#at the very least i fully support her right to ghost people

[demisexualnathanvuornos]

I support O's asexual wrongs.

[flamigoat]

Phoebe (OC) - My Raypeach (Rayman x Rabbid Peach) Fankid 💖🧡

Character Lore under the cut!! :D

Toddler/Child:

Created by Mr. Dark as an apology gift to Rayman and the Glade as a whole. He hoped to promote peace between them with her.

Her parents were not married before they adopted her, but later on they do! Phoebe serves as their flower girl at their wedding. 🌸

She was one of those little kids that were scared of everything. A timid child that you could barely get a word out of. Very quiet. Alarmingly so.

Gravitated more towards her mother than her father, since he was away mostly on missions in the Glade. Grew up in the city of the Space Opera Network. She found it quite overwhelming, but Peaches’s company helped a bunch.

Phoebe had a normal, happy childhood, until one fateful day where everything would change.

Phoebe woke up one night to find her appearance had changed. She had narrowed pupils. Her hands and teeth hurt really badly. Scared, she ran to her parents’s bedroom and woke them up, tears in her eyes. As Peaches comforted her, Rayman awoke to glowing eyes like Mr. Dark’s staring at him, his face was pale with fear. She’d never forget that face.

Quickly, they carried their child through the portal to the Glade, rushing off to Mr. Dark’s house in the dead of night. They begged for his help, asking what was wrong with her and pleading for him to fix it. He assessed her and after some time declared that nothing was wrong.

She was okay, but her appearance was just changing, apologizing that he must’ve messed up her creation in some way. She’s developing some of Mr. Dark’s traits, but he promises the couple that he’d be there for Phoebe if she develops his magic. This worries Rayman (he doesn’t fully trust Mr. Dark), but after a talk with Beep-O he says okay to it.

Only time will tell where this development goes…

Teen:

Surprisingly, this event causes her to grow out of her shell. In this stage of her life, Phoebe grows to be a rebellious, wild, loud, overwhelmingly confident kid. She is easily excitable, but is prone to getting in to fights with people who do wrong things. She has a sense of justice about her, but is still troublesome. She throws herself into anything she finds interesting, inheriting her mother’s strong curiosity.

With Phoebe increasingly developing even more of Mr. Dark’s traits, Rayman becomes a bit distant from her, scared of what she’ll become one day. If…she’ll become blind with power, much like Mr. Dark did. He tries to cover up his fear of her, but Phoebe can see right through it and hates it. This drives a very noticeable wedge between them.

Later on, after some contemplation, Rayman attempts many times to fix his relationship with his daughter, but to no avail. The damage had already been done in Phoebe’s eyes. Still, he tries his best to be supportive, even if his daughter doesn’t believe he means it.

As for her relationship with her mother, Rabbid Peach, it flourishes. Since she never had to deal with Mr. Dark she sees nothing wrong with her daughter’s changes. She’s her daughter and she loves and supports her as much as she can. Peaches even moves to the Glade after she finds Phoebe is happier there, quitting her acting job and ghosting the business.

Phoebe is 100% a momma’s girl and it shows. She showers her with ‘gifts’ she finds and is always excited to show what cool new spells her mentor, Mr. Dark taught her.

“Mum! Mum!! Check this out!! Isn’t it cool!?!?!”

Peaches, barely awake, “Mhm. It sure is sweetie. Now, maybe let your mother sleep in to at least 3:00 am next time before you wake her up. Okay?”

“Okay!!!”

“Mum!! Look at this awesome monster I found!! You think you could make some clothes out of it? I think it’s resistant to fire. Don’t worry, I checked this time!!”

Peaches, holding the skinned beast with a paw, trying to hide her disgust. “Of….course, sweetheart. I suppose I could try? Your birthday is coming up soon… what if I make you an outfit out of this? Would you like that?”

Phoebe, practically vibrating with excitement. “YEAHHH!! That would be so cool!! Could you make it like Auntie Edge’s outfit?”

Peaches giggles, “Sure thing sweetie.”

To Rayman’s probable horror, Mr. Dark fills the void of a father figure to Phoebe. He is her mentor, and teaches her not to be scared of her new powers and development. What she looks like does not make her a monster, it’s her actions that do. He teaches her lessons he wishes someone taught him during his childhood, it’s very fulfilling for the both of them.

“Like this?”

He ruffles her hair, “Perfect…I knew you could do it, my best pupil.”

“Pfft. I’m your only pupil, dummy.”

His brow creases, the view of his eyes being lost in the shadow of his hat, he sighs, “Hmph. Still.”

Adult:

Phoebe grows to become an imposing figure in the Glade, known for her intimidating glare and sharp witted tongue. On the inside, however, she’s quite reserved and calm, preferring to keep little company with her. She sometimes gets a little embarrassed when people bring up how she acted as a teen, since she’s trying to keep a professional front.

In Mr. Dark’s and Betilla’s retirement, she takes their place as a protector and miracle worker of the Glade. Sometimes, she’ll visit descendants of her Mother’s friends in the Mushroom Kingdom dimension. Unfortunately, she’s becoming somewhat of a cryptic figure in that dimension.

After Peaches’s passing she wears her mother’s earrings in her hair, tying them to her hair tie. Her mother had a short lifespan, but she died a hero in the end. She misses her deeply, but always carries her in her heart. If she has a kid in the future, particularly a daughter, she’d name her after her mother.

Currently trying to mend her relationship with her father, they are both immortal, so they’ll be in each other’s lives for a forever. It takes a long time, but eventually they heal and grow close. Especially after Rabbid Peach’s passing, they need each other’s support.

Bonus Facts:

Phoebe has 3 Rabbid Ears to mimic Rayman’s hairstyle in his first game. Mr. Dark believed these would be a cute, practical touch to her design, thinking she could fly easier with them. He was wrong, and they quickly became useless for flight as she got older.

Raymesis likes to make jokes that Phoebe looks like his kid more than Rayman’s. He hates it.

Phoebe’s brooch in her adult design belonged to Rabbid Peach, she stitched it into her magician outfit to carry another piece of her mother with her. Next to her heart… 😔

[double--hh]

For some reason, I find that pic of Rosemary and ghost SK Francis oddly sweet. Like you have the ghost of a serial killer looming over the child of the man who stole his beloved wife away. (BTW Francis doesn’t spare children either. He killed a few babies fyi. What I thought ghost Francis would do is possess Angie’s body and mutilate himself in front of Nacha and her two children as a form of punishment but it’s up to you). He obviously hates that she’s Angus and Nacha’s child. Nacha only belongs to him. But somehow I’m sensing some kind of warmth in their little relationship? Rosemary shouldn’t be hanging around ghost Francis but I feel like he’s warming up to her? Is he? Does he begin to like her. Because I’m starting to think he slowly begins to like her and began seeing her as his own child to make up for what he’s lost. That’s what he’d do honestly.

Also does ghost Francis have any problems with Anastacha and her girlfriend? It’s not because they’re lesbians. He’s not homophobic I can guarantee you. That’s the least of his worries. He’s just mad that his daughter has a partner without his permission. Does he do anything to disrupt their dates? But I think he’s angry at his daughter for betraying him. That’s the main reason.

And if Quachil is that power hungry in this AU, what about her relationship with Yog?

~ SK Francis anon 🔪

I wanted to depict Rosie and Franny having like an imaginary friend relationship. Heres the kicker...

Rosemary doesn't know who Franics is.

Nobody told her about Francis.

She knows Anastacha is her half sister, yes, but was never told nor asked about her father. She just thinks, "Haha, the funny milkman is making my Raggedy Anne dollie dance!" Francis says to her to never tell her parents nor Ana that she can see him.

Franics used to scare her initially but 100% warms up to her bc she reminds him of when Anastacha was a kid.

Downside is when Anastacha see's Franics' ghost talking to Rosemary. She flips and holds Rosemary close to her and curses him out.

Franics would've been like, "Wait you're one of them queers?!" /ref

But fr, he was shocked to see his little girl all grown up. Suzanna can't see him.

Oh yes he bothers them on their dates. Anastacha has to assure Suzanna that she's not scowling bc she's angry but because her dad is hitting the griddy behind her.

And Quachil & Yog's relationship is actually very good, since I think the nightmares operate as their own person. Yog fully supports Quachil.

However, Yog feels... empty, without purpose now that Francis is dead. He tells Quachil to not bother to spare him for Year Zero, he really wants her to spread her wings and find her right people </3

[frayedcircus]

Whatcha thinking about rn?

i like horror, but you know what i like more than horror? what happens after the horror. what happens to the ones who survive.

an experience like that leaves you pretty messed up, especially if the events were in some way supernatural. like what are you gonna do when a demon kills all your friends? the cops show up and find you covered in blood, surrounded by bodies and you’re gonna tell them it was a demon? a monster? a ghost? there is no way they’ll believe you. and if they don’t think it was you, you’ll probably get institutionalized for telling people what really happened.

but if you choose to lie, keep the magical business a secret, you’re left with this horrible truth rotting a hole into your mind. you can reason away the events, try to forget it, but something like that will never really fully leave you. maybe you manage to block out at least the ghost parts, but those memories, that fear, will always be lingering in your subconscious. you will always, in the back of your mind, know.

and you’re suck with this. alone. everyone else who would fully believe you is dead. anyone you tell might apprehensively listen to your story, but they can’t fully believe you. how could they? they weren’t there. they didn’t see it all. but you did. only you did. you’re alone in this truth, no one to tell, no one to talk to who would really listen.

it’s a special kind of loneliness, the isolation that comes with such a burning secret.

(tma the lonely tma the lonely???? i could talk a lot most abt how this ties in specifically with the lonely from the magnus archives)

the horrors you experienced cast a shadow over your whole life, your whole future. what’s the point of anything if there are demons and monsters and horrible evil things beyond mortal human powers? college certainly seems insignificant in the face of an eternally hungry evil.

it’s interesting to see how traces of these themes show up in media that isn’t horror as well. children’s media where the teen main character discovers another world? so often in those stories, keeping this discovery a secret from their family and the rest of the world is a major point of distress. We see them bonding with people in this new world, but when they inevitably have to return to their own dimension, of course it’s so much harder for them to connect with their peers or participate in normal activities. befriending jessica seems a lot less significant now that you’ll never be able to share with her this place that is so important to you. history class or ballet lessons dont seem so useful when you’re learning to cast spells with your new fairy friends.

in more recent media(i’m thinking of two specific cartoons that i won’t name bc spoilers), the main characters share a lot more with their family and friends, and they’re mainly very supportive and loving which i find really nice. it helps the main character feel grounded in their own world and less isolated.

anyway back to horror movies, so many of them cut off right after the “final girl” is saved, which i think is a real shame. i knowww i know the main plot is over and the after stuff isn’t really necessary but MAN is it interesting. show me the survivor going back to school and not being able to find words for what happened when someone asks. show me them debating how much to tell their family and friends. show me them trying to return to normal and ignore how everything feels hollow. show me them struggling and healing and falling apart. pls and ty.

(also like two hours ago i saw a guy with the LONGEST pair of wireless earbuds i’ve ever seen and i’m still reeling from how strange they looked)

[popculturebuffet]

September Striketacular! (Last Exit To Springfield, Canada on Strike, Lucky Strike and Blue Collar Scrooge Reviews( Comission for WeirdKev27)

Hello all you happy union supporters and welcome to a very special event for this labor day weekend in honor of those brave souls in the WGA and SAG who are striking right now to create a better future for media: The SEPTEMBER STRIKETACULAR!

For those of you somehow out of the loop, Back in May the WGA went on strike for the understandable asks of better wages, better residuals for their work in the streaming era, and limits on AI to prevent Studios from using them as half assed replacements. Naturally this being Hollywood, the CEOS all bellowed no from their stygian towers and it was strike o clock.

Things esclated in July when SAG-AFTRA, already fully supporting the strike since it started and having similar needs, went on strike. Since then it's been mostly a stalemate. AMPTP has gone to the bargining tables a few times, but mostly with offers that don't even attempt compromise and attempted to shame them into accepting said offers. They've also flat out said they want to drag it out till "People start loosing their apartments and houses"

Thankfully unlike the previous writers strike, this one.. is working. While AMPTP is digging their heels in like the spoiled chlidren they are, support seems to be pretty much unanimously in favor of the striking workers. Not only that SAG has gone out of it's way to encourage it's wealthier members to donate to the strike fund to allow the members living on a more paycheck to paycheck basis to not "loose their houses and apartments" with The Rock giving a 7 figure statment. The AMPTP tried a counter narrative of it being wealthy elites.. and it seems to have utterly failed. All the blame on any delays in production and any possible content droughts.. is on the AMPTP.

So with AMPTP not seeming to give up the ghost any time soon, Kev had the brillliant idea to look at a bunch of episodes centering around strikes, letting me do most of the choosing while he made with the money. So I choose ones that fit the themes of this strike. So join me as I go thorugh some classic episodes of Simpsons, Ducktales, and Daria and a classic-ish episode of South Park to disect this strike, why i'ts important while also spotlighting some good episodes. And honestly while october is mostly full and november is getting that way, if this goes on i'll defintley be doing this again. Probably not as well made but frankly if AMPTP drags this shit out past halloween as they plan, they deserve the mockery. Four fresh and full reviews under the cut!

Last Exit to Springfield (The Simpsons) Last Exit To Springfield is an episode that for the longest time.. I never wanted to rewatch. See as a kid my little brain focused mostly on the braces part of it, and thus Lisa being forced into clunky awful braces, tormented by her doctor and told by a camera man "there is no god" and was likely a depressing slog. I foollishly assumed for YEARS chlid me was right and avoided it when possible.

So what changed? Simple, another critic. A few months ago I got introduced to simpsons youtuber TheRealJims via one of fellow youtuber ToonrificTariqs videos. Once I checked him out I was hooked on the guys positve nature, great takes and deep dives into simpsons, from showing the history of characters, to digging into weird questions like "who REALLY shot mr burns" and "what's up with Kearny's age?", to just reviewing episodes.

I mostly either agreed with his takes or could at least respect them... until we got to season 4 with one that puzzled me due to my childhood biases: he ranked Last Exit #1, citing it's rapid fire humor..a nd also revealing da lot of simpsons bits I truly loved, including one of my all time faviorites:

Just this two minute scene alone from HOmer's confused tone, to him repeating it despite it being pretty clear from context what a hired goon is, the guy straightining his tie and of course burn's justification of "I prefer the hands on touch you only get with hired goons". So with this new info I decided to at least give it one more try. And as you can probably guess by the fact it's in this collection, I did a full 180, crazy, thinkin bout the way I was.. and more importantly the years I wasted not watching this episode multiple times a year. Last Exit went from one of my most hated episodes to one of my personal faviorites.

Does this mean the dentist stuff played better to a 30 year old me versus baby boy me?

I got a few laughs this time: I love how all the dentists tools are horribly named and how casual he was about it, the laughting gas thing is fun and the book of british smiles is stupid enough to wrap around to being funny. I also absolutely loved the refrence to the burton batman film. So great.

But the stuff with LIsa herself.. still didn't work for the most part. Or marge, as the guy shouting LIAR to the nicest character in the show because she.. lied about her baby using a pacifier, isn't QUITE funny enough to make the bit work. Likewise his projection of lisa's teeth if she dosen't wear braces is needlessly mean. One of the co writers REALLY hated his orthdontist and it finally made all of this make sense. It's just not very good.

I will share some fun trivia I got from this episodes oral history though: they approached two diffrent guest stars for it: the first was Clint eastwood whose exact response was "Hell No". I half assume they brought up Paint Your Wagon years later out of spite. Or because they love gay polyamorus cowboy icons, Whose to say?

The other is more intresting and was more game, Psycho's Anthony Perkins. He was totally on board, but his failing health sadly meant he died before they could get it all worked out.

The thing is though while Lisa needing braces sets off the plot and gives homer a reason to get involved at all, it's not a huge part of the episode. We get a photographer responding to her smile with "There is no god" later, which I gotta admit has grown on me for the deliver and lisa joining in the protest sans braces, but it's mostly there for setup and to give the episode some emotoinal weight: We care about the strike because we care about lisa. It's why the episode needs it's weakest part: because nothing else would work as well without geninely weight behind homer's fight.

The real meat is the core conflict: the head of the union has mysteriously been buried in a football field somewhere, so Burns, being what your standard greedy ceo acts like when no one's looking, wants to gut their benifits starting with the dental plan.... just as homer needs it. So Homer, after taking a bit to put "Dental plan!" "Lisa needs braces' "dental plan" "Lisa needs braces' "Dental Plan" "Lisan needs braces" together into the right conclusion, ends up becoming head of the union despite it paying nothing.. unless your crooked (Woo-hoo!)

Really from the moment Burns enters musing on a childhood where his grandfather could have a boy taken away for stealing "atoms", and with said boy having warned him about uninons ("If only we'd listend to that boy instead of walling him up in the abandoned coke oven") , this episode pivots from depressing story of lisa getting braces, to one of the series finest farces. It's really a looney tune if bugs bunny was too stupid to notice anything happening to him.

As a result the episode is DENSELY packed with jokes. We have classics such as "Now do classical gas!" , "first thing tomorrow I'm gonna punch lenny in the back of the head!", "The blurst of times?!", "Where's my Burrito?!" (A personal faviorite), "it was the style at the time", along with less noted gems like Homer's weird Godfather fantasy sequence ("Mmmm organized crime"), Marge's hair getting chopped off by burns hellicotper, burns really needing to stop ending with the basement, homer being so clueless he assumes Burns trying to butter him up is Burns hitting on him, and what' sbecome my faviorite joke of the episode...

Every second of this is gold and it's hard to decide if homer screaming and then cheering or burns getting an "opneing tirade" nad his casual response of "yes thank you kent.

And this bit also underlines how well the episode gets labor disputes. It has some rough edges, the frequent mob allusions, the idea that most uninons are crooked, a lot of that is horribly out dated. But the core of it works: Burns isn't cutting benefits for any practical reason, he's cutting them to save them an extra penny; this whole strike, the money lost, burns various backfiring attempts to stop it, is simply because, like the current strike, someone wants to greedily horde money and the workers simply want want's fair. Burns tries most common strike tactics: breaking it up, sending goons to break it up, trying to make threats to the public at large. And while this being the social media age the former two aren't really in the AMPTP's book , Paramount at least trimmed a tree to take away shade from the strikers, while the "starve them out" tactic is just as petty. It also gives us even MORE great gags from Burns hose mishap, to him and smithers having a dandy time togehter as they run the plant, to the afformentiond abe simpson rant of legend. Burns is potrayed as cartoonishly evil.. but it speaks to the episodes strength that none of it is out of the bounds of reality for a change. Even trying to replace them with "loyal robot workers" is exactly the kind of threat the AMPTP is striking against. So yeah Last Exit is both a fantastic episode in it's own right.. and a great episode on unions that's held up well. Now for one that hasn't exactly held up so good.

Canada on Strike (South Park)

Canada On Strike is an intresting one as it's the only one of today's episodes directly about a previous strike.. and said strike is one that's vitally important to the ongoing one. COS was Matt and Trey's commentary the 07-08 writer's guild strike, the predecessor to the current one. And while South Park has had episodes that's incise takes were AHEAD of their time (the brittnay spears episode), or who despite the direct subject still have plenty of relevance (The bar), Canada on Strike falls into the category of "Has aged aabout as well as hot cheese on a glacier being set adrift because it's not your friend guy". It's not "Reinforcing harmful myths about trans women using a randy savage parody" bad mind but it's a reminder that while Matt and Trey sometimes hit an issue right on the head and do it perfectly like any person they can really, really fuck up. Also not remotely fun fact: i wasn't kidding that really is the episode.

In this case Matt and Trey , while sympathetic to the writers involved.. were not at all on board with the 07-08 writers strike, and outright said their concerns were overblown, particularly wanting residuals for internet content... after having just made a large deal for future streaming residuals for THEMSELVES long before streaming was viable, which still pays off to this day.

Creators were aware the internet wasn't FULLY monitizeable yet, but with itunes and amazon starting the digtial episode market, they could see it was the future. And given we now live in a world with about 80 streaming platforms and where family collectively subscribes to NINE as of this article, not to mention countless free ones and on demand services like Vudu, they were right on the target. As said in a speech by writer Harold Gould.

Soon, when computers and your TV are connected, that's how we're all going to watch. Okay? Those residuals are going to go from what they are towards zero if we don't make a stand now. ...

And you know what THEY DID. I know part of this is hindsight, but the fact remains they knew exactly what they were fighting for... and had to fight for it again. And even then they were also fighting for DVD residuals which were a bigger industry then and still exist enough to have been worth fighting for now. Matt and Trey were talking.. straight out of their ass thinking this was a fight over nothing.

Instead they portray the rest of the strikers (here as candains) as people caught along on the tides who just want to get back to work instead of people fighting so they can get paid fairly for work, and the leadership as a cluless asshat , steve abootman who has no idea who he's fighting for. The ONLY thing they get right is that the amptp, as one scene has the World's Natoins wondering if they can make otowa into an amusement park once everyone's dead from exaustion and hunger. Matt and Trey aren't REMOTELY sympathetic to them.. but their not to the strike itself either, just the people involved.

The other part of the plot.. is just horribly dated. The boys do a viral video based on a real viral video, aforementioned what what in my asshole, to get money only to get nothing. A bunch of dated at the time and even more dated now memes figh tto the death, our heroes get nothing, and matt and trey don't understand that montization from films and shows that were being SOLD online is diffrent from monetization of free content, which didn't exist yet and weirdly lump them together. The more I think about this episode the worse it gets and that's NEVER a good sign. I can only hope that like they've done in the past with Manbearpig, they make an episode that's an apology for this one.. and that transphobia shit. Seriously

This episode is an important cautionary tale though: because I watched it as a teen and didn't know that creators could be *gasp* wrong about things, I assumed they were right and the wga strike failed on it's own merits. It's a dangerous thing to put an idea out there when you know young people are watching and might belivie it. Just saying. IT's worth it if you can do it right.. but you have to or you'll just end up hurting people in the future.

Lucky Strike (Daria) And now we've gone from an episode I used to hate and absolutely love, to an episode I used to like but now hate.. to an episode I loved before and was reminded why I loved it so much.

Fun Fact: This was one of the first episodes of daria I ever saw See I got into the show via finding the first movie and the thing I keep missing the chance ot cover most, Daria: Is it Fall Yet?, which had two bonus episodes that helpfully set up the film and it's sequel Daria: Is it College Yet? that one ALSO had two bonuses, if a bit looser linked. Lucky Strike was one of them.

Why is this important? WHy didn't I just watch the seris in full? Well ti's simple: I couldn't. I didn't know you could find stuff like this online, and the dvds hadn't come out yet. I know because I got the complete series with some of my high school graduation money. I still own it. SO all I had were recaps online and these 4 episodes and 2 films.

And honestly while Lucky Strikes work even better with 4 seasons wroth of build up to it's conclusion.. it was a great early episode to watch on it's own and is one of Daria's best. Hands down. Rewatching it reminded me of so many great jokes.

Loudspeaker: Attention Lawndale Students! Jane: Is that the voice that tells me to kill and kill again? Daria: No. Satan's voice is lower and has a british accent.

