#Terrorism & Natural Disaster

[raviollies]

I love Theta as a character so much, I have to use her very sparingly so she doesn't lose the impact with her every appearance since the terror she strikes into the party the moment she's even referenced is so delicious

[askdarkermatters]

End of arc 1!

[slapdashboard]

Making fun of mass tragedies doesn’t make you a rebel or a comedian, it makes you an asshole and probably a bad person.

[tuttle-did-it]

Here's my thing. When someone, say in their 70s or 80s, can go off and be horrible- racist, sexist, transphobic, homophobic or queerphobic in general, fascist, islamophobic, anti-Semitic, etc. Just generally horrible.

All I think of when I meet these horrible people is,

'You saw Kennedy and MLKs assassinations. You did not change.'

'you went through the entire Civil Rights movement, and you didn't change.'

'You saw the space race, you did not change.'

'You sat through the Stonewall Riots, and you didn't change.'

'You saw Women's Lib and Second Wave feminism. You did not change.'

'You went through the anti-Vietnam war era, and you didn't change.'

'You went through the AIDs era, and you didn't change.'

'You saw Rodney King beat to death, and you didn't change.'

'You saw the IRA Troubles era, and you didn't change.'

'You saw the Berlin Wall fall, and the collapse of the Cold War with the Soviet Union, and you still didn't change.'

'You saw 11 September attacks, you saw all the terrorist attacks on London. The constant global climate change resulting in hurricanes, tsunamis, floods, and more. The horrors in Darfur. You did not change.'

'You lived through the global economic crisis, The Boston Marathon, Occupy Wall Street, The Black Lives Matter movement, #MeToo, the constant fires and floods due to climate change, Brexshit, constant school shootings, constant shootings everywhere and a fucking pendemic. and you have not changed.'

My only conclusion to all of this?

You CHOOSE NOT TO CHANGE. How can ANYONE go through all of this and NOT change?? Not become MORE concerned about the people around you, whatever their colour, disability, sexuality, gender, ethnicity, religion, politics? How can you NOT become more concerned about the world around you? How can you go through all of this and still have the same attitudes and opinions you did in 1954??

When someone says to me, 'oh, he's an old man, he's got old-fashioned ideas.' What that says to me is that that person went through at least 7 decades without learning a single thing.

Age is never an excuse. Norman Lear was 101 when he died just a few days ago. He was fighting for decades to try to bring attention to the struggles of women, people of colour, disabled people, and queer people. He is responsible for some of the most groundbreaking television in history-- including the first uncloseted gay characters, drag queens and Black trans women. At 101, just a few months ago, he was trying to get at least two shows about being queer greenlit for production. He continued to learn and grow and adapt and change with time. He allowed time to touch him. He allowed time to change him. He chose to change and keep growing and learning.

So if Norman Lear, at a 101, can understand pronouns, neopronouns, gender dysphoria, poverty, PTSD, struggles ofr people of colour, sexuality-- if he can understand all of that?? and these idiots are still ranting about the ~woke~? You know what? I've just got nothing to say to them.

The next time someone tells you to be patient because 'that person is in their 70s,' Think of all of this that they have refused to change with the times. This is their choice. Because I don't know about you, but the stuff on this list that I have lived through? Has changed me a lot. And it should.

It's very possible that the only way to ensure you don't become a conservative old person is to keep checking whether you're wrong. Every time. Genuinely mull over the opposing viewpoint even and especially when it's uncomfortable. You absolutely cannot a) consider yourself safely incapable of terrible principles because you're a good person, or b) treat a your disgust reaction to something as a moral truth. You can't get comfortable. Tiring! But you'd rather be tired and choose the right path, you know?

[good-night-space-kid]

Disaster shows are to me what true crime is to others

[blown-blooms]

Every time I post something in the terror tag I'm always worried I'm gonna get a bad grade in terrorposting, which is both normal to fear and possible to achieve. Everyone is just so cool and smart and knowledgeable and it intimidates me.

[brexiiton]

Hawaii fires death toll climbs as residents tell of little warning before town engulfed

By Associated Press, 1:00am Aug 12, 2023

Hawaii emergency management records show no indication that warning sirens sounded before people ran for their lives from wildfires on Maui that killed at least 55 people and wiped out a historic town. Instead, officials sent alerts to mobile phones, televisions and radio stations - but widespread power and cellular outages may have limited their reach.

Hawaii boasts what the state describes as the largest integrated outdoor all-hazard public safety warning system in the world, with about 400 sirens positioned across the island chain to alert people to various natural disasters and other threats.

But many survivors said in interviews on Thursday (Friday AEST) that they didn't hear any sirens or receive a warning that gave them enough time to prepare and only realised they were in danger when they saw flames or heard explosions nearby.

Hawaii emergency management records show no indication that warning sirens were triggered before devastating fires killed at least 55 people and wiped out a historic town, officials confirmed (AP)

The blaze is already that state's deadliest natural disaster since 1960 tsunami, which killed 61 people on the Big Island. (AP)

The wildfires are the state's deadliest natural disaster since a 1960 tsunami that killed 61 people. An even deadlier tsunami in 1946, which killed more than 150 people on the Big Island, prompted the development of the territory-wide emergency system that includes the sirens, which are sounded monthly to test their readiness.

Governor Josh Green warned that the death toll would likely rise as search and rescue operations continue. Cadaver-sniffing dogs were brought in Friday to assist the search for the remains of people killed by the inferno, said Maui County Mayor Richard Bissen Jr.

Thomas Leonard, a 70-year-old retired mailman from centuries-old Lahaina, didn't know about the fire until he smelled smoke. Power and cellphone service had both gone out earlier Tuesday, leaving the town with no real-time information about the danger.

He tried to leave in his Jeep, but had to abandon the vehicle and run to the show when cars nearby began exploding. He hid behind a seawall for hours, the wind blowing hot ash and cinders over him.

Firefighters eventually arrived and escorted Leonard and other survivors through the flames to safety.

Fuelled by a dry summer and strong winds from a passing hurricane, at least three wildfires erupted on Maui this week, racing through parched brush covering the island. (AP)

Fuelled by a dry summer and strong winds from a passing hurricane, at least three wildfires erupted on Maui this week, racing through parched brush covering the island.

The most serious one left Lahaina a grid of grey, ashen rubble, wedged between the blue ocean and lush green slopes. Skeletal remains of buildings bowed under roofs that pancaked in the blaze. Palm trees were torched, boats in the harbour were scorched and the stench of burning lingered.

"Without a doubt, it feels like a bomb was dropped on Lahaina," the governor said after walking the ruins of the town Thursday morning with the mayor.

Firefighters managed to build perimeters around most of the Lahaina fire and another near the resort-filled area of Kihei, but they were still not fully contained as of Thursday afternoon.

Hawaii Emergency Management Agency spokesperson Adam Weintraub told The Associated Press that the department's records don't show that Maui's warning sirens were triggered on Tuesday, when the Lahaina fire began. Instead, the county used emergency alerts sent to mobile phones, televisions and radio stations, Weintraub said.

Myrna and Abraham Ah Hee stand in front of an evacuation centre at the War Memorial Gymnasium. (AP)

It's not clear if those alerts were sent before outages cut off most communication to Lahaina. Across the island, in fact, 911, landline and cellular service have failed at times.

Maui Fire Department Chief Brad Ventura said the fire moved so quickly from brush to neighbourhoods that it was impossible to get messages to the emergency management agencies responsible for alerts.

"What we experienced was such a fast-moving fire through the ... initial neighbourhood that caught fire they were basically self-evacuating with fairly little notice," Ventura said.

The blaze is the deadliest US wildfire since the 2018 Camp Fire in California, which killed at least 85 people and laid waste to the town of Paradise.

Lahaina's wildfire risk was well known. Maui County's hazard mitigation plan, last updated in 2020, identified Lahaina and other West Maui communities as having frequent wildfires and a large number of buildings at risk of wildfire damage.

The report also noted that West Maui had the island's second-highest rate of households without a vehicle and the highest rate of non-English speakers.

"This may limit the population's ability to receive, understand and take expedient action during hazard events," the plan noted.

The blaze is the deadliest US wildfire since the 2018 Camp Fire in California, which killed at least 85 people and laid waste to the town of Paradise. (AP)

Maui's firefighting efforts may also have been hampered by a small staff, said Bobby Lee, the president of the Hawaii Firefighters Association. There are a maximum of 65 firefighters working at any given time in Maui County, and they are responsible for fighting fires on three islands — Maui, Molokai and Lanai — he said.

