the past, thinking they were your happily ever after... but fate has different plans for you. Don’t get me wrong, I loved Daniel, but he’s dead now and I’m still alive with a long life ahead of me. And with Hancock.... things just feel different? I’m not one who believes in soulmates, but perhaps that’s what this is?

Do you believe in love at first sight: No, love doesn’t just come on a whim... it takes time to manifest.

Who ended your last relationship: ...A man by the name of Kellogg. He umm... he murdered my husband, Daniel, in cold blood. I’m sorry, but can we please change the subject?

Have you ever broken someones heart: If I have, then I have no recollection of it since I was always the one with the broken heart and not the other person.

Are you afraid of commitment: Yes, more than you think. All my life... people have been leaving me since I was a child. Hell, my own father abandoned his own daughter and fucked off to God knows where. I’ve been cheated on, and I’ve been used and left behind like some kind of fucking useless object. So yeah, I’m terrified of commitment, because the entire relationship is always one-sided in the end.

Have you hugged someone in the last week: Hancock, and only him.

Have you ever had a secret admirer: More like stalkers. When I was a... dancer at a night club in Philly, I had my fair share of creeps. It wasn’t bad at first, hell I thought it was kind of nice to have some admirers you know? They would send flowers mostly, but eventually, it became an actual fucking nightmare. There were letters. They started out as simple love letters... then they became more vulgar... and finally came the death threats. Thankfully the security in the place was decent enough to keep them away... or so I thought, but that’s a story for another time.

Have you ever broken your own heart: I don’t think so, no?

Six Choices

Love or Lust: A healthy dose of both isn’t a bad thing, actually. They are two sides of the same coin are they not? Although, I must admit that I have made a lot of poor life choices... lust being a factor in many of them.

Lemonade or Iced Tea: Lemonade. I remember when I used to live in Sanctuary before the bombs fell. The children would often put up lemonade stands during the summer, and let me tell you... the competition was neverending.

Cats or Dogs: Dogs. I love cats, don’t get me wrong, but dogs just provide better companionship in an apocalyptic world.

A few Best friends or Regular Friends: The first option I suppose. I don’t have many friends anyhow, and those that are... I trust them with my own life.

Wild night out or romantic night in: Night out. I love hearing Magnolia sing down in the Third Rail... her voice is just so soothing. Besides, it kind of comes with the package deal when it comes to Hancock.

Day or night: Nights. It’s peaceful. The world is put on hold for a few hours, and it’s a good time to just relax, you know?

Five Have You Evers

Been caught sneaking out: No. My father never paid much attention to me while growing up, so I could do whatever I please.

Fallen Down/Up the Stairs: All I’m saying is that I had a disagreement with gravity that day, and it won.

Wanted someone/something so badly it hurt: Yes... a daughter shouldn’t have to beg her father for a relationship now, should she?

Wanted to disappear: There was a time when I wanted to, yes. I wished it to be more... permanent, however. I had lost everything, and I no longer wished to keep going because what was the point? Everything about my old life was gone, as it was reduced to nothing but ash and dust, and I was a stranger forced into a foreign place.

Four preferences

Smile or eyes: Eyes. They’re something that’s easily read, and like they say... the eyes never lie.

Shorter or taller: Taller.

Intelligence or Attraction: Attraction... bonus points if they have some intelligence in them though.

Hook up or Relationship: Relationship. I’ve had my fair share of hookups... and it’s just not the same. There’s no connection, you know? It was an alternative I sometimes used to forget things... when alcohol no longer numbed the pain.

Family

Do you and your family get along: No. I never knew my mother since she died during childbirth and as for my father... he had no love for me. Yeah, he raised me and cared for me, but that’s as far as that went. I saw the way he looked at me, with such deep sadness and hatred. The sadness because I was a spitting image of her... my mother that is. As for the hatred, well he blamed me for what happened, and when he was in a drunken stupor... those nights were the worse. In all those years, however, he never hurt me... not physically anyway. Although, there are times where I find myself wondering whatever became of him. Did he live long enough to see the world end? If he did, then did he survive? Was he able to make it to a vault in time? Did he become a ghoul? I know I’ll never know the answers to these questions, and it’s foolish for me to ask myself these since there was no love between us. I guess that’s just the detective in me wanting answers for the unexplainable...

Would you say you have a messed up life: My life is a complete fucking mess if you ask me. I witnessed my husband’s death and the kidnapping of my son. Then I had to end my son’s life because he was now the head of some evil cooperation. And to top it all off, I’m now living 200 years into the future... in a world that was reduced to nothing but ash and dust all because the world leaders decided to play God. So yeah, saying my life is messed up is putting it lightly.

Have you ever ran away from home: Yes, but only after my father decided to leave one day without any signs of him returning... so I just left as well. Did I wish to run away prior to that? Absolutely. Except I had nowhere else to go, and I was far too young to live on my own.

Have you ever got kicked out: Surprisingly, no. I always expected my father to tell me to pack my bags at some point, but he never did.

Friends

Do you secretly hate one of your friends: No. If I hated someone, then I would let them know right away how I feel about them.

Do you consider all of your friends good friends: Yes. We have all been through a lot together and there are none other I would consider friends than them. Nick had been there every step of the way when it came to finding my son, and I would trust him with my own life... just as I had done the same with the real Nick Valentine. Codsworth, well, I know he’s just a robot, but he’s been a good friend and has always been supportive... and he was there since the beginning, before the war that is. Dasiy is a spectacular woman, when I first came to Goodneighbor she welcomed me with open arms... and our talks are just so wonderful since we’re both from the same time. Then there’s Hancock, of course, we’re more than friends now, but he’s... well, he’s everything I could ask for in someone.

Who is your best friend: Do I have to pick one? Because I consider all of my friends as such, but if I must choose only one, then it’s Hancock. He’s a great friend and more; Hancock was there for me when I was at my lowest point... I had just come out of the vault and I was in a shitty place; being plagued by nightmares... extreme depression... and I was a fucking alcoholic. He never walked away though, no matter how hard I tried to push... he pushed back harder. He took care of me on my bad days, and I... I don’t think there are any words or deeds that could ever be used to thank him for it?

Who knows everything about you: Hancock and Nick both perhaps? I mean, Nick has the memories of the real Nick Valentine... who I happened to work with for a time before the war. Hancock... well, there are no secrets between us, and he basically knows my entire life story as does Nick.

[malkaviansyndromes]

i was inspired by quimton so i did the 93 question meme for lestat :)

1. What is their gender? male, but like, gay rat male

2. What is their sexuality? men

3. What is the meaning behind their name? Do they have any nicknames? it’s from iwtv, which he never read, he was an edgy goth weirdo and thought it sounded cool. erin calls him a rat but he doesn't have any actual nicknames

4. Do they have any siblings? How many? Are they older or younger?  Which sibling are they the closest with? he doesn't have any siblings but will try to adopt younger friends as "siblings" 5. What’s their relationship with their parents like? What about other relatives? when he was alive his relationship with his dad was...Not great. aside from his mom he didn't talk to his family. his sire is dead lol

6. What would they give their life for? his friends or husband probably, if it had to be anything

7. Are they in a romantic relationship? With who? How did they meet? yes! he's in a relationship with märchen and has been for a while; mär found him shortly after his embrace and made sure he was accepted into the camarilla rather than getting axed for being an illegitimate fledgling.

8. What do they believe will happen to them after they die? Does this belief scare them? he has no idea and doesn't really want to think about it

9. What is their favorite color? Favorite animal? probably some sort of hideous tie between black and pastel pink. he likes cats

10. What are some of their talents/skills? he can draw, and also has a decent head for computer science and math

11. If they could make a mark on history, what would they like it to be? he would want to either be part of some massive political change to keep people from suffering, or solve the problem of quantum gravity

12. How old are they? When is their birthday? 23! he was born on march 5th

13. What do they do for fun? video games. eat a bunch. annoy his friends. he's a simple man

14. What is their favorite food? How often do they get to eat it? cheeseburgers...his husband lets him eat food any time he wants even though it's disgusting and bad for him since he's a vampire

15. What was something their parents taught them? nothing really specific beyond to be the terrible way he is now

16. Are they religious? sort of?

17. Where were they born? illinois unfortunately

18. What languages can they speak? Where did they learn these languages? english is his native language. he took french in high school and lost most of it, and has tried to pick up a little german from his husband and online. he knows a pitiful amount of japanese but only out loud, surprisingly not from anime so much as listening to tons of japanese music with subs

19. What is their occupation? idiot. he does odd jobs for the anarchs and helps with their computer shit sometimes

20. Do they have any titles? How did they earn them? nope

Personality: 21. What is their favorite thing about their personality? that he cares about shit

22. What is their least favorite thing about their personality? he has bad self esteem so a lot of things

23. Do they get lonely easily? YES but he's also a bit of a hermit socially

24. Do you know their MBTI type? no i used to

25. What is their biggest flaw? probably having a bad temper and making snap judgements

26. Are they aware of their flaws? So Much All The Time

27. What is their biggest strength? he's pretty empathetic

28. Are they aware of their strengths? he denies they exist

29. How would they describe their own personality? "awful little animal"

30. When frightened, will they resort to “fight” or “flight”? freeze probably, but flight if that doesn't count as an answer

31. Does this character ever put somebody else’s needs before their own? Who do they do this for? How often do they do this? yes, for pretty much anyone he likes even a little, and very very frequently

32. What is their self esteem like? BAD

33. What is their biggest fear? How would they react to having to face it? losing the people he cares about. he would Give Up On Life if he was alone

34. How easily do they trust others with their secrets? With their lives? weird little guy who is extremely paranoid but simultaneously too trusting. he tries to ignore his misgivings to give people the benefit of the doubt, doesn't always end well for him

35. What is the easiest way to annoy them? don't listen to anything he says. if he's being ignored in a conversation he will be furious

36. What is their sense of humor like? Give an example of a joke they would find humorous. "penis music," basically any joke about communism, horribly deep fried memes

37. How easy is it for them to say “I love you”? Do they say it without meaning it? he says it easily and a often, but not without meaning it unless he wants to feel guilty enough to vomit

38. What do others admire most about their personality? erin says "his friendly personality and jokes and level head when it comes to important things"

39. What does their happily ever after look like? having a normal life without being afraid of poverty or being alone

40. Who do they trust most? Is that trust mutual? probably erin and märchen, so yes

Physical Profile: 41. What does their laugh sound like? Do they snort when they laugh? How often do they laugh? he cackles like an awful little witch every once in a while

42. What is their favorite thing about their physical appearance? his anime heterochromia

43. What is their least favorite thing about their physical appearance? looking like he's 12

44. Do they have any scars? If so, what are the stories behind those scars? he has a scar on his eyebrow from when he was 2 and tried to climb a bookshelf and it fell on him and he had to get stitches. also....some less funny ones

45. How would they describe their own appearance? "bad" or “sexy” no in between

46. How easily can they express emotions? How easily can they hide emotions? he can express them well but hates to do it. he is way too good at hiding them

47.  What’s their pain tolerance like? he's a little wimpy but trudges through it

48. Do they have any tattoos? What are the stories behind those tattoos? no tats!

49. Do they have any piercings? just his ears

50. How would you describe their style of clothing? How would they describe their style of clothing? we would both call it "hot topic dumpster dive"

51. What is their height? Weight? 5'0", haha that's secret

52. What is their body type? Are they muscular, chubby, skinny, etc? a little round and chubby

53. What is their hair color? Eye color? Skin tone? his hair is actually a light golden brown but he dyes it black. his eyes are grey-blue (he doesn't always like the color) but one of them is red now due to damage during his embrace. he's pale as fuck

54. What is their current hairstyle? What have been some of their past hairstyles? Which was their favorite hairstyle? current hairstyle is a very short half-buzzed kind of thing, which he likes best. he's also had it normal short. up until he was like 16 or 17 he had it very long

55. What is their alcohol tolerance like? What kind of drunk are they? How bad are their hangovers? PITIFUL, he's an extreme lightweight. cuddly drunk or sad drunk. his threshhold for hangovers is high but they're abysmal when he gets them

56. What do they smell like? Why do they smell like this? (Is it the things they’re around or a perfume they wear?) he smells like cheap soap and cigarette smoke thanks to being in the last round often. sometimes he wears body sprays

57. How do they feel about sex? Are they a virgin? a lot of complicated ways. unfortunately he has had sex and will do it again

58. What is their most noticeable physical attribute? his height, he's VERY short

59. What does their resting face look like? Do they have RBF? he has just a little bit of RBF but mostly neutral

60. Describe the way they sleep. he steals all the blankets and is a sleep cuddler. he refuses to put his nine fucking thousand stuffed animals anywhere but ON his bed

Environment: 61. Which season is their favorite season? he says summer up until it's actually summer. he likes spring and fall

62. Have they ever been betrayed? How did it affect their ability to trust others? yeah, he's had some complicated experiences with friends and family. he isn't always trusting but usually consciously decides to trust anyway because he generally thinks it's irrational not to without a reason. this often backfires on him

63. What is always guaranteed to make them smile? his friends or husband cracking jokes

64. Do they get cold easily? Do they get overheated easily? yes and yes, at least when he was alive. he had reynaud's syndrome when he was alive so he got dangerously cold in his hands and feet Very easily

