#couldn’t even bury him??? couldn’t even throw the coffin in the ocean?????

[asterdeer]

THEY DIDNT FUCKING BURN THE DAMN BODY???

[lokimostly]

Polaris (Ch.1/?)

Loki x Reader, Pirate!AU Word Count: 2,768 Warnings: none Summary: Your life has always been set in stone. Born to a wealthy merchant family in the Caribbean, you’ve spent your years as an heiress in the daytime, escaping at night to wander the streets of St. Thomas. Now, on the eve before your life settles into mundanity for good, you discover someone who could change everything-- if you choose to trust him, that is.

A/N: The bitch is back! (Me. I’m the bitch). I’m super excited for this, and I hope you are, too! It was promised a long time ago and it’s finally here. Let me know what you think~~ 

Chapter Two ~ Chapter Three  ~ Chapter Four ~  Chapter Five ~ Chapter Six ~ Chapter Seven ~ Chapter Eight ~ Chapter Nine ~ Chapter Ten ~ Chapter Eleven ~ Chapter Twelve ~ Chapter Thirteen ~ Chapter Fourteen

Night fell like a curtain of embroidered silver stars over the port of St. Thomas. The moon rose in a honey-colored crescent over the black blanket of the sea, where the last ships of the day were tied to the docks: all of it visible from your window, the double panels open and welcoming the warm summer breeze. Mid-July was beautiful in the Caribbean.

This would be your last July here. 

You fastened your cloak and set one final look to your bedroom door – locked, of course – before leaning over your nightstand to blow out the lone candle that flickered warmly. You shouldn’t have been awake at this hour; you had a pressing day tomorrow, a day which had already caused several quarrels with your father. 

You also shouldn’t have been climbing out your window.

The dark material of your cloak weighed heavy on your shoulders as you bunched up your dress and swung one leg bravely over the windowsill, bracing yourself against the suddenly-stronger wind that teased and pulled at your hair, enticing strands around your face to come loose. You pulled your other leg over and shifted carefully, searching with one foot for the foothold you knew to be there.

A-ha. You planted your foot onto the brick, pushing out carefully – a fall from this height would be deadly – and stood with practiced balance. You exhaled softly, calming your nerves as the wind blew against your back and rippled through your dress. A gecko skittered across the wall and disappeared over the crest of the roof. You watched it go before pushing the panels of your window shut, leaving them unlatched for you upon your return, and began your descent. 

You kept your hands on the windowsill and found the next brick. This convenient path of rugged stone was your tiny stairway to the world at night, to the city below, to freedom. Even though you’d done this so many times before, the taste of anticipation at the adventure to come made your heart flutter happily inside your ribs. 

Your feet hit the cobblestone without a sound and you breathed a happy, exhilarated exhale, pulling up your hood. You cast one last glance at your window before turning and heading down the alleyway, towards the twinkling light of the oceanside town.

The night was yours. 

Despite the sweltering warmth of the night, you pulled the fabric of your cloak a little tighter when you slipped by the front of your father’s estate. Even at this hour there were servants around, standing post at the iron-wrought gates or mingling outside the door to the kitchens. All it took was one pair of eyes, and your little expedition would be ruined.

Not that it mattered, really. You doubted that you’d ever get the chance to do this again.

You would never claim to hate your life. There were just certain aspects of it– the formalities, the frivolities, the bone-crushing corsets – that you could happily do without. But being the only child of a moderately wealthy shipping merchant meant that you were born into these things, and expected to die in them. 

You relaxed as your feet carried you further downhill and out of sight from your estate. The streets turned narrower and more crowded despite how late the hour was. Soon, you were making your way through crowds of people: sailors, harlots, vagrants, fishermen, maybe even pirates… not that you would know one if you saw one. Everyone thrived under moonlight.

You would never get the chance to live like these people, so the most you could do was get close. Close enough to taste the salt of the sea, to imagine the feeling of coarse rope between your hands. There was so much you would never experience that you so desperately wanted to: what it felt like to get drunk on cheap tavern liquor, how to handle a ship in a storm, the taste of someone’s lips against yours… 

Well, not the kissing part. Out of everything life had to offer, romance was furthest from your desires. Partly because you’d never been interested in anyone – which was far from a problem in your opinion – but also because it would be forced on you so very soon. The marriage that had been arranged for you since before your birth was coming to a head: you were meeting your fianceé tomorrow. The thought of it made your stomach turn in upset. 

