#astra membrane

[murshmallauw]

don't trust ugly old men who break into your home once a year and steal your dad

[illarian-rambling]

Shout-out to my four characters who hate the cold with every fiber of their fucking being, just like me fr

Mashal hates the cold because he's made of metal. You know what gets creaky in the cold? Metal. Bro's knees make a rusty door hinge sound every time he gets up and he hates it. Astra also won't let him touch her with his frigid ass hands.

Ivander hates the cold because of arthritis. His cartilage is disintegrated, reduced to atoms by the power of an angry god. His knees also creak like a rusty door hinge, but he's not made of metal, so it's somehow worse.

Elsind hates the cold because changelings just aren't built for it. The only insulation they have is a thin membrane layer separating the cytoplasm of their insides from the freezing outside. It is possible for them to start to freeze a little, causing their movements to slow, so they usually bundle up as heavily as they can. Unfortunately, they live in fantasy Svalbard, so tough luck.

Faalgun hates the cold because he's a 3'5", 40lbs lizard man. Yes, he's a dead lizard man, but ghosts feel whatever sensations their brain expects to feel, so when it drops below 60F, he's shivering. Colder than that and he'll probably crawl into someone's jacket just out of cruel necessity.

And me? I hate the cold just because. Give me 100F any day, just leave this frosty nonsense out of it. This post has been brought to you by it's 24F here now

[wishmaker-astra]

hey lillie! astra's told me you're working on a biology and zoology major. would you mind sharing how you got into that and what you enjoy about it?

--may (@may-maple-blog)

Oh! You're one of Astra's better friends that I bantered with a little bit before! It has talked a decent amount about you since this is a more proper introduction when we are not joking around.

Indeed, I am a dual zoology and biology major at Castelia University. I've previously explained why I am in Unova instead of Alola for this, so I will not repeat myself again to keep the post easier to read.

I intend to enter the xenobiology or xenozoology PhD program studying ultra beasts. The differences and similarities between them and pokemon are truly fascinating. Did you know that the digestive systems and tissue structure enabling that process are a radically different makeup that has arrived at the same black box assessment equivalent functionality? There are many little things like this in a large number of ultra beasts, at least as far as the initial data we have shows. Granted, it is not as much as we would like to start to draw these conclusions.

Astra has reminded me not to post a full dissertation, so I will leave off the details of the membrane transport mechanisms and chemical pathways that we know are involved in certain species of ultra beast. Suffice it to say I just love learning about these little things regarding them. It scratches an intellectual itch.

That said, I am not at liberty to give the full details of the inciting incident that prompted the trek down this path towards xenozological interests specifically. Certainly not in public on an open platform like rotomblr. However, I will leave it at I am a Faller by technicality, and have a personal history with nihilego and ultra space. It was traumatizing in many many ways, however I absolutely refuse to let that control me. While I was tackling this, I discovered I was actually truly interested in them specifically, so I am very thankfully that my therapy helped me discover this in a safe and healthy way instead of manifesting in strange fixations and behaviors.

Moving on, I can tell you that I grew up in a facility nominally supposed to be about pokemon rehabilitation and species preservation, which already inclined me towards something in this field. It wasn't a good upbringing ultimately, I was emancipated at 12 years old after all, but it did leave me with a deep appreciation for zoological and biological studies. Pursuing these appreciations has been deeply satisfying.

There also, of course, is my history with competitive battling, and how working with pokemon closely gave me another window into their world. This helped further spark curiosity into how the ultra beasts which had permanently altered the course of my life may differ from them.

I hope that was a useful answer. I know I was not particularly detailed about the topics at hand or what I find interesting. I will tell Astra to give you my discord information to talk further if you want.

[laughing-hellblazer]

⛥TIMELINE⛧

trigger warnings: suicide, violence, csa, death, child abuse, dark themes

the 50's

1953: John is born in a complicated birth that kills his mother and twin brother. His father, Thomas, refuses him for the first two weeks of his life, which are spent sickly in the hospital. A single nurse is put in charge of his care, and holds him to her chest to listen to her heartbeat. Because of this, John survives his infantile illness. The duty of taking care of the baby John is left to his older sister, Cheryl, who is only 8 years old.

the 60's

1961: John's father is sent to prison for seven months for stealing women's underwear, during which time John and his sister, Cheryl, are sent to live with their Aunt Dolly and Uncle Harry in Northampton, UK. John is accosted by three teenage boys who deeply burn his chest with cigarettes for being a Scouser.

1967: John casts his first spell, locking his childhood innocence away in a toy house, which he later buries in a time capsule at his school. John is later expelled from school, and his father blames this on his obsession with the occult, turning far more abusive. John curses his father by binding his soul to that of a roadkill cat corpse, but later halts the spell by storing the cat in formaldehyde. This doesn't break the spell, and leaves Thomas Constantine frail, but just as abusive.

1968: John runs away from home and gets to just outside of London. He stays with a woman named Estella, who teaches him how to use tarot cards and divination magic. He is later caught by police at a satanic party and sent home to his furious father in Liverpool.

