#ben cooper masks

[classycreeps]

Classy Creeps

[rhetthammersmithhorror]

[morffyne]

[reachexceedinggrasp]

It remains a perpetual annoyance of mine when people take one character with dual identities and personify their mask into an entirely separate individual as if the alias gained sentience and its own corporal form.

[the-spooky-mind-of-spiderwish]

Life in plastic

[mychoombatheroomba]

Don't Breathe . . .

Between the Bones (Leon x GN! Reader) - Chapter 32

Your time at Fort Benning comes to an end.

(Cross-posted from Ao3)

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CW: Torture (waterboarding) at the end of this chapter. Only briefly, but the next one will have more. Nothing too graphic, but please be warned and take care of yourselves!

Two men in suits. The flash of a badge. Masks. Unmarked cars. M-4 assault rifles. Turret-mounted APC’s.

No, they weren’t here about the radio. 

So what were they here for? 

You had only a few seconds to do the math in your head as the armed men approached. They were armed with guns. That meant they expected a fight. Or wanted to prevent one through the threat of violence. They had stopped a US Strategic Command convoy in the middle of the road when you were all unarmed. And whatever they were planning, whoever they were, the officer looking after you all let them by. 

They filed the crew of the first Humvee out, your squad mates looking confused as they exited. Confused and then tense as guns were trained on them. A group of soldiers stayed with them while the rest moved on. Vehicle after vehicle, until that knock echoed at your door. Hard and forceful. 

You looked at Leon. At Williams. Alenko. The four of you shared an entire conversation in the span of a second, and no words were spoken. 

Run. Fight. Comply. 

Those were your options. 

With the guns trained on you through the windows and the turrets on the APCs ahead, you knew how the first two options would play out, if these men were hostile. The trees on either side of the road were thick enough that the Humvees were boxed in. It would be relying on losing these men in the forest if you ran. You were unarmed, if you chose to fight, it would be fists against assault rifles. But if they meant you harm and you chose the third option . . .

Your accompanying officer had stood down. Either he was in on it, or that badge the men flashed was good enough for him to trust them. 

It wasn’t enough for you, but what choice did you have? 

That was the conclusion the rest seemed to come to as well, but there was still hesitation. Enough that, as the four of you looked at each other, as you and Leon looked at each other, there was a second knock, this one harsher than the first. 

“Open up and exit the vehicle! Keep your hands in the air!” 

Alenko was the first to comply. 

The driver’s side door was opened. He stepped out, his hands raised. “What the hell is going on?” he asked. 

There was no answer. 

No answer, and no choice. Leon looked at you, blue eyes searching yours. Something unspoken behind them. A promise and a prayer. 

And then you all opened the doors. 

You realized it was a mistake as soon as a gloved hand wrapped around your arm, and you were pulled out of the Humvee. “What the fuck are you-” the sound of cuffs clinking sent you into fight or flight, and those first two choices suddenly seemed much more reasonable. 

Fight was the first instinct, and you moved to shrug the man’s hold off of you. It hurt your ribs, moving like that, but that wasn’t what stopped you. Rather, it was the lifting of an assault rifle at your side. Even if it wasn’t touching you, you could feel the barrel of the gun trained on you. The same way you’d felt when you’d faced down that edged knife, knowing that one wrong move would mean pain or worse.

A cool voice spoke your name. Your full name. You froze, and one of the men in the suits approached you. Tall. Dark hair and pale eyes. “Cooperate, and this will all be much easier.” 

He knew you by name.

What the fuck was happening? 

What the fuck-

“What will be much easier?” you hissed, hearing Leon on the other side of the Humvee asking the same questions. Fighting, because he wouldn’t go quietly if he, like you, felt that worry building in his gut. That certainty that something was about to go terribly, terribly wrong. 

The pale-eyed man’s face didn’t shift as he answered. “We have questions for you,” he said, his voice cold. “For all of you.” 

Questions. 

Questions didn’t require guns and handcuffs and armored transports. This was detainment. Capture. Interrogation. By a group you couldn’t identify. 

You looked to Williams, who’d gotten out on the same side of the vehicle as you. Your thoughts were reflected in her expression.

Something was wrong. 

Something was very wrong.

What would happen, if they took you all? If they took you to another location? Would they have more of an upper hand, if something were to happen? If they did more than just ask you all questions? Likely so. Maybe they were CIA. Maybe that was why the cars were unmarked, why most of the men hid their faces. Maybe this was another exercise. Maybe Krauser orchestrated this all to spook you. Evaluate you. Or maybe this was something else, and agreeing to this would be walking you all into something terrible. 

That was what you were leaning towards, warning bells going off in your mind. 

“But make no mistake, Sergeant, there will be no question of whether or not you’ll be coming with us. Just a question of how peacefully.”

You studied him. This man with his pale eyes. His men, masked and bedecked in gear and armed.

