#because the episode is *that* shitty that a dangerous choice in sound effect is low on the list

[curator-on-ao3]

All of this.

Also, I’m linking to my own Tumblr post that expresses my disgust with this episode that could have been okay if the storyline had reflected the actual realities of the show and its characters instead of what the episode did do — shoehorn our people into scenarios with limited to no internal logic while undermining characters and relationships.

some ramblings on among the lotus eaters

what is happening in this household. I am not one to criticize professional screenwriters but genuinely who did this. first and biggest pet peeve: Una is immune to radiation. We know this. And YET she is affected by the asteroid’s spooky vibes. I would have even taken Christine saying something along the lines of “if Una is affected, it’s only a matter of time before it gets us too,” or SOMETHING. The first officer has superpowers and we never see them. I would like to see her carry more people around. (I have written a fanfic to fix this bc I was annoyed)

I will confess that I am biased against any episode that is not Una centric. I miss her. Where is she. I appreciated her calling Chris out on evidently habitual nonsense but I would like to see more.

also though where is Pelia?? Napping in a Jeffries tube? I am curious how thousands of years of memories are affected by the radiation. These are the real questions.

Another real question: why is the doctor here for his combat skills? They make it a one-liner for Joseph to be all deep and tortured but genuinely. What is the reason. Yes he’s a war veteran, but aren’t there other veterans on the ship? (yes) Is there not a whole security department of people trained in combat? (yes). I know the writers wanted to split everyone into fun little groups but why was this the move. Send your super strong first officer to lead the mission and your super strong science officer to assess the cultural contamination.

(tangent: Una Spock and La’an on the planet would have resonated SO much more for me butwhatevertheydidntdothatitsfine)

last but not least, the whole “you brought me home” thing with Batel IRKED me. You’ve been dating for six minutes. This is not believable. It simply does not make sense to me! If Chris is going to have a deep emotional connection with anyone that endures all memory loss, it would be Una or Spock. IF ONLY he had a history of a connection like that… like shaving a depression beard and going to rescue someone in the middle of his midlife crisis… or braving a hostile atmosphere and possible suffocation…OR sacrificing his future so someone else doesn’t suffer the same fate…

but no Batel brought him home she is the most important relationship in his life. obviously.

[zombriekid]

The Devil Takes Care of His Own 1/?? [Alastor/Gender Neutral Reader]

Series: Hazbin Hotel

Chapter Name: Run Rabbit, Run

Chapter Summary: you snatch a young girl from certain danger, and even though a trail of broken dishes and angry business owners are left in your wake, at least the kiddo is safe. for now.  *please don't run zig zag from gators, that'll only slow you down

  When you first awoke within the muck of the drudges of the damned, it was without any recollection as to who you were or what you were about or even why you were here; somehow, in spite of the personal amnesia, gray meat in the ol' chrome dome was able to quickly surmise where "here" was. Drew a blank on your friggin' name but not on your location? Didn't really inspire much confidence, still doesn't actually.

  You've grown some since, about a month's time if you're keeping track accurately- that's up for debate however, passage of time operates differently here- and though you're honestly no closer to figuring out just who in the hell you were, you've managed to forge some footpaths in the mountain that is ciphering the inner machinations of Pentagram City... and who you are in this concrete jungle of copper smells and marquee lights.

  And, of friggin course, who you are just so happens to be the biggest bleeding heart in all of damnation.

  The scene before you is playing out in such a way that it's resonating within the cavity of your ribcage so differently than ever before- well, at least within your short term memory anyway. See you're no stranger to violence, though your familiarity sings distinct from most everyone else's, but in the thirty or so days of consciousness you've witnessed first hand turf wars over a single city block, a lover's quarrel that resulted in a heart literally being cleaved out of someone's chest, muggings for baggies of white powder that you swiftly deduced was <i>not<i> confectioners sugar, and oh so much more over oh so much less. Hell, even you've slipped past the avaricious claws of would be thieves eyeing your satchel. Joke's on them, the contents are merely yellow parcels and white envelopes. And not to toot your horn but you're-

  "-fast. I'm very fast. I'm like Forrest Gump, except I'm not an idiot." The voice, masculine and strained through puffs of heavy breathing, echoes in your ears yet it doesn't ring a bell.

  ... now's not the time for an episode, self.

  And it's a burst of noise- like a mixture between water and air spraying- that brings you back into focus.

  Right.

  The carnage that's about to take place cause you're standing around like an idiot with a thumb up your ass.

  A young girl poises herself before a cavern of teeth, staring her aggressor in the maw with a grin curling on her rosy cheeks. As if certain not-death ain't about to swallow her noggin whole, bones and all. The aggressor in question peels their jaw further apart and a low, rolling sound rumbles from within the depths. Still the kiddo doesn't flinch, doesn't even blink at her impending doom.

  She can't be more than fifteen so her fight or flight instincts should be well in the process of switching over to autopilot, but to your utter dismay they don't seem to be engaging.

  Cause she's still just... standing there.

  The demon looms over her tiny body with a hunched back, sickly green scales flutter under the pentagram's fluorescence, and their torso gradually expands outward- not unlike that of a balloon- as if they're gulping down a throat full of breath- as if they're bracing for the pounce-

  Liquid ice gushes through your veins, through your muscles, and pools around the bones of your ankle joints; inner thighs clench, knees slack; left foot ferociously stomps at the asphalt with the right quickly following suit, left right, left right, rapid hastening cycle; the thinning rubber of your sneaker's soles does little to absorb the impact- every footfall strike sends ripples of tingly pain up your shins, making all extremities tremble; you pump one arm in tandem with your racing heart and the other prepares with hooked finger bones. The harsh pace kicks up cement dust in your wake.

  The aggressor leans further- the kid ain't moving- you're not gonna make it in time-

  -heat: stifling. black cloud: smoke inhalation. neighbor: passed out. not much time. not enough of it. get him out now.

  Grab her.

  -grab him.

  NOW

____________________________________

  Some feet ahead and to the left is the mouth of an alleyway, and if memory serves correctly this side street should eventually spill out into Fifth, and if that's the case then the alley should house the back entrance to the (alleged) cannibal cafe- an establishment that maintains the coveted fourth place on your personal list of "Must Avoid Unless Absolutely Necessary".

  The owner, an absolute unit of saccharine smiles and four barbed tusks to match her literal boorish appearance, is a demon gal that you get along with well enough; a relationship constricted to the limits of professionalism, you often find yourself engaged in weather talk after the ritual of mail delivery is completed. Of course the hairs on the back of your neck rise whenever you look her in the eye for too long, but that's to be expected when she's pricing out whatever cuts your hide might produce. At least, you're like eighty percent certain that that's what she does while exchanging pleasantries.

  Still, your options are between cutting through Mrs. Sowbelly's Cafe or stay on the straight and narrow... and both choices carry considerable risk behind them. Both choices could land the two of you in the trap of a beast's glistening, spittle sheen teeth.

  And full transparence? You like the sniff of your chances with the widowed pig more.

  Besides, provided that you shield the young cyclops from view, Mrs. Sowbelly shouldn't be able to commit your damsel in distress's identity to memory and start getting any funny ideas. The kiddo should be safe.

  So it's with a pivot on your heel, a rapid change that leaves you hopping on one leg momentarily, that you tear your body to the left and haul ass down the alleyway like the devil's nipping at your heels.

  Which, ironically though no literally, he/she/they are- well, not the devil but rather a devil. It's a clever metaphor dammit, and you're gonna applaud yourself later if you survive this clusterfuck of a shitty ass situation.

  Then again... folks down here don't really die, do they? Not like how they do topside. Probably hurts just as much, however.

  A drag of oxygen claws from deep within your stomach, swells the airway in your throat until they ache, and the muscles around your knees ignite with an icy burn- all fueled by a dwindling supply of addictive adrenaline. The tiny girl shifts in your arms, causing her red tresses to ghost the underside of your chin, before her single, rather large ocular finds you; there's a question gleaming in the yellowed pit of her iris, and while your soft heart would love nothing more than to humor her there are other matters you must attend to first- that being saving your skins- so you tuck her head back into one shoulder and twist its partner to lead the two person charge.

  Brace.

  Grit your teeth.

  And- BAM!

  Pain- biting deep into the blade. Nothing serious. Bruise at worst.

  But you're in.

  In the split second it takes all of the neurons to collectively process your surroundings, you quickly discover that the cafe's back door immediately leads into a quaint kitchen. There might be a lace and heart motif on the walls, and there might be a slab of oozing, fleshy meat on the counter? Or your brain is misidentifying things, wouldn't be the first time downside; shuffle around the island and through the white swinging door before you throw a brief apology to Mrs. Sowbelly about the rude intrusion. And maybe there is some sort of higher power still looking out for your unbelievably dumb ass because the swinging door opens up to the dining portion of the cafe.

  Thank Whomever or Whatever for small miracles.

  "Oops, sorry!" and "pardon me, sir!" and "oh fuck! I'm really sorry!" become your mantra as you dodge wooly servers and rodent customers alike. The shrill cry of porcelain shattering rings in the periphery of your attention span and your stomach churns itself with guilt.

  The display you must be putting on, ruining these poor people's lovely, likely cannibalistic brunch. God, you're such a jerk.

  Still, there's a certain appreciation for escape and safety that's far outweighing the acidic aftertaste of shame right now- not to mention you haven't heard the aggressor in a bit and that's worrisome- so you swallow your pride, hunch your back a little (effectively obscuring the kid from the public's eye), and much like a bull in a glass shop you sprint all the way to the entrance. Broken dishes, disgruntled employees, pissed customers, and all.