The way you saw it, marriage was the final nail in the coffin of an adventurous life, and you were about to be buried alive.

Once you were in the thrall of the seaside crowds close to the docks, you removed your dark hood and pulled out your braided hair. You inhaled the sweet, salty stench of the ocean, mixed with putrid perfume and the alcohol-ridden breath of the people who passed you by. The ships rocked gently, their wooden bodies creaking like aching joints. Lamplight and candlelight made the port feel like a living being with glowing eyes, blinking away the dark.

It was wonderful. But what to do?

You had every intention of staying out till dawn. Whether or not this was destined to be a remarkable night, you were determined to make it so. It was your last hurrah of freedom – consequences be damned.

The corner pub was positively throbbing with noise, like a pulse point of energy. Somewhere in the clamor you could hear someone playing a four-string fiddle. The sweet sound was mixed with raucous laughter and the occasional breaking of glass. 

A perfect start to your evening.

You slipped in past the crowds outside and immediately found yourself immersed. Tankards clanked together, barmaids wove in between tables, and in the darker corners of the room men played cards and laid wagers amidst cigar smoke and sordid expressions. Everyone here felt open: there was no hiding behind etiquette or polished niceties. There was no stiffness or reservation like you were used to in the daytime. 

Despite the hoots and wholly inappropriate catcalls of the soldiers, you slipped in entirely unnoticed. Free to observe without interruption. You briefly considered buying a drink, but discarded the idea almost immediately. You didn’t care for the taste. Cards, maybe? A quick glance at the tables told you no – there were no women playing, and you wouldn’t dare venturing to a table of burly men on your own. Your nighttime excursions had earned you a few friends through the years, but you couldn’t find any of them in the bar tonight. It was probably better that way – you wanted this night to yourself. 

You found a banister to lean against, wondering what to do, when a laugh caught your attention. It wasn’t the rough and weather-worn roar of a sailor, or the tittering giggle of a barmaid. This laugh was clear as a bell, deep and light at the same time, drawing your attention almost by force.

The source of the sound was sitting at a round table, mid laugh with a tankard in hand. He was unlike any sailor you’d ever seen: fair skin and slick black hair that tumbled down in gentle waves against his shoulders. A jawline you could cut your finger on. The white, bishop-sleeve shirt he wore opened in a wide V that travelled almost halfway down his chest, revealing a scandalous amount of toned muscle. His smile was wide and brilliant and wolfish.

Your heart did a somersault in your ribcage. He was devilishly handsome, there was no denying it. The stark contrast between him and everyone else in this grimy seaside pub was staggering.  But there was something about him that frightened you- something lurking beneath the depths. You couldn’t put your finger on it.

You decided not to stay and find out. You turned towards the door, and immediately collided with someone. The glass bottle in their hand hit the floor and shattered. For a split second, the tavern was entirely silent. Even the fiddler in the corner had paused mid-tune.

Then the sound resumed. The fiddler continued his jig; laughter howled and chairs scraped across the wooden floor. Your heart was in your throat as the sailor you’d just slammed into – and also cost a full bottle of rum – turned around with an ill-fated look in his eye.

Oh, god, he was enormous.

“Hello,” you began nervously. Why did your voice have to tremble so much? “I’m terribly sorry–”

“What do we have ‘ere?” He growled, snatching your wrist and squeezing it painfully tight so you couldn’t run. His eyes raked over your figure, surveying you like a choice cut of meat. His breath reeked of alcohol. You grimaced and tried to pull away, but his bear-like hand only tightened its grip. “No, I don’t think so,” he drawled, obviously more than a little drunk. “You got a debt to pay.” 

Your eyes widened and you shook your head - you’d left your coin purse at home. “I’m sorry, I— I don’t have any money,” you pleaded, trying once more to get away from him. It was a futile attempt. The sailor yanked on your arm and you yelped as he pulled you forcefully against his chest. You resisted the urge to throw up – his shirt smelled even worse than his breath.

“Please,” you begged, cowering in spite of yourself as he towered over you. To think you had felt so brave only minutes ago. 

