#cant believe she got involved with a cult

[stardustsomewhere]

gf back from the hospital. sleeping im seperate rooms until she agrees to leave fruit cult. her sisters watching her to make sure nothing else goes wrong. im so stressed, school starts next week too 😭😭😭

[leoserblog]

Ok this might be an unpopular opinion but someones gotta say it...

Cassandra is a better Casey Jones than Casey Jr

Ive gotta be honest... i think casey jr is a kinda mid and i dont particularly think all the fanfare about him is warranted LOL

I want to note real quick that i dont DISLIKE him! He is a good character who only got as much development that a 2 hour movie could give him, and he filled and satisfied the role he needed to play in the movie, but the way the fandom latched onto him over the og casey... kinda makes me raise a brow

(Essay/rant about the prioritization of casey jr vs og casey under the cut :P)

Fandom spaces love a traumatized boy from the future, and believe me i do too! But the amount of attention given to casey jr after being revealed as casey is a wild amount compared to the amount of attention the original casey gets. Maybe its just me getting into rottmnt after the movie aired, but this seems a little baised?

Not only that, but the amount of... idk the best way i can think to describe it is infantilization of casey jrs character isnt helping my opinion of him. It feels like most content surrounding him babify him and reduce him only to his trauma post movie. I understand that it can be interesting to explore his trauma now that he no longer lives in the literal apocalypse, but it feels strange to see him reduced to someone who cant get around on his own and lives with the turtles when the original pitch for the movies ending has him leave to explore the world, which i feel is very appropriate for him and wish they had kept it in

In the movie when april shows us where the og casey has been and what shes been doing throughout the film, it tells us that casey is friends april which in theory, shouldve also shown us that she and the turtles are friends to some degree as well and should already have her place established within the group as this generations casey jones

However the final shot of the movie is a group shot of the family+casey jr, which subtlety implies that he's the new casey instead, and that this is the main cast moving forward (should it move forward *sob*). While both caseys being considered in the main cast could be true, it does strike me as a little odd that this was the final direction the rot team decided on for the official ending versus the scrapped ending, especially because it complicates the pre-established canon. It wouldve been one thing if our og casey was a different character, but that isnt the case.. y... (<_<)

Casey jr is an interesting character though! And i can understand why he appeals to fans, especially as his character post movie is fun to expand on aswell as developing his past involved with future versions of the main5, but one (me lol) could argue that the og casey is just as interesting of a character to delve into as she was involved, when you boil it down, a cult most of her life, and that concept, as well as the guilt she could hold for working with the foot and releasing the shredder, ontop of trying to befriend and gain the turtles and aprils trust are also intriguing concepts that could be explored, yet finding content that mentions her at all beyond her relation to casey jr is scarce

It feels as though shes been reduced to a background character within the fandom despite being a reoccuring character for the entire show.

For the two seasons of rottmnt that we did get, we are shown just what kind of character casey is and her possible dynamics with the turtles+april. Shes passionate and powerful and beyond determined to prove her worth and reach her goals. Shes also playful and reckless, a side that fits well with the main cast and their humor and, if the show was given more time, couldve developed naturally as the newest addition to the family as most caseys are. I could also argue that her characterization fits that of previous caseys more than casey jrs does (though i will admit that considering the plot of the movie, i cant positively say what hed be like outside of life or death scenarios, but i also cant imagine hes going to make a 180 in personality without it feeling jarring and ooc)

Now, i wont ignore the fact that her arc was cut horribly short and her involvement in the movie was quite literally a brief mention, both of which definitely play into how under appreciated she is. But at the same time it almost feels like everyone, including the show runners, have willingly pushed her aside for this new boy version to fill the role of casey jones. Hell, even when you look up rottmnt casey jones, cassandra barely shows up. Its casey jr which further proves my point

Idk, TLDR im pretty disappointed that despite being a consistent character for the entire show, no one seems to write or acknowledge her and if she is mentioned, its only relevant to push forward casey jrs character development or a brief cameo. As much as i do love casey jr (i can feel like hes mid and i can like him!) it seems like most people forget about the original casey, or favor casey jr in her place and she deserves more love and credit than shes given!

[reddogf13]

What headcannons/trivia do you have on Val?

slightly depends on the story I'm going for.

i think for the most part though, loosely to follow canon:

childhood/ family-ish

- Val has a bit more education then many of Knoths followers. Very likely by someone close, like her parents. Which prob did help her rise the ladder of deconhood.

- I believe she was born into the cult, but perhaps her grandparents + young adult parents joined.

- when she was young, by choice, she became an eunuch. (castrated.) or a sort of, based on actual history, a *castrado/ crastradi.

kinda some canon stuff around it, or left on the cutting floor(heh) by redbarrels. Art of Val with bloody lower parts possibly by self mutilation. Its mentioned in letters she cant have kids, which makes sense if deacons weren't allowed to have children as it'd be a distraction from church duty's. But also that despite her revolt, you'd think she'd be obsessed about making kids herself afterwards (if it wasn't a physical limitation). Being the parent of the Antichrist with easily acceptable/ consenting followers on her side of the river etc etc.

*a castrado/ crastradi was a very young boy (like 7yo - 9yo) who performed in opera, but before passing puberty was castrated. The point was to stop puberty in order to retain their higher pitched immature voices to preserve their opera careers. This procedure was illegal, aside from opera it also involved churches. This affected them in many other physical ways such as bone structure, lack of facial hair and having womanly figures to the point others assumed they were women until having personal interactions with them.

A castrado/ crastradi is different from a eunuch in that the early is before puberty while the other is after.

Very fascinating to read about. :v/

many people pass, in general vals self mutilation, off story wise because it “cant be done.” from blood loss to infection, etc etc. but they did do it years ago with above in very similar conditions. Kids were handed a bottle of heavy alcohol to knock out, get castrated, and wake up days later to a “good luck with your extreme pain” and no modern medicine. Some doctors who did it tried to be more merciful and kept the kids heavily drunk for DAYS after. (if we can have a nanobot swarm and experiments running around, Val surviving a castration can get a pass.)

anywhooo, I like placing Val on the cusp of castrado/ crastradi and eunuch to “explain” her physical “oddities.” where she was castrated maybe close to/ very beginning of puberty, but not quite in it. (and in some other story's I just made her a hermaphrodite, but I prefer the other idea.)

Adult life

- before the Murkoff tower went haywire and Knoth ordered her kids dead. she was stern, but a lot softer in an actual motherly way. Being a deacon was all about managing the community and kind of like a manager position. Planning events, setting up for church assembly's, seeing to peoples spiritual needs. Enough so that she got a following of her own to split away with later. Being charming and a good listening ear would have added onto that and I imagine Knoth may have rarely taken advice or suggestions. Even if she subtly fed it to him in a -make it his idea- way.

- her relationship with Marta I take as coworker friends of convenience. They hang out around work/ on break, but nothing past that. So when Val eventually broke off, Marta didn't care for or miss her.

- When things broke down/ child cull it was a horrible combo that lead her down, probably a few mental breakdowns as well, the most anti-god path she could go. It may have even started in a drug addiction like way. Feeling major freedom to energized before the bigger issues of addiction showed.

Because she interacts with the radio signals differently it may have given her an energy buzz that physically felt nice in more ways then one. And leaned into it, because there was obviously a lot going on in her life. To be away from it meant she had to face herself and her own children's blood on her hands. With absolutely no one there to help her, she was more so the advice giver as head deacon. Not the other way around. The only other person for that would've been Knoth, and we know he probably guilted, blamed and shrugged what traumas she had going on.

Leading into the radio towers being faulty, she got the courage to start those secret meetings. And going against Knoths teachings more freely.

Such as the note of a lady telling Knoth that Val was trying to have her go someplace secret. Suggesting “something sexual.” but also interesting was them noting Val's behavior as odd in comparison (doesn't define what). Which could be taken two ways- Val was a nightmare before and the offer is even more terrifying or that their personality has done a 180, and not acting like her normal self.

Not knowing what it was, she could only go with it being a god like power or a watchful being of some sort. She knew something/ someone was THERE, just not where. As if attempting to grab onto fog because she didn't have all the pieces to connect the tower/ Murkoff and so such.

over time the addiction issues came out like nightmares/ hallucinations/ physically ill etc. by the time she may have noticed things going poorly, she had no way to back out as the signals got worse. Feeding into it certainly had not helped.

Making this whole separate personality that over took her life and even made her forget what was going on. like with Blake going through the school, but hers would have been the children's cull as its based off of ones inner guilt. Feeling repeated waves of guilt + revived hatred would have easily lead her down a dark road to cause as much misery as possible to Knoth/ his followers. Adding on the sexual thrill crossing into violent killings the radio waves cause as well and its all the more a mess.

This whole part really requires its own novel length dissection and break down its worsening progress. from its beginnings to really get the meat of the massive shift of personality's. If you consider all the mentioned notes dates happening within a year. Then the children's cull happened in early March. Then a few months later started the heretics in June. then four (seven from the cull) months later Blake and Lynn crash into Temple Gate in October. You can see how fast Temple Gate really began to break down under the faulty tower despite existing for 40 years. Weather or not the experiment began only recently and not alongside its establish date.

[tigerbears]

Hello there!

You can call me TigerBear.

I’m a 20s something trans-girl who's only been on tumblr for over a year

I mostly just do reblogs, and just random stuff but I'll also post links to my fanfics so keep an eye for that! (Only been one so far, but lots of folks seem to enjoy it xD)

Expect my fics to mostly be UT and DR fics... Same with posts.... Just a lot of UT/DR related reblogs and post, but you'll also see a few posts related to other games I like or things that catch my fancy. (E.G, I've reentered the doctor who fandom after like 4-5 years)

Aiming for the blog to be SFW/Minor friendly but y'know, I'm still an adult and stuff. Might reblog stuff with swearing. May also reblog SFW posts from NSFW blogs/"Minors DNI or do not follow" blogs, but I don't usually follow these blogs and will likely not touch their risky stuff. TL;DR this blog be safe, can't guarantee the same from those I reblogged.

Guess I can talk about some things about myself.

I’m a trans-girl lesbian who goes by she/her pronouns.

I'm also neurodivergent (autistic specifically) so if I act differently/misunderstand things that's why. I'm sorry my brain just be running differently.

I’m likely suffering from chronic Asriel and Noelle brain rot. I want goat boy to get a happy ending and love the Trans Noelle head-canon. Shipper of Suselle (Susie/Noelle) and Dessriel (Dess/Asriel). (Oh and of course Alphyne (Alphys/Undyne) but I'm not obsessed with the pair like Suselle and Dessriel. Alphyne's still cute though!) Also opened asks! (but don't really know what I'll do with them, and don't expect quick responses, especially bc I’m the shy type of trans-femme. Also, keep the discourse crap away from me.)

Haven't gotten a lot of asks so I just opened the anonymous ones. (Note: This is on thin ice. I may turn off anonymous asks if I change my mind and realize it's a mistake. I already turned off messaging from people I don't follow because I kept getting incomprehensible bot messages.)

If I ever reblog something that's "WIP "a mess of the original post's tags" it means I f--ked up and forgot to remove the wip tags when the post was in my drafts. Please let me know so I can fix it.

Standard DNI: (note realize it got too long with my explanations so I put the longer ones in a separate footnote post. You can find it at the bottom of the DNI list.)

DNI if you hold

transphobia/TERF beliefs. are homophobia or queerphobia in general. exclusionary towards enbys, transmascs, transfemmes, aro & or ace, intersex, & or other folks/identities. are a transmed/truscum, & or any other gatekeeping/invalidation type. racist. xenophobe. Islamophobe. ableist. or are discriminatory in any other way.

Religious fundamentalist, Militant Atheists, or anyone cant respect other people's religious/areligious beliefs. (Its ok to criticize religious people that are being bigoted/harming others, or parasitic cults abusing and leaching off of their members though. Just don't interact if you say stuff like "All religious people are mentally ill" or "all people of X religion are bigots/terrible".)

(can't believe I have to say this) DNI if you ship "those ships." Y'know, the ones which involve some form of i*nest or p*dophilia. (Fontcest, Chasriel, Frans, Lancer/Susie,) Just generally do not interact if you ship any of those "yikes" ships. I don't want my posts to be associated with these accounts if they reblog my posts or whatever. (Footnote 01)

Ralsei's resemblance to Asriel makes Kralsei concerning, but for now (for now and only for now) it just barely gets a pass because we don't fully know what Ralsei is, but future reveals may push Kralsei shippers into the DNI category. Still not touching the ship due to Ralsei's concerning resemblance to Asriel. If its revealed Ralsei's the personification of Kris's familial love for their brother or something, and you still ship Kralsei do not interact. You won't be punished for shipping Kralsei before the reveal though; I'd just see you in a similar light to those who shipped Luke and Leia before ROTJ. Even in the best case scenario though the ship is going to feel weird to me though just because of the resemblance to Asriel. (Footnote 02)

Please tag your anti-ship posts as anti-[shipname], or I will likely block you, especially if you just tag the ship name. When I follow the Suselle tag I'm looking for everything but Anti-Suselle posts. (Footnote 03)

If your posts look like that of a p*rn bot I'll likely block you.

DNI FOOTNOTES IN THIS POST! GO HERE FOR ELABORATION!