If you fought, and these men were not CIA, then people could die. Your squad mates could die. Leon could-

But it wasn’t just you making this choice. 

There was a shout from up the line of the Humvees, and you saw it. Alejandro, moving fast and slamming one of the soldiers against the side of his vehicle. His hands on the assault rifle, struggling to pull it from the soldier’s hands. All you knew was that one of your squad could get hurt. Killed. You only had a moment, as the soldier nearest you looked over his shoulder at Alejandro. You acted, because in your mind, that was all you could do. Your hands closed around the barrel of the nearest rifle.

Eyes wide as the threat of death loomed closer. 

The gun you struggled over all that stood between it and you. 

Your leg kicking forward between the man’s legs. 

And then all hell broke loose. 

Williams was moving at your side, but you barely noticed her, too busy wrestling the rifle out of the man’s hands. You managed it after the kick, bringing the stock of the gun hard across the man’s face. You could hear shouting, cries of pain, and you saw movement ahead of you. 

These men wanted to hurt you. All of you. 

You could stop them. 

So you made a choice. 

You prayed it wouldn’t be the wrong one, but with no time to think about it, you sat the rifle against your shoulder, just as you’d been taught. You took aim at the man Williams was struggling with, at his leg.

You pulled the trigger-

And there was a click. No kickback. No burst of gunfire. Nothing at all.

It wasn’t loaded-

There was a sharp pain in your neck. And then, a moment later, you were on the ground, eyes wide. You couldn’t control your muscles. They convulsed painfully, each and every one of them. Pain, as your body curled in on itself and your ribs were pushed and pulled. Your grip on the gun was gone, and you grit your teeth hard, your mind going into overdrive.

You had to move.

You had to get up.

You had to help-

Someone fell to the ground on the other side of the Humvee - you could see it from the empty space under the vehicle. Sandy blond hair. Strong arms, shaking just as your own were. Clawing at the road as he tried to reach for the gun he’d fought for. Blue eyes, open wide and fixed on you. Leon. 

No-

A gloved hand reached down and took the weapon in front of you. "It didn't have to be like this, Sergeant," that cool voice sighed. "Though, for what it's worth, I'm impressed. They did teach you all to be fighters, didn’t they?” 

Your muscles still seized. You couldn't move. Couldn't fight as arms slid under your own, hoisting you off the ground. If the rest of your squad still fought, you couldn't tell as you were dragged towards the transports, a hood fitted over your head so you couldn’t see anything at all. You were loaded in, your hands cuffed as pain replaced paralysis.

You weren't alone.

Before long, the rest of your squad joined you, and it sounded like very few came by choice. You couldn’t tell who it was at your side. Not immediately, anyway. Only that they had fought and lost, just as you had. That they were on their way to whatever fate awaited them, just as you were.

You had been . . . well, you dared to say you had been truly happy. It couldn't have lasted. You knew that better than anyone, so you tried to focus on other things. 

Like the guns that hadn't been loaded. Whoever these people were, they wanted you all alive. Alive and relatively unharmed, at least for now.

It was a test. It had to be. 

You heard the doors close, and whatever light you could see through the fabric of the hood obscuring your vision was gone. Wherever you were headed now, it was out of your hands.

⧫⧫⧫

The last time Leon had seen cells like this, it had been in Raccoon City, beneath the RPD station.

He could remember the stench of the corpses shambling behind the bars. The way they’d reached for him as he passed. The one living man in a cell at the end. A man Leon hadn’t trusted. A man whose head had been crushed, his eye popping out of its socket and his scream cut off as that too-large gloved hand closed in around him. A man Leon couldn’t have saved, though his guilt wouldn’t allow him to think so.

He couldn’t have stopped that man from dying. He knew that. The cell doors wouldn’t have opened, and even if they had, Leon had no means to fight the thing that would burst through the wall. He knew that. 

But the guilt lingered. 

He only hoped there would be no guilt to be felt, now, looking through the bars in front of him as the hood was taken off your head and you were shoved into a cell.

The first thing Leon had been greeted with when he could see, when the hood was yanked off his own head, was bars. A prison of some kind. And it had brought back all those memories, all the ones that had managed to seem more and more distant over these last few days. Memories of a night he’d rather forget, and worries for what was going to happen behind these bars now. 

“The guns weren’t loaded,” you’d told everyone on the long ride you’d all had to take to . . . wherever you all were now.

“You saying this is a test?” 

“I’m saying it’s a possibility.” 

“Krauser would send guys with unloaded M-4’s and tasers?” 

“He tear-gassed us. This is right up his alley.” 

“But what if it’s not a test?” 

That was the possibility that Leon feared most. The one that made ice run in his veins as each of you all was thrown into a cell. But all of that fear was crowned when he saw you behind bars, and all he could think of was the last time bars prevented him from protecting someone. That fear only worsened as he was turned away and shoved into the cell across from you. 