65. What’s their immune system like? Do they get sick often? How do they react to getting sick? he's dead now so he doesn't get sick at all, but when he was alive he would generally try to plod through it until he couldn't anymore

66. Where do they live? Do they like it there? los angeles. sort of? big cities are exciting to him, but only to visit, so living in one 24/7 is probably driving him crazy (or crazier)

67. Is their bedroom messy? What about their bathroom? Kitchen? Living room? he tries to keep things a LITTLE tidy but generally every space he maintains on his own is some level of disastrously disorganized

68. How did their environment growing up affect their personality? his parents were broke, so in terms of environment, being anywhere much swankier than a lower middle class house makes his eyes fall out of his head

69. How did the people in their environment growing up affect their personality? he was raised to tough it out and show as little emotion as possible in regards to All Life which is the real reason he treats absolutely everything like a joke

70. How do they feel about animals? Do they have any pets? he loves animals. his husband has a ghoul cat that violently hates both of them

71. How are they with children? Do they have any? Do they want any? he's okay with them, but a little awkward. he would rather jump off a cliff than have any though

72.  Would they rather have stability or comfort? he'd rather have somewhere to turn to than live in a stable environment if the stability was along the lines of "everything is consistently uncomfortable"? i don't really get this question lol

73. Do they prefer the indoors or outdoors? indoors a little but he does still like the outdoors

74. What weather is their favorite? Do they like storms? very sunny weather (sad for a vampire). he does like snow and rain, but only if he can stay in

75. If given a blank piece of paper, a pencil, and nothing to do, what would happen? he'd probably draw his husband lol

76. How organized are they? he has never been and will never be anything even remotely close to organized

77. What is their most prized possession? the teddy bear his mother passed down to him from when she was a kid

78. Who do they consider to be their best friend? erin :3

79. What is their economic situation? not great. he's very broke; his husband has a little more money than he does and helps support him, but the two of them have to watch their pennies for sure. lestat usually lives with his husband but stays at his own abysmal apartment/haven on occasion just for vampire paranoia safety reasons.

80. Are they a morning person or a night owl? night owl, which is lucky for him

Miscellaneous: 81. Are they bothered by the sight of blood? not blood on its own, no

82. What is their handwriting like? extremely messy

83. Can they swim? How well? Do they like to swim? he can swim okay. he really likes it

84. Which deadly sin do they represent best? wrath probably

85. Do they believe in ghosts? he would have to be stupid not to at this point

86. How do they celebrate holidays? How do they celebrate birthdays? with food, usually, which makes his being a vampire kind of difficult. he likes to celebrate birthdays with presents and cake. if he and his husband weren't vampires he'd bake mär a cake every year

87. What is something they regret? probably the way he acted when he was in the camarilla, it wasn't particularly pretty because he was very, VERY upset about his embrace. he regrets having to have killed people to escape, and also regrets the weirdness of having to let go of most of his mortal friends

88. Do they have an accent? if you consider boring midwestern nothing voice an accent. 89. What is their D&D alignment?

chaotic good 90. Are they right or left handed? right handed

91. If they were a tweet, what tweet would they be? there are so many tweets in the world. probably the one about revving your motorcycle and lying dead on the pavement

92. Describe them as a John Mulaney gif. why would you assume i have enough of these on hand to do that?

93. What’s the most iconic line of dialogue they’ve ever said? he says stupid shit all the time it's hard to know

[jakattax]

You wanted a scary story, I’ll give you one

May I introduce you all to St. Botolph’s Church, Lincolnshire (aka Skidbrooke church, aka demon church)

A 13th century Anglican church near the market town of Louth in my home county. As you can see the church is disused, abandoned and was declared officially redundant in 1973.

Like all abandoned buildings, especially places of worship, ghost stories abound. The church is widely regarded as one of the most haunted locations in Lincolnshire with tales of phantoms, demons and satanic activity.

https://forums.digitalspy.com/discussion/1891120/the-most-haunted-derelict-demon-church-in-the-uk-has-been-cursed

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bostonstandard.co.uk/news/offbeat/lincolnshire-s-top-8-terrifying-and-bizarre-paranormal-cases-1-8190903/amp

https://hauntedhistoryoflincolnshire.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk/surrounding-areas/skidbrooke/

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.louthleader.co.uk/news/experts-claim-church-is-paranormal-paradise-1-1015932/amp

https://youtu.be/mZdlERW6iJI

So the story goes is that a coven of satanists performed dark and profane rituals in the church in the 1970’s and 80’s and there was a resurgence in 2004 of animal sacrifices, occult symbology and evidence of fires being burned. Now any self respecting occultist will know that just because a pentagram is involved and a few chickens were sacrificed it does not make it satanic (well certainly not LaVeyan Satanism which was at its most popular in the 60’s and 70’s as killing an animal goes against the tenth Satanic Rule on Earth) and that the deeds could have been carried out by any magical practitioner. It just sounds more dramatic and spooky to blame the satanists.

Anyway.

Skidbrooke church has a very menacing and a very infamous reputation among pretty much every one in the county, it becomes a rite of passage almost to go there and check it out. And so I did.

It was perhaps 4 years ago around midsummer and my best friend Dom decided he wanted to drive to the church and see what ghosts and ghouls we would encounter. This was a point where my occult side was just one of my many eccentricities, I certainly wasn’t an open magician yet so I was asked to tag along. It was myself, Dominic, Laura, Yas and Sam.

The drive from Grimsby to Skidbrooke isn’t long , probably around 40 minutes through the gorgeous Lincolnshire wolds, just expansive farmlands and rolling hills of woodlands. Proper farmers country. I remember the drive profoundly well because I was desperate for the toilet, and these long country roads don’t really have lay-bys. I was genuinely on the verge of pissing myself and Dom refused to stop until I threatened to piss in his new car and he eventually found somewhere so I could relieve myself. Weird diverge i know but I need to recount the tale from memory.

So we got to the church, or should I say the gated road that leads to the church. It was twilight so the sky was that beautiful dark orange colour, just as it meets the pale blue. The sun was setting and darkness was coming. The thing about Skidbrooke church is that it’s in the middle of fielded land and the only way to it is to park by the road and walk down a small country road to it. The road towards the church is gated off so driving there is not an option. The fields were wide and open so the sound of the wind and rustling of nearby trees were quite loud. Sound carried very well. It was very children of the corn, as in the grass in this field was huge. Very daunting, very atmospheric.

So off we went. There was definitely a sense of fear among us all, but we were quite jovial about it all, it was thrilling, fun almost. Dom and Sam are sceptics, they were adamant nothing was going to happen. Yas and Laura weren’t really 100% comfortable, especially when I was boasting that I was going to stir the supernatural pot. In all honesty I had no intention to perform a ritual as I didn’t have any tools or books with me to do so, I was just trying to spook my friends.

The thing about the church grounds is that they’re well kept and groomed. It’s a grade I protected building so I imagine the national heritage employs some poor bugger just to keep the grounds tidy. And it was a functioning church until the 70’s so it’s only respectful to keep the graves nice and clean. It was quite an awesome sight to be honest, the building is quite beautiful. Dom and Sam weren’t so much afraid of ghosts and Demons but more if the church was used by homeless people who might take umbrage to us poking around. We swept the graveyard before entering, just to make sure no one was around who’d fuck with us.

And we were indeed all alone. And so we entered the church proper.

An abandoned church is a bizarre thing. No pews, no altar, no stained glass, just a large bowel of rotting stone and pigeon shit. That’s what hit us, just the smell of dirt and decay. The only features that remained was the heavy oak doors, everything else was gone. From a place that is steeped in centuries worth of devotion and joy is now just a stone skeleton, forgotten in the middle of a field in England.

What struck me probably more than my friends was the heavy atmosphere of the place. Not saying necessarily negative but certainly a strong, musky and intense heavy energy attached to it. We explored the building briefly but honestly it was just a big empty room. It was getting progressively darker and I think we were all starting to spook ourselves a little.

So me being me, I rallied the troops and said I was going to call out. Now I applied no serious occult method here, I just gathered my friends and did the whole “I call beyond the veil, make a noise if there are spirits present” routine. I specified that if Spirits were present they should make themselves known by knocking on the oak doors. I added some flourishes to my calls, adding the names of Malach Ha’Mavet (an angel of death) and some other terms just for the dramatic effect. In hindsight very silly of me to do, but I just wanted a thrill, a bit of a spook. The worse thing was is that it was enough for Yas and Laura and they wanted out. Very douchey thing of me to do really, just to scare them for the sake of it.

We decided it was probably best to leave now. We were all realising that we’re in the middle of nowhere in the dark and me being that weird occultist was trying to commune with the dead (again in actuality I did no real magic here, bit of foolery) and me realising that I’ve scared my friends I didn’t feel too proud of myself so we go.

Our pace is significantly faster as we go back down the road to the car, now it is fully dark so we’re relying on our phones to light the road. Sam walks ahead with the girls, me and dom walk slower behind as we smoke. We decide to look back on the church, and it looked just damn ominous now under cover of night. And that’s when we saw something, or perhaps someone.

On the small belfry tower to the left of the picture, standing on top of it was the distinct figure of a dark shrouded man. It was faint to see with the figure being black against a dark sky and it was very small but it was there. It’s horribly cliche to see a dark hooded figure but that’s what we saw. Hard to define as we were a distance away but it moved and swayed in the wind violently. We thought it was a flag but as you can see there is no flagpole.

It’s fair to say we lost our shit and pelted it to keep up with Sam and the girls. We told them what we saw and they thought we were fucking with them. We were all now running back to the gate and the car. I did look back a few times but couldn’t make anything out. Back to the car and were out of there to a local pub to calm our nerves.

Was it a ghost? Was it a flag or natural phenomenon? I don’t know. It could entirely be a trick of the mind, and it could have easily been a ghost upset at petulant kids poking around his church. Or it could have been demonic, a force stirred up by the sorcery which profaned the hallowed ground. Even though I’m a practising magician and I’m use to stirring up spirits to some tangible form, it’s still chilling to see something out of the blue. Did I unintentionally summon something with my pseudo-magical calls?

In all honesty I put this one to a case of psychology. I think due to the atmosphere, the fame of the building, the situation we put ourselves in we were simply seeing things the mind wanted us to see. We went looking for s ghost and we got one. In the darkness the mind plays tricks, let alone when your in the darkness in an abandoned ‘satanic’ church with a history of haunts and black magic. Yet also as an occultist and magician I must acknowledge that places do indeed carry on the scars of magical influence, a church is such holy and sacred ground that it inherently carries vast potency, especially a church that has been there for 700 years. And i must acknowledge that “satanist” or not, groups of people do gather at the church and vandalise it with pentagrams and carry out rituals, so it is soaked in the supernatural.

Whatever we saw, if we saw anything at all was more than enough to scare away. I haven’t been back to Skidbrooke, but being a more responsible, learned and all around proficient magician makes me want to. Not to try and stir anything up, just to investigate with a more clear head.

Want to come with me?

[promptswrites]

BTHB: kneecapped

“Don’t you have something better to do?”

Alec shot Oliver a weird look, his eyes narrowing. “And what on earth do you mean by that?”

Oliver shrugged as he stepped past him and pushed the door open. “I don’t know. You tell me.”

For a guy who’d been begging to become a part of the Ghouls, Alec sure wasn’t showing his gratitude. Oliver just didn’t get it; Alec prioritized everything else but the assignment at hand.

As if the group didn’t have enough lazy freeloaders as was.

They crossed the dim street and headed down it. Even though Oliver had lived on that street for the better part of his young life, he swore he would never get used to the constant noise. Car alarms, drunken yelling, sober fighting, crashing of objects, TVs blasting soap operas way too loud, children crying.

But as soon as the Ghouls got enough money to move the hell away from there, they would. And that was why they were there in the first place.

One simple job; one simple robbery. In and out, fast, quiet, and unseen. Just like any other day.

The only thing that was different was Alec.

Take the new guy, Oliver, he’s skilled. Don’t be such an idiot, Oliver, give him a chance. Quit being such a pussy, Oliver, and toughen up.

Fucking Alec and the charm that had all the higher-ranked members swooning.

“Come on”, Oliver said and glanced at him over his shoulder. He did his utmost best to keep the annoyance from showing in his voice, but he was pretty sure he failed. “You remember where we’re going?”

Alec rolled his eyes, shoving his hands deep into his pockets. “I remember. God. If we’re gonna do this, can you just shut up? I’m kinda tired listening to you whine like a damn baby all the time.”

“Yeah, maybe I wouldn’t have to whine if you lifted a goddamn finger every once in a while”, Oliver hissed.

What had he done to deserve such a teammate?

“Yeah, and maybe I’d actually—” Alec said but then stopped. His eyes narrowed on Oliver and he sighed, running a hand through his dark hair. “You know what? Nevermind. Let’s just focus on the task.”

“Fine by me”, Oliver said, turning back to the street ahead.

It was going to be a long night.

—

Oliver slid the lockpick out of the lock, drew in a deep breath, and inched the back door open.

Oh, thank God. Disarming the alarm had worked.