Here are the tags I use for my own stuff. " ([On Blog]=on my stylized blog.) ([On Tumblr]=Tumblr's default interface.)

#reblog [On Blog] [On Tumblr] For all the posts I reblog.

#queue [On Blog] [On Tumblr] For all the posts in my queue (which are just reblogs)

#posts from tigerbear's tumblr [On Blog] [On Tumblr] (Or) #my posts [On Blog] [On Tumblr] (Or) #tigerbears posts [On Blog] [On Tumblr] Stuff that's from me (or reblogs which have comments from me.) Pretty much "tigerbears posts" is going to be anything past the 25th or 26th of April 2024 (because I'm not going back to change all of my past tags.)

#tag that are like posts from tigerbear's tumblr [On Blog] [On Tumblr] Basically similar to posts from tiger bear except their reblogs and the new content is only in the tags. (I don't use this tag often/probably ever btw)

#Upsetting-Triggering [On Blog] [On Tumblr] For the very few posts/reblogs that are potentially upsetting, E.G talking about stuff like wars or LGBTQ+ rights being stripped away, general transphobic stuff, ect. (I usually come to tumblr for escapism, so if you feel the same way add it to filtered tags so you at least get the warning pop up before seeing it)

#stupid discourse crap [On Blog] [On Tumblr] I hate discourse. But sometimes the discourse comes to me even though I don't want it. If you don't want to deal with that stupid crap on this horrible website than block this tag.

Here's the link to my YT channel even though I've so far not posted anything!

Here's my AO3 too! Even though so far I've only posted one fic!

I also have a pronouns.page

Anyway I hope you enjoy my blog!

[crowsent]

so heres what happened. right.

1: best girl watched her father (who is a dilf btw that fact is important) cosplay as a medusa victim. thats pretty much the only drama since the rest of her story is straight up shonen anime fight scenes. you do not get betrayed.

2: hey so you watched your best friend/brother in arms kill your king and abandon you without any explanation leaving you to question the entire reason for existing if you cant even protect the one person you swore an oath to protect. hows that survivors guilt workin for you? you got betrayed by your best friend.

3: book man holds the title for “most betrayals” at three different people. half his story is all quirky philosophical shit and the other half is existential philosophical shit that made me want to question the meaning of life. you got betrayed by your boss who turned into a demonic monster, your colleague who turned into an even more demonic monster, and your student who accused you of entering an illicit relationship that got you kicked out of your workplace

4: family trauma, but spice it up with religious shit to keep it fresh. losing your father without ever getting the chance to say goodbye to him. having your sister walk headfirst ballsdeep into a cult because of her grief that youre unable to help her through bc youre on the other side of the world. also you got betrayed. by someone you met at your fuckin church. who tried to use your sister to corrupt your gods holy relic. and also tried to sacrifice a shit ton of people but mostly its about the corruption of the holy relic that will unseal a great evil. your sister also betrays you but to be fair shes brainwashed by a cult so

5. himbo healer coming in debatin the worth of a life, whether or not you should save someone w knowledge that the someone is a shifty piece of shit. figuring out what the entire purpose of your existence is if your actions led to some kid gettin abducted for ransom. dealin with discount rasputin that had every disease on gods green earth; physical and mental. also you got betrayed. twice. once by a colleague who you trusted for the brief time you knew her, another by a man you saved who then proceeded to commit more crimes while thanking you for helping him.

6: best boy with a normal enough story. you know. wandering around without ever a place to call home because of severe trust issues. being blackmailed into working for someone when they straight up cuff you with some magical accessory. going on your little quest to find that the man responsible for ruining your ability to believe in others took the artifacts you need to get out the cuff. oh and every interaction you have with him involves him insulting and belittling you by the way. you got betrayed by your partner, who told you he only kept you around because you were useful and that you meant nothing to him. and then he shoved you off a cliff. still have no idea how you survived but you prolly wished you died there so you dont have to live the rest of your life thinkin about what-ifs huh?

7: your father got stabbed and the only reason why you didnt follow him into the afterlife is bc you want to stab the stabbers first. great. how does it feel watching your only friend die in front of you bc she helped you on your stupid vengeance quest? how does it feel killing the men responsible and feeling nothing? the catharsis you hoped for isnt there. youve bloodied your hands and for what? youre just empty and now youve lost your reason for living. you got betrayed by your childhood friend/maybe lover. the man straight up tells you he missed you, how he searched for you, longed for you, and then stabs you while laughing maniacally. how the only happiness he feels is by watching your misery. oh and he made a play mocking your life. i cried at each and every single one of your chapters.

8: a heartwarming adventure about a young woman who gets inspired to travel the world bc of a reformed pirate she met by happenstance. along the way she meets a friend and rival who pushes her to become the best merchant she can be, participates in a grand auction that showcases her talents, and learns that the greatest treasure she could ever have is her journey and the memories she made along the way. also she gets like a billion dollars. and the story of her adventures inspires someone else to start their own. at the end of it all you return home to two loving parents who welcome you back with open arms. you do not get betrayed

[glitchdollmemoria]

i think my couple years in the mormon church gave me an extra soft spot for the people caught up in it. like... i saw my mother go back to it after growing up mormon even after years of not being involved. i saw her want to leave again months later but feel forced to keep going because my stepfather insisted that the whole family needed to be mormon, he believed it and wanted to make sure the rest of us did too. i saw other queer kids who kept their queerness hush-hush. i went to girls camp and bonded with the other kids and teens there. i got blessings that were meant to help me, i started to believe the entry level things i was being taught.

even with all the fucked up shit the lds church teaches, the hateful and bigoted things, i only saw a smidge of it being a queer kid who was still new to the church. i knew my transness, and my attraction to ANYONE really because of my transness, was something i had to keep on the down low, but the people there were still my friends. i have to wonder how much the others in my age bracket even knew yet, since i know theres a lot that doesnt get revealed til youre an adult. and i have to wonder if any of them got out safely.

i get angry sometimes, on behalf of my own community and the other communities thrown under the bus by mormonism. it gets hard to reconcile that anger. there are people who have been and continue to be hurt by mormon beliefs, whether that was the more tangential stuff i was subjected to or the far more severe harm others have experienced. and there are also people raised within the church who dont even know about all that, or are cut off from points of reference to show them why that shit is bad. there are curious adults who get drawn in with the cult tactics used. there are secrets intentionally kept. i dont think that absolves people of guilt from harm they might have caused, but there are so many people who just had no choice. i was lucky, i had a father who didnt believe a single word of it and told me as such - even if his stark atheism led to me getting hurt when i told him i was converting to judaism, back in middle school he saved me from falling for a cult that hated my existence.

i have to wonder too if i was at least part of the reason my mother changed her mind. she knew i was queer, and even if she wasnt always the best ally, i think ultimately she really was trying. years later, when my sister was insistent on attending a queerphobic church, my mother was the one to ask her why she wanted to go to a church that preached against her own sibling. mom wasnt always the best but there was at least a part of her that cared. so i wonder if she was sitting there in the pews at the lds temple feeling worried about me. i wonder if thats part of why she changed her mind. i dont know. i cant ask her.

all of that is a very long winded way of saying i have complicated feelings about mormons and even if i get nervous when it comes to missionaries, even if i dont know if theyd be willing to step into an openly queer persons house once ive got my mezuzah and a whole truckload of other judaica in my home, even if theres a part of me that fears starting to fall for cult tactics again, i cant help myself from wanting to offer a drink and a snack and a friendly chat. im getting to an age where im older than missionaries now, instead of seeing them as "elders" to look toward for spiritual guidance. they get sent out so young to unfamiliar places where theyre constantly being watched. i cant not try to help them, even just by subtly showing them that there are kind people outside the church, and other ways to live. to the point that i find myself thinking about it on my own now and then.

[tsukasageorge]

char ask meme for whichever oc you think ill like most. all numbers minus any you dont feel like answering

fukc yeah thanks nico. idk which oc you'd like though... personally i like nyx bc theyre silly but saturn and ben are emo. you like illumi so maybe jol or kanz.... ill just answer with whoever lol

Does your character have siblings or family members in their age group? Which one are they closest with?

i'll go with joel & kanz for this one bc they have a very big 'family' (its a cult, they are part of a cult). kanzy has a biological sister who's about 3-4 years younger than them?? but i believe the closest ages are lizzy and jolzy, they're like 22-25 i dont remember What is/was your character’s relationship with their mother like?

an time i hear the word 'mother' + 'oc' i think of stella. her relationship with her mother is literally so bad lmao What is/was your character’s relationship with their father like?

i'll go with saturn for this! his father choked him to death lol In what situation was your character the most afraid they’ve ever been?

i can't decide of a character for this one but half of them are dead so like. probably when they were dying Which does your character idealize most: happiness or success?

ben: success

stella: she used to prioritize success but she kinda figured that was never gonna happen so now its happiness

nyx: happiness

kanz: happiness

jol: success

saturn: justice Is your character more likely to admire wisdom, or ambition in others?

ben: wisdom

lyra: ambition

kanz: probabl wisdom What is your character’s biggest relationship flaw? Has this flaw destroyed relationships for them before?

oh hell yeah

ben: he's ridiculously self-sacrifical. he's always looking for validation and will give up his own comfort and sanity to appear 'perfect'. so he seems obnoxious & he also will shoulder every single bit of despair by himself

nyx: they just do whatever the fuck they want. like they disappeared for 3 years, didn't leave a note or anything, just said Fuck This Shit Im Out. they let their whole kingdom believe they were dead bc why would they deal with that shit when there are literally dragons. also they're irresponsible as hell

jol: he's a clown. also he's in a cult In what ways does your character compare themselves to others? Do they do this for the sake of self-validation, or self-criticism?

ben tries to make sure he's better than everyone so it's both If something tragic or negative happens to your character, do they believe they may have caused or deserved it, or are they quick to blame others?

i know i have at least one cahracter who is guilty as hell but i cant remember who What does your character like in other people?

stella like girls What does your character dislike in other people?

nyx hates people who are uptight/rule based, anyone who will yell at them for being an impulsive shithead How quick is your character to trust someone else?

jol can't trust anyone outside of his gotdamn cult. kanz got out of the cult and decided to room with the first 3 people they found, so i guess they're pretty trusting... lyra i feel is pretty trusting as well. she doesn't have many friends, but the ones she does have are cool.

How quick is your character to suspect someone else? Does this change if they are close with that person?

im treating this as a 'there's a murder mystery, who figures out the killer first' question. nyx is probably the victim. lyra is coping with nyx's murder by writing a real life fanfic in the basement. stella's distraught as hell but she's leading the investigation & trying to make sure no one else gets hurt. ben is in his room crying. he is not involved in the murders because he is locked in his room lol. kanz suspects jol from the moment they find the body. the murderer is jol. he runs away to new york and saturn hunts him for sport How does your character behave around children?

joel would be popular with children ebcause he's a clown How does your character normally deal with confrontation?

joel likes to kill people How quick or slow is your character to resort to physical violence in a confrontation?

joel likes to kill people What did your character dream of being or doing as a child? Did that dream come true?

stella wanted to be straight. she is not What does your character find repulsive or disgusting?

their own families probably In the face of criticism, is your character defensive, self-deprecating, or willing to improve?

ben: he fucking dies

stella: she doestn give a shit anymore

joel: he does not get criticism he is moms baby boy. but he likes being berated bc he aspires to be a piece of shit

kanz: 'oh my god you're so right' How does your character behave around people they dislike?

at the beginning stella just plays along with them but she learns how to properly reject middle aged men :) Is your character more likely to remove a problem/threat, or remove themselves from a problem/threat?

they are the problem How does your character treat people in service jobs?

all of them are nice except for jol who is just annoying Does your character feel that they deserve to have what they want, whether it be material or abstract, or do they feel they must earn it first?

ben does not have 'wants' he has a kingdom to rule. stella is beginning to realize she is deserving of cool shit. nyx thinks they are deserving of cool shit bc the shits cool. jol has no cool shit. kanz needs to earn their place. lyra doesnt think about that stuff. How easy or difficult is it for your character to say “I love you?” Can they say it without meaning it?

depends. jol can say 'i love you' to anyone because he was raised in Manipulation Central and they manipulate people. stella cannot say 'i love you' to your face but she will admit it while crying in nyx's arms. nyx doesn't say 'i love you' they let you cry about some hot girl in their arms. kanz can say i love you easily. ben does not say 'i love you' ever, except maybe to stella once. oh ben and stella are siblings btw What does your character believe will happen to them after they die? Does this belief scare them?

stella: i am going 2 hell

nnyx: if i die i die like who cares lmfao

lyra: death is terrifying to me. it doesn't matter where i go because the idea of being trapped somewhere for eternity is hell either way. i wont be able to control it. i'll leave my loved ones behind. i'll just waste away in a cage. if nothing happens after i die and i just cease to exist i'll be grateful

jol: if i die i die like who cares lmfao

[spaececase]

my mom does not identify as a christian. she grew up with devoutly christian parents, but she realized early on that their brand of christianity was less about being a good person who does the right thing and more about looking like a good person who does the right thing. she still loves jesus, but she also believes that he practiced witchcraft and that that is why he was killed.