Just in view. Just out of reach. 

“They said they were going to ask questions,” you’d gone on in the transport. 

“About what?”

“. . . We’ll find out soon enough.”

Leon felt his throat constrict. His muscles, still aching from the taser, tensed even further as he watched the soldiers moving you all about. 

He watched, his hands caught between the biting metal of his cuffs, until the last cell door was closed. 

And then those two men in suits were walking forward from amidst the soldiers, their eyes moving along the newly filled cells. Leon glared at them both, trying to gauge them. Trying to read their intentions. To see past the impassive expressions they wore. 

Suits. Gloves. Guns. Tasers. 

They’d shown a badge when the cars had been stopped. 

Leon had been flashed a false badge before and taken that as proof of good intentions. It had earned him a betrayal. A bullet taken trying to protect a woman who had only used him. Who had died anyway-

“One way or another,” Alejandro had said through clenched teeth, “these assholes aren’t our friends.”

Leon couldn’t help but agree, and as he looked between the men and you, he knew that you were on the same page. That you were assessing just as he was. 

Metal bars. Cuffed hands. Outnumbered. Isolated. No clue where you were. Who you were being held by. 

You did a good job of hiding your fear, but Leon could see it in you. 

Just as he felt it in himself. 

That fear settled itself deep. Burrowing in. Finding a home in Leon’s gut. Still, he kept himself ready. 

“Don’t give them anything. Not if you can help it.” That was what you’d all decided on, in that transport. Until you knew who you were dealing with, that was safest. 

That was what Leon repeated in his mind as the man with pale eyes approached his cell. Eyes that were emotionless. Cold. Eyes that, in their own way, reminded Leon of that monster that had pursued him through the police station that night in Raccoon City. Only now, Leon was the one trapped behind the bars. 

And the man regarded him like he was prey. 

“Mr. Kennedy,” he began, his voice cold, “if you would please come with us.”  

Leon wasn’t given a choice. As soon as the cell opened, two of the masked soldiers were reaching in, taking his arms and pulling him back out of the cell. 

He was unarmed, cuffed, alone. You and the others were all behind bars, and there were over a dozen men out here with him, all trained. All armed, even if the guns weren’t loaded. Leon knew he couldn’t win a fight here. Still, he struggled against the men holding him, trying to at least get out of their holds. It was a wasted effort, as his heart pounded ever faster in his chest. 

He was led away, following the man in the suit, and as he went, Leon looked to you.

Your eyes locked through the bars. You didn’t say anything. Not a word. But in those eyes, Leon saw fear. Desperation. Helplessness. You couldn’t do anything for him now, and it destroyed you. He could see it. 

So, as you gripped the bars of your cell with paling knuckles, as Leon was led away, he did his best to ease your worry with a smile.

Not quite a winning one, but it would have to do. 

And then he was ripped away from you, led down the hallways of wherever the hell he was. A prison, it looked like, but there were no guards. No other inmates. 

Just him, his squad, and the men holding you all. 

A small room was the final destination. One empty but for a chair and table; a chair that he was forced down into. A table that held a police baton, a hood, an oversized jug of water, a towel-

Oh . . . fuck.

Footsteps echoed, and there was a loud slam as the door was closed. 

Two guards. Leon. And the man with pale eyes. The latter nodded, and the guards started to undo Leon’s handcuffs. Leon took the opportunity, even knowing it was futile, to go for a punch. It connected with one of the soldier’s jaws. Throwing the punch hurt. Moving his body hurt, after being tased hours before. But he knew what awaited him if he failed. If he could reach the guard’s taser- but a blow to his gut from the second guard made him double over, the breakfast he’d had at Fort Benning threatening to come up as the hit to sore muscles made him scream. 

He was wrestled back down, then they zip tied his arms to the back of the chair. His legs to the chairs legs. Leon’s jaw clenched, his mouth going dry as he was restrained. 

“You could at least take a guy out to dinner first,” Leon said through the pain, trying to even out his breathing. To put up that wall. To prepare himself for what was coming.  

The man just stared at him. “Oh, we’ll have plenty of time to get to know each other, Mr. Kennedy. I have some questions that I’d like you to answer.”

They know my name. What else?

“Couldn’t have asked them without the zip ties?” Leon snapped, determined not to show his fear. Don’t give them anything. Not an inch.

“Answer them forthrightly,” the man went on, “and this will be over quickly.” 

Leon didn’t need to ask what would happen if he didn’t. 

It all came down to the next few seconds. What those questions were. What these men were after. Test or threat? Truth or torture? 

“Ask away,” Leon hissed.

The man’s lips tightened before he spoke. “Are you being trained as an operative of the US Strategic Command?” 

. . . What?