He took a quick peek inside — nobody there — and then slipped in, Alec right at his tail.

Hurrying past Oliver, Alec headed further into the pitch black house.

“Hey”, Oliver hissed, his voice barely above a whisper, and grabbed Alec by the shoulder. “You get the door.”

“You’re supposed to—” Alec started.

“Get - the - fucking - door”, Oliver said, yanking Alec back towards himself. “Anyone comes in, you bash their heads in. I’m gonna get the box.”

Even in the near black darkness, Oliver could see Alec’s eyes flame in barely controlled anger. Yet, through gritted teeth and clenched fists he nodded, backing away to the door.

Oliver huffed and walked off.

It didn’t matter what Brie had told them to do. He knew better; leaving finding the right box to Alec was a mistake. That kid could never get anything done, not right.

As long as Alec didn’t act like a stuck up coward, nobody would ever find out Oliver had decided against Brie’s straight orders.

And it wasn’t like Alec would be in any trouble down there. All the Jades were at the funeral in another city, hours away. It didn’t matter who stayed down and who went up.

He snuck through the dark corridor and up the stairs.

The house was big, a mansion more than anything, decorated in all things gold and shiny. The Jade Angels sure loved shoving their wealth in others’ faces.

Fuck them.

Oliver hurried down the second-floor corridor and then through the last door on the right.

Stepping inside, he could tell the intel was right. Rows and rows of shelves filled with antiques, jewelry, rarities, the sort.

But none of that was why he was there. No, the jewelry, the antiques, it was all pocket change compared to the real thing.

The Winter Egg. Priced at nearly ten million dollars, that was their ticket out.

The mansion was usually a fortress with tens of guards and even more Jades just posting around. The leader’s funeral was a one in a lifetime chance.

And it wasn’t hard to figure out where the egg was.

At the very end of the room stood a safe, protecting its treasures with three combination locks and walls as thick as Oliver’s arm.

Oliver grinned as he dug into his pocket and pulled out his phone. Miss Candy hadn’t visited the Jades just to satisfy their dirtiest needs; she’d walked away with the codes to the safe and a promise of half of all they’d earn by breaking in.

He opened the notes in his phone, hurried over to the safe, and—

A scream.

Oliver flinched back and up, his blood skipping over a beat. What the hell had that been?

Something crashed and someone shot a gun.

Shit. He couldn’t trust Alec to even watch the door?

Tossing his phone back into his pocket, he hurried back into the corridor outside. That goddamn kid, he really couldn’t do one, simple task on his own?

There was a cry and a grunt, followed by a short-lived scream.

Oliver’s heart picked up the pace as he rushed down the stairs, hopping three at once. He drew his gun out and stopped at the bottom, quickly taking in the situation—

Alec on his back on the floor, sobbing and whining.

One dead guy. A Jade. Two guys still alive. Jades, too.

“Hey!” Oliver snapped, brought his gun up, and pulled the trigger.

The other Jade was dead before he hit the floor. The other one gasped and flinched back, desperate to take cover, but Oliver was faster.

He’d always be faster.

As the second guy hit the floor, dead, the rumble of an approaching car made Oliver’s head snap up and at the general direction of the front door.

Shit. They shouldn’t have been back so soon!

“Come on”, Oliver said, pushing down the anger flaming in his chest. Oh, that goddamn Alec, he’d done something, hadn’t he? “Let’s go.”

Oliver hurried over to Alec and past him to the back door, pushing it open with his shoulder. He stepped outside and—

“Wait, I can’t—” Alec yelled after him, his voice breaking into a wet gasp at the final word. “I can’t walk. They— They busted my knee. They—”

Oliver froze.

What did I do to deserve this idiot?

The approaching car’s headlights illuminated the mansion from the other side.

Ah, shit.

“Fine”, Oliver hissed and darted back to Alec. He crouched next to him, wrapping his arms around Alec’s back, and met his bloodshot eyes. “You ready?”

“As I’ll ever be”, Alec said and laughed airily through a sob, closing his eyes. He threw his other arm around Oliver’s neck and nodded. “Let’s go.”

He couldn’t drown a scream as they stood up. He threw his head back and squeezed his eyes shut a little tighter, his body trembling and shaking as he bit down on his lip and silenced himself.

Oliver held him tight. “Come on, we gotta be quick.”

-- 

Oliver dropped the phone onto the grass and turned his gaze to Alec’s flushed face. “They’re coming, alright? It’s not gonna take long.”

Alec nodded his head up and down, tears streaming down his cheeks. He still refused to open his eyes — was the pain really that bad, even lying down?

“Let me see”, Oliver said and sighed, turning slightly around on the soft grass to get a better view of the newbie’s knees. He reached his hand out to touch his leg—

“Don’t”, Alec gasped and snapped his hand up, snatching Oliver by the wrist. His fingernails dug into Oliver’s skin. “Don’t touch me. Don’t. It’s… God, it’s bad.”

“What the fuck did they do to you?” Oliver asked, pulling his hand away from Alec’s legs.

Alec still didn’t let go, though.

“I knocked one of them down and focused on another one, but then the— The first one hit me with something”, he said, his breath coming out in sharp gasps between every two, three words. “I couldn’t even fucking dodge.”

Oliver eyed him as Alec finally opened his eyes and laughed. There wasn’t a lot of humor in his tone.

“Maybe you were right”, Alec said, shaking his head ever so slightly as he stared up into the night sky. “Maybe I’m not cut out for this job.”

You think?

Oliver grimaced but stayed quiet. Brie was already gonna kill Alec for what had happened; he didn’t need any more shit from anyone else.

Besides, there was something about the whole situation that made Oliver… He wasn’t even sure. Feel bad, maybe? He had told Alec to stay at the door, after all. This was his fault.

“I mean, I know that you hate me. And that’s fine, seriously, I don’t care what you think of me”, Alec continued, his voice quiet. “I know I am a fuckup. That’s all everybody’s ever told me, anyways.”

Oliver couldn’t help the sting of discomfort stabbing through his chest.

What the hell was this kid on about? A fuckup was playing it up a little.

“I know I haven’t been doing much, and I know this isn’t an excuse, but I just… Didn’t want to cause more problems for you guys”, Alec said. A pathetic attempt of a smile rose on his lips and he huffed, closing his eyes again. “You gave me a home. A fresh start in life. Food, clothes, friends. And all I can give in return is trouble. So I just… decided that I shouldn’t do anything. At least if I didn’t do anything, I’d never cause problems, right?”

Oliver bit down on his lip as he turned his gaze upwards, to the dark night sky.

“Brie’s gonna kick me out after this, isn’t she? I fucked up”, he said. “I just… I just hope she won’t. I have nowhere else to go. Not anymore.”

Oh, shit.

Oliver closed his eyes as he breathed in, a band tightening around his chest. What the hell was he supposed to do now?

“Listen”, he finally said, and looked down again. Alec met his gaze, still holding his wrist. “Take your time, alright? Even if you take some time to get used to this shit, the Ghouls aren’t going anywhere. And about Brie…”

Oliver grimaced.

“I was the one who was supposed to be the lookout, right? So what happened is basically my fault anyways”, he said, eyeing the newbie’s widening eyes. “You just focus on getting that knee fixed up, alright? Let me worry about the rest.”

[littlelovelymemes]

 ✰   —  —  —  BUZZFEED UNSOLVED SENTENCE STARTERS

‘  do you think we’re gonna die here tonight?  ’ ‘  it’s horrifying, chilling... just over all not good.  ’ ‘  should we just get this over with?  ’ ‘  he’s a fucking criminal.  ’ ‘  sharing is caring? meh, go fuck yourself.  ’ ‘  oh god, um... oh my god, i fucking hate this.  ’ ‘  stop banging on the door, you dick.  ’ ‘  what. the fuck. is wrong with you.  ’ ‘  i gotta be honest, this doesn’t really compel me very much.  ’ ‘  that was a joke that i made and then it formed your opinion on it.  ’ ‘  flip that switch. do you think that’s the murder switch?  ’ ‘  this is embarrassing. this is embarrassing for you, i think.  ’ ‘  no one’s ghost-proof.  ’ ‘  i’m ghost-proof.  ’ ‘  you’re not ghost-proof. you’re just an idiot who refuses to see proof.  ’ ‘  i’m ghost-proof, baby!  ’ ‘  that sounded like will smith!  ’ ‘  is will smith dead? has anyone checked the news?!  ’ ‘  the problem is if there’s something that attacks us down here, i’m going to hit my head on the ceiling and my skull will smash.  ’ ‘  alright, buddy. keep your wits about ya.  ’ ‘  let’s get the fuck out of here.  ’ ‘  i kind of just looked into places that would make me wanna die and i think this checks that box.  ’ ‘  did i just blind you? good, good, good. it’ll give you the vision.  ’ ‘  take a drink!  ’ ‘  i’m gonna get you all tanked.  ’ ‘  what do you expect? what insight are you trying to gather from here?  ’ ‘  maybe the noise is a little snake. can you imagine a little snake wrapped around a little pickaxe with a little hat on?  ’ ‘  i’m not trying to do that whole dismissive thing, but... i’m dismissing it.  ’ ‘  alright. alright, man. you just gotta chill.  ’ ‘  i thought ‘glory hole’ used to mean something very innocuous, though.  ’ ‘  it’s where the men fucked the earth hoping to impregnate it with gold.  ’ ‘  a bug flew up my nose.  ’ ‘  i think i’ve swallowed about six tablespoons of bugs at this point.  ’ ‘  it’s so silent aside from the bugs in my ears.  ’ ‘  a bat flew right behind you just now.  ’ ‘  that bat was straight-up going for your ass... it was an ass bat.  ’ ‘  dude, i’m so nervous.  ’ ‘  how can you be nervous with a beautiful sunset like that?  ’ ‘  there’s some pretty shitty things that have happened to people around here.  ’ ‘  can you even look at least a little bit worried?  ’ ‘  yeah, i’m fucking nervous, man. i feel like i’m gonna vomit.  ’ ‘  we’re all assholes here.  ’ ‘  i don’t know why i phrased it ‘lucky for us.’ i think i was feeling brave when i wrote this.  ’ ‘  yeah, this isn’t lucky for you at all.  ’ ‘  i’m gonna try and avoid saying ‘demon’ as much as i can.  ’ ‘  i’m not gonna let you goad me into this, i know what you’re trying to do.  ’ ‘  shut up. we’re moving on.  ’ ‘  you know what? i’m not trying to scare you, but... i got a bad feeling about this one.  ’ ‘  why are you unbuttoning your pants? we’re in public right now.  ’ ‘  oh... you’ve out-dumbed yourself.  ’ ‘  you know, i thought this was gonna be funny, but now i’m actually happy that i have it.  ’ ‘  i’m a whole other coin. just like a chill ass wheat-back penny.  ’ ‘  i’m doing it for the betterment of the science.  ’ ‘  any demons here? you got any demons out tonight? any horn-y boys or whatever they are.  ’ ‘  you may not like this... i’m gonna try to agitate it.  ’ ‘  you do what you gotta do and i’ll do what i gotta do.  ’ ‘  i’m just gonna be as crude as possible here.  ’ ‘  no, no, no. just right out of the gate. why build up?  ’ ‘  if you don’t believe then there’s nothing for you to be afraid of, right?  ’ ‘  you can be is big of a prick as you want, but i’m staying over here.  ’ ‘  if you want me off this bridge, you’re gonna have to kill me.  ’ ‘  nope! don’t loop me into your shit!  ’ ‘  stop looping me. i hate when you do this to me in demon places.  ’ ‘  i’m not part of his little charade.  ’ ‘  children will come here and tell tales about me.  ’ ‘  shut the fuck up -- i’m gonna murder you.  ’ ‘  oh what a load of horse shit.  ’ ‘  oh, skip the theatrics and just go into it.  ’ ‘  if you want me off this bridge, you’re gonna have to throw me off.  ’ ‘  you gotta admit, that is an effective technique.  ’ ‘  no, it’s not an effective technique. it’s a way to get killed.  ’ ‘  that’s not how you get them, shut up.  ’ ‘  when’s the last time you ever walked into the dark woods?  ’ ‘  this is so much scarier than hunting fucking sasquatch.  ’ ‘  people usually feel overcome with emotion in here, like a violent emotion.  ’ ‘  give me a heads up if you start to feel murderous. i would appreciate that.  ’ ‘  by the way, these woods are also scary because of the people that might be in there.  ’ ‘  i mean, people are greater threats than demons or ghouls.  ’ ‘  i can’t fight, you can’t fight.  ’ ‘  you’re like one of those carwash floaty things that are out front just wiggling around.  ’ ‘  anyone doing up to no good out here?  ’ ‘  one of these times we’re gonna die.  ’ ‘  oh shit! there’s something over there. i don’t know what it is, but the bushes are moving.   ’ ‘  i just heard a scream.  ’ ‘  well, if we just make it seem like we’re in on it, like... we’re here for the cult stuff.  ’ ‘  we’re here for the cult stuff. we saw the ad on craigslist.  ’ ‘  it feels weird to even joke. i’m so fucking scared right now.  ’ ‘  oh sure they’d be hiding in the bushes. they’re cultists.  ’ ‘  i keep collecting spiderwebs on my face and now i’m just sort of immune to them. i’m just letting them accumulate.  ’ ‘  well, you are just a giant stick walking around.  ’ ‘  oh, this looks fun... an odd collection of branches. looks like a witch lair or something.  ’ ‘  hello? you can’t be doing occult stuff like this. it’s a weeknight.  ’ ‘  dude, wait. you’re fucking crazy.  ’ ‘  you need to chill. you need to chill out.  ’ ‘  hey man, it’s just a plant.  ’ ‘  we kicked goatman off the bridge, it’s ours now.  ’ ‘  goatman, are you out here in the woo-- well, he’s out here in the woods ‘cause he’s not tending to his bridge.  ’ ‘  clearly. that’s why finders keepers and all that.  ’ ‘  hey, if there’s cultists out there... i gotta let you know, my pal has a water gun.  ’ ‘  i don’t like this, i don’t like this one bit.  ’ ‘  we are hearing noise from all sides at this point. it’s very blair witch.  ’ ‘  yeah, let’s leave.  ’ ‘  the name ‘steve’ doesn’t really strike fear into the heart.  ’ ‘  i’ll go along with this. fun gimmick.  ’ ‘  well demons, it’s been fun.  ’ ‘  as we snuff these candles so too do we snuff you from this mortal world, you fucking wimp.  ’ ‘  this bridge is officially mine. they’ll tell legends of me here.  ’ ‘  oh god, i feel like i’ve gone to the dark side.  ’ ‘  just gloat a little bit. this is a win for you.  ’