so i wasnt very involved in christianity as a kid. we would go to services occasionally for like easter and stuff, usually with my grandparents, sometimes on our own but rarely. but my mom exposed me to a lot of different religious backgrounds. shes fascinated with cults and when i was like 6-9 we spent a lot of time at buddhist (not saying buddhism is a cult but sgi is kinda weird) gatherings and hari krishna temples. when i was a preteen she studied with jehovas witnesses and i would listen in sometimes but while i did have some homophobic tendencies the weird stuff spewed in the teen jw books rubbed me the wrong way.

at the beginning of high school, the only friends i had at my tiny independent study program were jws. again, it made me uncomfortable how homophobic they were. but i was shockingly naive and ignorant so i didnt say anything about it

and then we moved to detroit, where my grandfather lives. for awhile, i got super involved in his baptist church. i joined the choir and the praise dancing group. i went to church every weekend. but the kids were mean. they bullied me but i couldnt really tell that they were bullying me so i just felt uncomfortable. but things were getting bad at home, so i tried to believe. i prayed every night for months, wishing for things to get better and for me to be happier.

but the bullying was really bad, and home was really bad, and praying didnt help. so i gave up on it. stopped going to church as much. learned about lgbt stuff. realized i was lgbt. went to church a couple of times after that but often left feeling disgusted. ended up leaving halfway thru a service on one of my last visits because of the homophobia.

i dont know what i believe now. i guess there could be something out there. i loosely call myself an agnostic pagan. i believe that there is a presence, but that its so inhuman and strange and incomprehensible that i cant describe it.

i never had christianity pushed on me, per se, not like other people. but i still wanted to believe. i wanted to seek comfort and connection. it just..never fit.

irony is that despite the fact that i wasnt really raised religious i did have pretty prominent religious delusions about being an angel when i was like 16-20 (i have a whole alter who definitely thinks its some sort of angelic alien being. she is SUPER weird and kind of scary actually).

idk where im going with this, i mostly wrote it out to process my thoughts lmao. anyway my mom studied with mormons up until recently lmao

[soopysoap]

Uh, I read your post about having an 80's au for the foreigen kids. And since I'm a Foreigen kids stan, can you tell me more about it?

HI. ANON? ILY.

They're really just random n messy ideas and i forget how many there are but i'm throwing them all here

so the whole thing takes place in highschool and mainly surrounds the cockswolds cotswolds (mainly mark but rebecca is usually there too)

most of them are seniors, rebecca's a junior

mark is an unpopular nerd, therefore the main character because it's the 80s. so is rebecca but she's not the main character

uhh everyone else is kinda just there

like there are no side characters all the foreign kids are kinda equal focus- wise but the main one is mark i guess

like the leader of their group idk idk

estella is the stereotypical rich popular girl, but she's also a closeted lesbian they're all closeted tbh so she's trying to hide that from her mom. Her mom, instead of being all 'Blah blah blah brrak hearts to fuel my life' or something she's just obsessed with status and how popular Estella is. She's always pleased when Estella has a boyfriend, but it's not often. Basically Estella is more smiley and happy than she usually is, but she's stil usually indifferent. Smiles either when she's genuinely happy or wants something. Most of the time she's deadpan or rolling her eyes

Gaydamien is the rich popular jock, his ego is huge. His dad (since he cant be the son of satan in this one) is the principal of their school. He usually gets what he wants, no matter what. Instead of "You dare [insert something here] to the Prince of Hell????" its that but with "Damien Thorn???" yknow because of his last name. He's been dating Estella to boost his ego, mainly. Doesn't realize he likes guys yet. Estella and Damien hate each other, but everyone believes they're dating because they're too scared to say otherwise. They complain about each other to each other AND to people in private.

Pip is just- he's less of a nerd but more of a kid that's just. There. He isn't nerdy but he definitely isn't popular. At all. He's just a pushover man idk what to tell you. He's usually being bullied. He has a huge crush on Damien, because he got him out of trouble with some other jock like. Once. Always gets giggly around him, it's funny to watch. Also very passive aggressive @ Estella because she's dating him. They have very few classes together, but whenever they do he's always like "hey :) so hows damien" and she responds with "why would i know" and he's like "because??? youre dating him???" and she looks really confused for a second and then is like "OH- Oh yeah okay uh. I don't know. So." and then she starts complaining about him or something and pip is all ":) why not just break up?"

Pip also hates Christophe

Which, speaking of, Christophe is also an annoying egotistical jock who plays football with Damien. Damien and Christophe are best friends. Christophe and Gregory are dating in secret

Gregory is the stereotypical gay kid. No other way to put this. If Ryan Evans from High School Musical had a superiority complex. He's a theatre kid, and takes pride in tha- OH MY GOD. Rachel??? Maybe he's Rachel Berry from Glee??? it would kind of work idk,, ok uh anyway yeah he's always bullied for being openly gay and it sucks but he took defense classes in Yardale (yes he's still a transfer from Yardale, yes he constantly mentions it) so he's able to hold his own. But Christophe usually steps in to get Gregory out of there and tend to his wounds.

Rebeccaaaaaa she's the unpopular girl, just started school and doesnt know shit about it after being homeschooled almost her whole life. Has a little crush on Estella, but Estella "Doesn't" notice her. (Estella just thinks of her as some pretty girl who isnt worth her time) Rebecca usually keeps to herself, is usually gossiped about. Estella never gets involved, but whenever she'd get asked about it, instead of defending Rebecca she just says "I hardly believe any of the rumors. She was homeschooled, not taught in witchcraft or satanisim. Or whatever else everyone's saying. Everyone should really calm themselves, if they were so worried about what people thought of them when Rebecca started going here then they should get that in order first before ruining Rebecca's social life. God. You all have to grow up." So, not necessarily a defense but also not an insult. Rebecca still finds it sweet.

Mark is a neerrrrrrd 80s main character. Minus the popular love interest and yearning 😩 And also if the main character had a god/superiority complex.. he's bullied the most other than Gregory, mostly by Damien n Christophe. Girls don't like him, guys don't like him, he really only had Pip and Rebecca for a while. Pip because he's overly nice to almost everyone and wanted to befriend Mark immediately. Usually during lunch Mark sits with Pip and Rebecca. Mark has to hear about Damien all the time from Pip though, so that's annoying.

Uh I know that Pocket is TECHNICALLY a foreign kid but idk shit about him and dont really think about him but he's Estella's cousin and often hangs out with her since he doesn't really have a friend group. He's also really good friends with Pip. BUT since this is a horror au he dies off early

After theyre all friends some stuff happens yada yada yada Gaymien realizes he's pan and has a crush on Pip, Estella takes Rebecca out for a makeover , Christophe gets severely injured because this is a horror au as well, Damien and Pip make out at some point-

Estella and Rebecca both know that theyre Lesbians but they refuse to admit that they like each other

Kinda thinking of this as if it was stranger things or something so i definitely want there to be like... a series of bad events. everyone thinks everythings cool and fine and whatever and there are moments where our group kinda just get to chill n' be kids. idk i just want there to be a falling out in the group and then they all realize they need each other or something dumb like that

also for some fun chill moments we can have estella and rebecca walking around holding hands and laughing n' stuff bc they love each other idk idk

and after the falling out when they all join together again estella is the first to see some scary stuff but she was also the first to drop everyone except damien and christophe (because of her mother) and so she blames herself and doesnt think she can go to them and just has to deal with it on her own

eventually she tells damien who immediately tells pip who immediately wants to get the group together again

everyone's (the cockswolds) are reluctant to hang out again because of the way they were just forgotten so easily, but they go anyway. because of the horror stuff. they both are pissed at estella though

at some point estella gets badly hurt and rebecca saves her and starts nursing her back to health

estella: why are you... why are you doing this. dont you hate me?

rebecca: i'm doing it because i actually care for you, idiot.

estella: i care for you i just... couldnt...

rebecca: what? spend time with a lowlife like me?

estella: you know thats not what i meant-

they go on like that for a little while longer until they wind up confessing to each other "Because I love you! Is that so fucking hard to believe?!" Would be rebecca's and Estella's would probably be "I don't hate you! You're my favorite person, and I hated having to stop hanging out with you! I love you, okay?!" it would be :) fun

damien and estella come out to each other first. well- damien doesnt really come out he just tells her how confused he is and they hug it out and estella tells him she's a lesbian and they both talk a little while longer and decide that breaking up would be the best idea

thats all i've really figured out for sure,, i have some more ideas but this is. a lot already so. i'm just gonna stop before i write too much 👉👉 anyway, anon ily ty for this. also sidenote: the horror stuff has to do with weird sacrificial cults. i know i have nothing for that and really only talked about how everything starts and drama instead of the interesting stuff but 🥴 i have no defense i just love my kids ok drama is fun

[xaidyl]

You could explain individual stuff! I find these explanations very fascinating, actually! OwO

okay! lets do this (this may be a very long post with lots of my random opinions but we’ll go with it) (and also please bear in mind these are jokey and in no real way a representation of these real people with real actual lives.)

***spoilers for most D20 seasons with this cast***

1.The babysitting 

Actual parent:Brennan 

From my experience DMing, you are effectively a parent to the players. He would also be an excellent dad

Wine aunt: Siobhan

Siobhan gives me vibes of someone who would take a bottle of wine to go babysit, then sit and tell the kids stuff about cults that they weren’t meant to hear. She would definitely teach the kids swear words, and they would love their cool auntie 

Great at babysitting: Lou

Part of the key to babysitting is being relatable to the kids, but also self assured enough to get them to behave. the person who holds that key is Lou Wilson. He also has played dad-energy characters, and that is the kind of vibes that you look for in a babysitter. 

Mediocre at babysitting: Murph

This scenario needs some theatre of the mind. Imagine Murph, he’s read all the babysitting books, he knows everything he could need to know, he lives with Emily Axeford. He’s more than prepared for this task. He tries so hard. The kids love him. The kids also walk all over him. They don’t get to bed in time. He wanted to do a good job. He tried so hard to do a good job. Yet somehow, luck is against him. 

The house is on fire, God is dead: Emily

Fig. Sofia. Jet. All three of these characters would set a house on fire without hesitation, and not one fears God. What does this have to do with Emily’s babysitting ability? Well, all these characters are teaching us to be chaotic beings, just like Emily. We are the children, and D20 is our babysitter. Emily would only replicate the same thing in this babysitting scenario. 

The children: Zac and Ally

I believe it was episode 9 of the unsleeping city. Neither Zac nor Ally were involved in the scene in question. Siobhan makes a reference to Eliza Doolittle, to which Zac makes a Dr Doolittle joke. Beardsley then shouts ‘I can see my dick’, a reference to a different film. This is fairly normal behaviour, and would not make either of them children in this scenario, had they not continued to hysterically laugh for the next ten minutes or so. Sat at opposite sides of the table. I think Zac starts crying at some point. They are absolute children, and also both have strong baby energy. Neither babysit, they are the ones that need babysitting. 

2. Can they be killed?

Cannot be killed: Brennan

The man is a God. Enough said. Also I’m pretty sure your body would reject your soul before it allows you to kill him. 

Can only be killed by one thing: Siobhan

You would be tricked into thinking Siobhan would be easy to kill- her constitution score is so low, after all. However, you would be wrong. The low constitution score has only made her stronger. More aware. What is the one thing that can kill her, though? Nobody knows, she’s only told those she truly trusts. It could be the most rare poison in the world. Or it could just be Mike Trapp. He (allegedly) has previous.

Can be killed but it won’t last: Emily

It is not anything to do with Emily that her death won’t last. In fact, Emily would be pretty easy to kill. However, if you kill her, Murph will do everything in his power to bring her back. He travels to the end of the earth, and then Emily Axeford is back and gets her new death date in a fancy gothic necklace.

Can be killed but at what cost?: Lou

What cost? The cost to the world. The world would be significantly worse off. You wouldn’t be able to live with yourself. It’s not worth it.

Can be killed but it’s not worth it: Murph

It’s not worth killing Murph because you would have precisely 0.7 seconds before you were killed by Emily. There is no way you can profit from this scenario, you would be dead before you even realise you’ve been successful. 

Can be killed and it would be pretty funny: Zac

I feel like we don’t discus the correlation between Zac Oyama characters and dying enough. Gorgug was the first D20 death. Lapain was the first D20 perma death. Ricky just like had a weapon that causes him to die. If you killed Zac, it would just be funny because its happened so much. Sorry Zac.

Can be killed but why would you, you monster?!?!: Ally

We’ve already discussed this. Beardsley is Baby. Leave them alone. 

Please kill them they suck: Box of Doom

I dont trust them

3. The fitness gram pacer test

this is definitely the most controversial of the charts, but there’s three of things you need to understand about my reasoning.

1. Zac is fast at running  

This has been seen a couple of times, namely: adventuring party, where Zac tried to tease Brennan about showing off how fast he his at running, but it turns out it was just Zac speaking his mind, and he is the one who always shows off at how fast he is at running. Also, the video on Siobhan’s instagram of Zac jumping over that table. 

He is also very bad a squats. Why would you be bad at squats? Bad knees. Why would you get bad knees? Running without sufficient warm up. Why would you skip warm up? Because you are very focussed on being able to run fast. 

2. Zac is willing to defend his title of running fast

The way he accused Brennan on adventuring party, he knew what he was doing. Sabotage. Brennan may also be able to run fast, but Zac would prevent him from getting a good score. How? He has his ways. Zac is a good boy, but not when it comes to running fast.