The episode itself follows a teachers strike and shows it off really well. IT's probably the best teacher's strike i've seen in a cartoon and most strike episodes are teacher's strikes. It's a high bar. It points out how those in charge can deny a fair proposal.. simply because they don't want to. Ms. Li, the school's principal and money hungry tyrant, tries to bribe the teachers with a new coffee machine instead of a fair 5% raise. What helps the episode is like Mr Burns.. Mrs. Li is portrayred realistically for a company head despite being over the top petty for comedy purposes. If you haven't seen Daria, Mrs. Li is a horribly greedy person whose worried more about avoiding a lawsuit or getting the school, and herself, money than actually FUNDING said school or helping the students. Highlights of her dickery include: Punishing Daria for NOT selling Choclate to a woman who had severe health issues, forcing Mr. DiMartino, lawndales super stressed teacher and as we learn here union rep, to go on a casnio night the school was having despite having a gambling problem and him TELLING her this, selling the school out to a soft drink company, and finally at the top of season 2 censoring Daria and Jane's piece on anorexia then trying to punish them both for breaking in and vandalizing it. I saved that one for last as while ti's one of the earliest.. it also has one of Ms. Li's bigger compuances and one of the series finest moments.

So the episode both does a good job from context (the coffee machine dosen't even seem that fancY), and from history telling us "yeah she has the money she just won't pay it" just like the AMPTP, and just like them tries to villanize the striking teachers for darring to.. want actual money for having to deal with the kind of students who go to lawndale. It's a fair request. Ms. Li just won't pony up. It also heavily focuses on something the other episodes don't: scabs. South Park has a one off gag about scandivanivans I honestly forgot and simpsons just has smithers and burns do it in an entirely wholesome and hilarous montage. Here we see the scabs effect on the school.. and it isn't really good for the most part. Daria's class gets an elderly woman who calls her Darlene instead because Daria "Sounds like a hippie name" and seems to think she's teaching kindergarten, and is so out of it she FORGETS Darlene isn't daria's actual name when Daria leaves when called on the loud speaker ("I'm going to get daria"). I do love how she calls kevin QB thanks to his catchphrase though. Admitely I was worried this character would grate.. but forgot she's really only in about 2-3 minutes of episode total so she's there JUST long enough to work.

The other teacher... is just plain creepy and pathetic. We have Ken for Quinn's class. Ken is a pedophile. Him trying to groom tiffany is played as a joke. That said.. I do like that it , intetnionally or not, serves as a deconstruction for this kind of character in teen shows like this: in many , as iv'e found out via various retrospectives and watching them with my own eyes in some cases, have the pedophile teacher as a cool guy talking about game stop who woos one of the characters and is treated sympathetically.

Here Ken TRIES to be that.. but the fashion club don't take to it: Sandy is annoyed, Quinn dosen't get what's happening and Tiffany, who he's directly trying to groom.. is Tiffany, so dense no light can get through to her and thankfully no pedophiles. The scene itself is INTENDED to be funny but is just uncomfortable. While ti's mildly played for laughs that just don't work anymore, I can still respect that they throughly treat ken as a creep, treating his pedophila as

The next scene however is comedy gold. The Morgendorfers have dinner and Daria's Mom helen is doing what she tends to do when Quinn talks about her day unless i'ts plot relevant: Just kinda goes mhmmm. What makes the scene work though is as Daria hears the story she gets up... so that by the time we get to "Ken" stroking Tiffany's hair and Helen FINALLY getting the memo that "OH SHIT MY DAUGHTER'S BEING TAUGHT BY A PEDOPHILE AND HER FRIEND COULD BE GROOMED AND ASSAULTED" she ask sfor the phone.. and daria has it at the ready. It's just such a nice visual gag I tried to do it justice but can't. It also just works because Helen.. takes it super seriously and it shows how all too easily a parent can miss the signs of grooming. It also shows how this shit should be handled: the fucker needs to be sacked and Ms. Li does.. then goes further down the moral sewer as she not only clearly only did it for a lawsuit.. but tries to BLAME helen for doing it. "We wouldn't be in this fix if it wern't for your mother" "Yeah. Hire one pedophile and she gets all bent out of shape"

This leads to what the episodes REALLY about and what the strike was really for: Ms. Li asks daria to be a scab teacher for Quinn's class. She refuses at first, as anyone should.. but eventually buckles because it'd make Quinn miserable. She's still sympathetic though: she gives the class her best despite having every reason not to and she's 17 at this point. OF course she'd priortize bugging her sister over striking and it's nice that none of her teachers really seem to hold it against daria. Plus frankly if Daria refused Mrs. Li woul dlikely of found some way to try and railroad her into it anyway. As you heard when Helen evicerated her Daria undeerstandably wanting to withdraw her work was met with a hell no.

The result is pure comedy gold. Helen and Jake don't really object: Helen is happy Quinn now has access to her teacher 24/7 and Jake, my boy and sharer of the name and the stress and anger issues, is happy to have model train time. God bless this trainwreck of a human being. We also get Daria adressing her as "Class" at breakfast just to piss quinn off and threanting to fail her for funsies.

That said Daria DOES take the job seriously.. or as seriously as Daria can at this point in her life. THat is to say we still get even more comic gold with my faviorite being who she refers to Jamie, Joey and Jeffy, three meatheaded jocks who take turns dating quinn and fighting over quinn, as "Jamie, Joey or Jeffy" no matter which one she speaks to. Which

I can't either. I could look it up but they only LOOK diffrent. They don't act diffrent. We also get some nice bits here and there like one of the j's actually impressing her with his interpretation mercutio was into romeo ("Even if your thoguhts on keeping him out of the shower were a little close minded) and figuring out their talking romeo and juliet in the first place because he describes Romeo as a stalker. The real meat character wise though is with Quinn, daria's sister. For those less familiar with the show, from the first episdoe to this point, Quinn has always come up with some excuse for who daria is: her cousin, foreign exchange student, etc. Sandy, her main rival and head of the fashion club, thehir shared clique, saw through it pretty quickly, and tends to hold it over her head when possible without spilling the tea.

Here's where that reaches a breaking point: Sandy wants Quinn to tell Daria to give them all good grades, and as usual implies she'll drop the hammer if she dosen't. Daria naturally. has no intention of doing this when Quinn asks that night. Also Tom her boyfriend is here for a scene. Hi tom. I'll get to you again someday. What's telling though in how far both characters have come.. is how Daria responds "Why are you defendign the stupid quinn, your not one of them?" Quinn assumes she's going to do bad too.. but when talking to Jake, finds she actually knows this stuff.. and the confidence to just try her hardest herself , come what may. While she didn't get the message at first... she realizes Daria ACTAULLY belivies in her. She wouldn't say it directly.. but the setiment is there and it shows how far both have come: Daria can actually compliment her sister easily, if roundaboutly and Quinn has the confidence to try being smart without doing so just for attention.

So naturally Sandy fails, and Quinn finally admits Daria is her sister. And what happens with her other friends, the aformentioned Tiffany and Stacey, who gets a LOT of development this season but is weridly out of focus this episode and I should probably do a special on at some point in herself.. take it fine. They also saw though it and were just being polite to Quinn, who clearly didn't WANT to admit Daria was her sister and Sandy, who they assumed didn't know. It's a perfect payoff to the series biggest running gag and a nice moment of character growth.

As for the actual strike stuff we're here for what's neat is that it isn't just.. thrown away. It becomes the b-plot once Daria becomes a teacher, halfway in no less... but it's not forgotten: We get some fun bits with Jane and Trent, jane's slacker brother as Trent gets asked by cheery sunshiny mr. o'neil to help make a protest song, while Jane gets roped by the art teacher (and the only teacher she reallly likes and who supports her) int ohelping with signs (And has "the scab) sign her a note to get out of class. ).

The main attraction here though is Mr. Demartino. I mean it usually is, he's the best, but after apparently botching the last time they struck, he refuses to give up when the teachers get worn down a bit and spends an ENTIRE NIGHT negotating and not backing down. The best bit is easily:

Ms. Li: Don't think you can intimiate—intermolate—don't think you can scare me with your threat to picket naked!

Mr. DeMartino: You think I'm bluffing?! This is Goodwill polyester I've been sweating in all night. I want to picket naked!

Ms. Li: All right! A two percent raise and a space heater for the teacher's lounge.

Mr. DeMartino: (tugs on collar) Boy! It's getting hot in here!

That last line lives rent free in my head. The delivery is so good. And... Mr. D gets a RARE victory. I mean he still has his shitty job but he actually WINS the strike and gets ms li to sign in her delrium. Granted his confidence boost dies the moment he has to teach kevin again but still it's a nice little victory for a guy who life is determined to kick in the crotch till he has an ulcer and dies.

Lucky Strike is excellent: if you haven't watched daria it's a good episode to try it out and if you have it' sworth a rewatch. It's hilarious, gets striking down well, and has a lot of great character stuff. As I said one of the series best.

Blue Collar Scrooge (Ducktales0 This one came late in the process as we WERE going to do Squid on Strike.. but remembering this existed, it fit the themes of this strike better and was another half hour show so we went with it. It's also the only episode in this special I hadn't seen before.. and while I'm the one who brought it up.. I was also dreading it

See this episode centers around amnesia and i'm not a fan of amnesia episodes most of the time: they usually go thorugh the same beats of the person acting diffrent, being diffrent and ocsasionaly being tricked into thinknig their completely diffrent. It just gets old after a while. There are exceptions, such as bloom county's take on it

Usually though I hate these kinds of episodes.. so it was an utterly plesant suprise to see Ducktales 87, a show I've mostly thoguht of as "okay"... do a REALLY intresting take on it that also handles the plight of the working person with tact for the most part.

What makes it truly work.. is rooting it in character: Scrooge is doing his usual thing making a suprise interaction on his skateboard factory

And I love the joke of his employees just.. humoring him as they alwasy know when it's happening. This episode is REALLY funny and it's something that suprised me as outside of .. a certain moment

I never think of DuckTales 87 of being a paticuarlly funny show but this episode man. Lots of nice gags. The owner gives the boys one on the house which they sneak back after Scrooge says "they have enough toys". And somehow he's STILL the better guardian than donald

God I missed these ducks. Anyways Scrooge gets conked on the head with it a ways from home and ends up with Amensia. And weirdly.. it's not even as much of a stretch as it should be that no one finds him and he goes unoticed. Scrooge dosen't have his top hat, cane, pocket full of miracles or nifty specs. He just has his coat, and thus looks like any other old man and thanks to his amensia defaults to alan young's regular voice. Also alan young is southeren apparently

Yup. And we get some actually good amnesia gags: Scrooge calling his usual accent silly, having no luck with money and in a bit that's both kind of funny but also sad looking for himeslf on milk cartons.. and getting thrown out because the guy thinks he's teling a joke despite having been dead serious.

Anyways he finds his way to fenton's mom's garbage. Fenton.. dosen't go home because he's looking for scrooge. Okay that one's a bit more of a leap in logic as you think he'd at least go home to tell his mom he wont' be or call, but hey everything else checks out: scrooge is lost in a big city without anything ot idefnity him other than his neat sideburns. It stands to reason that unless the nephews, mrs. b, Fenton or Webby if she was in this episode saw him face to face, it woudln't be that easy for someone else to and as Fenton later poitns out they can't exactly tell the police or anyone who'd wrap this up as it could sink his buisnesses till he's found. And given how this episode ephasies he owns most of Duckburg that's a LOT of people who end up out of a job.

Anyways she's worried at first because EWWWW HOMELESS.. god the 90's were shitty to homeless people. and the 2000's. and the 2010's and present day. At least media is nicer? A little? Anyways, he compliments her dinner and we get another great bit as she makes sure he's single and asks if he has a pulse.. and him checking it is just great. It'd be the best pulse checking joke of all time if this didn't exist

And is it mildly creepy Fenton's mom is hitting on any avaliable man? Yes. Is Fenton's mom the best character here? No. Is it mildly classit to use tv dinners as a symbol of the working class. A little.

But weirdly.. their romance works fo rme. Scrooge with his amnesia is sweet to her and Mrs. C , while clearly into him because again he has a pulse, geninley tries to help, is touched when he later uses his days wages to take her out for dinner as thanks, and helps him when he has a hard day working at the skate board factory as he can only remember skateboards and his boss just.. takes the guy in because why not. It shows how some workplaces will just take every body they can get..a nd then abuse them as lunch break is literally just a minute. Which if employers coudl do that they would. It's why we need strikes and unions.. as this special has shown if an employer CAN get away with something they will. Scrooge plans to sell his factory, putting everyone in it out of work for a profit before his skateboard to the head. and to Mr. Trumpcard. I mean if you can sell your workplace to trump you truly are without a soul.

Scrooge's does show as this scrooge. .is an intresting what if: He's Scrooge if he never got his big break with the goose egg nugget. He has all the work ethic, gumption and desire for money as the regular scrooge but without the greed, cynisim and selfishness he picked up along the way. He's a kinder gentler scrooge whose happy to splurge on a pizza to make someone who was nice to him happy and who ends up leading a strike at work after Scrooge's own secretary leaks the sale to the one at the skateboard plant. He's got the fire, as he ironically grows to hate himself even before the strike, it's just better directed without any prodding or a loved one in danger.

This gets the attention of ... Fenton who dresses up as scrooge to keep the deal going and then has to go attend to the factory and get sso lost in the role he thinks he IS scrooge leading to a hilarious and engaging showdown.. and Scrooge getting his momeroy back and stealing his clothes off fenton

What I like though is the symbolism here> It's about as subtle as a brick, but it works: Scrooge literallys ees himself an dhow he was acting... and through his amensia learned what it was like. They never overly focus on that last part and that's why it works: thorugh his time not knowing who he was, Scrooge got in touch with his routes and stopped being AS corrupt an asshole. It's a true problem in labor disputes: the people at the top lack emptathy and just want money, and it was easy to put scrooge and someone who thought he was scrooge breifly in the villian roll as those are two of his biggest flaws. Even once he snaps out of it he has to be glarred into giving them a dollar an hour raise.

He dosen't even abandon Mrs. Crackshell which is nice. She assumes he will.. but he still has his soaps and the two walk off together. Does this go anywhere? No. But should it if the show comes back. And do I want to think about this relationship beyond how cute it is because it'll lead me to some very dark and horrifying places? NOPE.

Bluecollar Scrooge restored my faith in 87 ducktales after the mini series burned me out on it. It's funny, has a good message, is well animated and while a bit of a stretch, it's just far enough to work without being frustrating. So all in all a good crop of episodes and one dud. Not bad at all. Support the strikers, fuck the AMPTP and thanks for reading.

PS: I almost didn't metnion the greatest scene in comedy history. Behold.

[fkevin073]

i almost cried reading the last chapter! you captured the grief of alysanne very strongly :( and knowing that jace died in your story exactly how he dies in canon, oww, that hurt.

alysanne is giving daenerys parallels and i love it!! i hope she burns everything and kill aegon, she has every right lmao! and aemond should be in her side, yes, is his brother but jace wanted peace and he got kill…

i hope alys is at least a little happy in the end, and if she stays queen, it would be nice if she had a children named jacaerys or rhaenyra :(

Jace is my best boi so I just know his death is gonna DECIMATE me when it happens in the show I swear to god. but thank you!! alysanne loves Jace a whole lot, and even though it might not be exactly how he wanted her to, it was very powerful. she also has a lot of guilt regarding his death.

Jace and her also shared a very unique burden regarding their younger siblings. they knew fully the truth about Harwin Strong, and it's something they could only talk about with each other. she doesn't have that support anymore. and there's a tensions about that with aemond, even.

I wouldn't call myself a Dany Stan by any means, but Emilia's acting in season 8 when she went mad gave me chills. ugh, so good. but yeah, the only thing keeping alysanne from falling apart is rage. Like her and Jace talked about earlier on in the story, there is such a thing as too much loss for them. they're obviously devastated and furious about their mother and visenya's death, but there's a sense of stability still. being able to remain objective.

alysanne doesn't have that anymore. she's responding in the language the other side has clung to despite how Jace tried for peace. I think for Aemond the fact that Aegon also betrayed the promise he made him cemented his decision to support her full on.

and ahh! the name of any potential children alysanne and aemond have (providing they survive the war lmao) is something that has been troubling me for a while. I've talked about past ideas I had for if alysanne and Jace had kids and their names, but for aemond and alysanne it's infinitely more complicated in a way, because they both lose people in the war. their ghosts are a lot more prominent.

anyway, thanks so much for this ask!! too kind.

[fictionkinfessions]

I'm like 95% sure one of my asks got eaten by Tumblr so I'm going to try to recreate it lol. Apologies if I just didn't see it (I did search the source tag on this blog and have sent in other asks after the original version of this one which at least one of has been posted so I am pretty sure but my brain is weird and will never be 100% certain of anything).

Me, in a Jaskier mood: Wouldn't it be nice to just... Not speak? People expect me to speak because they know I can but they don't know how hard it is for me, and I did so much of it when I was Jaskier, I deserve to be nonverbal for a while but nooo, people are-

My brain: Remember that time you were Geralt's Child Surprise and you were almost entirely nonverbal?

Me:

My brain:

Me: Fuck. I was trans, too, wasn't I.

My brain: Yep. I don't have the name you used but I do recall that Calanthe helped because you were too young to express yourself when your parents went away.

Me: It's nice that she was supportive.

My brain: I mean, yeah, but others really didn't follow her example. Also she didn't fully Get the way you communicated because it was mostly not sign language, some of it was but not a lot. She knew there were meanings behind things but couldn't quite get from there to what the meanings were unless they were obvious. And most people didn't even get that far.

Me: Geralt must have, right?

My brain: Oh yeah, absolutely, you two did this thing where you put one hand on his chest and the other on your own and he put his hands over yours, it was super meaningful and cute.

Me: Wait but this means I was effectively Ciri.

My brain: I mean yes in the sense that Ciri has your deadname from that life and basically was the girl everyone expected you to be. But no in the sense that you were not very much like her. Aside from being stubborn, the whole training bit went basically the same except you didn't actually speak. The Witchers were actually not terrible about trying to understand you.

Me: But some of them were jerks about me being a boy who wore dresses. Especially since I wasn't AMAB.

My brain: Well yeah but I'm pretty sure Geralt and Triss set them straight.

Me: I feel like Emhyr was kind of given an unfair start with me, though it was at least partly his fault for trying to have me kidnapped, who does that to their own kid?! But it wasn't fair that he was effectively competing with the ghost of Duny. Like, yeah, they were the same person, but in my brain, Duny was my dad who'd died, Emhyr was the guy who wanted me kidnapped.

My brain: I guess that was a little unfair but again, kidnapping. Bad.

[knockyasocksoff2022]

Chapter Twelve: The Sign Of A True Mafioso: A Hunting Dog?

Junichirou Tanizaki’s Perspective

I dream of Tachihara again, the same dream, only this time he says my name. I wake up, the dream dissolving before I can make anything of it.

Training with Higuchi-san is rewarding. It’s only been two days but after hours of target practice my aim is much improved. Higuchi-san says that because I can sneak up on people with my ability, aiming from far away won’t be needed very often but I need to at least be able to hit the centre of mass and defend myself from a distance if I encounter enemies in the field.

Speaking of the field, Gin and Hirotsu-san have been cleared, they’re out in the field today . . . with Tachihara. 

I wanted to go as well, just to make sure Tachihara wouldn’t try anything again. But I doubt he’d risk blowing his cover, and he does seem to care about Gin and Hirotsu-san or he wouldn’t have visited them. He’s police, not a monster.

I’ll confess I was kind of glad that Executive Nakahara benched me, saying that this mission didn’t require me and that I should use the time to train. He said I’m their hidden card and they’re waiting a bit to show me off. It’s good because I don’t know if I could face Tachihara and work with him, knowing what I do, that the more of myself I show to him the greater advantage the Hunting Dogs have.

-

But the more I train, the more ready I’ll be when I do face him. Higuchi-san mentioned we’d be working a little with her guns today in the Port Mafia’s gun range, sub-machine guns she said they were.

I follow the map Mori-san gave me, but when I get there she’s nowhere to be found. Did she think we were meeting in the training room? Should I wait for her or go back and look? I might as well get some breakfast, maybe she’s stuck in the breakfast line at the restaurant? If not I’ll get us both something.

-

I have too much energy. I’m restless. It reminds me of how in the little time I’ve known Tachihara, he can never keep still. I pay for my smoothie and start to walk around the base of the building to clear my head while I wait.

-

“FUCKKKK!” someone screams. 

Tachihara is running down the alley, towards the the side of the building I lean against. The sight of him makes me drop my almost empty cup. He looks pale as a ghost, sweaty and flushed. Their mission was out in the factory district, did he run all the way from there?

He skids to a stop, falling to his knees panting, “They’re . . . not . . . human!” he gets out between breaths. He doesn’t seem to care that it’s me, “Get . . . someone.”

“Who? Tachihara, who!?”

I help him to his feet, momentarily forgetting his traitor status.

“Higuchi, Gin, Hirotsu-san, all of them. They’re . . . I dunno . . . somethin’ else?” he’s regained his breath but his voice is still gravelly, probably from shouting. It doesn’t sound necessarily bad.

“What do you mean ‘Something else.’? Higuchi-san os with you? She was supposed to be training with me today.”

“I mean that I don’t think they’re human anymore, at least not fully. Their eyes were all red and wrinkled. Higuchi-san was leaping between walls. She made a noise, like a roar. It started with her, she bit Gin and then Gin bit Hirotsu-san, like some kind of animal.”

I don’t what to make of it, but I can tell he isn’t exaggerating. He’s still shaking, his warm breath heavy against me. I realise I’m supporting him, my arm around him unconsciously. I should move it, steep as far away as I can, but I’m worried that if I do he’ll fall. It’s ridiculous. He’s a Hunting Dog he can take his own weight, but my arm doesn’t seem to be cooperating so I leave it for now.

“I’ll get someone, come on. Are they following you?” 

He glances behind him. “I don’t think so.”

I shouldn’t be helping him, I know I shouldn’t. He’s a traitor, but he’s also . . . Tachihara. And I’m helping the others too right, by bringing an official in on this.

“I can’t.”

“What!? Are you hurt?” The question spills out so easily.

“No, I can’t go in there. I need to . . .” he trails off hesitating, “I need to tell the Captin about this.” He steps away, anticipating my reaction.

“What! Why? This is mafia business! No, actually go on, you’ve never cared before so why start now, right?”

“Tanizaki. You don’t understand there were hundreds of goons, unhuman, just like Higuchi. I know Hunting Dogs are on the wrong side of things, but they’re the military police, if this thing is a skill, they can help find the bastard skill user who’s doing this.”

I can only stand and glare at him, my chest heaving.

“I just want to help my city in the only ways I know how . . . Please.”

“I could report you.” My voice is so weak that the lie is obvious. I won’t report him, not now. And as much as I hate it, he has a point.

He doesn’t deny it, “Please don’t.” His reply is almost as weak as mine, and he opens his mouth as if to say something else. I shove him away from me, mouthing “Go, then!” A silent acceptance of defeat, for now.

He lingers for only a moment, a conflict in his eyes. What battles is he fighting inside himself?

-

Just my luck, Executive Nakahara is striding through the lobby. He looks pissed and my news will only anger him more but I have to tell him.

“Executive Nakahara!”

“I’m a little busy, Tanizaki-kun!”

“It’s important, really. The Black Lizard’s been attacked! They’re not human anymore!”

“I know. We just lost coms on an entire squad of foot soldiers. Security footage shows the Black Lizard biting them. It’s some type of infection. The enhanced strength makes them especially dangerous. I suggest you sit tight for now. We’ll let you know if we need you.”

I nod and take the lift back to the dorms.

-

For the first time since I got here, I look out the window, craning my neck to try and see to street level. It feels like just as I’ve found my home the world is falling apart.

Only as squint down at the world below does it occur to me that Tachihara admitted that the Hunting Dogs are wrong. He believes the agency! Maybe he can convince them and then they can work with the agency to sort this whole mess out! They already know what they found at the Casino, now they can arrest the manager and everything can go back to normal!