1969: John runs away to London again, this time successfully arriving in the city proper. On his way he rides along with a serial killer ex-priest who attempts to assault and mutilate him. He meets Chas Chandler, who is a prisoner of his mother, Queenie, and her familiar, Slag. John murders Slag the Monkey, thus killing Queenie and freeing Chas. Chas owes him a debt that John never stops cashing in.

the 70's

1974: John attempts suicide at age 21, overdosing on sleeping pills with alcohol. During attempt he has visions of a purgatorial demon named Araethos, who tries to lay claim to his soul while he's dying. He is found and rescued by roommate and childhood friend Gaz Lester, who stays with him at the hospital. Gaz calls Cheryl, who comes to London for a night to visit him, even though the two are estranged. The two talk for a while and rekindle their relationship, with Cheryl and Gaz both encouraging John to take better care of himself.

1977: John and his friends Richie, Beano, and Gaz form new wave punk band Mucous Membrane. Chas becomes a roadie for the band, traveling with them across the UK as a struggling opening act. In their travels John meets Brendan Finn, a music manager who quickly becomes a close friend. The two part on good terms before their gig at the Casanova Club in Newcastle.

1978: After sensing dark magic at the Casanova gig, John investigates to find a girl, Astra, being used as part of dark rituals at the hands of the club's owner, her father. With a group of band members, roadies, and fellow magic users, John forms the Newcastle Crew, a group with the mission to put an end to the dark magic being cast over the Casanova Club. As they discover, Astra has been possessed by a demon se summoned, Norfulthing. Their mission fails when John attempts to summon a demon, but fails to bind it, and Astra is killed. John has a mental breakdown and is sent to Ravenscar Secure Facility for two years.

1979: John is tortured by the guards and doctors at Ravenscar for his assumed crime of killing a child, and he accepts all the pain as punishment for failing Astra. He is subjected to conscious E.C.T. and physical abuse every day until his release in 1980.

the 80's

1980: John wanders the North Yorkshire countryside and is taken in by traveling Brendan Finn, who then takes him across the country in a soul searching journey. John develops feelings for Brendan, but doesn't express them. The two return to England, where John meets Brendan's girlfriend, Kit Ryan.

1982: John meets and courts Emma, an American artist, the two become a steady couple, with Emma knowing about and accepting John's magic. She becomes the first girl John ever introduced to his family.

1983: John and Brendan steal the Ace of Winchesters, a demon-slaying gun, from Voodoo priest Papa Midnite for collector Jerry O'Flynn. Jerry and Brendan get into a fight, and John has to separate them. John, Brendan, and Kit have one last drink together before John sets out for London again. Once in London, John befriends a man named Seth before finding out he's abusing his girlfriend, Annette, who John then offers a place to stay and sleeps with. Annette uses his occult book collection to make a deal with the Third of the Fallen to kill Seth, then ends her own life from horror.

1984: Beano contacts John, desperate to have his house rid of ghosts. Taking Chas with him, John investigates, and he finds the ghosts of a little girl and the man who murdered her. John let's the girl's ghost go free, and she ascends to heaven, but the murderer's soul begins to fall to hell, and he drags John with him. John is able to escape from hell through a deal that he's never shared the details of, and shows up just in time to be at his own funeral. A succubus and angel turn to John for help when expecting a baby. John is able to hide Ellie, the succubus, but not Tali the angel, or the baby being born. Tali is killed by fellow angels, and the angels then take the baby.

1985: Able to sense the balance of the planet changing, and something dark approaching, John gets in contact with the Elemental Swamp Thing and enlists his help to defeat the Brujera. Over the next two years, several members of the Newcastle Crew are killed by the encroaching Darkness, including Emma.

1987: Eventually, John gathers a group of magic users including Zatara and his daughter Zatanna to form a magic circle. In this circle, two will die, including Zatara protecting his daughter. After returning from the circle, John finds his old friend and bandmate, Gaz Lester, in need of help after releasing the demon Mnemoth in New York. Turning to Papa Midnite for help , John manages to contain Mnemoth, but not without paying the price of Gaz's life. John begins to see ghosts of the Newcastle Crew haunting him, as well as his old lover, Emma.

1988: John meets Zed. The Resurrection Crusade and the Damnation Army both rise up as new gangs in London, and John finds himself entangled with the gangs through his niece being kidnapped. After rescuing her from the Damnation army, Zed goes missing. After jumping out of a moving train and nearly dying, John is approached by Nergal in the hospital with a deal to end a prophecy which would mean slavery under Heaven. Nergal gives John some of his own blood to regenerate him to perfect health. John finds Zed, now part of the Resurrection Crusade, and has sex with her. John is then possessed by Swamp Thing in order to conceive a child with his wife, Abby, who then becomes the host of the Sprout. This neutralizes the prophecy, assuring neither Hell nor Heaven have claim to Earth just yet. After finding out that Nergal is the same demon who kille dAstra in 1978, John uses his connections with the disembodied technomancer, RIchie, to destroy Nergal at the gates of Heaven. Richie then takes the body of Nergal and becomes a demonic entity who is trapped in hell.