The sailor gave you a nasty smile full of rotting teeth. “I weren’t talkin’ about money.” 

Before you could think of a response (how were you going to get yourself out of this?) you felt the ghost of a hand on your back and a clear, polite voice that spoke through the noise of the tavern. 

“That won’t be possible, I’m afraid.” 

The sailor’s sluggish eyes drifted upward and his grip on your wrist loosened as he realized who was speaking: the dark-haired stranger, whose sea-green eyes were staring at the sailor with a fury so cold it made you shiver. This glare was elegantly countered by a charming smile.

“I’d be more than happy to mitigate the debt,” he continued politely, sounding very much like he intended to do no such thing, and would seriously hurt the man if he accepted. The sailor, despite being as drunk as he was, picked up on this subtlety, and dropped your wrist entirely. He muttered something indiscernible – with a few inelegant profanities directed your way– and went back to the bar. 

You rubbed your wrist like it had been shackled, letting out a shaky sigh of relief. You hadn’t realized how fast your heart was beating. Now you had a chance to compose yourself, maybe find some of that courage you had been wanting for. 

The dark-haired man leaned down and whispered into your ear, “if you’ll allow me to escort you outside, milady.” His warm breath on your neck made you shiver.

So much for composing yourself.

You managed a nod and made your way out of the bar with him close behind. You wove through the crowds easily, but people seemed to part for him instead, making way like he was some kind of prince.

Or maybe a pirate.

The thought occurred to you as soon as he stepped out onto the cobblestone street and beckoned for you to follow him, heading a little ways from the lights and crowds of the bar. He walked with a certain gait that you could only describe as cat-like: keeping his shoulders squared, but with a sort of elegance that made him seem quick on his feet. Like he always knew where he was going. 

And against your better judgement, you followed.

“Thank you,” you began, still holding onto your wrist. He slowed, and turned around, gazing at you with eyes that seemed to glow in the dark. You shivered. 

“Tell me,” He said, raising a dark eyebrow and setting his hands on his hips as he stepped towards you, “What’s a girl like yourself doing in there? Shouldn’t you be at a gala somewhere?” He sounded like he was teasing you, but the smirk on his lips threw you off. 

You bristled, feeling your pride swell up a bit. “You don’t know what kind of person I am.”

He chuckled. “I’m afraid your dress speaks for itself,” He pointed out, nodding to your fancier-than-usual clothes. Your face flushed and you pulled your cloak around you. He was right. Despite your attempts to dress down, you had never owned anything that wasn’t embroidered with lace. The fact that he saw right through your disguise in less than a minute was more than a little embarrassing. 

The handsome stranger eyed you curiously, watching as the gears in your mind turned over. He held out his hand to you– elegant fingers outstretched in silent offering. You looked down at his hand. Despite its initial beauty, you could see now that his fingers were calloused, and a few white needle-thin scars lined the palms of his hand. Curious.

“Allow me to walk you home,” he said. His words were phrased so sweetly, they were practically dripping with honey. 

You forced yourself to remember why you were out here. What awaited you tomorrow, and for the rest of your life.

You couldn’t let your last night go to waste.

You shook your head, taking a step back. “I’m sorry, I can’t.” Why did you feel like you owed him an apology? You had nothing to be sorry for. Yet something about those sea-green eyes had you entirely at his mercy.

His eyes narrowed and he retracted his hand. “Why not?” 

“It’s just… this is my last night.” His brow furrowed, but you continued on. “I don’t get another chance to do this, and quite frankly I’m not looking forward to the rest of my life.” You swallowed, staring at him and setting your shoulders. “I’m sorry,” you repeated. “I can’t.” 

The handsome stranger merely stared at you. There were micro-expressions that crossed his face while he mulled over your words: a twitch of his eyebrow, a slight narrowing of his eyebrows. It should not have been so fascinating to watch a man think. Then again, he had destroyed a lot of your so-called certainties tonight: most particularly, the idea that you would ever want to kiss someone.

But god above if you didn’t want to press your lips against his. You were so distracted by them that you hardly heard him when he began speaking.

“Let me help you, then.”

You blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“Let me help make your last night worthwhile.” 

Your eyes narrowed with suspicion and you crossed your arms, trying to figure out why on earth he would offer to help you. “Why?”