  Out of the cafe and on to the cobblestone of Fifth Street do you stop; now should you continue on through the crowds, or cut through more establishments in an unpredictable route? Your assailant seems to be gator-based so maybe you should-

  "- in order to escape from an alligator, you should run zig zag because they can only charge straight."

  That... sounds like misinformation, but time's a-wasting and you gotta make a choice now.

  Crowd? Or the coffee shop across the street?

  ... well coffee does have a tendency to make you more productive, placebo or otherwise, and you certainly trust it over Hell's denizens by leagues. So coffee shop it is!

  Rinse, repeat: dodge the condemned, serpentine through the building, apologize to everyone who has the misfortune of in your path, and make your grand exit through another door. This rampaging circuit sees you bulldozing through some sorta clothing boutique, a toy store that's definitely not for children, your favorite chocolatier distributor, and a pretzel shop that serves everything but pretzels. Naturally there are some other businesses in that line, however you don't deem them important enough to fully acknowledge them. No offense to the owners, of course.

  And not once do you dare to glance behind your shoulder to see if the reptilian fellow/dame/gender neutral folk is trailing your footsteps.

____________________________________

  "Why'd ya grab me?"

  "To save you."

  She blinks twice, an odd bundle of curiosity this one, then asks you the age old question known as "why?"

  And honestly you're not entirely sure of the reasoning yourself. Admittedly- admittedly it was more of a reaction than a conscious decision, with a memory that might or might have not been your own reverberating from the back of your mind until your feet were already moving. Cause in that moment all you were seeing was a monster ready to hurt a teenage girl- and demon or no the novelty of leaving a kid to fend for herself sounded heinous. Vile. So you snatched her up and ran.

  No reason to bore her with that explanation however, kids have short attention spans and all that, and you're more than willing to chalk this up to something akin to Occam's Razor- "the simplest solution is more likely the right one."

  ... boy howdy, you can remember that but not your own goddamn name? Just how in the hell have you survived this long?

  "Seemed like the right thing to do."

  This seems to confuse her further for both top and bottom eyelid draw closer around the globe of her eye, rosy cheeks puffing out as she looks you up and down then back up again for... insert reason here?

  Oh. Oh!

  Two things about the doomed denizens of Pentagram City, location one of the numerous layers of Hell: they tend to garb themselves in whatever fashion is familiar to them from the time/date of their death, probably as a last ditch effort to grasp at whatever shreds of humanity they have left? And the longer they've been here the less human they appear- you hear that there are exceptions to this observation but the general consensus states that one's residency in the realm of suffering determines how much metamorphosis one undergoes.

  And this little lady? Based off of the giant eyeball and way she's dressed? You're kind of half expecting her to break out into Sandra Dee's routine of "Summer Nights" what with her billowing pink poodle skirt and matching scarf. Actually, scratch that, the pink is trademark Frenchy. "Beauty School Drop Out" it is.

  Anyways, point being that this teen more than likely bit the dust like seventy-ish years ago, thus making her chronologically older than you, meaning she's been here a hell of a lot longer than you, exposed to some of the worst humanity has to offer, so your whole "good samaritan" spiel is probably translating to something along the lines of "stranger danger".

  "That's weird." She says.

  "Sorry?"

  "You know we're in Hell, right?"

  Why yes you are aware of your current and permanent residency, and if anybody asks you you personally think that it's fucked the fuck up that a friggin teenager is in Hell! What could a kid possibly do to warrant their soul's final resting place be the kingdom of sin and evil?! Grant it you don't know what you've done to receive the same treatment either, but a. you're an adult and b. it was probably real messed up compared to... whatever she "did".

  Ponder the fallacies of morality later, it's time you get her back home.

  Your knees bend until one cap burrows into the dirty below, and you bring yourself to be at a more leveled height with her- don't reach to her, not yet at least, likely doesn't feel safe around you yet (if ever.)

  "Hey, is it cool if I ask you what your name is?" You smile, mindful of your canines so that they don't pierce your bottom lip. Again.

  The reaction you receive is instantaneous.

  "I'm Niffty! Who are you?" She chirps with a huge grin.

  You choke on your words; "I uhh... don't remember? But you can call me 'Newbie', lots of people- erm, demons? Uhh, lots of folks call me that." Clear the throat, bring back the smile on your face. "So listen Niffty, do you have, like, parents or uhh.. family I can bring you to?"

  "Pfft, I don't think anybody here has parents. Except for the princess of course! Well, there might be others... but anywaysie daisy, nope! No parents here!"

  Jesus Christ she's an orphan on top of everything else?! Next thing you know she's gonna mention how someone drowned her pet lizard and chopped all the heads off her favorite stuffed animals when she was the tender age of three... you're way too much of a sentimental idiot for this bullshit.

  "Okay, that's okay. How 'bout a home or, like, some kind of safe space I can drop you off at?"

  "Oh! The Hazbin Hotel!"

  ... pardon? The what hotel? Wait.. there's a hotel in hell (heh, rhymes)? Why?

  "Originally it was called the Happy Hotel but the bossman changed it, and if you ask me I like the new name better," she whispers the last part as if her opinion over the name is a secret between you two. Precious kid.

  But also a hotel here just simply named the "Happy Hotel"? Yeah that sounds shady as fuck. Ain't a lot of happiness going around these here parts, not genuine happiness at least.

  "Best job I've ever had too! I get to clean and cook all day, every day! Except during my time off... that's a real bummer."

  That... kind of makes sense actually; child labor laws are likely ignored in favor of cheap drudge, and if folks are willing to exploit youngens in life then why would they forgo the practice after death? Trick question: they wouldn't cause people are terrible... unfortunately so are you.

  It's not as if you can just uproot Niffty and bring her in under your non existent wing- mail delivery only pays for so much after all and there aren't enough routes in the city to haul your head above the water's hemline. So housing, feeding, and clothing a-whole-nother being when most of your nights are spent in the company of ravenous hunger and the legitimate consideration of selling off your parts to Mrs. Sowbelly? Ain't happenin, cap'n.

  "Well I've never heard of this hotel, but I can at least see that you get there safely," you offer, one hand rubbing at the back of your neck. "Dunno if that gator is still-”

  "Wo-ow, you must be new if you don't know about the Hazbin Hotel!" She gives you a once-over again. "Guess that explains why you don't look... 'demon-y'."

  You're losing track here; gotta get her back to her home as soon as possible, direct her attention towards that goal. Butter her up. Kids like that, right? Your gut says so at least.

  "Heh, well it's gotta be pretty fuc- I-I mean, pretty awesome if they got someone like you workin' there, Niffty."

  "OH, you're SO right! I make the place sparkle!"

  She continues on with her excited babbling as she twirls her petite body around towards the east, billowing poodle skirt and all. Not gonna lie, you're kind of jealous of her and her garment; maybe something ankle length you can get away with. Meanwhile the young cyclops flutters on her feet with mentions of "doing my absolute best" and "that's why the bossman hired me", and though you'll admit that the details of her employment are enshrouded in mystery, and what little information you can glean sounds very sketchy, still you don't attempt to dissuade her from her goal destination.

  Who knows, maybe this Happy/Has-been Hotel won't be so awful?

  Heh. Yeah right.

  The moment Niffty is safe and secure, at least as far as the gator demon is concerned, you're gonna be well on your way back to the dingy apartment you call home.

____________________________________

a/u: are you really that surprised? one of my main husbandos is friggin eldritch dracula, so this is just par for the course honestly. the ol radio demon is gon be a tough customer but goddammit we’re gonna try regardless. don’t expect a healthy “relationship�� with the ace spectrum cannibal deer demon. also the lore is gonna be like half improv cause we don’t know much about hh yet. and yes i’m aware that niffty is biologically in her twenties, but newbie doesn’t know. yet. with that said: please leave a like, gimme a comment, reblog this bitch, and just continue bein awesome y’all <3

[kennedycatherine]

things may be shitty but sometimes I'm shittier

I’m overheard retelling half a joke my friends have heard 30 times over. One of the greats in my rotating stock of five. 

“Wait, what’s this about?” Asks someones boyfriend and I lean on an elbow, angle myself toward him with a grin.

“It’s actually a really funny story.”

His girlfriend rolls her eyes, “it’s not funny.”

My eyebrows go up, in, “I think it’s funny?”

“Kennedy,” she begins and looks at me with even eyes, “it makes people uncomfortable.”

She says it like a mother warning her toddler not to pull his pants off in front of the dinner guests, not again. And I feel a lot like he might;

Defiant - it is a funny story, I’ve done the math on which details can stay in, which have to go out, I know where to pause for a laugh or a sigh. He’d probably like it. 

Ashamed - it probably isn’t funny to everyone, perhaps my math was just enough to keep people engaged, the pauses great for a sympathy laugh. He probably wouldn’t like it.

“Another time,” he whispers with a soft, consoling smile and I silently curse his girlfriend. 

Fuck you, Kierstan, you don’t know the first thing about comedic timing.

The story in question is about the time I found my sister cold and unconscious. I thought she was dead. The punchline about my being in a pink velour costume when the EMT’s arrived and the bit about the stolen laffy taffy, oh and her not being dead - fully worth the undeniable emotional lows. 

Believe me when I say that in some circles, it’s a funny story. There are branches of comedy, Netflix specials, peoples entire careers and livelihoods that are rooted in dark comedy - there is a vast market for illuminating and lightening the horrifying. Also trust me when I say I know how deeply unfunny it is to watch someone you love overdose. 

The story is funny now. A few years ago it wasn’t. It was a nearly unspeakable thing. An experience that happened and it wasn’t funny. 