1989: At the request of the Aspect of Dream, Morpheus, John tracks down the Bag of Sand, running into his old girlfriend after she's become addicted to the dreamstuff in the sachet. Morpheus repays John by temporarily relieving him of nightmares for the return of his item. While on the run from the police after a spurious article about him is published, he meets Marj and her daughter Mercury, a pair of Travellers who he befriends and lives with for a time. Mercury, a psychic, is drawn to a secret facility that is later found to be one of the locations for a covert operation known as the Fear Machine. This turns out to be part of a masonic plot to bring forth the God of All Gods, Jallakuntilliokan. Turning to Zed, who has become a Pagan Sex Witch, Marj, John, and Mercury are able to summon forth the feminine counteraspect to Jallakuntilliokan, and all of reality is saved by their union. John is unable to remember most of this in hie waking life, but still has vivid nightmares about it in the Dreaming.

the 90's

1990: John has a run in with a serial killer known as the Family Man, unknowingly giving him the names and addresses of his next victims. When he becomes haunted by the ghosts of those the Family Man killed, he begins to track the man down. The Family Man, in retaliation, kills John’s father, Thomas. John hunts the Family Man down and shoots him with a gun Chas got for him t put an end to his killings. At his father’s funeral, John notices Gemma is seeing the ghost of Thomas Constantine, and realizes it’s tied to the curse he cast when he was 14. John and Gemma burn the cat corpse, releasing his father into the afterlife. Accompanied by the other members of the Trenchcoat Brigade, John introduces a young mage, Timothy Hunter, to the occult. Timothy finds the time capsule John buried as a child, and John urges him to rebury it and keep the innocence locked away. Timothy reluctantly agrees.

1991: John finds out, after a horrific night of literally coughing up a lung, that he has terminal lung cancer. While touring a cancer ward he meets and befriends a patient named Matt, who is also dying of terminal lung cancer. He visits Brendan Finn in hopes that the older warlock can cure his lung cancer, only to find out that Brendan, himself, is dying from liver failure. To protect Brendan’s soul from the First of the Fallen, John tricks him into drinking holy water and breaks a bottle of sacramental wine over his head. The First of the Fallen lays claim on his soul by insult, damning him to hell. In a bid to keep himself alive and out of hell, he tries to make deals through Ellie and through the Archangel Gabriel, both of which fall through. As a final attempt, after saying his goodbyes to his loved ones, John makes deals with the Second and Third of the fallen, deadlocking his soul between the three Lords of Hell. The First of the Fallen cures his lung cancer in the most excruciating way possible, then remakes his entire body from scratch, without once killing or allowing Constantine to go unconscious. John is then made ageless to prevent him from dying and setting off a war in hell. He also meets Kit Ryan for the first time in 8 years. Matt dies from his cancer right in front of John.

1992: The First of the Fallen attempts to use Ellie against John, but she instead turns to him for protection. John carves a sigil into her soul that severs and hides her from hell. Kit and John begin to go steady with the promise that John’s magic work will not enter their relationship. Gemma attempts magic and Cheryl tells John to deal with it. He finds the boy who introduced her to it and gives him a fright, while Kit talks to Gemma about the seriousness of casting magic. In the end, Gemma decides not to pursue the same profession as her uncle, and stays away from magic. The King of the Vampires offers John immortality, but John turns him down and insults him. John and Chas go to visit Chas' uncle, only to find him dead from a heart attack. At the funeral, they discover body snatchers stealing his body, and in tracking him down, find a private militia operation testing ammunition on corpses. John releases the souls of the bodies, who then kill the director of the project.

1993: After crossing a noble-tied Neo-Nazi group, John is kidnapped and Kit is attacked. John’s friend, Dez, is murdered in front of him. John, seeking protection from the Lords of Hell, causes Gabriel’s fall and claims his heart. Due to trouble having come to Kit from their relationship, she severs ties with John and leaves him for Belfast. John spirals, having felt love for the first time with Kit, and enters into a six-month depressive episode filled with alcoholism and homelessness. During this time, he meets a young man named Davy, who is a male prostitute and homeless as well. The King of the Vampires finds them asleep together for warmth, and kills Davy. John gives in, and is fed upon by the vampire, who rejects his demon blood. As the blood dissolves his jaw, John drags him into the sunlight, killing him.

1994: After New Years Day, John has a contact encounter with the ghost of a WWII fighter pilot which inspires John to get his life back together and move on. John goes to New York for a holiday, and is poisoned by Papa Midnite and forced onto a Witchwalk through a pocket of Hell while his body is vulnerable on Earth. He’s able to escape with the help of Midnite’s sister, and the threat of her revenge forces Midnite to jump off the Empire State Building.

1995: Chas seeks John’s help with his daughter, Geraldine, who has gone into a coma since giving birth to her daughter, Trish. John finds that her soul has been severed from her body and taken to Los Angeles. Chas joins John on a trip to LA, where they confront Beroul, her captor. Beroul is keeping Geraldine’s soul inside of his own body, and demands that John hunt down a list of demons that are interfering with his business. John uses the ancient god Mictlantecuhtli to eliminate the other demons, but Beroul and Mictlantecuhtli instead make a deal behind his back. John later makes another deal with Mictlantecuhtli, who can stitch souls back together with their bodies. Restoring Geraldine back with her body, John then plays chicken with Geraldine’s soul using an ancient spell. Mictlantecuhtli relinquishes Geraldine’s body and soul in response, and John and Chas safely see her back to London.