Maybe Tachihara is more of a mafioso than I thought.

—

It’s been two weeks since the Black Lizard was first attacked and the skill has spread to nearly all of the mafia foot soldiers now. I haven’t been sitting around. Instead, I spend most of my time in the training room. I lift weights and use the pull-up bars and punching bags. 

Ozaki-san and Executive Nakahara come in when they’re not too busy. She shows me a few katana techniques but I don’t take them easily to it. The blade is light but it doesn’t feel like an extension of my body. When I watch my reflection in the glass I look stiff and uncomfortable. Executive Nakahara says that that’s fine, I’ll know my choice weapon when I find it. With him I work on martial arts techniques. I even try the simulator, but I stay on the ground, never touching the swinging bars or platforms.

Executive Nakahara said I was welcome to try any of the weapons I wanted to, but I’ve never taken him up on that. Now I walk over to the metal racks and view the selection. On the first part of the wall are guns of all types, then the daggers, throwing knives, machetes, and axes. Another shelf holds a pair of metal spikes (like the ones you see in vampire movies but in shining steel) chains made of metal and rubber and nunchucks in wood and metal. The last shelf holds larger weapons. Swords, a scythe, bows and arrows, spears, even a mace. Do these ever get used? I’ve never seen any mafiosos use these and the goons all use guns. So when . . . Ah, torture. Of course.

I don’t know how to use any of these and I don’t feel like mindlessly punching or shooting targets right now, and the restaurant should be about to open for breakfast so I take the lift back down to the lobby. Maybe I can find Executive Nakahara if he’s not busy, I’d bet he knows how to use at least one of these.

-

As the lift door opens I see Executive Nakahara, walking with Tachihara. I don’t know why but my first instinct is to hide myself with light Snow, so I do.

“Mori-san wants to speak with you, most likely to know more about the attack on the Black Lizard. How you survived and where you’ve been for so long.”

Tachihara’s stride falters for half a step but he regains his pace quickly, a master of disguise. He’s worried about being found out, but how would Mori-san know anyway?

“Yeah, it was crazy, I barely got out of there. I’ve been hiding at one of the safehouses.” Techihara’s tone is perfect, if I didn’t know differently, I’d believe him.

Executive Nakahara nods, and he begins inputting his biometrics for the special lift. When the door opens I follow them in, pressing myself into the corner. 

The ride is silent. Executive Nakahara gets off on the third to the top floor, below the floor with the war room. Before he goes he presses the button for Mori-san’s floor. So Tachihara’s going in alone. I don’t know why that scares me. Mori-san doesn’t know, he won’t hurt him. And he’s not alone, he has me. (wait . . . WHAT?) 

I give no indication of my presence, following silently behind Tachihara as he knocks on Mori-san’s office door.

The door opens, but Mori-san isn’t there, it must be automated. I slip through before it closes and sit down on the sofa, I’ll make less noise if I’m seated.

“You dropped something, Tachihara-kun.” Mori appears suddenly out of the shadows behind Tachihara, patting the Hunting Dogs onto Tachihara’s head.

I let out a silent gasp. He knows. Tachihara is done for. I expect a kife through Tachihara’s back to follow, but instead, Mori-san smiles, a kind almost fatherly smile.

“You have friends in the Military Police, eh? Lovely. If I ever get a ticket, I’ll have you deal with it for me.”

“Huh?” Tachihara’s voice is almost nonexistent in shock.

“I heard all about you from the agency. When her colleagues rescued her from custody, Yosano-kun said you were a Hunting Dog.” Mori-san looks like he’s going to continue but Tachihara starts first.

“I’m sorry! I’ll take whatever punishment you want, just don’t involve Tanizaki in this! He wasn’t betraying you, he wouldn’t! The only reason he didn’t come forward was because he wanted to kill me himself, he told me so.” Tachihara’s voice is frantic. Why is he talking about me? Is he not worried about his own life? He should be trying to spare himself. I want to shake some sense into him but revealing my presence would only complicate matters and I’m frozen in place with gratitude. How could a Hunting Dog be so kind?

Mori looks amused, “Was he know?”

“Yes,” Tachihara says with absolute confidence.

Mori-san nods, “You truly believe he would have killed you? Interesting. . . . If that’s really what you believe, then I have no reason to think you’re lying. Don’t you think I would have punished him already if I had any intent of doing so? I found out days ago and was simply waiting for your return.”

(A/N: Mori is the biggest shipper in the fandom.)

What does that mean? Of course, I was going to kill him, wasn’t I?

“Thank you, sir.” Tachihara kneels in front of Mori-san, bowing low to the ground. He doesn’t look afraid, he radiates conviction and loyalty. He’s ready to receive his punishment.

“This show of loyalty, Tachihara-kun . . . I sense no fear in you, not of me or anyone here, you’re comfortable here, time and time again, you choose the mafia. Do you sincerely believe that you would be able to do this if you held no doubts over your superior in the Hunting Dogs?”

I can practically see the gears turning in Tachihara’s head, the same gears that spun and whirred in my own head when I decided to take my place in the mafia. 

“ . . . No, sir.”

“As I thought. You have nothing to prove to me, so do get up. Now where was I . . . ah, yes. The Tiger lad from the agency said he and Akutagawa-kun fought the true villain behind The Decay of The Angel . . . and lost.”

“THE TRUE VILLAN!? SO THERE IS ONE! WHO?”

“No offence to you, but I believe the two of you are already somewhat well acquainted.”

Tachihara tilts his head in confusion, and then his expression drops. His eyes widen and his face pales to almost bone white. Mori-san leads him to one of the armchairs facing the window.

“Yes, your nationally beloved ex-superior, Fukuchi Ouchi or as we know him, Kamui, the head of The Decay of The Angel. We suspect that he may be somehow behind this so-called outbreak of vampirism. And it can be safely assumed as well that he plans to use vampirism to fuel his new “Army of Mankind”. We must stop this before he can enact his plan. That means finding the source of the infection and snuffing it out. Tachihara-kun, I have a mission for you, as a member of the mafia. I want you to become a double agent . . . get even closer to Kamui and gather information as to the details of the plan and whereabouts of the other organisation members and help eliminate the enemies of the world.” Mori-san’s face is calm and collected as always as he addresses Tachihara

“Yes, sir!” Tachihara stands up, salututing Mori-san. The look of determination on his face scares me. Like Hirotsu-san said, he’s reckless and brave. He’s going to do something stupid, isn’t he? 

I know I said I wanted him dead but the anger has worn off. He’s not so bad. He spared Yosano, proved he cares for Gin and Hirotsu-san and the Black Lizard, selflessly begged for my life to Mori-san, agreed to rejoin the mafia as a spy, putting himself in further danger, and I . . . Oh.

“Excellent. Good luck.” Mori-san hands him back the Hunting Dog hat and dismisses him.

I follow Tachihara out and into the lift, the anticipation and worry eating at my insides. The lift stops at the dorms. I’m surprised to see him go to the room right between Kaji’s and mine.

He unlocks the door and I follow him in, even though it’s technically trespassing. 

I end Light Snow and now I’m standing in Tachihara Michizou’s kitchen uninvited.

“You’re going to confront him aren’t you!” My shout echoes like a cannon through the quiet room. Tachihara jumps, dropping the Hunting Dog’s hat and turning on his heel.

“Junichirou! FUCK! What the hell? How . . . Oh. You had no right to—”

He has the strangest look on my face that makes my words rush out. “I know, and I’m sorry, but you can’t confront Kamui! He defeated Atsushi and Akutagawa, what can you do?”

“So now you’re doubting my skill.” His face is stubborn. He knows I’m right, so why is he still fighting?

“No, it’s just that . . .” I thought I wanted to kill him but I really just wanted answers. That feeling I thought was rage is something else and knowing that, feeling like I do, I could never kill him. So seeing him now, being faced with him leaving and the threat that he might not come back, scares the hell out of me, and I think I know why. I think that I’m . . . no, I could never say that. “Mori-san didn’t ask you to do this. If you go now you’ll blow your cover. You might get hurt.”

He looks at me, stares really as if trying to see inside my soul. I’m worried he’ll succeed and see the feelings swirling inside me like a dust storm. 

“It’ll void Mori-san’s entire plan if you're discovered now and can't extract any more information on Kamui,” I say, trying to reason and rationalise away my obviously emotional reaction.

He looks down, barking out a laugh, there's no humour in the sound, “Right, all for the mission. I’m useless otherwise. What would anyone want with a traitor like me?” When he looks up his expression is bitter. His fierce tawny eyes cut holes in me, making me feel like jelly, I can’t stand it.

“What!? No! That’s not what I–  . . . I didn’t mean it like that! I just meant that . . .” I can’t get the words out and he’s still looking at me like I’ve stabbed him, resigned, so I stick to something I can say. “Thank you, for what you said back there, in Mori-san’s office. You didn’t need to do that. I don’t understand why you did that, thinking of my life before your own, but thank you.”

“You don’t understand?” His words are metallic, but then his expression softens, “Of course you don’t, why would you?” He sounds disappointed. “How long have you been following me?” He asks suddenly as if trying to change the topic. 

I’m grateful. It’ll be much easier if he doesn’t feel the same way, even if I’m not sure what it exactly is that I feel. Or at least, it should be.

I hesitate, my face heating up. I shouldn’t lie. I don’t want to. “Since you got in the lift with Executive Nakahara. I was curious. I was worried that you’d been found out by Mori-san.”

“And you were worried that he’d kill me before you could, right?”

“No.” the word slides off my tongue before my brain has a chance to catch up.

“Then why?” His words still have an edge but it’s less sharp now.

“I don’t know,” I confess. I’m not really sure what intention I had when I went up there. Would I have gone against Mori-san? . . . I don’t want to betray him but for Tachihara Michizou I see myself doing so easily. I would stop Mori-san from killing him. It’s such a foolish thing, I know but I think it and feel it anyway.

He turns away so I can't see his face, heading towards what I assume is his bedroom if his room’s laid out the same as mine. “That isn’t good enough. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a mission to get to.”

I stand there frozen, I should leave but my feet feel stuck to the floor. He comes out of his room in his Hunting Dogs uniform, glaring. 

“The door’s there. Why are you still here?” His cutting tone is back, edges nearly twice as sharp as before, so I almost miss the way his voice cracks at the end.

“DON’T!”

“Don’t what?” The crack is gone, paved over by a hardness that I’ve never seen on him before.

“Don’t go! Please.”

“Why?” His voice is so low it’s almost inaudible.

Because I like you . . . “Because Kamui has a massive army on top of his ability and his super strength. If there’s anyone who could go against him it’s you, but . . . I don’t want you to get hurt.” 

I think of every small moment. The mentions begin filling me like air being pumped into a balloon, only it’s coming from inside me. I feel like I’m going to burst with them if I don’t say anything. The feeling of his hands on me from when we first met, so safe. When we made eye contact after the battle with Ivan and the virus skill user. The way we fought the military police together and when I held his bleeding form right before I found out he was working with the Hunting Dogs. If telling the truth will throw him off enough that he won’t go then I have to try. I take a breath.

“It would be bad for the mission, but also for me, because I like you Tachihara, a lot. Ever since I met you in the training room I’ve wanted . . . I don’t know . . . more. And I just got you back– I mean you just came back to the mafia, and don’t want to let you go so soon and I’m scared that if you go fight Kamui, I might have to. So please, don’t go now, wait, even a little bit.” Not sure if I’ll be able to come back from crossing this line, I grab his wrist.

He starts laughing, a roaring laugh, an unhinged sound. I feel the tears rolling down my face, my legs giving out, my body sinking to the floor. I knew it. I’m useless and pathetic and he’s still going to go get himself killed.

He looks down, but there isn’t malice in his eyes, his expression is light and amused, then quickly shifts into panic.

“Wait, why are you crying?”

Is he mocking me? I shake my head.

“Junichirou. Come on, tell me. What is it?”

The way he says my name makes my heart splutter. This is the second time he’s said it. He sounds so genuinely concerned that I have to answer, even if he is mocking me. “You- I just confessed to you’re laughing.”

“Oh my god, yes I am! Oh my god! I’m– Wait, did you think I was laughing at you?” His eyes widen again.

I can only nod through the thick tears.

“No. Non, no, no, god no. I’m just so relieved. I’m sorry I was so angry before. Don’t cry.” he’s crouched down in front of me now, his hand warm against my cheek, brushing the tears away. I feel like a child, but not in a bad way, like I’m being spoken down to, but in a good way, like I’m safe and someone cares for me. I sink immaturely into Tachihara’s touch, I can’t help it. I never felt like this as a child, back then every touch was an unwelcome one, whether the harsh hands of my mother and father or the probing hands of Naomi. Touch was never safe. I learnt to recoil at even the brush of a finger. Now I let Tachihara cup my face in his hands, he’s so close I make myself open my eyes just so I can see all the colours in his eyes. Swirls of orange and yellow colouring the golden irises. He’s looking right into me. I want him to see all the way through.

“I thought that you hated me.” he says softly, his hand in my hair now, “You know want to know why I plead your case to the boss, this is why. I couldn’t let you get punished because of me. Even if he was gonna kill me, I didn’t want you to die. And that’s because I like you too, so please stop crying. I’d like to kiss you if you don’t mind.”

I laugh, blinking away the last of my tears and nod.

I lean forward but his lips meet mine first. It isn’t a deep kiss but the contact makes me melt. Everything about him is warm, his gaze, his touch, his lips. He must run warmer than the average human. A human flame, hot metal.

When we break apart my insides feel warm for the first time, the eternal cold inside me melting like Snow in spring. Meanwhile, Light Snow falls around us, hiding us from the world even though we’re the only ones in the room.

After a long moment, we get up.

“I should probably take this off.” Tachihara gestures to his Hunting Dogs’ uniform, “Unless you want to, that is?” I can tell it’s a joke but I can still feel myself going pink. 

“N-no, I’ll wait out here.”

A few minutes later I hear a rustle behind me as I try to adjust my hair pins where Tachihara’s hand knocked them astray. Suddenly they fly out of my hands. I turn to see Tachihara holding them up as if he just caught them.

“You’re fringe is cute. You should keep the pins out sometimes.” His smirk turns shy.

“Okay, but I don’t think a mafioso should be seen as cute.”

He nods, “True, how about only when it’s just us?”

“Okay. Can I call you Michizou?”

He laughs again, the sound softer than the other times I’ve heard it. “Oh. My. God. Please do. You didn’t even have to ask . . . Junichirou?” I find it funny how he says my own given name with such uncertainty after that.

“Duh! Of course, you can call me Junichirou.”

We both fall into laughter. A melody I’d sing over and over.

“We match.” Michizou comments as we catch our breath.

Finally, I take my eyes away from his face and notice his outfit. He’s wearing a black tee shirt, ripped jeans (the kind that has actually been ripped, not bought that way. He displays a matching scar on his knee, a thick line that I can see even from here.) and black Converse.

He’s looking over me as well, “You look good in black.”

I blush, “So do you.”

We’re both fidgeting (more so than usual), still charged with energy from the kiss.

“You know what, we should go somewhere,” Michizou says suddenly.

“Where though? Outsides full of vampires probably.”

“It doesn’t have to be far, just out of here.” he looks around and we’re both thinking the same thing. The room is suddenly too small.

“Alright, let’s go!” It comes out as a cheer and then he grabs my hand and pulls me out out the door. 

(A/N: EEEEEEE! TACHIZAKI!!!)

A sample of my Junichirou Tanizaki Port Mafia AU

Chapter One: Bloodthrist

Junichirou's Perspective:

My heart beats violently in my chest, from running up all those stairs and from what I'm about to do. I am afraid of course, of the potential retaliation, what this could mean for the agency in the aftermath, for my sister. But for the battle to end, this is our only option. In this fight someone will have to lose their life. This is necessary, I will do what is necessary, to save the Agency, and my sister. Let this life put an end to it all.

Just as I plunge the blade down there's a flash of light and it's cut in half before it reaches its target. There's a hand around my wrist that feels almost solid but not quite.

"Forgive me, child, if this man dies, the mafia will return to the form I detested so." It's a woman's voice, and its presence fills the whole room.

I turn.

The woman herself matches her voice, commanding, brown eyes with a sharp gaze, held on me. Feeling useless I consider dropping the knife. I consider it, but I don't. Instead I tightly grip the end with the handle and make myself disappear.

"Visible or not, your bloodthirst is clear to me. I hesitate to wound one of Kyouka's colleagues but . . ." I swear I hear her sigh, and then there's a whooshing sound, the room is filled with knives. Only one blade but it moves so fast I won't possibly make it out alive. And she knows it, I can tell.

"There's no use hiding, Tanizaki-san. I can still hit you, and don't bother with the window, unless Dazai's suicide obession has rubbed off on you, that is." She just stands by her boss's bed, not bothering to ferret me out, like she knows she's won.

Anger burns hot in my chest turning the room red, but it's useless. I can't touch her. I'm useless.

"You'll still be useful to us without all your fingers, and I think you would prefer I found you, not my Demon. Wouldn't you agree?" She has a determined expression, it turns tired when I don't respond, "I can feel your bloodthirst from here, this is surely getting boring for the both of us. Reveal yourself."

She takes me by the scruff of my shirt neck like I’m some lost kitten and I wonder why she doesn’t restrain me more, but I guess with her gift she assumes I would be too afraid to run. She’s right.

"Good. Now, let's talk business."

(A/N: This is very experimental, I really just want to see if people like it. If you did enjoy this pls like, reblog, and/or comment to let me know. I am writting a second chapter but I'm kind of unsure where the story will go after this. Also I'm still deciding whether or not to include Tachizaki, I know they're a popular rare-pair, should I? If I include Tachizaki I'm thinking of calling it: What does the Tripartite Scheme have to do with Midwinter Snow. Is that a good name or too cringey?)

[childotkw]

"Grey Ghost was pale grey-white, the color of morning mist."

It seems as though Lucerys cannot escape his inheritence even though he is supposed to be a bastard. So it's just fitting in my opinion, he may not have inherited the looks of a common Targaryen or Velaryon, but he definitely inherited the true spirit of the both. A silver dragon that flies around the sea to catch fish symbolizes the both houses.

I've always loved the wild dragons introduced, because they aren't chained in a pit like the other dragons are, so they can get even bigger and stronger, or just happier. There was a line in one of the books about the dragons getting smaller and weaker since they stayed in one place for too long and didnt hunt for themselves at all (Syrax) (I don't blame Rhaenyra btw I think she made the right choice to just let Syrax pop out eggs since dragons r definitelly needed for the long night) (in the books at least) domesticated basically.

I definitely believe Luke would find another way to keep riding Grey Ghost without injuring neither of them. Because when you look at the dragons in HOTD, there's stouts planted into the dragon's scales to keep the saddle on. I guess I just like the idea of him working on a saddle module day and night like Hiccup did in HTTYD, that would be benefitial for both the rider and the mount. I also like the idea of Grey Ghost roaming free in Driftmark or wherever Luke takes him, because the dragon is shy enough to not approach humans, or even animals. (save fish) So he isn't excatly a danger, and can be not in chains.

I also wanted to add my little headcanon for this AU or any other haha. Since Rhaenys had black and white hair in the book (mainly black) in my imagination Laenor inherited the black hair part from Rhaenys (meanwhile Laena inherited the beautiful silver locks, as did her daughters by Daemon)

Now, Lucerys' hair color is still brown, not black like his father and grandmother. But you can argue that he got the hair from Laenor, it is not so obvious that he is a bastard. But the greens do not leave the Velaryon boys (or in this case boy since jace and joff dead) alone, regardless of how obvious or not obvious it is.

I just don't like how the show portrayed the bastard allegations when there was so much potential. (I guess you can blame it on the limited episodes they had, in a way, but it was their decision how many plotlines they would cover.) Especially how they did Rhaenys so dirty. She was a Rhaenyra supporter from the start and loved the boys like they were her own, and she had black hair.

Onto something else, I also headcanon Lucerys having deep purple eyes, it is not so apparent when you first look at them, they can even pass as black sometimes but when the light hits them or if you look close enough they are definitely a shade of purple.

Also, sorry if my brainrot is too much haha. Just the amount of potential this AU has is making me insane

Grey Ghost really is the best choice for a Lucerys that fully embraces his Velaryon side! You're right about the wild dragons as well, and how well it Grey Ghost suits Lucerys - the dragon that loves the sea and eats fish? 10/10 a perfect meld of both his Houses, and you can guarantee that Corlys would make that observation whenever he had the chance.

And yes to Lucerys using a different saddle type for Grey Ghost. Our boy would respect that his new dragon is still wild, and since he's so reclusive and avoids humans, there's really very little danger to him even if he does come across people. Grey Ghost is more likely to just peace out then attack - so long as he and Lucerys aren't threatened. So he and his rider are perfectly happy to just let him roam and snack on fish when he's not needed.

You don't need to apologise for the headcanons! It's always fascinating to hear how so many people can twist the characters and still make it believable! It shows a lot of passion people have for the story and the characters! That's why fanfiction is such a wonderful and unlimited creative space!

(Also sorry it took so long to get to your message - I got distracted with getting ruination out!)

[crystalninjaphoenix]

The Things You Survive

A Horror Septic Story

(I’ll be honest, this is probably one of the least scary chapters. But hopefully there’s still a few scares in there for you guys ;) I’ll keep this short, since the story is long enough. Stacy learns that there are more people out there who know about the things that inhabit the world. And so does John. Although the people they meet, and the way they meet them, are very, very different.)

—————

Even though Stacy and the kids had been living with Mark and Amy for a couple months now, they’d never been in this room. She didn’t even know it existed. But looking back on it, there was something a bit off about that part of the hallway wall. It looked slightly different. Stacy just assumed it was a weird paint job. But when Amy knocked on the middle part of that different wall three times, causing a strange thunk sound from somewhere inside, Stacy knew it was more.

Amy pushed the wall, and it slowly swung open, the bottom grinding against the ground. Behind it was a downward staircase made of wood, lit up when Mark reached in and flipped a switch. Mathew and Larkin gasped in awe. “Seeecret,” Mathew whispered.

“You mind?” Mark asked, looking at Stacy.

“Uh...” Stacy slowly shook her head.

“Good.” Mark and Amy stepped to the side, and he gestured at the staircase. “After you guys.”

And now here they were, sitting in a secret underground room. The ceiling was low with wooden beams supporting it. In the middle of the square room was a circular table, wood with metal legs. Two old sofas sat on either side of it, facing each other. Shelves, drawers, and filing cabinets completely covered the walls, papers and books sticking out at odd angles. In the corners of the room were old, seemingly normal trunks. But when Stacy looked at these trunks, she felt a shiver down her spine.

“So.” Mark paused. He and Amy were sitting on one of the sofas, while Stacy was sitting on the other, her sons on either side. “Do you want to go first, or should we?”

“I... guess I’ll explain some things,” Stacy said slowly. She glanced to the left at Mathew, who nodded. Then to the right at Larkin, who grabbed her hand and squeezed it. She looked back at Mark and Amy, took a deep breath, and started telling her story.

She wasn’t sure how long it took to outline everything, starting with their move to the house in Bronainise and their discovery of the thing inside. Her throat was certainly starting to get hoarse by the time she reached Foraois Hollow and the strange forest that surrounded it. And by the time she was talking about what happened in Achmatze, Amy had gone upstairs to get her a bottle of water to help. Mark and Amy were good listeners, asking clarifying questions and reacting to the events with a mix of horror and sympathy. They let her continue all the way through the encounter with the glitchy thing (Mathew declined to explain his part of the story), and the strange, eternally looping house she’d been trapped in just a couple hours ago.