But life goes on. 

You have no choice. 

Around the time of the pink velour tracksuit and the laffy taffy, I found myself laughing uncontrollably at my desk. I’d just left the job I’d gone to college for and found myself in the pit of broken dreams - an 8 to 5 desk job. The absolute thrill of it all - somedays you might file, somedays you might answer a few more calls than usual. Somedays your boss might ask you to bend over and pick up his pencil while you wear the skirt it was gently (but firmly) implied was mandatory. Mandatory only in the sense that no one could tell you that you couldn’t wear pants but they sure were more forgiving of car naps running 15 minutes over if they could glimpse a knee. 

And boy, did I need the car naps. 

It’s funny because I thought I was doing great. Really, for awhile I thought I was the best I’d ever been. I was laughing pretty much all the time, at everything. I’d never found the world more funny. By all accounts, I was having a great time.

So imagine my surprise when one day I found my eyes full, my face damp and my car hurdling down the highway past the exit to my work. When I did arrive, this time with pants, therefor low forgiveness - I was asked to my boss’ office for a closed door meeting.

Why was I late?

Somehow telling my boss that I wasn’t exactly sure the reason but my brain was telling me I should just keep driving, maybe to the next town, maybe for hours, maybe until the border, didn’t really seem like an option. “I think I have the flu.”

Despite all the things I didn’t know, I did know I didn’t have the flu. I found myself laid out in my doctors office anyway.

When he finally threw the door open, all white coated and anxious, just like I like em’ - I sat up. We made a sort of frenzied eye contact and he asked me what was wrong. 

“I think I might be, like, totally fucking losing it.” 

I left with a plan and antidepressants.

It all sounds kind of simple and quaint.

But it wasn’t.

Stopping to consider if you’re a danger to yourself or anyone else so your doctor can qualify if you need counselling, pills, maybe a psychiatric hold isn’t charming. Those first few weeks of pills, even though you’ve been told and you know you’ll feel worse for awhile, they’re simply awful. This isn’t some beautiful woman on HBO popping a white pill with her chardonnay, suddenly noticing a pink bloom on her neglected cactus. This is ugly and painful before it’s anything else.

And slowly it did become “anything else” … most of the time. 

Depression isn’t a joke. But it is a static way of being that loses it’s edge. 

It softens. Like a shitty haircut, you come to expect the blunt, harsh edges. Your body adjusts to the sight of it. It’s still kind of scary to look at but you know what to expect.

Life goes on.

It’s just not precious anymore. 

I could barely say I’d been diagnosed. I only told the people who were close enough to see the new medication was wearing me out. Now it’s an introductory fact, “Hi, Kennedy Catherine, daughter, lover, lesbian, writer, major depressive disorder.” 

I felt for a long time like it was all behind me. The worst was over! Family, outside of some trick hearts, healthy. Depression, diagnosed, plans made, helpful medications on standby. Experiencing another dark episode seemed dull,  ya know? Just a tad fucking redundant. Been there, done it, bored by it. 

Then: March 2020. 

There was a period of limbo. I still had a job, I just couldn’t be there or do it until things got better - hardy har. I packed up my truck and settled into my families cabin for five or six weeks. It was fine, I was fine, I thought. One day I went out for a walk and awhile later watched my sister rumble through a long stretch of prairie toward me on an ATV. My phone was dead and I’d be gone, oh, three hours longer than expected?

“What happened?”

I just kind of… lost track of time? Lost my sense of direction? I don’t know, I thought. I was here but I sort of went away from myself for a second. When I sunk into the bath later with achy muscles and a blister, I felt nervous.

Now, I haven’t scared myself in years. My depression isn’t so severe that I feel unsafe with myself. Anything I did or have done to effectively terrify myself, I shed by the time I was 20. Because that can happen, you can do that. You can change coping mechanisms and learn real, healthy ways to parent yourself. The mood instability that came later, the dark times, I still felt mostly fortified. I felt like I could figure it out, like I still had access to myself to do the figuring out. 

But I could feel myself slipping away this time. 

I was talking fast about something or another when I finally said to my mom, “I think I might need help.” I wasn’t sure exactly what I meant because I didn’t really know how to help myself and I wasn’t really sure what was wrong. 

And that in and of itself is a problem. I didn’t know what was wrong? 

I was out of the job that got me out of bed Monday to Friday for three and a half years, I left the house that had become my comfort cathedral, I hadn’t seen any of my closest friends in months, I was living with my sister and my mother who I hadn’t spent longer than a handful of days with in like five years. There was global fear and uncertainty and the risk of contracting a virus that could or could not kill you but I didn’t know… what was wrong? Well that’s just deeply moronic. 

Sometimes when you need help, or when I need help, that does come in the form of professional counselling or medications or an anonymous support group. Sometimes, it’s just circumstantial and circumstances can change.

I went home.

And in a few weeks, when I’d more or less returned to myself, I could clearly see the hills and valleys my mind had just wandered. I felt strength again, a sense of renewal and excitement about my imminent return to work and society.

Then I actually lost my job.

I know, redundant. I’m tired of myself too. But bullshit is cyclical, that’s just a fact. 

And if there is one thing I’ll give myself credit for, it’s my ability to immediately concoct a backup plan in the face of a threat. Moments after I was officially terminated, texts and emails went out. The idea of not knowing where my next paycheque would come from and how much it would be, having lost the place I strolled into everyday with a sense of purpose and not knowing when and where I’d have that again was simply not an option.

My head went down, I narrowed focus and the efforts resulted in… enough. I’m living. Which wasn’t and isn’t the hope for life. Unstable stagnancy is deeply uncomfortable.

So, generally speaking, things are not great. 

I lost my humbly secure job. A place I comfortably could’ve lived and died if I’d prioritized everything other than work and my sort of crippling ambition. This effectively led me down the path of questioning every decision I’ve made past the age of 16. First and foremost, choosing radio. An industry that was at it’s peak in the 1930’s and on the decline ever since was perhaps not the most lucrative or secure of career choices. 

My romantic life developed far enough to remind me that often times I am a crusty, avoidant crustacean human and suddenly all those popular tweets about my deep emotional inabilities and intimacy issues seemed, well, not that funny.

I decided I probably shouldn’t drink. I don’t have a drinking problem but I do have a problem with drinking. Namely, waking with no memory, my legs shaking and my stomach clenched so tightly I could sense my body wanted to flee - itself, mostly. And let’s not forget the part where I get fighty and mean.  

When shit hit the fan and then shot off the blades into the face of life in my early twenties, it wasn’t my fault. To be clear, mental health is a no fault area. I was always predisposed to depression, mental illness is genetic. I had no control over that. But there were plenty of variables, extenuating circumstances if you will, that I also had no control over but sure as fuck could and did blame other people for.

This is not the same thing. 

This is a moment where it is necessary to discern illness from circumstance and living from coping. 

Like I said, bullshit is cyclical. And it this point, it’s pretty much just my own bullshit on repeat, forever and ever amen. At twenty or twenty three, when the circumstances weren’t my fault, it also felt like my reactions weren’t my fault. I was floundering, I didn’t know better. I learned some hard lessons about how I cope and handle things. I learned that I didn’t really like the person I was when I was figuring out how to survive myself and life. 

I was unkind, a lot. 

I hated the way that felt, I hated the way it affected my relationships and decided to learn from it.

Except, I didn’t learn. I said, great, noted. Dashed a nice little ~fini!~ at the end of that chapter, closed er’ on up and bypassed the bookshelf for the dusty box in the corner labelled, “garage sale.” Because surely no one would need to read that again! 

And then a few weeks ago when I had a breakthrough in counselling, I dug that chapter back up and allowed myself a few days of surprise. Bitch, you been done knew the WHOLE time. This isn’t news, this isn’t shocking. This is the part of you that developed somewhere along the way and it didn’t work and you didn’t like it but! But. It was comfortable. So you gave it a few years and then when things fell out of control again, let it settle back in all warm and snuggly.

You know what they say. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, I guess I need to financially prioritize a CBT therapist. 

So here I am, again. 

Only this time feels deeply, deeply different. Because it’s not the first. 

I sat down with a friend to tell her how I was feeling. How much I felt like I needed and wanted to change my default settings. 

I need a factory restore. 

“I think you’re being hard on yourself.”

No, no, I have grace for myself! I actually have a lot of understanding. I’m parenting myself through this which includes showing myself love while I also discipline.

“I just feel like maybe you were doing the best you knew how.”

Well, I mean, sure? Sometimes? But there were moments where I knew I was saying or doing the wrong thing, where I was even challenged by someone else but I wasn’t challenging myself, you know?

“Well maybe that’s just who you are?”

Right… but this is also who I am? And we do actually have a say in that, you know? Like how I evolved from throwing toddler tantrums on the grocery store floor? I could actually just keep doing that, no one is stopping me, but I don’t.

“I think you’re being self deprecating and that is not healthy.” 

Since when is self identifying a problem self deprecation? 

“Oh, don’t be so hard on yourself.”

… but change is hard? 

I appreciate that people want to protect me from myself or from bad feeling or whatever they perceive that all to be. More often than not, I think they, we, you, I, we’re all just trying to protect ourselves. But it’s not helpful. Pretending that everything is fine and that we’re fine and adopting an overarching, “I am perfect as I am, namas-fucking-te” mantra isn’t actually helpful.

What’s the harm in me saying I have been shitty? That I have acted poorly? That I have neglected to be better when there was clearly a different option? That I wasn’t honestly showing myself to people when I could’ve or allowing them space in me?

