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fracturedmotivationwriting · 4 years ago

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Datura had never felt more exhausted in her life. Even after she pulled that all-nighter after raising Mormo from Hell, she hadn't been this tired. It probably didn't help that she helped perform a banishing spell after being thrown into a tree and cut open hundreds of times by magic. While Ambrose had healed the deeper cuts, her back was still aching and she was almost certainly concussed.

As the adrenaline from the fight, banishing spell, and reanimating Grisha's body with Prometheus I's soul, Datura slumped into Ambrose. Thankfully, the demon was willing to wrap an arm around her and help her walk through the forest towards the cars.

The coven was silent as they walked through the forest. Prom kept glancing over her shoulder at her brother as if to remind herself that he was really there in Grisha's body. Pollux was walking beside her, his hand occasionally grazing hers. Datura didn't understand why he didn't just hold her hand. It was so obvious he wanted to comfort her at this time. Herself and the demon brung up the back. Their coven had been through a lot in one evening. Things were forever changed without Grisha. Even more so now that his body was being occupied by Prometheus' brother. Datura still couldn't get over it. Just as Prom kept looking at the boy, Datura couldn't help her gaze from lingering on him. It felt so weird that someone else was walking around in Grisha's body. As much as she may have hated the warlock, he hadn't deserved to die. And she wasn't sure how he'd feel knowing some other warlock was now walking around in his body.

"What do you say we all come back to our place for some pizza?" Pollux broke the silence, turning back to glance at the trio behind him and Prom. "We'll need to get Prometheus I situated in the apartment, and we could all use some food after the night we've had."

Datura didn't miss the shock on Prometheus II's face. Pollux was referring to her apartment as their apartment once again. While it was unlikely he'd completely move back in right away, it was a step in the right direction. Datura had a feeling that at least for the night, Pollux wasn't going to leave Prom's side. She would need comfort after the events that conspired in the woods. She would need someone to lean on as she worked through the emotions of her dead brother being alive again. The kind of support only Pollux could give her. And even if he wasn't ready to date again, he wouldn't abandon her during this. He loved her too much to let her go through this alone.

"Pizza sounds amazing," Datura moaned, closing her eyes as she pictured the cheesy goodness. She hadn't realized just how starving she was. When was the last time she ate?

"Sounds fantastic," Ambrose added with a chuckle. "Why don't you drive Prom's car, take the siblings with you, and I'll drive Datura and me?"

"I can drive," Datura and Prom both interjected, giving Ambrose offended looks. Their indignation was met with hard stares from both Ambrose and Pollux.

"Both of you suffered injuries," Pollux pointed out.

"Both of you are, rightfully, exhausted," Ambrose added.

"Therefore, neither of you are driving," Pollux finalized.

Prom and Datura both rolled their eyes, grumbling arguments under their breathes. But neither fought the issue. The boys had a point. It was probably much safer for them to drive.

"I can drive!" Prometheus I interjected. Everyone shook their heads no immediately.

"You were barely sixteen when you died. You are not driving," Prom argued with a sigh. "I don't care if you're in a twenty-one-year-old body now. You've been dead for twenty-two years, and therefore haven't driven in twenty-two years. You aren't driving."

Prometheus I opened his mouth to start to argue, but one look at his sister's face and he closed his mouth. He wasn't going to win this fight.

"Okay, so we'll all meet at your place," Datura told Prom and Pollux, following Ambrose towards her car as they broke out of the forest. The trio nodded, Pollux waving as he helped Prom into the passenger side of her car.

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

After devouring several large pizzas, the coven found themselves lounging throughout Prom's living room. Prom and Pollux were sitting on the couch. They weren't exactly cuddling, but they were sitting closer together than Datura had seen them in a while. Prometheus II had claimed an armchair on the other side of his sister, but he had looked mildly uncomfortable the entire night. Datura could hardly imagine what he was going through. She hoped that once he and Prom were left alone that maybe they could work things out together.

Datura had taken to sitting on the floor by the coffee table, and Ambrose had joined her. But now that she'd eaten more pizza than her stomach could handle, she was lying across the floor with her head in his lap. He had grabbed a blanket off the back of the couch for her a while ago, and now Datura was finding it increasingly difficult to stay awake. Between her full belly, the warmth of the blanket, and Ambrose's fingers running through her hair, Datura felt like she could fall asleep at any moment.

"I think maybe it's time to get Datura back to her own apartment," Ambrose murmured, glancing down at the sleepy witch. "Unless you want all of us crashing on your floor tonight, Prom."

"No, you should drive her home," Prom chuckled. "We could all use some sleep, and my floor probably isn't the most comfortable."

Datura chuckled, slowly lifting herself from the floor. Ambrose offered her his hand for help, but Datura brushed it off. She couldn't help but feel a little weird about how kind the demon was being to her. It had to be the guilt eating at him. And while Datura was thoroughly grateful he'd saved her life and done the right thing in the end, she wasn't entirely sure if she was ready to forgive him.

Stretching as she stood, Datura offered her friends a small smile. She tucked the blanket she'd been using around Prom's shoulders before following Ambrose towards the door.

"Prom, I'm really glad you came when you did," she spoke up softly, stopping at the doorway to turn to the witch. "And I'm glad you've got your brother back. If you need anything, just call me."

Prom simply offered Datura a small smile. Prom didn't smile much, but Datura knew that this was a sincere one.

"Goodnight, everyone," she called out before closing the door behind her.

As Datura and Ambrose left, Prom shrugged the blanket off her shoulders. Pollux immediately wrapped it back around her, however, earning a confused look from the witch.

"Why do people keep trying to put this blanket around me?"

"Because you're in shock," Pollux deadpanned. "It's meant to comfort you."

"That doesn't mean I need a blanket. It means I need booze," Prom argued, earning a small smile from her ex-boyfriend. He didn't even try to argue as he stood to grab the vodka.

"Do I get some?" Prometheus II spoke up, a hopeful look on his face.

"No!"

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

Datura sighed as she and Ambrose climbed the steps of her apartment building. She couldn't help but stop in front of her door. She glanced back across the hall at Fiona's apartment door. Well, Fiona's old apartment door. Datura guessed that she wouldn't be living there anytime soon.

Ambrose placed a hand on her shoulder, startling her out of her thoughts.

"You okay?"

Datura forced a smile onto her face as she nodded.

"Yeah, I'm fine," she lied, opening the door and making her way into her apartment. She scooped down to gather Hecate into her arms. She nuzzled the kitten as she made her way through the apartment towards her kitchen.

"Liar," Ambrose called out, closing and locking the door behind him.

Datura sighed, placing the cat onto the counter. She got to work fixing herself a cup of bedtime tea, refusing to look up at Ambrose as he followed her into the kitchen. Of course, the demon knew when she was lying. She'd just hoped he wouldn't call her out on it. She didn't exactly want to talk about what happened tonight.

"It's okay to not be okay, you know?" Ambrose said softly, placing a hand over hers. He took the kettle and herbs from her. He worked on fixing the tea, motioning for Datura to take a seat at the counter. He rustled through her cabinets, looking for some ingredients to add to help with her healing and the pain she was likely feeling.

"No one would expect you to be okay after what happened tonight," he added.

"I don't want to talk about it," Datura spoke up, wrapping her arms around herself.

"That's okay too," Ambrose assured her, warming up her tea instantly with some magic instead of waiting for the water to boil. He placed the cup down in front of her.

"I'm just saying, you don't have to process this alone. I know I haven't earned your trust or forgiveness yet, and I know it's going to take some time, but I'm here for you, Datura."

"You're right," she whispered, lowering her gaze from his. "I'm not ready to forgive you yet. But... Thank you. For everything tonight. And for being here for me. You're most definitely not a monster."