[dammitadolfnomorecake]

Literally dead right now. I have come back as something vaguely zombie like

Waking to a dark and wet room, Eren groaned as consciousness slowly returned. Trying to move, he began panicking as the realisation he was chained down set in. Struggling harder, the cold metal bit into his wrists and ankles, no matter how hard he strained he couldn't free himself "I never thought you'd be the one to seek me out, Eren. What brings you so far from the safety of your walls?" The metal door to his cell scraped and creaked, he was temporarily blinded as the gas lamp was set down beside his bed as Zeke sat by his hip, his so called brother than placing his hand on his shoulder "You don't need to be so scared of me" "Then let me out these chains!" "I can't do that" "Let me out of these chains!" Tears were in his eyes, his body trying to shrink from the metal and from Zeke's presence "I persuaded them that we need to talk. I can't let you out of these chains until I know why you're here" "Why do you care? You left us for dead!" "I didn't leave you for dead" "Levi was bleeding out! I was pregnant!" "Not so loud. Do you really want them knowing about Levi?" "What do you care? You said it was all a sin!" "You have to understand..." "What? What do I have to understand?" "It was for your own good" "Right. Leaving us there was for our good. Taking my journal and papers were for my own good! Levi nearly died and I nearly lost my children" "Why are you here Eren? Why come this far from the safety of the walls?" "I don't know. Why would you come to find me? You said you wanted to save me, but from what?" "None of that matters now" "It does to me. If you're not going to answer me, then let me go" "The people I work for aren't just going to let you go. They're already suspicious of your physique" The man was infuriating. All he wanted was a straight answer... but Zeke wouldn't give him anything "You mean because I have breasts and a penis? Or did they already figure out I give birth through my arsehole" "You don't need to be crass" "You're the one sitting there with all the fucking answers! Your stupid men took me from my fiancé and my children" "Children?" "That's right. You're a fucking uncle. Congratulations" Spitting the words at Zeke, he slumped back against his chains "The children... they survived" "A boy and a girl. Not that you care" "Eren..." "She's sick. That's why we came out here, so she didn't have to die inside the walls..." He wanted his babies. He wanted them so much... and he wanted his words to stop "... That's why I need to get back to her" "Normally the child doesn't survive the birth. The mixing of the bloodlines creates sick children, and results in the death of the mother" "I'm fucking fine. Now let me go" "Why? When I let you go, where will you go? Back to the walls? To the people who tortured you?" "That's none of your business" "You could stay here" "No thanks. I'd rather face a hundred werewolves than be your prisoner" "Stop being stubborn" "I'm good. Levi tells me that all the time, but it's never happened for him. What makes you think it's going to happen for you?" "I'm your blood brother" "No. You're the son of Grisha. You're not my brother, you're just someone else who was abandoned by him. Which you should know all about from stealing my journal" "We couldn't come back empty handed" "Sina. Levi was right about you. You really are an arsehole. Go away" "Eren, I suggest you have a good long thing about what is being offered here, and think about your current situation. If you cooperate, I'll do what I can for Levi" Leaving him still chained, Zeke took the lantern with him. Alone in the dark, surrounded by the stench of wet rot Eren cried himself to sleep. Eren hated the complex they'd locked him away in. Zeke would come to talk at him so often things just blurred into one. Being trapped beneath the grounds and in chains, his mind ran circles. He'd lost all perception of time. His breasts ached from not being able to feed his children, while body wouldn't stop shaking with fear. When people came with Zeke, they always stood back, watching him with a bored disinterest. It didn't matter what he said or did, they didn't touch him or move to help. They didn't have to. The strangers brought with them the scent that brought the memories of Levi being shot to the front of his mind. He had no doubt that they'd been there when Levi had been shot. The unwelcome visits would have been tolerable, if they were only issue with his only accomodation... At first he'd thought he hallucination. The first time he'd seen them, the first time he heard them, he thought his fragile mind had broken, before remembering such things actually existed. Ghosts. Isabel and Sai had been so sweet. Isabel had just wanted one last chance to eat and tell Levi it was all ok, while Sai had wanted to be with his mother again. But these ghosts. They screamed and wailed, as if they didn't even know they were dead. They pleaded for their lives. They pleaded to go home. For the pain to stop. He must sound insane as he begged them to stop. He couldn't even cover his ears with his hands to drown them out. The constant noise made him whimper in pain. His head throbbing from the lack of sleep their screaming brought. He'd escaped one hell, and now he was being broken all over again... Eren didn't know how long he was left to go insane before Zeke came for him. This time he was accompanied by a tall woman with a fierce hair cut, and a fiercer look on her face. Unlike Zeke's usual companions, she actually dared to come close to him. He dimly remembered Zeke calling her "Yelena" and warning her not to get close. Yelena had been the one to undo his chains, before his wrists were shackled and Zeke pulled him from his bed. Taking him by the elbow, the man supported him as they moved from the cell. Marched through the complex, he'd had half expected to be taken to be executed, instead, he was lead to the strangest cage he'd ever seen. Backing the facility, thick wire formed the walls, doors set at the end of it all, with walkways running either side of the enclosure. Closing his eyes, he relished the silence, and the cold night wind "Yelena, you may leave us" "As you wish, Commander Zeke" Commander? That would place Zeke at the same rank as Erwin... nothing about Zeke's manner hoods was remotely Commander material. Zeke was a coward and arsehole... on second thought... "Eren, I thought we could talk?" "Why?" "Because you're my brother. No matter what you say" "You say that like it means anything" His voice was gravelly and his throat tender from his screams and cries "Here, it does. It's not like I want to keep you caged down there" "Of course you don't... if you're going to kill, me be done with it" "I'm not going to kill you. I want to save you" "From what? What makes me worth saving?" "Because you're special" Eren snorted, stumbling out of Zeke's hold as he opened his eyes "Special? How am I special?" "For what you are" "A freak? A monster? A shifter?" "You're not a freak or a monster, not to our clan" "Really? Can everyone around here shift? Or is just me and you? And those two men you bring with you?" "Reiner and Bertholdt. And no. Our blood makes us special" "We have the same blood as everyone inside the walls, so why do they all have to die?" "Because they abandoned their wolf. They turned their back on the rules of the world to build their den of sin" "Do you know how crazy you sound right now? A den of sin? Werewolves, Lycan's, vampires, ghouls and ghosts. Some den of sin that is" "Eren. There are things you don't understand" "No. There are thing you don't understand. My fiancé is half-vampire. His adoptive sister was a fucking ghost. My adopted sister is half-vampire. My children are half-vampire and half-werewolf halves, so they're more human than both. You just want information from me, and I don't know anything. You're the one with all the answers! You're the one who broke through the rubble we worked so hard to block Shinganshima up with. You attacked Trost and Hermina. You attacked the Government! How many people had to die because of you?" Zeke snapped back "Don't pretend you're innocent" "I never said I was. But why do we have to die like cattle? What did we ever do to any of you? Nothing. We didn't even know about you..." "So we've been told" "What does that mean? Did you find innocent people to torture?" "Eren... I know you don't believe me, but you're part of something so much larger than you could ever believe" "Well hurray for me. Do you even feel bad for all the people you killed?" "Some of them deserved it" "How?! Did they hurt you?!" "No. They hurt you. I read what they did to you. What you're Government did to you. How could I do nothing?!" Eren's stomach rolled, he barely had time to clamp his hand to his mouth before vomiting into his mouth "Eren. How can you support the Government after what they did to you? In our people, you, you're special and so very rare..." Swallowing hard, Eren shook his head "No. I'm just me" "Men don't fall pregnant" "It helps when your father experiments on you. He already admitted he did this to me intentionally" "You were this when you were born" "That's not true..." "Eren..." "It's not fucking true! Ok! He wrote it in his journal! He injected me with werewolf DNA! He made me into this!" "We're born with our wolf..." "I don't care. Just let me go" "I can't do that" "Then let me die" "I can't allow that to happen either" He tugged at his chains. He was sure he could shift into his Lycan form. It might mean losing his hands, but they'd regrow. Looking towards the doors, he wondered just how many steps it would take to cross the distance "Don't shift" "Why not? What's to stop me from shifting right now? I could destroy this whole complex in seconds" "They'd shoot you full of ghouls blood before you even finished the shift" "I'd rather take my chances than go back inside there" "Did you know, ghouls are the most common supernatural species outside this island" "How the fuck am I supposed to know something like that?" "This place is where the original research was done on them" Eren sighed. Zeke was going off on some tangent that made no sense to him at all "Those werewolves. They were all humans. All brought here to be experimented on. Vampires and Ghouls both share genetic markers with Werewolves" "Werewolves or us?" "Shifters like us are known as werewolves" "Because that doesn't make shit confusing" Swallowing again, he wished Zeke would just get to his point. His throat was way too tender for all this defensive bullshit his stubbornness was spitting "We were the original race. Everything stemmed from us" Oh fuck this "Yelena! I want to go back to my cell" "Eren" "Nope. I'm done. You make zero sense and you're fucking crazy..." His voice finally broke in a squeak, the rest of his insults forced to stay in his mind. Yelena mustn't've ventured far as she reappeared in the caged space moments after he called her name. Zeke wasn't happy "I didn't call for you" "He did" "He's..." "You're position as his brother already has you under suspicion for colluding with the enemy. It's best he's returned to his cell before any further incidents can occur" Nodding to Yelena, the woman glared until Zeke took hold of the chains of his shackles, pulling him towards the doors back inside. This time, he poured every ounce of concentration he could muster into remembering the route. It wasn't all that much. His brain feeling like the inside of his boots after training in the rain, but if he could just get to cage, he could shift and get free. Sometime between his conversation with Zeke and his new situation, Eren had passed out. One moment he'd been in the cell, the next he was waking in his new room. He'd been cleaned and changed into some kind of white uniform. His chains gone, but he didn't exactly need them anymore. He couldn't get the voices out his head. Hiding under his blanket, Eren had his hands covering his ears as he tried to pretend he was anywhere but trapped in some institution in the hands of his mentally unstable brother, listening to screaming ghosts. Zeke had already been by earlier, accompanying Reiner and Bertholdt as they rearranged his room for him. Instead of there being just one bed, there were now two. He was getting a room mate and the idea didn't thrill him at all. He knew he was growing more and more unstable. He had to fight to keep his wolf under control and locking an innocent person in with him, would more than likely lead to their death. Hearing the door sliding open again, he rocked harder. Broken fragments of sentences came from his lips as he begged the voices to leave him alone "Eren?!" Great. He'd gone so fucking crazy he was hallucinating Levi's voice. Feeling the bed dip, the blanket was pulled from free "Eren?!" "No... no. You're not real" "Eren, I'm here. We're here. Look at me" Shaking his head, Eren didn't want Levi to be here. If he was here, the twins were here... they were in danger... "Brat?" "Why? Why are you here?" "This was the only way I could get in... I surrendered to Zeke" "You idiot" "Rilee and Eli need you. They wouldn't take the milk powder... she's been getting worse without you" "You shouldn't be here" Placing his hands back over his ears, he curled into himself. There was no way Levi could be so stupid. * Reaching out to cup Eren's face, his brat whimpered at the gentle contact. This wasn't the best plan he'd ever had, but after scouting the facility, he'd found there wasn't actually any way in, other than through gates that delivered some kind of nasty shock when you touched them, and the front door. So, he'd walked to the front door, demanding to see Zeke... It'd taken roughly 30 seconds in the man's presence to see that something was definitely wrong with him. Whatever planet the man was living on, it wasn't the same as the rest if them. Surrendering to Zeke had been the only way to get to Eren. It'd come with a broken arm, curtesy to Zeke's disgusting bodyguards. No one needed to be that big or stupid looking, and it wasn't exactly smart taking a swing when they approached the twins... he didn't regret it. Now he was Eren, they could form a plan together... at least that had been the plan until he set eyes on his fiancé. The teen was in pain. He looked as if he hadn't slept since being taken, 4 days ago, and the fact he was covering his ears didn't sit well with him at all "Eren, its ok. Help is coming... here, you're safe now. I'm with you" Safe wasn't the word he'd first use to describe their current circumstances, but Eren needed to calm down. Laying Rilee down on the bed, the teen tried to scramble backwards from her, despite the fact his back was already against the wall "She needs feeding, so does Eli. He missed you. He wouldn't settle at all without you" Both children had started screaming the night Eren had left, only falling asleep once they'd exhausted themselves completely "No... no... no..." Mumbling the word over and over, Eren grappled fistfuls of his hair, scrunching his eyes tightly closed "Eren, you need to feed them" Denying him and their twins, Eren worked himself into a panic. Lifting Rilee back to him, his broken right arm protested. He really must be getting old if a simple fall lead to such a break "You're ok now. They're not going to touch you" It wasn't until Eren passed out that Levi could move him. Propping him up, he moved to sit behind him, taking charge of the need for their twins to feed. The room offered no privacy, Eren's breasts completely exposed as nursed both twins. By his maths, Mikasa and Armin should have reached the castle the day they'd parted, if not the day after. With travel time included, they should already be on their way to the coast, provided Erwin hadn't pulled some kind of political bullshit. If they could just hold out for a week or so, help would come. He'd left signs for them, letting them know there was danger and that they were both in the strange building. He'd never seen anything like it. The lights weren't gas. The glass didn't shatter on impact. Machines he couldn't have even dreamed about hummed, and the weaponry sent a chill down his spine. The night Eren had been taken, he'd watched it all unfold, knowing his blades wouldn't be able to touch them before they'd get a shot off. He'd prayed Eren would stay away, yet his stupid brat had got their attention, leading the danger from the house and leaving Levi to trail behind. He'd then scouted the building, finding no way in, so it had taken surrendering both his and Eren manoeuvre gear, as well as their horses for Zeke to finally accept his surrender and for him to bring him down to Eren. When the twins were fed, he moved them to the end of their bed, before taking his place behind Eren again. Even in his sleep, Eren's lips were moving, as if pleading. Whatever he'd been through, had royally fucked with his head. This bullshit was why he'd wanted to avoid Zeke completely. Eren woke with a screaming nightmare, jolting Levi's busted arm that was protectively wrapped around his fiancé's waist, while his left hand rested on Eren's head. Trying to curl away, his hands went straight to his ears "Brat, hey... shhh... shhhhh" "Levi?" "I'm here" "Make it stop" Make what stop? There was nothing making noise... other than Eren and the hum of the machinery "Eren, make what stop?" "The voices" Levi's heart fell. There were no voices... "Eren, no one's here" "They are... please... make it stop" "Come back here" Taking his hands, Eren didn't seem to notice Levi's arm as he placed them over his ears, before covering them with his own. This was going to be a problem. He needed Eren grounded and focused so they could talk about an escape plan... not scrunching his eyes up and covering his ears.