That it’s… not nice? That just like the joke about my sister not being dead, it’s not comfortable to listen to? It’s true and it is compassionate to view yourself as a whole, to know yourself and think I actually do like myself and this life enough to want to be better.

Just like what is coined the unfortunate evening of Velour and Ambulances or the depression diagnosis or life being turned on it’s head by a plague sent from hell, once it was deeply painful and then it wasn’t. None of this is precious. Being a shitty person sometimes isn’t a rare affliction. You’ve been shitty before, you’ll do it again, I’ll do it again, hey, you might even be shitty right now! Isn’t that something? 

Things are not great right now. They’ve been not great tens of times before. Only this time it isn’t taking me 2 to 4 years to talk and laugh about it. Because this is a muscle, the shit muscle and it’s exercised. It’s buff. 

And you know what? Things could be worse. They could even get worse now! I’m hoping they don’t but they certainly could, and in the thick of it, we’ll always have that glimmering possibility to hold onto. 

[nh935]

Creepy America Episode 1: Worlds of Wonder

Introduction

Today marks the twelve year anniversary of the last episode of Creepy America. I know this because of the article I'm reading, recounting the strange and bizarre tale of the webshow. My webshow. My life, for the better part of four years. And even though it arguably destroyed me, brought me to this point where I live alone, working hard jobs to keep this tiny, shitty one person apartment, news of Creepy America never ceases to bring me joy.

Except today.

Which brings me to the reason I am writing.

This morning, I received a letter saying that the server charges for the official Creepy America website had gone up once again, this time to a level that I couldn't even convince myself into thinking I could pay. My complaints have been ignored; I am positive that a silent actor has been forcing the charges to increase, regardless of the actual cost of maintaining the site. This is no doubt the same person who broke into my apartment and storage locker and stole every remaining physical copy of the Creepy America episodes. I wish I could muster the energy to be outraged, or even horrified, but I knew this day would come sometime.

Barring any action from my co-host to stop these actions, something I know will never happen, this would be where the webshow dies. But I'm a stubborn bastard and I'll be damned if it does.

So here I am, alone, in a small, dark room, writing my memoirs of the craziest, scariest, most dangerous, and happiest years of my life. My goal is to preserve the memories of "Creepy America": those days and nights spent in the R.V., traveling from city to city, investigating, finding, and recording the secret places that the world does their best to keep hidden. It's only this way that those days will stay alive. Files corrupt. Memories fade. Even history can be re-written. But if the show has proved anything, it's that words will exist forever, even if they aren't supposed to.

To the Newcomers:

I imagine that most people who track down these stories will be the life-long fans. However, I imagine that some will simply stumble onto these stories by accident. That's okay; it's actually what I'm counting on.

But that means that there's a good chance that, if you're reading this, you don't know what "Creepy America" is. I don't want to delude myself into thinking that everyone who reads this will have memories of the show, especially given the fickleness of internet fame, so I want to take this time to explain what the show was; veteran Creepers, feel free to skip ahead.

Creepy America was a webshow, published and broadcasted online. It was big back in its day. The show generated enough revenue to make money off of, and it's popularity caused a few "War of the Worlds"-styled hoaxes.

To the outside world, the draw of the show was obvious. Based on the creepypasta explosion that made the world obsessed with Slenderman and others, Creepy America combined professional-level special and practical effects with the low-budget style of found footage to make for a scarily realistic horror series. The actual recording team was kept invisible, placing all attention and credit to the two co-hosts of the show. The mysterious mythos that was hinted at several times but never fully explained also added to its popularity and quite a few people praised us for our clever writing and dedication to preserving the illusion.

Of course, this couldn't be further from the truth. Creepy America was just a low-budget production. Zoey and I were the only ones who worked on the show. Nothing was scripted. As our show gained attention, a choice was demanded of us from powerful forces: stop filming, or tow the "fake" line. We chose what we believed to be the lesser of two evils.

Things escalated, though. I won't try to summarize the details here; they will be explained better in the stories to come. But twelve years ago, we were obligated to end it, and the show has slowly faded into obscurity since then.

To the Veteran Creepers:

Before we begin, I have to give you a warning: if you're looking for answers, this isn't the place to find them.

The events and things we uncovered during Creepy America remain unexplained to this day. I have spent the better part of twelve years researching various aspects of science and parascience trying to find those answers, and I am no closer to finding them than I was when we decided to stop our broadcast. Red Eyes, Reverend Jones, even the Archangel Foundation: I don't know what the truth is. So if you expect a book explaining how everything fits together perfectly like little puzzle pieces, I'm afraid you're going to be sorely disappointed. I have my theories, and I have my hunches, but, as I've stated on the show before, speculation without proof is worthless. As it is not my intention to further confuse an already bizarrely muddled and misunderstood set of facts, I will leave my ideas to myself and simply report on what happened.

What's inside is is a collection of my memories about the strange occurrences that we filmed in our four years on the road. I know that there have been many requests to elaborate on some of the details that were left out of the show: what happened during our streaming blackout, the exact location of Devil's County, what we learned about Voltaire's DNA sample from the scientists. I can answer a few of those questions, and I intend to. Some things, unfortunately, are gone. My records are lost, and even my memory is beginning to turn fuzzy. I have also lost contact with my associate, meaning that unless she publishes her own statements on these events, I have no witnesses to back up anything. Given how things ended between us, I doubt that will ever happen. You will simply have to trust that what I say is true. If you've stayed with me this far, though, I think that you're willing to take that leap of faith.

Which brings me to my last point: everything was true. Some of you believed, but everyone had doubts. I don't blame you. We marketed ourselves as clever writers whose fictional tales contained just enough details to seem plausible. After the threatened lawsuit, we had to place a disclaimer on our show's opening. Even those of you who are going to find these stories are going to find it described as "fiction". There are reasons we did so, good reasons, reasons that are detailed in this book. I'm tired of lying, though. Even lies told with the best of intentions will eat through your soul. I'm not sure how well this admission will go over with the higher powers in charge, but I no longer care. As Zoey herself once said in the show, consequences be damned.

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

So to newcomers and old fans alike, here it is: the bare truth about "Creepy America", all three years of our journeys across the United States. Once more I say to you the line that began every episode since our second broadcast: get your flashlights out, and get ready to shine some light on the darkened corners of the world. Welcome to the America you never knew existed.

Welcome to Creepy America.

-Liam Foster, co-host of Creepy America

Creepy America Episode 1 Worlds of Wonder Hammond, Indiana

Perhaps one of the stranger tales to tell about our time creating Creepy America was simply how it got started. Unlike how it was sometimes insinuated, we didn't simply wake up one day with the idea and the passion to start the show. In fact, Creepy America wasn't supposed to be Creepy America at all. It was supposed to be "Faces of America", and it started with a simple question:

"Hey, do you want to do a road trip?"

We were sitting on the porch of Zoey's house, drinking beer and catching up. Zoey and I had been friends ever since grade school. Over the years we had gotten pretty close, especially during high school, but at this point it had been awhile since we had seen each other. I had gone to Indiana University because of a generous scholarship opportunity while Zoey went to our local community college. We remained friends on Facebook and messaged each other back and forth, but that summer we decided that I should go back to our hometown to meet for what might be the last time. We were both getting pretty far into our degrees and that meant that soon we were going to have to decide on jobs in those fields, at which point there would be no summers to catch up with.

"What do you mean, a road trip?" I asked. In case anyone is curious, I appeared the same way I always did in the show: curly brown hair, white skin, green eyes. It was a pretty hot night out, so I was wearing shorts. Other than that, I can't remember much.

Zoey took another swig of her beer. "You know, a road trip. A road. A trip. The works." She appeared the same as she always did, too. Pale skin, lots of silver piercings in her face, blond hair with one side dyed in neon rainbow colors. She smiled with one of those sweet smiles she always had.

I miss those smiles.

"Yeah, that sounds glamorous. Long hours on the road in a cramped car. Fast food every night. Seedy motels as far as the eye can see." I scoffed and downed some more beer.

"Actually, I was thinking of an R.V."

That caused me to raise an eyebrow. "You're serious aren't you?"

She picked up her laptop that she had beside her. "You remember that video essay I did for my Video Production class?"

"The 'Faces of Ivy Tech' one? Yeah, I remember. That one was pretty good"

"My teacher thought so too. So much so that he actually sent it to some fancy art group." She clicked on the track pad and squinted to read something. "The Film Board of America. They loved it so much that they want me to do another one, but across the country, with different people in each state. A 'Faces of America' thing. Even gave me a grant to do it with."

"How much?"

"Um… 50 grand, about-ish."

"Wow… that's uh, wow."

"Yeah, I know, right?" She closed the laptop. "Anyway I also have an uncle who sells used R.V.s He's willing to give me a pretty big discount if I pay cash for it. And then I remembered you. I figured we could take a year off and travel the countryside. You know, before I leave this town and you turn into one of those boring number people."

"Accountant" I corrected.

"Isn't that what I said?"

I sighed. "Zoey, I don't know. I'm in the middle of school and to just postpone my degree like that…"

She rolled her eyes at me. "Oh, come on Liam. You have the whole rest of your life to be a boring adult. This could be our one last chance to do something big and exciting before we get those stupid nine to fives. An adventure, right? Like what we talked about in fifth grade." She looked at me with bright eyes.

I paused.

"Well?" she asked.

"I… I'm sorry, I just can't. I've got too much to worry about right now."

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

She frowned and looked down over the edge of the porch.

"Hey," I said. She looked back up at me. "I'm still gonna be here for the rest of the summer, okay? Let's try to enjoy that time."

She nodded, but the disappointment was still visible on her face.