1996: John is tricked by Ellie into opening and reading from the Fuhajd’haersk, or in human tongues, The Book of Mirrors. John is then trapped inside the pages of the book, each of which contain a gateway to another reality. For the next eighteen years, John is trapped inside of the book and the infinite realms and realities contained within its pages. Cheryl, after John's assumed death, takes in John’s belongings, storing them in her attic. These items include the Book of Mirrors, which is packed away.

the 00's

2008: During his travels through realities, John ends up in a magical realm where witches and wizards are commonplace. Here he meets a witch named Elias Blackburn, who turns out to be quite the dashing rogue. The two begin a torrid relationship and work together on a heist of the Academy library. They plan to steal a book containing a spell that could release John from the Book of Mirrors, but instead John is abandoned by Elias and captured by the city guard. Imprisoned, he slips through realities again, leaving behind nothing but the amulet Elias gave him.

2014: While emptying her mother Cheryl’s attic, Gemma’s children Sally (7), Topaz (5), and Cher (3) get into some of John’s things, including the Book of Mirrors. Through trying to read the book, they are sucked into the stories along with John, disappearing from their grandmother’s living room. John finds them and guides them through the dangers of multiple realities, protecting them from several dangers ranging from a fantasy novel’s dragons to a horror novel’s killer. Eventually, Gemma opens the book to a page they’re all on, and reading aloud from the book opens the gateway John needs to escape with all three kids in tow. Gemma is shocked to see the uncle who went missing back in 1996, and relieved that her children are safe and sound thanks to him. They try to burn the book, but flame has no effect. They wrap the book up and seal it away behind some bricks of the foundation. John stays with Gemma for a short time while adjusting to the missing years of his life, but eventually he moves back to London in search of Chas, who is now dying of lung cancer due to second-hand exposure.

[punkmacabre-arc]

yadda yadda john's a scrungy lil guy yadda yadda yadda dude looks like he gets beaten up every day etc etc but !! constantine ( at least in my version ) he may look like the ordinary working class brit but, since his beginnings of dabbling with the occult, there's always been something a bit uncanny looking about him . . .

when they say, eyes are a window to the soul they mean it with john. steel, argentate hues that probably went two shades lighter the night he failed to bring astra louge back from hell + sealed both hers, his + the rest of the newcastle crew's eternal damnation. pale + haunted with grief, greying from anger held since he was a kid-- constantly seeing ghosts ( or perhaps just the mind playing cruel tricks ), a trickster's glint whenever a terrible plan comes to mind, a warning sign of the inevitable: john constantine has figured a way out.

and the scars ??? there's a cacophony of stories behind them. no matter how tender his hands hard, there's a roughness to the touch. palms eternally lacerated from blood rituals, fingertips calloused from guitar strings snapping. cigarette burns littered around the body ( some from accidentally falling asleep with one in hand, others - particularly on the arms - from his father + his cruelty. ) some around the ribs from the abuse during the so-called ""treatment"" at ravenscar. besides the many others, the most prominent is the one under his right eye + just above the cheek - a lasting reminder left by nergal.

and even more important, the tattoos because there's many, many, tattoos - which is only really known by those who's seen constantine with rolled sleeves / shirtless. started with stick + pokes done by his bassist in mucous membrane. but, after ravenscar + throughout the years, john certainly felt the need to tattoo protection sigils. the seal of solomon covers his entire back, scriptures of different languages over his arm, cheryl's + gemma's - his sister + niece - initials on back of his nape in small cursive. but also, in between the sigils are more sentimental ones - some little shitty drawing of venus, liverpool fc's logo on his right bicep along with y.n.w.a underneath ( you'll never walk alone - the team's anthem ), an ouroboros around his left elbow, even some traditional 'sailor' tattoos such as a snake on his forearm, a nautical star on his rib + a skull with a candle melting over the head.

[talentforlying]

@beyondthescully: meta about those criminal records scully is 1000% going to look into — SEND META TOPICS.

constantine's criminal record with the british government is file #A571B, and he knows it by heart because he's spent years mind-tricking arresting officers into avoiding it so he doesn't come up against more trouble than he wants to deal with. it doesn't help much if someone researches him independently, when he's not aware they're doing it, but if he does know, he puts a little glamour down so that their eyes simply skip over it when they look him up.

i wouldn't say that he's afraid of people looking up his record, per se, but he certainly dreads it being brought up, since it lists him being convicted of the murder of a child + a nightclub full of people — which, obviously, tends to get a very strong reaction from anyone who didn't hear the real story of newcastle from him ahead of time; we all know that he inadvertently damned astra to hell by summoning (and failing to properly name or bind) the demon nergal to save her from the terror elemental she accidentally created, but without that important context, it reads horrifically — and because it includes the fact that he was committed to ravenscar secure facility in lieu of prison time, which tends to kill people's trust that he's telling the truth about the supernatural and knows what he's doing.

speaking of which, the newcastle incident was highly publicized across the UK at the time (1978), and continues to raise huge red flags when people go to look him up in government databases, but since it was pre-internet, there are no news articles online other than ones that were digitized later and mystery of the casanova club murders / what happened to mucous membrane? (his band) blog posts on conspiracy & occult fansites. it's kind of an urban legend these days, since constantine is now the last survivor of the original crew and band and his name is notorious in occult circles, but you'll never get him to talk about it unless he's being forced to defend himself or he trusts you with his fucking life, and good luck with that second one.