Those crews have about 13 fire engines and two ladder trucks, but the department does not have any off-road vehicles, he said. That means fire crews can't attack brush fires thoroughly before they reach roads or populated areas.

High winds caused by Hurricane Dora made this week's task especially difficult. "You're basically dealing with trying to fight a blowtorch," Lee said.

The mayor said that as people attempted to flee Lahaina, downed power poles added to the chaos by cutting off two important roads out of town, including one to the airport. That left only one narrow, winding highway.

The hall of historic Waiola Church in Lahaina and nearby Lahaina Hongwanji Mission are engulfed in flames. (AP)

Marlon Vasquez, a 31-year-old cook from Guatemala who came to the US in January 2022, said that when he heard fire alarms, it was already too late to flee in his car.

"I opened the door, and the fire was almost on top of us," he said from an evacuation centre at a gymnasium. "We ran and ran. We ran almost the whole night and into the next day, because the fire didn't stop."

Vasquez and his brother Eduardo escaped via roads that were clogged with vehicles. The smoke was so toxic that he vomited. He said he's not sure his roommates and neighbours made it to safety.

Chelsey Vierra said Thursday that she didn't know if her great-grandmother, Louise Abihai, managed to escape her senior living facility, which witnesses saw erupt in flames.

"She doesn't have a phone. She's 97 years old," Vierra said. "She can walk. She is strong."

Firefighters managed to build perimeters around most of the Lahaina fire and another near the resort-filled area of Kihei, but they were still not fully contained Thursday afternoon. (AP)

Relatives were monitoring shelter lists and calling the hospital. "We don't know who to ask about where she went," said Vierra, who fled the flames.

President Joe Biden declared a major disaster on Maui on Thursday and promised to streamline requests for assistance to the island.

[hussyknee]

If you had actually been paying attention to Gaza instead of using them for your own fuckwitted agenda you would know that they've been telling us to fucking stop participating in this Western grift of "humanitarian aid" when nothing can get through the blockades and all they have to get all of this to stop is to call a ceasefire. It is utterly depraved to offer """aid""" especially via donations when the US is sending BILLIONS to Israel to continue dropping a quantity of bombs twice the size of Hiroshima. They do not have food or water because not only did Israel pour concrete in the wells and cut off water and electricity but they're bombing the remaining stores of grain and solar panels and fishing boats. They have nothing to eat or drink and Biden's not even pushing for that "'''''humanitarian pause""""" let alone ceasefire and there's no way you could get enough aid for two million people with tens of thousands gravely injured to them even if the blockades opened tomorrow. In fact Gazans on social media screaming for help while death rains from the skies keep seeing posts for useless donations (so that they can be blown up in comfort I guess) like some kind of sick joke and it's rightfully starting to make them hate us. So fucking stop using people who are actively being genocided by your country for whatever petty asshole fandom clown discourse you're fixated on and get out there AND PROTEST FOR A GODDAMN CEASEFIRE.

This entire fandom discourse from BOTH ENDS is just a self-serving grift. Black and brown lives are mere props for all of you to use and ignore whenever you feel like it, rather than real, entire suffering human beings.

can i be real? i think ao3 should die for doing a donation pool for themselves with everything going on

[sweet-as-an-angel]

I read your yandere dilf post just before going to sleep and had a very interesting dream as a result: yandere Wild West Outlaw!

He takes you hostage to keep the rangers from going after him after a robbery. You’re tied up in front of him on his horse and after riding away from town for a long time he doesn’t set you down somewhere like you expected but takes you with him into his hideout.

Bonus: he‘s (basically) masked > bandana covering half his face and the rim of his hat casting a shadow over his eyes

Yandere Wild West Outlaw! Headcanons

Warnings: Implications of Smut, Kidnapping, Non-Consensual Touching, Forced Proximity, Slow Burn, Stockholm Syndrome, Masked Outlaw ;), Petnames, Killing, Mentions of Robbery, Non-Consensual Voyeurism/Surveillance, Description of Injury & Blood, No Pronouns used for Reader except ‘You’, etc.

A/N: Anon, I am in love with this concept !

♡ Yandere Outlaw whose body encompasses yours, his chest to your back and his arms caging you as he grips the horse’s reigns, his breathing steady as if he hadn’t just committed a multitude of crimes. Then again, considering how proficient he was at wiping the inn clean of all its savings and tying you up on his horse before the rangers could even arrive, you suspected this was not the first time he’d done this. Nor would it be the last.

♡ Yandere Outlaw says very little after he abducted you, his last words being sharp commands, laden with a calmness you would never have expected from a man holding an entire building hostage.

♡ And, in your terror, you said nothing to him, your back to his front as he rode to nowhere discernible, the civilised, populated terrain of your home town having melted away hours ago.

♡ No, the Outlaw gave nothing away. Even after days of being forced to travel with him to what you could only pray would be a town – somewhere for him to dispose of you before taking to the canyons again – he said nothing.

♡ He’d offer you food, and, after the first 24 hours of starving yourself out of sheer distrust – or principle, as you wanted to see it – you succumbed to your famine.

♡ Yandere Outlaw would feed it to you before disappearing behind whatever cover lay nearby – oftentimes his horse – and eat.

♡ Whatever lay beneath his bandana was a mystery to you. And it only took you trying to see what he looked like once to see that your endeavour was a hopeless one.

♡ You’d strained and leaned past the point of no return, falling onto your side.

♡ And Outlaw came back into view, adjusting his bandana back over his nose, the shadow cast over his eyes by his hat much like that descending over the valley you now inhabited.

♡ Your heart stammered as he grew closer, the spurs of his boots the land equivalent to the fin of a shark as Outlaw came to a stop before you.

♡ He got to one knee, so quietly that you could see why nobody ever saw him coming, and, brushing a lock of hair from your face with a gloved hand, chuckled.

♡ Low and rumbling, like an earthquake. Or one of God’s many natural disasters. A gruff, brief thing as ephemeral as life itself. 

♡ “Don’t get yourself all scuffed up now, Darlin’,” he says. His hand trails from just behind your ear, tracing your jaw, the tendons in your neck, stopping just short of where your shirt hangs above your collar bones.

♡ You think that you hear him hiss. So sibilant and soft you’re unsure whether you perhaps imagined it and rather heard the conversation of pit vipers laying just below the hard sand beneath your ear.

♡ Outlaw’s head tilts, his face no clearer to you now as it was days ago, especially now with the setting sun casting a misplaced halo about his hat-clad head, his front shadowed. Two sides, one a light facade, the other his true nature.

♡ “You’re no good to me broken.”

♡ Yandere Outlaw whose only elaboration of that cryptic sentiment comes in the form of another day’s travel, during which you remained firmly bound – and gagged at one juncture when you made the mistake of crying for help when you spotted a lone merchant out on the open road.

♡ Yandere Outlaw neutralised that channel of freedom for you very quickly with a crack of a bullet, leaving you glassy-eyed and breathless as he ransacked the merchant’s travel cabin, taking all manner of valuables.

♡ “Why, thank you, Darlin’,” he says, his gloved hand coming to rest on your knee, clapping down on you and making you jump – shriek. And he squeezes with all the familiarity of someone who’s done this before.

♡ “Wouldn’t’a found this here haul if you hadn’t tried to scream your pretty little head off.”

♡ Yandere outlaw knows that’s isn’t quite true; he’s an excellent tracker, and an even better marksman. He’d have found this travelling man on his own eventually; the outcome would have been identical. But you didn’t need to know that.

♡ The gag was practically useless after that, for your desire to keep others from the same fate as the travelling salesman had you quiet as a mouse.

♡ Yandere Outlaw can sense how rigid you are – less so than you were when he’d first taken you, but you still felt…different. You were loose in the way that submission often made people slaves to fatigue, to their fate. And he couldn’t help but wonder if you’d succumbed to yours so soon, especially when, as you finally drifted off to sleep after a day and a half without it, you leaned into his chest, head to his shoulder.

♡ Unwillingly, of course. Your exhaustion weighed you down, lead. You had no control over your unconscious body, regardless of how repulsive you found the pillow you were leaning on.