A few days later we were shopping at a thrift store. Zoey had mentioned something about "various odds and ends for the R.V.", so we ended up driving to different Goodwills. We were at yet another one and the constant looking at towels and silverware was driving me a bit nuts, so I took a break from Zoey's company and headed over to the far corner of the building where a bunch of posters and paintings were located. I flipped through them. Most of them were pretty standard fare: big inspirational words and prints of famous artworks. One of them made me stop, though.

It was a smaller canvas and an actual painting. I could feel the texture of the brush strokes. The picture itself was done in various shades of blue and silver. Two large planets encircled in swirls of gas hung in the sky joined by a pale moon. Mountains surrounded a beach with a large palm tree off to the side. Two dolphins, mid jump and shiny gray, were suspended in the air, all completed by an illegible signature in white.

It felt oddly disturbing to look at. Like a CGI figure that's almost, but not quite, perfect. There was just something... not right about it. Curious, I turned the canvas over, hoping that there would be something on the other side to shed some light on who exactly painted this piece. On the back was a tiny printed sticker.

"Worlds of Wonder. #2 of 59."

I flipped it back over to study the artwork more and traced my finger over the signature. I couldn't even begin to make sense of it. All it appeared to be was a series of large messy loops. Glancing over the rest of the painting didn't help much, either. I'm no artist, so I couldn't really figure out anything that way. I stared at one of the dolphins.

I could almost picture it falling back into the ocean…

"Whatcha got?"

I jumped. I had been so engrossed that I didn't hear Zoey walk up behind me.

She laughed. "Sorry, didn't mean to sneak up on you like that."

"No, it's okay," I said. "I just… uh, got caught up in looking at this thing."

"Here, let me see." I handed the canvas over and she held it up. She smiled. "Wow, talk about strange."

"Yeah, I know." I walked over to the cart to see what Zoey had picked up while I was gone. As I prodded through some of the miscellaneous housewares in the basket, the painting suddenly joined them.

I raised an eyebrow and looked at Zoey. "Really? You're buying that?"

"What?" she asked. "I've got a niece who goes crazy over this kind of stuff."

"Dolphins on different planets?"

"Well, dolphins at least. Plus, she's like five. She'll flip over this."

"Are you sure? It looks kind of… creepy."

Zoey raised an eyebrow at me. "Creepy?"

"Yeah," I was beginning to feel stupid, but I soldiered on anyway. "Creepy. It just… I don't know, it doesn't look right."

She lifted the painting out of the cart and looked it over again. "I don't see anything 'creepy' about it. Weird, yeah. I mean, it is kind of out there, but…"

"Never mind, let's just go. These lights are beginning to hurt my eyes."

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

Zoey ended up dropping me off at my house late. It was either midnight or one. I had bought a few things from the thrift stores, mostly just old paperbacks that had been on my list of things to read and, bags in hand, I walked up the steps of my parent's house, unlocked the door, and headed upstairs to my room. Once inside I put the bags down and started taking things out. That's when I noticed the painting again.

It was in one of the bags, lengthwise so it would fit, nestled in between two books. The cashier must have accidentally placed it in my bag when we were checking out. I picked it up and looked at it again.

The dolphin looked back at me. The black eye seemed to almost glisten,

I yawned, then shook my head. "I'm getting freaked out by fake dolphins. I need to go to bed." Painting under my arm, I headed back downstairs and leaned it against the front door so I would remember to give it back to Zoey. Then I headed upstairs, put the new books on my shelf, and flopped onto the bed, still in my clothes. I was out before my head hit the pillow.

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

I felt very, very cold. I could only see black. I realized that my eyes were tightly closed, so I opened them.

I was standing on a beach at night. The whole landscape was awash with silver light. The white sand glowed with it. A few feet in front of me stood the water, tranquil and clear. Large blue palm trees swayed behind me, and behind them were grey mountains, also shining in the pale light. Looking up, I saw a huge multitude of stars, and hanging there like overripe fruit were two large gaseous planets.

I was inside of the painting.

Sure enough, just in time to punctuate my thought, a pair of dolphins leapt from the water. Diving back in, they swam away, chasing each other and leaping again.

The mist of the ocean combined with the night air made me shiver and I could see my breath in front of me. Clutching my arms, I turned around and almost tripped when my foot snagged something behind me. It was a sign. Well, sort of. It was more like two large planks of wood nailed together in a waist-high "T" shape. The top board had a shaky "2" drawn on it.

I figured it was just a weird dream. A very, very strange and vivid dream, but a dream nonetheless. My overactive mind had just taken the painting I had thought was so strange and was spending the night recreating it. No biggie.

Even so, I still felt a little on edge. I had this slight feeling of dread, like the kind you get at the beginning of a nightmare, where you realize something's wrong, but you're just not sure what, and you know something's coming, but you're just not sure when. The movement of the palm trees in the wind was making me jump when I saw it out of the corner of my eye. The planets overhead, hanging in midair and moving slowly, made me feel like I was being watched.

Again, I shrugged those feelings aside. So what if it was a weird dream? It was just a dream. Besides, I was lucid right now. I was in control. If anything scary did happen, I could just think it away.

A shiver went up my body. "Right," I said to myself, "let's get rid of this first". I closed my eyes and imagined warmth.

Nothing.

After waiting for a moment, I shrugged and said "okay then we'll just have to work on that later." I headed along the beach with the ocean to my right. After walking a while, the beach turned sharply to the left, and again buried in the sand was another T sign, this one reading "16". I looked over and the sand seemed to go on in a straight line forever.

There was a sudden splash to my right and ice-cold water washed over my skin. I stumbled backwards, falling over on my butt in the sand. One of the dolphins was in the water, about twenty feet away from me, splashing the surface with the flat of its tail. Once it saw that I noticed it, it made a strange chirping noise, like a cross between a regular dolphin sound and a cell phone ring, and disappeared back into the water.

"This is so bizarre."

A muffled noise sounded off to my left and I looked over. Very faintly, almost blended into the sand, was a figure in white, frantically waving his arms and yelling something. I brushed myself off and started to walk in that direction, but it was quickly growing darker. I looked up just in time to see one of the large planets eclipse the moon, and then the dream ended.

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

I awoke in bed with sunlight streaming into my room and cold sweat sticking to my skin. Even though I was under my blanket, I was shivering, and the bed felt slightly damp to the touch. I touched my forehead. Clammy skin.

Was I sick? Was that a fever dream?

I headed over to my shower and turned it as hot as I could stand. I stayed under the water for a long, long time. Gradually, I began to feel better. Almost human. A half hour later, I was fine. I stepped out of the shower feeling great. Placing my hand on my forehead again after drying off, it felt normal. Nothing indicated I was sick.

Strange.

Walking back into my bedroom, I found the bizarre painting propped up against my bed. I picked it back up and stared at it.

"I thought I put you by the front door."

Silence.

"Musta forgot." I threw it back on my bed. "I'll have to remember to take you to Zoey's when I visit her later."

The dolphin watched me as I got dressed. I took it downstairs and set it off to the side as I poured cereal into a bowl.

I noticed the dolphin out of the corner of my eye, still glaring at me.

I put my bowl down and looked at it. "Maybe, maybe I could head over right now. I've got nothing better to do anyways."

In this angle and light, the thing looked… almost angry.

I shuddered. "Yeah, definitely right now."

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

"I think it got put back in my bag by mistake."

"Huh. Whoops." Zoey said as she took it from me. "I was wondering where it went."

"What's your plans for today?"

"Camera shopping, mostly. Trying to find the best models at my budget. Usually I just make do, but I've got so much I can actually get a decent model this time around. Want to come?"

I had a flashback of the forks at Goodwill. "No thanks, I'll pass."

The dolphin caught my eye again.

"Are you sure you want to give that to your niece? Doesn't it seem… I don't know, a little strange?"

Zoey laughed. "Are you still freaked out about this thing?"

I decided not to tell her about the dream.

I spent the rest of the day just loafing around. It was summer, after all. That was kinda the point. I played some random video games that I had bought a long time ago but never tried. Once I got bored of those, I picked up a paperback I had bought from Goodwill. I munched on some food. Nothing crazy.

Over the course of the day, I managed to forget about the painting and the weird dream, the details slowly fading with every passing hour.

By the time I had laid my head on my pillow and slowly drifted into sleep, I had forgotten it had even happened.

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

It was cold. Again.

I sat up with a start, inhaling the freezing, salt-filled air. I was back on the beach. The moon, the planets, the dolphins. It was all there.

I was back.

"What the hell? What's going on?" I stood up and looked around.

As I did so, I saw a man behind me, leaning against a palm tree. He was a white guy with long greasy black hair and a beard to match. His face was gaunt and thin. He was wearing what I assumed used to be a very stylish white three piece suit with golden pinstripes, but it was now a dirty gray with rips and tatters everywhere. The whole outfit hung on him like a blanket. A very battered matching hat completed the ensemble.

Once he saw me looking at him, he straightened up. "Ah, you're awake!"

I immediately took a few steps back and hit something. I spun around to see the "2" sign again, then faced the man. "What's going on?"

"Calm down, I'm not going to hurt you, everything's fine."

"Who are you?!"

He raised his hands in the air in a show of non-hostility. "I'm Greg Thornstine. A guy who picked up a 'Worlds of Wonder' painting, just like you."

I stared at him. "Wait a minute, what?"

He smiled and lowered his arms. "Alright guys, it's cool. I think he's done freaking out."