US databases will also include a murder conviction from new york in 2000, when he was framed for the death of a top gangster, sentenced to max security, and later cleared, but since he was cleared, under new york law, that record is now sealed and can only be seen by federal, state, and local law enforcement. unfortunately, that one's an azzarello storyline so i plan to rework the fuck out of those events, because fuck azzarello.)

[littleobelia]

editing of nurserry2

He walks in the direction of his bus stop. There is a bus approaching, but he can’t make out the numbers. Too late he realises that it’s his bus. There’s no-one at the stop, so it blasts ahead and passes Harry, blowing black exhaust into his face. There won’t be another one for an hour. The Sunday timetable is the bane of his existence.

Someone he knows could drive past and see him near to crying. As soon as he thinks it he sees Martin Lee gunning past and hooking into the parking lot. Tardy Marty. He waves feebly in the direction of his colleague’s pale gold Astra, but he doesn't see him. Harry is invisible in his plain clothes. Out of scrubs he could be anyone. He walks on. He wants to see something extra-ordinary, an antidote to the misery, something to reinvigorate his faltering conviction that life is worth the pain. A man died in the night; had a fall at his council flat, brought it by ambulance, quickly acquired a UTI that wrought havoc to his kidneys, then whoopsy-daisy he was dead. Bed four, Mr Solomon Yeameni. His name was like a cryptic crossword clue. Solo – many. Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. 

Maybe religion is the answer? Our Lady of Sorrows. Her doors are open to the street. He steps into the dim vestibule and already the traffic is muffled by an invisible membrane of solace. In the vestibule there is an automatic hand sanitiser dispenser on a purpose-built plinth. Out of habit he cups his palm underneath it. The machine senses his hand; he is not invisible. The machine knows he is there, he machine knows he is doing the right thing. The machine seeks to reward him, whirrs, purrs, deposits a dollop of alcohol mixed with glycerin on his hand. 

Harry rubs it in and feels sanctified. When their ward was audited two years ago he received a special commendation for his outstanding adherence to the hand hygiene protocol. He remembers with crystal clarity the euphoria of being singled out for doing something right, for a change. Praise is thin on the ground.

On the other side of a trestle table covered in pamphlets, there is an identical automatic dispenser on an identical plinth. Tacked on its face is a hand written label, which says “HOLY WATER”. 

It’s the first thing to make Harry genuinely smile in at least the past week. It’s a sardonic smile, but a smile none-the-less. He offers his hand to the sensor. The machine senses him, but it seems to hesitate, sizing him up. After a judgemental pause, it grinds and sputters disdainfully. Nothing comes out. 

Harry shrugs. He has satisfied his desire to see something novel. It’s extraordinary that such a thing even exists, such a wretched example of modern faith. It was probably full of pathogens; consecrated amoebae floating around in their stagnant bath. 

Through the creaking door into the cavernous interior of the church. The first thing he does is look up at the ceiling. When ceilings are tall you must look up and appreciate how tall they are. He learnt that from Grand Designs. 

The great oaken beams arch over him, protecting. There are six of them, like a giant rib cage. The emaciated body of Christ looms over the altar, his eyes downcast. Regarding him, Harry feels a faint impression of suffering, and then he feels merely faint. He has not eaten since yesterday evening. Portions of the host are stacked on the paten like so many poker chips and a silver platter holds dozens of little sips of wine in plastic thimble-sized cups, like raspberry jelly shots. His stomach growls miserably. He didn’t eat during his shift. The upside of this is that his bowels are minimally occupied, available to be filled from the other end. He’s a pragmatic self-harmer. 

He treads silently down the outer edge of the room between the pews and the rendered walls, past the Stations of the Cross in their gaudy frames, then he sits in one of the centre pews and closes his eyes, swaying slightly in his seat. Harry is early, the first one here. A man in white glides in unhurriedly and genuflects, then across the floor and out the opposite door, his feet nearly silent and invisible beneath his robe; it gives the impression that he is a prop on track, or perhaps something like a dalek. 

Hushed footsteps echo as the pews fill. The sound accumulates, proliferates, like incense smoke filling a shrine. His ears are suffused with whispers. He begins to fall asleep and his heavy head rolls to one side, pinching some nerve or other. He starts and winces, rubbing the affected part. 

He is not alone on his pew any more. He stands when his pewmates stand, and he sits when they sit, but he is too heavy and weary to bother with communion. The priest at the lectern has a prominent black beard, reflecting tiny filaments of light from the candles on the altar. It covers half his face, framing his moist little mouth in neatly combed and parted whiskers. He looks more like a lumberjack than a priest. Harry is so absorbed in the observation of this glossy, oily facial hair, that it takes him a while to realise the mass is not in English. 