He shrugged and smiled, holding his arms out. “If you’re so intent on getting into trouble, you might as well have a friend.” 

“We’re not friends,” you muttered, though the idea was sounding more appealing the more he talked about it. No, snap out of it! He’s playing you like a fiddle, your conscience pleaded.

Unfortunately, you were no longer listening to your conscience. His hand was extended to you once more, and he gave you a look that said ‘go on. Be brave for once.’ 

You were never one to shirk from a challenge.

“Don’t you trust me?” He asked. 

There was that teasing tone again. You held back a snort. “Absolutely not.” 

He grinned. “Smart girl.”

~

Hours later, when the sky was beginning to dim, you climbed the uneven brick wall with tired muscles and lifted yourself onto your windowsill, taking a moment to stare at the city. Even at near-dawn, the lights were still twinkling. The moving specks along the docks that you knew to be sailors were beginning to load the ships with crates and barrels. You breathed in the smell of ocean air, closed your eyes, and savored it for a moment before opening your window carefully, sliding off the sill and landing on the wooden floor. You latched the window behind you.

Your room was undisturbed. You took off your cloak and folded it quickly, shoving it into your dresser. Your dress came off just as fast, despite how tired you were; it fell from your shoulders and pooled on the floor around your feet. With a contented sigh, you fell into your bed, where sleep took you the minute your head hit the pillow. 

And as the sun rose, you dreamed. 

Next Chapter  _____

A/N: Thanks for reading! The tag list is wide open. Tell me what you think! <3

Tag List: @neontiiger, @un-consider-it, @jessiejunebug, @nerdypisces160, @lokiisntdeadbitch, @e-wolf-90, @cursedmoonstone-blog, @kikaninchen-2, @bluebellhairpin, @evy-lyn, @midnight-queen-1, @travelingmypassion, @harrybpoetry, @adefectivedetective, @absolutecraziness13, @kumikokagato, @randomfangirl7, @timetraveler1978, @tarynkauai, @arcanethamin, @ornate-ribcage, @julianettedoe, @kinghiddlestonanddixon, @yespolkadotkitty, @befearlesslyauthenticc, @ladybugsfanfics

[spotsuns]

lone wolf poem

you’re at a standstill, fully surrounded, and it’s one tick away from blowing up into an all-out shoot-em-out.

it feels too real, hits too close, to you—who has spent more days feeling like an animal as of late than a boy.

it’s not a self-made choice, not anymore, not when this is how the world sees you. you wish you had the luxury of being a little boy again.

you’re ten years old and there’s an army of guns pointed at you. you’re ten years old, and you’re so young, so small, that even when you know you hold all the power, you still look to him and ask what you’re supposed to do.

his hands shake, and you can see it in his eyes, he’s all spent out. he wears resignation like a funeral shroud, and that’s how you’ll remember him if it goes like this. you don’t want it to go like this. you can’t let it go like this.

he panics and throws the keys out the window, throws up his hands, and all you can think is, they’re about to have him.

he’s about to be apart from me.

he’s about to be apart from himself.

no room for wolves in jail.

‘it’s not who we are’, he says. you don’t understand. if this isn’t who you are, then what does that make of all that you’ve already done? where does it go now? you know this will keep you up at night if it ends like this. you don’t want it to end like this.

‘now it’s my turn to take care of us.’ you say.

‘everything will be alright, i promise.’ you say.

you lock the doors and you hit the gas, and all you can see is all the people ahead that you’re offering as sacrifice for this. they left you no choice, you have to believe this.

you have to believe this when you flip the cars; when you throw them into the sky and don’t look to see where they fall; when you don’t look back to see their mangled bodies twisted up into something of your own making. you have to.

the bullets tap against the car like raindrops on the tin roof, just like that cabin in oregon you once called home. home. almost there—almost there.

you blow through all the people and all the barricades and their cars and their weapons and everything they have that exists solely to keep you from this like shoving papers on a desk.

you see the stretch of the motherland, spread out wide with open arms for you, and you smile so big you can hardly even believe it. you did. you did it for him. finally, you’ve paid it all back. you point out the window, tapping on the glass, all that separates you from everything you’ve dreamt of for months and months. ‘sean, look! it’s mexico! it’s—“

you turn in hopes that his smile exceeds yours, you hope that there’s teeth, that his only eye is shining wet with happy tears, and there’s high apples in his cheeks, and—

something’s wrong.