Several people now came into view, standing up behind the small crest he was on. There was a Hispanic man dressed in shorts and a t-shirt, and older woman in a business suit, a teenage girl in black clothing, and another white guy in a camo jacket and pants. They all looked similar to Greg; thing faces, torn, baggy clothing, long hair and beards on the men. They watched me with a dull expression.

"Alright newcomer, welcome. This is Jose, Anne, Suzy, and Tom."

"Uh, hi?"

They stared at me in silence.

"Oh, um… I'm Liam, I guess. What's going on here?"

"Well," Greg started, "at some point, you picked up a 'Worlds of Wonder' painting, just like us. I'm assuming the sticker on the back said '2 of 59?'"

"Yeah…"

Greg pointed to the sign behind me.

"So what, every time I fall asleep I come here?"

Jose said something in Spanish.

"Calm down," Greg said, turning to Jose, "he doesn't know that yet." Then he looked back at me. "I'm afraid that's just the beginning. You've visited here once before, right?"

I remembered the white figure on the beach. "Yeah. Was that you waving at me?"

He nodded. "This place draws you in threes. First night's sleep, second night's sleep, then on the third day. At some point after you wake up, you're going to come back here. And that time, it'll be permanent."

I looked at the group. "I don't believe you."

The teenager shrugged. "Doesn't matter. You'll come here anyway."

"This is just some weird dream I keep having. That's all."

The business woman rolled her eyes. "I told you Greg, this will get us nowhere."

"Hush, Anne. It's worth a shot." Greg turned back to me. "Listen kid, you've got what we didn't have. Forewarning. So listen very closely to what I'm about to tell you."

I took a few steps closer and leaned in.

"When you wake up, grab food. Stuff your face like there's no tomorrow. Cram your pockets with anything you can think of. The higher the calories, the better, but try to diversify. Meat, fruit, candy. Don't worry about it spoiling, Just have as much on you when you come here. You'll thank me later."

I stared. Then I chuckled. I laughed for almost a minute straight. "You're crazy! Scratch that, I'M crazy, YOU'RE not real! This is a dream. I'm not gonna start binge eating just 'cause my dreams told me it was a good idea!"

Jose began muttering in Spanish again.

"I need you to listen to me. Please." Greg looked at me with concern. "This is your one shot here. This is going to happen. I can't stop it, and neither can you. This is your one chance to make sure your life isn't a living hell when you get here. Please just take it."

"Then answer me this: why has no one thought to try fishing?" I gestured to the ocean behind me, arms flailing.

At that moment, the dolphin jumped out of the water, chirping another mechanical sound.

"Ain't no fish in that ocean." The man in camo said darkly. "And before you go getting any bright ideas, there's nothing in those dolphins 'cept gears and springs. We've tried everything there is to try."

I lowered my arms. "What about escaping?"

The business woman shook her head. "This place is an island. Nowhere to go. And even if we knew where we could swim to, those… things" she spat, looking out at the waves "would tear us apart in no time flat."

"This is insane." I whispered.

"Insane or not, it's happening." Greg said. "And it's going to keep happening. For your own sake, Liam, do what I said."

I moved around the sign and began backing up. "No no no no no no no, this isn't happening. This isn't real. This is just a weird dream, this isn't…" I felt a sudden surge of cold around my ankles, Surprised, I lost my balance and fell backwards into the cool, dark water. I was buffed about by a wave, dragged farther in. I tried to swim up, but I couldn't. The air burned in my lungs. I screamed, and stinging salt water filled my chest. Struggling, I slowly lost consciousness…

…and awoke in my own bed.

It was soaked. Every movement I made caused the mattress to seep salt water, like an over-absorbed sponge. There was a thin layer of it trickling down my body, and I was violently shivering. Even my teeth were chattering.

"W-wh-wha-th-the-f-f-f-f-f" I stumbled out of my bed, fell on the floor, and scrambled back up, putting the shower on the highest heat possible, stripped out of my clothes and climbed in, too shocked to think. After an eternity standing under the blazing hot water, feeling returned to my fingers, and I turned the heat down just a bit. I started going over my options.

What the hell was I supposed to do? Go to the police? And tell them what? I'm going to get kidnapped by a painting? A theoretical physicist might be more help. Or a ghostbuster. I laughed. I felt like a lunatic. I suppose I was close to becoming one.

"Calm down" I said out loud. "We're going to approach this one option at a time. Just think of the next thing to do. After that's done, you can think of what to do after that."

Zoey. I'll ask her. She's handled the painting too. Maybe the same thing's been happening to her, but she just wrote it off like I did. At the very least, she might have an idea of what to do next.

I stepped out of the shower, dried off, and went back to my room.

The painting was hanging above my bed's headboard.

I looked at it, then touched it.

It fell to the ground. The wall behind it had no hooks or nails to keep it in place.

I grabbed the painting and rushed off to Zoey's place.

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

"Alright, one more time. Slower please."

I was at Zoey's house, in her living room. Her dad answered the door as he was leaving to go to work. She was still sleeping, so she was talking to me in her pajamas.

"I've told you three times already. Why don't you believe me?" I asked.

"I believe you. Or at least, I believe you think you're telling the truth. You are way too freaked out to be making this up right now."

"So what, I'm crazy?"

She looked at me. "That's definitely one possibility."

I waved the painting in the air. "Then how do you explain this?"

"Well, I'd rather not think you broke into my house and stole it…"

"Are you fucking serious! This is…"

Zoey grabbed the sides of my head and locked eyes with me. "Liam! Calm down! I said it was a possibility! I didn't say that this whole painting kidnapping thing wasn't also a possibility! Now, look at me."

I stopped flailing about and kept eye contact.

"You are NOT going to get stuck in that painting" she said loudly.

"But Greg said…"

She stared at me.

"Right, I'm not going to get stuck in this painting."

"Good." She let go of me and walked over to her dining room table, where her laptop and a bunch of cameras sat.

I jumped up and followed her. "So what are we going to do?"

"You're going to help me test this camera's ability to stream."

"What? Zoey, we need to do something about this!"

"This is something!" Zoey yelled back. Then she sighed and spoke in a much softer voice. "Look, I don't know what to do. This is the best I can think of. This way, I can keep tabs on you all day. If the day goes by and you're still on planet earth, we'll deal with you being crazy. If you vanish and the stream goes out, I figure out how to get you back."

"So that's your plan? Wait until I get vanished then figure out how to pull me back?"

"Until we can think of a better one."

I sighed. "Alright. I'll wait here for you to get dressed, I guess."

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

I was incredibly tense the whole rest of the day.

It was bad. I jumped at every little noise. Especially water. Anything moved, I immediately shouted at it. I alternated between filming and heading back to Zoey's computer to watch her compare the qualities of each footage capture. It didn't help that I was shaking the whole time, making the videos look pretty much incomprehensible.

The worst was when Zoey told me to go out into the neighborhood far away to test the range. Every time, she had to assure me that if the stream went out and I didn't come back for five minutes, she would assume the worst had happened. When I was done filming, she would text me to come back, and I would bolt. Even though it was only five minutes, I swear they took forever. Something about being alone made me feel vulnerable.

Zoey, for her part, was holding it together remarkably well. She alternated between shouting directions at me and calming me down, then do some stuff on her laptop like nothing was wrong. Still not 100 percent sure how she did it; my behavior alone should have been enough to unnerve her.

It was about five at this point and the sun was just barely beginning to set.

"Alright Liam, I need you to go behind that shed."

I looked over to the small building in her backyard. "That one?"

"Yeah" she looked over at me. "Don't worry, I'll be watching the footage the whole time."

I inhaled. "Okay." With the camera on my shoulder, I slowly crept up behind the shed and stepped around.

Darkness.

Suddenly, silver light bathed the landscape. It was that damn painting again. I twirled around, pointing the camera in every direction. "ZOEY! ZOE! ARE YOU SEEING…"

A fist suddenly landed square on my jaw. There wasn't a lot of power behind it, but it surprised me so much that it caused me to lose my balance, falling over on the sand. I looked down to see the gaunt Greg fishing through my pockets, with the rest of the group behind him.

"Damn it! Nothing! Not one single thing! WHY DIDN'T YOU LISTEN TO ME?" He slapped my face hard, hard enough to sting.

"I..what…who?"

"Come on, Greg, your little experiment didn't work." The business woman took out a sharpened shiv. "Time to do what we should have done originally."

He glared at me. "Not even a single pack of Oreos? Come on, are you trying to get yourself killed?"

The teen girl scoffed and she drew out a similar shiv. "Like we wouldn't have killed him if he did."

"No, but, fuck, I miss Oreos." Greg scowled and revealed a large hunting knife.

I panicked. Out of pure, primal reflex, I squirmed out from under Greg and kicked him in the face. He was surprisingly light and flew backwards, a sickening crunch coming from his face. I scurried to my feet and grabbed the camera, not sure why, and sprinted away on the beach.

"SHOOT HIM TOM!" I heard Greg yell from behind me.

"Only got four bullets left."

Spanish.

"No, but just sayin'…"

There was a bang of sound and I felt a stinging sensation at my arm. I saw blood running down it and had to readjust my grip to keep the camera. There was another, and I felt a similar sensation on my leg.

"AGAIN!"

"Stop it Greg! We've only got two bullets left! Let him bleed out."

I kept running, but the beach seemed to go on forever. My muscles felt sore, My lungs were on fire. I felt close to collapse. I tripped over my own feet and fell face-first in the sand, salt and grit going up my nostrils and into my mouth. I started to get up, but I couldn't. Despite the cold, I felt like I was burning up.

"See?"

"I'll get the fire going. Good eating for once."

The heat kept rising. My flesh felt like it was on fire. I began to scream as my vision turned red.