Ambrose felt his heart clench at her words. He wasn't sure if she was right about that. He'd done some pretty terrible things to her. He had deserved her calling him a monster. He wasn't sure he deserved that insult being taken back. Not yet.

Datura nodded, offering the demon a small, grateful smile. She stood up, her cup of tea in her hands, and started making her way towards her bedroom.

"You're welcome to take Pollux's room or the couch for the night," she spoke up. "I may not be ready to forgive you, but I'm not cruel enough to kick you out after what we've been through."

Ambrose chuckled. It may not have been much, but the fact that Datura was letting him stay (and even teasing him) made him feel a bit better. She was going to give him a chance to make it up to her. She'd forgive him someday. Ambrose just needed to earn it. He could do that.

"Goodnight, Tura."

"Goodnight, Mormo."

#witches and ghosts and demons oh my #the aftermath #mostly datura and ambrose #some prom and pollux #and some prom and prom?

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rxttenfish · 8 months ago

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Hi hello I just wanted to say that I really really like your worldbuilding and art and merfolk and things like that. Where can I read more things you’ve written?

thank you!!!

realistically the majority of my writing is on my main blog, @royalreef, but this is not really ideal for reading, tbh. first of all, because royalreef is a roleplay blog, so what's on there is not only more unpolished and less put-together, but also what's on there is semi-dependent on other roleplay blogs interacting with me (i'm in a dry spell lately, so very little is actually being posted). it also pretty solidly shows my development cycle, so if you go too far back you start seeing things that aren't necessarily accurate anymore or which i've changed over time. most of it is a lot of scrolling and digging through stuff, and while i recommend finding my headcanon tag on there, it's still going to be a lot to dig through.

the much more favorable avenues are by using the #all the care guide says is 'biomass', #miravi.txt, #monster prom, #Monster Prom: Reanimated and #art tags on this blog, but not only is less here, but some of these tags are more or less organized than the others. biomass is my all-purposes posting tag, so you'll see a lot of random conversations too, and my miravi tag is solely focused on the ship, with worldbuilding being included but not the whole focus. in the case of monster prom: reanimated, its a defunct tag that i don't use anymore, but still has enough worldbuilding posts on there for me to point out.

the most focused avenue is my AO3, particularly my newest fic Caecilian, which focuses on the merkingdom and merfolk and that worldbuilding! the problem is that, by far, this has the least content of all methods thus far, and while i'm working on the second chapter as we speak, it's still going to be a wait between chapters (they're pretty long, as you can imagine from the subject!)

i have been considering setting up a patreon for more inclusive worldbuilding posts and being able to share sketches and concepts without worrying about them being polished, but as of posting this, i don't have a patreon up yet. it's in the future plans, but not right now!

and, of course, the easiest method is just sending me an ask of any questions you have! there's certain things i can't answer/won't answer publicly, because i'd like some things to remain a mystery until i can properly reveal them, but if you dm me privately and don't mind spoilers, i have no problem talking about them there!

#all the care guide says is 'biomass'#asks #monster prom #Anonymous #honestly the reason that this blog doesnt have better organization is because royalreef has much better organization #so when i sort through things or use my methods to organize what i post and where information is #its all going to royalreef #and this blog was kinda just intended to be a personal sideblog to talk about stuff!#hence why if i do end up making a patreon itd be much better organized #i didnt even have biomass as a tag for the early bit of having this blog lmfao

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rinusagitora · 5 years ago

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The love, lead, and the undead.

Fandom: Monster Prom

Characters: Vicky Schmidt, Dahlia Aquino, Damien LaVey, Oz, Brian Yu, Lucien LaVey, OC: Hugo Aquino, OC: Berenice

Pairings: Brian/Damien/Vicky, LaVey family, Aquino family

Words: 5.3k

Summary: Canon divergent. Chapter 8/?. WARNINGS— unreality, violence, & gore; Vicky is in the hands of the Aquino.

Vicky was wobbly on her feet like her bones were fragile. Like her legs were ill tailored, or unoiled prosthetics. She braced the wall as Dahlia, the enormous blue woman, led her through the maze-like hallways of the stone castle.

“Do you remember anything? Like your name?” Dahlia asked.

She frowned. “I do. My name is Vicky. Outside of that, there’s nothing.” Well, and she remembered what she looked like. Pretty and lithe, with unmanageable hair and stitches. When she looked down at her arms, though, she saw her stitches were gone and replaced with odd, branching scars like frost, floral and frosty. Vicky was a blank slate otherwise.

Dahlia hummed. They stopped before an enormous carved door. She knocked with the enormous rings.

“Come in!”

King Hugo sounded like a storm. His voice was guttural, rumbled like lightning. It struck Vicky like a hammer to her chest. She bristled like a cornered stray. She wanted to dive behind something and hide.

Nonetheless, Vicky shuffled inside behind Dahlia. From beyond Dahlia’s arm, she saw a stout warrior king hunched over a topographical map. King Hugo and Dahlia looked very much alike: scarred, fair hair. When he smiled at them, there was something wrong. Something… sinister. Hardened.

“Dad, this is Vicky. Vicky, this is my father, King Hugo.”

“Vicky, I’m glad to see your reanimation was successful. We were worried you weren’t intact enough for the ritual. But have a seat,” Hugo said.

Vicky obediently sat. She stared at the mountains of the topographical model like he couldn’t crush her if she couldn’t see him.

“What do you remember, Vicky?”

“Nothing,” she answered. “My name, but I assume you mean something more substantial.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. It must be hard, but I should tell you… it’s for the better that you don’t remember.”

She looked up at him. Hugo’s smile was ingenuine. Like her amnesia wasn’t something unfortunate, and it wasn’t relief because she couldn’t remember something awful. It was the smile of someone with secrets. Someone who hid secrets from her specifically. It made Vicky anxious. She was among the enemy. She didn’t know who they were before she died, or what their purpose with her was, but deep down, she knew she was in trouble.

“For the better?” Vicky asked cautiously.

“When you were alive, you were involved with a pair of men who were cruel to you. But you worked despite the mistreatment, you even made enough money that you began to drift away from them. They were displeased by this, so they had you killed.”

Vicky was in disbelief. Angry, even. Someone killed her and there was only a grain of truth to what Hugo told her. How long would she root through it for the truth to be deciphered? Her reaction was visceral. Every breath was another knife in her chest, and it hurt so much, she began to openly and uncontrollably weep. Vicky squeezed her arms and blubbered uselessly. Her nails dug into her arms. Her knuckles turned white, she bled black and thick.

“I know it’s a lot to take in, but we brought you back for a reason, Vicky. You deserve justice and closure.”

Shaken and clammy, Vicky asked, “What do you mean?”

“Well, we reanimated you for admittedly selfish reasons. Your killers are from our rival clan, the LaVey family. They’ve been the bane of our kingdom for generations. They’ve hurt more than you. Their wanton violence has killed many good men and women, burned our land, our destroyed our supply lines. They’ve pillaged and raped my citizens. They deserve justice like you deserve justice.”

“How do you expect me to help?” Vicky croaked.

“You’re different from other demons brought here for their evil deeds in life. You’ve tasted death more than just once, and once before, you came back from it. Touching death gives people like you powers unheard of. Power like myself and Dahlia have. Do you remember when you woke up?” Vicky nodded in reply to Hugo. “Well, that lightning was your power. You can create storms to strike down like God once created storms, and we need that power to take down the LaVey clan.”

Vicky bit her lip thoughtfully. She didn’t buy Hugo’s story for a moment. His expression set off several red flags, and while Vicky had no concrete reason to disbelieve him, the feeling refused to abate.

But Vicky was in enemy territory. She was afraid to deny Hugo’s request and walk out the door, they were sure to kill her, especially if she was someone key to their plans, and someone once important to the LaVey. The best she could do in her situation was to help them.