♡ Yandere Outlaw can’t help but let his gaze drift from the open canyon ahead, gradually giving way to caves and rocky rivers, to your face. You were tranquil in sleep, brew no longer knotted in worry, or fear. Just…sleep.

♡ Yandere Outlaw could feel his hands twitching, the urge to touch you creeping up behind him the longer he stared at your vulnerable form.

♡ Yandere outlaw who, for a second, and a second only, let his hand slip from the reigns and slither, slowly, to your knee, up the expanse of your clothed thigh.

♡ Yandere Outlaw’s heart who, for the first time in a long time, beats at a humming bird’s pace when you shift in your slumber, making him withdraw.

♡ Yandere Outlaw who, watching, waiting for you to settle back into sleep, kept his hands from you the rest of the night. Though temptation beckons him to do otherwise.

♡ Yandere Outlaw shifted behind you, waking you. Only when you were torn from a dream of being anywhere but here did you realise the horse had come to a stop, an unfamiliar breeze settling over you.

♡ Yandere Outlaw who, unsaddling you from the horse, carries you like a bride in his arms, kicking open the door to an abode you didn’t even know was there.

♡ Yandere Outlaw sets you down beside a pole, tying you to it. Tightly.

♡ “Welcome home, Dollface,” he says, hands settling on his belt as he watches your eyes jump from one corner to another, taking in these new surroundings, these new circumstances.

♡ Of course, you don’t accept the conditions Outlaw has roped you into. Not without a fight.

♡ Yandere Outlaw, as a result, had to keep his eye on you when you initially began your residence with him. 

♡ For the first couple of weeks, he’d take you to the waterfall to bathe every other day; would watch you as you did so. At first, bashful and uncomfortable, you’d asked him to turn around as you stood exposed. To which the Outlaw just laughed. “Ain’t much worth lookin’ at,” he’d reassured you.

♡ Yandere outlaw who tells you exactly how the day’s going to go.

♡ “You’re gonna cook whatever I bring back. Y’understand ?”

♡ Yandere Outlaw who initially only lets you chop up vegetables and bread, withholding the excuse to use a sharp knife from you by intentionally not collecting any meat.

♡ Yandere Outlaw who, before taking even a bite of the meal you prepare, makes you taste it first. “I know you little crafty types; poison enough in your veins to kill a horse.”

♡ Translation: “You’re having this first to make sure it’s not going to kill me.”

♡  Yandere Outlaw who, after that initial hurdle, though he won’t admit it, feels his tongue practically bursting with flavour when he tastes your soup for the first time. Though, he keeps it under wraps, his form hidden behind a wall, his bandana pulled down.

♡ Yandere Outlaw who, with little alternative to offer you, makes you sleep in his bed.

♡ “Either that, or you’re sleepin’ outside.”

♡ He still wears the bandana btw, and wears a sleep mask over his eyes.

♡ He doesn’t touch you. Not in intentional ways, it would seem.

♡ Not at first.

♡ A light brush of the hand here and there. 

♡ Sure, the urge to bask in the aura of the most beautiful person he’s ever seen is pretty overwhelming for the Outlaw. Especially since he doesn’t understand why he feels this way, never having felt it for anyone else before.

♡ Sure, he’s taken others, some much more enthusiastic than others (you don’t get to his level of notoriety without attracting a few hundred fans).

♡ So, when you’re asleep, an arm and a leg bound to the bedpost, he watches you.

♡ He tells himself it’s for his own safety, to make sure you’re not going to reach for a weapon and gut him like a pig.

♡ But when he sees your gentle face, he knows you’re incapable of that

♡ He likes to think that you’re incapable of anything without him around. Makes him feel bigger, stronger.

♡ So why exactly was he still looking upon you into the late hours of the night ?

♡ Over time, his resolve begins to crack.

♡ Especially with every aspect of your partnership accounted for.

♡ The baths, the bed sharing, the homemade cooking – it’s just all so…

♡ Domestic.

♡ But, that doesn’t make Outlaw trust you any more than the day he first took you. Not yet, at least.

♡ Despite his confidence in his own ability to keep you here, he knows the indomitable human spirit is strong enough to break through every precaution. And, just in case you do manage to escape, he’s making sure you can’t pick him out of a lineup if you make it to law enforcement – if the vultures don’t pick you off first.

♡ Yandere Outlaw makes you cook every night, under the guise of you “Needin’ your strength to straighten this place out.”

♡ Yandere Outlaw who appoints you as his head housekeeper, making it your sole responsibility to be the “homemaker” of the two of you.

♡ Yandere Outlaw who feels strange when he sees you with one of his shirts tied about your waist – a makeshift apron – who doesn’t even recognise this feeling as domesticity. Warmth. That feeling of security having been deprived of him all his life.

♡ Yandere Outlaw who wonders what you’d look like wearing one of his shirts.

♡ And something in his brain chemistry changes.

♡ Yandere Outlaw who, during your river baths, knocks your clothes into the stream when you’re not looking, offering you his shirt when you’re ready to come out.

♡ “Y’really should be careful,” he tells you, swallowing thickly as the neckline of his shirt dips below your collarbones, drowning you. He looks away, not trusting that the feeling coiling in his lower half won’t spring out at any moment. “Men might take advantage of a pretty lil’ thing like you. Especially when you’re so…” A shiver shoots up his spine. “Vulnerable.”

♡ Your clothes seem to disappear not long after that, leaving you only with whatever consisted of the Outlaw’s wardrobe.

♡ You notice that he seems to disappear at odd hours of the day, leaving you to your chores while he does something.

♡ Little do you know that the something he is doing is a secret he’ll take to his grave.

♡ The sight of you in his shirts, of you in the river, is too much for him.

♡ He takes to hiding out in a densely vegetated patch of land behind the cabin to…relieve himself of his thoughts of you. Thoughts he’s used to sustaining for perhaps a second or two when it came to his prior conquests. Thoughts that, now, a month into your capture, extend long into his nights and speckle his logic when he’s on a mission.

♡ It’s dangerous, he knows; to have his mind elsewhere while he risks his life for the loot he so desires. But he can’t deny that they make him feel human. Normal.

♡ Despite how un-normal this entire situation is.

♡ It takes every ounce of his restraint not to just tie you down and take you while you sleep beside him, make you scream and cry for him as he empties his frustration and, dare he say, lust, into you.

♡ But, he doesn’t want to scare you off.

♡ Doesn’t want to see your eyes light up in fear whenever he enters the room.

♡ He wants something else.

♡ Something that he doesn’t have a word for.

♡ It’s only when he happens across a conversation with you, asking you if you had “A lover boy back home,” that he found the word he was looking for.

♡ You wince at the question, the memory of your life away from this situation salt in an unhealed wound.

♡ “No,” you tell him, your honesty a virtue. “Haven’t been in a relationship yet.”

♡ Relationship.

♡ It felt right to the Outlaw when he heard it; especially coming from you.

♡ It sticks with him the rest of the day, and while you’re cooking dinner, washing the Outlaw’s clothes, dusting the sparse furniture, he’s got one thing on his mind.

♡ How to get you into a relationship with him.

♡ He’s completely unequipped to deal with someone on such an intimate level, so he uses all his knowledge he’s gathered while seducing and bedding others to piece together a game plan.

♡ First, he needs to know what you like. He remembers from that one time a woman hit him with her shoe when he forgot her name ten minutes after meeting her.

♡ So, he starts hanging around you (much) more often, making you sit down and tell him about yourself.

♡ As he makes you spend time in his company, he comes to learn of the fanciful little things you enjoy.

♡ At first, the details are dry and few and far between, with you giving very little about yourself away.

♡ But, as his persistence drags into days, you eventually just start telling him whatever he asks, so long as it’s not too personal.

♡ Or painful.

♡ Whenever the outlaw can see you're starting to become upset, being reminded of your circumstances, he eases up on the personal questions and just asks superficial ones.

♡ “How’re ya feeling today ?” “D’ya eat well this mornin’ ?” “D’ya need me to dust a shelf down or something’ ?”

♡ His miniscule acts of selflessness are extensions of his effort to make you at least not hate him. Though you didn’t know this. His thought process was still an enigma to you.

♡ He also stalks you in his own home.

♡ Listens to you sing while you complete your tasks, your voice the softest thing he’s heard since…well, ever.

♡ Yandere Outlaw who, when he embarks on a hunt, never tells you where or when, and never even the how.