[floggingink]

Riverdale, “Chapter Twenty: Tales from the Darkside”

THIS ISN’T DOWN TO THE WIRE, KEVIN

I think most of the references this ep went over my head, as I am not a classic horror connoisseur, but I’m giving it the old college try

CHUCK AND HIS 18-INCH WAIST IS BACK!

Sixth period is Intro to Film: for starters, the opening text crawl is from the beginning of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and they did this to placate Jughead, who has an amazing episode this week in that he fucking survives to the end of it

oh yeah, Betty got Mr. Phillips killed!

I like that in response to the circumstances Betty and Jughead have started sinning MORE

Jug’s snake tattoo has a little crown on it, because history will not be denied/he’s a dweeb

Jughead’s being very dutifully “You didn’t do anything wrong, etc.,” and Betty absolutely cuts him off like, “BUT HOW THE FUCK?”

he calls her “Poirot,” which is like Betty calling him a rebel without a cause

ah, the poster of which is by his bed! Jughead has a bedroom!!!! you’ve earned it, champ!

Sexy, aesthetic Southside: I don’t remember if Penny Peabody had crimped hair the last time she and Jughead met, but it’s straight outta 00’s Avril Lavigne and I love it

the Kentucky Derby blinders Jughead has for his father are Riverdale’s truest tragedy. FP is doing him so wrong

Jughead is going to be Penny’s “transportation advisor,” because he’s such a good driver

LOVED the Kill Bill typewriter “Archie & Jughead” titles

What damn high school in America: you know Jughead just totally skipped class and sauntered into Riverdale High in his fucking jacket. now that his English teacher is gone, what’s the fucking point? can he still run his paper?

Gay?!: Cheryl calls them Bert and Ernie as she shoves them aside like they were made of papier-mâché (Bert and Ernie are life partners)

I like Jughead’s sort of layered expression when he’s asking Archie for help/telling Archie he’s going to help him, like he’s slightly smiling when he talks about the Ghoulies “stunt”

Archie COMMENDABLY says NOTHING about the huge crate full of drugs (it’s not POSSIBLY full of drugs, or even pancake mix) he’s about to get his prints all over. Riverdale would never have them pick up a like a metal Law & Order box, it’s got to be like a fucking pirate chest

Archie & Jug in the truck was presh. Archie had a lot of Fred-esque lines, but I think he’s filtering his true fears about Jughead ENDING UP IN PRISON, WHICH IS WHERE HE IS HEADED, into father-speak, and Jughead, whose father blows, is like I DON’T KNOW, DAD, I’M LIVING MINUTE TO MINUTE HERE

—which is very traumatized, you know? like when you’re growing up, if you’re too hassled and anxious you get holes in your developing brain because it’s too focused on constantly being in fight-or-flight survival mode to the detriment of learning how to be a person? Jughead doesn’t have time for anything that isn’t literally getting to the end of today, possibly sleeping with Betty

I like how Archie’s fantasy does NOT include college, which he doesn’t care about

Jughead doubts it: GQ tells me the East Village is still around, Jughead

not even in his dreams does Archie imagine Veronica would NOT be living on Park Avenue

I like the possibility-thread of “Even worse than jail” being cut off by the flat

Jughead wants to call Betty, his fixer, but then they’re like, How about the sheriff’s son?

would Kevin even have helped them out? he’s not into the shady anymore! he’s post-Joaquin!

Jughead has grand movie-thoughts about his own persona but has not “played it cool” once in his life

OH GREAT, IT’S TONY TODD. IT’S THE FUCKING CANDYMAN. GREAT. GREAT. HOW THE FUCK. WHAT. THE FUCKING—WHAT????????

Jughead only has $18 and he carries it with him wherever he goes

Jughead RELEASES Archie from his friendship debt before getting into McGinty’s truck, because HE’S ABOUT TO DIE

“DON’T LOOK UNDER THAT TARP”

JUGHEAD TAKING HIS LAST LOOK AT ARCHIE IN THE REARVIEW

The Blossom spawn: when Tony Todd fucking invoked Jason fucking Blossom, on top of everything else, ON TOP OF EVERYTHING ELSE, I had a fucking myocardial infarction

McGinty throwing out the time warp phrase “for just a hot minute”

okay the lighting in the truck makes his eyes reflect these tiny pinpoints of white out of the beyond-the-grave voids of his eyes and that Judgement Day shit is on the radio and Jughead is like, this is too much atmosphere even for me

“IN THE BLACK OF THE HOOD IS THE LIGHT OF GOD, AND WHEN YOU SEE IT, YOU WILL DIE.” WHAT? WHAT???? WHAAAAATTTTT???????

and then Archie sees a zombie deer. he sees like a fawn with its fucking skin blistered off. he sees a fucking Chernobyl deer. walking precisely the line between Riverdale and Greendale. great. Greendale is full of ghosts. Jughead is in a death truck driven by the Riverdale Reaper’s sixth victim or something. GREAT. GREENDALE IS FULL OF GHOSTS! GREAT!

Jughead wears his watch face very rakishly on the inside of his wrist

for a hot second, I thought the flies were bees. I did think they were bees. I did think they were doing Candyman

BECAUSE IT’S FUCKING TONY TODD!!!!!!!

you know Jughead was going to look under the tarp. you fucking knew it. he’s in act two of a horror movie. he’s going to relay this story later and say he didn’t look under the tarp? what’s under the tarp? WHAT’S IN THE BOX

deer too dead even to still walk around

I’ve seen this like three times and I can’t tell you what the fuck he’s eating in that shitty cafe. steak? Jell-O? kitten flesh?

the way he says “I’m no thrill-seeking sicko,” sucking on the S’s

the single fly buzzing around McGinty’s shoulder as he tells the Reaper story was like a single further death omen and if it turned out Jughead was already a zombie like in that comic you know, I would’ve fucking bought it, fuck it, what the fuck

some people THINK a lynch mob got him? there was a RUMOR lynch mob? or there was DEFINITELY a lynch mob that only MIGHT HAVE lynched the right person??? I’M GONNA NEED SOME CLARIFICATION, POP TATE

California in my experience is exactly where you should be to pray to the devil

I loved how fast things went incredibly south in the diner. the thud of the check, McGinty saying Jughead would pay, Jughead beings like, Pardon me? Jughead about to be LEFT BEHIND

“YOU’RE SINNERS, BOTH OF YOU. CAREFUL OR YOU’LL TASTE THE REAPER’S BLADE NEXT.”

Archie > Dawson: Archie is, simultaneously, the worst and best person to have along with you inside a horror movie, because he’s sort of dense but also will never give you up, never let you down, desert you (if it’s a Good Archie episode, which this unmistakably is). Archie is the only character I would buy forgetting he was there and miraculously he shows back up in the nick of time

next we have Archie and Jughead driving around some more with the Friday the 13th echoing exhale sound effect in the background, just for funsies

Fifth period is AP English: Penny’s fucking Arctic exploration crate has all this HP Lovecraft motif lore on the side of it, so, cool, I guess it contains screaming desiccated souls or something (Lovecraftian Ghouls eat flesh, by the way)

“Damn good coffee”: aaaaaaaaand coming out to meet them is a Soviet spy wearing a beret, wheeled out by Karla, with an AK on his hip. Greendale contains the trapped spirits of everyone who died there in the 70’s

These students are legally children: Jughead is screwed. Jughead is so screwed. Jughead is one part vodka, two parts orange juice

Archie’s coloring lends itself well to being bathed in that pink Pop’s lighting I love

Jughead has recovered enough to call McGinty (who isn’t named aloud) “Mr. American Gothic”

JUGHEAD WANTS TO GO TO THE LIBRARY WITH ARCHIE. he doesn’t want to do drug runs. he wants to snoop around with his best friend, because despite having a gang in his bloodline, Jughead is REALLY not a gang member. when he gets to choose what he wants to do, he just wants to do research. he wants to be Giles, okay

endless tragedy with Archie’s “Next day, for sure.”

I would absolutely believe that Riverdale’s jail’s visiting hours are actually “sunup to sundown” as opposed to like “eight to four”

how precious is he, steeling himself to see his father’s slashed face

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

apparently Penny’s surveillance video has some sort of infrared lighting quality

I like how Penny specifies that Jughead is not to raise his voice to her, a classic scarier-than-violence threat

is this why FP was so freaked that Jughead would owe her? not because she’s naturally treacherous to everyone, but because he knows she wants recompense for his betrayal? FP, you’re awesome start to finish

Jughead has not done like a SINGLE THING WRONG this entire time that hasn’t been at the behest of him trying to FIX everything single thing that his father set him up for, dog

I do not deserve a whole segment dedicated to Josie and her white manicure, yet here I am!

Josie and the janitor have an understanding, because people who stick around school after hours are usually slightly strange and have to stick together

“I don’t need a bodyguard! I’m not Whitney. Yet.”

Certified pedigree: Mayor McCoy is another Scary Riverdale Mom, but I’d say she’s the least scary of them WRT her daughter (not the southsiders, although jury’s still out on how much of that is Alice’s fault)

Josie’s vocal polyps swell when she’s stressed

her denim one-piece? only you, Josie

Cheryl’s hair: Classic Disney princess hair this episode. Classic Cheryl. a Classic

Cheryl sums up Josie’s guilt as being about “sinning” which means therefore the Black Hood may notice, as opposed to something like “You feel like you’re betraying your friends,” which would be the human response

Chuck Clayton is thoroughly charming throughout. if you just watched him this episode, you’d be like, How bad could he really have been?

he came prepared with the knowledge that Josie “loves her cheese fries”

Chuck’s leather jacket is very nice. all the boys should just be wearing leather jackets

Josie is partaking of a “eucalyptus steam”

“Nick St. Creature”

Cheryl’s measured response to Josie calling her controlling was perfect. she says she’ll never be able to “repay” her “debt,” because Cheryl is ALL ABOUT tit-for-tat, emotional burdens handled via business deals, paying off favors, clearing her side of the column

I also like her Blossom pun

The 2001 Josie and the Pussycats movie was a masterpiece: VALERIE! MELODY! VALERIE’S SWEATER! MELODY’S SKIRT! VALERIE’S CURLS! MELODY’S AFRO! “WOMEN ARE SUPPOSED TO TREAT EACH OTHER BETTER THAN THIS.” “PRIDE COMETH BEFORE THE FALL.”