“I’m in. But I’m tired right now, I would like to sleep.” And Vicky was. Every muscle of her’s ached as if she was slammed against a wall.

“Of course. Dahlia, have someone find Berenice so she may take Vicky to her room.”

Dahlia stood and bowed. Minutes later, minutes of silence where Hugo sniffed and muttered unintelligibly to himself, Berenice entered. Vicky flew upright. Berenice and Hugo shared a short exchange before Vicky was taken into the castle’s hallways. The entire place was a labyrinth. Vicky couldn’t even begin to memorize all the hallways.

“How’re you feeling, dear? I’ve never seen anyone reanimated like you,” Berenice said.

“I’m in pain.” Vicky stared at the scars on her arms. “It feels like I was hit by a train or something.” Or lightning crashed onto her head.

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.” Berenice stopped before a heavy, grainy door. She pushed it open and invited Vicky inside. “You’ll be uncomfortable for a couple of days. It’s not an easy process, and unfortunately, we can’t give you anything for the pain. New demons can have awful reactions to herbs we give them.”

Berenice continued, “Anyways, this is your room. You have a private bathroom, and there are clothes for you in the armoire. We’ll have you on a strict schedule so you won’t be in here much.”

Vicky sat on the bed. Her blankets were made of animal fur, wiry and coarse, but the underside was smooth and satiny. “Thank you,” she said absently.

Berenice sat next to Vicky. “I know this is a lot, dear, but I promise you’ll be so much happier here. No one here will ever hurt you.” She took Vicky’s hands into her own. Her hands were pudgy and stout, but inviting, unlike Vicky’s room, and the rest of the castle.

Vicky decided she liked Berenice. She was different from Hugo and Dahlia. Motherly, earnest. Vicky wanted to lay her head on Berenice’s chest and be held like a baby.

“Thank you,” Vicky replied sincerely. “I’m very tired though. I would like to take a bath and go to sleep.”

“Well, alright, then. I’ll come to get you in the morning for breakfast. I’ll see you soon Vicky.”

“Thank you, Berenice.”

Vicky drew a bath. The water was cold and yellow, the towels were coarse. Vicky finally settled under her blanket.

She was so overwhelmed it was hard to think.

---

Oz watched from the cracks in the stone walls. Hugo lied to Vicky. They isolated her from people who cared about her. If what Hugo said about his village being wartorn, he understood their problem with the LaVey, but it disgusted Oz to his core that they resorted to involving unrelated people.

It made Oz want to cut down the entire castle.

But as much as he wanted to snatch up Vicky, he couldn’t sneak her through the bricks, and he didn’t want to take on an army. His first order of business was to report his findings to Lucien. On an abandoned patch on the roof, Oz drew an ornate circle with red chalk. He pushed his face through the center, and when he opened his eyes, his image was suspended in ice crystals.

Lucien sat anxiously at the edge of the pool of ice. He addressed Oz with a mere bow.

“I have terrible news,” Oz said, without ceremony. “It is the Aquino who orchestrated this. King Hugo told Vicky it was Damien and Brian who had her killed. They’re going to use her as a weapon against you and your family. She can now harness lightning as well.”

Lucien, like Oz, who only possessed eyes on his face, twisted into obvious hate. Oz knew that kind of hate well: the kind of hate which carried blood feuds on for generations.

He sympathized with the cause, though. Oz lived eons and was still unwise and hateful.

“If there’s something I need to know, Lucien, tell me now.”

“There’s a conspiracy to raise Vicky. Vera Oberlin and your friend Zoe are going through with a ritual of some sort in the next couple of days to resurrect her. I have nothing against their plan but… but I am scared Damien will act rashly in light of recent events,” Lucien explained. “He can be immature. And he’s in a dark period… maybe the darkest of his life. I don’t want him to get hurt.”

Oz was particularly disdainful of that line of thought. Oz had his reasons to disagree, but at the end of the day, the secrecy alone was cruel to Damien. He deserved to be in the loop, if not for his loved ones than for preparation for kingship later on.

But that wasn’t Oz’s priority. Oz was in enemy territory, Vicky was trapped, and he needed to focus on that. He asked, “Will Damien interfere here?”

“I’m not sure. We’ll keep an eye on him. In the meantime, if you could obtain battle plans and destroy any intelligence about the LaVey in their possession,” Lucien said.

“I’ll see what I can do. Expect another report in a couple hours.”

With that farewell, Oz’s visage of ice shattered and he returned to the castle roof

His first order of business was Vicky’s allegiance.

---

Vicky dreamt of red spades and pigskins. It was an odd dream, where they were like people on long, slender legs, but they were missing their faces.

They held her hands and spun her like a ghost in the wind. They shrouded her like blankets and she was loved. They laid her on warm furs next to a fire. They kissed her and went down and down until her legs squeezed needily. They were so warm, their fingers, their lips. They held her when they took turns, pushed their adoration into her, up into her guts and her neck.

"I love you," she hummed. Even enormous enough to shift her hips apart, she loved them. They became so vivid, red and green, and so beautiful.

And when Vicky awoke, she was in the middle of nighttime darkness. Was it cicadas that screamed or the oppressive silence her brain had to compensate for? But she was covered in sweat and rivers of tears. Her dream evaporated from memory, only pigskins, and spades left behind for her like a parting gift. Vicky felt stranded and isolated without it. Helpless, she blubbered and futilely tried to dry her face.

Who was she? Why didn’t Hugo’s explanation satisfy her? Why did she want to pick at her brains until she had the answers she wanted?

As Vicky wept, she felt something gooey plop onto her ankle. She froze. Even her misery trapped in her tear ducts seemed to freeze with her. She waited with bated breath for something to happen, a sign for her to run, but even as more oozed onto her bedspread, she was unable to bring herself to escape.

The mattress creaked. She heard a match strike, and then her room was illuminated by the candle next to her bed.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.” This new person… gentleman, by the sound of their voice, held the candle between them. His body was black and oily, and his eyes… his eyes reminded Vicky of the moon. Wide and bright. “Do you remember me?”

Slowly, Vicky shook her head. “Do you know me?”

“Yes. My name is Oz. We’re friends,” Oz told her. A lumpy creature pulled itself out of the collar of his black shirt and waved. “That’s Fear. Well… more accurately, one of its incarnations. This one is the fear of death. I have many more within me.”

Oddly enough, the fear of death was adorable. Despite Vicky’s misery, she giggled and shook its tiny hand with a finger. Odder was she trusted Oz more than she trusted Hugo. Her gut was wise.

“It’s nice to meet you. I’m Vicky.”

Even odder was Oz’s voice came from the small incarnation. “We’re… we’re relieved to see you. Alive, that is.”

“I died. I was shot because of someone I loved dearly.”

Oz’s eyes shrank into saddened crescents. “You’ve been through a lot recently. But you have more friends than you’ve been led to believe, Vicky.”

“Who?” Vicky frowned. “King Hugo and Dahlia?” The pair were off-putting. Hugo was methodical. Calculated. Dahlia was abrasive. Vicky wasn’t sure either of them was her ally, let alone friends. She was a tool of theirs to reach a common goal. Berenice was the only one Vicky felt comfortable around.

“Nay…. No. Neither of them, I’m afraid,” Oz whispered.

Before Oz could continue, there was a knock at Vicky’s door. “Vicky! It’s Berenice! I’m coming in.”

Vicky whipped to Oz. He forced the candle into her hand and began to drip into the ceiling. “I have to go!” he said. “Remember, some of us aren’t what we seem to be!”

Just as Berenice opened the door inside, Oz was gone.

“Oh, you’re already up!” Berenice said cheerfully. “That’s good. Breakfast is ready.”

Solemnly, Vicky nodded.