Leon blinked. This man knew his name, but he didn’t know that? 

“I asked you a question.” 

And what the hell kind of question was it?

This wasn’t right-

A gloved hand gripped Leon’s hair, forcing his head back. He let out a grunt, but that was all the sound of pain these men would be getting from him for that. His eyes stormed as he looked up at the man now looming over him, his breathing a little harsher as anger and adrenaline flooded him. 

“I asked . . . are you training to be an operative of the US Strategic Command.” 

Leon just met his stare and laughed. “You must not be very well-informed if you have to ask that.” 

The man’s expression hardened. 

“Who is your commanding officer?” 

The hand in Leon’s hair pulled tighter, but Leon didn’t flinch. 

“You really should have done your homework better.” 

And so it went on. 

“Where is your base?”

“What are you training for?” 

“How many people are training alongside you?” 

All questions asked, all answers Leon denied the man. The hand was removed from his hair, then, after a nod from the pale-eyed man. Leon let his head fall forward a little with a laugh. “I’m just confused why you’re asking questions you should already know the answers to.” If they worked for the government, they would know. If they were CIA, they would know. So, either this was a test or . . .

“Alright,” the man nodded. “If you don’t want to speak about that, perhaps we should talk about something else.” 

He leaned in close, those cold eyes locked on Leon’s, and Leon could only think of that monster. That too-large gloved hand closing around his throat, looking at him in the same dispassionate way. 

Get away-

Run-

Hide-

But he couldn’t do that, this time. Only meet the man’s ice with fire. 

Until the man asked his next question, and that fire nearly died. “You escaped Raccoon City with a child. Sherry Birkin.” The mention of her name made Leon’s blood run cold. Not nearly as much as the rest of the question, though. “You claimed in your report that she was the only other survivor you knew of . . . but that was a lie, wasn’t it?” 

Leon tried to keep his eyes from widening. Tried to hide the fear and confusion he felt from showing on his face. 

“Reports show another person staying with you, in the months following the Raccoon City incident. A young woman.”

How did he-

“Give me her name.” 

Leon stared up at the man, his thoughts tumbling over one another. Scrambling for purchase. “There was no one else,” he said, because it was what he’d said all those months ago when he’d been questioned. It’s the answer he’d given then, even if it wasn’t the truth. Because Claire Redfield didn’t deserve this life that he’d been forced into. If they’d known she’d lived through what he had, then STRATCOM would have had another recruit. Another life to throw at their problems. And if Leon could protect her from it then, he’d protect her from it now. “It was just me and Sherry.” 

The man didn’t blink. His head just tilted, those eyes becoming sharper, then. “Are you sure?” 

He was giving him an out. A chance to answer honestly before the tools on the table would be put to use. Leon knew it. 

And he met the man’s stare anyway. “Think I’d remember that.” 

The man nodded once, his lips pulled into a frown. No more words. Just a look to the guards at Leon’s sides, and then he was being pushed back, the metal chair beneath him creaking as the front legs came off the floor. Leon’s breathing came harder as he strained against the movement, the zip ties on his wrists and ankles keeping him in place. He hissed again as the man tipping the chair back pulled his hair once again, forcing his head backwards, his chin to the ceiling. 

The other moved to the table, while the pale-eyed man stepped up to Leon’s side. “Last chance, Mr. Kennedy. Give me the name.” 

He didn’t need to voice the threat implied if Leon refused. 

Ah, well. Leon had known to expect pain in his life after Raccoon City. What was a bit more?

“Did I stutter the first time?” He hissed, his voice strained. “There was no one else.” 

And then there was a towel wrapped around his head, his breathing growing more labored through the fabric. He closed his eyes, took a breath, braced himself . . . and just when he started to think nothing would happen, he felt the chill of water against his face. He thrashed to try and get away as he felt it going up his nose, but his head was held firmly in place. His hands tightened into fists, his aching muscles tensed. 

Don’t breathe-

Don’t breathe-

But then he started to choke and sputter, and he knew his efforts would be in vain.

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A/N: Y'all knew I couldn't let them have a good time for too long (she says, after giving them, like, a day of good vibes). I wrote this one to "Phantom Liberty" by Dawid Podsiadło and pretty much all the Daniel Craig Bond themes, I was in a mood, that is all I can say.

Once again can't wait to be put on a watchlist for looking up the effects of tasers and waterboarding!

[glorious-sunset]

Reflections on Ep. 2 of LBFAD on rewatch

Haotian Tower: Body-swapped with each other and unable to access their usual powers, neither DongFang QingCang (DFQC) nor Xiao Lanhua (XLH) are able to escape from Haotian Tower. Not realising whom she is dealing with, XLH defiantly pokes DFQC in the shoulder when he asks her to use his body’s energy to break the Haotian matrix. This is the first of many times she pushes him around, something nobody else would even dare to contemplate! :D

DFQC is able to effortlessly tap into and use XLH’s usual powers to much greater effect than she herself can - to her amazement! Using white energy similar to what she used in ep. 1 to fix destiny leaves, he creates invisible scissors to give her body a trendy haircut (ever the king of style!) “Don’t forget, your body is in benzuo’s (this seat of power’s) hands now”.