♡ The only clue you’ll ever be given as to his nigh-weekly excursions are trinkets he brings with him. Ones which you thought he’d pawn elsewhere in the county at a later date, or bury in the canyon somewhere.

♡ Until he offers them to you.

♡ At first, you’re not sure what to make of these…gifts ?

The first time he gave you one, he said nothing, only watching you.

♡ You swore you could see his shoulders heaving beneath his jacket, something almost feral in his demeanour. Pressurising.

♡ And, with the possibility of what could happen to you should you decline these acts of…generosity…You just take them, uttering a quiet “Thank you,” before putting them in a kitchen cabinet, unsure of the intent behind them.

♡ The first few times this happened, you were befuddled.

♡ Yet, with how gently the Outlaw placed them in your hands, with how intense his gaze was, even though you couldn’t see it beneath the permanent shadow across his brow, you could feel it.

♡ It was only one evening when the Outlaw returned with yet more loot that the meaning behind the trinkets became apparent.

♡ His hand disappears into the inside pocket of his jacket, and he withdraws a small box; rounded and bejewelled like an idol. He comes to stand before you, and, shoulders pinned abc and rigid, you swallow. Thickly.

♡ He looks down at the box, and,his finger dragging along the edge, slowly, he relinquishes it to you.

♡ And, by pure force of habit, you accept.

♡ You turn the box gingerly between your fingers, the dim candlelight from within the cabin just barely warding off the black of the night, setting the precious stones welded within the metal alight.

♡ “Well,” the Outlaw says, making you jump. You look up at him, eyes wide.

♡ “Open it.”

♡ He says it as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

♡ Swallowing again, your gaze skitters back to the box.

♡ And, with bated breath, you lift the lid.

♡ A delicate, silver melody slithers from the portal you’ve opened, a serpentine tune wrapping around your mind, vivid, beloved memories riding on its feathered wings.

♡ Your favourite song.

♡ For a moment, one sweet, fragile moment, you’re not here.

♡ You’re back at home, in a warm bed that is yours and yours alone, surrounded by the people who matter most to you, any celebration mankind can conjure not even a whisper of the joy you feel in this scene.

♡ And then, as the wind blows autumn leaves from the human mind, the memory is gone, taken away by reality realising it has neglected you.

♡ You’re looking into nothing now, the apparition of your past slipping from you, your eyes wavered and muffled with…

♡ Tears.

♡ In your periphery, just outside the realm of reality you’re returning to, the Outlaw’s drilling gaze drops from you to the floor ina  rare show of anticipation. A hand comes to the back of his neck, where he squeezes the skin. A stress ball.

♡ “Do you…” he begins, “Do ya like it ?”

♡ Your stare inches from the void up to the outlaw’s hidden face.

♡ Perhaps if he had a discernible human feature, you could sense anticipation there. But as it stood, this was no man, but a phantom.

♡ One which must have heard and remembered that tune you often sang while completing chores.

♡ You couldn’t take it.

♡ To have him acknowledge the memory – to make it more real – nailed your coffin shut.

♡ And you broke down.

♡ When you crumpled into a pile, the Outlaw took a step back, one hand reaching for his holster; a knee-jerk reaction.

♡ And what little solace he could offer came in a most inconspicuous display.

♡ The Outlaw got to one knee, now at your level.

♡ And, with a careful hand, he placed a gloved finger upon your shoulder. Then another. Then another.

♡ Spidery and unfamiliar, foreign, the Outlaw’s actions were jerky, janky, an unoiled machine. But he was trying.

♡ When his hand lay against the curve of your shoulder, you did not move. Did not shunt him off or scream at him to let go.

♡ You remained where you were, weeping into your shirt apron.

♡ And the Outlaw, with a fiery grip encircling his heart, feeling brewing in his centre, stronger than all those implicatures and desires. This was solid, unlike the quicksand foundations upon which the Outlaw’s every emotion was built upon.

♡ Was this…

♡ Empathy ?

♡ His grip on your shoulder tightened, the revelation swarming through him like locusts.

♡ He swallowed. Tried thinking through the orchestra in his mind.

♡ “S’okay,” he said. To you, and to himself. His fingers moved gently, your skin and muscle warm through the leather of his gloves. “You’re okay.”

♡ Things changed after that.

♡ He no longer forced you to sleep in the same bed as him, instead bringing back with him a fine silk cover from one of his trips, gifting it to you.

♡ Yet, you still chose to sleep in the same bed as him.

♡ “It’ll be getting cold soon,” you said. “WIth winter coming, and all.”

♡ And, while this new feeling, raw and fresh, was…nice compared to the emptiness that often lingered in his chest, the Outlaw couldn’t help but feel weakened by this influx of emotion.

♡ When he tried to have his alone time with his thoughts of you, he felt…wrong.

♡ Ashamed.

–

♡ You were used to him disappearing for days at a time. Hell, you'd come to expect it at this point in your captivity.

♡ But something about tonight felt...off.

♡ Not that you'd ever admit it, even to yourself, but with the amount of time you'd spent together these last few months, you no longer hated being in his company.

♡ In fact, on the days he would be gone from the early hours of the morn to the late hours of the evening, you could even say you...missed it.

♡ And, unfortunately, despite your every instinct swaying you otherwise, you find that to be the case now.

♡ But, more than that, you're concerned. Something you'd never thought you'd feel for a murderer, a thief. Your kidnapper.

♡ And your pacing, your lip-chewing, your nail-biting are all proven justified when the Outlaw slams against the front door, stumbling through.

♡ At first, you just watch, ready to yell, to ask where he's been the last few days, until you see it.

♡ A bloodied handprint on the door.

♡ He staggers in, swaying on uneven footing, his breathing stifled,as if through a thin straw. He wheezes, collapsing into the doorframe beside him.

♡ And you rush to him. As if he wasn't the one who put you here to begin with. As if whatever's bringing him to his knees now wasn't justified, provoked.

♡ But you don't think of any of that, your mind filled only with the fact that nobody knows you're out here. Without guidance, you'd be dead before you reached the edge of the canyon encompassing your hiding place.

♡ You needed him alive.

♡ After wrestling him onto his bed, almost buckling beneath his weight, you found the source of his downfall.

♡ A wound; bullet-bitten and bleeding, a rouge flower burgeoning with the promise of extinction.

♡ You tried getting him to talk, to tell you what to do. But his voice was barely a whisper, instead using what little seeping strength that remained to point to a cabinet.

♡ Inside, you found what you knew would be needed to heal him. Whether it – you – could save him, though, was another story.

♡ You tried taking his bandana off to see if he was hurt elsewhere, but to no avail. Despite the life draining from his body, he somehow found it in himself to stop you, to place a gloved, trembling hand atop yours, an imploring aura to the gesture.

♡ Don't.

♡ And, for the first time, beneath the dim light of the cabin, you could see something human on him.

♡ It existed only in the form of a shimmer beneath the shadow of his hat, his face still very much obscured, yet the emotions on it were not.

♡ You recognised this emotion, for you'd worn it yourself, both inwardly and out, for the last three months.

♡ Fear.

♡ In its purest and most carnal form.

♡ And a voice, strained with either agony or disuse.

♡ “Help me.”

♡ Throughout the night, you tended to Outlaw's wound. A maw-like, gaping thing it was, spouting blood as one would bucket water out of a sinking boat.

♡ Luckily, you didn't have to worry about shrapnel; the bullet went clean through outlaw's side, leeaving only the aftermath and not the instigator. You managed to stop the bleeding, use the stitching on Outlaw's shirt (which was basically yours now) to sew the wound closed.

♡ For the first time, Outlaw was uncharacteristically human.

♡ Sure, you'd seen the scars on his back when he bathed, the many brushes with death he'd encountered, some advancing into a dance, much like this night's escapade had been.

♡ But you knew, somewhere, somehow, that without another pair of hands here, Outlaw likely wouldn't have pulled through.

♡ Not this time.

♡ And now, here you sat, at Outlaw's beck and call, his bedside your new home.

♡ You watched over him, the cabin silent, the night just as quiet. Even the crickets seemed to chirp quieter, either out of fear or respect for the almost dearly departed.

♡ And, looking up from the massacre on the bed, your gaze swept the room. And you realise something.

♡ The front door, which neither you, nor Outlaw locked, is unguarded.

♡ Yandere outlaw is riddled with sleep, his agony having stripped him of his energy and his strength.