“Are you okay, dear? You look like you ran a marathon.” Berenice sat on Vicky’s bed and placed her cheek against Vicky’s as a mother checked her child for a fever. It made Vicky angry as if it was Berenice who murdered her and lied between her teeth.

Cautiously, Vicky said, “I’m fine. I want to freshen up before I eat, though,” she said. “It was hot in here last night. I was sweating the entire time and I feel gross.”

“That’s fine. Go and bathe, dear. I’ll wait outside for you.”

Vicky showered, followed Berenice to the dining room, and looked unpleased at the milky porridge which was served for breakfast. She held the bowl close to her face so she was able to quickly scoop it down her throat without having to taste it.

“Mornin’. It’s good to see you got an appetite. You’re so scrawny, I thought you’d snap.”

Vicky set her empty bowl on the table. Dahlia dropped her backpack on the floor before she sat. “Dahlia, right? I met you yesterday.” Dahlia and her father, King Hugo. She was sure they were the ones Oz warned her about.

“Yeah. We were talking about you the other night. Dad thinks you’re promising.”

“Thanks,” Vicky reluctantly replied. “This… all of this is still strange for me.”

“You’ve only been here a day. That’s not surprising.”

“Do you know what I’m supposed to be doing today?”

“Training. I know Dad’s got something lined up for you, but I didn’t have time to ask what.” Dahlia finished her porridge then. “Anyways, I gotta go to school. I’ll see you tonight.”

Vicky watched Dahlia leave. Not long after, Berenice brought her to the King’s advisors, James and Robert, dressed like royalty. James and Robert were old and grey-skinned with wiry beards and chipped horns. She and Berenice bowed to them.

“This is Vicky, the subject our King told you about. I trust you’ve been informed to train her by King Hugo.”

James dismissed Berenice. Nervously, she held herself, and inwardly pined for Oz to appear and hold her hand. She felt like she was in danger in their mere presence.

“My name is Vicky. I'm…" Vicky wasn't sure what she was. Lost. Lonely. "Please train me."

James smiled. "No need to beg, dear." James stood, his bones creaked meanwhile. "Come. I'll take you to my private grounds."

Vicky obediently followed. James led her through so many winding turns that Vicky lost track of them. But when James led Vicky into a dark room, lit only by a single candle… Vicky knew she was in trouble.

“I believe experience is the best teacher,” James explained. From his horn, lightning crackled like wafers. “If you want to live, Vicky, you will learn to harness lightning.”

Vicky’s stomach leaped into her throat as a bolt raced to her head.

---

Damien was mad.

Brian was mad as well. He skipped the denial stage altogether and went straight to anger. Anger that Vicky was taken, anger that she was still living and yet out of reach, anger her resurrection was so damn complicated. After the funeral, after Brian’s conflicted feelings and formality evaporated, he was ultimately mad over every detail of Vicky’s death. While Damien was mad about the same things Brian was, he was mostly mad with his parents, Lucien and Stan. He couldn’t even look at them that morning.

Brian’s nails dug into Damien’s hand when they went to school. It broke Damien’s heart.

They idled in Brian’s pickup in the parking lot. It was inordinately chilly that day. Damien’s breath was misty and the tips of his nose and his tail ached. He hated the cold, but it was always without Vicky nearby.

“Today’s gonna be a pack of bullshit,” Brian finally muttered.

Damien fumbled with his cigarettes and passed Brian one. “Let’s take it easy today. Hide in the bathrooms or some shit.”

“I just wanna go get her.”

Damien leaned back his chair. It was difficult for him to just mull on where Vicky was too when the Aquino family were just within reach. For Vicky, Damien would have burned down villages and armies without reluctance.

The ire he felt for Dahlia, though…. In the beginning, Damien just thought she was obnoxious, clannish. But if he ever saw her again, Damien swore he would wring her like a mother fucking

“Oh my god,” Brian said as he pointed out the window, “you need to see this.”

It was like Damien was doused in pungent gasoline when he laid eyes on Dahlia. Fire and smoke surrounded his fingertips.

Swiftly, Damien kicked the car door off its hinges and broke into a run.

“Dahlia!” he roared. His shirt and jacket combusted as billowed up his arms like it lit dry kindling. “Dahlia, look at me!”

Dahlia whipped around and swirled with crackling lightning as blue as summer skies. “You lookin’ for a fight now, LaVey?” she howled.

“You killed the love of my life! I’m going to kill you too!”

Damien propelled himself with fire on his heels. He hopped over a bolt of lightning fired in his direction and then blew a lungful of his fire at Dahlia. She grabbed his pants and swung for his face. Damien’s eye caught the blow, but he brushed it off and used their proximity to burn Dahlia’s face.

They fell to the ground. Damien held her face in both hands and snarled as the smell of burnt hair and fat wafted up to him. She clawed at his hands but stayed steady for Vicky.

And then a film of green wrapped around Damien so forcefully it knocked him off Dahlia and onto the ground. He skidded across a foot of cement, it peeled off the skin off his barren back like grated orange zest. Seconds later, Hope landed at his feet.

“Get him out of here!” Amira screamed out of the blue. Damien peered past Hope’s legs and saw Dahlia restrained by Amira, Joy, and Faith.

“Hope, let me go!” Damien screamed. “I have to kill her!”

“I’m going to take him into the forest,” Hope told the trio. “What the hell are we gonna do about her, though?”

“Just get him out of here.” Amira barked.

Hope nodded. She picked up Damien, deceptively strong for her squirrely size, and then ran into the trees.

“Please, Hope, let me go! She killed my girlfriend!” Damien begged.

“Shut the fuck up, you’re making shit hard enough as is.”

“What the hell do you mean? Hope, answer me!” Damien’s squeals were silenced by the green film Hope slapped onto his mouth. Struggle as he may, the film was like a skeleton of rubber bands. It squeezed him until it hurt to breathe. It outraged Damien, but he was stuck. Helpless. Hopeless, like he was when it came to Vicky, and misty-eyed because of his uselessness, Damien squeezed his eyes shut so nothing would escape.

Hope finally stopped deep in the forest and threw Damien into a hollow beneath the roots of an evergreen. He cursed Hope’s name as he slid down and hit his head against the wall of the little hovel. When Hope skid down, she stopped right beside him, and she smacked him across his cheek.

“You idiot! You ruined our plans, and now we’re gonna have to get Vicky out before the Aquino family realizes what happened to Dahlia!” Hope snapped.

Damien tasted metal. Part of him didn’t care, all he wanted to do was shred and burn Dahlia, and Hope was merely an obstacle. No one understood how much she meant to him. No one realized how hard it was to survive each hour without her. “Do you understand how much it hurts being without Vicky? I wanted her forever. And then Dahlia walks in like she didn’t do a thing.”

“There’s no question that the Aquino family needs to be held accountable. But do you value vengeance or getting Vicky back more?” Hope said. “Because of you, we may never see Vicky again.” She fell back against the wall of the dugout. “Damien, you knew there was a plan to bring Vicky back. You knew you needed to keep your cool and keep quiet so we could bring Vicky back without having her killed. If someone saw what you just did, they could be killing her now, Damien, and it would be your fault.”

Ice flooded Damien’s spine. It felt like he was kicked in the chest, and he gasped for air against the magic which cocooned him. It was no wonder his parents refused to tell him the truth. Damien was a loose cannon.

Not long after, Hope hugged him and rubbed his back. “It’s okay. Brian’s with Amira, and we’ve got spells to disguise where we hid Dahlia. We just need to hang tight until Joy comes to get us, okay? Just get some rest for the time being. God knows what comes after this.”

Damien nodded. But as Hope drifted to sleep, he was restless. Hope’s magic melted away and he laid against the concave wall.

What was to become of Vicky? And the ritual Vera and Zoe performed? And what was to become of Damien’s lovers? The questions spun in his brain like cyclones, it made him twitch with worry.