Fwoopy hair is the best hair: Melody is not happy but she is the goddess of my life and I hope she can sense that from this distance

why IS Josie doing the solo thing? she did claw them in the back!

ooh, he’s smooth. he’s smooth with the Pop’s thing. Chuck did that

Josie’s “YEAH MHM” nod when Chuck says he “doesn’t have the greatest track record” and rolls her eyes at him “going to church”

“Why? To objectify models?”

he wants to draw comics, because he is a creative? Chuck and Jughead and their leather jackets would have a great time at the library together, after they make up (with hugs)

did I say Archie looked good in the pink light? fucking Chuck and Josie look phenomenal

Pulp Fiction diner dancing!

I’ve seen Brick like thirty times: the two of them synchronized jitterbugging together, I did not have the patience to Google the name of the dance, like fully won me over. is Chuck good now? I’m fucking on Chuck’s list now. like is that all it took for me? I am a weak bitch

“YOU’RE A DAMNED FOOL.”

stay strong, Chuck! don’t fuck this up!

is Mayor McCoy lying on the spot about her hate mail mentioning Josie? just to scare her into compliance?

“Taking a few art classes does not a saint make.”

Cheryl’s sheaths: Cheryl’s wearing huge thick ankle-strap platforms again with a VERY leggy romper

okay shut up because Cheryl actually says “What’s in the box?” and Brad Pitt felt a little bit of his life force drain from his body

Gay.: What up with Cheryl’s game here? was she preemptively putting things in Josie’s locker on the off-chance she would need to get a rival presence out of Josie’s life? I would like a reason, but I don’t need one, because Cheryl is so beyond my mind to comprehend I take solace simply in basking in her wake. like, she found a pig’s heart? of course she did. of course you did, Cheryl

Cheryl’s a chaos angel from hell: “For all we know, he’s the one sending your mom those letters, too” is SUCH an overreach if Josie had had time to think about it for two seconds, but she does not have such two seconds, thus it is a master move by Cheryl Blossom

Chuck’s puppy eyes

Josie knows what she diiiiiiiiid!

THEY GOT ME FOR THE SECOND TIME! GODDAMMIT!

nicely specific throat-slashing, right in the polyps

I’m writing a scene where it’s gay.: Cheryl is listening to Josie sing as she draws, in the greatest reveal in television history (at least since “You’ve done a bad thing, Daddy,” which feels like it happened fifty-eight years ago) (is this actually gay? am I being #blessed with Gothic lesbian villainy?)

Every triangle has three corners, every triangle has three sides: Betty and Jughead literally sleeping together I WOULD ASSUME means they’re having sex except I’m like 0-4 on this stuff, I’m not taking anything as a given

Best costume bit: Betty’s flower decal sweater

VERONICA: How’s he been dealing with it? BETTY: WHAT’S HE BEEN DOING?

Veronica’s tiny poofy magenta skirt and EXTREMELY high heels

“Poor Kevin. He’s like a character in a lost Tennessee Williams play.” (Archie does not know Tennessee Williams)

Sheriff Keller is REMARKABLY forthcoming, in that I think he assumes Betty is going to dig around until she’s found this stuff out anyway, so he may as well show her the ACTUAL EVIDENCE PHOTOS now

Kevin is a cashmere-besweatered angel who plays RPG’s and drinks milk

dare I spy a Tarantino split-screen?

The female gaze: Tom Keller is jacked and this just complicates everything

the extent to which Veronica can be read as absolutely hitting on him while actually prying him for information while ostensibly offering comfort is a tribute to Camilla Mendes, James DeWille, 60,000 years of human speech

the animal targets on the wall as like, art?

aw, Kev took the floor. honestly thought he might have a bunk bed for like, his bears

God bless jingle-jangle: can you imagine having it in your obituary that you were “a jingle-jangle addict”? can someone finagle this for mine? is this blog a legal document?

50 Shades of Betty: I love how off the rails, if you will, Betty is this episode. she’s lost the forest for the trees a bit and it’s GREAT. she’s such a fucking oddball. Lili Reinhart’s massive eyes are like laserbeams of manic certainty

Summer + Blair = Veronica: Veronica is the only person with sense this entire episode. like what would it have been like if it was Veronica and Jughead in the first part? and Archie seeing Josie get a pig’s heart! AND CHERYL IN SHERIFF KELLER’S MAN-SWEAT BASEMENT

it appears the singing bass salesman made a stop at the Kellers’ after he hit up FP Jones

Please protect Betty: Betty’s expression of defiant stoicism throughout her father’s apology on her behalf and Keller explaining himself even further

“Where-oh-where do you think you’re going, Sheriff?” TO LIVE HIS LIFE, BETTY?

he is wearing a very Black Hood outfit of the leather jacket (!) over a flannel with jeans

love the split-second shot of the camera flash

Veronica was rich: of course Veronica’s in like thigh-high boots or whatever

OOOOOOOOHHH HE’S DOING THAAAAAAAT WITH HEEEERRRRRRR!

Veronica was 1) correct and 2) says “broment”

Pop keeps delicate teacups around for “fancy” orders

Cheryl’s structured red coat!

can you believe Jughead left BEFORE Pop got that phone call?

THE RECKONING, Y’ALL, IT’S HERE! MAYBE ONE SINGLE MORE PERSON WILL DIE!

NEXT WEEK TWENTY HOURS FROM NOW: Cheryl makes FP clean up a milkshake, and I enjoy this very special purchase

[dexcidium]

So I’ve been meaning to write this for a while now… my review so far of Fate/Apocrypha. Keep in mind that I’ve read all the way up to the translated LNs, which is only up to the end of volume four, as well as this being written prior to the ending of the anime. As of now, it’s only up to episode 23. Let me preface this by saying that I love Fate. The lore and that distinct writing style ever so present within the series. The (mostly) well represented servants within the series. The character interactions, the relationship between servant and master, and everything else in between. That being said… I’ll keep this part short because I am prooooobably gonna go on and on forever on my thoughts later on.

TLDR: The concept was interesting, hype and it had some really great hooks. However, it felt flat on so many of its percieved promises and then… he happened. Sieg is a black hole that made Apoc so much worse than it actually is. Everything is fucking weak overall aaaaaand once again, FUCK YOU SIEG. YOU WASTE OF SPACE AND TIME.

I promise it’s not too long.

Not at all.

Right, let’s get this out of the way. I think Higashide can be a good writer. There were some good characterisation throughout Apoc, as well as some genuinely well written moments. However, there were many failures on his end as a writer. And it only became more evident in the anime. I’ll get to that later. First of all, let’s start with what I liked about it.

Jeanne(Light Novel): Those of you that know me know how much I adore Jeanne. And since FGO was a waifu game, I initially only liked her for her looks. No hiding that fact. But as I read more and more, getting sucked in to the hell that is the Type Moon wiki, I started to like her more and more based on personality. Again, those that know me know that I find these vanilla heroines extremely boring and bland. (SorryArturiaIjustreallydidn'tlikeyouoryourstoryarcinFSN). But of course, since this is TM, there was bound to be more than meets the eye. Like goddamn, she’s a literal saint. Probably the most well known in the world even. I expected her to be a goody-two-shoes and nothing more. But BOY was I wrong. Jeanne: *prays for hours everyday*. Also Jeanne: *exorcises 1000000 unborn children, suggests to crash a plane into the gardens without even blinking*. Her constant struggle of being called a saint and rejecting that very premise was frankly quite shocking because of the established facts about how much she loved God. There was divide in her character. And suddenly she wasn’t this benevolent, all-loving saint anymore. She was Jeanne. A religious girl who fought for her beliefs, and died fighting for them. The world imposed to her a title that she didn’t necessarily want. But her characterisation ends there… at least the actual interesting parts. Oh don’t worry, I’ll get to *that* later.

The Red Faction: Boy these guys were fun! The Red Servants felt much more organic and light hearted compared to the other faction. Granted that part made sense since Darnic is a literal Nazi. Anyway… these guys were just so much more fun. From Karna’s literal and metaphorical roasts, to Shakespeare’s loud and outspoken cravings for tragedy, to Achilles’ constant and flirtatious admiration towards Atalanta (AKA the woman who beat up his dad), to the crazy, fucked up and manipulative asshole that is Shirou (not Emiya) Kotomine. They were just fun to watch. I could go on about the tinier details but that’d make this shit even longer… MOVING ON!

Kairi and Mordred: Oh boy these two are just… perfect. A father son combo like no other. And an absolute joy to watch. They filled a void sorely lacking in each other’s existence. And you can clearly tell that by their interactions. Kairi was edgy and cool but unlike someone like Kiritsugu, he was easy going and didn’t take everything so seriously. A cool dad. And Mordred… god I love this little scamp of a knight. Mordred is adorable in her own little way while being cool and badass like her master/dad. They were just a fun duo to watch in the series where master and servant interaction was rather lacking of interesting dynamics. These two just worked. And they worked well.

The premise: basically any other HGW times two. Goddamn was the set up cool. That’s all, really.

Right, so this is the section where I shit on Apoc from both a viewer’s stand point, as well as from a narrative and structural stand point. To stop myself from going on an even further tangent, I’ll be talking about Sieg last. Other than this part. Let me just say that he is pretty much directly linked for like… 70% of this show’s major flaws. But again… that comes last. Lets start off with the stupid points in Apocrypha and the disastrous end of the first volume. I’ll also be comparing it to the anime, which was a hot mess. Not quite garbage. That came later.

So… the characters. Way too many of them. It was evident that Higashide could not handle such a large cast. It was basically what a normal grail war was times by a factor of two and then add a little bit more. So what did he do? Take out half of the masters by having Amakusa straight up manipulating the entire thing. A good move I’d say… but there was still too many for him to handle. It was all over the place. But frankly, he handled the earlier parts quite well in the LN. There was, however, a gigantic lack of characterisation for many of the earlier characters. Of course those were the same characters that pretty much needlessly died off for shock effect. For example, Siegfried (henceforth shall now be known as Siegfriend) had me going “this makes no sense" rather than “YOU KILLED SIEGFRIED. YOU MONSTERS". And as a writer, if you can’t make your audience feel the emotion that you intended them to – then you’ve failed. And the series is plagued with these rather stupid deaths. A lot of them felt pointless and held no significant impact on the overarching narrative. They just died. And I didn’t feel anything. The delivery felt weak and half-assed, played for fake emotion.

And speaking of deaths, Darnic and Vlad’s… no that, that was fucking stupid on top of a pile of stupid. Well, this felt like actual lost potential. Unlike a certain other character… Darnic was being built up to be the main antagonist… and he felt like he would have been a good one. If not for the structure being a battle royale-ish. And it is one because people pretty much did their own thing pretty early on in the story. Getting back on track, Darnic and Vlad had a relationship akin to Tokiomi and Gilgamesh from Fate Zero. And that is the servant being more of a master than the actual master. This was good as we were seeing a variety if servant/master dynamics. Darnic, however, was no pushover. This man had been established to do whatever it fucking takes to get what he wants. And he had been succeeding too. Just what grand scheme was he about to pull off- aaaaaaand he’s dead. Dude talked a lot of shit… nothing happened. Not even a lasting impact. He just became one with Vlad and that was it. What the fuck was that? There wasn’t any sort of intelligence or cunningness that he had displayed before. Oh and poor Vlad. Man, he was the real victim here. This part I actually felt for. Because he became what he didn’t want the most. The Legend of Dracula. A vampire. And not one of Nasu’s myriad of vampire OCs. The OG, Count Dracula. It was meant to be an actual tragedy… yet… it left no impact. So when Darnic’s BRILLAINT plan of fusing his and Vlad’s soul together, while activating his Legend of Dracula NP, he was made out to be this near unstoppable being that needed all these powerful heroic spirits boosted by a command seal to be stopped. But really… he wasn’t. Fuck, he didn’t even kill anyone important. And no one at all in the LN. I was expecting him to pull some Hellsing Ultimate bullshit and turn the entirety of Trifas into a ghoul-infested city. But nope. Nothing came out of it.

He ends up getting fucked over by the ACTUAL main Antagonist, Amakusa Shirou Tokisada via baptism rites. This was meant to make him look powerful or whatever. Except the entire fight scene is really dumb because if you know anything about vampires, they have very specific weaknesses. Two of those are the sun and holiness. And not just any weakness. Deathly weakness. AND WHO DO WE HAPPEN TO HAVE!? The most famous saint in the world and the son of a sun god who literally has sunlight woven into his skin. This whole thing was made even more stupid but the fact that the initial plan in the LN was to wait until dawn for the sun to come out. Also in the LN, Jeanne was poking away at Vlad using her holy spear which she did not do in the anime. By the way, Jeanne can do the exact same thing as fuckboi Shirou. Only even better because she’s an actual saint and a Ruler. Plus she used Baptism Rites to exorcise Jack as well. Seriously, Karna could have hugged Darnicula to death. This whole scene is stupid, man.