"What the hell?…"

Darkness overtook me.

I woke up in Zoey's back yard.

"Liam, Liam, holy shit are you alright?"

I coughed out bloody sand. "Never better. I'm just gonna…" My vision faded into black again.

"Hey, HEY!" Zoey slapped me. "Stay awake. C'mon, we're going to the hospital."

"Wonderful" I muttered as she dialed some numbers on her phone.

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

As we waited for the ambulance to get there, Zoey made me recite a cover story about how I had accidentally shot myself with her hunting rifle while she was showing it off to me. I later learned that this had two reasons: one, to keep me conscious until the paramedics could do their thing, and two, to give a good cover story to the police. As she told me later, "The last thing I wanted to have happen that day was to get my stuff ransacked from the Men in Black or something."

Because I kept trying to fall asleep on her, she made me recite it over and over again. Good thing, too; I ended up telling it so well that when the cops had finished taking my statement, one of them told me "Sorry to trouble you, but it's procedure. We just want to make sure this wasn't something else."

I smiled and told them I understood.

I spent a week or two in the ICU. The nurse told me that the shots were, luckily, grazes. Neither managed to strike any vessels, muscles, or bones, so all I needed was some blood and stitches, then some observation to make sure there were no complications.

My parents visited once or twice, and even Zoey's dad. Zoey, however, stayed the most by my side, usually in a corner fiddling with her cameras or laptop. When I told her she could go home, she just scoffed and went back to whatever she was doing.

On the second day, I started feeling better and actually started to stay up instead of briefly waking up and then passing out. When Zoey came back to my room to hang out, I smiled and waved at her.

"Hey, you were right."

"About what?" she asked.

"I didn't get stuck in the painting."

She shook her head and laughed. "Liam, I honestly thought you were crazy. I was gonna show you the stream footage after the day was over and then try to convince you to check into an asylum." She sat down across from me and filled me in on what happened from her end.

Apparently, when I went behind the shed, the streaming didn't stop. In fact, the camera showed Zoey everything that was happening: the beach, Greg, all of it. Later in the week, she played me the video that was taken, proof that I wasn't insane. It shows everything, including the air going orange, dark, and then suddenly reappearing in the backyard.

As soon as Zoey saw this landscape with me in it, she freaked. She ran upstairs, tore up the painting and broke the wood canvas, and ran back to the yard, where her laptop was. When that failed to do anything, she ran back inside and got the painting scraps, threw them in the backyard, and set them on fire. After a second or two, the fire erupted and doubled in size, and a few seconds after that, the video turned orange. The fire died down and I was lying there, unharmed with the exception of the gunshots. Somehow, I managed to hold onto the camera the whole time.

"Good thing too, or I would've thrown you back there" she joked.

Both the SD card in the camera and the stream footage recorded the same thing. We spent a long time talking about what had happened, and we ended up deciding not to show it to anyone else. At best, they probably thought we were trying to pull some elaborate prank. At worst… who knows?

It must have really stuck in Zoey's head, though, because after a few days, she asked if she could post it online, under the guise of a short horror film project and write out what had happened before that as a creepypasta-like story. She promised to change all the names. I didn't see a reason not to, so I said sure.

After a few days, when I was no longer recovering but just under observation, the visitors stopped coming, and even Zoey showed up less frequently. Bored, I spent some time online, looking up "Worlds of Wonder."

Nothing showed up.

The only thing I found was on Greg Thornstine. Apparently, he was once a multimillionaire heir and art enthusiast. He disappeared one night after acting irrationally and was never found. I read his whole story on an article entitled "10 of the Most Mysterious Missing Persons Cases in History." No mention of the painting.

I couldn't find anything on anyone else. Just a factoid that at any given time, around 90,000 people are missing in the United States.

I stopped searching after that.

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

One week later, I was out of the hospital. The doctor told me to avoid alcohol for the time being, so naturally, Zoey wanted to celebrate with beers at her place. I told her I'd come but not drink. She laughed and then told me she had something to show me.

We were once again sitting on her porch. With a flourish, she pulled out her laptop and showed it to me. It was the footage from the beach, uploaded to Youtube. It had 100,000 views.

"I just uploaded this, like, three days ago!" she exclaimed. "It's already blown up! This thing is everywhere! And everyone's talking about the story too! How it's so weird and creepy! It gave me an idea: why don't I do this stuff while I'm filming the 'Faces of America' thing? I'll already be going place to place. I could do this, like, video pod format where each episode is a different city or state and I'll talk about the urban legends and maybe even find something! Wouldn't that be cool?"

"Zoey…"

"Before you say anything, I'm not trying to rope you into it. I mean, I already know you can't come, but…"

"Zoey!"

She stopped.

"I'm in."

Zoey looked at me. "Liam, don't mess with me."

"I'm serious. Zoey, I just saw something that shouldn't exist. And nobody would know about that painting if you hadn't have posted it. It makes…" I could feel myself blushing a bit, but I continued. "It makes me wonder what else is out there."

Zoey didn't respond. She just looked at me. Then she hugged me. Hard.

That's how Creepy America started.

[snarktheater]

Shadowhunters — Episode 2x15

There’s no real reason for me to open this post with this particular gif. It's entirely gratuitous. But I've gotta keep my spirits up somehow, and this seemed like a good way to do it.

See, there are two main plotlines in this episode (as usual), and they revolve around Simon and Sebastian. So my interest levels are altogether rather low. Hence the need for some sexy Matthew Daddario to cheer me up. The episode isn't even particularly bad, by the way—spoiler, I guess. It's mostly just that I have a hard time feeling anything for Simon beyond "oh, no, Simon's on screen". Especially now that we're ramping up the love triangle again.

Anyway. Let's talk about Simon, actually. His deal is…brooding at the Hunter's Moon because of what happened at the Seelie Court, getting drunk, refusing to take Clary's calls, you know, all the things you do in healthy relationships.

Quinn shows up, and…remember Quinn? Probably not, especially since I didn't even know he had a name until now. Quinn's the guy who defected from Raphael's vampire clan to pledge fealty to Simon as the Daylighter. And apparently, that involves buying Simon a drink.

"Plasma?" "The hard stuff."

Is he trying to get Simon drunk? Well, even now with the hindsight of everything that happens in the episode, I'm not sure if he's malevolent or just a douchebag who thinks getting blacked-out drunk is a good idea. Either way, I don't particularly like him, so as you can guess, his interactions with Simon mostly leave me wanting to fast forward over them.

Quinn then brings Simon to a "bleeder den", where mundanes who happen to know about vampires can let themselves be bitten.

"Isn't this against the Accords?" "It's kind of a grey area."

Okay, well, the Accords are shitty and Shadowhunters are doing a crap job protecting humans, that's nothing new. Better question, though: don't you feel even a little bad at using literal addicts to your own advantage? I mean, we spent a good chunk of the season highlighting the terrible effects that vampire venom addiction had on Isabelle, and I lost track of whether Simon knows about that, but he should still show some empathy towards those "willing" donors.

Ha, Simon showing empathy. And then what? No, instead he starts feeding on a girl. She has a name, I think it's Heidi, but it doesn't matter since the next time we see her, she's dead.

And I mean, the show's so obviously trying to hint at Simon being her killer that it's an obvious red herring. Seriously. Next time Simon shows up, he's covered in blood. Don't worry, he cleans it up at super speed so he can be pissy at Clary over what happened at the Seelie Court.

"You don't mean ['I love you'] the way I mean it! You never have. Ever since we were kids, I've been in love with you."

"It's [Clary's feelings for Jace] nothing like you and me." "But it's enough."

And, like…I don't know. I can't feel any sympathy for that. I mean, I understand jealousy, but I can't sympathize with it. The point is this: Clary has feelings for two people, and sure, they may not be the same kind of feelings, but she still chose Simon. And she hasn't given any indication that she's regretting that choice, or considering to cheat on him with Jace, or anything like that.

I mean, even if we admit the premise that "Seelie magic is always true" (something Isabelle tells Clary earlier in the episode), all it says is Clary desires Jace the most. Which, considering she's dating Simon and not Jace, isn't that automatically true? You can't really desire what you already have.

Don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled that Clary and Simon are on the way to breaking up, but I feel like Simon's self-righteous attitude is just completely undeserved. He's rejecting her because 1) she has feelings for another guy and 2) she "doesn't love him the way he loves her", which doesn't really mean anything? Nobody feels things the exact same way. And, again, she chose him, so clearly she decided he was more important.

Ugh. I can't believe I'm arguing fairy logic and relationships with this show now. Let's jus move on to the next scene, with Simon trashing his shirt while trying to remember what happened at the den (you thought I was exaggerating about blacked-out drunk?). Luke shows up, because he heard about the girl's death and how it's obviously the work of a vampire, and he wanted Simon to help him investigate. Oh, and comfort him about the Clary thing, too.

"What's going on between you two, I'm always here for you. You're the closest thing to a son that I've got."

Aw. That'd be adorable if I cared about Simon!

But just then, Luke's partner Ollie calls to tell Luke that they found Simon's prints on Heidi, which Simon overhears because vampire hearing, and he runs away. As you do.

So Simon's on the run, and Luke tells Clary about the whole thing, including the possibility that Simon might have killed someone. To her credit, she's in denial, but that kind of makes it worse because Luke has to say this:

"Demon blood…it changes a person."

And…like, you know how Downworlders are usually a big allegory for oppression? Yeah, when Downworlders themselves go "yeah, we really are dangerous and out of control", it kind of makes it sound like that oppression is justified. Especially coming from Luke, who's been on the more reasonable end of things. So could you…maybe…not?

