#also i have a fever and every time i'm ill i start overheating them in the microwave of my brain... coincidence??? i don't think so

[thesoftestmess]

you give me two characters who are not quite human and are defined by their compassion and softness and then you make them be each other's sole companions for 400 years and make them co-govern a nation together and then you also reveal that they were both more or less the two only puppets in a larger-than-life play against the authority of the literal heavens and neither of them fully understood the role they were playing and then you make one turn against the other and make them watch a part of the other die and all this sacrifice and pain ends up saving a lot of people's lives, but it also ends with them away from each other for the first time in four centuries with a million things unspoken and you expect me not to ship them????

[hello-im-not-a-possum]

I'm now cursed with this image: Itty bitty cameraman falling ill with fever and feeling unwell all day after a freak accident at a film studio. He's so out of it that Miss Twisted and Brute get legitimately concerned and confine him to a bed all day before he hurts himself. Come nightfall he still doesn't feel well so the others go call a doctor and maybe find a safe way to bring down his fever. While they're out of the room Cameraman goes through a transformation scene straight out of an american werewolf in london, and turns into a mindless towering projector monster. He smashes through a window and escapes into the city to cause chaos, much to the shock and confusion of his two roomies who just thought he had the flu.

I read this thinking ‘damn I should write something about this’ and I couldn’t help myself:

At first, Cameraman’s behavior when he got back was nothing too out of the ordinary. It was normal for the film critic criminal to sulk over a failed plan (and maybe take a drink or two before returning).

Especially when said plan involved a film studio that had, in his words; “Not only made and reinforced terrible stereotypes but had also spat in the very eyes of the art of movie making and kicked it in the shins repeatedly by only hashing out the exact same sloppily made horror flick every year and slapping ‘remastered’ or some other trash like that on the title.”

At first, the other members of the Society for the Shellacking of Souper Boris were fine with letting him sulk in his workshop for most of the day while planning on doing something to cheer him up later, but usually, even when it gets bad, these sulk fests never included coughing fits.

“ARGH!” The camera-headed crook crumpled up the blueprints for his failed machine and threw them in the trash so hard that it knocked the can over, spilling the contents all over the floor of his workshop area. “S-stupid ‘Maze of the heart ripper’ series, stupid Olden Arch Studios, stupid- *HAAAAACKK!* *COUGH!* *CoUgH!* *cOUgh!* *COugH!* *COUGH!* *COUGH!*”

“Brute brought back fire fuel! Missy and I wanted to- CAMERAMAN?!”

The Brute walked into the scene of Cameraman coughing so hard that he was flopping around on the trashy floor as if he were a live fish on a hot pan. The large wolf imminently dropped the stack of the ‘maze of the heart ripper’ movie reels (that were stolen of course, the three wouldn’t dare give a single penny of support to THOSE types of movies.) and rushed over to help his friend up.

“...Cameraman okay?”

“Ự̺̺̞U̼̮͓̪u̺̪̰u̘͚̺̗̟̻̰u̦̪̪̘̰ͅuuU̷͍̠̲̰̰̪̩U̧̬͓͇Ù̼̺͈̠͇͓̩u҉͓̩̳u̻̩̰̟̮͉̲ų̹̖̫̜̜̤g̞͈̗̼̟̞͖͝g̤̯G̷̻͎̣̙g̝̘̗̫̺͘g̞͓̱̲̖̞ͅG̵̘̦̩͇̗̱G̛͓̠͔̱̳̯g͉͍͖̖̥ͅh͔̲̬̗͇̮̟̀ẖ̡͖̱h̼̬̖͕h͎H̭̬͍͓̭̣̳H̹͍̳͍͓H̟̪̪H͖̜̗̱́h̭h̹͔̤͓h̘͍̪̤.̣̹͖̖͍.͚̳͈̗̞.̖̫̘͜”

The toon swayed and staggered as he clutched onto his wolf roommate’s paw.

“I-I͢'͞ve͡ *COugh!* ̸ńev҉e̵r fe̷lt ̕bette̡r͏!͟ In fact, I’m not going to let that sorry excuse for a horror move studio let it see another moment’s worth of peace! All I need is to make a few adjustments to the blueprints and- HE-H-HEY! Brute! put me down!”

The Brute shook his head as he carried Cameraman out of his workshop and up to his room.

“Cameraman sick and needs rest, not vengeance.”

“But I’m *HAACCKK!!* *COUGH!* fine!” Cameraman fruitlessly struggled against the wolf’s grip. “It’s just some dust! I probably got some caught when the studio partly collapsed.”

“Then why leaking black fluid out speaker? And why head feel like hot stove?”

“Okay, so maybe I am *COUGH!* a little bit overheated, but not by much! They’re already weakened, I did make *HAAACK* a dent in their precious studio but if I really want *REICH!* to do some damage, then I need to get back there and *COugh!* *COUgh!* *coUGH!*”

“Cameraman flopped on floor like dying trout, and is still flopping now. Me think it bad idea to let you wreak havoc right now. Go sleep.”