---

Electricity pierced Vicky’s breastbone. It felt like a hammer shattered her ribs, and she screamed as she was thrown into a pillar. Blood filled her mouth where her teeth sliced open her tongue. But fatigued and disoriented, Vicky was able to ignore the awful taste. Instead, she crouched and glared at James as blood poured from her lips. Lightning arced from her burns and blood, it clapped against the damp stone.

While Vicky was able to conjure lightning, she was uncontrollable and unpredictable, very unlike James’s lightning.

But while progress was a relief to Vicky, James’s lesson was brutal and Spartan. She was barely able to stand, in and out of consciousness, drained by the lightning strikes. Vicky was so exhausted she didn’t even fear for her life any longer.

Finally, James stopped with a grunt of disapproval. “That’s enough for now. There’s a briefing we need to attend shortly.”

“Briefing?” Vicky asked.

“To fill you in, and to plan our invasion on the LaVey’s kingdom.”

She nodded and followed James.

On the way, Vicky was barely able to keep her eyes open. She braced herself against the wall and tripped over herself as she followed behind him. But Vicky forced her eyes open like glue.

The war room was expansive and barren aside from chairs that surrounded a monochromatic topographical map of Hell. Castles, townships, regions, mountains, rivers were labeled in black ink. Vicky carefully screened the map. The LaVey territory neighbored the Aquino’s, but they were separated by a range of active volcanoes. Vicky wasn’t a tactician, but she found it strange that they were at war nonetheless when they were impeded by extreme natural barriers.

“Welcome, all,” said King Hugo to his audience of eight. His counsel of generals were demons much like himself, blue, horned, adorned in furs. James and Vicky sat across from Robert and a woman more enormous than even Dahlia. Her shoulders alone were the size of basketballs.

“I apologize for the redundancy, but I trust you all know Vicky has recently joined us, so we’ll have a refresher.”

One of Hugo’s servants turned on a projector pointed at a white screen behind Hugo. “The prince is Damien LaVey,” Hugo said as he switched the slide. Damien was handsome, so handsome it took Vicky’s breath away. In their picture, he grinned with impossibly pearly teeth, and his hair was shiny and red like cherries. “He’s not as dangerous as his parents, but he is no stranger to violence. Like Lucien, he is very adept with fire magic.”

When Hugo switched to the following slide, it felt like Vicky was hit by a freight train. “Next is a lesser player, Brian Yu.”

Hugo’s voice became distant. Brian decayed like a fresh corpse, but he smiled at a woman in the picture with him, his arm slung over her shoulders, and Vicky knew that woman well. That woman was her, stitched and grinning, with her wild hair pulled over her shoulder.

And pieces came back to her. Chaotic, without pattern, but pieces Vicky managed to fit together.

They loved her. They were her best friends, and they loved her despite her tainted body and her broken brain. They loved her so much, when she saw Eugene, they stayed with her that night and told her how much she was valued.

In the last seconds before she died, they were proud because she was successful.

Vicky had the knowledge she needed that Hugo lied to her. But her worst suspicions were confirmed. She was in enemy territory, and unless she was very careful, she would die. She settled in her chair and returned her attention to Hugo's presentation.

A picture of a yellow-eyed creature in a hood came onto the screen. “This is King Lucien LaVey. He is our family’s mortal enemy. He has led the LaVey’s effort to destroy our legacy and land since his inception. He is unusually talented with magic.” Hugo flipped to the next slide, a picture of a staff topped with a fiery bird skull. “Since his magic proves to be our greatest obstacle, we will first need to destroy this staff.”

“Well, where is his staff kept?” asked the enormous woman.

“An excellent question, General Quilo. It's with him at all times. Thus, we’ll need a stealth party to invade their home and destroy it. More on that later,” Hugo explained.

“This is our target, however.” A picture of another enormous, blue demon in furs showed. “His name is Stan… Stan Aquino. He is my brother.”

---

Oz should have known that was the case. Nonetheless, he hissed to himself. Their plans were damned, and he was angry, angry enough he drew on stone and slammed his face through the circle and glared upon Lucien’s shape.

“Don’t you think it was important to mention that Hugo and Stan are brothers?” he asked.

Lucien said hoarsely, sadly, “Stan asked me to not share that with you. Our families have been genocidal for generations, and he doesn’t want anything to do with it.”

“But Hugo does.”

“We didn’t know what else to do, Oz. Hugo refused to listen to reason. We didn’t want to raise our son with our families when our efforts to compromise with them were for naught. I understand you’re angry, Oz, but we tried, and we failed.”

“And Vicky had to pay for it,” Oz said, disgusted. He understood, but the secrecy was loathsome. Lucien hung his head.

“There is unfortunate news,” Lucien said, “we have to get Vicky tonight. Damien attacked Dahlia for her role in Vicky’s murder. Amira and some of her friends have Dahlia in custody, but her absence will be noticed, and we will be rightfully blamed. We fear Hugo might hurt Vicky to get back at us.”

“I’ll need help getting her out. The guards pose a threat. I can’t take them on by myself,” Oz said.

“We’ll arrange a raid. But it needs to be now, Oz.”

Oz nodded. “Be swift. Vicky’s life is in danger yet again thanks to you two.”

---

Vicky’s eyes bugged out of her head. Their feud made sense. Her death made sense. Dahlia heard about the robbery and passed on the message to her father, and they passed on the message to the survivors. She was the head of betrayal and blood feuds, and unless she wanted all of her loved ones to die, Vicky had to do something.

But what was she supposed to do? In a room full of generals, she was a novice. They were sure to break every bone in her body did she dare move.

Thankfully, Vicky had allies.

Oz fell onto the table like water poured into a glass. The counsel stared in confusion until it was too late.

Vicky dove under the table as the slaughter began. Lightning crashed, bones crunched, blood splattered on the walls.

James, covered in blood and viscera, with his eyes gouged out, joined her under the table. He growled and grabbed for her. Vicky was quick to react. With a swipe of her crooked fingers, she electrocuted him. Her lightning fried his gored face like batter.

She kicked James out of the way. Quilo and Hugo still lived, but Oz grabbed her and they ran for their lives. Vicky honestly, to her very core, was relieved to see Oz, because while she didn’t remember much about him, she remembered he was her ally and friend without question. She held his hand and smiled.

“I want the truth,” she said, "when we're out of the woods."

“Let’s just focus on getting out of here.”

She nodded as they ran through corridor after corridor. They nearly barrelled into Berenice around a corner.

Oz cursed. Bewildered, Berenice asked, “Vicky, who is this?”

Vicky slammed her eyes shut just as fear ripped out of Oz's chest. They ran, and Vicky didn’t open her eyes until after she stumbled over a pair of disembodied calves. Berenice was her only friend among the Aquino, but Vicky was overwhelmed by the chase and carnage to grieve Berenice, and she understood the necessity to silence witnesses.

The alarm blared. Surely, it was the doing of Quilo or Hugo. The blood drained from Vicky's face. The guards were sure to swarm.

“We need to find a window! I don’t know where the entrance is!” Vicky said.

“Good idea, Vicky.” Oz burst through a door to no window avail. They kicked down door after door for escape until they were surrounded.

“Look, I don’t want to hurt any of you,” Oz said, “but you need to let us through.”

Vicky’s breath picked up. She felt lightheaded. But they needed to dispatch those guards, or convince them to let them through.

She summoned her lightning. It manifested from her knee and hairline. But it was weak like static. When Vicky tried again, her legs gave, and she fell into ash.