♡ So...why hadn't you tried to escape yet ?

♡ Looking over at Outlaw, sound asleep, you realised just how easy it would be to walk out that door.

♡ Sure, you might get lost. Might die of hypothermia during the freezing hours of a dessert night, but with enough layers, food and water, you saw no reason as to why you couldn't just leave right now.

♡ After all, it wasn't like you'd be killing Outlaw if you left. Sure he might die of infection, or blood loss if his stitches come undone. But you'd at least tried to help him. So your conscience wasn't going to be the issue.

♡ So what was stopping you ?

♡ Looking back at the Outlaw, you felt strange.

♡ The urge to protect him, to care for him, outweighed even your greatest notion of escape, which explained why the thought to do so hadn't hit you until just now.

♡ You bit your lip, looking between Outlaw and the door.

♡ Both options were tantilisingly easy to pursue, and yet only one would be available to you, the other perishing if you ignored it.

♡ Maybe hours passed. Maybe it was mere minutes.

♡ But watching the Outlaw sleep, at his most vulnerable, with his pleading “Help me,” rattling around in your mind, the choice already seemed to be made for you. You just didn't want to tell yourself exactly why. 

♡ So...you stayed.

Reblog for more content like this! It helps creators like myself tremendously and it is greatly appreciated :-)

Masterlist Yandere Masterpost Masterpost

[transbookoftheday]

Trans Horror Podcasts

My post about trans horror books last year was much more popular than I expected, and since I've recently fallen in love with fiction podcasts and audio dramas, I thought I'd make a post about trans horror podcasts as well.

If you like trans horror, please give these a try - especially if you enjoy listening to audiobooks!

Hello From The Hallowoods:

Come walk between the black pines! In this award-winning queer fiction podcast, an eldritch narrator follows the increasingly connected residents of the forest at the end of the world. It's a bittersweet story that explores queer identity, horror genre tropes, and finding hope in humanity's last moments.

Hello From The Hallowoods is my absolute favorite podcast! If you only listen to one podcast from this list, please make it this one - it's so beautifully written and super queer! Also: season 4 starts today!

Trans main characters include:

our nonbinary eye-affiliated podcast host

a nonbinary "Frankenstein's creature"

a transmasc ghost

a genderfluid storm witch

a trans woman who can visit other people's dreams

multiple characters using neopronouns

Camp Here & There:

Good morning, campers! Camp Here & There is a weekly horror comedy podcast tuned in to the loudspeakers of a small midwestern sleepaway camp plagued by supernatural terrors and natural disasters. Sydney Sargent, resident camp nurse, cheerfully reports on all the terror we must face with a big smile. Let’s hope there’s nothing weird about that!

Sydney is a trans man.

Dos: After You:

Things have changed. Deck has fallen in love with someone who isn't human, and leaves a hungry house behind to see him again. Will he be waiting for you? The world has changed… but what about him? Dos: After You is a queer urban fantasy/horror audiodrama available in both English & Spanish

Deck is a trans man.

Jar of Rebuke:

Follow Dr. Jared Hel's journey as he works to re-discover his forgotten past and finds his place within the small Indiana farm town of Wichton and the cryptozoological organization he works for called 'The Enclosure'. These audio journals, and other recordings, dive deep into Midwestern US cryptids and folklore while also telling a mystery about identity, queerness, neurodivergence, and community.

Jared is nonbinary.

Spirit Box Radio:

Spirit Box Radio is an award winning, horror audio drama podcast about a radio show for enthusiasts of all things arcane. Follow Sam Enfield a former postboy with no experience in the arcane arts, who finds themselves forced to take over running the show, following the disappearance of the previous host. Sam soon discovers there are more than ghosts haunting the show, and finds himself amidst a mystery which threatens everything he knows about the world beyond his tiny basement broadcast studio, and maybe even himself.

Sam is a trans man.

The Silt Verses:

Carpenter and Faulkner, two worshippers of an outlawed god, travel up the length of their deity’s great black river, searching for holy revelations amongst the reeds and the wetlands. As their pilgrimage lengthens and the river’s mysteries deepen, the two acolytes find themselves under threat from a police manhunt, but also come into conflict with the weirder gods that have flourished in these forgotten rural territories. This is a world where divine intervention takes place through prayer-markings scratched into stumping-posts, and offerings are left squirming to die in the flats of the delta. This is a world of ritual, and hidden language, and sacrifice. This is folk horror, and fantasy, and a dark road trip into the depths of unusual faith.

Faulkner is a trans man and Paige is a trans woman.

The Magnus Protocol:

The Magnus Archives 2: The Magnus Protocol is the prequel/sequel/”sidequel” to the internationally renowned Magnus Archives podcast. The Magnus Institute was an organisation dedicated to academic research into the esoteric and the paranormal, based out of Manchester, England. It burned to the ground in 1999. There were no survivors. Now, almost 25 years later, Alice and Sam, a pair of low-level civil service workers at the underfunded Office of Incident Assessment and Response, have stumbled across its legacy. A legacy that will put them in grave danger. If this intrigues you then it is our pleasure to welcome you to the Office of Incident, Assessment and Response. Make sure you pick up your badge at desk and report to your line manager before sitting down. Oh and stay away from I.T., seriously.

Alice is a trans woman.

[wesstars]

ducked out

tara carpenter x fem!reader (no pronouns)

summary: sam doesn't like what she's hearing. wc: 401 tags: suggestive language a/n: for the wonderful @evilwednesday.

masterlist

“Don’t you think it’s kind of small?”

Sam stopped in her tracks right in front of Tara’s door, feeling the shock of pure terror shoot through her spine. That was Tara’s voice, and while Sam didn’t want to jump to conclusions, things weren’t looking good for her sister right about now.

“No, this is an average size.” Your voice came through the door, snappy. In all honesty, you were the only one of Tara’s girlfriends that Sam had actually liked—she was desperately clinging to this thought as her mind went to the worst.

“It’s a weird design, though…”

“I like this design, Tara.”

“How much does it fit?”

Sam couldn’t make out your hushed words from behind the door, but dread began to ball in her stomach, heavy and sickening, as she couldn’t bring herself to just move. She desperately wanted to, of course, but it was like being frozen from fear.

“Wow, that’s a lot… oh—”

Closing her eyes in pain, Sam felt indignation began to take over. Of course, you and Tara were adults. It—it—was normal, perfectly so, but being faced with its reality… that was something Sam couldn’t handle.

“Just put it in!”

“No, it’s not going in.” Your voice floated alongside Tara’s. What the fuck?

“Try flipping it around.”

“I did, it’s not working!”

Truly, the world was ending for Sam. An apocalypse, natural disaster, global famine, couldn’t have topped this.

“Flip it back, just put it in—” Tara said insistently.

“Okay—”

“FUCK!” Yours and Tara’s voices sounded in unison as the door slammed against the wall. Sam stood in the entrance, panting with bright red cheeks.

“Sam! You almost broke the door down!” Tara was rightfully indignant, you thought. What the hell was Sam doing anyway, barging in and being impossibly loud?

You turned back, giving it one last shove. “Tara, I got it!” Sam dropped to the floor, face in her hands, as Tara faced you with a grin.

“God, you’re the best,” Tara said as she leaned in and gave you a kiss. “I was worried I’d have to go and get one myself.”

You reached out and rubbed Tara’s arm. “You can always trust me, babe.” A USB stood proudly in Tara’s PC, complete with a pattern of uniquely dressed ducks, of Robson...

A flash drive had ended Sam Carpenter’s world, and neither you nor her sister had a care in the world.

--

a/n cont’d: pranked… haha… happy fish of april 🦆

[wheelie-sick]

CW: ableist violence resulting in death

every time there's a natural disaster I think about the story I heard about a wildfire in California. the wildfire started quickly just outside of town, people only had a few hours to evacuate. there was an elderly man in the town, the story was told by his granddaughter who lived across the country. the fire swept through town and when they returned the house he lived in was burnt. outside in the yard they found the scalded metal remains of a wheelchair and a garden hose. he couldn't evacuate himself so he did all that he could to survive a natural disaster no one wanted to help him run from.

disabled people are always second thoughts when it comes time to leave. under the guise of being too time consuming and difficult to transport we have our avoidable deaths justified. to an abled society our lives are not valuable enough to be worth saving. in a natural disaster we are downright not viewed as human beings. we are left to die horrific deaths drowning and burning alive, watching as our inevitable ends come to meet us, being left with little to fight off what's coming.