XLH, mocking his self-address, angrily retorts that “ben gu niang (this girl) is going to make you bald now!” The moment she angrily starts tugging at her hair is when he first notices the effect of the one-heart curse she cast on him, which causes him phantom physical pain even when body-swapped!

DFQC can’t stand the sight of his own face crying and covered in tears and his nose running, which is why for the very first time in history, he allows himself to submit to the will of someone who is threatening him. He painstakingly reattaches each individual hair strand using XLH’s usual powers, something she could never have achieved herself while in her own body! XLH now agrees to cooperate with him, slyly justifying that an escaped criminal should the problem of the heavenly high gods and soldiers, and she shouldn’t take this job away from them. “Xiao Hua Yao (little flower demon), you have some features of the Moon Tribe” DFQC tells her appraisingly. But however hard she tries, XLH can’t control DFQC’s hellfire. Their only option is to repeat their previous kiss in an attempt to swap back!

Fountain Palace: Changheng (CH) is purposefully avoiding the victory celebrations in his honour. Although Yunzhong claimed in ep. 1 that CH was suppressing a rebellion at Northernmost Ocean, DFQC’s lieutenant Shangque (SQ) says later in this episode that the celestials recently invaded the Northernmost Ocean, that they have been taking advantage of the civil unrest to claim more and more of the Moon tribe’s lands! DFQC at that point noted bitterly that the celestials had been bullying the Moon tribe while he was away. I think CH must have at least an inkling that his tribe are the bullies here. The Moon tribe at Northernmost Ocean were so divided and disorganised that it was no challenge for him to defeat them and drive them away.

CH brought back souvenirs from Northernmost Ocean for the two people he cares about the most. The Firefly stone for XLH, and Green Flame Wine for Ronghao (RH) who has popped in(to a painting) for a visit. CH shares that he is horrified at the attitude of the celestials towards the masked fairy that sacrificed herself for him, saving his life and allowing them to reseal the Haotian matrix. The celestials never gave her a second thought. RH’s grief for his master Lady Chidi is a direct parallel of this! Lady Chidi’s battle with DFQC not only weakened him enough to allow the celestials to seal him in the first place, but her sacrifice (allegedly) saved the celestials from being wiped out by the 100,000 soldiers of the Moon tribe. However, none of the celestials gave her sacrifice a second thought, and nobody apart from RH and CH even visited her grave on the anniversary of her death.

RH is fishing for information from CH about the whereabouts of the Goddess of Xishan (Yunzhong also asks CH about this in ep. 5), whom he needs to kill in order to resurrect his beloved master.

Haotian Tower: Enter Dominatrix DFQC in XLH’s body! :D He is generally dominating, but it is more hilarious when they are body-swapped (and sexy when they are not). Knocking an unwilling XLH to the floor, he straddles her and tries to steal a kiss. XLH is finally able to activate the hellfire innate to his body to blast him away. But when he collides with an electric wall, realises that her body is in danger and could be disintegrated! She hastens to propel herself towards him so they can lock lips in their second lengthy and electrifying kiss.

It works, and they are back to their original bodies! DFQC smashes the Haotian Tower and matrix (made of the combined strength of the entire heavenly High Council) as if they are nothing. He then tries to follow through with his plan all along to kill XLH, not so much for revenge, but to keep his escape a secret. At this stage, he does not trust anyone, not even SQ, and much less any celestial. But his attempts to strangle her are foiled by the one-heart curse kicking in! Unable to harm her, he allows her to leave (he also does this after their next encounter at Haishi). He has rarely encountered a problem he can’t solve himself and believes the curse is no exception.

When reconstructing Haotian Tower, he deliberately leaves the bottom level of the tower broken, allowing celestial criminals to escape – both to provide a plausible reason for the disturbance that occurred when he destroyed the tower, and to distract the heavenly soldiers who would then be preoccupied with rounding up these escaped convicts. He is careful, however, to leave no sign of disruption to the Haotian matrix in order to prevent the celestials from checking on him.