#monster prom #vicky schmidt #damien lavey #brian yu #oz monster prom #lucien lavey #dahlia aquino #oc: hugo aquino #oc: berenice #bridamivicky #lavey family

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whiskehorange · 5 years ago

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thank you so much!! if you could make the list i’d greatly appreciate it really 🥺🖤

Well, let’s get this show on the road

-The Night Brings Charlie

-The Prowler

-Candyman

-Psycho

-Chucky

-Sleepaway Camp

-The Town that Dreaded Sundown

-Rosemary’s Baby

-Carrie

-3 From Hell

-It

-Exorcist

-Poltergeist

-Wishmaster

-The Bay

-Pumpkinhead

-Leprechaun

-The Ring/The Grudge

-Cabin in the Woods

-Victor Crowley/ Hatchet

-Motel Hell

-Creature from the Black Lagoon

-Sinister

-Creep

-Puppet Master

-The Burning

-Rocky Horror Picture Show

-The Thing

-The Evil Dead

-The Fly

-The Fog

-The Howling

-Pet Sematary

-Scanners

-Prom Night

-Nightbreed

-Minutes to Midnight

-Swamp Thing

-The Orphan

-Valentine

-Don't Breathe

-The Strangers

-American Psycho

-Wrong Turn

-The Redwood Massacre

-The Legend of Halloween Jack

-Alien

-Predator

-Hellfest

-The Dark Night of the Scarecrow

-Boogeyman

-House on Haunted Hill

-The Hills Run Red

-Reanimator

-Lords of Salem

-Wrong Turn

-Crepitus

-Hatchet

-All Hollows Eve

-Digging Up the Mallow

-The Lost Boys

-Monster Party

-Ice Cream Man

-Misery

-Mind Ripper

-Strange Magic

-Home Sweet Home

-Drag Me Too Hell

-Thirteen Ghosts

-Cannibal Holocaust

-Monster Man

-The Rats

-Bats

-Charlie’s Farm

-Constantine

And those are sort of the movies I plan on watching/finishing, some I’ve even already seen but plan on rewatching, like Creep and others. I add to that list a lot and there are a TON of movies not on there I still plan on watching. As for our classics, you already know

Halloween

Hellraiser

Friday the 13th

Nightmare on Elm Street

Killer Klowns from Outer Space

My Bloody Valentine

Saw

Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Scream

Jeepers Creepers

Hannibal/ Silence Of the Lambs/ Red Dragon/ Hannibal Rising

House of 1,000 Corpses/ Devil’s Rejects/ 3 From Hell

The Boy

House of Wax

2001 Maniacs

Silent Hill

The Shining

Psycho

Terrifier

31 (Rob Zombie)

Hush

He’s Out There (Not the best Netflix movie but... the guy is mmm)

The Hills Have Eyes

Behind The Mask: The Rise and Fall of Leslie Vernon

The Collector (don’t bother with the 2nd movie)

Carrie

Alien

Predator

Repo! The Genetic Opera

Signs (I highly recommend this movie. It’s one of my all time favorite movies EVER)

No Country for Old Men

Gerald’s Game

The Sixth Sense

Se7en

And many many more

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scifigeneration · 5 years ago

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Zombie flu: How the 1919 influenza pandemic fueled the rise of the living dead

by Elizabeth Outka

Did mass graves in the influenza pandemic help give rise to the living dead? Tithi Luadthong/Shutterstock.com

Zombies have lurched to the center of Halloween culture, with costumes proliferating as fast as the monsters themselves. This year, you can dress as a zombie prom queen, a zombie doctor – even a zombie rabbit or banana. The rise of the living dead, though, has a surprising link to another recurring October visitor: the influenza virus.

One hundred years ago, 1919 saw the end of one of the worst plagues in human history: the deadly 1918-1919 influenza pandemic. The pandemic was a true horror show, with 50-100 million people dying and millions more infected. The United States alone lost more people in the pandemic than it lost in all the 20th- and 21st-century wars, combined.

This was no ordinary flu virus: It killed young adults in high numbers, and it came with grisly side effects, like massive bleeding from the nose, mouth and ears. It could damage the nervous and respiratory systems and could cause violent derangement, delirium and – in its aftermath – profound lethargy and suicidal depression.

The pandemic turned communities into haunted landscapes. Coffins ran out as bodies piled up everywhere. Stores, theaters and schools were closed, and wagons were pulled through the streets to collect corpses. Funerals were often impossible to organize, and across the country, mass graves were dug to accommodate the many dead.

A literature professor, I have written about the flu’s surprising connection to zombies, spiritualism and poems like T. S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land” in my new book, “Viral Modernism: The Influenza Pandemic and Interwar Literature.”

The zombie connection

How did the influenza pandemic link to the appearance of zombies? After all, the term “zombie” arrived in the United States largely through William Seabrook’s 1929 book “The Magic Island.” Seabrook wrote, often in starkly racist terms, of various ceremonies, traditions and stories he had gathered in Haiti. He included an account of the zombie figure, which he described as a resurrected corpse raised from the dead by a master figure and forced to do enslaved labor. Depictions of such zombies soon found their way into popular movies like “White Zombie” (1932) or “Ouanga” (1936).

A different strain of zombie-like creatures, however, had emerged earlier in the work of horror writer H.P. Lovecraft. These zombies anticipate the ones George Romero would later depict in films like “Night of the Living Dead”: bloody, lurching, disheveled corpses intent on infecting the living and hungry for human flesh. A perfect incubator for these “viral zombies” were the grisly experiences the influenza pandemic brought to every community.

Lovecraft’s world of corpses

Seminarians from St. Charles Borromeo of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia dig a mass grave at Holy Cross Cemetery sometime during Oct. 21-24, 1919, for victims of the flu pandemic. The photographer wrote in his journal that steam shovels eventually had to be utilized, presumably because of the vast number of bodies. Catholic Historical Research Center of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, CC BY-SA

In his hometown of Providence, Rhode Island, Lovecraft was surrounded by the pandemic’s ghastly atmosphere. As one local witness remembered, “all around me people were dying… . [and] funeral directors worked with fear… . Many graves were fashioned by long trenches, bodies were placed side by side”; the pandemic, the witness laments, was “leaving in its wake countless dead, and the living stunned at their loss” (letter by Russell Booth; Collier Archives, Imperial War Museum, London).

Lovecraft channeled this climate into his stories of the period – producing corpse-filled tales with infectious atmospheres from which sprang lurching, flesh-eating invaders who left bloody corpses in their wake.

In his story “Herbert West: Reanimator,” for example, Lovecraft creates a ghoulish doctor intent on reanimating newly dead corpses. A pandemic arrives that offers him fresh specimens – and that echoes the flu scenes of mass graves, overworked doctors and piles of bodies. When the head doctor of the hospital dies in the outbreak, Dr. West reanimates him, producing a proto-zombie figure that escapes to wreak havoc on the town. The living dead doctor lurches from house to house, ravaging bodies and spreading destruction, a monstrous, visible version of what the flu virus had done worldwide.

Infection, prejudice and the viral zombie

Nurses treat flu patients at Walter Reed Hospital during the height of the 1918-1919 flu pandemic. Everett Historical/Shutterstock.com

In other episodes and stories, Lovecraft’s proto-zombies suggest an additional thread of prejudice that runs through the zombie tradition, one fueled by widespread fears of contagion during the pandemic.

Even before the outbreak, Lovecraft believed that foreign hordes were infecting the Aryan race generally, weakening the bloodlines. These xenophobic anxieties weave their way into his stories, as contagion and pandemic-soaked atmospheres blend into racist fears of immigrants and nonwhite invaders. Indeed, many of his stories are unwitting templates for how prejudicial fears may be problematically amplified at moments of crisis. Such fears are evoked and often critiqued in later depictions of viral zombie hordes, such as the infectious monsters of Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead” and the film’s subtle commentary on race, when the white police force mistakes the main African American character for a viral zombie.