When it was clear she was finished, Mark and Amy exchanged a significant look. “How’d you get out of the Manor, again?” Amy asked.

“I...” Stacy took a drink of water from the bottle. She’d drained it to three-quarters empty during her long explanation. “I don’t know for sure. But I think... I think it heard me call for help. A-and that somehow... caused it to appear.” She felt a weight on her shoulder, and glanced to the side. There was a flicker of something, then nothing. Her head whipped back around. “Did you see that?!” she hissed.

“No,” Amy said.

“Yeah,” Mark said.

They both looked at each other.

“The ghost is still here?” Larkin asked timidly.

“It shouldn’t be.” Amy’s voice was a strange mix of fear and offense. “This is supposed to be a safe place.”

“I don’t think it’s actually there,” Mark said slowly. “Or at least, not fully. I think... maybe that’s a result of it being somehow attached to Stacy now. Part of it will always be with her.”

Stacy shivered. “How do you two know this stuff?” she asked quietly.

“Well, you can say we’re experts on the subject,” Mark said jokingly.

“Or at least the closest thing to it,” Amy added. “Your friend—John? He might know more than we do, just because it sounds like he’s a lot more immersed in this world.”

“So, how do you know about it?” Stacy repeated.

Amy and Mark glanced at each other, and Amy made a “go-ahead” gesture, yielding the floor to Mark. “Well, I’ve always been able to see weird things,” he said. “Like Larkin here, and that family you mentioned in Ireland. I got it from my mom’s side of the family. When I was a kid I totally believed I was seeing monsters, but as I got older, I just sort of...convinced myself that it was all in my head, and that my mom was just playing along with me. I tried medication for a couple years, but, shockingly, that didn’t help. So I learned to ignore it. But then...a couple things changed.”

“Like what?” Larkin asked. His eyes were wide as he stared at Mark in awe. Clearly, hearing about someone else who could do this was very exciting to him.

“It started with this recurring dream I would have,” Mark explained. “Well. Not really a dream. Because it would happen wherever I was, no matter what I was doing, awake or asleep. I’d just blink, and suddenly I’d be in this strange...TV studio.”

Stacy blinked. “TV studio?”

Mark grinned. “Not where you’d expect a bunch of weird supernatural stuff to happen, right? It’s hard to describe what it looks like, almost like a talk show set, but it seems to change every time I go there. What doesn’t change is the weird guy with the mustache.”

Again, Stacy had to take a moment to process that. “I’m sorry?”

“It’s a lot more threatening that I’m able to describe.” Mark leaned back against the sofa. “Imagine... Have you ever met someone who got all up in your personal space, even if you asked them not to? Leaving this weird, uncomfortable feeling of being too close? This guy is like that. You always feel like that around him, even if he’s on the other side of the room. And he has this smile that’s just a bit too big, and these eyes that are just a bit too wide. And he always stares at you, no matter where he is or where you are. And his voice. God, it’s hard to describe his voice. It’s just a little bit off, and...it’s hard to describe. Even though he doesn’t stop talking, and I keep hearing his voice, I can never describe it.”

Stacy nods. She’s starting to get the picture of what Mark is describing. Though she’s sure that imagination won’t do it justice.

“Whenever I show up there, it asks me questions,” Mark continued. “Just relentless questions. It calls this an interview, but even when I do answer, it just cuts me off. Usually twists what I say to make me look bad. And then it kills me.”

“What?!” Mathew, previously listening idly, straightens to attention.

“You, uh, sound really casual about that,” Stacy said.

“I do? Well, I guess it’s just because I’m used to it. The dreams started in...2012, I think? But believe me, getting killed is not a pleasant experience no matter how many times it happens.” Mark shudders. Amy leans a bit closer to him, supportively.

“How does it kill you?” Stacy asked.

“Usually either stabbing or shooting. But there are sometimes a few weird ones.” Mark cleared his throat. “Anyway. Once I die in the dream, I just reappear back in the real world exactly where I was before. In the same position, too. One time I was washing dishes when I disappeared. I didn’t have the sponge or plate I was holding in the dream world, and when I came back I dropped them. Broke the plate.” He sighed. “That was a mess. But even though these dreams were very, very real, I still thought it was just my brain doing weird stuff. It wasn’t until Amy and I started living together that I realized it was more than just a hallucination or something.”

“One day, Mark was on the couch, and he just disappeared,” Amy explained. “I tried calling his phone, looked around the house to see if I was hallucinating, and almost called the police. But then, a couple minutes later, he just blinked back, right where he’d been last.”

Mark nodded. “That was the moment where I was like ‘oh shit. Is all this real?’” He laughed dryly. “Not exactly a fun realization to have. But, after a while, you get used to it.”

“Yeah,” Stacy said quietly.

“We didn’t really start doing anything about it for a while, though,” Amy said. “It was when...Mark, do you want to keep going?”

“Yeah, I’ll keep going.” Mark sat up straight. “So, you know how I make YouTube videos for a living.” He waited for Stacy and the boys to nod before he went on. “Well, I met a couple friends through YouTube. You know, people I didn’t know in real life, but who I’d met on the platform and at conventions and stuff. One of these friends was a guy named Jack.”

Stacy felt something squeeze her shoulder. She glanced behind her, but didn’t see anything.

“You okay?” Amy asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” Stacy waved away the concern. “More or less. You can go on.”

Mark paused, then nodded. “Jack and I were good friends, but he lived in England, so we couldn’t interact in person much. We mostly kept in contact through phones and texting and Discord. We played games together, made videos together, you know. Whatever. Anyway, one day, he started acting really weird. Getting all jumpy and stuff. He didn’t want to talk about it, but I know he started going to therapy for stuff. Then he uploads this really weird video to his YouTube channel on Halloween, and follows it up by saying his channel got hacked and he was going to take a break. It was... really concerning. So I called him up. Asked him what was wrong. And he immediately started saying stuff about something being in his house, how he was being watched, how the computers weren’t safe.”

“Oh no...” Stacy whispered. Beside her, she felt Mathew tense up.

“Yeah.” Mark nodded. “Sounds like that weird real-life error you guys ran into, right? Well, hindsight is 20-20, because I didn’t make the connection at the time. I thought he was being stalked. That’s always a risk when you put your face out there, getting attention in a public setting. I told him to go to the police, but he said it wouldn’t be any use.” He paused. “Even though I’d known that there were strange things in the world, I didn’t see what was happening until the end. I don’t know. Maybe I didn’t want to see it. But in any case, Jack slowly stopped answering my calls and messages. The very last thing I heard from him was this text he sent me. Saying he had to try and avoid ‘it,’ that he had to try and run, but that ‘it’ would follow him, because ‘it’ wasn’t normal. ‘It’ was like a ghost.” Another pause. “The very last thing I heard from him was, ‘I think I’m being haunted. I think it wants to kill me.’”

Silence fell in the small room. Stacy shook her head slowly, unsure what to say to that. Amy put her hand on top of Mark’s and muttered something that sounded reassuring. He reached up and wiped away the gathering tears in his eyes. Then took a deep breath, and kept going.

“There wasn’t much I could do except keep trying to reach him. I mean, he lived halfway around the world. Once I realized I couldn’t get to him, I started calling his other friends who lived in the country. Apparently he said something similar to a lot of them. A couple went to check on him, but he was gone. And the police couldn’t find him. They said it looked like he left. This was all a few years ago. Now, I think his disappearance is kind of famous in certain circles. You can find true crime shows talking about it, wondering what drove him to just vanish. But I know what really happened.” Mark took another breath, shakier this time. He waved at Amy, signaling for her to finish.

“After all that,” she started, speaking delicately, “the two of us had a long talk. We decided that we had to stop stuff like that from happening to other people. There are a lot of these... monsters around. So...we try our best to do that. It’s kind of a secret. A lot of these things are smart, so we want to avoid their attention. So, sorry for not telling you when we took you guys in. We weren’t sure how you’d react.”

Stacy stared at her. She looked back over at Mark. “Did... did you guys know that there was something... strange about us?” she asked in a hushed voice.

“Well, sometimes I get a weird feeling,” Mark said. “It’s not always right, but I’ve figured out that it’s better to go with your gut with stuff like this. Even if it’s wrong, you’ll still help someone out who needs it.”

“Is this like... like a secret monster fighting group?” Larkin asked, eyes still wide.

Amy laughed. “Well, I guess. There’s more people than just us.”

“Really?” Stacy asked.

“Yeah.” Mark nodded. “Do you remember Ethan? He was the other guy in the car when we picked up you and your friend. He’s part of it. I’ve actually been talking with him a lot lately, there’s this weird ticking noise in both of our houses that’s been getting louder—”

“So that is a weird thing!” Larkin cried out. “I thought you just had really loud clocks!”

Mark laughed. “No, we checked. It’s still there without a single clock in the house. It hasn’t done anything yet but be really annoying, but we’re preparing. We think it’ll stop sometime in November, so we’re all planning to be out of both houses by then. You guys too, obviously, if you’re still here.”

“Are...you going to let us stay here?” Stacy asked, bracing herself for the worst.

Mark and Amy looked at each other. “Well it’s a bit more complicated with the guy attached to you now,” Amy said slowly. “Do you think it’ll do anything to anyone else?”

“I...don’t know,” Stacy said slowly. Again, she felt something squeeze her shoulder. And she thought she heard a whispered voice. “Uh...I’m getting the feeling...not without provoking it?”

Amy sighed. “There’s no delicate way to put this next question. Do you know what it’s going to do to you?”

Stacy hesitated. “It might...just want to...be with me. But, uh, I don’t want to know what that means. How it’ll, uh...go about doing that.”

“We can get you a hotel room if you guys want,” Mark offered. “Until we figure out how to get rid of it.”

The grip on her shoulder tightened painfully. “Ah!” She cried out, instinctively clapping her hand over the spot. She pulled it away with her palm covered in dust. “I-it doesn’t like that. But...you can do that?”

“There’s no magic cure-all,” Amy hurried to explain. “We can’t just wave a wand and make it go away. But there’s a way to deal with all of these things.”

“They don’t want you to know that, but there is,” Mark agreed. “Sometimes the way is really elaborate and nonsensical, and pretty hard to get right, with big consequences for messing up. But there’s always a way.”

Stacy blinked. She wasn’t sure if the tears in her eyes were relief, or just reaction to the dust. “And...what about John?”

“Your friend?” Amy and Mark looked at each other again. “Well, uh...”

“I mean, we’d have to find him first,” Mark said.

“But maybe we can do that? Remember that weird necklace?”

“That’s right! Can we use that?”

“Maybe? It won’t be easy.”

“Well, anyway.” Mark looked back at Stacy. “If we can find him, we’ll help him out. It’ll take time to figure stuff out, though. For him, and for you guys.”

“That’s fine,” Stacy said quietly. It was the best chance they’d had in a while. “Thank you. Thank you so, so much.”

“It’s the least we can do,” Amy reassured her, leaning over the table to pat her knee.

Stacy took a deep breath. There was a light feeling in her chest that she’d almost forgotten. It was possible to escape. It was possible to get rid of this thing that had been following them. It was possible to lead a normal life again. For her, for her boys...and for John.

She wondered if he was alright, wherever he was.

* * * * * * * * * *

It had to happen eventually. Even if he really, really, really didn’t want it to, he knew there was only so long you could wander through a country before finding yourself in a large, urban area.

True, the United States had a lot more empty space and small towns than Europe did. So it took him a while to stumble upon one of the big cities. He was pretty sure he’d made it...maybe halfway across the country from Los Angeles before he reached this one. He wasn’t sure. Even though he’d been to the States a few times to meet up with friends and sightsee, it wasn’t like he had its layout memorized. But he did know that he covered a lot of ground.

He also knew that he’d never been to this city before. It was one of the cleaner cities he’d been in, not a lot of trash on the street or abandoned storefronts. But it was still a city, and that meant it was still a little dirty, just by virtue of the sheer amount of people living and working and passing through here.

Oh yeah. People.

He sat on the front steps of a store and watched them. Pedestrians walking by, cars driving past, even train tracks running along the middle of the street, with a train coming every five minutes. Everywhere he looked, he saw people. And the more he saw, the more his anxiety tried to crawl up his throat.

There was a faint humming in his ears. Not the busy hum of city noise. Something else. Something that he felt more than heard, felt in his bones and his eye. His fingers twitched. So he folded his arms and tucked them under his armpits.

The store door opened, nearly knocking him off the step. “Oh! Sorry!” said the woman who’d opened it. Her eyes glanced down at him. She hesitated, then when he didn’t say anything, she moved on, walking down the street with a shopping bag dangling from her hand.

The humming grew louder, clawing at the inside of his skin. He stood up and started walking. Movement, he found, helped to quiet it a little. And besides, he needed to explore the city.

Luckily, this place was pretty easy to navigate. He’d discovered that cities in the US usually had a pretty orderly street layout, and this one was up there in terms of order. For a while, he wandered, figuring out how everything connected and where things were. Eventually, though, his stomach grumbled. It was doing that recently.

With that, he stopped, and tried to figure out what to do from here. He had to get out of this city as soon as possible. There were so many people around. And when there were more people, the humming was always louder. His fingers twitched more often. He had to get out of here. But he currently only had five dollars and fifty cents in his pocket. That was enough for train or bus fare—he’d checked that—but that didn’t leave much left to buy food. He could always try asking for money or food, but that didn’t always get results. Plus, it required approaching someone. Probably multiple someones. And the back of his mind was humming...

After a moment of standing there and thinking, he made a decision. His stomach was twisting around, trying to eat itself. He needed the energy to keep going. And he was going to keep going. He wasn’t about to give this thing the satisfaction of running him to death. There was probably a fast food place in the city somewhere that had some sort of “dollar special.” All he needed was a sandwich and a drink, then he could try to figure out a bus or train route out of here.

Indeed, he found one soon enough. And, luckily, it looked pretty empty. But he still braced himself before stepping through the door. An inside was a lot worse than an outside. Because an inside usually had electronics. And electronics gave power to the thing that had grabbed hold of him. Especially electronic communication.

His stomach growled again, drawing his attention back to the empty pit inside him.

He took a deep breath, and pushed through the door.

Barely five minutes later, he was outside again, holding a paper cup of water and a paper bag with a burger and fries. He let out that breath he’d taken, and hurried down the sidewalk. The streets were a bit emptier than they were before, probably courtesy of the gloomy sky overhead, but there had to be an especially empty place where he could sit and eat without worrying about anything.

Wait. There was. He remembered seeing a small park nearby. What street was it on? 2nd East or 2nd West? He’d turned right at some point, so he should turn left now...

His muscle memory proved reliable, and he quickly found the small park he’d seen earlier. There wasn’t anyone walking around it, or sitting under its trees, or playing on the slides, swings, and jungle gyms at one end. He sighed, and sat down on a bench.

He absolutely devoured the food. Vaguely, he remembered hearing something about how you shouldn’t eat fast, but he didn’t care. The last time he had something to eat was yesterday morning, before getting on the bus that kicked him out in this urban area. Sure, he was still hungry afterwards, but a bit less hungry.

He was putting his trash in the nearest garbage can when he felt it. A drop of something cold on the back of his hand. He froze. Maybe it was nothing? But no. He could see small, circular dots of water on the rim of the garbage can. A few of them. Then, quickly, more. It was raining.

Panic surged through him. He pulled up the hood of his jacket and ran to stand beneath the nearest tree. In just a minute, water was falling from the sky, pounding on the pavement. No. No no no, it couldn’t rain now. He didn’t have a tent. He didn’t know where in this city he could stay. The trees in the park were alright, but if it rained hard, which it looked like it might, their branches and leaves weren’t enough to keep out all the water. He was going to get soaked. Which was fine if you could change out of your wet clothes after. Bad if, like him, you didn’t have any other clothes. Sleeping wrapped in wet cloth was a good way to get sick. A cold at best, hypothermia at worst.

His gaze darted around, looking for anywhere he could wait out the rain. He’d rather risk the dangers of an inside than stand outside right now. There were stores and restaurants, but they might kick him out if he didn’t buy anything, which he couldn’t because he needed to use his money for fare—

Then he saw it. There was a tall glass building across the street from the park, with a sign over the doorway designating it the library. Perfect. Libraries couldn’t kick people out unless it was closing time. And the rain might be over by then. He glanced to the right and left, looking for cars, then broke into a run.

Success. He managed to get into the library with only his outer layer of clothing getting rained on, and only slightly. A sigh of relief escaped his throat, and he looked around.

This was a very modern library, which he wasn’t used to. The outside walls were almost all glass, and the carpet had a funky design of colored triangles. One side of the library had glass elevators and a curving staircase leading up. A floor plan told him that there were five floors, each of which had different sections. A big display in front of the entrance listed perfect books for the upcoming fall. Was it really almost fall?

He wandered further in. A big, curving desk sat right by the front entrance. There were three people behind it: an older woman working on a computer, and a man with a dark beard, talking to a young blond woman. He stared at the desk. He could see the backs of computer monitors. The older woman was typing. Clack clack clack clack clack... clack clack clack clack clack... the sounds echoed in his head...

“Hi, can I help you?”

He blinked, snapping out of it. The bearded man and the blond woman  were looking at him. In fact, the blonde was staring at him pretty blatantly, her gray eyes magnified behind a pair of cat’s eye glasses with gems on the points. “Um...I just… wanted to look...” he said slowly.

The bearded man nodded. “Well, if you ever need anything, feel free to ask our staff.” He tapped a nametag on his chest, identifying him as ‘Brandon.’

“Thanks.” He started to turn away, then realized something, and turned back. “Uh... where are your bathrooms?”

“There’s one on each floor, all the way at the back.” Brandon gestured towards the back of the library. “Usually in a little alcove. Building layout is a little weird.”

“Thanks,” he mumbled again, and started to walk in that direction. The blonde with the cat’s eye glasses continued to stare at him as he walked past.

He passed by shelves of books, into a section of shelves reserved for DVDs, and then found the little alcove that Brandon mentioned. Sure enough, the bathrooms were tucked away back here. He went into the men’s bathroom and took care of things, then stopped and stood in front of the bathroom mirror.

His reflection stared back at him. A near-perfect copy of him, showing him the new dark circles under his eyes, and the new streaks of gray in his wild hair. When had he started looking so much older than he actually was?

He blinked.

After a second, his reflection blinked back.

His breath caught in his throat, and he backed away from the mirror. The reflection stayed exactly where it was. Above him, the bathroom’s fluorescent lights flickered and buzzed louder. The reflection blinked again. And then it smiled.

“No,” he said under his breath. “No no no no no...” It was more of a reflex than a genuine reaction at this point. He shook his head and closed his eyes. The lights flickered again and buzzed even louder, the sound joining with the humming to drown out everything else. He couldn’t even hear himself as he continued to mutter “No no no...” over and over again. The sound filled in the empty spaces in his nerves. It was almost everywhere, but he fought and struggled towards the small bit of quiet. Like he was fighting his way through levels of sleep to try and escape a nightmare.

He didn’t open his eyes until the humming subsided. It was still a little bit louder than it was outside, but that was expected. So he took a deep breath and looked around.

This wasn’t the bathroom. He was clearly still in the library, but not on the first floor. A glass wall nearby showed a view of the city from a couple stories off the ground. The rain was coming down hard, a lot harder than it had when he walked into the library. How much time had he spent fighting off the humming? It must have been a while. Did he just wander around in that lost time? Or did something worse happen?

Around him were tables, each with about four wheeled chairs. And each with four computers on their surface. His heart stopped for a minute as his eyes immediately latched onto them. Desktops, with a monitor, mouse, and keyboard each. Some had people sitting at them. He counted how many: six. Six people. All calm. All unharmed. For a moment, he felt relief.

And then the computer monitors all turned to static in unison.

He cried out, staggering backwards as if physically hurt. The six people at the computers paid him no mind—too confused, frustrated, and annoyed by their screens glitching out to notice him.

The static shifted, changing colors, blocks of red green and blue, then stripes of yellow, pink, and cyan. The computers that had their sound turned on started emitting a strange electric screeching from their speakers, causing four of the users to visibly jump in surprise. The screeching shifted, still irregular, and yet his mind could parse words from the pure noise.

Iê£ÆĠcanÇŚă¢doż×IJūwhateverŀÔÜI¡¿ŐwantŌĤ¹Ŵÿto¬ôÌšyou.

ÑŞõċČŊºRemember?ĂľďŌËÇ

He swallowed, his throat suddenly dry. That was true. He’d promised that. And it was much preferable that it happen to him than to Stacy, Mathew, and Larkin. But that didn’t make it much better.

His fingers twitched. And then his wrist. And then his arm started to fold, lifting his hand upwards towards his face—towards his eye-patch. Panic caught in his throat. He reached up with his other hand and grabbed his own wrist, trying to pull his hand down. But that other arm also wasn’t listening to him, and merely held the first for a moment, barely stalling it. He swayed on his feet. Despite his best efforts, his hand reached up and pulled off his eye-patch.

Warm blood trickled from his eye. The panic choked him, and he switched tactics. He pressed his hand up against his now-exposed eye, holding it closed. Then he added his other hand to the pressure for good measure. He felt his eye moving under the lid, darting frantically. A few of the computer users had noticed him by now, but weren’t sure how to respond to this strange display.

żĹ÷Don’tđ³ôřĶăfightŋšůĕŷit.

He pressed further against his eye, pushing it back into his head. It kind of hurt, but not nearly enough to stop him. He listed to the side, then stumbled to regain his balance without moving his hands. Behind his closed eye, he started to see fuzz. Colorless patterns of dots and lines. His open eye darted around the room, watching as the static on the computer monitors slowly shifted, mimicking the patterns.

Suddenly, his vision disappeared entirely. The blood rushed from his head and he completely lost his balance, falling to the floor. Things went briefly black, and he wasn’t able to brace himself against the hard landing. A few seconds later, everything came back into focus, but he continued to just lie there, waiting for the light-headed feeling to fade.

A person’s shadow fell over him. “Are—”

“Get the fuck away from me!” He sat up—so quickly it was amazing he didn’t faint again—and swung wildly at the figure of the person. His hand connected, and the person shouted and backed up.

It... it definitely was a person. Not some glitching monstrosity. In fact, it was that blonde with the cat’s eye glasses. Her hand pressed against the spot at the bottom of her ribs where he’d ended up hitting her, and she stared down at him with a horrified look.

Blood was dripping down his face, which suddenly went white as he realized what she was looking at. Just to confirm, he glanced back at the glass wall, and caught his reflection in it. His right eye was fully visible, its sclera a sickly bright green. He gasped, and looked away. Where was it?! There! His eye-patch had fallen to the floor. He quickly snatched it up, scrambled to his feet, and burst into a run, pushing past the blonde and getting away from the computers as fast as possible.

He ran until he saw the staircase and elevators, and then he continued to run up the stairs. He only stopped when the staircase did, depositing him at a little reception-like area, barely big enough for a desk, a few chairs, and a doorway that led out to the library’s roof. It was completely empty. This was probably some sort of employee-only area. But he didn’t care. He collapsed in the nearest chair, nearly falling out, and fumbled with the eye-patch until he managed to wrap it back around his head. His chest rose and fell quickly, and he concentrated on trying to slow it down. He curled his hands into fists to stop his fingers from twitching.

Ã¥ÿŭĀFunĵŷĢļ¿IJ=)

A sob caught in a throat. More warm liquid spilled from his eyes, but just clear this time, not red. He pulled his legs onto the chair’s seat and buried his head in his knees. Then he waited. For the rain to stop, a staff member to find him, or possibly...something else.