3. I felt bad

I had to give Zac at least one good one :)

Anyways onto the other choices:

Actually tried and got a low score: Brennan, Murph, Siobhan

We’ve already spoken about how Zac sabotaged Brennan to be the best at running. Murph is here because he would try really hard but something unlucky would happen. His shoelaces come untied. He accidentally gets caught in the Zac/Brennan feud. 

Siobhan started off with the intention to try, but after Lou, Emily and Ally had all done, she realised they were in fact much more interesting than the fighting going on. She walks out mid lap 

Didn’t try, got a low score, doesn’t give a shit: Lou and Emily

Its important to understand that both Lou and Emily are capable of getting a high score, they are just better than the whole thing. Why is their DnD group doing a pacer test? Why did Zac suspiciously force them to do this whole thing? 

The difference between them is Lou knows the feud is stupid and has like actual work to do? He sits and auditions for some other big film. He still watches over his laptop. 

Emily however, simply wants to watch the world burn.

Despite their different approaches to the situation, they both have a bet going on who’s going to be the fastest runner.

Ran one singular lap and finished: Ally

Ally Beardsley shows up at the track wearing a rainbow bucket hat and a tie dye shirt that is impracticable to run in. They have a llama with them. At no point do they explain this. They walk round the track once, drink their water from a plant pot, then spend the rest of the time cheering on the others with words that don’t quite make sense. 

4. Storming Area 51

They cant stop us all: Zac and Brennan

Neither mean it maliciously, but both believe entirely in what they are saying. 

Brennan is definitely the guy to go mad over a conspiracy theory. He made all the crown of candy NPCs. He is basically betraying himself. He knows not to trust anyone. He doesn’t trust area 51. The next season of dimension 20 is this as a subliminal messages all the way through. 

Zac says it accidentally. He’s making a character for the charity livestream. He’s still got a hundred hours of character making left. He’s done so many bad squats. Unintentionally, he makes a character that forces all the zesbians to storm area 51. 

Have fun getting shot, dumbasses: Lou

The rest of the cast are being weird again. Lou is equally as capable of being weird, but sometimes they need to chill. It starts with Emily talking about diner ice. It finishes with Brennan wearing a foil hat at all times. 

You guys stop, someones actually gonna do it: Murph

Murph is a good, lawful boy.

Actually shows up: Emily and Siobhan

They ride a motorcycle there together. They wouldn’t have gone alone, but as a duo they are an unstoppable pair. Emily wants to break into a government facility. Siobhan desperately want to be in the real life x-files.

One of the Aliens: Ally

Emily and Siobhan open a door at area 51. Behind it is Ally Beardsley. They are wearing a rainbow bucket hat and a tie dye shirt. They have a llama standing behind them. This is not explained at any point. They drink from a flower pot and eat a quesadilla that appears out of nowhere. 

5. Stabbing 

Would never stab anyone: Murph

Murph is a good, lawful boy

Would stab in retaliation: Lou, Murph, Zac

Lets be honest, the entirety of a crown of candy so far has been these three taking stabs (or metaphorical ‘where is your bulb now’ stabs) as retaliation for a stab another one of these three had done.

Yells “I won’t hesitate bitch” first: Ally and Siobhan

I can’t really explain this one much more other than i’m pretty sure both these people have said this phrase at least once in their life.

Would stab as a warning: Emily

This would be promptly followed by Murph getting her to stop stabbing. Or, depending on the situation, encouraging her to keep stabbing.

6. The water fountain

Fills up a bottle and drinks from it: Lou and Siobhan

This is the normal way to drink from the water fountain. They were also both very concerned at watching Beardsley’s various different drinking apparatuses in adventuring party. 

Bought 4 water bottles so this wouldn’t happen: Murph

He is prepared. Something probably still goes wrong, but at least he’s got three water bottles left. 

Drinks straight from the tap: Brennan

Brennan is a busy guy. The tap is there, it’s convenient, he needs to get back to planning. There’s so many campaigns, so many characters, so many voices. 

Dehydrates: Zac

Honestly I’m not sure if this man would drink water if nobody told him so

Drinks from a puddle: Ally

like they drink from a vase with a flower, a puddle really isn’t that much of a stretch.

Licks the tap: Emily

She just wants to see the world burn. Also, she knows Brennan drinks straight from the tap. She has to get payback somehow. 

7. A child starts crying

Makes the child laugh: Lou

We’ve already discussed how Lou has dad energy. I feel like he’s know exactly what to say and how to act to get the child to stop crying. This is less stupid than the rest of my explanations, but I always love how expressive Lou is when he plays dnd. I’m not sure whether its the way he holds himself or the way he gestures, but I’m pretty sure if I was a crying child, I would stop crying if Lou Wilson told me a joke in that very soothing point.

Tries to play with the child: Siobhan and Ally

These two kinda give me older/younger sibling vibes. As a team I recon they could create a game that would calm this child down. Also Ally knows techniques to help adults calm down, they could probably implement these ideas into a game for children.

Gives detailed instructions: Murph

His knowledge comes from the books he has read to learn how to babysit, and the one time he babysat. His explanation is rather frantic however, mostly because he is trying to defend Emily in his answer.

Cries with the child: Zac

He’s sad because all his friends are speaking to this child an nobody noticed how fast he just ran.

He’s also baby, as we’ve said previously, so he probably relates to the child somewhat

The reason the child is crying: Emily and Brennan

The child just watched episode 9 of a crown of candy. 

[wormmomma]

MIDSOMMAR SPOILER REVIEW: this movie fucking broke me

CW:RAPE, ABUSE, PEDOPHILLIA

“Midsommar” is a grimm fairytale of sorts. A fairly different homage to the cult film the “wicker man”. “The wicker man” is about a european cult being investigated by a british christian cop, “midsommar” avoids the christian indictment of pagan/occult religious practices. midsommar attempts to be an out and out horror film unlike the a genre bending murder mystery/horror/thriller roots of “The wicker man”. Director ari aster obviously wanted to add to the annals of folk horror by creating an ambitious beautifully horrific and sometimes downright psychedelic film. Ari aster wanted to make a film where you can’t hide from the horror as it all happens in front of you. It's also a breakup movie for some reason? As someone who has seen the theatrical cut twice and the director's cut once I can assure you it misses the mark when taking both concepts. If you're wondering  whether not to watch the film i think that on a technical level “midsommar” is beautiful and has amazing cinematography, but the answer is yes, but no. Jordan Peele was shown an advance copy of the film and told Aster "I think you’ve made the most idyllic horror film of all time" that high praise. But that  being said for personal reasons this will be my final time seeing the film. I think the director's cut is a gorgeous and amazing three hour film. But as someone personally affected by rape, pedophillia, and the victimization mentally or physically handicapped people i cant reccomend this film wholeheartedly. I'm far from squeamish and love films that revel in shock, horror and extremity but I cannot in good conscious recommend a film I almost walked out on. I think Ari Aster has backpedaled immensely in his ability to create horror that exhibits empathy for his characters and the triumphs and tragedies that he subjects them too. “Hereditary” had an amount of emotional pathos for its characters that was almost completely removed from “Midsomer”. The fim feels unreasonably cruel even for a horror movie. Although enjoyable, proceed with caution “Midsommar” is a beautiful, slow, horrific but ultimately controversial mess of a film. 8/10

 (the rest of this review is a plot synopsis and a meditation on the more controversial passages in the movie and is to be read for those who have actually seen midsommar. Spoilers abound!) 

So what’s it  about? 

Midsommar is about Dani, an anxious and vulnerable young woman dating an emotionally abusive and reserved boyfriend named christian. After her bipolar sister commits suicide and murders both there parents, Dani goes on a european excursion with cristian with his anthropologist friends as they study a swedish cults midsommar summer solstice tradition. Dani reeling not only from having her parents taken from her by their favorite child, but also from the lack of any real emotional support goes on a gorgeous, psychedelia, induced nightmare of the cult horror variety. Immediately after touching down on the swedish cult's beautiful grassy commune christian manipulates dani into taking psychedelics. Christian although quite emotionally stunted and quite meek at his core is very sly and amazing at working people. Watching Christian make Dani do psychedelic drugs (mushrooms i believe) to make her clear refusal to take them into something that not only affects christian but also his friends and everyone around them is almost scary in its hilariously methodical toxicity. This leads to dani having a panic attack and from there the hits just keep on coming. Dani then has to watch as two cultist commit ritual suicide. This traumatic incident further escalated when one jumped off the mountain on his leg and needed to have his head crushed by cult members till it turns to meat and dust. To make a long three hour story with icelandic pacing short lets race to the finish line:

Christian begins to be pursued by a cult member named maja. Dani still reeling from seeing two people commit suicide has her worries invalidated by christian and all of his anthropologist bros. The anthropology bro argues about who deserves to break basically every rule of basic anthropology as they try to see who gets PAID for perverting a culture they were invited to study not disturb. Christian eats one of majas pubes. After pissing on a ceremonial tree for the dead, and taking photos of the forbidden religious text (written by an inbred autistic oracle boy) our two american secondary characters are chopped off. Dani and christian are the final outsiders left standing. Dani joins a dance competition (yes really) and becomes this year's may queen. forever to be immortalized in the annals of white female faces shown in portraits plastered in the sleeping quarters of this matriarchal cult commune. Christian is then raped as we discover how all the bodies of our other character are disposed of. Dani, inebriated and vulnerable, discovers christian being raped by the cult and forced to sleep with the 16 year old maja. Disgusted dani vomits and syncs her cries of pain with the cult sister and finally has her trauma validated. She is given the choice to then murder christian as hes trapped in a paralyzed state. Dani decides to burn christian alive in the body of a bear, finally defeating and overcoming her emotional abuser. Dani smiles as the cult writhes in pain from the death of the cult members burning alive with christian.Dani is happy. She has family. She is home.

So lets (finally) talk about maja

“Look at it from an academic perspective it would provide a unique glimpse into our sexual rights.”

“Can i not have a unique glimpse without participating?”

This is a conversation that is awkwardly cut from the theatrical version of midsommar. Christian is being offered to have sex with maja. Maja is a sixteen year old girl. The closest aster ever comes to revealing this fact is offhandedly mentioning maja having her first period. Christian refuses sex and is raped by maja, and the cult while a fourteen year old disabled child watches. There's a lot wrong with this scene. I’ll be honest for personal reasons I was really disgusted by this scene. I feel like im projecting but rape and pedophellia are really delicate topics and should be treated sensitivity. Ive seen alot of extreme very difficult horror films, i've seen rape, pedophillia, and violence explored in meaningful interesting and empathetic ways even ari asters own work like “meet the johnsons”. But watching maja rape christian with what i would assume are her older siblings, aunts, grandmothers, mother and other cult members as a 14 year old boy watches just made me feel fucking dirty. The weird part: it isn't horrific. While cristian was being raped, the audience I was watching it with were laughing. It wasn't scary. it was funny. It's a cognitive dissonance. The audience isn't aware of christians being raped or majas age. Most people assume he's cheating and deserves to be burned alive by dani. Making christian the bad guy of his own a rape is horrific but i shouldn’t need to hunt down that information and watch the film three times to understand that. It makes the movie feel as if its really bad at relaying basic information, at worst it's dishonestly hiding it to make the film more palatable. After putting all the pieces together I was disgusted. Ari aster crossed a line. I felt queasy and never wanted to see this film ever again. The fact ari aster could have made maja of age, or take the disabled 14 year old out the scene entirely, or not have had christian be raped in the first place while reaching a more understandable and tragic ending annoys me to know end, it feel like i watched these characters be used and mistreated for no reason. Just to shock me. It lacks value, it’s  gross and uninteresting. much like christian and everyone involved i feel violated and it's really hard for me to enjoy watching what is an otherwise (although flawed) very interesting and compelling work or art. I’m  still morbidly curious of the next film ari aster makes but i really hope he learns for this mistake and doesn't objectify children in another weird fetishistic male rape comedy routine. It just leaves me confused, disgusted and only makes it more challenging to analyze the more interesting implications of the film. I really appreciated hereditary as someone who has a very emotionally abusive family and has a very hard time processing death. I found hereditary horrific as it is cathartic. As someone who had to quite recently confront a pedophile, midsommar just left me hurt, and trapped. I was reliving some of the worst parts of my trauma as an audience sits around and laughs at it. It all felt so tragic and meaningless. I want to actually give ari asters work an honest critique but he's produced the only work of film that really hurt me and left me feeling violated. I really love his work and I know I'm exaggerating but I hope art never has such a negative effect on my mental health or anyone else’s ever again. I don't blame Maja or christian or the actor who portrayed them. I respect their performances although I have zero respect for how utterly tasteless midsommar ended up being for me. I think I need to learn how not to take art so seriously and try not to invest myself in other people's work. It's a difficult habit to kick. Needless to say, I cannot recommend this movie. If you're able to separate art from the artist and read this whole review without watching the film you're not a bad person for watching it, midsommar is a compelling, difficult experience.

I hope you enjoyed this review and I'm sorry if it got wayyy too personal in the end there. The movie clearly struck a raw nerve for me. if you enjoy this or any review  i've dones let me know. I may reveiw hereditary in the future.if your also having issues with death, rape, abuse or mental health i hope this review didnt make it worse. Everyone is deserving of love, family, community and I hope everyone can find that. Have a good day, and have a safe quarantine.   