He understands nothing. He thinks it might be Polish. Sibilant, slithering words, they trickle into his ears and fizz like vichy water, cleansing and soothing. When it's over an hour later he is catatonic. 

The sunlight greets him in the street, meek and docile. “You ought to be in bed, lad,” the sun murmurs, slipping behind a cloud. He wanders down the road to a bus stop, then pulls out his phone and books an uber to his address, 14-18 Hartwell Street. The screen goes black, and he is faced with his own decrepit reflection. He jostles the screen back to life. These days the phones wake up when they are jostled. The phone analyses his features, his puffy eyes, his swollen nose and his chapped lips. “You look worse for wear,” thinks the phone, unlocking.

Lent 2022 Harry types into the safari search bar. Google informs him that lent started a few weeks ago. That’s a shame; he was tempted to give something up. Meph. Or booze. Or porn. He opens a bookmarked site and looks at gifs of small, hairless men being fucked by larger, hairier ones. He pretends he’s small and hairless and unwrinkled. A spring chicken. Lately the follicles on his temples have packed up and migrated to his lower back. He’s sprouting little short and curlies right there at the top of his arse-crack. If his lumbar spine weren’t so stiff he’d be able to twist his torso to shave them off. 

He can’t do what this spring chicken in the gif is doing, arching his back like a cobra. He dims the screen to minimum brightness, though there is no one else around. The trembling, grainy moving images occupy his over-tired brain. He understands human mating, finds it comforting, though he doesn’t do it as often as one would like. He scarcely has the energy to masturbate. He’ll go home and have a long nap, and then maybe he’ll try. And if he can’t, he’ll get on the apps and find someone who can get it up and enjoy the vicarious sexual gratification. 

[punkmacabre]

john was somewhere around twenty five the night of the newcastle incident and the damnation of astra logue. he only ever saw glimpses of her the few times mucous membrane played at the casanova club, hiding behind the bar or being dragged down to the basement by her father. john was around twenty five when he was accused of astra's murder and sent to ravenscar to be institutionalised ( because who would trust the words of a guilty man ? ), the year astra is suppose to turn twenty five john is the only one that mourns for her, the date devastates him when he sees it in the paper as he sits outside with his guilt, a pint, a pack of crumpled silk cuts and his gaze never looking up.

[murshmallauw]

NWNDYRIEK AAA😭❤

she can use the blowtorch after lunch

a fanart i did for @viiv-marshroom 's extended family iz au because i adore it♥

[kbox-in-the-box]

John Constantine is one of those comics characters that I grew up with, so it was fun to revisit him for this /Film profile.

[ellythejelly]

“I’ve always heard that love makes you feel like you’re floating”

[murshmallauw]

This little au is my comfort even if I have other projects now

Have a zim being a happy papa and a sketch of a keychain I want to do for myself

[slurmware]

more doodles, because boy howdy do i never finish anything

[lovevalley45]

untitled ficlet #263

When Astra’s alarm went off at 7 am, she was surprised to see she wasn’t in her own bed.

Then, she remembered: it’d been their weekly Legends dinner, Behrad had asked for her thoughts on some lyrics he was working on, and one thing led to another.

Waking up in the manor wasn’t that strange at this point. Waking up with an arm around her face and someone’s face pressed against her shoulder was.

She’d expected long distance to be hard, but she didn’t realize it could also be weird. Time travel was a big no-no in their retirement contracts. The manor was a loophole, but whether using it to go from one time period to another counted was something they hadn’t yet tried. So, the manor it was for things like hooking up post-dinner with the other Legends.

Astra reached for her phone and turned off the alarm, before turning back to look at Behrad. He was still asleep, something that didn’t surprise her at all. She knew she had to head back to her apartment to get ready for work. But if she had the choice, she’d savor this a little longer.

She kissed the top of his head, then moved his arm from around her waist. As gently as she could, she nudged him off of her and got out of bed.

Astra was grateful she’d grabbed an old, misprinted Mucuos Membrane shirt from the attic to sleep in as she tried to find her clothes. She was sure, and a little ashamed to admit, that her blouse was probably somewhere on the floor of the sitting room. Well, she’d grab it on her way out.

While she was pulling her jeans on, she heard a mumbled, “Were you going to leave without saying goodbye?”

She turned back towards the bed. Behrad looked half awake and was rocking a serious bedhead, laying on his side to look at her. It was cute, if it weren’t for the way he looked actually hurt.

“I would have woken you up before I left,” Astra told him, sitting on the edge on the bed. “But you did sleep through my alarm.”

“I was wondering what that sound was in my dream,” he said.

“I’d love to stay, but I have work-“

Behrad sat up, holding a hand up to cut her off. “I get it. You’ve got your own thing.” He shrugged. “Just wanted to make sure you weren’t gonna run off.”

“Without my goodbye kiss? Doubtful,” Astra said.

He grinned back before cupping her face and leaning in. Right after waking up wasn’t always the best time to kiss someone, but she savored it, morning breath and all. She laid one of her hands over where he held her, curling her fingers around his when he pulled away. “Okay, now you can get back to D.C.”

“Next week, I’ll tell my boss I’m coming in late so you have time to make me breakfast,” she said, squeezing his hand.

“Sounds like a deal,” Behrad said.