* * * * * * * * * *

When he woke up, his first instinct was to wonder what he’d done while he was out. But, thankfully, he quickly recognized the feeling of actual sleep, not unconsciousness or worse. It was actually a nice nap. One without dreams, which he was always grateful for.

He looked around. This small reception area was still empty. But there was something missing... Oh, right. The sound of rain on the roof. He glanced at the glass door leading outside and clear skies, but skies that were noticeably darker than before. A couple hours must have passed, making it evening.

The library might be closing soon. And since there was no more rain, he should get out of here as soon as possible. Either catch a train or bus, or try to find somewhere he could stay the night. With that new goal in mind, he stood up, stretched his muscles, winced as they ached from sleeping in an awkward position, then headed down the staircase.

He reached the first floor without incident. The desk by the front entrance was still staffed by the bearded man, though the older woman had been replaced by a teenage boy. He stared at the two of them for a moment before turning and leaving, pushing through the doors and onto the street.

It was indeed evening. The streetlights were starting to turn on. He looked around, trying to figure out where to go next. Maybe there was a bus stop this way? Only a little bit sure, he started walking down the street.

He passed a strange, downward-sloping street and paused to look at it. Oh, this was an entrance to some sort of parking garage. He saw a clearance warning and a pair of toll booths down near the bottom. There was a gray van stopped on this slope, about to come out. They were probably waiting for him to cross and didn’t expect him to stop right in front of the entrance like an idiot. So he quickly moved on, reaching the sidewalk on the other side.

“Hey!”

The shout came from behind him. He immediately tensed, and slowly turned around. It was...the blond woman with the cat’s eye glasses. She was looking at him and waving as she walked closer.

“I want to talk to you!” she shouted. “Stay right there, I’m coming to you!” And she started to cross the parking garage entrance.

Strange. His guard immediately went up, but... she seemed real. She seemed human. He’d been around enough weird stuff to pick up on when something wasn’t either of those things. But why did she want to talk to him? Was it about him hitting her? Shame curled around his stomach.

He opened his mouth to say something, to apologize, when the gray van drove up in front of him. It mostly passed by, then stopped. Strange. What was it—

The van’s back doors flew open.

His instincts kicked in and he turned to run, but he’d been worn down into exhaustion from so long wandering around, on barely any food or rest. He wasn’t fast enough to avoid the hands that grabbed him from behind, pulling him into the darkness of the van. “Hel—!” His yell was cut off by another hand clamping over his mouth. He struggled, arms and legs flailing wildly. Whispered shouts surrounded him, arguing.

And then something hit the back of his head hard and everything went black.

* * * * * * * * * *

This time when he woke up, he wasn’t left with the groggy confusion of a sudden nap. Instead, his head was pounding, a nail of pain jabbing into his temple. His face instinctively scrunched up in response, and something pulled at his skin. That was... weird. He cracked open his eye to look around.

He was sitting on a chair in a basement. More specifically, he was tied to a wooden chair in a basement. His wrists were pulled behind him, held in place by rope, and there was another coil of rope around his chest. Meanwhile, his ankles were tied to a wooden beam that connected the front two chair legs together. The sticky thing pulling at his face turned out to be duct tape: some over his mouth, and some over his right eye.

The basement, meanwhile, looked... pretty normal. There was a rough carpet and unpainted plaster walls. Bare lightbulbs dangled from exposed beams overhead. A washing machine and a dryer were pushed against the wall to his left. On the wall across from him was a high, small window. And on the wall to his right was an open door. Standing in the doorway was a young man with dark hair. He was probably no older than twenty-four, but was very in shape for his age, wearing a black tank top that showed off his muscles. Currently, he was facing away, out the doorway.

Well. This was a new situation. He raised his head further, shifting position as much as the ropes would allow. His whole body was aching again, indicating he’d been sitting here for a while.

“Ah!” The young man’s head whipped back over to look at him, probably catching movement in the corner of his vision. He said something under his breath—it sounded like Spanish, maybe?—and disappeared through the doorway.

He stared at the spot where the young man had been. The door was still open. That was a bit weird. You’d think that if you had someone tied up in your basement, you would want to make sure they stayed there. Well, if the door was open, he might as well try an escape, right? He started wriggling, trying to pull his wrists free.

He didn’t get very far before he heard the voices. Hushed tones coming from the open doorway. He stopped struggling and just stared towards it. Just in time to see two faces appear, leaning in from the side. A young man with long strawberry blond curls pulled back in a ponytail, and a young woman with black chin-length hair. They disappeared as soon as he made eye contact, and the hushed discussion grew louder, to the point where he could understand what they were saying.

“—just sitting there.”

“Are we sure about this?”

“Guys, trust me. You weren’t there.”

“He does give me the creeps.”

“Maybe he’s just a creepy guy. We probably just kidnapped a homeless person.”

“Are we gonna go to jail?”

“Why didn’t any of you say this when I brought it up? It’s really easy to be like, ‘no, let’s not grab this guy,’ you know.”

“Can we just let him go if we’re wrong? Would he report it to the police?”

“All we’d have to do is get rid of all evidence, and they wouldn’t be able to convict.”

Okay. He was starting to figure out why the guy left the door open when he disappeared. It was because none of these people—four of them, it sounded like—had any experience in kidnapping people. Good. If he was going to be held captive, he’d prefer the captors to be incompetent. But that still left the question of why they did it in the first place.

The discussion continued for a while longer, before one of them said loudly, “Alright! We’ll all go in and look at him then!”

“What? All of us? What if something happens?”

“Safety in numbers. You can stand in the door if you want. Any other objections?”

Silence.

“Alright. Let’s go, then. Who’s going in first?”

“I’ll do it.”

And with that, four people slowly filed into the basement room. He sat up straight, giving them all a good look. They were all around the same age. The young man with the black hair from before was back. He stayed in the doorway, arms crossed in a manner that would’ve been intimidating if there wasn’t so much anxiety in his face. The other three stepped fully into the room. In front was the young man with the strawberry blond ponytail. He was the tallest of the group, and the only one that didn’t look a little nervous. In back was the young woman with black hair. She fidgeted with the fingers of the gloves she wore. And in the middle...was the blonde with cat’s eye glasses from the library. She held herself confidently, but was clearly on edge.

“He just looks like a guy,” said the ponytailed man.

“No, trust me!” the blonde insisted. “All the computers glitched out while he was around. A-and the lights. And you didn’t see his eye, that wasn’t normal.”

“Well we can’t see his eye now,” the black-haired woman pointed out.

“I covered it up for a reason! It just...it looked at me funny.”

“It was open—wide, wide open—and I grew furious as I gazed upon it,” the ponytailed man said, in the tone of voice one uses when quoting a line of literature. “And so by degrees, I made up my mind to take the life of the man, and thus rid myself of the eye foreve—”

The blonde shoved him. “I’m not crazy, Michael!”

“To be fair,” said the young man by the door, “he is staring at us in a freaky way.”

He rolled his eye. What did they expect him to do, when he was tied to a chair and couldn’t talk? Not stare at them? It didn’t seem like a good idea to look away from the people who kidnapped you.

“Leo’s got a point,” said the black-haired woman. “I have one of those feelings around him. It’s like my arm hairs are standing up.”

“They’re called goosebumps, Rya,” the ponytailed man—Michael said. “It’s cold down here.”

“No—well, yes,” the black-haired woman—Rya admitted. “But it’s different. It’s almost like...like one of those plasma balls you put your hands on. Electric.”

“See? Electricity would make the computers go crazy,” the blonde said.

“Look, I don’t like the stare,” the man by the door—Leo said. “But it’s not right to tie someone up for having a creepy stare. Diane, do you think anything bad would happen if the rest of us... checked?”

The blonde—Diane hesitated. “I guess not,” she said slowly. “Uh... Michael?”

“Yeah, I’m doing it.” Michael started walking forward, easily closing the distance to the chair where their captive was tied up. He reached out.

For a moment, he leaned his head back. The humming had been almost inaudible before, but as Michael’s hand got closer, it grew louder. But there was only so far he could tilt it. So he gave up, holding his breath as Michael grabbed the edge of a duct tape piece and slowly pulled. He braced himself for the pain that would come as his eyebrow hair and eyelashes stuck to the tape, but surprisingly, it didn’t hurt that much. Maybe the humming was too loud for the sensation to pierce it.

“Oh wow.” Michael raised an eyebrow of his own. “Yeah, that’s not normal.” He stepped to the side so the other three could see the now-uncovered eye.

Diane, having seen the eye before, was able to stifle her reaction. Rya and Leo, however, weren’t. Rya gasped, going white, while Leo stepped backwards until he was almost out of sight from inside the room. He came back, just as white as Rya. “See?” Diane said.

“You’re right,” Leo agreed.

“Cover it back up!,” Rya hissed.

Michael nodded and replaced the duct tape, walking back over to where he was previously standing. “So...now what?” he asked.

“We get rid of it,” Rya said. “Like the others.”

A pit opened in his stomach as his mind leapt to a few conclusions. One: these four people probably had experience with the strange, monstrous things in the world. Two: they’d managed to get rid of some of them. Three: they kidnapped him because Diane thought he might be one of those things. Four: they were going to do the same thing to him. Immediately he started shaking his head, trying to protest through the duct tape.

“That is a, uh...weirdly human reaction,” Leo said.

“Some of them are really good mimics,” Rya replied.

“I know, it just feels...” Leo hesitated. “...bad.”

Diane stared at Leo for a moment. Then turned to look at him, tied to the chair. He stared back at her, silently pleading and gently shaking his head. “This does feel weird,” she muttered.

“That might just be because this is the first time one of them’s been in the house,” Michael said. 

“Either way, we don’t know what will get rid of this one,” Diane said. “Remember the Hallowed Halls incident? We don’t want another one of those.” The other three all made similar noises of frustration and regret. “Right? So...I guess we’ll just leave it here, then. Try to figure out how things work with it.”

“We’re really going to keep this in the house?!” Rya protested. “Where we sleep? Where we eat? Where we do laundry?! What if it escapes?!”

“Well—” Diane started to say.

“Nope!” Leo shook his head. “Nope. We’re not discussing this right in front of it so it can hear our plan. Everyone, out.”

“What about guard duty?” Michael pointed out.

Rya sighed. “I’ll stay. Michael, I’m trusting you to argue my points.”

“Rad.” Michael made an okay sign with his hand.

The four of them filed out again, with Rya stopping in the doorway. She stared at him. He stared at her. He felt his fingers twitch. So he looked away. His head twitched, wanting to turn back, but he wouldn’t let it. One of the dangling lightbulbs overhead flickered.

* * * * * * * * * *

A full two days passed. He was surprised that his main feeling about this new situation wasn’t fear, but rather boredom. You couldn’t do much while tied to a chair. And it was clear this group wasn’t about to untie him anytime soon. One of them was always waiting in the doorway, even at night when the small basement window became dark, either standing or sitting on a folding chair. They went in shifts that lasted a few hours. He tried not to look at them. But the humming reminded him that they were always there.

Their reactions to him varied. Leo seemed to take this guard duty most seriously, as he stood or sat there the whole shift and watched. True, he did jump a little every time he shifted position, but he never left or took his eyes away. Diane was also very intense in her watching. He could feel her eyes on him the most clearly, boring into him, studying him through the lenses of her glasses.

Rya was a bit different. She clearly wanted to watch him as intently as the other two did, but couldn’t. Maybe she had trouble focusing. Or maybe she was just too busy. He saw her sitting with a textbook a lot, reading and taking notes on the information inside. Once, she brought a laptop. But the humming grew louder, and she suddenly cried out, shooting to her feet and almost dropping the computer. She stared at him, breathless, then turned and ran away. He heard her footsteps go up a set of stairs, then a few seconds later, Michael came down to replace her.

Out of all of them, Michael was the most relaxed. Strangely relaxed, in fact. His definition of ‘watching’ was more like ‘reading a novel or drawing in a sketchbook and occasionally glancing up.’ It was actually pretty strange that he was so nonchalant. If these four really believed him to be a monster, and the other three were so vigilant, why did Michael act so casually around him?

It was confusing, but after two days, he had a chance to figure it out.

Michael came down for guard duty in what was probably the afternoon, judging from the light from the window. Unlike the other times, he didn’t have a book or notepad with him. Instead, he’d brought a basket of dirty laundry. He walked right into the basement room and dropped the basket by the washing machine, then turned around and left again. A minute later, he returned with another laundry basket, dropping it off. And another minute later, he came back with a third basket, which he started loading into the washing machine.

It was so utterly weird that this guy was doing chores while a man was tied up in the same room that he just had to stare at him, instead of avoiding him like he tried to. Michael seemed to feel this gaze, because he turned to look at him in turn. “Hope you don’t mind,” he said, voice and face completely serious. Then he returned to loading the laundry.

What. The fuck.

After a while, the first load was in the machine, complete with a plastic pod of laundry soap, and Michael started the cycle. A few minutes passed. Michael’s eyes darted back and forth between the machine and him. At first, lingering longer on the laundry. Then, slowly, paying more attention to him.

His stomach growled. He felt it twist in on itself, searching for something that wasn’t there.

“So do you need, like, actual food and water then?” Michael asked, clearly hearing the sound. “You know. Stuff humans would eat.”

He nodded.

“Oh shit. Well, I guess that’s one way we could kill you.”

He flinched, more out of surprise than fear.

Michael laughed. “That’s a joke. Mostly.” He fell silent for a while, staring at the machine again. The room was filled with the sound of water and tumbling. Then, Michael sighed, and looked back at him. “Do you have a name? A human name we can call you?”

Again, he nodded.

“Hmm.” Michael pursed his lips. Then, he seemed to make a decision, and walked over to the chair. He reached out.

This time, he didn’t try to lean away when the hand approached. He stayed as still as he could as the duct tape over his mouth was peeled away. Once it was gone, he took a deep breath, and licked his lips. They were dry.

“What’s the name, then?” Michael asked.

“...John.” His voice was harsh from disuse.

“Really?” Michael stared at him. “Couldn’t come up with anything better?”

“You won’t be able to remember my name even if I said it,” John mumbled. “John is fine.”

“Hmm. Cool.”

“I—I really am human, you know,” John hurried to say. “I know it doesn’t seem like it. But there’s—something got to me, too, so that’s why—”

“Wait, you’re not gonna say like, ‘what am I doing here’ or anything?” Michael asked. “Or ‘let me go’?”

“I...think I’ve figured out why I’m here,” John said haltingly. “But, uh, for the second one...” He trailed off. Would it really do any good to be free again? He’d just end up wandering around, trying to avoid people and electronics. On the other hand, right now, he was stuck with four people and their electronics for sure. Even if it was less of them. Was it better to try and avoid worse, or better to try and find somewhere else? Somewhere everyone would be safe from him...and it.

“Rya’s really good at spotting when things aren’t what they’re supposed to be,” Michael said, not noticing the way John’s voice faded. “See, a few years ago, she had this friend she met in one of her classes. They got along really well. Almost supernaturally so. And soon, Rya found it hard to resist what her friend was suggesting. She’s never done drugs, but she’s always said that being around them was probably what it was like to be on them. What snapped her out of it was when they got in a fight with some other classmates at a party and Rya broke one of their noses. She confronted this friend about what happened, and verbally refused to see them anymore. Next thing she knew, the illusion fell away, and she could see that her friend was actually a monster that only looked human. It wished her luck, and walked off, and she never saw it again. But ever since, she’s been good at figuring out stuff that’s...more. And she says that you, Mr. John, are ‘more.’”

John swallowed a lump in his throat. “Um. Weird question. Did this friend of hers wear a red hood?”

Michael blinked, surprised, and stepped back. “How’d you know that?”

“It sounded familiar,” John mumbled. “I’ve, um...met that one.”

“Huh.” Michael’s head tilted to one side. He stared at him, but in a different way. Like he was analyzing him. “Have you, uh...met a lot of these things?”

“More than most people.”

“Huh,” Michael said again. He walked backwards, turned and walked a little to the side, only to walk back to where he was before. That must have helped him make another decision, because he said, “We’ve met a few of these monster guys. Would you know them all?”

“Not all of them ever,” John muttered. “Can you describe them?”

Michael paused. “You ever met a guy in a cabin in the woods?”

“Not in America.”

“Oh yeah, you are some kind of European. I was wondering.” Michael laughed. “Okay. But you’ve been to the US before, then? I mean, you’re here now.”

“A couple times,” John said carefully. “But not long enough to, uh...get acquainted with some of the... regional... things. Some of them can go anywhere in the world, though. I might know them.”

“Was one of these things a weird book lady?” Michael asked.

John blinked. “You’re gonna have to be more specific.”

“An old lady who was connected to a book,” Michael added. “Well, not actually an old lady, but it looked like one. And it’s not around anymore. But when it was, either the stories influenced it, or it influenced the stories.”

John shook his head. “Sorry.”

“Alright. What about a...a traveling circus?”

There was something in Michael’s tone that time that made John look at him more closely. “Is that one... personal?”

“Oh, am I that obvious? Shit.” Michael grinned a little. “I’m not that good at hiding things. Not very subtle, I’ve been told.” The grin fell. “So? Have you? Is it still around?”

Even though John had seen a lot of creepy places in the past few years, he’d never run into the classic creepy circus, or anything related to that idea. He opened his mouth to say as much, but instead what came out was, “Yes. It is.”

“...ah.” Michael looked away, putting his hands in his pockets like he was trying to be casual. “Should’ve known. That’s on me. Well, thanks anyway.”

“You’re... welcome,” John said, confused. He tried to explain that he didn’t know why he said that, but the words were caught in between his thought and his intention, dying before even reaching his throat.

His head was starting to ache. The humming was pounding at his skull, as if trying to burst through from inside.

“Well, we’ve seen more than a few things out there,” Michael continued. “Have you—”

“Do you have a last name?” John suddenly asked.

Michael blinked. He laughed. “Weird question. You know, even if you’re human, I don’t think I should say—”

“Is it Cardinal?”

Instantly, Michael stopped. He stared at John, who stared back silently, finding it hard to form words through the humming but still trying to say he didn’t mean to say that. “I will neither confirm nor deny anything,” Michael said slowly. “Why do you ask?”

“Do you not know? Do you think that was stolen, too?” John asked, not knowing what he was saying.

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about you.” His arms twitched. Then his head. “Isn’t it obvious?”

Michael laughed. It sounded a bit different than his other laughs. There was no lightness. “You know, if anyone walked in right now, they’d think you were crazy.”

“Do you think the mirror twin took that, too?”

The silence in the room was broken only by the sound of the washing machine, deafening in the emptiness. “What... are you talking about?” Michael repeated in a hushed voice.

John’s mouth twitched. He fought back the smile that was creeping onto his face, struggling to grab onto a clear thought in the humming that was growing louder, louder, louder. “Once upon a time, there was a family,” his voice said. “The youngest daughter was afraid of clowns, but she really wanted to get over it, so all five of them went to an old-fashioned traveling circus. It was very fun, but as the sun got close to setting, they thought they should leave. But the oldest child, the only son, really wanted to try out the funhouse, so they all went inside.”

Michael took a step backwards.

“Just like the rest of the day, it was really fun.” John tried to grit his teeth to stem the flow of words, but the muscles in his jaw weren’t responding. “Seeing strange reflections in the distorted mirrors was hilarious. The son found it so funny, in fact, that he spent a long, long time looking at them, and when he finally took his eyes away, he saw he was alone, and his family was nowhere to be seen. He thought he’d just wandered off, so he turned and left to search for them. But no matter how far he walked, he couldn’t find his family. And no matter how far he walked, he couldn’t find the funhouse entrance. When his feet started to hurt, he thought he had to be going in circles. The funhouse wasn’t this big from the outside. He tried resting a hand on the right wall of mirrors, but that didn’t work. He kept turning left, but never ran into the same mirror twice.”

“How do you know this?” Michael whispered.

John’s eye twitched. “You told me, Michael,” his voice said quietly, and laughed through clamped teeth. “You don’t know that you did, but you did.” The duct tape over his right eye was starting to loosen as liquid welled beneath it. “You kept turning left, but never ran into the same mirror twice. You were all alone, except for the infinite reflections of you in the glass. But they didn’t look like you, with how the curved surfaces warped the image. Because of how strange they were, you didn’t notice for the longest time that something was wrong.”

“Don’t...” It was a plea trying to sound like a command.

“You didn’t notice that you weren’t alone. Because you still were. But you weren’t. But you were. Because the person staring at you in the glass was yourself.”

“Don’t!” Michael rushed forward, covering John’s mouth with his hand. Then he yelped and immediately drew it back. His palm was bleeding. Not from a bite mark, like one would expect. But from a scratch. In one end of the scratch, a bit of copper wire dug into his skin. He plucked it out. The pinprick of pain made him wince.

“A perfect twin,” John continued, even as a trickle of blood came from the corner of his mouth, and another spilled out from behind the loose duct tape over his eye. “A perfect version of you. And you saw it, and you knew it wasn’t a reflection just from the look in its eyes. As soon as you realized that, it stopped pretending. It saw you, and it grinned. You turned to run, but it followed you on the other side of the glass, its body distorting with the curve of the mirrors. You couldn’t run forever. But your twin could.”

Michael opened his mouth as if to say something else, but nothing came out. He just stared at John in shock. John stared back, trying to claw his way through the humming white noise, just for a split second, just long enough to cry out. The lightbulbs overhead flickered readily.

His voice continued. “And just when you thought you were smart enough, just when you thought you were clever enough in your twists and turns to lose it, you saw it in front of you, in a perfect, clear mirror. You saw its hand reach out and press against the glass. You saw that glass begin to crack and break under the pressure. You turned to run, but you heard the sound of shattering behind you, and the sound of your own laugh.”

One of the lightbulbs blew, sending glass everywhere. Michael didn’t react to it, eyes locked on John.

The white noise was growing so loud, so deafening that he could barely hear his own voice as it continued. The white noise dug its grip into him and tried to drag him into the depths. Depths that were like sleep during a restless nightmare. He grabbed into the edge and tried to do something. Then his head suddenly snapped to the side, and his hold slipped, leaving him dangling from the edge of reality with one hand.

“There were no more reflections of you in the mirrors. Only themselves, going on forever. And behind you, your laughter. But sounding sharper. You felt the instinctive fear of knowing it was going to kill you, and you wanted to keep running forever, to find a way out. But it was getting closer. You knew you would run out of time eventually. And so, you thought, why not try something new? You saw a mirror at the very end of a hall, and you broke into a run. Expecting a solid surface. But instead, the glass shattered. You landed on the floor. And when you looked over your shoulder, you saw a broken mirror set in a wall. Shards of glass surrounding you as if the mirror suddenly exploded outward.”

Michael rubbed his arms. As if beneath his long sleeves, he was feeling the phantom pain of scars.

John’s mouth twisted into a smile. Blood rimmed his teeth. His body leaned forward, straining against the ropes. “But it wasn’t over. You thought it was. The circus was closed, so you hopped the fence to climb home, expecting your family to be worried. But they screamed. They told you to get out. They called the police. You looked at the pictures on the mantle, and saw the family portrait you’d all taken on vacation last year. Except you weren’t in it. Were you? Did you know this family at all? Or did you just think you did?’ His voice paused. “Either way, you had nothing. When the police came, you told them you were confused, and couldn’t remember a lot of things. It wasn’t a lie. You still don’t know what that family’s name was for sure. The driver’s license in your pocket had only a blank space where the last name was, and an empty square for a picture.”

“You don’t scare me,” Michael finally said.