Continuing the stupid death trend, Avicebron and Adam… god that was stupid. Roche you say? Who? Kid was barely a character. He was made to be killed. He had no build up. No actual back story. And barely a personality. In short he didn’t matter at all. But dear god, this fight was meant to be the Cthullu fight equivalent. Yet again, this was somehow even more anti-climactic and even more boring than the Darnicula fight. Again, nobody important died. They’re killing for the sake of killing. And it was just fucking weak man. I barely felt anything. Other than the seething hatred and boredom of course. And again, it was meant to make somebody else look good. Our “protagonist". Anyway, this fight was dumb and boring. Some good animation in the anime though. I will give it that much.

And this was the point in the series that everything pretty much got thrown out the window and it was evident that it wasn’t going to get any better. Jeanne lost her neutrality, literally 2/3rds of the Ygdmillenia family didn’t even really matter in the end, the Red faction’s fucked off to cross the border or something, Sieg is a super special servant/master hybrid rolled into one with super special BLACK command seals because he’s the super special protagonist aaaaand Jack’s fucked off back to Reika. Who at this point also barely has a personality and back story. But still way less than most people that have already died. And that’s just sad man. I, as part of the audience, couldn’t give less of a shit about any characters except a set few. If I didn’t know most of them through Grand Order already, I would have dropped this shit ages ago. And dear god, Jeanne still doesn’t have an established personality besides existing for SHIGGU-KUN in the anime. The LN does a far better job with characterisation. Even if it is still a heaping dumpster fire. And then they do pretty much nothing except side quest to kill Jack and exorcise 10,000 babies. Which, despite feeling like a loose end that they had to tie up despite being in a rush to go after the Red faction, was actually my favourite scene in the LN due to the fact that it completely changes the reader’s perception of Jeanne. Of course the anime version sucked ass.

Right, continuing on… this scene. It did not work for the anime. And I’ll have to start by explaining that Jeanne’s characterisation does not exist beyond Sieg in the anime. A lot of her characterisation outside of that was cut. Which is a damn shame because she became what I hated the most in an anime character. Bland, generic, no real motivation, no established personality yet somehow still being out of character whenever that shithead Steve-kun is around. Not only was Jeanne no longer the Jeanne I knew, she was replaced by bumbling tsundere who blushes for a wet sock. It was cheap and boring. And this fucking harem Romanian romance BS that was happening was so fucking out of place. It was evident that Jeanne had barely become a character anymore. She was just waifu bait like Astolfo now. Putting that aside, even in the LN, Jeanne still becomes a mess. While I have not personally read the last volume since it has not been translated, I have read summaries. And my god is everything stupid. I’ll return to this part once I cover the long awaited shitfest…

WARNING. As this is my personal review, it is very opinionated. And as you can probably tell… this is very personal.

Sieg. Oh you waste of space, you don’t fucking deserve that name. Like every both of his being, it’s half assed. I mentioned that Sieg was a blackhole in the beginning. And that’s because he sucks up any bit of good in this series whenever he’s in a scene. Good characterisation from well established characters? NAH LETS BEND OVER AND LET SHIGGU KUN WIN AND HE WILL BE LOVED FOREVER AND EVER BECAUSE HE’S SO GOOD AND PURE AND INNOCCENT YOU GUYS. Right, now that that’s out of the way. It’s time to dive into exactly why this dude is such a demerit to the series overall.

First and foremost, he disrupts the entirety of the story structure. While it could have certainly worked, it most definitely did not here. Sieg’s role in terms of plot devices was to centralise the story as a whole. However, Higashide went too far and just… ended up giving Sieg far too big a role. This, in turn took away a lot from the rest of the cast. Not only their screen time but their whole character. Yet despite all this “development" he was getting, he still barely had a character. Some may say that was the point. Sieg is indeed a blank slate that was meant to learn as he grew. But the thing is – he never did. Instead, there was this identity crisis that was never really addressed in the actual narrative. However, as it stands… the whole fiasco was extremely pointless. Sieg remains a flat character and his entire goal was immediately solved the episode after he decided to do it. Worst of all, there was no sense of struggle. Not even a spec of it. He just sorta did it. And my god was it so boring to watch. Even after when he’s trying to get his morals straight, it basically boils down to him asking people if killing was bad. And it just kept dragging on and on and on and on! And in the end… nothing came out of it. By the time they were about to go and attack the Hanging Gardens, barely anything changed. Basically, it was a giant waste of time.

And of course, we have to address Siegfried. While certainly, yes, you could argue that tragedy is the very essence of Siegfried’s story. Even in his own legend we were only told of his story through a series of flashbacks. In Apocrypha, Siegfried’s suffering continues. He has a shit master, he can’t even fucking talk, his brotp moment gets cucked by the fetus, and he never actually gets anything that he wanted. And as a result; he was sorely undeveloped. Then he fucking dies. It was meant to come off as a heroic sacrifice but… there was nothing there to latch on emotionally, as well as making no sense. For one, at this point everything about Sieg was just to make the audience feel sorry for him. That’s it. Nothing else. Secondly, the homunculus and Siegfried had no real emotional connection. They literally just met. Hence, making the sacrifice feel… well, emotionless. They try to reason it off with some BS about Siegfried doing something selfish… but it was still a selfless action. So I never bought it as a proper reason. Now keep in mind, that I personally was trying to keep an open mind about Sieg when I began reading Apoc. I had heard bad things and the stuff that people were saying pretty much embodied everything I hated in a protagonist. Except… it was a lot worse. Sieg is a lot worse. At this point in time, I didn’t even hate Sieg yet. He just had little to no presence or relevance, nor even a semblance of a personality that I did not give a Rin’s ass. Then… Siegfried tore his fucking heart out – his own heart out, literally and made Sieg…. eat it? It was… really stupid. Because A: Servants’ spiritual cores are their hearts and they wouldn’t be able to even move without it the moment it gets torn out. And of course before he dies out Siegfried gets his only redeeming moment… chock one up to poor pacing…. yay. So just when I starting to give a shit about Siegfried, he’s out of the picture. For this… thing. And as someone who’s aware about the consequences of having a servant’s body part attached to another human being (AKA Heaven’s Feel), I was expecting some consequences. Horrible, horrible consequences. But…

Nothing.

But I’ll be generous and gloss that one over since it wasn’t established in the plot here.

Now I may be going on and on about expectations and shit but that’s because literally everything in Apoc was trying to outdo Zero/FSN. Let me go on a tangent for a bit and explain. Twice the masters, twice the servants, a more exciting and dynamic premise. But in actuallity, every bit of delivery was extremely weak. A lot of it was just below par. I was promised something great but even as I continue to lower the bar, Apoc continued to limbo under it.

Anyway, back to that useless sack of shit. The anime didn’t really have this but my god… the following moments is what made me hate Apoc right then and there. So in the Light Novel, Jeanne senses a new disturbance due to Sieg’s unique (*rolls eyes*) existence. So as she investigates, she goes and talks to the black faction (they fucking skipped the theological debate between Jeanne and Vlad in the anime btw), until she finds Sieg.

Then she collapses because of Laeticia needing food still cuz host body and all that. So far I was buying it. Then Sieg carries her. O..kay? Then blushing… Uhhhhhhh…. and when they finally reach a village and was allowed a room for the both of them… it devolved into a generic light novel plot.

They had to share a bed.

Girl blushes.

Dense protag is dense.

UHHHHH

WHAT THE FUCK? WHAT THE HELL IS THIS? You’d think I was kidding but this id exactly what happens. And it was this precise moment that my expectations drastically dropped to near zero. It came out of fucking nowhere. I don’t get why they’d not-so-subtly force this shitty romance between characters who just met in a primarily action-focused novel. It wasn’t even good. I could open SAO and whatever other clone and they’d do it just as badly.  And it was at this moment that Sieg became the worst thing about Apoc for me. But ohohoho… just as you think it’s hit rock bottom, it somehow goes BELOW that.

GO BELOW AND BEYOND. MINUS ULTRAAAAA!

Okay, so skipping a couple of events, Jeanne fucks back off to the main battle where the Red Faction actually gets their shit together. She does nothing but run around for the entire volume. Like. Literally does nothing except save wet sock’s ass. Anyway, while everyone else is having rather personal battles with Chiron fighting his former pupil, Achilles, the two Lancers/Aces of them having one hell of a fight and arguing their religious beliefs, Fran confronts fuccboi Shirou and gets screwed over by Shakespeare’s NP (and we get to see her real struggles as well as a bit more on how Caules is as a master), Astolfo being a loser as always, Atalanta being… whatever she was doing, she doesn’t really get interesting until after, and Mordred being the shitty driver she is, giving Kairi a heart attack. Right so before this gigantic fight happens, Sieg finally decides that he wanted to save his homunculus buddies. Which is a fine motivation. …that got immediately solved because everyone else was too busy actually fighting. Zero tension or risk here. Anyway after one of his major character motivations gets solved so stupidly easily, he decides to pull a Shirou Emiya (only a lot worse and he doesn’t make sense) and fight the servants. In which Mordred immediately kills his ass but is the only one that does damage for some reason (gotta make him seem useful and interesting), despite Fran doing next to no damage. The servant. Doing no damage. But this guy did. O… okay. So he gets killed, I rejoice like Kirei when he hears an Emiya is participating in a HGW on Christmas day, the evil is defeated, the world is a better pla- and he’s alive. Once again. Not even an episode later. Absolutely no tension. Do you see what my problem is with wet sock as a character? There’s almost no stakes for him. No proper emotional connections to a lot of characters. Characters die for him to live. Said characters who have never even had a conversation with him prior. So tell me how am I supposed to feel? Certainly not satisfied or even happy. In fact I’m frustrated that a far more interesting character died so that this bland fucko could live. And it doesn’t even make sense! He gets a fucking power up too for whatever fucking reason. So Fran accidentally zaps him back to life when she sacrifices himself to kill Mordred. Now he has command spells that are black (because HE’S SO SUPER SPECIAL YOU GUYS). And he can now turn into Siegfried.

What kind of stupid writing is this? It makes no sense. Progression is fucking stupid. No explanation. No proper emotional connection. No proper stakes. No risks. And above all else… there’s no entertainment. I’m so goddamn bored. And I’m already sick of our main protagonist. And he takes up a lot of the time. I can’t connect to this character. Even if I can’t relate to his struggle, I should be able to at least feel for him. But I didn’t. Because I know that somehow, someway, he’ll BS his way through it with fake struggle that has no tension. Wet sock is lacking in every single area. And him being the protagonist highlights his shittiness as a character. Honestly, he could have worked if they didn’t have a forced romance or if he was the main character. He could have provided the view of the homunculus. Instead Toole, who barely appears, does a better fucking job of that more than the guy that takes up half the screen time. And at this point, I’d rather have him gone completely rather than try and make him even remotely interesting. Even his introduction was sketchy to me. It was just a whole lot of “FEEL SORRY FOR ME. ARE YOU FEELING IT NOW MISTER KRABS? ARE YOU REALLY FEELING IT??????”. But I didn’t. I didn’t know shit about this fucko. Why should I care? There was nothing to latch on to, no emotional hook. Not even an interesting characteristic. And he never develops one. Instead, I feel like he just steals shit. Just like him receiving Siegfried’s heart and taking half his name, his entire character is half-assed.  Not quite a self insert because there isn’t a power fantasy to be fulfilled. That sort of fantasy is immediately ruined because he literally turns into someone else. Can’t really project yourself onto someone who turns into someone else. A terrible MC due to him bullshitting everything and surviving everything with no real consequence to him. He just makes the story terrible by his sheer existence.

Right, so going back to one of my earlier points. That scene with Jeanne, Atalanta, and Jack. A very pivotal moment for Jeanne and Atalanta. Jeanne, who was a revered saint decides to confront Jack the Ripper, who is the embodiments of one part of the legends where he killed pregnant ladies or something. I don’t exactly remember all the details with Jack. Anyway, the important part is that Jack is made up of a bunch of unborn souls. Children. And Atalanta, whose wish is for the happiness of all the children in the world, sees all this. The horror of the tormented children, not even a chance given to live. She’s hit right at the core of her being because she was abandoned by her own parents on a mountain for not being a male in her legend. So Jeanne’s decided that she can’t save these children. They’re already long gone. Of course Atalanta was forcing her own beliefs towards this revered saint. It seemed that to Atalanta, saints were miracle workers, they could do crazy things. And historically, yes, that was exactly who they were. And as Jeanne rejects the very notion of being pronounced as saint, saying that she was nothing more than a village girl who answered god’s calling, she demolishes Atalanta’s view. The Archer’s entire world. And with the baptism rites going, Atalanta screaming for her to stop, and Jeanne following her own set of beliefs… it was a very personal moment for all of them. In the anime, Sieg was there for some reason. He literally just took up screen time. He feels like he was just there. Added absolutely nothing and just wasted time. And this annoyed me because this was a very personal moment for two other characters. Yet this wet sock is just… there. Intrusive. Like he needs to be included in everything. It was an absolutely well done scene in the LN where Jeanne’s beliefs are far more established and she actually has personality outside of Steve-kun. Where he wasn’t there.