I cannot even begin to imagine the terror that man must have felt watching a fire creep towards him with nothing but a garden hose to defend himself. I cannot comprehend the pain he felt. I cannot bear to think about how alone and unwanted he must have felt sitting on that lawn knowing that nobody was coming- that he had been left behind. he is not the only person who has experienced this. how many other disabled people unable to leave have watched as death crept towards them?

as hurricane Helene prepares to hit Florida I think about all the people who could not get out, all the people who are being left behind. I think about their final moments, how they must feel so uncared for, so scared. I think about how people in my community are going to die entirely preventable deaths because abled society does not consider them worth saving. I think about how the world will not mourn them, how the world will forget about them, how the world will mock them as "too stupid to leave" how no one cares now and no one will care in the future. I think about how this will happen again, how there will be a next time.

I think about how disabled people are so incredibly invisible to the people around us.

[thelifeofchuckmovie]

When it comes to ending the world, Stephen King is a repeat offender. He has brought life as we know it to a brutal conclusion several times over the decades, usually highlighting the cruelty and desperation that erupts among the last to go. But his 2020 story “The Life of Chuck” uses doomsday to evoke some unlikely sentiments: Wistfulness. Gratitude. Even joy.

The idea of creating an apocalyptic version of It’s a Wonderful Life is what led filmmaker Mike Flanagan to call dibs on the rights to the novella more than four years ago. The breakdown of society, extinction-level natural disasters, and the disintegration of reality itself is explored through the lens of one relatively meek and mild accountant, played by Tom Hiddleston, whose memories and choices are mysteriously connected to these tribulations. Retirement posters congratulating him on “39 great years” pop up everywhere. But who is this guy? What job does he do (or did he used to do)? And why does it matter so much to the fate of the world? This apparent nobody named Chuck Krantz has lived larger than anyone thought possible.

Having explored King country before in 2017’s Gerald’s Game and 2019’s The Shining sequel Doctor Sleep, Flanagan got involved after reading an early copy of “Chuck” before it was published in the collection If It Bleeds. The Haunting of Hill House and Fall of the House of Usher creator produced the film independently, believing it might be too offbeat for risk-averse studios to greenlight. He even secured a waiver from the striking Hollywood guilds last year to move forward with the shoot while the rest of the industry was stuck in the work stoppage. Now he and Hiddleston are ready to reveal the finished version of The Life of Chuck as it heads to the upcoming Toronto International Film Festival, where it will screen for potential distributors.

Among the skeptics about this adaptation was King himself, according to Flanagan. “His initial responses to me were a little like, ‘Oh, okay. Yeah. If you think that’s a movie…,’” he says. “He did say several times that he thought it would be a challenge to get it supported through traditional means.”

King has now seen the finished movie and no longer has doubts. He described it to Vanity Fair as “a happiness machine.”

“Well, he’s written something very tender and very wise,” Hiddleston says. “I think there is a great wisdom in the soul of the story, which is that it takes courage to hold on to what is good in a world that feels like it’s falling apart.”

Flanagan hopes others see it that way too, although the overpowering dread that begins the story may be more immediately relatable. “I’ve heard it said that every generation feels a little like the world is ending at some point, [but] I still feel like it’s different for us,” the 46-year-old filmmaker says with a mordant laugh. “Institutions we took for granted as propping up our society are failing left and right. Our politics have degraded spectacularly. The sense that it’s breaking down, that the world is moving on, has been increasingly palpable. When I talk to my parents or members of older generations who have been through their own turbulent times, the thing that strikes me is that they’re like, ‘Oh yeah, this is really bad.’”

But…it’s not entirely bad. And that’s the underlying message of The Life of Chuck as its various mysteries play out. “There’s no sense of terror in the way that King drew it,” Flanagan says. “Even as the world feels as though it’s ending, people become introspective, they reach into their past for loves that have left their lives for one reason or another. Strangers engage in open and fearless communication.”

It’s an indie-film variation on the big-budget cataclysm story. “A disaster movie has people meeting the end while running from tidal waves, and this story has people sitting quietly holding hands looking at the stars,” Flanagan says.

The key to it all is Chuck himself, although he doesn’t turn up onscreen until the second segment of the three-act story, which plays out in reverse chronological order.

The beginning is actually the end, as the whole world circles the drain. Caught in this spiral is Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years a Slave), a school teacher trying to apply logic to the planet’s troubles; Karen Gillan (Guardians of the Galaxy) is his ex, a hospital worker determined to save everyone she can; Matthew Lillard (Scream) is a construction worker neighbor who finds zen amid the chaos; and Carl Lumbly (Alias), plays a funeral director who has dedicated his life to easing people through death.

The end of the movie is actually the beginning, showing young Chuck (Benjamin Pajak) when he was a boy being raised by his grandparents (Mia Sara of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Mark Hamill). The insight of these two—coupled with the otherworldly revelations he finds in an eerie room tucked into the peak of their Victorian home—help him learn to seek out bright spots when life is marred by sorrow and darkness.

In elementary school, young Chuck discovers some important things about himself thanks to guidance from a brusque dance instructor (Samantha Sloyan), and a kindhearted English teacher, played by Kate Siegel, who gives the boy (not to mention the audience) some important information that serves as a code breaker for the story's more cosmic puzzles.

As for the middle of the film: It’s a dance number. That’s when Hiddleston steps in.

Compounding the peculiarity of The Life of Chuck is the question: Why is this song and dance sequence so important? The answer is for the movie to reveal, but it matters a lot. “The life of every human being is a constellation, as expressed in this film,” Hiddleston says. “There are certain moments which will burn most brightly as individual stars. Sometimes it feels like the world is going to hell in a handcart, and it’s full of pain and suffering, and it is—but there are moments of deep joy and deep connection.”

Hiddleston shows the audience this single moment in the life of a buttoned-up fellow who somehow controls the destiny of the world. It’s not necessarily the most important day in his life, but it’s a memorable one involving a street drummer (Taylor Gordon), a lovely stranger (played by Annalise Basso), and a fateful decision to cast aside caution and cut a rug. “It’s a reminder to do whatever it is that expresses whatever gives you that feeling of being alive,” Hiddleston says. “Whether it’s music or dancing or math or writing or creativity—do it. Do it now. Those moments are what you’ll remember.”

Flanagan considered casting a relative unknown as Chuck to “give the audience the experience of ‘Who the hell is this person?’” as the peculiar retirement signs begin to appear in the midst of the apocalypse. But he felt the promise of the Loki star would build more curiosity as the world falls apart. “You grow an enormous amount of anticipation to finally spend time with an actor like Tom, who can be a literal god in one story, and then an everyman in another,” Flanagan says.

A TikTok video of Hiddleston getting his groove on sealed the deal. “He had a completely unfiltered joy on his face,” Flanagan says. “He was a good dancer, but that wasn’t what struck me. I wasn’t amazed by the technique so much as the degree of happiness that was radiating off of him. The look on his face made me smile the same way I smiled reading that particular portion of the book.”

The resulting scene was created in a month-long collaboration between Flanagan, Hiddleston, Basso, choreographer Mandy Moore (So You Think You Can Dance, and La La Land), and Gordon, a real-life percussionist who performs under the name the Pocket Queen. “Taylor was there for all of the dance choreography. She wrote that piece of music for that performance. They built it together,” Flanagan says.

Hiddleston rattles off the lists of influences: “I had to learn in six weeks the full regime of any dance training. We did jazz, swing, salsa, cha-cha, the Charleston, bossa nova, polka, quickstep, samba. We were trying to tip our hat to anything that might have influenced Chuck. It might’ve had a bit of Gene Kelly or Fred and Ginger. Certainly moonwalking—Stephen King is very specific about the moonwalk.”

Precision was not the goal, exuberance was what they sought. “We need to always bear in mind that this man is an accountant. We needed this to be an earnest, escalating explosion of joy, and a remembrance of who he was,” Flanagan says. “It’s a chance to step back into the skin of his younger self, not caring that his feet are going to kill him the next day, not caring that he’s going to wake up with a horribly stiff neck.”

A surprising thing happened while shooting the scene over the course of several sweltering afternoons in the deep South. “I burned holes in my shoes,” Hiddleston says. “I was dancing out on the asphalt in Alabama, and by the time we’d finished, you could see my socks through the soles.”