The smile widened. “No, I don’t. Nothing scares you anymore, Michael. When you should feel scared, you only feel cautious, aware of the empty space where fear should be. The mirror twin meant to vanish you and replace you, but you escaped before the process was complete, leaving you with some...empty spaces. Are you just an empty space in the world now? Are you—nhmgh.”

Michael blinked, confused. He didn’t take a step closer but he looked like he wanted to.

“You—hghmm.” John gritted his teeth. His head shook as the humming white noise tried to drag him down. It hurt. His mind was screaming, bleeding. He suddenly lurched forward, coughing up a glob of blood. His limbs started to twitch. Then shake. His breathing grew wet and heavy. Michael glanced towards the door. “Nn—no,” John choked out. His eye rolled up to look at Michael. “H-help...”

A moment passed, filled with the sound of heavy breathing. Then, slowly, Michael stepped forward. His expression was unsure. But he still reached out.

Another lightbulb burst. John’s body lunged forward, teeth snapping, and Michael barely jerked his hand back in time to avoid getting bitten. John felt the white noise growing stronger, wrapping his mind like the ropes wrapped his body. His limbs now jerked and spasmed, straining against the restraints. A laugh tore through his throat, and Michael suddenly bolted for the door. “There are some things you can never escape!” His voice screamed. “N̢e̶ver!́”

As his voice screamed, John heard another one whisper nonsense in his nerves.

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[enigmatic-robin]

Doctors Office

Day 4 of Scarecrow Week

Jonathan Crane & Harleen Quinzel, implied future Pamela Isely/ Harleen Quinzel

Words: 1626

-

Many, many things could be said about Dr. Jonathan Crane. He was an eccentric, some of his choices weren’t the sanest, and maybe he was a bit off-putting.

It could not be said, however, that he wasn’t very protective of those he liked. The number of which was very, very low.

He enjoyed his job- and the ability it gave him to play with the minds of patients no one would believe- at least enough to notably show distaste for those who didn’t. That was a good portion of Arkham’s staff.

Harleen had been his student first- then he’d been forced away from teaching, only to have one of his star pupils join him years later. Now able to talk as colleagues, without much of a power imbalance, they got on like a house on fire. Whether that was a good thing, however, remained to be seen.

The graveyard shift at Arkham always guaranteed to be either the most drudgingly long hours with all of the patients sleeping, or a horrible chaotic mess. No one ever really knew which it’d be, but either way many people found it more trouble than it was worth.

Harleen and Jonathan worked the night shift together often.

The night was proving to be long and horribly uninteresting to the point of driving Harleen to count every dot on a polka dot patterned mousepad, counting slowly and carefully so that it would keep her occupied longer. Jonathan was reading beside her when the door opened.

Batman’s figure loomed in the doorway, dragging something behind him purposefully. He paused for a moment before half-tossing what he’d been dragging on the ground in front of him. The Joker made a noise but showed no sign of being able to get himself up-or of being fully conscious.

“I think you misplaced something” Robin quipped beside the Bat, grinning despite his scratched up elbows and knees. Batman just nodded and put his hand on Robin’s shoulder somewhat affectionately.

Jonathan sighed, hitting the security button, as was protocol for Joker, and watched as security came and swiftly drag the clown out. Robin seemed mildly amused, before looking up at Batman.

“Did you see the kick I got in? Right in the throat, I think I knocked his diaphragm outta place.” He did a little reenactment kick, knocking over a chair in the process. Batman just looked at the chair for a moment, then at Robin, who sheepishly put it back in place.

“Right. I trust you’ll take it from here?” The Bat asked, and Jonathan nodded.

“I suppose we will”

“Have a good night then. Robin?”

“Yeah, B!” He put his hand out for a high five Batman awkwardly and stiffly met, and with that they were out the door.

Jonathan relaxed slightly after they left, turning to say something to Harley before he noticed the look on her face.

“Something got you down, Dr. Quinzel?”

“I just… hate seeing other people like that.” She muttered, looking the way Joker had gone. “I know he’s done bad things but- all battered and bruised like that, it doesn’t feel right.”

Jonathan had no such problems, but nodded in sympathy as if he understood completely.

“Unfortunately we need him immobile to be here. It’s not safe for anyone to touch him while he’s lucid. Trust me, I wouldn’t support it if it wasn’t necessary.”

He must’ve been convincing, because she sighed and nodded, leaning in slightly so he could pat her shoulder. Physical affection always calmed her down, and she was starved for it at all times. She was lucky, he figured, that he was the only one who took advantage of that. The slightest bit of affection made her malleable, eager to please. He used this to keep her content, shielded. He protected the drive he saw in her that reminded him of himself.

If another man found that weakness of hers and tried to use it to change her, well, she could take believing she was ghosted, or that he’d moved.

He barely realized she was talking until he tuned back in.

“-to Dr. Leland about seeing if I could have a trial session with him, he switches Psychologists often, I doubt it’d be an issue.”

Jonathan’s mind quickly ran through what context he had, staring blankly as his mind caught back up.

“Absolutely not.” He snapped, making her flinch.

“And that’s why. You can’t show any kind of weakness with him. I trust you Harleen, I really do, but I haven’t even given him a shot. Please understand I will not stand by while you’re put into a room with that man.”

She looked down, worrying at her lip as she thought it over.

“You don’t think I can do it?”

“I don’t think there’s a person in this world who could, or I’d give it a shot. Hell- I will give it a shot if you’re so worried, but there’s no way in hell I’m letting Joan assign him to you without a fight. I’m sorry Harleen, I really am, it’s not you I don’t believe in.”

“… You’re right” she whispered, twisting her hands in the material of her skirt nervously. “I just… I want to make a difference, I want to make someone’s life better.”

“He’s too far gone, there’s no hole in him he’s trying to fill. He enjoys what he’s doing. He doesn’t even remember what sanity looked like for him. There’s nothing for him to revert back to.”

“You’re right, Dr. Crane.” She agreed quietly. He sighed, deflating slightly. Harleen looked somewhat dejected, an expression he was quickly finding himself very weak to.

He pulled a notepad towards himself, scrawling something down and hoping he wouldn’t kick himself for it later.

“What’s that?”

“A suggestion to a colleague,” he admitted. “There’s… a patient of mine. She hates Joan and she barely works with me due to a mistrust of men. I think you could be good for each other.”

He passed the note to Harley, who looked it over curiously.

“Isely?”

“Trust me,I just want the best for you ”

She looked at the paper again and smiled softly.

“Thank you! I should make sure the plant on my desk doesn’t need anything.” Harleen kissed his cheek, patting his arm before she was off to her office. He smiled fondly for a moment before he started towards Joan’s office to leave the note on her desk. He walked through the corridor between patients' rooms, finding himself idling by one.

“Can I help you, Crow?” Ivy asked sarcastically, glaring through a window with little holes in it like a lab rat’s cage.

“I might’ve got you a new psychologist. Figured I’d let you know.”

She raised an eyebrow, deep frown set in place.

“And why would you let someone who knows your secret go to someone else?”

“I know you won’t hurt her. Well- couldn’t. She wanted to help the Joker but my toxins don’t work on him- got nothing to threaten him to keep docile with. I do, however, have a strain especially for you and Swamp Thing. ‘Sides, knew you’d be more comfortable with a woman, and Harleen’s a ray of sunshine. Long as you’re good to her, you’re gonna be comfortable here.”

That… wasn’t too bad a deal. In fact, it was preferable to being stuck with Crane.

“Fine. She must be real special to have the merciless Scarecrow looking out for a ‘ray of sunshine’”

“Oh, I assure you, she is.”

—

The office was much lighter than Crane’s, that was immediately apparent. Ivy complied as she was pushed into a chair, offering her hands to be cuffed to the desk as she looked around. She was left alone for a moment, giving her time to take in the sunlight coming through the window with sligh desperation. She didn’t even realize she wasn’t along until she heard the door -that she hadn’t heard open- shut with a click.

“Oh, did I startle you? I’m sorry. My footsteps aren’t as loud as Dr. Crane’s, even in heels. I’m Dr. Harleen Quinzel” The blond woman apologized, an awkward smile on her face. She took the seat across from Ivy, and immediately she could see that this had not been a good idea on Crane’s part.

Her eyes, behind her glasses, were the same deep blue as a Love-in-a-mist flower, blonde curls that hadn’t been within reach of her ponytail framed her face in curls like the petals of a platinum blond dahlia. By the time she realized she’d been staring, Dr. Quinzel looked concerned.

“Harleen? With your accent it almost sounds like Holly, like a holly flower. Have you ever seen one?”

She shook her head, but motioned towards a pot Ivy had somehow missed.

“No, just have these.”

Ivy went to touch them, but was pulled back by the chain. The doctor looked almost more pained than Ivy, picking up the pot of flowers and placing them between them.

“I’m sorry, if it was up to me you wouldn’t be chained to the table.”

“That’s quite alright.” She insisted, once again reaching out, running her hand softly over the white and purple flowers.

“African violets… immaculately well taken care of.” She noted in surprise.

“Yeah, I’ve been known to get a little emotionally attached. I’d feel awful if I accidentally killed them so I do the best I can not to.” She admitted, placing the pot back where it was to get just the right amount of sunlight.

Crane was going to regret this, because if she stayed this endearing, Ivy was going to fall hard and fast. Or maybe that was his plan all along, she didn’t care. Either way, he’d never know how thankful she was.

—

For bonus points: which Robin was in this?

If you get it wrong that says more about my writing than your deduction skills I promise.

[arty-shadow-morningstar]

Graveyard Siblings (5)

[Masterlink] (PART 1) (PART 4)

-----

Mari and Cass sometimes switch their suits as they have the same body type. Cass would sometimes go out in full Hellbat gear and give the appearance that Hellbat is out more often than she actually is.

So Orphan/Black Bat also sometimes uses guns.

This also helps with concealing secret identities. Maria was rescued by Hellbat from Joker’s Henchmen. (Vicki Vale was getting sus of the new Wayne and Hellbat.)

Unfortunately since Hellbat rarely comes out and she had already made all of her appearance for the month and it wasn’t a busy weekend, the public had come to the conclusion that Hellbat has a crush on the newest Wayne.

Basically everyone thought that Mari has a crush on herself. Which led to some teasing and escalated to Mari announcing that Jason had a crush on Red Hood on live TV.

It didn’t help that a video of Red Hood and Jason re-enacting Romeo and Juliet with Jason on his apartment balcony and Red Hood on the roof was posted on the internet a few days later. (Thank you, Trixx and Tim’s awesome video editing skills)

Sadly, it was taken down 24 hours later. (Tim and the others have multiple copies of it, on the cloud or hardware, hidden around in the manor and their respective safehouses in the US.)

Some people kidnapped Jason to hopefully gain leverage over the Red Hood and to their dismay and nightmares for years to come, Hellbat came instead.

One lucky and incredibly brave reporter asked why she was there instead of her brother.

Mari being a little shit, “Red Hood may be a tough and scary guy but when it comes to his feelings, my brother is a chicken.”

Pictures of Jason tackling Hellbat somehow never made it into any papers.

The criminal underworld hasn’t taken a hint and Jason has been kidnapped a few more times.

Other times Jason was kidnapped:

Robin: Red Hood made a fool of himself in front of Todd recently and he doesn’t dare to show his face.

Spoiler: He was taking too damn long checking his hair even though I told him that no one was going to see it under his helmet and he was so offended that he is currently sulking in the bathroom.

Red Robin: Red Hood can’t think straight when he is around Jason. I mean have you seen the dude.

Arsenal*during a rare visit to Gotham*: Red Hood owes me one now.

Dick finally ends it by going out as Red Hood and rescuing Jason. Gotham is happy that Redson (Red Hood x Jason) ship has finally sailed.

-------

Kate, Babs, Cass, Steph and Mari were out on Mari’s first girls’ night since her move to the manor.

This is set a little after she came back from Paris with Jason.

They watched rom-com movies, did hair and nails, gossip about the superhero community and bitch and vent to each other.

Marinette off-handedly mentioned the crazy shits she had done during her stint as Ladybug. It started with asking about the T-rex in the Batcave and she mentions jumping into the mouth of a live one before.

Everyone in the room was shocked and after a few more questions, it was obvious that she was very reckless and self-sacrificing. Yep, she was going to fit into this crazy family just fine.

And Holy Shit. There is so much trauma packed into this kid. She needs lots of therapy.

Babs finally decided that they all needed to get out and have some fun. All in their respective suits and they went out.

Joined by Harley, Ivy and Selina.

Plagg came along because I want Plagg to meet Selina.

It was a chaotic night and it was a miracle that Bruce didn’t find out about what the girls did.

-------

Batman and Red Hood were on patrol together when Selina jumped in front of them.

“Hello, Boys”

“What do you want, Catwoman?”

“I want to meet my new prodigy, Kitty Noire.”

Cue Marinette jumping down from her hiding spot, transformed with the Black Cat Miraculous. “Hiya.”

Red Hood carries her like a potato sack and points his gun at the other two.

“Nope, she’s my sister and I called dibs. I adopted her. She’s off limits.”

“Legally, she’s mine.” Batman coughed out.

“I did it first. Emotionally. She’s my emotional support sister. You have plenty kids already, B and Selina, get your own.”

“Hey, I am still here and can hear you.”- Maria

-------

Alya was worried for Lila. She had been acting weirdly for the past month.

She looked very out of sorts. Her clothes weren’t in order and her hair was in disarray. She had bags under her eyes and her eyes looked wild. Lila didn’t look like herself at all.

She jumped at any sound and flinched at really sudden movements.

Alya tried to find out what was wrong with Lila and received vague answers.

One time Lila said that Marinette is to blame.

Alya reaches the somewhat right conclusion that Marinette was haunting Lila and hurting her because Lila used to come to school with bruises and claims that Marinette did it.

Alya goes to Marinette’s grave to desecrate it. (Yeah, go anger the ghost that is haunting someone.)

Unfortunately, the moment she tries to do something, the sky turns dark, clouds appear and the wind begins whipping. A Lightning strike near her and there was a cloaked figure beside her with a scythe.

All Alya saw from the figure was the blood-red lips in a very sharp grin and glowing blue eyes, raising the scythe high before she ran away. The scythe swiped the air where her head once was.

Alya didn’t get far before she tripped and blacked out.

When she woke up, she found herself in the hospital with no idea how she got there.

She was told that somebody found her with a concussion in the park and took her to the hospital.

------

The next one on Mari’s hit list was Natalie.

She wasn’t as involved in the whole thing like Lila, Adrien or Gabriel but she still did it anyways.

Her punishment is a little mild compared to the others and was more of a warning to Gabriel.

Natalie woke up in the middle of the night to see a not-so-dead Ladybug sitting on her vanity chair with the moonlight from the windows illuminating her body and her neck. Her suit was torn exactly like the day of that battle with blood dripping down her arms and from her open wounds. The shadows kept her face hidden but glowing blue eyes stared at her.

Natalie was scared at first. But she regained her normal cool composure.

“I assume you are here to extract your revenge for aiding in your unfortunate demise. But before you kill me, I regret my part in my entire thing and I apologize for everything I have done against you even though I knew it was wrong.”

“At least you show remorse over what you have done. Visiting my grave when even my parents didn’t and leaving flowers. I love those purple hyacinths by the way. Did you know that they mean sorry in the language of the flowers?”

“Why are you stalling my death? Just kill me already.”

“Madam Sancouer. You just played a minor role in my downfall compared to what Adrien and Lila Rossi did to me. And you showed more guilt over your actions than they ever did and Adrien claimed to have loved me. And like I have told the Bats, Death is too swift of a punishment.”

“Who are the bats?”

“None of your concern. You should be more concerned about yourself.”

“Lila sees the ghosts of her past and they haunt her. Adrien is in a living nightmare and has no control over his actions and is despised by everyone. What are you going to do to me?”

“Well, since you show some guilt over your actions, let me tell you a little secret. I am not dead. Not really. I mean I did die. But there was a spell in the grimoire that revived me. It took a few days to work.”

Marinette changed to her normal form. It was a little jarring to see an older Marinette Dupain-Cheng sitting on her vanity chair like it was a throne. The Ladybug suit and the wounds were gone. She looked a little familiar.

“Why are you telling me this? What was the point?” Natalie faltered as she wondered why the girl looked familiar. Marinette moved closer and her face was fully illuminated by the moonlight.

“I intend to take everything by which I mean everything from Gabriel Agreste for what he did.”

“M. Agreste just wanted his wife back. You just gave him your Miraculous, you would still have everything.”

“What difference would it make? Sure I had friends and family before but they turned out to be disappointing. I might have become a famous designer like I dreamed of and can't achieve because I died. Besides, he never said about wanting his wife to come back in his tedious monologues. For all we knew back then, he wanted them for world domination. He showed that he would end the world for them. For kwamis’ sake, he nearly started World War III, just for a pair of earring and a ring. He was willing to kill me to have her back. No wait, he did that too. If he actually read the translated grimoire or asked the Guardian or at least someone with magic for help instead or maybe used his head and made some who can heal as his champion using the Butterfly, we wouldn’t even be in this mess. Face it, Mme Sancour, your boss is a power-hungry and very controlling maniac who is also thankfully an idiot.”

“But- he- he just-. You are just a child, what do you know? M. Agreste knew what he was doing.”

“A child who had a normal life up until he tried to ruin it with his idiotic schemes and hiring Lila to do it. A child who had to fight a war on her own.”

“I am sorry you had to go through that but I doubt you and your little revenge rampage is going to solve anything.”

Ghostly Chains wrapped around Natalie’s body, squeezing tight like it was squeezing the life out of her.

“I was all for sparing you, you know. If you had actually listened to my side of the story, you would have spared from my ‘little revenge rampage’. This is going to be a little painful. Sorry about that.” In a tone that was definitely not sorry.

Pain coursed through Natalie’s body. Her skin crawled and itched as pitch back feathers grew out of it. Her bones turned to dust and reformed.

Where Natalie Sancour once was, there was a raven.

An omen of death and destruction for one Gabriel Agreste.

Marinette leaned down towards the raven. Natalie tried to peck her eye out but Marinette held the beak in a firm grip.

“Ah. ah ah. Luckily for you this is temporary. Mostly. Every night, you will assume this shape and each night the longer you will stay in this form. Slowly counting down the days until Gabriel’s downfall. Since you love helping him so much, you are going to help him know how long he has to live. The night you are a raven from sunset to sunrise, that sunrise starts the day Gabriel Agreste will be utterly destroyed.”

She released the beak and headed towards the window.

"Send him my regards."

With that, she was gone.

(Part 6)

[thefanficmonster]

Deep Breaths

Valkyrae x Reader (Gender Neutral)

Warnings: Panic Attack, Mentions of past domestic abuse, Mentions of alcohol and drug abuse, Swearing

Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Angst to Fluff, RPF (Real Person Fic)

Summary: Having received a call from the correctional facility where their alcoholic/drug addict mother is being kept, Y/N gets some intense nightmarish flashbacks to a time that still haunts them despite a decade having passed. Luckily their girlfriend Rae is there to comfort therm.

Requested by Anon. Hi dear! Thank you so much for your lovely request, I hope I captured what you wanted to read! Sorry it has taken me so long to complete and post the fic, but I hope you enjoy it nonetheless. Love, Vy ❤

“Hey Y/N, I-“ One step in the living room and that’s all it took for Rae to pick up on the melancholic mood in the room. 

Her partner hasn’t even noticed she’s entered. Instead, they are sitting hunched over on the couch, elbows on knees, hand seeking their hands’ support to stay upright and their eyes hiding a thousand yard stare that’s got Rae worried sick.

“Babe, what’s wrong?“ She asks softly, inching closer to the couch to take a seat next to Y/N, “You can tell me anything, you know that, right?“

Through the fog surrounding their brain, they somehow manage to catch onto Rae’s words, forcing themself to give her at least a nod in response as to not scare her with their unresponsiveness. They can’t bring themselves to speak, it’s too hard on them to even think of what to say let alone spit it out, especially when their chest feels like it’s caught fire and their mind is still going haywire, heartbeat thumping in their ears as the adrenaline rush refuses to cease.

“Hey, look at me...“ Instead of sitting down, Rae ducks down in front of Y/N, taking their hands in hers, almost wincing at how cold they were. “Tell me what’s bothering you, baby.“

The girl is trying her best not to freak out or lose her cool, despite her already quickened heartbeat she can hear in her ears. She has every right to be reacting the way she is. Her permanently happy, bubbly, optimistic and cheerful partner who always seems to be as energized as though they’d just had a gallon of coffee is now a pale ghost sitting statue-still, staring off into the void with eyes that look empty yet terrified simultaneously.

Y/N’s mouth falls open as though they want to say something but the words die out somewhere along the way, refusing to leave their mouth and give them the relief of sharing their pain with the only person they trust limitlessly.  “I-...“ They finally manage to find their voice though their gaze is still avoiding hers, “I got a call from the correctional facility where....” They trail off, a bitter taste forming in their mouth, making their stomach turn and bite the inside of their cheek as they feel the urge to throw up start to become unbearable. “She wants to s-see me...”

They don’t need to say anything else, Rae’s already connected the dots and her complexion has gone just as pale as theirs. She knows how sensitive and triggering this topic is for Y/N, how many bad memories are tied to this one person in their life. To make matters worse, they’re the one person who was supposed to take care of them yet she couldn’t even take care of herself - Y/N’s mother.

Rae distinctly remembers the night Y/N told her the truth about their family life - or the lack thereof - almost a year since the two had started dating. Rae never questioned their secretiveness and respected their privacy enough not to ask about it, patiently waiting for them to tell her on their own time and own terms. It was no secret even from the very start that Y/N had a very hard time connecting to people and trusting them. It took them maybe two or so months to be able to call their now-girlfriend a friend instead of an acquaintance. Rae didn’t question that too, didn’t push to pursue a friendship with them since, from her point of view, they were already her friend, so she patiently waited for them to come around and start trusting her enough to accept her within their tightknit circle of trusted people called ‘friends’. 

Things progressed from purely platonic to sweetly romantic a little more quickly which pleasantly surprised Rae. The two were quick to grow to be inseparable though that didn’t mean Y/N gave up all their secrets. The darkest one, which happens to be this one regarding their mother, is the one they hid the longest and the last one they had to share with their girlfriend.  The night they did tell it was a very emotional one: plenty of tears were shed by both Y/N and Rae but luckily they had each other’s embrace to seek comfort in and protect themselves from the ghosts and demons of a past Y/N spent so much time running away from.

An abusive parent is not a bit of baggage you can just get rid of. It’s something that weighs so heavy on you and is such a big part of who you are that you can feel it as a part of you. It haunts you no matter how much you try to run or hide. It’s not something you can shake off or forget. You might have physical and visible scars from the time spent with said parent or the trauma can be entirely psychological - regardless, it lives within you. Follows you around, raises questions you’re not sure you want answered, degrades you - making it seem like what happened was your fault in one way or another - it destroys you slowly very time something triggers a memory of that time, be it a simple conversation that has nothing to do with the subject or be it the glimpse you accidentally catch in the mirror of a scar on your body - a scar you remember being inflicted on you like it was yesterday.

That’s how Y/N’s been living. Feeling responsible, feeling unloved, feeling chained to their past. They’ve done all in their power to appear unbothered and let it be visible, not even when around Rae since they don’t want to worry her.

But seeing as their past has caught up to them now and they inevitably have to face it, they’re forced to let it show, they couldn’t hold it in even if they tried. Although they don’t wanna play the unbothered, unfazed part any longer. They have been strong on their own for far too long and it’s taken a toll on them. If they keep up with the act, they’ll be completely and utterly crushed.