Basically what I’m saying is Apoc is really good when he’s not around. Seriously, it’s so much better. Achilles’s fight with Chiron was very personal, so was Achilles’ fight with Atalnta. When it’s personal, it’s good. Sieg has no personality or history with others. No emotion. No relations. Nothing. Just stale bread that’s winning against people who have nothing to do with him. And I can’t help but get frustrated at this goddamn show for that.

OKAY: Lightning round of shitty wet sock things:

Spends a fuck tonne of time asking people “are humans bad hurr durr” and comes out with the solution that he basically wants to be hero of justice and protect humanity or whatever. It’s never stated in the anime but this is what Siegfried wanted. So he’s stealing personal character motivations too. Waste of episodes that could have been used developing far more interesting characters.

Jeanne (in the anime ESPECIALLY) only exists to be his love interest. She isn’t allowed to be anything more. And her big character revelation is that she loves Sieg(big surprise). She acts against her neutrality a lot of the time because of him. When she strongly declines picking sides at the very beginning. The reasong for this is that he has nothing to do with the war. BUT GUESS WHAT? HE DOES BECAUSE HE DECIDES TO GET INVOLVED IN IT. So there is no reason to protect him. She acts against her own beliefs so that she could be waifu bait for this fucko. They say it’s all Laeticia or whatever but to NO ONE’S surprise, it was Jeanne all along (yaaaaay….).

He becomes more Siegfried than Siegfried. Well in life, Siegfried could spam Balmung as fast as he could swing it. But he can’t do that as a servant of the Saber class because it’s a big Noble Phantasm. But guess whaaaaaat? Sieg can do that because he apparently also has galvanism from Fran for some fucking reason, and to pour more salt on the wound, he can upgrade Balmung to EX Rank using a command seal. Which, mind you has never been done before nor foreshadowed. Karna’s Vasavi Shakti was still more powerful thought because this dude don’t play around for some ho. And ya’ll know how much of an asspull this was.

Speaking of that fight, from what I’ve heard in the LN, he actually had a clear shot of Siegfriend’s back but for some reason didn’t decide to take it. I can’t 100% confirm this but if that was the case, that’s another thing of making characters act OOC. Karna would never let someone win a fight. And this is him with a time limit while wet sock has a shroud from Jeanne that auto heals him, a bunch of help from a bunch of other people. Yadda, yadda, yadda, ass pulls. He wins the fight. Fuck off wet sock-kun.

Jeanne, for some ungodly reason is unaffected by really personal things like her mother talking to her and reasoning that she shouldn’t have gone off to war, seeing her fellow Frenchmen die in the hundred years war, and even seeing the room where her best friend murdered a bunch of kids after her own death.  Yes, she knows it’s all fake. But when Shakespeare shows her images of Sieg burning at the stake instead of her and his decapitated head… she freaks the fuck out. Why? She knows it’s fake. She’s known this dude for like a week. You could argue that she feels personally responsible for involving him in the war. But once again. This doesn’t make sense. Sieg chose to involve himself. He chose to fight. He chose to fight a riskless war because he’s the main character. Of course in the shittiest reveal ever, she realises that she wuuuuuuuvs him. Fuck right off. AND DON’T GIVE THAT ‘LOVE WORKS IN MYSTERIOUS WAYS’ SHIT.

SPEAKING OF THIS BULLSHIT. There was this utterly stupid scene in the Light Novel where Sieg and jeanne see a couple or whatever. There was a baby or something. And Sieg asks Jeanne if servants could get pregnant. Of course, since she looooooooves him so much, her immediate thoughts were “DOES STEVE-KUN WANT TO IMPREGNATE ME!!??!?!?!?”. I wanted to hack out blood when i heard that was a thing. Thank god that it wasn’t in the anime.

He cucks Jeanne out of killing Shiroumine, the big bad antagonist of the series. The anime and promotional material is making them out to be rivals when they have zero ideological battles, have never even spoken to each other before, nor an allusion to some sort of rivalry at all. It just happens. At this point Sieg doesn’t even have any command spells and he pulls Blasted Tree(Fran’s NP, yeah he stole that too) out of his ass. Kill stealing bitch. Reported. Blocked. Emailed Harada. Email Jeff Kaplan. Perma-ban pls. Basically, Shiroumine was a shit villain because his plans weren’t really clear. Salvation of humanity was too broad in a sense on how the actual fuck he was gonna pull it off, and it wasn’t explained all too well. And with Sieg being the contender for the shittest protagonist I have ever had the displeasure of laying my eyes on, the main villain just became… fucking boring. I say villain but he was an antagonist. A direct result of bad character writing.

The so called romantic ending is an even shittier version of one of the endings in the Fate route in FSN. Like it’s a straight up copy. Imagery and everything.

Oh yeah, he turns into a dragon for whatever reason. Comes out of nowhere. Like zero build up. Then he fights monsters for the rest of his existence on the other side of the world or something. It’s really stupid. It’s meant to feel heroic but I don’t feel that at all. When a heroic sacrifice that’s meant to make me feel all sorts of emotions, makes me laugh instead, you’ve done a shit job at writing.

There’s probably more that I can’t remember at the top of my head. But there’s only so much that I can complain about. Oh who am I kidding, there’s a chat in one of my discord servers that we spend all our time at least a couple times a week on how shit this fuckhead is. He’s that bad, honestly.

To conclude, Apocrypha could have been great. It had a lot of promise. But it failed on nearly every end. The grandiose battles fall flat because nobody actually cares about a lot of the characters since more a lot of them are severely underdeveloped. And despite the narrative spending the most time with him, Steve-kun was a massive failure of a main character. He was a shounen protagonist in the wrong genre. Actually, he’s a generic light novel protagonist in Fate. And it didn’t work. Because fate is so much more deeper. So much lore. And I love that crazy, well thought out world. Wet sock-kun doesn’t have a place in it. Not in a narrative like this. Not in a world where depth can go seemingly forever. And especially not against characters who have actual strong personality and rich histories. And so, he fails. Sieg fails. The actual self-inserts of a character like Hakuno and Guda do a better job at fulfilling their role than an established character. And that’s fucking pathetic. I had more fun reading through Hakuno’s nurse fetish and Guda’s snarky attitude. Honestly, it is tiring. I was constantly frustrated at Apoc. I still am. The anime will be ending soon. And I’ll probably just laugh at how bad it is.

I won’t rate it or whatever. I’ll just say to not bother. But if you love fate, then go for it. There may be characters you saw in Grand Order that you want to know more about. And the servants are absolutely great. But honestly, just go read their source material. You’ll have more fun with that. But if you’re like me and are a salty piece of shit… the welcome to the club. There’s a lot to gnaw on.

Right so before I get massive flack for an opinion piece that I decided to write, and before anyone says that 'If you’re not going to say anything nice then don’t say anything at all'… I’ll just say to fuck off because it is my very right to speak about a creative piece. I’m not critiquing a person. I’m critiquing their writing in my own little colourful language. Critiquing a professional work, mind you. I wouldn’t do this to a fan work. And again, it’s an opinion. You don’t have to agree with it. If you liked wet sock then more power to you. I just personally thing that he’s the worst thing in the Fate franchise. Though people do say that Manaka is worse. I doubt you can limbo under something that’s like negative bajillion on any scale. Sieg just managed to offend me so hard when almost nothing does these days. And honestly, that’s an achievement on its own. Golf clap.

Anyway, I had a lot of fun writing this. But hey, maybe I’m just a petty little shit who got his waifu cucked by a fetus, amirite?

[dreamysinner]

Kouryuugi.

So Furuta won. I really didn’t expect that, because since he proclaimed himself the ‘’Washuu King’’ I knew he was a dead man walking. This is what happens with villains, they die, right? Not in Tokyo Ghoul because this is a tragedy.

I’m a fan of Furuta, really like his character because I think he’s like me sometimes. Also, he’s such a well build character, he has done SO MANY things to get what he wants, to reach the top of everyone, to get his so dreamed ‘’Super Peace’’. I mean, scape from Sunlit Garden, get involved with so many organizations, get information at all cost, manipulate various people to do his demands, 1v1 Eto, kill all the Washuu bloodline, became the Bureau Chief of CGG, almost exterminating ALL ghoul in Japan and now defeating his enemy. Furuta really his something.

So, I’ve been reading many things here on Tumblr, from ‘’this is not the end, can’t end up like this, impossible.’’ to ‘’This is the end, accept.’’ 

I have to say, I didn’t expect Furuta winning, but you GOT to admit: he deserves to win. He had sacrificed so much, fought for that, he predicts everything that Kaneki did, he uses Kaneki’s mistake in his favor, he was smarter, and then he throws this on Kaneki’s face. (In case you want a more detailed post about Kaneki’s mistakes, I’ll let this one here: http://linkspooky.tumblr.com/post/165977690035/the-king-falls)

Before we continue here, I’ll let another post - that I don’t completely agree, but I think it’s a good reading - talking about Kaneki falls and what MAY happen in the End Credits. Here’s the link! http://linkspooky.tumblr.com/post/165973792540/the-hardest-lessons-learned

Furuta has been also building himself up has a Villain. Since he got to be Bureau Chief, he had been doing that. There are many actions of him that show that to us, But this one, in particular, got my attention. (also is the most recent)

When he stepped on his table, he showed his true self. The vicious devil that he is. That he doesn’t give a SHIT about CCG and others. 

Don’t believe me? He himself said that. 

He just wants power, since the beginning. I will not say he wanted that always because we don't have a full background of him yet, but we can assume he begins his journey for power since Tokyo Ghoul part 1.

When Touka is looking for Kaneki in the University she confuses herself with another guy, that for her, looked like Kaneki. In my opinion, Touka has trying to find Kaneki by smelling, and then, she ended up mistaken Furuta for Kaneki because I ASSUME that he already had the Rize’s Kagune infused within his body. You know, he’s a Demi-Human, how Arima said, they’re not supposed to live for so long, because they are ‘’failures’’, assuming by he being at the University, I’ll say he had around 20 years, reaching his apex in live. So, to ‘’cheat’’ nature itself, he gets to talk with Kanou for doing something for him. I hope before TG: re comes to an end, we get some of his background.

Well, return again for these days, Furuta did get ‘’fucked’’ a couple chapters ago

138 - Falling From The Tower. He had to run from CCG because Hide and his team aka Terrorist attacked him. You may say: ‘’WOW Furuta really gets fucked and surprised that time!’’ don't you? The answer is no. Furuta knew this would happen. Let’s not forget, he’s an actor. Just like Kaneki.

You see? He knew because he’s smart and predicted his enemy detail by detail. He got ‘’uncrowned’’ because he wanted to. We know, Furuta hates fighting (maybe because of a trauma or because when he uses his power, he gets older faster), this is why he doesn’t resist the attacked, He knew Kaneki would come back on his own to fight. 

Now, there’s a theory that since Furuta got on the head of CCG, the titles and the narrator itself, were non-other then Furuta. Furuta got the role of Black King on chapter 98 - Old School. Since then, the title where a bit of ‘’confusing’’ - at least to me - and if you check each one of them, you will link it to Furuta. 

Some examples: 

* 100 - The Red Hands. We know for a fact, that Ishida love’s to focus on Furuta’s hand, almost trying to implying something, also he’s always wearing gloves. But the real thing here’s he got late on the reunion of the CCG, his hand was stained with blood. The Washuu blood. 

* 101 - The Toys. This is one of my favorites, the encounter of Kaneki and the ‘’Former Furuta’’. On this chapter, he gives Kaneki a chance to assume all of he has done with the Washuu family and then tell some lovely history of him and Rize. But then, most important he revealed his plans of making a buuuunch of kids. That he would eventually use and manipulate to exterminate Kaneki and his foes, The Oggai. In other words, his toys.

*139 - He laughs. Who laughs? Of course, Furuta laughs, because his plan worked (again.). At the final os this chapter, Touka meet Juuzou and Furuta. He sees his plans going exactly how he planned and laughs his ass off because is that what he does. He orchestrates everything and then laughs. 

Well, if I keep talking about the chapter’s title I would spend days, probably I’ll do a post connecting everything to him after all that mess end. 

If I think this the end of Tokyo Ghoul: re? Well, my mind says: ‘’No, it’s isn’t the end, there still hope.’’ 

But my heart: ‘’YES, IT’S, FURUTA WON, SO LOVELY ♥ ♥ SMOOOCH SMOOOOCH  ♥ ♥’’

I would love to see this has an end. Furuta winning, Kaneki learning from his big mistakes, losing everything he loves the most... We only change when something very traumatic happens to us, and this, maybe be the last tragedy that he needs to finally be the Nameless King, to finally breach out from his Birdcage, to live, not at crucial times ending up choosing himself but to live with the others at his side.

How Roma said before she died ‘’Send out the parade, (give me more please) you cute children.’’ 

The parade - at least for now - is done. The script and cast by Nimura Furuta have finally come to an end. Is this his Super Peace? Is this what he truly wanted? 

What will happen in the End Credits Roll? We’ll see finally the ‘’Dragon’’? Maybe, Kaneki itself will become the Dragon by devouring Furuta, maybe this is Furuta’s plans. Who knows?! 

P.S: Laugh, it’s fun!