Shuyu Forest: XLH, having discovered that CH’s destiny leaf is back to normal, is skipping happily through the forest. She’s happy because of CH, but this reminds me that the next time we see her skipping happily through Shuyu Forest in ep. 8, it’s because she has just spent several hot minutes exchanging underwater kisses with DFQC! The source of her happiness has changed between now and then ;D

CH, while investigating the disturbance in the forest and rounding up a couple of escaped convicts, drops XLH’s handkerchief which he had hastily stuffed into his sleeve at the end of the 2D painting scene. What kind of place is that to store such a treasured item? The impracticalities of robes without pockets! :D

Oblivion River: DFQC calls for his lieutenant, SQ, a fearsome giant black dragon who can also take the form of a handsome man. Although SQ was resting in the river when DFQC calls for him, he has proactively been keeping tabs on everything that has been going on during the 30,000 years of DFQC’s absence while keeping himself concealed. DFQC’s death had been announced 30,000 years ago, but SQ never gave up hope that the man he saw as a brother would return to him. SQ’s love and loyalty towards DFQC is incredible. XLH may have waited 500 years for DFQC, but SQ had already waited 60 times that amount of time before she came onto the scene.

Haishi: XLH visits Haishi, a city in a location outside the three realms and sees snow falling for the first time! She goes to the shop of her (so-called) friend Jieli to buy a Universe Pill in an attempt to heal her corroded immortal roots. Sadly, Jieli has been raised her whole life under the control of the show’s villains, who have used poison to force her obedience. It is so awful in retrospect :(

Xuanxu Realm: DFQC and SQ visit the site of the catastrophic battle between DFQC and the former God of War Lady Chidi 30,000 years ago. In a flashback to the battle, both DFQC and Lady Chidi had blown themselves up to gigantic proportions (as DFQC does in ep. 3). This is an epic portrayal of how overpowered they both are! During a lengthy one-on-one battle, DFQC had marked the back of Lady Chidi's neck with his hellfire, and Lady Chidi had significantly weakened DFQC. When 100,000 soldiers of the Moon Tribe arrived, Lady Chidi sacrificed her life in order to seal them within the earth with the magic of her devastating Shuofeng sword. Lord Dong and the High Council were then able to seal a weakened DFQC’s body and spirit away with their combined efforts.

The enormous Shuofeng sword and the 100,000 petrified Moon Tribe soldiers still remain, but DFQC is unable to free his people without the primordial spirit of Lady Chidi.

Liufang Pavillion: Sent by Jieli to deliver goods to the pavillion, XLH rescues a poor plant spirit that had been abducted by the show’s villains, and discovers a hidden destiny leaf there! But all destiny leaves should be placed at Arbiter Hall so she quickly retrieves it. When she tries to read it, she can’t make out who it belongs to. To DFQC in ep. 3 however, it is as clear as day that it belongs to Xie Wanqing, the mortal reincarnation of Lady Chidi, as he recognises the mark of Hellfire on the back of her neck.

Alas, she is captured by Dieyi who cruelly whips her arms with a chain! Through the one-heart curse, DFQC suffers the same wounds as her and realises that something is wrong.

Here is a link to my episode 3 review (contains spoilers). All of my LBFAD articles and episode reviews can be viewed with the tag #lbfad reflections (hyperlinked) and the table of contents to these is here.

[cacao-snorter]

creepypasta headcanons!1!1!!1

Aight here are some creepypasta headcanons cuz im bored

Slenderman

-his tentacles are furry and look like really long cat tails and get puffy and zig zaggy when he’s mad. -He is a father figure to the proxies but not a super good one and typically ends up seeming like an evil boss when he wants to appear as a father figure.

-There are two computers in the whole mansion that are old but work enough to search the internet and play minecraft

-Slenderman usually doesn’t leave the proxies alone when he’s going out for awhile because the one time he did, Jeff and Ben downloaded 69 bites of gay old man 🌽 on his computer and then Clockwork shat on it after. He cried when he got home.

Jeff The Killer

-I headcanon he’s vegan bc he loves animals

-absolute baby with fragile ‘masculinity’

-his friends joke about him being a republican hillbilly because he’s southern. (actually has a very slight accent too.)

-He’s friends with Nina despite knowing that she has a crush on him. He doesn’t mind. -he makes really gay jokes with ben

-Showers like once a month and smells bad. -I headcanon that he’s asexual and fairly androgynous. Doesn’t really know what he’s romantically attracted to, nor does he care.

-Wants to be friends with Jane again but knows he can’t.

-he was high on pain killers when he killed his family and Jane’s family in the same night and continued killing because he thought there would be no going back and now is afraid of drugs.

-edgy 15 year old with offensive tumblr humor

-Toby jokes about him being fat

-His favorite song is sweet dreams.

-was actually friends with Randy, Keith, and Troy. But a massive argument caused them to stop being friends and led to the whole incident.

Ben Drowned

-Doesn’t shower

-100% gay

-Can control the power in the mansion and make the lights turn off or something.

-Surpringly good with technology and doxxes people when he’s mad. He also jokingly threatened to leak Liu’s address which scared Liu half to death.