[enthusiasticsobrietyabuse]

“Enthusiastic Sobriety programs tearing families apart and convincing parents to kick their kids out onto the streets.” Originally posted on OnTheEmmis.com in 2004. ICECAP is the former incorporation and has since dissolved due to the efforts of OnTheEmmis.com

There is a thread on the other message board that I think the parents need to be informed about. This is about the harm that is caused to the children from parents that are still in an ICECAP program. These are true stories (not edited) just copied and pasted for you to read.

What Bob AND Joy teach parents about "tough" love and their version of "unconditional" love are just that "their version".

Does this seem as though families are being brought together and healing to you?

This is a great example of the pain that is caused when one person in the family (the child) wants to leave ICECAP and another person (the parent) believes the lies that they have been taught (that they are or will get high, can't live without being in the program, etc.) They, ICECAP, breed the fear that you as a parent have when you see them making choices that YOU don't like. What is the true meaning of letting go? Or the true meaning of unconditional love?

This is not to make any parent feel guilty for their time in an ICECAP program. I truly believe you thought you were doing the best thing. You were also a victim of the cult and it's way of thinking. That is the very reason I am posting this thread. To show the harm and hopefully save some pain for others.

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Author:

Bailey [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

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Date Posted: 13:27:44 12/22/04 Wed

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Getting kicked out of your house by your once all loving supporting do anything for you family

As most of you know my family is ALL involved in Crossroads and sense I've left its been hell, Thursday night my dad and step mom freaked out on me and my dad started pushing me and threatening to "lay me the fuck out" My dad has never so much as spanked me before we used to get along great until x-roads we got high together went to concerts movies dinner and what not, But now its as tho i don’t exist to them they call me ungrateful bitch and many other names after all that happened he told me to pack a bag and he didn't want to see me anymore, Luckily i see a therapist and he talked to my dad and calmed them down they still want me out of the house tho. I cant leave now because i belong to the state until me 18th birthday which thank god isn't far off but if they kick me out or i move out i have to spend the next month and half in juvenile again, this has happened to many of my friends who have left too they end up homeless because if there not in the group they cant be at there house, i was just wondering if anyone else's parents went crazy after they left and if it does get better?

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[> Subject: It happened to me Part 1

Author:

Hollywood

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Date Posted: 17:59:18 12/22/04 Wed

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I lived threw this every time I left the group, but especially the last time.

The last time I left I bailed the group with a guy, I knew from prior experiences that my parents would not tolerate me living in their house and not be in Pathway. So I did what I knew how to do, and hopped on a bus to California. When we got there we had no money or anything. At that point and many points throughout my time in Pathway I was willing to be a street person rather than be involved in the group. To say it didn't last long was an understatement; he was scared and refused to talk to anyone. His parents agreed to fly us back to AZ. I almost did not go because I knew that upon arriving I would have no place to go. Mind you at this point I had over a year sober. I did not bail because I wanted to get high.

When the plane touched down in PHX he had people from the group waiting to take him back. They shunned me. I had been in the group for about 5 years at that point and they could care less if I had a place to go. I now know it was because my parents would not shell out even more money for me to go into IOP (that would have been the third time).

I truly did not know who to call; I had been in the group since I was 14 years old. Not many people I knew had left and were around or willing to talk to a program drop out.

I finally gathered enough courage to call a friend of mine that had left the group, I knew she was getting high but at that point I didn't care. The streets of Phoenix were a lot more cruel than the streets of Hollywood. Her mother answered the phone, she did not sound very happy to hear my voice, on a previous runaway trip I bailed the group with her daughter and a few other people and we stole her credit cards and over $1000 dollars cash if my memory serves correctly. So this was a lady that I had fucked over to say the least. This kind woman opened her home to me. More than what my own family was capable of at that point. She allowed me to stay at their house and helped me try and find a job. At the same time unknown to me she was in contact with my parents trying to convince them to take me home, that I was actually doing fine and wasn't what the group was telling them about me.

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[> [> Subject: Re: It happened to me Part 2

Author:

Hollywood

[Edit]

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Date Posted: 18:00:08 12/22/04 Wed

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For some reason on Christmas Eve my parents called and told me I could move back in, but I had to live in the garage. They would set up a cot in there. I would not be allowed to use anything in the house, except the bathroom but my parents had to escort me to and from it. I agreed I didn't care; I just wanted to see my father.

When we were driving to my parents house the kind mom who allowed me to stay at her house explained to me that this was all my mothers doing, my father wanted nothing to do with my and had informed her that I was dead to him. It was because of him I would be sleeping in the garage until I could find my own home (mind you I was 18 and had never held down a job, paid bills, etc.) I lost it, this man, my father, my hero wanted nothing to do with me. This was a turning point for me. This is when I decided in my crazy still experiencing the effects of Kool-Aid that I needed to get high in order to get in the house. Because, try and follow this it is way crazy thinking looking back, if I just got high I would have something to cop to, the group would take me back, I could make amends and therefore my father would allow me in his life again. Crazy I know.

Well living in the garage lasted about 2 hours before my parents (read mother) got sick of it. My father sulked in his room and wanted nothing to do with me. Christmas Eve with all the family and Christmas day were rather awkward, to say the least. My father still did not speak to me. I believe that year they even attended the round robin. I sat at home. I soon got a job and almost immediately began getting high, smoking speed, snorting coke, and shooting heroin. This went on for about 2 years. I worked therefore my parents didn't care. They had both left the program (details of that have never been disclosed to me, I do not know why or how). And my father and my relationship finally started to re solidify.

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[> [> [> Subject: Re: It happened to me Part 2

Author:

Hollywood

[Edit]

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Date Posted: 18:01:09 12/22/04 Wed

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Except by this time I was strung out on heroin. Believe it or not I did go back to the group. After my parents discovered my horrible habit and asked me to check myself in to a detox center, I made an appointment with the then OG counselor. He told me to that I was going to die, that I needed to go into some Step something or other. I told him I had no money. He told me to sell my cars, I told him he was on crack my parents would never let me do that. At the same moment I was absolutely terrified they would. I told him to call them and if he could convince them I was willing. From what I understand that counselor did call my father and my father told him he was full of shit. That was the day my father became my hero again and not some brain washed ego maniac. I wound up getting off heroin a few months later. My father and my relationship has been wonderful ever since, for Christ sake we even work together. My mother is still struggling with the fact that I drink . But her and my relationship is better than it ever has been my entire life.

Sorry this was so long and detailed I never knew I would share all of this. I hope this helps you to realize to hear that some else has been threw a similar nightmare.

Good luck and if you ever need anything or need to talk about the ‘rents and the evil things they can do when they are still slugging down the Kool-Aid but you are not, email me. I am more then willing to listen.

Also if a parent reads this who is considering throwing their child out on to the streets because they are no longer in the group, let me tell them from being that child: They have no place to go! The situation that they are in worsens, they feel abandoned, and the people that they turn to are usually using drugs much heavier than they are or ever have!

PLEASE DO NOT BUY INTO ICECAPS TOUGH LOVE- this is what killed Bob’s son, this is what almost killed me, and what almost killed or even did kill many people I knew.

Hollywood

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[> Subject: Re: Did this happen to anyone else

Author:

michele

[Edit]

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Date Posted: 22:27:49 12/22/04 Wed

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ok bailey, i know you've already heard this but there are some who haven't... the first time i left stl i was 16. i lived on the streets and 20 dollar hotels and at my old sponsee's house. it was bad but didn't compare to when i left atl. that time i was 18. my dad had driven a car down for me. i eventually got myself kicked out. i knew it was coming. i packed up my car with at much crap as i could and then i left. i went to stl then kc. stealing gas the entire way, oh yeah and wrote a bunch of bad checks. i had to go back down to atl to pick up more of my stuff. so i took a friend with me. i got there and packed up more crap. i made it all the way back up to nashville, then my car broke down. to anyone who lives in there car it's the most important thing to you. it's your bed, your transportation, your only way to and from work. it makes your whole life work. my friend's parents wired her money and left me 60 miles south of nashville, in manchester. i took what i could from my car and started walking. i hitch hiked from there to kc. it took me 3 days almost. i looked like complete shit when i got home. think the garage is bad? my mom made me sleep on the back deck for 3 weeks. like a dog. i woke up went to work (walked my happy ass) came home and then when my mom got home from work she would let me in to go to the bathroom and shower, then i got kicked back out. when i finally proved my self she let me in the house. well that's the most important parts i guess. there's more but i wanna go to sleep. point is that things did get better. i just had to fight so hard for it. i've never had to fight for anything harder then to survive. but i'm still here. and to everyone who will ask, i never touched a truck driver, and they never asked. actually the fed me and let me sleep.

[> Subject: Re: Did this happen to anyone else

Author:

Jen from AZ

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Date Posted: 02:27:25 12/23/04 Thu

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It's stuff like this that really gets me riled! It bothers me that the "Family" (talk about dysfunctional families!) pushes parents to treat their own flesh and blood like animals! I'm sorry - but tough love is bullshit! As parents, we are to care for our kids - whether we love them or not - they are a gift from God and these parents ought to be damn grateful that they have children! Do these parents not realize that there are LAWS about this?! As long as their kid is under 18 they are required BY LAW to give their kids food, clothing and shelter. Parents, if you are kicking your kids out of your house - YOU DON'T DESERVE TO HAVE THEM!

I will NEVER turn my back on my child! I don't understand how any parent can do that! How can a parent look Their child in the eye - no matter how old they are - and turn their back on them? How can they sleep at night not knowing if their child is dead or alive? How can Bob and "friends" push this kind of treatment?! This is just totally beyond my comprehension! My blood is boiling right now!

I would give ANYTHING to have more kids at home! I cry almost every night because I want a houseful of children! Yes, I love my son with all my heart - but yes! I also want a houseful of laughing - hell, even screaming - children running around! And quite frankly it fucking pisses me off that parents treat their children like this! Sleeping in the fucking garage? On the damn patio!? Wake up you parents who are in ICECAP! I don't care if you believe the Bible or not - I do and I believe it with all my heart and it says in there that "whatever you do to the least of these, you have done to me". Guess what parents! When you treat your kids like this, you are treating God like that! I pity you! I pity the fact that one day you will have to answer for the way you have treated your kids! And I pray that you get the justice you deserve!

Sorry webmasters for going off and for using the language I used. I haven't talked like this in years, but this is a hot button for me. I get into a lot of trouble when I'm out and about in stores and see a parent yelling and/or cursing at their child. One of these days I'm probably going to get punched - but I will not keep silent! The treatment that ICECrAP pushes parents to do to their kids is abuse - pure and simple! And I refuse to hold my tongue when I see it going on!

To those of you who are experiencing this treatment or have in the past - please know that I am thinking of you and praying for things to change. Especially that your parents wake up and seek your forgiveness for the treatment they have given you! NOTHING a child does - NOTHING - warrants throwing your kids out on the streets! The atrocities that are out there... it just makes me shudder! And want to scream and rip out Bob's eyes with my bare hands. Not much gets me this worked up.

[vegasthedog]

kyms thoughts on tonights bitch ass episode

• ARCHIE REALLY DID DIE???

• oh you know what fuck you jughead

• VEGAS!!!!

• archie w black hair > archie w ugly ass orange hair

• dont get back w archie v stop acting like you dont got a WHOLE REGGIE

• wooooooooooooow she gonna do reggie like that

• jug acting like he running the fucking yakuza

• CRACK? IS THAT WHAT YOU SMOKING ALICE? CRACK?

• look at fp lookin like a MEAL

• FUCK EM UP FRED

• see archie, when you do clownery, the clown comes back to bite

• rip veronica x reggie, it was fun while it lasted

• clifford 2.0 is boutta be the sheriff? fuck this

• A 600 SKSKSK ARCHIE REALLY IS DUMB

• i cant believe fangs really joined this fucking cult

• v singing in spanish she tryna get that DICK

• i know reggie mad LMAOOO

• they really got hal in this hannibal lecter ass cage

• reggie not hearing none of this shit

• reggie would fuck archie up any day idk why he acting like big dick richard

• hiram is such a bitch yo can someone just kill him

• I KNEW HAL’S STUPID ASS WAS THE FUCKING WEIRDO IN THE STICK SUIT

• if fangs dies.....

• TALL BOY????

• thats what you get for opening your BIG FUCKING MOUTH REGGIE

• penelope wanted to fuck ugly ass jeffery dahmer...

• can hal just choke on his prison food please

• these two ALWAYS fuckin

• NO THEY DIDNT WAIT A FUCKING MINUTE!!!!!

• WHO THE FUCK JUST SHOT HIRAM????

• THEY FINALLY BREAKING UP YES

• this is why you dont let kids play with guns.

• what is fp doing involved with hermione !!!!

• REGGIE AND VERONICA FOR THE FUCKING WIN!!!!!

• FP IS THE FUCKING SHERIFF !!!! MY WIG!!!