Astra let go of his hand and stood up. “And you better make coffee.”

“You know I will.”

Suddenly, that wait for next week seemed so much harder.

[phantom-ellie]

Temet Nosce Chapter 2: Leontopodium Alpinum, Pressed in a Bookmark

Click for Chapter List/Content Warnings

Some men are not built for adventure.

Oluwande Boodhari is a woolen blanket. A long stretch of many miles between fault lines. A plasma cell membrane. The magma chamber of a volcano. A mountain with a machete. A tillman with a telescope. Strength. In the lens of the bring ‘em near is the Tower. All Stede’s missing is a light shining from his forehead, a smattering of rocks at his feet as he stands in the dinghy, awaiting Judgment. The seas are clear, but Olu knows they won’t be for long now.

“It’s the captain!” Olu yells out of 30% surprise, 30% joy and let’s face it, 40% obligation. Doesn’t do to leave a man hanging like that. That would be pretty fucking gauche. The rest of the crew stops its fussing about (the Swede isn’t as succulent as Lucius would have been at any rate, and they are really missing Lucius, and not just for the potential sustenance either).

Clearly you’ve tangled with some fearsome outlaws.

Stede can hear the shouts, and he hopes they’re shouts of excitement because he needs that, he’s going to need that. He’s going to need all of them. He’s going to need to feed off of that positive energy like a leech or a parasite, because he’s beginning to suspect that he isn’t strong enough. But this is where the tunnel has lead. It’s time to get off the ride and face them, the dramatis personae.

***

Sand can be hot or cold. It is moldable. It runs through Stede’s fingers as he lays on his back near the water. The sun hasn’t completely set behind him, but ahead across the sea the stars are coming out. This could be nice. In another situation, if he were a completely different person. Which he isn’t, despite his best efforts. Another fistful of sand. Another gust of the smallest hint of a breeze blows the hair out of his eyes. He can’t move the hair itself. His hands are full of sand.

“You all right, Captain?” comes Oluwande’s voice from a few feet behind him. This isn’t the first time he’s asked, but it’s the first time Stede has heard him.

Stede pauses for a moment to consider himself.

“No.”

He states it reasonably, on the level. It’s just a fact. He’s never been all right. And yet, as astra per aspera. All right might be just ahead.

“He’s not the Captain anymore,” comes the Swede’s voice, with that affect he has that tilts the end of his sentences up as if they were a question.

“What are you even talking about?” Olu turns around and glares at him.

Wee John Feeney fiddles with his clothing. “We voted you in as Captain. You’re the Captain now.”

Yer weak. Soft-bellied. Yella. Craven. Ill-equipped to lead men.

Olu opens his mouth to protest, but Stede interrupts.

“It’s my boat.” It’s Stede’s boat. It’s small, it’s all he has, and he’s the captain. Like his life.

Olu smiles and tries to make his voice sound as friendly and calming as possible, the way most of the crew members do, as if Stede is a dried flower at risk of blowing away, or breaking apart in one’s hands before he can be sealed protectively into acrylic.

“It’s all right Captain, it’s only that we’ve been here for a while and haven’t had anything to eat or drink since…” Stede waves a hand towards the rowboat.

“Take what’s in there, I don’t need it anymore.” Omnia mea mecum porto. He hasn’t needed to eat, or sleep. Perhaps he’s learned to bask in the moonglow for sustenance.

“It’s good of ye to offer this, cap’n.” Buttons. “We were nearin’ to start eatin’ the crew.” Stede feels himself being pulled back into this weird little society, having to answer to people, having to function. How does one do that again?

“I take it Lucius is safe and sound, then, if you haven’t eaten anyone.” The crew is silent. Nobody wants to talk about who isn’t there. The look in Stede’s eyes when they’d told him the situation had been bad enough. But Stede doesn’t know what to believe. He only heard bits and pieces, eyes losing focus on the others and tracing the horizon.

The Swede breaks the silence. “They were trying to eat me.”

Stede sighs, still facing the ocean. “No one is going to eat you, it’s against the law.”

Te occidere possunt sed te edere non possunt nefas est.

“We’re pirates!” shouts Black Pete, digging through Stede’s sad sack of belongings And damned if he isn’t right. Stede sits himself up.

“How many crew are there left on the Revenge?”

Olu counts. “Well, there’s Blackbeard, there’s Izzy-”

“That prick!” Wee John notes lazily as he fishes for rocks in his shoe with a stick.

“There’s Fang and Ivan, and they kept Jim, Lucius, and Frenchie.”

Frenchie. A stick of peppermint. Faded denim. The Sun. Stede’s biggest hype-man. He needed protecting from the forces of evil, and Stede hadn’t been there.

Jim. A rough roll of muslin. Could have been a bananaquit, but ended up a nightjar. They needed guidance to do what was right, and Stede hadn’t been there.

Lucius. Lucius. Lucius Spriggs. A platichthys flesus upbringing, but deserving of so much more. A flake of gold panned in rural Alaska. A Bedfordshire clanger. He needed-

Stede hadn’t been there. He had been too busy staring at his fucking stupid wooden puppet hands. And now his boots. The water moves in and out slowly, lapping at their edges. There’s only one thing to be done. He stands and dusts the sand off his quickly-wearing trousers. He takes in a deep breath, then lets it out. It’s his boat, after all. No time like the present. There’s no one around here anymore to pull his strings for him.