Not that they’re feeling any better at the moment.

“Stay with me, Y/N. Stay with me. Keep your eyes on me, ok? Take deep breaths. Deep breaths, baby. I’m here, I’m not going anywhere. It’s ok. You’re ok.“ Their short-circuiting brain has been spasming under the influence of the adrenaline, anxiety and panic brought on by the memories of every time they felt small and helpless while at the merciless hand of their alcoholic, drug addict abusive mother, begging to be spared the pain of being hit with whatever object the deranged woman could get her hands on - yet somehow, Rae’s voice still reaches them through all that messy dark fog. “Come on, Y/N, stay with me ok? Please don’t do this, I’m right here, there’s no need to be afraid,”

“I...“ they can barely hear their own voice over the racing of their heart, “I don’t...I don’t wanna go....“ is all they manage to say, a tear falling from their eye.

“It’s ok, we don’t have to go. We won’t go. Your mental health is the most important thing here, Y/N. We’re not going and that’s final.“ Rae replies vigorously, tightening her hold on Y/N’s hands.

Despite the state they’re in, Y/N can’t help but take notice of the use of the word ‘we’, Rae’s reminder that they are not alone, that she’s there for them and will not let them go into this alone. That brings a small smile to their face, calming their heart and panic ever so slightly, “N-no, I have to. It...it’ll help me.” They sigh before attempting to express themself again, “It’ll give me...closure, I guess.”

Seeing that Y/N’s doing a bit better, Rae’s hand move to cup their face instead, pushing the stray strands of hair away for their features to be full exposed to her, especially their eyes, “Are you sure you want that? Can you handle it? It’s not supposed to be your obligation, Y/N. I mean, the woman’s a monster and she hasn’t even thought to contact you in half a decade, and now she suddenly wants to get back in contact? She has the audacity to disturb you after all this time? You don’t have to agree to this, Y/N.”

Y/N shakes their head, “No, no, I want to. I want to agree to this. I want to live a normal life, Rae. I want to leave her and all she did to me behind. And I can’t do that if I keep running away. What happens when I stop to catch my breath? It still catches up to me like I made no progress whatsoever. That’s not a way to live, not the way I wanna live, at least.”

Rae nods slowly, fully understanding what Y/N is referring to. She maybe hasn’t said anything about it ever, but she’s always seen that little bit of darkness behind the happiness and excitement Y/N always displayed. Rae’s heart ached every time she caught glimpse of those little signs Y/N was putting on a performance while actually hurting on the inside. 

And if a meeting with their mother was what would help them finally fully embrace a happy life, then who was she to stop them.

“Ok.“ The girl sighs, “Ok, we’ll go see her, but only if you’re 100% sure you’ll be able to handle it.“

They shake their head again, sighing with unease, “I can never be 100% sure, my emotions have a tendency of being unpredictable so I’ll just have to pray I don’t have a breakdown or a panic attack.”

Rae swipes her thumb over their cheekbone wiping the tear that just escaped their eye, “If you do, don’t worry, I’ll be right there. You know the drill: squeeze my hand, take deep breaths and most importantly, don’t forget I’m there for you. Ok?”

Y/N nods their head, the small smile reappearing on their face. They squeeze Rae’s hand and take a long inhale. “Hand squeeze, deep breaths, noted.” They say when their eyes meet hers, “Thank you so much, Rae. Thank you so much for putting up with me and all my shit and thank you so much for never giving up on me no matter how much work I am or how hard dealing with me and my demons becomes.”

Rae’s heart stings at Y/N’s words, tears brimming her eyes when she raises a bit on her knees to press her lips against Y/N’s forehead. “Don’t thank me, angel. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you and I never want to get gratitude for it. Love doesn’t ask for gratitude, and neither do I.”

Y/N lets out a small laugh to cover up an emotional sob that escapes their lungs. “I love you, Rae.” They say with a trembling voice.

“I love you too, Y/N.“

This time, the Y/N’s lips met the lips of their girlfriend, reminding themself that their safe haven isn’t a place, it’s a person - their girlfriend who means the world to them.

[magic-missle-blog]

Ghost division 2 – The belly of the beast

2nd story in what will hopefully be a series. Roughly 6k words. Hope you enjoy

:readmore:

Four missiles streaked through the darkness of space from the canadation destroyer as it smashed through the human battle group.

The warship TDF Glasgow rocked as a missile impacted the hull. Point defence had taken out three others but the fourth slammed into the starboard side.

“Damage report!” the captain shouted as he swivelled his command chair to face the tactical officer.

“The hull plating is scorched and buckled, but no internal damage. We were lucky.” The tactical officer replied, shouting to be heard over the various alarms and beeps in the small bridge.

“We cant rely on luck. If we get hit again its your head!” The captain growled. His hair was cut close to his scalp and a sheen of sweat reflected in the bright yellow light on his dark skin.

Tactical officer Rotchford nodded. Her brow furrowed as she quickly typed into her console. “don’t worry I’m on it, I’ve analysed the firing pattern and I can probably take out most of the missiles, its those fucking fighters and energy weapons I cant do a thing about.”

Just as she finished speaking a swarm of small locust shaped fighters buzzed passed the ship, pelting the armour with energy weapons.

Turrets tracked the fighters, spitting hypersonic tungsten shells. One of the Canidation fighters exploded, the rest of the group took evasive action and continued on the attack run through the human fleet.

The ship rocked again and various alarms clamoured for attention. Lights on the bridge flickered.

Captain Conroy nodded and straightened his uniform. He brought up a tactical display on the console built into his chair.

Five Canidation warships had engaged the fleet of seven Terran defence force destroyers and the humans were loosing badly. The Canidations had the firepower and faster ships. Fighters swarmed over the fleet firing kinetic weapons and lasers, some with great effect.

He watched as another of the fleet exploded. That was the second ship they had lost. The battle had been raging for what felt like hours but in reality it was only 30 minutes. The Canidations had dropped out of hyperspace in this remote system to ambush a Human supply run. The freighters had escaped unharmed but the escort fleet couldn’t leave, not without leaving this Canidation battle group free reign to attack other convoys.

“Shit. That was the Newcastle!” the first officer said “Fleet captain Broadie…he was a good man”

The computer screamed out a proximity warning as another salvo of missiles streaked towards them, but true to her word the tactical officers new point defence programme took them all out. She returned fire with the main cannon as the destroyer elegantly swung around, scoring a direct hit to the Canidations engines. The insectoid ship vented atmosphere and appeared to lose power as running lights flickered out and the ship drifted

The other enemy ships moved towards the remaining fleet.

“Scan that ship, is it dead?” Conroy commanded the science officer as the warship rocked under more impacts

“yeah it appears… Fuck” the science officer said as his console went dark and the lights cut out.

A few moments later the ships emergency power kicked in and the lights came back on, but dull red colour. His console lit up. “ yeah its dead. I think. Scans are all over the place.”

Conroy nodded, as the most senior officer left in the tattered fleet he assumed command.. “signal the fleet. Lets get the fuck out of here...but slowly, I want to draw them away from that damaged ship.” He plotted a course that would take them deep into the Oort cloud of this system.

The remaining ships of the Terran defence force broke off the engagement and retreated. Caught by surprise at the sudden change in tactics, The Canidations stopped dead, recalled the fighters then followed, slowly gaining ground on the slower terran warships.

Glancing at his command console captain Conroy opened fleet wide comms. Signalling the other commanders he said “Listen up people. Once we are in that cloud drop sensor decoys try to buy me some time . I’m going to double back and capture that ship.”

The crew looked at him in astonishment

“Damn” said the first officer. “And I thought today was going to be a quiet day.”

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

The war against the Canidations had been raging for 3 months, and the Terran empire was losing.

The Canidations ships were more advanced, and they had the numbers. The only saving grace is that the Canidations were fighting two other larger empires. Humanity, as a relatively new race to the galactic stage, hadn’t been seen as a concern. Almost an afterthought.

No one knew why the war started. Canidations were a reclusive species. They had no trade with the wider galactic community, no embassies, no contact at all. No one really even knew if “Canidation” was their species name. They stayed in their home systems, A group of a dozen or so stars a few light years around the Canadathon, their home world.

A decade ago the Canidations has blasted out of their home system with an over powering military force and attacked a neighbouring world without warning. Everything was a viable target to them and they didn’t take prisoners…or at least they didn’t keep them alive for long.

For ten long years they attacked and destroyed any neighbouring species, expanding their empire. The first races, unused to galactic warfare on such a scale had fallen quickly. Other species had tried to build up their own military force but simply didn’t have the infrastructure in place and couldn’t come close to the Canidations speed of production. It seemed like for every Canidation ship that fell two more would take its place.

The Canidations were an insectoid race, they looked like an unholy amalgamation of a spiders body with a praying mantis torso, like an insect centaur. They didn’t seem to capture any world they won, they destroyed it. Left it a lifeless husk, took any easily accessible resources then moved on like locusts. Maybe they would be back to terraform it later, maybe not. No one knew.

The destruction on such a scale seemed senseless, and completely alien. Not even the best human generals, phycologists or philosophers could come up with a reason for this carnage.

What was known was they had a lot of ships. More than every other military in this region of space combined. They had been building up for decades and it seemed like now was the time to unleash their might.

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

The Glasgow had ducked behind a dwarf planet in the Oort cloud and waiting while the remaining fleet had drawn the Canidations away, then used a risky in system jump to get back quickly to the battlefield. They had scanned for survivors of the destroyed Terran ships but unfortunately found plenty of debris but no life signs.

TDF Glasgow slowly drew up alongside the crippled Canidation vessel, comms jammers at full power blocking any communication from the hulk. It had been few hours since the shot had crippled the Bug ship, but it was still drifting without any main power, its engines dark and cooling.

It looked like reserve power had kicked in and there was several Canidations on the main hull close to the breach in what looked like dark space suits, although it could have been their flesh. Conroy didn’t know enough about the species to tell. It was obvious the Canidations were trying to repair the damage.

The insectoid ship was large, at least half again as big as the Glasgow and followed an unorthodox design. It was nothing like the sleek Terran ships, whose lines were reminiscent of the war planes that fought in earth’s skies in the 20th century. Human ships were long and sleek, with swept back retractable wings protruding from the mid section to allow atmosphere flight when fully extended. Canidation was bulky, and looked like a flattened pinecone and close range scans showed it be highly modular.

The bridge appeared to be at on top of the bulky front section. Conroy guessed below this would be weapons, crew quarters and the like. Engineering and the ships drive core, and sub light engines must be located in the tapering end. Cannons clustered around the front with turrets in two rows along the top and bottom of the ship.

Conroy assumed there would be about 60 or so crew on board. Terran destroyers had a crew of 30 plus 10 marines. Not good odds Conroy thought.

“Easy to build, quick to swap different sections out if needed” Science officer McCallum said as he looked over the data.

Conroy nodded to Commander Paulson, the first office. “Pauly, get a boarding party ready. Find any intel you can get your hands on but don’t take any stupid risks. Focus on engineering, medical, ship deployments, shit we can find to kill these things.” Looking at McCallum “what do they need?”

McCallum brought up all the information he had on Canidations, which wasn’t a lot.

“Scans show gravity and life support is still active and the ship has atmosphere, although I use the term loosely. Their air is made up of 30% oxygen, 15% Co2, 10% Hydrogen sulphide, the rest is nitrogen, water vapour and trace gasses. Average temperature is roughly 30 degrees Celsius and humidity is close to 70%. Gravity is low, roughly 0.6G. So basically your walking into a hot sweaty hellhole that’ll smell like Satan’s ass. Enjoy” he finished with a laugh.

Paulson looked at the captain “Gee thanks Boss, you give me all the best jobs. Breathing units all round then.” He saluted as he left the bridge.

“Mac…what killed this ship? Did we get a lucky shot?”

McCallum looked over his reading for a few moments. “Yeah, very lucky. Looks like there is a weakness around the main engine core on this ship. Plasma exhaust has weakened the hull armour in a small area right above the main power linkage, its little better than paper. Must be a design flaw…if that shot had hit even a few meters on either side it wouldn’t have made a dent.”

Rotchford laughed. “luck had nothing to do with it. It’s pure skill.”

She grinned

Conroy rolled his eyes.

“Yeah yeah if you say so” he said grinning. Conroy didn’t mind a bit of banter with the bridge crew. He felt it build camaraderie and they all worked better as a result.

Turning to Macallum he said

“Deep scan this bitch, I see what else you can find, anything that’ll give us an edge.”

From over the other side of the bridge the tactical offer said “Captain, I think I’ve found something too. The missiles on the ship are armed.”

Conroy looked over “So?”

Rotchford brushing her brown bangs that had escaped from the severe bun on her head said “Our missiles auto arm a second after launch to prevent any accidents, these appear to pre arm before launch, Probably as soon as they find a hostile ship. Once direct hit could detonate the entire missile battery. The armour is thick but the launch tubes are vulnerable . “

“Comms” Conroy said excitedly “Tight beam the rest of the fleet and let them know what we’ve found…might give them an edge.”

Turning back to tactical

“Why would they do that?”

Rotchford shrugged. “not sure. It does mean the missiles can be fired much closer then we can shoot. Out missiles travel so fast that by the time they arm they’re a couple of hundred kilometres away, makes them useless for close engagements. By pre-arming them they get around that problem. Makes it almost impossible to shoot them down when the bugs get in close.”

Minutes passed slowly. Soon the boarding party was on board a small ship to ship shuttle and on route to dock with the crippled ship.

The shuttle did a quick fly over the damaged section and fired small arms at the Canidations working on the damaged hull, Killing the repair team. The aliens magnetic grips kept the bodies stuck to the hull like bugs splattered by a windscreen.

McCallum looked up “I’ve found something else captain, it wont help us now but I think we can take advantage of it.”

He put his display on the main screen, All eyes turned to it.

“I thought about using some kind of plasma weapon to weaken the armour of the whole ship, and that’ll probably work, we don’t use plasma tech, but I’m sure the weapons experts back home can build something.” He took a breath “Anyway, that got me thinking, Plasma is basically really hot ionized gas. Its expelled as exhausts right away as too much heat inside the ship it bad. As you know its almost impossible to loose heat in space, so we use active cooling systems to…”

Conroy interrupted before McCallum could go into a lecture on the finer points of starship heat management. “Get to the point”

Mccallum looked sheepish “Sorry sir, anyway, the Canidations seem to use radiator panels, they’re well armoured but vulnerable to excessive heat. A focussed laser beam could overload them. If they cant loose heat they’ll cook inside the ships.”

“Well done Mac, get everything we’ve found so far and bundle the data ready for transmission back to HQ”

Minutes dragged as Mccallum compiled the data.

Everyone was on eggshells, watching the boarding shuttle latch on to the Canidation hull and begin cutting through. Tactical constantly scanning for any Canidation ships that might be inbound. Conroy wondered how the rest of the fleet was fairing. The TDF ships were more manoeuvrable than the larger Canidation warships, so as long as they kept in a dense part of the Oort cloud, dodging comets and dwarf planets then the TDF ships should have an advantage.

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

Inside the shuttle the atmosphere was tense. Paulson looked over the assembled combat team. All had breathing units over their lower faces. The units would filter out the harmful gasses and reduce the oxygen pressure to something breathable, but as they weren’t full space suits or fully sealed Paulson knew the stench would get through, he grinned inwardly he hadn’t told the team what the Canidation air was like, he wanted to see the reactions.

The ten member boarding team all had dark grey combat armour, and each carried a small side arm and a combat knife. Eight also carried an assault rifle with enough ammo to take on a small army, the other two combat engineers carried various tools and computer equipment. Their mission was to hack into any systems they could find and mine it for data.

The shuttle bumped into the hull and latched on. A magnetic tube made an air tight seal around the hatch. It opened to show a sold hull. The engineers immediately started cutting to gain access. It was slow going. Armour that can withstand heavy ship weapons wont easily fail to small plasma torches.

Sargent Waltham stepped up next to Paulson. “We’re ready to go” She said coolly.

Paulson nodded. “Get in and secure the area. Set up fire lines kill anything that’s got more than two legs.” He said to Waltham.

She was tall, blonde, very pretty in hard way. People, especially men, tended to underestimate her due to her looks, thinking she was just a made up barbie doll. Paulson had thought the same thing once, until she kicked his ass in hand to hand training. The first round he went easy on her and he was flat on his back in 5 seconds. The second round he went all out, and to his credit, he managed to last a full 7 seconds before she had him pined, face pressed against the floor and his left arm twisted up his back. Waltham, like all the other,s had earned her place in the combat team, but unlike the men she had to continually prove she deserved to be there. This constant striving for perfection had made her one of the best solders Paulson had ever worked with.

The thick hull armour fell inwards with a heavy thunk. The sound echoed around the shuttle. The stench of rotten eggs filler the small enclosed space and everyone wrinkled their noses.

“For fucks sake… is this ship full of farts?” Jones, the lead combat engineer said.

Paulson grinned. “Ok move out. Slow and steady, I don’t want any fuck ups.”

The team moved slowly into the alien vessel. The interior was dark, smelly and hot, lighting was a deep red that cast odd shadows. Paulson didn’t know if this was normal or if it was due to low power.

Waltham took her place first in line as the engineers cleared the hull and opened a portal to the interior of the ship. She directed one of her team , Ramerez, a young marine on his first away mission , hang back and guard the shuttle just encase they needed to make a quick exit.

Ramerez took position just inside the the shuttle door, he pulled a couple of boxes containing emergency supplies across the entrance and dug in.

The rest of the team followed her lead, with Paulson acting as rear guard, scanning the corridor behind him with a quick practiced eye.

One of the marines whispered in a low voice “damn, this is weird.”

“what is? Looks like a normal ship corridor to me” Paulson said

“sir...that’s what I mean. I expected...well dirt..or tunnels like that old movie ‘Aliens’. You know, the one where the dildo bursts out of some guys chest and all these Marines hunt it down? I mean they’re bugs for Christ’s sake..but this just looks normal.”

Paulson shook his head.“Lay off the old horror flicks. Keep it together”.

Looking at a handheld scanner Jones said “looks like there might be a room down the corridor to the right, I’m reading power spikes, it could be a place I can hack into there systems.”

The team crept inward, the low gravity giving them a bounce to their steps. They were searching for a room with a computer access, but all the could see were long featureless corridors. The came to a junction and as they passed a blast of plasma energy almost took Walthams head off. She Pulled back just in time, lightning quick reflexes saving her life. As it was the plasma shot singed her combat helmet.

Risking another blast, Waltham popped her head around then quickly pulled it back. Three Canidations waited around the corner, plasma rifles at the ready for another shot.

Pulling a flashbang from her belt she leaned out and expertly tossed he weapon into the centre of the group, a second later a loud BANG and a FLASH of bright light lit up the corridor. She could hear a smattering of legs as the Canidations fell back. Her and two of her team ran around keeping low and opened fire. The sound of the assault rifles sounded odd in the dense air. the Canidations tried to return fire but there shots went wide, scorching the metal bulkheads, obviously still blinded by the light. The skirmish was over quickly.

The team crept up slowly to the dead aliens. One in the was headless. Its body twitched, a dark yellow fluid pumping from its neck. The other two were still. Red faceted eyes that took up most of the head were dull and lifeless. Mandibles closed tighter than a vice.

Bullets had ripped the skinny top part of one in half, and the others larger thorax between the spiders-like legs was riddled and leaking the same yellow fluid.

The team looked at the corpses, they were…creepy. They unnerved the humans just looking at them. Jones knelt down and pointed something out. “Look, this one has a couple of cybernetic legs. That one has a cybernetic head…That’s so weird. Gives me the creeps.”

Paulson looked. “Why weird?”

“Think of what this means. They use medical tech to repair wounds. Replace missing limbs like we do. You don’t think of bugs caring for individuals I guess. I assumed they would be like a hive, like ants or termites just mindless soldier’s, disposable and replaceable. Maybe they’re more than that.“

One of the other marines, Patel a tall solid build man with a cold gaze said in a whisper “They’re like spiders, I fucking hate spiders. Normal spiders are bad enough but these are super sized fuckers with guns. “

He shivered as a cold chill ran down his spine. Taking one last place at the dead Canadation he walked slowly past, rifle ready for another attack.

As the team moved on one of the corpses stood up with a clatter. It swiped at a passing trooper with its upper limbs, razor sharp claws sliced across his face and chest, cutting flesh and the scoring deep cuts on his combat armour. He fell back shocked. The headless alien thrashed about, seemingly attracted to the noise the shocked humans made. It tried to reach for another one but a burst of fire from Waltham’s rifle tore through its thorax . the alien twitched again then fell back. She crept up, gun ready and kicked the corpse. No reaction. It was truly dead.

Patel looked a mess, his face had been cut to the bone, but he’d live. Two others helped bandage him up.

“fucking fuckitty fucking spiders! “ he shouted and kicked the corpse, holding his wounded face and blood soaked bandages.

“get back to the shuttle” Waltham commanded him.

He nodded, his face screwed up in pain, The bandages soaking with blood. He got to his feet and headed back the way he came.

Paulson looked at jones “What the fuck?”

Jones shrugged “I’m no medical expert, but I guess a head shot wont kill them. Maybe they keep their brains in there ass or something, I guess the head is just for eating and seeing.” Pointing to the Canidation with the cybernetic head “Maybe loosing the head for them is just like loosing an eye for us? Or maybe they’re like cockroaches. We should drag these things back to the shuttle. Medical back at HQ would have a field day.”

Paulson nodded “team, forget headshots, aim for the centre mass.” He directed a couple of team member to take the most intact body back to the shuttle “Keep it under guard…just in case”

The diminished team made there way deeper into the ship. Paulson was aware of the time he was taking, he knew The Glasgow couldn’t wait forever, but he wanted more than a few dead bugs. Soon they came across an empty room. The door was closed but a kick and a shove and it slid back into the wall. The team entered. Looking around, there was a lot of electronics that Paulson couldn’t guess the function off. Jones quickly set up his scanner. Pulling open a panel he found circuit boards. After quick scan he attached a lead from his scanner to one of the chips.

“If i can hack this, this should give me access” he worked quickly The rest of the team took up positions around the door. Paulson moved to the back of the room and signalled Waltham.

“thoughts? He said after she walked over

Waltham shrugged “they don’t seem too tough. Decent weapons though.“ she pointed to the plasma rifle she’d captured.

“hows things between you two?” he nodded to Jones

Relationships were against regulations but as long as it was discreet no one really minded. It could be lonely in deep space.

Waltham smiled. “he’s sweet, like a puppy. Always eager to please. But utterly fearless too. He could be a great soilder, but likes his gizmos too much.”

“Yeah jones is a good one.” Paulson agreed. He’s been friends with jones for years. They grew up in the same town went to the same high school, and went through training together.

Minutes ticked by. Jones had attached a large data cube to his scanner. He came over to the pair while the data downloaded “. I can copy the full ships hard drive. Shouldn’t take long. There’s not a lot of data, mainly seems to be the ships opperating system. Seems pretty basic. I did find something interesting though, I found ship schematic. We’re not far from a path to fire control. Its down the end of that corridor out there. “

Paulson thought for a second. “no, we have enough we need to get back”

Just as he said that his communicator beeped. It was the shuttle “Sir, get back here we need to go! A Canidation warship is on approach, ETA 7 minutes!”

“Ok people pack your shit up, we need to get out of here! Double time!”

The team grabbed there gear and quickly made there way back into the corridor. Several canidations ran down the steel hallway, the hack had triggered some kind of security protocol. These Canidations didn t have weapons but they moved so fast in the lower gravity that the quickly closed the distance, soon it was a melee, claw against fist.