The demoness sprang down from the ceiling with a mildly annoyed but quizzical expression on her face.

“What’s with all the racket you two? I could hear you all the way from the roof!”

“Cameraman has flu and needs sleep.”

The giant wolf calmly remarked before readjusting his cargo while giving a suspicious look to the fresh stain on his fur, a stain that smelled kinda like some weird type of ink to him, or oil? He was not an expert on the strange smells that emanate from mysterious dark liquids that started oozing out of his friends.

“...And maybe doctor.”

“No *HAAAACK!* I don’t!”

“Aww... poor little Cammy...” Miss Twisted sympathetically patted the camera headed toon on the shoulder. “I know how much it sucks to get sick when you want to make the fools who wronged you suffer, but health must come first, or else evil can’t prosper!”

“I’m the *REICH!* very picture of health!”

...

Cameraman struggled against the straps used to keep him in bed as he looked for a way out of this trap that didn’t involve shooting his room apart.

“How ma-*COUGH*COUGH*-ny times do I have to keep saying it?!” he uselessly pleaded “I’m *COUGH!* perfectly fine!”

Miss Twisted did not look convinced as she continued to tighten his restraints.

“Cam, even if you weren’t burning, leaking, staggering, or coughing your head off, you jumped out of a third-story window and were planning to swim back to the studio. If you weren’t sick, you’d know that that is a terrible idea.”

“But I-”

“No buts! Now please just get some rest! The studio will still be there to be razed to the ground after you feel better.”

The demoness left the disgruntled camera’s room as she planned to call the doctor.

“It’s just a cough!” he called out after her. “You’d *HAAACK!* get one too you’d crawl through dusty air vests for an hour! I swear that place puts just as much effort into it’s cleaning as it does it’s scripts and research!”

She didn’t call back to him, possibly already on the phone talking to a doctor that didn’t need to be called in the first place.

“Can this day possibly get any worse?!” he grumbled to himself. “My beautiful machine that was meant to show them REAL horror instead got busted, that blasted studio’s still standing, my roommates have been freaking out all day over a cough-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!! SWEET MOTHER OF ALL THINGS MERCIFUL!”

Where just mere seconds ago he felt a little woozy from coughing so much, the pain suddenly hit him like a jackhammer.

“AAAAAAARRRRRGHH!!!! *pant* I- *pant* I’M BURNING! I- I’M-”

The already tight restraints grew even tighter for him, making hard for the little fellow to breathe until-

*RRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIP!*

Cameraman felt like his body was on fire, he felt like his bones were all being broken at once but his agonizing pain was nothing compared to the sheer fear that he felt looking down at his restraints and his gloves and shoes ripping off due to the sheer massive size of his changing body.

“W-WHAT’S GOING ON?!”

Maybe he wouldn’t mind getting a growth spurt or two, but this was too much! The now werewolf-esc toon staggered off of his bed in fear it would break from his new size and assumed weight, clawing at the nearest wall to steady himself as he felt his spine popping like popcorn as he grew.

“HELP ME! SOMEBODY MAKE THIS STOP!”

Well, whatever force behind this was at least somewhat considerate, he stopped growing but he didn’t stop changing. He looked to his shaking hands that now more closely resembled hairless paws, complete with claws and ‘beans’. A million thoughts were rolling through Cameraman’s head, a million possible answers, and a million things that he should have done to prevent this, but the more he thought, the less any of those thoughts made sense.

“W̕H̀Ỳ ̧̧I̢S̵̢͟ ͝TH̴̀I̡S̸҉ H̡ĄP̀Ṕ̸͝È̢N͘I̛͟Ń͏͢G͠҉̶ ͘T͢O ̵̵͠M͏E̵?̷͡!̢͠”

It was getting harder and harder for him to think, his brain had might as well have been melting! He tried his hardest to think of a solution to his problem until he heard and felt something *SNAP* off of his head and he looked to the floor to see that both his flash and his film reel had been popped off of him. And with them, went all his worries. The creature didn’t need to think. At least, it didn’t need to think anywhere as much as it’s old form did, all that he needed was to kill and maim those who had wronged it. They didn’t need their hearts, so it might as well take it for them.

“W̴̡W̸R̢͟R̵͜R͠͝R͘R̸R̸R̴͡R̴͢ŔR̛R͏̧͏Ŕ̨̛R͏R͏̷͘R͏̴R̛R̢̧͝R̴̢R̶̢͟ŖR͘R͞R͠͠R͘͞͏R͏̧R̡̀RR̵̨R͜͡Y͟Ỳ̴͡Ỳ̕̕Ý͢͏Y̸̴Y̕͟!̸͘!̸̢!͜!̴̨͝“