-Has a best friend trolling trio with Jeff and EJ

-His room smells bad

-owns a worn out gaming chair

Eyeless Jack

-Doesn’t actually like eating kidneys, Chernobog just makes him, but sometimes he fools Chernobog by eating kidney beans

-Gets weirded out when somebody calls him the “son of Chernobog” because he thinks it’s weird and too fancy.

-Listens to rap music

-Tried to become a rapper and used garbage YouTube beats, he made five songs that were all about fingering Otis (Bloody Painter). He also sampled an audio of Jeffrey beatboxing sweet dreams in the background of one of his songs. This same song had kazoo in the bridge

-ex zalgo goon but nobody knows but Slenderman and he’s too scared of what everyone would think if they knew.

-Extremely insecure about his face and always has his mask on. Only people who’ve seen are Jeff and Slenderman.

Ticci Toby

-Asshole with hatchets -joked about being flat earth but now thinks he might actually be flat earth

-besties with Clockwork

-Hates waffles. He hates them so much, he went into a gas station at 9pm, shoplifted a box of frozen waffles, threw them at a group of middle schoolers, and popped a cap in the cashier’s ass when he tried to stop Toby. He actually got his face on the news for this. One time, Lazari poured syrup in the vents and the mansion smelled like waffles for a whole week, Toby had constant headaches while throwing up and crying because he thought the mansion smelled so bad.

-Very quiet and always cooperative, so he’s like Slenderman’s favorite.

-bullies jeff for apparently being fat.

-literally doesn’t sleep

-Around most people he’s his canon self, that is very cold and quiet. Around his friends he’s more fanon Toby, annoying, immature, and has a weird sense of humor.

-encouraged Jeff to go full hillbilly mode and run over Offenderman with a truck.

-smells like cat pee and butter

-Always has an attitude and mad about something.

Bloody Painter

-Listened to all 5 of EJ’s soundtracks. Has the kazoo one on his Spotify playlist.

-Artistic

-Comes off as smart but says the dumbest thing every now and then.

-Scared of potatoes. He thinks they crawl around his room at night.

-Had the weird ice cream cut in middle school.

-Doesn’t wash his hands

Clockwork

-has a very stylish pixie cut.

-people often look at her clock eye to check the time.

-makes up things to be mad about

-has a Barbie doll that Sally gave her that was naked, bald, and didn’t have arms. She twisted its legs backwards and gave it prosthetic tampon arms so that it could sit on her nightstand on all fours. His name is Hector.

-shat on Slenderman’s computer

-besties with Toby. They were actually a couple once but then Clockwork found out she was lesbian and they broke it off. Now they’re best friends and both assholes and say the meanest things to each other as jokes.

-Has freckles all over her face. Like literally everywhere.

-Has vine humor

Nina The Killer

-absolute scene queen

-Jazmin Bean listener

-Has more anger issues than Jeff

-Didn’t kill her family. It was her bullies who killed her family.

-Toby hit her with a shoe and then chased her around the mansion to hit her with the shoe more.

-“I’m not like other girls” mindset.

-actually very sweet when she’s not mad

-dyes the streak in her hair a different color every month

(Part 2?)

[emiplayzmc]

Aghjh I can't be arsed to finish Cassidy and Samuel and Page and Gabriel and Cooper at the moment so *yeets only two of my Paranormal AU characters at you*

The main characters of the Paranormal AU! Tourmaline 'T' Addison and Benjamin Ignacia ^-^

And their monster forms - a siren and a presagillo (or 'moth-person'), respectively!

T and Benjamin are paranormal investigators living in the odd little town of Elderwood in Northern Maine, United States. It isn't their MAIN jobs (diner waiter and tailor / small-time designer, respectively), but they're quite good at what they do. Even though they're an unlikely pair - an easily distracted omen of disaster and a luring spirit - they're the best of friends, living together in their shared house. :D

Base information about the AU under the cut :>

-Elderwood, Maine, is a HUGE hotspot for paranormal activity. Think Portland, Oregon in the Grimm TV show mixed with Gravity Falls. The human residents there know about this, but it's not really a problem for anyone as long as they're not causing issues.

-The town has its own unique flora and geological materials in it, making up a huge amount of interest for Benjamin's habit of journaling and studying everything they spot as well as T's jewellery side-gig.

-Benjamin Ignacia is a presagillo - aka, the species I made up for this AU that gives Mothman an entire species! It comes from the Spanish words 'presagio,' or 'omen,' and 'polilla/polillo,' or 'moth.' They're omens of disaster that get messages about major events and are sent to warn other people at the site and save people if they're able to.

-Ben... does not like getting summoned to these events. They get very quiet and tense before and after going to them.

-Presagillo can have two types of lifespans - one more akin to a cryptid, so close to 200, 300 years, or one where they can only live to 16, closer to the short lifespan of a moth. Technically, Benjamin was supposed to be the latter lifespan, if it weren't for the fact that T ended up saving their life. As of now, they're 33 years old.