everything’s wrong.

there’s too much red in this picture—there’s not supposed to—this is wrong. this isn’t how it was supposed to go. his hand is on his throat. there’s red on his hands, on his chin, down his chest and soaking the collar of his hoodie.

his favorite. the one you’d curl up into on the cold nights in washington. the one you’d grip the hood to when you rode around on his shoulders, like the reins on a horse. the one he’s sewn back together again and again because even after all this time, it’s still his favorite. you wonder, for a moment, if the blood will come out. like there’s any point.

you grab onto him, his hands in yours, and you hold onto him as he breathes his last breath. and then you scream louder than you think you’ve ever screamed.

you don’t know how many hours pass after that, but he’s cold. you’re not sure what you are. you’re not sure it matters anymore.

you drive until you see a place befitting of him. somewhere where nobody can bother him anymore. somewhere worthy of him, where he can finally rest. they can take your dead body over his.

you take everything that you have left of him—all you’ll ever have. his eyepatch. his bracelet. your father’s lighter, the one that reads ‘puerto lobos’. even his last pack of cigarettes, one left inside. he was probably saving it.

you reach for the hoodie. you drop your hands. no. that’s his. he’ll need it up there. he wouldn’t be sean without it.

you’re too young to be burying your brother. you’re too young for anything you’ve had to do. we’re sorry it ended up this way. please know it’s not your fault.

your arms are too weak to pick him up, so you use your godforsaken power to lift him out of the car. he’s too heavy. he’s heavier than anything you’ve ever lifted—any tree, any car, any army. you can’t stand it. it’s not right. it’s all wrong. it wasn’t supposed to be this way.

you try and lower him down. no matter what, it doesn’t feel right. this isn’t how the story of the wolf brothers is supposed to end. how would it go, exactly?

the big brother was shot by the hunters, and died in the paws of the little wolf.

no, no, no.

the little wolf found a quiet place on the side of the road to lay his big brother down to rest, one last time.

no, no, no.

then the little wolf headed home all alone, without his big brother by his side.

it’s a bad story. you were never the one telling it, though. that was his job. he wouldn’t have ended it this way, it would have been better. he would have been in it.

you can’t stand seeing him floating there anymore, suspended flat on his back like he’s in an invisible coffin. you stand him up, where he seems to be on his feet, alive just enough to play this out.

you lift his arms and extend them towards yourself. you walk into them, and you fold them behind your back, and you grip his hoodie tight in your fists as you cling to his. you don’t look at his face. you don’t look at the blood. he doesn’t cradle your head to his chest like he usually does. he doesn’t call you enano. he doesn’t say anything.

you finally lower him down. you don’t want to look, but you do. he looks like he’s finally home. you resist the urge to crawl in there with him and just wait it out.

you pick all the wildflowers that you can find and slowly lower them down on top of him, like a shower of all your broken promises. this is as right as it’s going to get. that’s the worst part.

you think of the speech you gave when mushroom died. you think about the one you never got to give at your father’s funeral. you have no good point of reference for what to do next.

thank you for keeping me safe, sean. i’m sorry i couldn’t do the same. i tried my best. i’m sorry it wasn’t enough. i’m sorry for all of this. we were just kids. i love you. i’m sorry that it had to end this way. i really didn’t mean for it to. i’m sorry it did anyway. pet mushroom for me. tell dad i love him. i’ll never forget.

diaz brothers. always.

they’re all things you don’t say out loud. all you can get out is ‘i’m so sorry.’ before you crumple up like paper in a fist. you get back in the car. you drive home.

the first thing you do when you find where home is is kill two people. you had no choice, they aimed their guns at you for walking in the front door. you know with crushing weight in your chest that this is your life now. your brother isn’t here to baby you anymore.

the years go by like a prison sentence of your own ruling. you decided to live with this. you do bad things because you have no choice. you realize it’s the same exact thing he had to do on your behalf. you realize when you finally get the guts to read his journal that you had it easy with the superpowers. he would hate to see you living like this, and you know it.