The sequence begins awkwardly: Chuck is self-conscious as he first hears the busker’s rhythm while walking back from a banking conference. That feeling quickly gets shaken off. “Tom was very committed,” Flanagan says. “He was like, ‘If I look silly, that’s fine. As long as I look happy.’”

Flanagan remembers being in a bad place when he first discovered “The Life of Chuck.” Then again, everybody was.

His copy of the manuscript arrived in March 2020. “That was just as the world shut down for COVID,” he says. “We had been a week away from starting principal photography on Midnight Mass in Vancouver and had fled across the border before it closed to make it back to the States. We were hunkered down in our homes and had no idea if this was going to last for two weeks or if this was going to last forever.”

With everything halted as the lockdown set in, Flanagan had plenty of time to do nothing but read. The new King book seemed like the perfect escape. Except…

“The first third of ‘The Life of Chuck’ just rattled me,” he recalls. “There’s no way he wrote this before the world ground to this bizarre halt—but he did. And the feeling of anxiety, and uncertainty, and that everything was falling apart came roaring out at me. I wasn’t sure I could finish it. It just felt too close to the anxiety I was feeling.” But he kept turning the pages. “By the end of it, I was in tears, and incredibly uplifted, and convinced I’d read maybe the best thing that he’d written in a decade. I just was floored by the thing,” Flanagan says. “So I fired off an email to him right away saying how much I loved the story, how incredible I thought it was, how meaningful, and important, and how it had really tattooed itself on my heart and said, ‘It’s the movie I want to make so that it’ll exist in the world for my kids.’”

King’s response: Not so fast. Flanagan and his producing partner, Trevor Macy, had at that point secured the rights to King’s fantasy saga The Dark Tower through their company, Intrepid Pictures. The eight-book series is threaded throughout King’s other works, and adapting it was a massive undertaking that Flanagan is still working to make happen. Other filmmakers had either abandoned the project, were canceled midway through, or bombed miserably. The author didn’t want him to be distracted. “He doesn’t like to give the same filmmaker more than one thing, because it typically means one thing is not advancing at all,” Flanagan says. “He said, ‘Well, let’s focus on The Tower and I’ll try to keep this one available for you for later.’”

The quest to The Dark Tower remains a priority for Flanagan, but a number of disruptions to that epic undertaking led him to reapproach King last year about Chuck. Intrepid’s deal with Netflix, where they had created Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor, and other shows, had come to a close, and Intrepid signed a new development agreement with Amazon. That meant starting over on The Dark Tower. Meanwhile, the threat of a double-barreled strike by writers and actors was on the horizon, stalling nearly every major new project. The industry plunged into another production-halting lockdown, this time over contract impasses rather than a virus.

Since The Dark Tower was suddenly further off on the horizon, Flanagan saw a chance to make The Life of Chuck happen in the short term. “It’s so rare that I get to approach any project that just has not an ounce of cynicism to it. I just really believed in this thing,” he says. “But it was also clear that we would have an incredibly uphill battle bringing the story to any major studio. They would try to make it as familiar as possible, instead of leaning into what makes it so different.”

King gave Flanagan his blessing to proceed. “I was off like a shot,” the filmmaker says. “I think I turned in the draft to him before he got around to sending the formal agreement.”

For everyone involved, The Life of Chuck became a bright spot in an otherwise dismal time, which matches the theme of the film. “There is a profound optimism in this story,” Hiddleston says. “As the world is spinning off its axis, there are moments of magic.”

[zillychu]

I really like your “ghosts treated as natural disasters” au! It’s super cool! I wonder how people get around the fact that phantom has never been seen sucking anybody’s life force out? Do they think he’s building up to something big or just protective of the population center he’s found

That's a great question! I tried to keep that post as short and sweet as possible but oh man do I have a lot more nitty gritty details in mind.

For one, ghosts aren't restricted to Amity Park. They have haunts (territories) but they have lairs in the ghost zone as well, so they tend to go back and forth between the worlds.

However, only the Fentons have a portal with a fixed location, and they rarely have it turned on. (Fun fact: the Fenton portal is made after ghosts explode into the human realm in this AU!) There are areas on earth with higher portal activity, but where they pop up and how long they stay is pretty random.

So, ghosts naturally wander. They pop back into the human realm as they wish, but it's not always close to their haunt. Lots of lesser ghosts don't even have haunts, too mindless for intelligence and more like roaming animals. Smarter ghosts can be curious and explore other parts of earth. They tend to only get defensive of their haunt if they sense other ghosts hunting there excessively, or trying to lay claim on the haunt.

So, in short, Phantom isn't always in Amity. He's there most frequently, but does appear elsewhere on earth at times. There's basically no way to tell how many ghost-related deaths are Phantom's fault.

Not only that, but slowly devouring a human's life force over time isn't uncommon! More intelligent ghosts will do this in an effort to prolong the duration of their "meal", and indulge in the terror it incites. A lot of people simply get very ill and exhausted over time, until there's not enough life left in them. But since this happens to humans naturally all the time, well... it's often hard to tell if the decline in health is from natural causes, or a ghost. (Lesser ghosts don't eat as much, but they have no intelligence to keep them from stopping till they're full. They get full quickly though, so you're less likely to die if one catches you. Just watch out for multiple encounters.)

Danny does take this to an extreme, though! Humans do replenish their life force naturally over time--it's just that ghosts that eat slowly still overcome that natural regeneration. Phantom is literally the only ghost that takes so little over such a large population that it's barely perceptible (unless he messes up, which, oops--that's happened).

But there's simply no evidence that this is probable, or even possible. Ghosts have no reason to do this, it's not as satisfying to them if their prey doesn't experience the terror that comes with knowing they're being drained.

(Also, just another fun little factoid: haunts are usually small! Lesser ghosts will haunt a single item, stronger ones will haunt a building, the strongest on record will haunt something like a park or complex. No one has figured out yet that Phantom haunts all of Amity because that's unheard of!)

Another factoid: ghosts don't need life force to survive! They lived in the ghost zone all this time just fine.

Life energy simply gives them more power, and better ability to stay in the human realm longer, and more corporeal. And it's instinct--it tastes good.

Danny, however, does need that life energy to survive. He needs his ghost half strong enough to stay attached to him, or it could detach and leave his human half dead. Then he'd just be another ghost.

(Also, The more sentient a life is, the stronger it is. So ghosts could technically drain the life of plants and animals, but it's gonna be mostly empty calories.)

[angstyhikka]

Anarchist comic START

Next

Hi guys! Two months ago we with @levshany started a comic on our Anarchist AU!

Here is some Introduction! In this story, Phillip and Collie have been terrorizing the Boiling Islands for several hundred years and are considered not only criminals but a real Natural Disaster. And they are afraid no warriors or hunters. But there is one clan that has every chance of changing this, a clan that has devoted itself to the fight against the King and the Jester for generations! Royal Clan Clathorne. It looks like the Age of the King and the Jester is coming to an end… or is it?

Totally it will be 30 pages long and we already finished 12 and you can check them on my Patreon to support our work!^^

[ninjatrashpanda]

Come Home And Be(e) With Your Man

Written for @bucktommypositivityweek Round 2! (Day 1: Make your own Season 8 opening disaster) Read on AO3 here!

To say that Buck was exhausted was an understatement. 22 million fucking bees. And hell, if it had been normal honey bees or whatever, that would’ve been fine! Honey bees are cute, little critters who don’t do anything to anyone who doesn’t deserve it, never mind that they’re a necessity for the environment. Honey bees rock! But no, it had been Africanized bees. Twenty-two million killer bees. Why? Just why?

It wasn’t like Buck’s day hadn’t been completely in shambles before that either. Every day was automatically in shambles when Vincent Gerrard was your captain. When he wasn’t getting on Eddie’s case for being “lazy,” he was on Hen’s about “keeping up with the boys,” or throwing mocking questions about Chinese take-out at Chimney. But, as awful as it was, Buck had been prepared for that. Hen, Chim and Tommy had warned him and Eddie about it, and had made him promise not to jump in and punch the son of a bitch in the face first chance he got. Even Eddie, the first time Gerrard threw a casual joke about “the wall” at him, had squeezed Buck’s shoulder and told him that it was fine (it wasn’t) and that it wasn’t anything he hadn’t heard before. Gerrard wasn’t worth getting fired over.