Our fears as monsters

Lovecraft’s proto-zombies also provided a strange compensation for some of the pandemic’s worst memories. Like the flu virus, these monsters consumed the flesh of the living, spread blood and violence, and acted without cause or explanation. Lovecraft assures his readers that these monsters are far worse than anything they saw in World War I or in the pandemic – the defining tragedies of the era. Unlike the virus, though, these monsters could be seen, stopped, killed – and reburied. Every decade seems to need its own zombie, and Lovecraft offered his readers a version that spoke deeply to the anxieties of his moment.

While you may not be prepared for a zombie apocalypse this October, you can still prepare for the coming flu season. Along with your zombie banana costume, be sure to get your flu shot.

About The Author:

Elizabeth Outka is an Associate Professor of English Literature at the University of Richmond

This article is republished from our content partners over at The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.

#science fiction and fantasy #Halloween #Influenza #zombies

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dimples-of-discontent · 6 years ago

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Love, Necromancy, Cocks, and the Reanimated Corpse of Compulsory Heterosexuality: Watching Notes for 14x06

Oh my goodness this episode was pure fucking delight!! Is there a member of the NextGen writers’ room who isn’t binging wall-to-wall fanfic as inspiration? I mean, this even began as a library AU for crying out loud! I love these people and I love what they’re doing and they managed to do something I thought was impossible...not mind that this is our third episode in a row without Cas. We even got a nice lil’ shoutout to meta writers as Sam illustrated for Charlie why she was like the flyman and she gently insisted that, although Sam did have a point, she was not, to be clear, actually the same as flyman. (This will not stop me from proceeding with my flyman-type readings though. But thanks, Yockey!)

So obviously this was an episode about love and....love as we could tell from the tagline, “the things we do for love” and the title, “Optimism.” I’m sorry to say, though, that I ended up feeling that both those things were a setup for some very dark times indeed that are a-comin’! *rocks chair* *sips moonshine* We just learned from the PR that 14x08 will be an episode in which Cas makes an “enormous sacrifice.” And, well, there are only a few options for that at this point. I’ll talk more about it in a sec, but I think “the things we do for love” is pretty clear foreshadowing of not precisely what he’ll do but why he’ll do it.

So anyway, here are some bullet-point-type rambles about things I noticed immediately post-episode. If I have time I might get to expand on them but, the way my time has been lately, it’s a lot more likely that they’ll stay rambly and informal. Still, feel free to pick up and toss around/expand on whatever appeals!

Necromancers - it’s not real love if it’s dead: I reblogged the lovely @mittensmorgul already being smart as usual about the connection between this and last season’s Yockey treat “Various and Sundry Villains” but I thought of it the moment I saw Harper because she looked so very much like the Plum sisters--you remember, the codependent ladies who put a love spell on Dean to steal a book and then tried to raise their mom from the dead only to have it lead to their demise at each other’s hands. Harper mentions that she’s from a long line of necromancers and, well, seems pretty plausible to me. Where the Plum sisters brought back their mom, though, Harper is looking to bring back her man (or men, if Jack is her next target) to stay with her forever.

Just as the Plum sisters showed an unhealthy model of parent-child and sibling-sibling relationships that was allegorically appropriate to the Winchesters, Harper shows an unhealthy model of what a relationship is or could be. The Plums were unwilling to let their dead mother (or each other) go, clinging with slavish devotion to the idea of getting her, and their normal life, back. Instead of having real relationships, they cast love spells and sacrificed men (read: any possibility of a non-familial partner) to sustain it. Harper may have had a good enough relationship with Vance to start, who knows?, but she was unwilling to let him go in much the same way the Plums couldn’t let their mother die. He wanted to leave the town that she was tied to because of her family and her family business (necromancy). And instead of adhering to the idea that if you love something you should let it go she killed him and brought him back to participate in a kind of love that literally fed on other people to keep it going. Harper kept him against his will, forcing him to fit into her life in a way that required sacrificing innocent lives and kept her from being able to move on.

In both cases? It’s not love if it’s dead. Let it go.

My boyfriend’s back and you’re gonna be in trouble: Anyone else remember that uber-terrible 90s movie where a girl’s boyfriend came back as a zombie? No? I didn’t see it, but I recall seeing the preview in a theater and that it had a scene where they were making out and his ear fell off and it HORRIFIED me since I’d barely even heard of making out at that point. Anyway, I bet you anything Steve Yockey saw that movie which was called “my boyfriend’s back.” Harper has too many interested men, actually, which is the source of her “terrible luck” and being “perpetually single.” So, just to be clear, someone who says she’s “perpetually single” (and ready to mingle?) and has “terrible luck” with relationships is actually in a secret long-term relationship with her first love who she killed (all relationships have their issues!) and brought back from the dead as a supernatural creature who is terribly possessive of her. She wasn’t just single with terrible luck she actually had her boyfriend back!

Now, it’s not a 1-to-1 Destiel parallel and I’m not saying it is. This isn’t a flyman situation. But it’s suggestive of it anyway because all Harper’s “bad luck” with romance actually has a pretty simple explanation. She’s already in a relationship. So, uh, Dean you having some trouble there? Not finding any relationships that will stick? People you show affection for maybe keep dying? Try this explanation on for size.

Like a romance novel: Again, I’m not suggesting this is all 1-to-1. But following up on these other two points I’d like to point out how Harper and Vance are stereotypical of a certain kind of “first love”. They met in high school. He was a football player she was the prom queen everything was going great. Then he wanted to leave and expand their lives and she wanted to keep everything the same. So she killed him. To keep everything the same. To combat change and the unfamiliar. So that instead what she got was the familiar, reanimated and always consuming everyone around her, living when it manifestly shouldn’t. They’re a romance novel gone wrong. A heterosexual romance novel gone wrong. Because Vance, “Archie,” is a certain kind of all-American guy.

And if you think there wasn’t some kind of symbolic resonance to the reanimated corpse of All-American masculinity beating Dean up after he got clobbered with a shelf full or romance novels, well, think again. And then Vance just...decided Dean wasn’t a threat. He just walks off and leaves him and we’re left going ??? until we learn that he’s after Jack and that, because he sees Jack as a more viable romantic threat than Dean, he needs to pursue him. Dean was judged by the specter of toxic masculinity (or compulsory heterosexuality) and found wanting. That’s kind of big, guys.

Dick’s diner (love them, uh, Roosters): You guys, the monster knew that even sweet lil’ cinnamon roll Jack is more heterosexual than Dean is right now. Jack’s the one asking (repeatedly) about sex and Dean’s the one (repeatedly) not talking about it. He’s all business with the waitress, even when she tells Jack that “sometimes you just have the sex,” and even though he’s spouting a lot of wisdom about love (as someone who has obviously read one billion romance novels for “research purposes”) he’s not saying anything about what women want in the bedroom (or wherever else they want it). Even the diner, canonically the site of all Dean’s hookups with a no-bullshit waitress who explicitly mentions sex is filled with cocks. Just...cocks everywhere. And, yeah, Dean’s going to touch some of those cocks. He can’t really help it when they’re just everywhere. And he’s NOT going to make any time for a classic diner hookup. He’s just...gonna keep staring at those cocks. (I know they are about Richard Speight directing--and certainly the diner name is a reference to that--but there is no way it’s not also about cocks. And also I make no apologies for my sense of humor here. Cocks are funny and they’ll always be funny. The end.)

Let’s give ‘em something to talk about....how about love? Whew! You know who wants to talk about love? Dean Winchester. Kudos to Jensen because I felt that any conversation that had the L-word going on was heavy with Things Unsaid. Dean distracting Zombie Archie by trying to talk to him about what love really is but stopping short just after saying “that’s not what love is...c’mon, think about it” but before saying what it was instead? Dean saying that people do a lot crazier things for love (see my long crack rant about just what those kind of things might be DEAN)? I was legitimately kind of prepared for Jack to ask Dean a question about love and Dean to give a revealing answer that allowed Jack to serve as a GA proxy and go “Holy shit! You love Castiel!”.