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

Alarms cried out for attention on the bridge of the Glasgow. A Canidation warship was closing in.

“eta?” asked Conroy. His calm voice a counterpoint to the frantic activity on the bridge.

“roughly 7 minutes until weapons range. I’ve contacted the shuttle”. maccalum replied.

Conroy nodded. Looking at the helmsman her said “keep that bug ship in between us. We’re smaller and so keep us in its shadow and hopefully they won’t get a weapons lock.”

Nodding, through helmsman fired up the thrusters.

“’ll try time get a target lock on the missile batteries.” Rotchford reported as she programmed the ships turrets.

Captain Conroy starred at the main screen, his fingers tapping a rhythm on the arm of his command seat.

Paulson tried to get a clear shot as a canidaton reared up on its four rear legs. It brought its full weight down on Waltham. Its mandibles opened and snapped closed right over her head. Only her quick thinking and combat helmet saved her from decapitation. She ducked her head and trusting the hardened carbon nanotube and ceramic construction she head-butted the bug right in its open mouth. Mandibles crunched against the helm. The force of through blow and the weight of the bug staggered her for a second, but years of hand to hand training came to her and with a twist and a flick she grabbed the alien and slammed it against the bulkhead. The lower gravity and adrenaline giving her almost superhuman strength.

Her combat knife flashed on the low light as she stabbed the mantis like torso. There was resistance then with a crunch she forced the blade through the carapace. The bug shuddered and wrenched. Flailing its limbs then it was still.

The skirmish was over as quickly as it started. Looking around Paulson shouted “sound off”

A chorus of voices said “here” or “i’m good”

A few troopers took minor injuries but no fatalities.

They sprinted down the corridor. The sound of gunfire brought them up short. The bugs were trying to capture the shuttle. Paulson knew if they lost that they were dead.

A scream echoed down the steel corridor. One of his men had fallen. Canidations pressed on.

“We need a distraction” Paulson shouted to Waltham over the blaring alarms.

“i have an idea. Hold here for a few seconds”

With that she sprinted back the way she came. Moments later an explosion rocked the ship. The lights and gravity cut out, then seconds later they came back on. The unprepared soilders hit the ground but were quickly back on there feet, the Canidations were not as lucky, they were a tangle of legs and claws further down the corridor.

Seizing his chance, Paulson shouting a battle cry and his boarding party fell in the bugs from behind. The battle was short and brutal but they pushed through just as Waltham returned. Her hair was burned and armour scorched.

“What the fuck did you do?” shouted Paulson

“I overloaded that plasma rifle and tossed it in the fire control room. I think we need to get out of here, that room is burning and it’s right next to the missiles”

Once everyone was on board the hatch slammed shut and the shuttle detached then raced back to the Glasgow, just as another explosion ripped through the Canidation warship. A series of smaller explosion’s rocked the ship them with a blast like a supernova the power core blew up. The shuttle was caught in the fireball but escaped with minor damage.

Paulson looked at his and bruised team as the shuttle pilot plotted a course back to the Glasgow.

Paulson pushed one of the Canidation corpses to the side, making down room in the small shuttle. He sat next to the body of a young man, almost a boy. Ramerez. It was his first tour, he was 18 and fresh out of boot camp. Ramerez had taken a plasma blast to the chest. His armour was burned through. Mercifully he had been killed instantly.

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

Conroy watched as the Canidation ship exploded. The shuttle streaked towards the hanger.

“well... shit” he said “get the shuttle on board and get ready to bug out”

calls of “aye” and “yessir” Echoed around the bridge..

The Canidation warship closed in, spitting fire and death at the Glasgow. Point defence destroyed the incoming missiles but the ship rocked from impacts

The Glasgow returned fire, turrets pounded the underside of the Canidation ship as it passed overhead passing through the expanding could of gas and debris.

The helmsman kept a steady course until the shuttle was back in then started evasive manoeuvres, he would have to hold the ship steady for a few moments to allow the hyperdrive to spin up, but the Canidation ship was not making it easy.

“Shuttle is on board. Prepare for Jump in 3...2...1...”

The ship lurched to the side and spun almost 90 degrees, crew members were thrown around the bridge like sticks caught in a hurricane. Alarms blared.

The main lights were down, red emergency lamps cast an eerie glow. Groans came from the crew

Rochford pulled herself back into her seat. Blood running from a head wound. She checked her console “sir..the hyperdrive core has been hit. We’re venting plasma and atmosphere...main power is down. Weapons down....the Canidations are coming around for another pass...”

Before Conroy could respond an explosion tore through the bridge as a missile impacted the armour surrounding the command center.

A ceiling panel that had been knocked loose earlier in the fight fell with a resounding crash pinning Conroy to his command chair and knocking him unconscious. Bones snapped under the force of the impact.

Rochford as the most senior officer left standing opened ship wide Comms “all hands. This is commander rochford. The captain is incapacitated abandon ship. I repeat abandon ship”

She moved as quickly as she could to try to help Conroy, Macallum was at his side trying to move the panel. “mac..leave him. We need to go...” she grabbed his arm “come on...move it soldier” macallum looked at the damaged viewscreen. The Canidation ship was baring down. Any second now it’s main cannons would finish the job. They were out of time.

White hot plasma blasts leaped from the Canidation vessel tearing across the cold black darkness. Promising death to the Glasgow.

A flash and a massive lurch pulled maccalum and Rotchford off their feet, but it wasn’t a weapon impact. It was the lurch of a gravity field forming a few miles away as a ship dropped out of hyperdrive.

A dangerous and potentially fatal move – a single miscalculation could have dropped the new ship right on top of them - but it saved the Glasgow. The rest of the fleet, the few ships that remained had jumped back to help. The TDF New York had jumped In front of the plasma blasts. Taking the hit that would have finished the Glasgow off. It opened up with its main cannons, rail guns blasting the armour above the Canidations missile batteries. Another Terran defence force ship TDF Cardiff jumped in behind and opened up on the bugs with everything it had. The Canidation vessel was powerful, but it couldn’t withstand the combined firepower of the vengeful human warships.

Explosion and explosion, hit after hit. The Canidations withered under the combined firepower and with a final flash it vanished as it’s fusion plant exploded.

The TDF Glasgows communication system beeped for attention. Maccalum moved slowly across

“This is captain Yoshimoyo on the New York. Prepare to receive medic and engineering teams. Your information won us the day Glasgow. All Canidation vessels have been destroyed. This is the first human victory in this war...”

“This is science officer McCallum. “thanks for the help. That was a risky move I owe your helmsman a beer. Captain Conroy has been injured. We don’t know how bad, the ship has taken heavy damage.

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

Weeks later Captain Conroy stood in front of admiral Wong.

Conroy had spent most of the time unconscious. His injuries sever, but with advanced medical skill, talented doctors and a dash of luck he had made a full recovery.

“Captain” the admiral began “I’m glad to see you’re back on your feet. I’ve out an official commendation for yourself and your entire crew. The information you fought so hard for will prove invaluable in this conflict”

Wong continued “The data contained ship specifications, technical manuals, training documents and recent fleet movements. With that information we’ve managed to push the Canidations back in a number of theatres , you and your crew have saved thousands of human lives. We all owe you a debt captain.”

“Thank you sir...i'm eager to get back to the Glasgow sir, to get back in the fight.”

The admiral shook his head

“I’m afraid not Conroy. The Glasgow was heavily damaged and will require months of repairs and refit. We can’t have a seasoned crew out of action for so long. You and your crew are being reassigned.”

Wong passed a pad to the captain

“Our newest, most powerful warship. The TDF Lucifer. You’ll be part of a task force – the ghost division. The Canidations are throwing more and more ships against us, and while we’ve slowed the advance to a crawl we are still loosing. You’ll go behind enemy lines and fight a guerrilla war. Do everything you can to bring the bugs down. Everything is a viable target, including the Canidation homeworld. Teach them to fear the wraith of Earth.”

End

[dani-luminae]

Happy Halloweenmonth: A ghost story, but not that spooky

I’m re-writing and posting a story that I previously posted, for @unusual-ly and her ghost stories day of Halloweenmonth! I can’t currently find my previous post so I just wrote down as much as I could remember here.

Anyone who has been following me for years maybe remember this story (and other weird stuff that happened in my former college dorms.) For those of you that are new, welcome!

To set the scene, we have (some names changed bc these are real people):

Me, Dani, nineteen at the time this happened;

My roommate, Lizzie, also a college freshman at the tail end of our first semester;

Becca, another girl who shares our dorm;

Matilda, the fourth girl who shares our dorm.

(The way our dorm was set up was like a mini-apartment, bc Honors students got the best dorms; there were two single rooms and one double room, we all shared two bathrooms, a common living room area, and a kitchenette; Lizzie and I shared the double bedroom, Becca got one of the single rooms, and Matilda had the other single room.)

And Payton, a boy from the floor below us who commonly hung out in our dorm with us. He all but slept there. He was very welcome there.

Bear with me here, because the corporeal living nonsense is somewhat important to the supernatural thing that this is about.

Matilda, Becca, and Lizzie were all extroverts who got along like a house on fire and spent the majority of the first semester being absolute best friends. I, being the autistic introvert I am, was very happy to sit at my desk in my room and let them be best friends. However, near the end of December – and right as finals arrived to challenge us mere freshmen – Matilda had a major change of mood and a GIGANTIC falling out with Becca and Lizzie. There was screaming, doors being slammed (by Matilda), and for the first time since I moved into that dorm, we all started actively locking our doors because we were worried that Matilda would steal from us.

(Looking back, I see that there were far better ways to handle this. But from the perspective of me then, facing such conflict for the very first time away from home, I didn’t know what to do.)

Eventually, Becca and Lizzie felt threatened in their own dorm. I still hadn’t been fully involved in Matilda’s mistreatment, but I supported Lizzie and Becca when we went to the RA (basically, the dude in charge of dealing with any room/ roommate disputes on our floor) to see if something could be done to change rooms.

It wound up being turned back on us. RA promised to talk to Matilda, and even called in his supervisor about the situation; but when we were called back after they talked to Matilda, we were told simply that it seemed we were the bad guys in this situation and we needed to be “more supportive” of her.

Yes. Apparently we needed to be more supportive of the girl who was acting intimidating towards us in our own dorm.

(Again, looking back, there were better ways to handle this, I’m sure. At the time, I had no such ideas.)

So we go back to our dorm. We gather in Lizzie’s and my double-room, across the common area from Matilda’s room and Becca’s right next to it, where Becca has a panic attack because of all of this.

Alright, here’s where the ghost stuff finally comes in! Throughout the semester, I had learned that Becca believed the spirit of her deceased, beloved grandfather had become her guardian angel. This was the least of the spooky things that had come to light, considering that I swore my deceased dog slept at the foot of my bed (I heard her tags jingling! A lot!) and there was a ghost named Josh who haunted the building (and had made plenty of things go missing.)

So we call Payton, because we have no idea who else to call, who’s across the tiny campus doing training for his campus representative (tour guide) job, and he comes running to us. And as he comes in, he asks us who else was here.

What do you mean, who else? We say. We haven’t called anyone.

Payton says he saw an old white-haired man coming out the door of our dorm room (the main door, into the hallway, not the door to the double bedroom.) He thought at first that the man was the counselor on 24/7 duty that night and that we had called him, because the man beckoned to Payton and then walked away down the hall as Payton opened the door.

When Payton describes the man, Becca says it matches her grandfather exactly.

So maybe Becca’s grandfather thought he could help.

We did end up calling a counselor about this to see what could be done. When she arrived, she was a lady in her thirties with dark hair. Nothing like an old white-haired man.

So yeah, maybe not a spooky ghost story, but I have no reason not to believe what Payton saw.

There were far weirder things on that campus.

[the-ghost-king]

love seeing ur tags on my posts it means i get to think 🥰🥰 anyway mostly agree but at least to me nico’s constant need to prove himself is a sign of feeling like he’s not worth other people’s time and effort and he has to MAKE himself worth it. he does all he can in the hopes that people will notice him and tell him that he’s good enough because he relies on the approval of people he loves. he thinks love is something conditional for him and that he always has to be earning it because he doesn’t have enough worth to have it just granted to him. again this is more my own interpretation of his character and possibly a bit of projection

(Post)

I will not fail to acknowledge that I might also be projecting somewhat onto Nico, what is media but self reflection? I think there's a couple ways you can see Nico that are canonically "correct"

What I personally think happened with Nico is that he was aware he was worth more than the treatment he was receiving, but because so much rejection occurred he eventually just assumed he was the problem. There's things on this I would rewrite now but it holds up okay in what I'm about to try and explain.

The thing about being rejected is that the first time you argue it's the other person. And the second time you'll argue it's still them. If you're still arguing it's other people the third time, maybe but it's thin ice... But eventually you just have to accept that you're at fault.

I think this is something that really describes Nico. He is never able to nestle himself in the comfort of sameness after a certain point. He is not given authority in his own story in the beginning, he is thrust into solitude, he is told he is a monster already and if not then he has no choice but to become one.

And he takes this blame upon himself, believing that it's him who has to prove himself. He doesn't acknowledge that maybe other people have their own biases against him, he says "I have to prove them wrong," and then does his best.

It's important to note that Nico is definitely grappling with Childhood Emotional Neglect, he's in a broken situation- and he recognizes that nobody wants him around, and that he's just more stress for an already stressed group of people, so he just backs down and starts to figure stuff out for himself. We see him accept some help and friendship from The Stolls in TTC but eventually he stops doing this at some point.

His leave from camp and time with Minos is when he is used:

you unknowingly wear your heart on your sleeve and people will see this and take advantage of your trusting nature and unconditional love and they’ll never really love you they’ll just see you as an easy tool to be manipulated and used how they see fit and you won’t recognize that this is a bad thing because you don’t believe you’re worth anything more than this

This is something I would say is very true about this time period of Nico's life. Minos emotionally exploits Nico, emotional neglect and abuse (possibly physical abuse, who knows) are defining characteristics of their interactions. Nico talks about how Minos will just randomly leave him for extremely long periods with no assistance, and about how when he's around he's always telling Nico to try harder, to do better, do more. Note the time he tells Nico "you have no power over me", he's definitely holding things over Nico's head. I don't think it's wrong to assume comfort is a part of that, Nico is alone all the time at this point, and I'm sure he's starved for touch, and support, and connection- and he will take whatever he can get whether or not it is good or right.

At first he doesn't do anything against this, and it might be because he was so starved for attention that he was willing to endure abuse to receive somewhat a consistent form of it. I also think there's some evidence that points to the idea Nico was getting something from Minos, training and similar stuff, it's possible he was willing to form and upkeep a toxic relationship with him in order to gain experience.

However, I do disagree with "and you won’t recognize that this is a bad thing because you don’t believe you’re worth anything more than this" because Nico does realize eventually that his situation isn't sustainable and that he has to do something- so he takes his narrative back into his own hands:

“Minos laughed. "You have no power over me. I am the god of spirits! The ghost king!" "No." Nico drew his sword. "I am.” (X)

So Nico, if he ever thought he was worth the treatment of being used for someone elses personal gain, he definitely overcomes some of it here, if not all of it. Nico is manipulated and used for Minos's personal gain, but he recognizes that it's not sustainable and makes a stand for himself. And this is the first time in the series where Nico truly is able to take control of his own narrative, everything before this moment is Nico being forced, or Nico with something looming over him, Nico crowning himself is him claiming his story.

So let's consider Hades in all of this, I don't think Hades manipulated Nico to the extent Minos did- but nonetheless, he did manipulate and abuse him, and this hurt Nico more than when Minos did it. Again, in the situation with Hades this is also true, "you unknowingly wear your heart on your sleeve and people will see this and take advantage of your trusting nature and unconditional love and they’ll never really love you they’ll just see you as an easy tool to be manipulated and used how they see fit and you won’t recognize that this is a bad thing". By the time Nico and Hades truly start interacting, we see that Nico's heart hasn't been fully removed from his sleeve, but it may have been lightened.

Here's the thing about the way Nico approached Hades, it's not naïve to trust family. The text in multiple places implies that Hades was around for at least a handful of years when Nico was a kid, it's not unlikely that Nico may have taken naps on his shoulder, held his hand to cross the street, maybe called him "Papa", "Dad", or "Tata" (Italian, English, old Greek). It makes sense that Nico goes to him, what doesn't make sense to Nico at first is that Hades would manipulate him. Unlike many of the other demigods, Nico knows he was a choice, and that at some point he was something wanted, so he expects some level of okay treatment from Hades. Hades loved his mother, and Hades if not wanting of Nico would have wanted Maria's wishes fulfilled, and Nico probably remembers Hades treating him warmly- or at least not harshly. The way Nico went to Hades makes sense, he wasn't expecting open arms surely, but he also wasn't expecting abuse.

Hades emotionally exploits Nico by using information about Maria, what would a little boy want more than the safety of his mother? He's so starved for human contact, who ever held him more than his mother? Who ever loved him more than her? Once Nico delivers Percy to Hades, his father crushes him, not only by harming Percy but by exploiting Nico's trust through Nico's mother- one of the things he's most desperate for.

We see Nico's heart come off his sleeve at this point, maybe not fully, but enough to where a stranger couldn't recognize it at first glance, and in a way where he has the means to hide it from most.

Except we don't see much of this, because the series is narrated by Percy- and Nico can't hide his heart from Percy.

Almost everything Nico does, everything he tries to do, is for Percy. Nico is so desperate for contact that he is pliant, but in Percy's hands Nico actually wants that contact, he's not interested in imitations of love or substitutes- he's looking for the real thing.

And Mr. Oblivious does-Annabeth-like-me Jackson isn't in any headspace to realize that a boy might like him, let alone Nico. This concern that Nico will join Luke, isn't entirely because Percy is misreading signals, but it's definitely part of it. Nico likes Percy so much that at one point he is willing to go to Tartarus if not entirely for him, then partially for him.

If Percy had realized, and rejected Nico- maybe he would have joined Luke, or at least he definitely would have been more likely to. The perception of Nico we get in PJO from Percy is unreliable, because Percy looks at Nico through the lenses of a concerned older brother, and Percy feels guilty in some way for the situation Nico is in. This gives not only a skewed, but slightly falsified narrative of who Nico is.

The original post of mine I linked, although yes, I would like to rewrite aspects of it now it holds up in the sense that Nico is always trying to prove himself, and this is a bit different than being a puppet. Nico is so starved that it is present in everything, @/arabnico gets it right:

nico’s longing is just so raw it consumes him whole and he cannot hide it at all because it reflects in absolutely everything he does and is nico’s just the means of the way for them and he settles for being it because he doesn’t think he can be much better or even deserves to it is sometting so twisted because nico has this innate utalitarian desire to be useful and to do something and to do the right thing but in the game of things he’s reduced to that puppet in the hands of fate and deities millennia older than him that see a wounded wandering soul doomed to be forever alone by a destiny so cruel it keeps him on his knees

Nico, in PJO especially, has little control over his own narrative. His mother is killed in punishment for his father's "wrongs", Nico is forced to endure this. Bianca grows tired of caring for Nico and leaves him behind, this is not Nico's fault but Nico is forced to endure the consequences of her actions. Bianca's fate is decided on a quest Nico isn't even able to go on, he is forced to endure the results. Nico then breaks the cycle, declaring himself The Ghost King, and dethroning Minos. Nico is forced to endure Hades's manipulation only because he did not see it coming, this wasn't an aspect in which Nico didn't have his narrative (he had already taken ownership of his narrative) but a blind spot in his rational.

The place where we vary is why Nico behaves this way, we can agree that it's because he's starving for human connection- but you believe it's because he has no confidence he is willing to submit himself, while I see his submission as an act of desperation.

Personally, I think to argue that Nico is like this as a result of lack of confidence does a disservice to his narrative (obviously it's fine to view him however you wish, and I wish you all the fun in doing so!). To boil this down to starvation and lack of confidence removes some level of Nico's autonomy in his own life, but also strips him of one of his strongest characteristics- those qualities of him which are like Orpheus.

Nico willing to go to the ends of the earth for love is not a weakness but a strength, his ability to carry on beyond the point in which he needs a rest is not a weakness but a sign of strength. His ability to go to the ends of the earth to right wrongs, and to show his love:

"... Cupid struck, slapping Nico sideways into a granite pedestal. Love is no game! It is no flowery softness! It is hard work- a quest that never ends. It demands everything from you- especially the truth. Only then does it yield rewards."

Cupid is explaining Nico's idea of love in this scene, we see Jason say he prefers Piper's idea of love- but Nico only knows love in the way cupid describes, working desperately for a few moments with Bianca, working just to hear any scrap of information about his mother, always trying to prove himself to Percy- to overcome the way he feels about Percy (and boys in general).

Nico has only known love as something you walk to the ends of the Earth for, but he never stops fighting to be loved and acknowledged. Lesser men would give up and lay down, accept they are unworthy, but Nico keeps pushing to be acknowledged and accepted- to be recognized and loved without having to walk to the end of the Earth, but Nico knows he has to walk to that edge and face it before unconditional love will come to him.

To imply that Nico seeks love the way he does because he's unconfident in his ability to receive love ignores the idea that he's had his life forced into this position because of the fates. It loses acknowledgment to the strength it takes to pick yourself up and walk to the end of the Earth time and time again, because if he was unconfident then he would eventually lay down and accept he shouldn't be loved ever again.

I don't think confidence doesn't play into this at all though, it definitely has some impact on Nico, he does view himself as inherently less (he is overly self sacrificial- think Tartarus :/), and he does try to remove himself from others:

You yourself said: you blame yourself for the way people have hurt you, taken advantage of you, and abandoned you. they exploit your love and your naïveté time and time again. you tell yourself, surely, there must be something wrong with you. because—you are convinced—that people are good. “if they hurt me, it is because i am flawed. it is because i am weak. people will always hurt me—even people i love. it’s an inevitable truth for me.” (X)

And this connects to what I said: "The thing about being rejected is that the first time you argue it's the other person. And the second time you'll argue it's still them. If you're still arguing it's other people the third time, maybe but it's thin ice... But eventually you just have to accept that you're at fault."

I do think there's a reason Nico makes himself so "utilitarian", because he hasn't been handed unconditional love since Bianca. But again we disagree on the why, I see Nico's behavior in his utilitarian example of love as caring, the way more people should be in love. Too many people see love as something given without restraint, and yeah, love should be unconditional but in order for love to be unconditional you have to do the work to lay good foundation. To be utilitarian in loving is not an act of weakness, or a symbol of lack of confidence, it is a showcase of more care in love than most have to offer. We care for things, and place value on them determined by how much love and care goes into those things.

I also don't see Nico's self blaming for what happened as flawed, it's logical in his situation, and a common result of CEN. This self blame shows care and kindness, and this coincides with Nico's arcs, "If I am bad, how do I improve? If I have no choice but to be evil, how do I still be good?". Nico is always fighting not to be recognized for good or bad, but to be recognized for what he is.

Trust is not naivety either, the only reason Nico is regarded as naïve is because of the extreme circumstances of his life. People shouldn't have to expect abuse from people who are supposed to love them, people should have to accept abuse in order to receive love. If Nico's life had turned out different, his naivety wouldn't be viewed as a weakness but a strength- a kindness.

We're not actually viewing Nico all that different, there's this space where his character blurs together, and it becomes an individual duty to determine at what point a flaw becomes a strength, and a strength a flaw. Nico's stubbornness is a flaw if we're thinking about grudges, but it's a strength in his work ethic. Nico's ability to stand on his own is a strength in terms of questing, but it's a flaw when it prevents him from experiencing love in fullness.