-Signs of a presgillo's impending death include dreaming of Will o' the Wisps, being compelled to chase after them like a moth to a flame even though they're always just out of reach. If / When they ever catch up to one, then it's lights out.

-Moth-people are also very easily entranced by light sources - Benjamin, specifically, loves fires and Christmas decorations.

-Benjamin likes to use little bits and piece of magic to hide their wings and antennae when they're out in a public area where it'd be a disruption, or when they just don't want to deal with accommodating for their moth-like features in general.

-Benjamin's always been very perceptive to textures and sizes in their clothes, so they got into tailoring and designing young so they could make their own clothes more comfortable. When they got older, they started making that their primary job and source of income when they and T moved to Elderwood - tailoring clothes and making clothes for people. Including cosplay outfits, their favourites to make besides Victorian era clothing ^-^

-Aside from a clothing nerd, Benjamin's also a HUGE fan of nature, and frequently spends a lot of their time out in the woods collecting flowers and mushrooms and plants that they find around the town, making medicinal things out of the herbs that they find, and just generally exploring. There's a large tree outside of town that's connected to a mycelium network of mushrooms surrounding it that emit a lot of unsavory gasses (ones that WILL literally knock a person out, as Benjamin has learned), but it also sprouts a LOT of different types of plants on and around the area, so Benjamin wears a mask whenever they go into that area to keep from passing out.

-There are different regions of proper sirens over the globe, five regions around America - northwest, southwest, Gulf of Mexico, northeast, and southeast - T is a siren of the northeast, which typically have longer hair and more grayish skin-tones in their cryptid forms.

-Technically, T - or Tourmaline, as was his birth name, T is just a nickname - is a half-siren, born to a human father and siren mother. However, he inherited most of his mom's siren heritage rather than human heritage, and since his dad wasn't the greatest anyway... he considers himself just full siren.

-T and Benjamin both grew up in the same area (which wasn't Elderwood, closer to Connecticut) - they met when T was 12 and Ben was 10 on the way to the zoo / aquarium in their town in the summer! At first, Ben's parents didn't trust T nor his mother because they were sirens (aka luring spirits - and moths are very, VERY wary of those), but Ben and T kept hanging out anyway - T's mom was kind of indifferent to it since she didn't think anything would really HAPPEN if she kept her already in a rebellious stage kid from wanting to be friends with Ben when the latter was clearly harmless. Ben's parents only trusted T after he went out of his way to save Benjamin's life.

-T works as a waiter at a diner in downtown Elderwood that he will CONSTANTLY sing his praises about... for their quality of food and cleanliness of course, not just because he's biased and his manager is attractive (cough cough HUMAN AU VERSION OF SWATCH NAMED SWANN cough cough). His secondary job is jewellery just like his Addison counterpart, using gems and stones that he cleans and cuts himself from around town and whenever he, Benjamin, and their third roommate Cassidy go on road trips. He and Benjamin both sell their clothes and jewellery at a market every Sunday in the town center!

[mashhistorian]

In the spirit of Halloween, this M*A*S*H costume was released by Ben Cooper in 1981. While it seems to be a generic M*A*S*H character, the costume featured a vinyl outfit and a (kind of creepy) mask. Learn more in this week’s post!

[fitsofgloom]

Ben Cooper costumes. There were three big Halloween costume retailers years back, Ben Cooper having the distinction of being dubbed "The Halston of Halloween" by the press. People will joke about how hokey and uncomfortable the costumes are today, but they really were all the rage and kids could easily afford them with pocket money. I do recall going Trick 'r Treating as The Creature From The Black Lagoon when I was very little, likely back in '82. "Revenge of The Creature" had just aired in 3-D on TV that summer, and I'm sure that influenced by costume choice. I recently attended a screening at The Museum of The Moving Image out in Queens, and reissues of the Godzilla mask pictured above as well as a Gremlins one were for sale in the gift shop.

[rhetthammersmithhorror]

[ronmerchant]

Ben Cooper John F. Kennedy and Jackie Halloween masks- early 1960's

For some reason, that's creepier than the monsters!

[vintage-tech]

Buck Rogers In The 25th Century was on television from 1979 to 1981. Which is why in 1982, my baby brother had a Buck Rogers Halloween costume by Ben Cooper. The mask looks slightly like Gil Gerard, sure.

[the-spooky-mind-of-spiderwish]

It's love that makes her garden grow, with lots of pretty berries in a row.

[wanderingaroundwithmysoul]

Since it's Halloween, let it be known that the first time Rain got to pick out her own costume, she was a cowgirl. Her dad helped her put that together with stuff they already had around the house.

There was also a year where she wore one of those plastic Ben Cooper costumes. It was G.I. Joe, but she didn't like that the mask was a dude's face, so she cut it off and just left the helmet part when her dad wasn't looking