Anyway. He's going to find Simon and…I don't know, either arrest him or cover up, it's not clear yet. Clary insists to come along, which Luke eventually caves to, but the real question is: isn't investigating this kind of her job anyway as a Shadowhunter? Is Clary even working officially as a Shadowhunter?

Meanwhile, Simon asks Raphael for help finding Quinn and for shelter. Raphael, being a good guy, naturally agrees and—nah, I'm just fucking with you. Raphael will only help Simon in exchange for the secret to being a Daylighter. Because he's terrible. Lest you forget.

So Simon's out on his own, and he decides to retrace his steps from the previous night and hopefully figure out what happened. Which immediately gets him caught by Ollie, because…no duh, cops keep an eye on the scene of a crime. Who'd have thought?

But wait, it gets stupider. See, while she's talking to Simon (who immediately confessed) in her car, Ollie lets it slip that Heidi's bite mark is on her feet. And…like, Simon is grossed out by feet, so he totally never would have done that! Because people never do things that would normally gross them out when they're inebriated, right?

Well, the logic's sound enough for Simon, at least, who breaks out of Ollie's car, because I guess potentially being a murderer is horrible, but actually revealing the Shadow World to a policewoman is just a-okay!

He goes back to the den again, and lo and behold, Quinn's here, biting some other girl on the feet, which totally proves he's the murderer. Well, that and he confesses on the spot.

"It was an accident. Accidents happen, don't worry about it."

Simon threatens to turn him in, which leads to Quinn trying to kill him, because that's how deep his devotion to Simon was. No big loss, right?

I should mention that Clary and Luke track Simon down to the den, and Raphael's also on the case and reaches the den on his own. I should, because it's an attempt at generating tension, and it falls exceptionally flat when Simon…kills Quinn by himself just before the other three enter the den. Congratulations, one of your main characters and two of your main supporting cast were utterly useless.

Well, actually, Luke and Raphael do one more thing, which is hypnotize Ollie into forgetting the whole thing ever happened. So once again, Clary's stuck alone in being more or less useless. Oh, she does get a moment of wrap-up where Simon visits her at the Institute and angsts all over her, but says he'll remain friends with her but just needs time to heal. So…even that scene was all about Simon. You know, for a supposed protagonist who narrates the show's opening, Clary's shoved in the background pretty regularly.

Speaking of which, the episode's other plotline is the one that actually matters, as you might have gathered. And it opens with Sebastian being creepy on purpose some more, down to and including ironing his own hand.

Does this serve a point? We already saw him hold his hand on an open flame, and also, you know, he's holding someone captive. I think the latter qualifies as a better proof that he's a bad guy. We don't need this shit, you guys.

The actual plot, by the way, is that Alec is organizing the transfer of Valentine to the Gard in Idris. I don't know why he wasn't sent straight there when he was first captured, by the way, but okay, good. He's dealing with Magnus's angst over the memories of his past that were triggered when he was tortured as Valentine a few episodes ago, and…I'll skip straight to the resolution of that, because it's what matters the least.

Basically, the memory in question is of Magnus's mom, who (seemingly) killed herself in shame over her son being a warlock. Since the only proof we have of that is Magnus's human dad's word, and that she died from being stabbed in the heart, I have some doubts, but okay. The bad (worse?) part of the memory is that said human dad yelled at Magnus about it, and Magnus lashed out with magic, killing him.

Magnus feels bad, because even at that age, he was in control of his magic and should have known better, and he feels like a monster undeserving of Alec's love. The solution is…kind of obvious.

"There's nothing ugly about you."

Wow. So profound. Also I should remind everyone that this is happening because Alec sanctioned torture of Magnus. Unwittingly, sure, but the fact that Magnus basically has to ask for Alec's acceptance as a consequence of that is a little bit jarring. To say the least.

Meanwhile on the actual plot side of things, Isabelle's tasked with organizing security for Valentine's transfer. The Magnus thing is basically just a delay since he's the only warlock with clearance to open a Portal for something this high-profile. And the show's going to use that delay, fear not.

I'll skip over the scene of Jace removing Valentine's Circle rune. The show says it's because the new wards in Idris won't let him through if he has the rune, but honestly, that scene is nothing but Jace rehashing all the ways Valentine fucked him up emotionally, and then inflicting violence on Valentine (because removing a rune is painful, not because he's actually beating him up, but it's still violence). It's just utterly pointless.

What does matter is that Aline shows up in the meantime. Yeah, Aline is in the show now. Turns out, she heard that her cousin (you know, Sebastian) had resurfaced in New York after going MIA for a while, and she came to check up on him. Cue our Sebastian going back home to his prisoner, who, in a completely unsurprising twist, is the real Sebastian Verlac.

"Tell me [everything about her] or she dies!"

Well, I'll give it to our fake Sebastian: at least he knows how to come up with a decent threat that he can actually carry out.

So Aline and not-Sebastian (and yes, I still need to figure out how to call him) spend the evening together, and he somehow manages to trick her into thinking she's really her cousin. I mean, she does express some suspicions, but overall, it works. However, twist of all twists, the real Sebastian manages to break free from his bonds and escape Sebastian's apartment! Ooh, how tense, I wonder if he'll manage to alert anyone!

Yeah, don't get excited. He reaches the Institute just as Aline is saying goodbye to Isabelle after fake-Sebastian convinced her to go check up on their aunt Elodie, the woman who was taking care of real-Sebastian. And just before real-Sebastian reaches them, fake-Sebastian stabs him in the back. See, his landlord saw his apartment door open, and called him because he thought there was a break-in, so he was already hunting for real-Sebastian, and because dramatic timing rules all, he found him at the very last moment.

What about Valentine's transfer, you may ask? Well, yeah, actually, that wasn't really relevant to the plot of the episode, was it? It just comes back up at the very end of the episode, so you already know it's going to be our cliffhanger. And indeed, just before Valentine walks into Magnus's Portal, another Shadowhunter (Duncan Armstrong, who had been previously seen criticizing Alec's leadership) grabs him, and they never show up on the other side of the Portal.

And then, surprise! We find out that fake-Sebastian is the one who orchestrated that by threatening Duncan's family. He kills Duncan immediately, because \~evil\~, and greets Valentine by revealing who he really is.

And a "hello, Father" for good measure, if there were people in the audience who hadn't understood who he was yet.

And that's the end of the episode. The Simon stuff is trash, but I actually want to talk more about the dual Sebastian plot line. Because it should have been a tense plot, but it's so by-the-numbers that I doubt it would surprise anyone. However, it could easily have been salvaged, and I'm going to propose a version of events that would probably have worked much better (maybe even for people who read the books).

See, the issue here is twofold. One, we the audience already know that Jonathan Morgenstern is impersonating Sebastian, that he's evil, and that he has him captive. Two, we see Sebastian get his way in literally everything he does, so seeing real-Sebastian escape, when we're still halfway through this story arc, isn't really a tense moment. We know Sebastian won't be outed. So that shouldn't be the stakes here, because it makes the conclusion (fake-Sebastian killing real-Sebastian) the safe, predictable decision, and makes real-Sebastian being alive completely irrelevant.

So I propose this instead: everything unfolds as it does up until this episode, without the scenes of fake-Sebastian being obviously evil and creepy by gratuitously burning himself and also having a captive that we know about. Then, in this episode, someone (say, Aline) finds real-Sebastian captive. In his own (supposed) home or elsewhere, it doesn't matter. But real-Sebastian doesn't know that someone's impersonating him; maybe he's only seen Jonathan in his burned appearance we saw at the end of the episode. Based on something Jonathan says next episode, that form is actually stronger, so it would even make sense for him to use it.

Sebastian is rescued, but he's too weak to give too many details (and crucially, reveal he's been captive for a long time while a fake was going around). Aline investigates his capture, and finds Jonathan, still in his burned form, probably trying to get to real-Sebastian and make him disappear before he can spill too much information. Have all the action you want, Jonathan vanishes in the midst of it, having seemingly given up. Real-Sebastian, importantly, must be out of sight during all of this.

So cut to Aline going to check on her cousin, and he acts a little weird and maybe doesn't even know she's his cousin, but oh well, he's still pretty shaken up, so she dismisses it. Of course, it's actually fake-Sebastian again, but the characters don't know that, and we the audience don't either. Well, you can guess it is, but it's left uncertain enough. Maybe Aline found something that hinted at a long captivity, but fake-Sebastian denies being captive for more than a day, comes up with a theory that there may have been other captives, and she takes it at face value and leaves.

That creates mystery, and more importantly, some desperately-needed tension in the form of uncertainty—not for the characters, but for us, the audience. You can even keep the end of the episode intact, except Jonathan doesn't reveal to Valentine that he's in disguise as Sebastian yet. It doubles as a red herring, since now it looks like Jonathan was at the Insitute to (successfully) interfere with Valentine's transfer to Idris, rather than his actual goal of replacing Sebastian.

You can then reveal that real-Sebastian is dead…whenever the show will actually reveal it to the characters (I assume it will eventually). And now we, the audience, share the impact of that twist with the characters.

Of course, there are practical issues with this. In particular, it means having Will Tudor in the burned make-up (and having to make a different voice for Jonathan Morgenstern). And I realize it's easy to make a fix-fic after the fact to improve on a story that already exists. But…well, this was such an easy fix, and one that should have been obvious. Don't give the audience more information than the characters, and then treat the issue like a mystery. It's simple.

Anyway, that's all I have to say for this episode. Hope you enjoyed at least my little writing exercise, because I sure did, and that's pretty much the only thing I actually enjoyed about doing this review.