But the thing was, Buck was a minority now, too. He hadn’t really thought about it before, but he was. And the first time Gerrard had decided to call him “fruity,” right after wondering out loud who between him and Tommy was “wearing the pants,” Buck had almost blown a gasket and thrown him over the station loft’s railing. He’d always theoretically known that comments like Gerrard’s hurt, and he had always, even back when he was still in school, gotten pissed off beyond belief when he overheard someone making them toward other people.

Having them directed at himself was completely different though. Working under Gerrard had made him realize just how small, how worthless an attitude like that could make you feel. He wasn’t too proud to admit that he had cried into Tommy’s shoulder the night that had happened either. Buck had tried to play tough at first, but Tommy had known it was an act, and a single “Evan” in that concerned, warm voice of his had been enough to make Buck feel safe enough to let it all out.

So, Gerrard had been reigning in terror for weeks at this point, and then a truck transporting twenty-two million Africanized killer bees had crashed on the highway, letting them lose on the citizens of Los Angeles, because why the fuck not, right?! It was tiring, in more ways than one, and at the end of that shift from hell, (He was half convinced the new C-Shift probie had said the “Q” word, and at least five times, if not more.) Buck hadn’t even bothered to go shower at the station, he just wanted to get out as soon as possible, even if it meant making his jeep reek of sweat and bee.

He wasn’t fully sure how he ended up making it to Tommy’s house, or even up the driveway to the front door. His legs felt like his shoes were made of concrete, Buck being barely able to lift his feet off the ground. Strands of his hair, which he’d left mostly in its naturally curly state because Tommy liked it that way, were sticking uncomfortably to his forehead, making him feel profoundly gross. He really couldn’t wait to stand under some nice, warm water, followed by cuddling up with his nice, beefy boyfriend on the couch to watch literally any movie that didn’t have bees in it, where he would probably fall asleep on Tommy’s shoulder, with his arms embracing him.

Even thinking about it made Buck feel full of bliss.

The moment he unlocked and opened the front door, (They had exchanged keys a month ago. Buck’s stomach had fluttered for days after, every time he remembered.) Buck was hit with the mouthwatering, unmistakable scent of Nonna Ricci’s special ragù. Tommy was making Arancini, a dish Buck had fallen in love with the moment he had taken a bite out of one. The smell alone was enough to slightly lift the weight on Buck’s shoulders.

Following the trail through Tommy’s living room into the kitchen, he found his boyfriend at the stove, his back to the door, fishing the crispy, perfectly golden rice balls out of the pot-turned-makeshift-deep fryer. He was humming a cheery tune as he worked, seemingly oblivious to Buck’s presence. Buck, in turn, simply leaned against the door frame and watched Tommy work for a moment. His eyes traced over Tommy’s broad shoulders, the way his back muscles flexed with every little movement, the way he was slightly swinging his hips left to right and left again in perfect sync with his little melody.

Almost subconsciously, Buck moved over toward Tommy, who now shot a small look over his shoulder with a small smirk on his lips. Wiggling his eyebrows a little, (and making Buck’s stomach do somersaults in the process) he turned back toward the stove, while Buck finally reached him and wrapped his arms around Tommy’s waist, his nose instantly landing in the crook of Tommy’s neck. The slight scent of vanilla and sandalwood on Tommy’s skin told Buck that his boyfriend had already showered himself, which didn’t really surprise him. With the whole ass bee-nado that had descended onto the city, clearly AirOps had pushed overtime the same as the 118 and, well, probably every station in LA.

“Hey, baby, how are-oof,” Tommy began before he got cut off by Buck collapsing against his back. Buck would feel sorry, but he couldn’t bring himself to right now. His legs had been shaky with exhaustion since he’d left the station, and Tommy was big, and broad, and firm and Buck just couldn’t help using him to lean on for a moment. If Tommy’s low chuckle was anything to go by, he really didn’t mind. “Didn’t even need to ask, huh?”

“I hate bees.”

Tommy let out a loud laugh at that and turned off the stove, the last of the arancini having been fished out of the hot oil. He slowly turned around in Buck’s arms, Buck lifting his head with a small whine at not being able to smell Tommy anymore. Tommy, not missing a beat, quickly silenced him with a soft kiss and reached up to card his fingers through Buck’s hair, an action that never ceased to help Buck relax.

“Yeah, I get it,” Tommy mumbled against Buck’s lips. “A whole bunch of them almost got into my cockpit during a MedEvac call. I don’t want to know what it was like actually having to deal with them hands-on.”

Buck hummed and moved his arms from Tommy’s hips to wrap them tightly around his lower back. His nose found Tommy’s neck once more, that beautiful scent entering his system again, almost like a drug he’d been on withdrawal from. Tommy wasted no time in burying his own face in Buck’s curls, tenderly nuzzling against his temple.

“Don’t do that, I’m filthy.”

“Mhm, sure, but I like you when you’re filthy.”

Tommy’s voice was low and playful, sending a shiver down Buck’s spine. His hands were gentle as they roamed Buck’s back, tracing soothing patterns that somehow made Buck feel like the weight of the day was finally lifting off his shoulders. It was moments like this that Buck simply couldn’t have with anyone else. He tried picturing coming home to Taylor like this, sweaty, and smelly, and tired, both mentally and physically. He was certain she’d be sympathetic and quick to agree to a nice, lazy evening in front of the TV, but there was no way in hell she would’ve flirted with him like that while he was in this state.

“Yeah? Well, this is a new level of filthy, Tommy,” Buck murmured into the warm skin of Tommy’s neck, inhaling deeply. He didn’t care if he was gross and covered in sweat and bee guts; in this moment, he just needed to be close, to feel Tommy solid and warm against him.

Tommy pulled back slightly, just enough to catch Buck’s gaze. His eyes were soft, and full of that gentle understanding that Buck had grown to love more than anything. (The L word had been on his mind quite a bit lately, but he ignored it for now. It was way too soon for any of that anyway.) He brushed a stray curl away from Buck’s forehead and let his thumb linger, softly caressing Buck’s cheek. “Shower, then food, yeah? I’ve got some fresh towels in the bathroom for you.”

Buck nodded, his exhaustion seeping back in as Tommy’s suggestion sank in. As much as he wanted to just melt into Tommy and let the world disappear, he knew he’d feel a million times better after a hot shower. Especially if said shower wasn’t alone. “Yeah, okay,” he sighed, his voice barely above a whisper. He still managed to put on an at least passable flirty smile. “I, uh, I could definitely use…a shower.”

Tommy pressed another quick kiss to Buck’s lips, his hand lingering on Buck’s neck, squeezing reassuringly. “I’ll have everything ready by the time you’re out,” he promised. “And we can just crash after, alright? Nothing but couch, blankets, and the worst movie we can find.”

With that, Tommy stepped out of Buck’s embrace and moved over to the refrigerator. Buck blinked several times as he watched Tommy take out a head of iceberg lettuce, which he took to the sink to wash it. What…was Tommy doing? Buck briefly wondered if Tommy was trolling him, but that didn’t seem to be something he’d do, at least not after a day like this. 

“Uh, babe?” he asked, getting Tommy’s attention. His hands were tearing the lettuce apart, the loose leaves landing in a large strainer Tommy always used to wash his veggies. Focusing on Tommy’s hands, however brief it may have been, actually made Buck almost salviate, so he met Tommy’s questioning look with a dark, heated one of his own. “I said I could use a shower.”

The exaggerated head movements toward the general direction of Tommy’s bathroom seemed to do the trick. Tommy’s mouth formed an enlightened “O” as he realized what Buck was playing at, right before he dropped the whole head of lettuce into the strainer. He seemingly forgot about it entirely right after as he walked toward the door in quick strides, pulling his henley over his head and throwing it aside to the kitchen floor in one fluid motion in the process.

With a wide grin, Buck followed suit, his own shirt quickly joining Tommy’s. As he followed Tommy out into the living room while opening his belt, Buck couldn’t help but let out a happy sigh. He had this now. He had Tommy. Tommy, who was supportive, who got what the job was like, who knew how to help him take the edge of.

Tommy, who was always there, always constant, always knew what to do.

Tommy, who Buck was sure he was in love with. And though it may be too soon to say those words exactly, Buck wasn’t scared about feeling them.

He was in love with Tommy Kinard. And he loved every second of it.