• heard archie the alcoholic

[ocsideblog]

massive liminal infodump

  november knows basically nothing about her mom's family. she won't talk about it, determined to avoid or change the subect when it's mentioned. all november knows is that her mom left home when she was about 18 and hasn't spoken to her family since. the only information november has to go off is an old polaroid of what she can only assume is her mom's family, and an even older book. she found these items in the attic when she was about six. her mom wouldn't talk about the photo, and had no explanation for the book - probably an old halloween decoration or something, it's not in any real language. november gets the book to play with if she wants it.

  november, now a 20 year old photography student, and her 14 year old brother noel, are on a train to the town of Limbo to finally meet and stay with their mom's family - their aunt, uncle, and cousins. she is determined to know about them and to find out what caused her mother to become estranged.

  upon arriving in the small town, november learns that one of her cousins, julie, had gone missing at the beginning of the year. another girl named cassidy schaerer, daughter of the editor of the town's weekly newspaper, had also gone missing around the same time. the two girls were best friends, and julie's car had gone missing as well, so people just thought they ran away. her father thinks this is most likely, complaining that julie has always been rebellious. her sister, adelaide, doesn't think it's that simple - she keeps these thoughts to herself, however, because she needs to be the 'perfect daughter' and not disappoint her dad. cassidy's father thinks something is up as well, but he isn't so quiet about it.

  over the year november learns from mr. schaerer, who becomes like a father figure, that people have gone missing before. it's simply covered up, he says, because the town does not want to seem unsafe, and they have enough problems as it is. the town is dying out - young people often move away, there aren't that many jobs around, and the future doesn't look promising for small town life here.

  as the year goes on, november's grip on reality is also tested. while on the train, november had a nightmare - driving down some back road, a deer in the middle of the road, swerving to avoid hitting it, crashing - which becomes recurring, getting more frequent and more vivid as the year goes on. along with the nightmares, she begins hallucinating - mildly and rarely at first, but getting worse as time goes on. images of decay haunt her. she also feels a strange connection with her cousin julie, although she doesn't know why - maybe it's because some people said they're alike in some ways.

                                                    - - - - -

  ok so november and noel are siblings, and they arrive in the town of limbo to stay with some family members theyve never met before - their aunt, uncle, and cousins. when they get there, they find out one of their cousins - julie - has gone missing, along with her best friend whos a girl named cassidy. cassidy is the daughter of the man who runs the town's weekly newspaper. people view him as sort of paranoid and determined to think the worst when CLEARLY the girls just ran away. he doesn't get along well with the mayor of the town, john brennan.

  john brennan really wants the town to get big someday, have a mall and eventually expand and put the town on the map. he wants to feel important. he has a wife named mary and a six year old son named charlie.

  november's super curious to a fault, so like. kinda really nosy. she NEEDS to know everything and WILL investigate. and she feels a weird attachment to her missing cousin so she becomes like... determined to figure out what happened. her cousin adelaide - the Perfect Daughter whos secretly gay and dating another girl named jane - confides that she also doesnt think julie ran away, but cant say so to her father who'd get mad at her for being a conspiracy theorist.

  november also becomes close with mr. schaerer, the town's newspaper guy, who becomes like a father figure to november and comments about how shes got some stuff in common with julie, who had also been like a daughter to him because she was best friends with his daughter and because julie's dad is this strict conservative type and thought she was a disappointment so he wasn't all that nice to her.

  the town's in trouble - a lot of older conservative types frightened by progress, a lot of industry and stuff that'd die out with modernization, crops aren't doing as well, young people moving away, etc.

  there's a priest named father alonso brennan - he's the mayor's half brother - who seems kinda guilty, like he's hiding something.

  november gets these recurring nightmares of a car crash, and sometimes hallucinates that things are old and decaying or hallucinates people looking deadish and stuff. when she tries to talk about this to most people, they think shes crazy, and since its 1983 and her aunt and uncle - mostly her uncle - are conservative types, theres a lot of stigma surrounding mental illness.

  mary brennan kinda tries to bond with her, try to get her involved with the town and stuff, at the suggestion of november's aunt, hoping that'll distract her from being like this.

  also november works at an antique and curiosity shop for antioch, whos this sort of eccentric weird guy who supposedly moved to town after retiring early because he had money so now he's chilling. she doesn't get paid because she's working off a debt - noel accidentally broke a skull while goofing around when they were just checking out the different stores, and november offered to work off the debt so noel wouldn't have to, since neither of them had money.

  it turns out father brennan DID know something. he had seen john and mary brennan burying a body out in the woods on january first sometime between midnight and 3am - cassidy's body. they had told him they hit her in a car accident, because they'd been driving drunk, and were trying to cover it up because they were scared and still drunk and afraid it'd hurt their lives and careers and stuff since john brennan's the mayor. alonso kept the secret because he was always close with his brother, and didnt want to ruin his life, but the guilt is eating him alive because he's generally an honest person but his honesty and his loyalty are in conflict. sometime around october he arranges to meet up with mr schaerer and tell him the truth about his daughter.

  the next day, schaerer is found dead in the woods. the local police say it was a suicide. november doesn't believe this. she confronts the priest, knowing he was one of the last people to talk to her, thinking maybe he found something out somehow - priests hear a lot in confession after all. he tells her about knowing cassidy was buried in the woods, and how she was killed in a drunk driving accident, near where schaerer died - he also genuinely thinks it was a suicide, out of grief for his daughter. he won't mention who did it, using the confession thing as an excuse, his values are still in conflict.

  november sneaks out in the middle of the night to go to that place in the woods and search for her body, see how much of this is true. after digging, she finds remains that are decayed WAY past what they should be. there's also nothing to indicate a car accident, the skeleton isn't broken as far as she can see, and there's a weird rusted ritualistic dagger in the grave, and some weird symbols that look kinda familiar but she can't place them at the moment (hint its the book from the attic)

  shes not sure if shes hallucinating or not, and she doesnt know who to trust at this point. she comes back to the grave later that day with someone (i havent 100% decided who yet) but they like. don't find anything, like the grave never existed. this doesn't make november look any more mentally stable.

  as new years eve approaches, the moon family - including november - are invited to the brennans' new years party. mary offers november an old dress to borrow since she doesn't really have any, and her cousins dont have the same size as her, the dress doesn't fit mary brennan anymore anyway, she owned it when she was younger, wore it on her wedding years ago. at some point during the party, after eating or drinking something which was handed to her, november doesn't feel so great. she passes out.

  she wakes up, hands tied behind her back to like. a pillar or tree trunk or something. there are six others also tied up the same way, in a circle. to her horror, she realizes noel is one of them. next to each of them stands someone from town - 7 people in total, including john brennan and her own uncle. mary brennan stands beside her. they're doing some sort of ritual. november thinks this must be another hallucination or nightmare. it has to be, right? there's no way this is happening. she's forced to watch as one by one the other people are sacrificed - including noel. this can't be happening. this can't be real. she can't do anything to save noel.

  november was saved for last as a special offering. mary brennan tells her that she is a Special sacrifice, that she believes Death has grown fond of her, so mary is offering this girl as a special sacrifice in an attempt to earn his favor in apology for having lost the book, which her ancestor stole a long time ago. she's the only one in the cult who has actually seen and been in communication with Death, and is also the only one to know this year has been repeating. she's hoping for the loop to end, and the town and everyone in it to be allowed to exist forever immortally.

  she finishes the ritual, calling forth Death to claim this sacrifice. november can't see properly, between tears and it being dark outside and - this feeling like she's slipping out of reality, dying? falling asleep? about to hallucinate again? or emerge from the hallucination? she isn't sure and it terrifies her. the figure approaching out of the woods looks somewhat familiar,but different. antioch, from the curiosity shop. his hair's down though, and something about him isnt..... right. the vibe in the area has changed dramatically, feelings of dread that are hard to describe. she calls out to him for help anyway, but receives no response. he ignores her, approaching mary brennan. says something to mary brennan about not being forgiven, better luck next year, and mary brennan begins throwing up blood and slumps to the ground.  he - whatever sort of entity he is - moves closer to november. says something to her. she feels a sharp pain in her chest. he's carving something with his nail, which is like a claw. he's also telling her to give in and let go already, that she should have done so long ago, shes far too stubborn and foolish, shes still resisting whatever this weird sensation of slipping away is. she vaguely notices, between the pain and the weird feeling, that her surroundings and the people in the area seem to be decaying. this has to be a hallucination. it has to. she lets go, thinks shes closing her eyes........

  but is actually opening them. weak sunlight filters through a smashed window through the trees overhead. a dream. it wasn't real. she looks around. it turns out that what was real was the car crash, and all that had been some sort of coma dream. she begins to get up, to become aware of her surroundings, her injuries,   noel.

  she looks over and he's there, he's worse than her injury wise. he isn't breathing. she tries to wake him. he won't wake up. he's gone. it's too late. she feels horrible. this is her fault. if she hadn't been so curious. she digs through her bag, looking for her phone. her stupid book from the attic is there. she feels stupid. her curiosity about some stupid halloween prop and about her mom's past, which was probably mundane and some sort of argument, got her brother killed. she finds her phone at the bottom of the bag. a little cracked but it turns on. no signal though. she starts walking toward the road and follows it, searching for a signal. she has to call her mom. she has to let her know what happened, to confess that it's her fault.

  as she's walking, she realizes her chest stings worse than her other wounds. she looks under her shirt at it. the sigil thing from her nightmare. it can't be. it has to be some sort of coincidence. it doesn't look like a normal wound, somewhere between a scar and a tattoo, turning black, but also bleeding a bit still, she brushes this off as being not all there and being shaken up. she just found out her brother died, of course she's not going to be all that mentally stable. she keeps walking. she gets a signal, weak. she calls her mom. keeps trying. finally gets an answer.

  she tells her mom everything - they'd set out to go on a road trip and find out about their mom's family. it was her fault noel died, if she refused to take him. she swerved to hit a deer. her fault. her mom blamed herself, for not telling them about her past and for being so dodgy about it. november comes to the outskirts of an overgrown ghost town as she's walking to get a better signal. completely abandoned, decaying, familiar. she fears what her mom's going to tell her. that her sister overheard her father's plans to sacrifice her, as a part of a cult thing, and she promised her sister she'd leave and never look back, so she did, late 1982. something in november's mind clicks. it's 2015. her mother's name is julie.

[something-tofightfor]

The Punisher Season 2: Episodes 1-5

My reactions as I watched these episodes: 

SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT. SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT. SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT. I literally tagged it four different ways for spoilers so if you read them after this it’s your own damn fault. 

1: Roadhouse Blues HE IS IN BED WITH A WOMAN THINKING OF KAREN WHAT THE FUCK “Take the good when it comes” AND HES THINKING OF BILLY ALONG WITH THE KIDS MY FUCKING MIND IS BLOWN Frank is so comfortable around kids. This is going to end horribly. He’s gonna go back to this bar and all hell is going to break loose. Frank with blood dripping out of his nose is a MOOD Bathroom fight = Bar fight... not even an episode in and he’s already shot. Sucks to be you Beth. MADANI. Drinking at the foot of Billy’s bed. “Sweet dreams asshole” IVE MISSED THOSE EYES. 

2: Fight or Flight Oh look they’re in Ohio. PLEASE OH PLEASE LET HIM SAY RACHEL BECAUSE HEARING JON BERNTHAL GRUNT MY NAME WOULD BE HEAVEN Aaaaaaand there’s his ass HE IS DIGGING A BULLET OUT OF HIS ASS AND NOW SHE IS YIKES And now he’s grunting “get it” - I CANT. She’s lying. She’s a liar. Lying. And he knows it. He’s gonna be pissed when he realizes how young she is but she’s now ziptied to the bed - and now he’s duct taping her mouth shut this is wonderful and i hope it stays this way for 11 more episodes MADANI IS A GODDAMN MESS Broken Billy is going to be a problem for me. And at this point I feel like he genuinely doesn’t remember. Beth is lying for Frank. Interesting. ....  nevermind HE JUST SAID MY NAME .... you did have to get involved didn’t you, Frank. I DO like this girl calling him out though .... back to the tape and zip ties. My god billy is so anxious about his face he turns to the side to take his medication. the last thing he remembers is fucking being in the barracks. “Frank was your friend?” “My brother” OH MY GOD His memory is only there for a few minutes at a time. GODDAMN. Pilgrim doesn’t want to hear swearing... hmmmmmm - he’s connected to this girl in a more meaningful way than i thought before. HI RAFI. I AGREE WITH YOU. Madani is convinced that billy is faking. LET IT GO this girl is pointing a gun at frank. Yeah that’s not going to end well Oh look he killed a bunch of people and then ended up arrested .... Rachel, you’re.... a fucking horrible liar ... FRANK IN A DRUG RUG DINAH DREAMING ABOUT BILLY ON TOP OF HER AND NAKED - SAME MADANI SAME. that fucking little smirk. OH MY GOD “They died from terminal stupidity” 