But hey, next week they’re apparently going to road trip to Vegas and Jack is going to drive the Impala (BEFORE CAS??? BLASPHEMY!!) so maybe there’s still going to be some time to callback to Sam’s Vegas wedding and how you know you want to marry someone.

My apologies to Sam and Charlie, whose plotline I did very much enjoy, but I’ve tired myself out. This was pure joy and I feel happy and well fed and, well, optimistic...which can only mean dark times to come because nothing good ever happens on SPN. Take care, lovelies, and stay away from necromancy!

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beanplague-moved · 7 years ago

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absolute social detriment

i wrote some mindless cute fic to make up for a bad day. monster prom is embarrassingly taking up a lot of my headspace at the moment.

writing commissions | art commissions | ao3 | donations.

Brian does a bit of art in his free time. Nothing spectacular—his art style needs some work, and he always fucks up the eyes—but you know, it’s something. Mostly just sketches to pass the time in class, when he actually bothers to go.

Currently, he’s doing his best to replicate this one image that’s been present in his mind for the last couple hours. He’s actually pretty good at this—translating ideas onto paper, that is. He’s got a good grasp on anatomy, though he does wish he could make it a little more stylistic. His poses feel too stiff sometimes.

Polly says, “Is that Damien?” and Brian closes his sketchbook immediately.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” says Brian, his tone deadpan. Polly is floating beside him, peering over his shoulder. “You can leave now. We’re in class.” This is a bullshit deflection, mainly because their teacher could not give less of a shit what they were doing. Polly glances at the now-closed sketchbook.

“He’s your boyfriend, you know. You don’t have to pretend not to like him or whatever,” she says. Brian blinks.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I don’t draw. Go away,” he says. Polly’s eyebrows arch, and then she smiles.

“I’ll have you know that once a club announced it was at capacity and I physically possessed a bouncer in order to get in, and spent the whole night body hopping,” she says, “Closing things off only makes me more determined, Brian,” and then she leaves, floating back to her seat.

Brian puts his sketchbook in his backpack and makes a mental note to avoid drawing in class.

Brian goes to gym and tells the coach that he’s dead (which is true) and sits out the dodgeball round for the day. He instead spends the time drawing his boyfriend playing dodgeball and gaining creativity stats.

Liam, who has also used his undead state as an excuse not to play dodgeball, leans over to see Brian’s sketchbook. “You’ve drawn him to be a lot more aesthetically pleasing than I would have,” says Liam, glancing between the sketchbook page and the real-life reference, who is baring his teeth and threatening to punch his own team members in the face. “I didn’t know that you draw.”

Brian closes his sketchbook, “I don’t and never have,” he blatantly lies, trying his best to cut away from the conversation. Liam doesn’t get the hint.

“Ah, I see,” says Liam, “This is an attempt to remain cool and collected in the eyes of a social superior. Well, there’s no need, Brian. Social hierarchies are far too cliche, anyway.”

Brian says, “I honestly don’t understand any word that has ever come out of your mouth,” because it’s the truth, and he’s a very honest person. Liam nods.

“A very convincing persona. I’ll give you points for dedication, at least,” he says, and it’s at this point that Brian kind of just tunes him out and watches the game. At one point he almost reopens his sketchbook, but in the corner of his eyes he sees Liam glancing at it and he stops himself.

It’s not even that he’s embarrassed of the art or anything—or, well, he is. It’s objectively embarrassing. Brian, who is known for not caring, spends his time doodling his boyfriend in candid poses? That’s absolute social detriment right there. He doesn’t even know how he would prepare for such a scenario wherein someone noticed. What if someone pointed out how careful the linework was? What if someone called him cute? What if Damien saw? There are just too many variables.

And yeah, technically Brian is dating Damien already, and it isn’t particularly weird for him to idealize his boyfriend or draw him, but come on. A man is entitled to his particular complex, all right? Not every irrational argument or insecurity needs to be scrutinized for how much sense it makes.

Brian leaves gym class having lost several points contributing to his boldness stat. That’s just how it is sometimes.

At lunch Brian enjoys the very reliable practice of not eating anything (in this cafeteria? You’d be better off eating out of the garbage, which is legitimately what some students have been doing. It’s absolutely hilarious and also very indicative of the school’s quality of life) and finally finishing his damn drawing without a dating sim character breathing down his neck.

“Is that Damien?” asks Miranda, and does she have to be so loud? Well practiced in this particular method of avoidance, Brian shuts his sketchbook immediately. “That’s so romantic!”

Oh God. “Miranda, I will pay you at least two money to leave—” he’s cut off before he can finish his offer and/or threat of bribery.

“You saw them, right? The drawings?” asks Polly, who actually might be the devil. It’s a distinct possibility. She hangs out with Damien an awful lot for someone who isn’t the devil. Of course, you could say the same for Brian or literally anyone else in their circle of friends, but still. “I think it’s adorable!”

This. This is the nightmare scenario. Holy shit.

Brian is in the middle of considering his plan of action, and he narrows it down to two distinct choices. Either he can toss his own sketchbook into the garbage at such an angle where it constitutes as a rather impressive slam dunk and thus has a distinct chance of impressing his peers, or he can get up and leave and continue his drawing in the bathroom.

He isn’t so keen on the possibility of losing his sketchbook, and his boldness stat isn’t particularly high. He ends up taking the second option, wordlessly walking out of the situation like the corpse he is. He really is living up to his undead heritage.

Brian is almost done with his drawing, which is actually pretty impressive, considering he’s illustrating this in a bathroom. It’s a horrid environment for art. It smells weird and he’s pretty sure Polly does drugs in here, but you take what you can get.

Damien says, “You fuckin’ draw?” and Brian is considering that, perhaps, he has angered some minor god. It happens all the time, and it would certainly check out if he had. “What are you doing in the bathroom, dude? There’s another recess rave so I figured we could set something or someone on fire over there, if you’re up for it.”

Brian is kind of wordless at the moment, because all of his nightmare scenarios are playing in his head at once, and truly he is trying not to rehearse his own detriment in his head.

He says, “Oh, uh, yeah. Arson and manslaughter sound great about now,” and he attempts to close his sketchbook. He sees Damien narrow his eyes.

“Can I see what you were drawing?”

Hm. No. “Well, you see,” says Brian, “I would normally show you my sketchbook right now, but I’m about to throw it in the garbage, and—”

“No, really, I’m actually curious,” says Damien, with as much sincerity as he can possibly produce, “I like to see stuff you’re into, you know?” Oh, Brian is definitely into the things in his sketchbook, which is about 70% Damien. Brian hesitates.

“Sure,” he decides, handing the sketchbook over to Damien. He’s had a good, long, reanimated life. Brian has already dealt with a physical death, what’s a social one to boot?

He watches as Damien opens the sketchbook and pages through it, realization passing over him as relatively innocuous drawings of trees and tables and shit gradually become portraits of his own face. It’s a true facial journey, which eventually settles on an expression that could be Damien blushing if he wasn’t already a solid red demon who’s blush was indistinguishable from his actual hue.

Damien is about to push the brink of his charm stat and create some bullshit excuse, “You see—”

“So, like,” Damien pauses, “Do you ever do, fuck, I dunno, self portraits, or, uh. You know, drawings of us together or something?” and it’s a very genuinely sweet moment that Brian is having in this dumpster fire of a school bathroom.

“Uh, yeah, if you flip it to the next page,” Brian says, and they have a very nice, very cute conversation that they will describe as “kickass” and “definitely not cute” to close associates. Damien asks Brian to draw him taller, which is a valid comment, but Damien already gets to be tall in real life so no.

#monster prom #brian (monster prom)#damien lavey #my writes

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