He conjures every last bit of positive energy still holding on for dear life somewhere around his diaphragm and turns to the rest.

“Right! Shall we then?”

***

You ever feel trapped? Like you’re just treading water? Waiting to drown?

Yes, I very much have felt that way, I-

Stede has never been allowed to finish a thought around Ed. He sees that now. The crew may be chattering around him in the rowboat, but he doesn’t hear anything other than the constant interruptions in his life. Stede knows himself. He is in love. But could it be that he is just the object of infatuation? Does Ed love him back, or is Stede a cute little plaything to keep his interest? Does Ed know what Stede is worth? The oars are moving once again. Time has begun to move forward also, and with it there is a bubble of anxiety building in Stede’s chest.

Every attempt he has made to carve a place in the world has failed. He has the wrong knife. And nobody ever taught him how to whittle.

Black Pete (an echeveria who pretends he’s a mammillaria, a chunk of rosin, a scraping of liver paté) is whittling now, Stede notices, absentmindedly working at a bit of driftwood. And they are all driftwood, really, heading into the unknown, but Stede has failed to be carved into anything useful, either gently or roughly. Every time he tries, it’s someone else’s turn. Stede is a stepping-stool for someone else’s validation. They are tall, strong, glorious, fantastic, and they are those things because they are standing next to someone who isn’t any of those things.

But as the world around Stede begins to shrink, to press in on him again as if he’s trapped in a whirlpool, he knows that he could have more. Mary had more. She had reached up and plucked the very stars in the sky and arranged them on canvas for her pleasure. Stede knows that somehow, he must do the same.

But how can you convince someone to look at you, when their entire sense of self-worth is wrapped up in not seeing you at all? How can you grab stronger arms with your weaker ones, expect another to feel your weak ku-thhmmp of your heart against theirs that is beating with such force? How can Stede look into his eyes and not tear his own away in shame?

How do you raid a ship, when every fiber of your being tells you that raiding won’t save a soul?

And whose soul needs saving, anyway? Ed’s almost perfect the way he is, almost. Stede should have seen it the day they met. His biggest flaw, though. Ed interrupted. Ed didn’t ask. Not once. And thus, Stede never told. So, so stupid.

Si vis amari ama.

Never asserted himself, not even once, on his own behalf. Never planted his feet on the ground, never stood without hunched shoulders, never looked anyone in the eye. Never captained. Isn’t that what a captain does? 

We don’t do this because we like it. We do this because we don’t have any other choice.

There was no other choice, not until now. The Revenge is visible in the distance. Stede closes his eyes for a moment. There are so many possibilities before him. Death is one of them, but he isn’t afraid anymore. Stede allows a touch of anger to work its way up his spine, sending heat up through his lungs. He’s been angry on behalf of others. Agency flirts at the edge of his fingertips if he only has the courage to be angry for none other but himself. The hot burning anger passes by his throat and begins to lap at his cerebrum. He sits up straight.

“Do you know what you have to do, guys? Are you ready?” he asks with more softness in his voice than he would have liked, but it’s hard not to whisper in the vastness of the ocean. He has no weapon (ne puero gladium), he hasn’t eaten or slept in days, but there is a burning in him like volcanic rock and it is time. It’s this, or nothing. Now the adrenaline is in his arms. It’s this, or the depths claim him.

Some of us thrive on danger, don’t we?

It’s either to the Revenge, or ad undas.

Chapter 3

[punkmacabre-arc]

shortly after what happened at the casanova club with astra & being checked into ravenscar by his friends: chas chandler, gary lester & annie - marrie flynn, ( all members of mucous membrane . . . john never was quite the same & they feared the worse with his mental health ⎯⎯ of his own detriment but also from his experience with nergal & sending an innocent soul to hell. ) packed away all of constantine's things into crates & stored in a storage unit by the docks. some things include are:

his entire vinyl collection ( mostly the clash, buzzcocks, poison girls which were a gift from his sister, the odd spice girls & other local punk bands from the liverpool / london area. )

a black fender telecaster bought from a pawnshop, leftover band shirts from local gigs & some handmade.

stolen pint cups & ash trays from pub benders.

childhood photos ( an unfinished baby book done by his mother; photos from scans, possible other names & the only photo of them together. another set with his sister, cheryl, at political marches, snuck in house parties, & the first time they went to the bay as kids. )

old journals noting first experiences with demons, occult books checked out from the library that've been overdue for decades.

a haunted menorah, a smalltime demon trapped seven ways.

film camera full with expired film.

old school uniform, small fiction book collection from high school & some school reports ( terrible attendance. full of detentions. could go far if genuinely put in the work. needs to stop telling teachers to slag off. )

the storage unit has been left locked ever since, with constantine immediately fleeing to san francisco after two years of constant checking in & checking out at ravenscar. the key remains in cheryl's care to this day, ever so willing to give her brother the key ⎯⎯ or even yet, go with him ⎯⎯ if only he'd ask . . .