3: Trouble the Water hello, Beverly Marsh. I see you in this creepy ass cult. The cadence of Pilgrim’s voice is both soothing and unsettling at the same time, how is this possible? So pilgrim is covered in faded white supremacy tattoos. That’s.... interesting. Frank is trying to warn these people. They should listen. Billy is avoiding sleep. His mannerisms are making me really nervous. He’s doing a good job. Holy shit he just handed those cops their asses. Why is Dumont limping BYE BILLY . Gif ... is.... Pilgrim trying to prove his faith to save his wife? Madani in a big friggin hurry to prove she was right, acting concerned - she still doesn’t get it Unless he’s truly playing them all LMAO DUMONT CALLING MADANI OUT ABOUT NOT KNOWING HOW TO TELL THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN REALITY AND FICTION hi, brett! Good to see you! Madani stole the journal. Hmmm As always frank is the most aware person in the room and he still has no idea what’s going on Ogden’s gonna die. Nice knowing you kid. Picking them off one by one by one... this cult is full of snipers “Sweet boneless Jesus” is my new statement Oh the girl finally did something useful Police station shootout is actually pretty intense Ogden literally got shot in the stomach and still wants to help. That’s how we DO IT in Ohio Marlena is a bitch, but she is focused on frank. This very quickly became personal for her. .... oh. Frank castle literally set two men on fire with one bullet. My fucking hero Him sprinting around in this forest is incredible he’s like a murder gazelle Dinah shows up at the exact right time to save frank and to tell him that Billy broke out of the hospital... guess it’s time to go back to New York. WHAT IS ON THESE ANCIENT ASS FILM ROLLS?!?! who even uses film  cameras anymore 4: Scar Tissue I NEED TO SEE BILLY RUSSO IN THIS I GOT A BIG DICK T SHIRT Ok but where are you going IN YOUR SOCKS, sir? HI HELLO I SEE YOU IN THOSE GLASSES Madani still chewing her aspirin i see   Two locks on her bedroom door, madani is scared This crazy bitch is sleeping under the bed ... nevermind she’s crying not sleeping IM SO SAD HE PUT THE GODDAMN SHIRT ON INSIDE OUT Holy fuck the look on his face and in his eyes when he sees himself for the first time before the injuries. Oh my god oh my god Floriana Lima sucks. Billy went 6 months without decorating the mask. His eyes are so expressive goddamn Frank and Madani hate each other 6 week coma.... facial reconstruction... Billy was biding his time. Madani with his bloody punisher vest casually in her closet, ok. HI CURTIS. i see you’re better prepared Curtis believes Billy doesn’t remember. And he was listed as Billy’s next of kin... heartbreaking. Curtis is describing Billy and Frank with this single conversation. Interesting. Holy shit is he back at the group home?! Casual billy in jeans and a beanie.... yesssss WAIT ITS A FLASHBACK OH HELL YES BUT WHOSE FLASHBACK IS IT Moments of sleep... the mask... Oh fuck. Billy’s going to kill the dude that hurt him Oh fuck oh fuck Finally this dumb girl is opening up. And Frank just decided to keep himself inserted in this, but there’s never really been a choice for him I guess. Billy went to the group home and it was gone and thats the only place he had to go. Jesus, they’re really making you feel for him. He had nowhere and no one to go to so he went to his GODDAMN ABUSER. “You were a good looking kid. It’s a damn shame” FUCK HIM UP BILLY DONT YOU TAKE THAT SHIT Amy’s expression while listening to Madani and Frank 🤣🤣🤣 Oh this motherfucker just poked him in the chest and is bragging about what he did. COME ON BILLY KILL HIM Amy figuring out who frank is and what he did... hmmmmm Madani showing up at the house like a psychopath HOLY SHIT HE STABBED HIM IN THE CHEST WITH A MOP HANDLE ..... fuck. I swear if she takes advantage of him I’m going to scream Billy knows that he deserves what’s happened to him, but not WHY. That’s big. She’s suggesting redemption. ... he wants to see the best version of himself again. He wants to fix things. And i think he’s serious. I’m very conflicted 

5: One-Eyed Jacks Stack the deck - gotta be the dealer... good advice frank. Hi, Turk! Setting up a meeting.... interesting angle frank. Madani is having a nightmare at the same time billy is actually sleeping. Interesting. WHO SLEEPS IN A SILK NIGHTGOWN LIKE THAT madani is seeing billy without scars in her nightmares and sleeping with s gun under her pillow. “I don’t want to feel it, I want to kill it” ... She’s helping him, but i don’t know WHY. And i want to trust her but i just CANT Billy Russo just said “please” and “thank you” in the same conversation... and meant it. WHAT ARE THESE SCARS ON HER ARMS Frank agrees that Billy was right to kill Arthur. Ok back to the creepy cult Leave your dad alone, kid... he’s a little busy Oh frank is going to kill every single person in this gym. I could have done without the  Amy-splurging montage... unless she bought something worthwhile. NOT A DRILL BILLY FUCKING RUSSO IN A TOWEL holy hell is he ripped. I literally had to watch this scene like 4 times because i know it’s important but i couldn’t focus The snake and the rebirth idea is really interesting to me. “The sick are transformed by the healer’s art” .... she’s trying to transform billy. She’s trying to cleanse him... but for what purpose? Madani with Curtis. This is good. Maybe he can help her. Nevermind they’re lying to each other about frank. Madani opening up in the group.... interesting. She feels her life is ruined. Billy and this airman getting drunk is the buddy comedy i didn’t know i needed ... here comes the gym YIKES THAT DUDES FACE These people taking selfies in the bar... Billy’s going to get his photo taken He’s just trying to reconnect with another military man. I didn’t even think about that before   SWEAR TO GOD IF BILLY STARTS DOING COKE INTERESTING. He knows who billy is. Krista is horrified of heights.... interesting as hell. So she’s just as fucked as billy Ah fuck. Pilgrim is in New York.

[distractedhistotech]

Ghost +1

Sydney was in the back of the van.  She preferred it back there since she could move around more.  Plus it felt weird staring out the window since losing her eye. She guessed it was the loss of depth perception.  She was still learning how to gauge distance.

“So, that was kind of lame.  Why did they think that guy was a ghost anyway?” asked Sydney as she tried to contact juggle some balls they had and dropped them all over the place.  “He didn’t even put a lot of effort into his costume.”

“They were really superstitious,” said Arthur.  “Only a few steps from being a cult when you think about it.  They decide that anything strange has to have a supernatural or spiritual cause.  Don’t even think there’s a scientific explanation because why couldn’t it be something that proves they’re right.”

“Arthur, you’re starting to ramble,” interrupted Vivi.

Arthur blushed. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine. They were a bit…extreme,” admitted Vivi. “I can see why it would upset you.”

Mystery decided this was a good reason to lay his head on Arthur’s lap.  Sydney then flung her arms around him.  “Yeah!  I thought they were creepy too!”

“Sydney!  I’m driving!”

“Pretty sure they thought I was an idiot,” continued Sydney.  “I mean that tone they used with me was just insulting!  Just because I’m missing an eye doesn’t mean I’m an idiot! Lots of people are missing parts and are smart!  I’m not a pirate!”  Sydney paused.  “Actually, there were some pretty intelligent pirates.  I don’t know where I was going with that.  I seem to come back to pirates a lot lately.  I know why I do, but it’s getting kind of old.  I need to find something else to obsess with when I get riled up.”

“You could go back to talking about comics,” suggested Vivi.

Sydney sighed. “Yeah, I miss that…Why do I have so much trouble bringing comics up nowadays?  It used to be second nature, but now I have to focus to talk about them. Even though I still love comics. It doesn’t make sense.  Is this part of growing up?  Part of recovering from a traumatic event?  Both?  It feels like something’s wrong.  But isn’t that normal now?”  Sydney rested her forehead on the back of Arthur’s head, not noticing how hard he was gripping the steering wheel.  “Do you ever feel like that?”

“Yes,” said Arthur. He’d felt like it since he woke up in a hospital missing an arm, missing a friend, missing memories, missing so much… “I don’t think it’s gonna go away.” Mystery let out a whine and licked one of Sydney’s hands.

Vivi looked between the two as the mood quickly started to darken.  God, she just wanted her two friends to be happy like they used to be. She needed to find a way to change the subject and make them smile.  “Why don’t we pick up a couple of pizzas or something and then watch a couple of hours of Star Trek or Star Wars or Captain America?”

Arthur caught on to what she was trying to do and smiled.  “That would be nice.  It’s been a while since we hung out.”  He frowned. “That’s my fault.”  He’d been busy looking for Lewis.  He was trying not to ignore his remaining friends, but it was hard when he wanted to find the other one and mentioning him did…something to them.

“What the heck are you working on anyway?” asked Sydney.  “You’re not usually this secretive.  You’re not trying to make a mechanical eye again, are you?”

“No!...Not usually anyway,” admitted Arthur.

“I can see where he’s coming from,” said Vivi.  “I don’t think we can buy another eye if something else goes wrong.  We need an alternative method.”

Sydney shuddered. “Okay, point taken.  Being blind sucked.  I don’t know how someone can live with that for a lifetime. Especially if you’re born like that! Can you imagine never knowing colors? And I bet light doesn’t make a lot of sense either.  And you can’t play videogames!”

“Can’t work on cars or fabricate parts,” continued Arthur.

“Probably can’t paint either,” mused Vivi.  “Unless the various colors smelled different from one another.”

Sydney wrinkled her nose.  “Is-Is that a thing?  And I don’t mean synesthesia!  Can blind people have synesthesia?  Or deaf people?  Or anyone missing one sense?”

“What if sounds are linked to smell instead?” suggested Arthur.

“Can that happen?”

“Dunno.  Maybe.”

“Pigments are just a type of chemical compound, so it would make sense for them to have a scent,” said Vivi, keeping the conversation from veering off in a completely different direction for once.

“Depends on the chemical.  Some don’t have a scent, or at least the scent is too faint for humans to pick up on,” explained Arthur.

“I dunno, I swear I was smelling more right before you fixed my eye,” argued Sydney.

“It’s not quite the same thing.  When you lose a sense you pay more attention to the ones that are left, like reassigning roles.  We get the most information from sight, so when someone loses their sense of sight they pay a lot more attention to little things that they didn’t even realize they were ignoring.  Also, I think there’s some neuroplasticity involved.  Your brain isn’t using the part that used to be for putting together what your eyes saw, so it starts using it for other things over time.” Arthur was silent for a moment. “Um.  But you, uh, would know better than me, given, you know.  Sorry, I got a little too into the science papers I’ve been reading.”

Sydney smiled and shrugged.  “It’s fine. I think it’s pretty interesting, even if I don’t understand all of it.”  She tapped her eyepatch.  “Does losing an eye affect how much of my brain it uses?”

“Just one?  I’m not sure.  You are seeing less…”

“Can you still smell and hear more than you’re used to?” asked Vivi.

Sydney shrugged. “Dunno.  I don’t think so.  Was kind of distracted at the time.  Plus, everything looked different when I could see again.”

Vivi huffed. “It is just so unfair.  How is it that my abilities still haven’t manifested but my half of the eye lets you see spirits?”

“It is really strange,” agreed Sydney.

“Maybe it’s because your abilities are already active,” suggested Arthur.  “And you do have some control over ‘em.”

Vivi hummed in thought.  “That might be it.  There are still so many unknowns…”

“Hey, I don’t care how as long as no one else has to go blind,” said Sydney.  “Besides, I’m sure something will wake you up eventually.”

“Yeah, but what if I’m like 40 when it finally happens?” complained Vivi.  “Heck, if I have kids by then, they might have gotten their power before me…”

Arthur winced. “Do you want kids?”

Vivi nodded. “Of course!  One, maybe two.  I just have to find the right guy,” she said, giving Arthur a significant glance.

Arthur missed said glance entirely as he was distracted by thoughts of what could have been. Sydney was blind on that side. The only one to notice was Mystery, who huffed.  Why did life have to be so difficult for these kids?  The last time he’d had charges this prone to trouble…

It hadn’t ended well. Mystery would rather not dwell on the depressing memories.

Vivi realized her hint had gone over their heads yet again and decided to just move on.  “Do you guys want kids?”

“I want one!  So there can be a Sydney Scoville III!” proclaimed Sydney.  “But just one.  Don’t think I could handle more than that.”

Arthur was silent. Lewis wanted kids.  He’d be an amazing father with how well he handled his sisters.  “I dunno if I want children.  I don’t want to pass on any of my issues.”

Vivi and Sydney both frowned at Arthur’s reasoning.  “Most of your issues are due to your early upbringing,” pointed out Vivi. “You wouldn’t make those same choices and mistakes.  That would prevent most of those issues from happening.”

“They could still pick up the behavior from me,” argued Arthur.  “There’s only so much that I can change.”

“I don’t think you need to change,” said Sydney.  “I mean, yeah, you’ve got anxiety issues, but lots of people do.  You’re also smart and nice and help people and have cool hair and stro-”

“What if I attract something dangerous?” interrupted Arthur.

“Then I’ll just keep living nearby,” reasoned Sydney.  She’d live with him if he asked.  “I mean, I don’t see why I would leave Tempo.”

“Me either. Tempo is our home,” agreed Vivi. She placed a hand on Arthur’s flesh and blood hand.  “We’re stuck with each other.  For life.”

Arthur felt himself cheer up a bit at that.  He gave Vivi a smile and tried to give Sydney one as best he could.  Maybe he was being selfish, but he wanted to stay close to his friends.

And then the dashboard started to spark.  Arthur’s eyes widened.  “What?! No, no, no…”  He stomped on the gas several times but failed to pick up speed.

Vivi frowned. “Is something wrong with the van?”

“There shouldn’t be! I just performed maintenance on it!”

Sydney raised an eyebrow.  “Am I the only one who thinks the purple sparks were weird?”

Arthur blinked. “Purple?”

Sydney nodded. “Yeah, I was staring right at the dashboard.”  The high beam light looked like a jellyfish.  “Definitely purple.”

“That is not a thing that should happen!” shouted Arthur.

Vivi nodded. “Electricity’s supposed to just be white, which suggests this isn’t normal.”  The van came to a stop right in front of…Vivi blinked several times.  “A dancing mansion?”

Okay, it wasn’t actually dancing.  However, it was sort of pulsing/bopping to a beat that one could fell in their bones. It was noticeably run down and purple and had eerie lights in the windows.

“There’s no way that’s not haunted,” deadpanned Sydney.

“Erm…”  Arthur tried turning over the car again.  “We don’t, have to investigate, do we?”

Vivi thought of what happened last time they’d jumped into an investigation without any preparation.

Blood. Hospitals.  Loss.  Guilt.

“If you can get the van started, we’re leaving,” said Vivi.  “Sydney, you’re not wearing your suppressor?”

Sydney shook her head. “Still practicing controlling it on my own.”

“Good.  Don’t reign it in.”

Mystery just stared at the mansion.  He recognized its aura.  He could barely believe it.

When did Lewis come back and what did he have planned? 

Lewis was planning to exact his revenge.  The plan had been simple:  Create a mansion on a road that they often traveled along near Tempo (He couldn’t get into Tempo, but that could be because of some of the wards Vivi had tried setting up.), lure the Mystery Skulls (especially Arthur) into the mansion, separate them, bring Arthur to his location, kill Arthur, and reunite with the girls and Mystery, with possible minor changes as were needed.  He was also open to making Arthur confess what happened to the girls (They must not have seen what happened to just go along with him.) before killing him.

The plan started to unravel as soon as the van came to a stop in front of his mansion.  Part of that was because instead of rushing into the mansion on the heels of Vivi like he was expecting, they stayed in the van. And stayed.  A lot longer than he recalled them ever doing so when he was alive.

Part of it was indirectly Sydney’s fault.  He’d known that her aura was potent against malevolent spirits and the like, but he hadn’t really appreciated it until he felt it pressing down on him.  From all the way outside.  He found himself rubbing his temples.  Ow.  No wonder the nastier spirits went out of their way to avoid her.  He was actually leaking some energy.  He could last for some time as long as he was careful, but theoretically, they could just stay in the van until he was too drained to keep them here.  If they tried that, he’d have to go out and confront them.  Not something he wanted to do, but if it became necessary…

Lewis wondered why he was being affected in the first place.  He wasn’t evil…Well, okay, he did want to kill Arthur.  That was justified, but maybe it was gray enough for Sydney’s ability to categorize him as malevolent.  If that was the case, then it would probably stop after he killed Arthur and no longer had any desire to hurt someone.

Lewis was dragged from his musings as several figures started exiting the van.  Finally!  Lewis quickly started setting up the finishing touches of his plan.

It was time to end this. 

Arthur had to admit defeat.  “I’ll need to look under the hood, and I don’t want to do that in front of a haunted mansion.”  He sighed. “I don’t wanna go inside either.”

Sydney had been staring at the mansion the whole time.  She could see the music.  And anger. This eye was so weird.  “I think you’d be okay.  Pretty sure my aura will reach that far.”

Mystery could confirm that her aura did extend that far and would retain enough potency to be effective. Not that he could tell them, but it was certainly a weight off his shoulders.

Vivi started handing out various items for protection and fighting.  “It’s a tough choice.  Stay out here alone but relatively safe or go inside with us to stay close to Sydney and me.”

Arthur groaned. If he was less worried about the girls’ safety he would stay outside, but he couldn’t help but worry that if he let them go inside that he would never see them again.  It had happened before.  Even if he couldn’t do anything to protect them, he could draw fire away from them.

“I think I’ll go with you guys,” Arthur decided.

Sydney and Vivi studied him for a moment before Sydney suddenly bit her thumb and smeared some blood in the center of his forehead.  “Just in case.”

Arthur instinctively looked up with crossed eyes for a moment.  “Uh.  Okay. I guess that’ll work.”

“It should. There is power in blood,” said Vivi as she gave him some holy water and slipped a beaded necklace over his head and under his shirt.  “We can try practicing making protective symbols with it too.”

Sydney chuckled. “Like an anime.”  She nodded.  “Anything that you think will help.”

Arthur fought down the urge to wipe at the blood on his forehead.  “Can I just say that I don’t like having other people’s blood on me?” It brought back bad memories.

Sydney winced. “Oh.  Sorry.  Should’ve asked first, shouldn’t I?”

Arthur took a deep breath.  “I’m fine. I’ll be fine.  You said it might help so it’s something to try.”  The blood itched on his forehead.  “But I am totally scrubbing it off when we get out of here.”

Vivi nodded. “Sounds like a decent enough compromise.”  She handed an ofuda to Sydney.  Sydney smeared some more blood on the back of it.  “I don’t want either of you getting hurt again.  You’re just starting to get back to where you were before.”

That made both of them wince.  The last few months of learning to live with new handicaps had been difficult and frustrating in several ways.  They didn’t want a repeat with themselves or Vivi or Mystery.

All four of them silently vowed to protect the others.

The walk up to the mansion’s front door took just a few seconds.  Vivi knocked on the doors (She was concerned that the inhabitants would be excited by Arthur knocking and see Sydney knocking as a declaration of war.), which creaked open ominously.  The inched in, the doors slamming shut behind them.

The darkness didn’t last long enough for them to pull out flashlights.  Several purple wisps of fire floated by and lit candles lined along the walls and set on a chandelier.

Vivi absently noted that the layout kind of reminded her of the Spencer mansion, except a lot more purple.

“Sydney, stop humming.”

“Oops.  Didn’t notice-”

Several purple ghosts suddenly popped up.  “Who-o-o-o-oa!”

Most of the group immediately tensed up.  Vivi didn’t immediately though.  “Cute!”

They really were adorable…until more popped up behind them.  “This time I might just disa-Who-o-o-o-who-o-o-oa!”  They suddenly got pointy toothed with claws. “Oh yeah!”

Nope.  They took off running down the hallway through break in the ghosts.

“This time I might just disappear!”

A suit of armor suddenly lunged towards them and swung an ax.  Sydney and Vivi dove under the ax.  Arthur vaulted over it.  Mystery barely dodged it, having to use his kitsune magic to retract his head into his body.

“Gah!”

“Mystery!”

“)%$*&$^#$(%^)*%(&%*&$&!”

Mystery popped his head back out before any uncomfortable questions could be asked.

“Who-o-o-o-who-o-o-oa…”

They abruptly realized that the paintings lining the hall were moving.  They suddenly leapt out.  “Oh yeah!”

The Mystery Skulls leapt into each other’s arms.  Thankfully, the portrait spirits pulled back into the paintings.  “Who-o-o-o-oa…”  And then the lady painting reached out and pulled a rope next to her painting.

A trapdoor opened under them.  They fell down screaming, and things became bizarre, even by their standards.  They weren’t falling as quickly as they should be. It was more like they were floating.  Not to mention there were several random items in the space with them.  A few hours later, they would comment on how it was oddly reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland.

They floated past several mirrors.  Vivi was a bit confused by the fact that her reflection had completely purple eyes. From what Mystery could see in his cracked mirror they could see past glamours.  Arthur was facing away from the mirrors so he didn’t see that they failed to reflect his prosthetic.  Sydney did faintly notice this but was a bit distracted by how her reflection showed her right after her injury with her remaining eye leaking various colors from it.

Then Arthur’s fall suddenly sped up.  Vivi and Sydney made to grab him, but just missed him.  Then they noticed Sydney was falling even slower and tried to grab each other, but it was too late again.

Sydney let out an ‘oof’ and shot to her feet as she landed.  “I’m armed!” she shouted, brandishing the ofuda.  She turned around.  There were a bunch of boxes, a dusty bed with no covers, and… a mannequin in a wedding dress and holding an ax?  Sydney thought she was in the basement until she noticed some windows that she ran over to.  She felt her brain short circuit.  “How the *&^*) do you fall down into the attic?!”

Vivi and Mystery had landed in a kitchen where a pair of dagwood sandwiches were laid out on the center counter.  The two stared at them for several moments but managed to pull themselves away. “Right.  Separated…We should look for Arthur first.  Sydney can take care of herself in this sort of situation.” Her stomach growled.  Mystery’s growled even louder.  “…I wonder if it would be safe to grab a few pieces.”

Arthur landed on his ass in what was probably the basement.  He absentmindedly glanced upward in confusion (How did that work? Ghost logic was so weird.) before zeroing in on a large coffin with a skull and thorny vine design on the top of the lid.  It was beating like the rest of the house.

Not good.

The coffin slowly opened, revealing a jawless skull floating above a large body in a nice suit.

Lewis narrowed his eye sockets as he floated out and slammed his feet in front of Arthur.  He glared at his murderer, full of hate and anger.

Arthur stared in fear, unable to recognize his dead friend.  All he saw was a scary, probably powerful, likely dangerous ghost that had separated him from his friends.

Lewis broke the silence by pointing a finger at Arthur.  “Fuck, it’s you I hate the most.”

Arthur gulped and pointed at himself.  “Buh-buh-Why?”

It was a reasonable question from Arthur’s point of view.  Lewis…it did occur to him that he wasn’t as recognizable without his face.  He lit the braziers and let his hair form. “Does this answer your question?!”

No, it didn’t, but Arthur decided he wasn’t going to explain that this was a case of mistaken identity to a ghost that probably wasn’t going to listen.  He threw the vial of holy water, turned on his heel, and ran.

Lewis did recoil a bit at the holy water.  He was a fire ghost.  Water stung even if it wasn’t holy.  Then he threw it off, decided this was proof of Arthur’s guilt, and gave chase.

Arthur was in good shape (He didn’t understand how he was still so healthy when he’d been hospitalized and locked in his workroom so much for the last few months.) and used to running from scary things.  He glanced behind him and saw the ghost practically flying towards him.  No more glancing back.  He put on a burst of speed.

Oh, hey, Vivi and Mystery.  “Angry ghost! Run!”

Vivi and Mystery looked away from the sandwiches they were still debating eating.  They looked in the direction Arthur came from, threw the sandwiches at the angry ghost, and ran after Arthur.  Lewis didn’t bother trying to avoid the sandwich contents and flew right through them.

“We need to find Sydney!” shouted Vivi.

“Where is she?!” shouted Arthur.

“I don’t know!”

Mystery could feel that Sydney had ended up in the attic and was managing to work her way down. He pulled ahead and ran up some stairs, Arthur and Vivi close behind him.  They ran through a bunch of doors and rooms.

Sydney heard the racket and threw open the door of the room she’d wandered into.  “Angry Elvis ghost!”

That threw Lewis for a loop.  “Elvis? Are you kid-”  He saw the eyepatch.  “What happened to your-”

Sydney threw an ofuda at him.  Lewis yelped and pulled it off.  That hurt!

“You stay away from Arthur!” demanded Sydney.

That hurt almost as much as the ofuda.  “You don’t get it.  He-”

Vivi darted back and grabbed Sydney.  “What’re you waiting for?!”  She then dragged Sydney off.

Okay, Vivi and Sydney didn’t know about his murder.  Somehow. Maybe it was post traumatic amnesia or something.  Clearly, this needed to be remedied.  Also, why was Sydney wearing an eyepatch?  She wasn’t wearing an eyepatch for the heck of it.  There’d been scars peeking out.  He gave chase, now equally intent on telling Vivi and Sydney what happened along with killing Arthur.

He threw fire to keep Arthur from moving down a hallway.  Arthur turned and stared at him fearfully.  Lewis felt his desire for vengeance clawing up his heart.

And then Vivi and Sydney put themselves between them, Vivi with her arms outstretched as if to shield Arthur as much as possible, Sydney with her hands up as if she was prepared to fight him.

This was wrong. Vivi and Sydney were supposed to be on his side.  He wasn’t the enemy!  He just needed…Maybe…Yes.  That would work.  He willed his anchor towards them.

They just needed to see the proof of who he was, that they knew him.

The flames died down. Arthur was certain he knew the way to the front door from this spot.  He grabbed Vivi and Sydney and booked it.

Vivi and Sydney glanced back once.

Mystery made sure to take up the rear.

Lewis stared in disbelief and heartbreak as his murderer and the love(s?) of his life and (more than) best friend.

And his anchor fell and broke.

And Lewis switched to frustration and anger and despair and why did this happen to him?! Why why why?!

He screamed, pouring his everything into it as his fire erupted around him.

The living Mystery Skulls barely made it through the doors in time to avoid being burned alive. Mystery might have had something to do with it.  They rushed to the van.  “Go go go!”

Arthur revved the van. It started.  “I’m going!”

They peeled out of there.

None of them saw the figure watching them from one of the high windows.  Lewis watched as the van drove away.  He pressed down on his cracked anchor and looked at the picture inside.

It was from shortly after he and Vivi started dating.  He had an arm around Vivi, who was hugging him.  Sydney had an arm thrown over his shoulder while he used his free arm to support her.  No Arthur. The three of them were smiling and happy and whole and alive.

They could never go back to that.

Lewis barely noticed the tear running down his face as he finally passed out and returned to his anchor, the house fading around him.