mexico is never where you wanted to be, and you know that if you had turned back then, you would have gotten off easy. but you wanted him to have this. you wanted all of it to be worth something. so this is it, then. your life sentence.

you get a tattoo of your father on your chest, over your heart.

you get a teardrop tattoo under your right eye, for sean. his face would have been too much, you already look at it every day in the mirror.

you get a tattoo on your right arm of the grim reaper. he’s won, you’ve got nothing left. an easy enough reminder to take nothing for granted ever again, if you’re lucky enough to have it.

you get a tattoo on your left arm of an hourglass frozen in time. branches and leaves wrap around and inside of it, and a skull hovers over it. between life and death. you’re not living, you’re just waiting.

the closer you get to his age when he died, the more you look like his spitting image. sixteen. it was just a month before his birthday. he’ll never be any older, and you’ll die older than him. and it’s not right. and it’s not fair. but it’s how it is.

on your sixteenth birthday you bleach your own hair in the bathroom sink. anything to change it, to take him away. you don’t want to imagine what he would have looked like now, at almost twenty-two. would you be taller? would he look more like you, or esteban? would you be happy? would he?

over the years, you build the closest thing he’ll ever get to a memorial from anybody. you figure that they probably searched and found his body where you left it, it wasn’t too far from the border. you hope they left it. you try not to think about claire and stephen, or karen, or lyla, or any of your old friends you met on the journey.

finn. he told you just the day before that he had kissed finn in on the farm. you found his number written on a love letter in his backpack when you went through it.

‘give me a shout out when you get to mexico. always wanted to go and this might be a place i’d like to chill in. as long as you’re around. we gotta smoke a bowl. i think about you more than you might believe. finn.’

you typed the number out on a payphone several times. you never ended up calling it, though. you’re too afraid that you’ll hear ‘sweetie!?’ on the other end.

it’s hard enough living with your own mourning. you hope nobody mourns you, too. save it all for him. you’re going to become ocean foam eventually. that’s all that’s left for you here.

but until then, you have to keep going, until the story of the wolf brothers gets the ending that you like. the one you tell your children and grandchildren, where there’s happiness at the end. the one where the wolf brothers are together again with their papa wolf, just like how it started.

until then; it’s once upon a time—in a wild, wild world.

[babyflossy]

sworn enemies (9) | k.mg

pairing: werewolf!mingyu x vampire!reader

summary: when you find a werewolf nearly dead in an alley, you didn’t think helping him would change your life so much. sometimes fate works in strange ways.

genre: supernatural au, kinda angst

warnings: funerals?

word count: 1290

parts: one previous next

the only escape from the silence was the crying. the heart wrenching, painful sobbing of the deceased's family-members. they sat in the front row, shoulders hunched, cries echoing off the wall and overpowering the soft piano music playing. funerals were always depressing, no matter what year it was. no matter how many you had been to, they always seemed to drain the life of the living attending them.

sitting at the back of the church, sunglasses concealing your eyes, you watched the other guests. you only knew a few of them, mainly the elderly woman at the front, statue still, looking at nothing except the coffin without really seeing it. a group of men you also knew sat a few rows behind the woman, arms wrapped around each other, crying together.

if you could still cry, you were sure you would be. you were sure oceans of tears would be falling from your cold eyes. but you couldn't, not anymore. it had been too long, you had lived too many lives since he was beside you, young and unscarred. the people there seemed like a distant memory, like a blip in your history, the photos of them hidden in your photo albums, yellow and dull.

mingyu sat beside you with sunglasses also blocking his eyes from others. you were glad he was beside you, your fingers laced together, the small act comforting you more than you could express. you hadn't offered an explanation to who the man was and he didn't press for one.

the coffin was carried to the graveyard by a group of young men, whom you assumed were descendants of him. you remained at the back of the guests, hiding from the few who would recognise you. it was unnecessary as they knew what you were, but you didn't want to remind them. nevertheless, as people threw handfuls of soil onto the glossy wood of the coffin, some throwing flowers, or even letters in, you knew the woman had seen you. you felt compelled to place something of your own on top of the coffin, something you should have returned a long time ago. it fell soundlessly onto the soil.

the ring had been bought in paris, nearly a century ago. the shine from the band hadn't dimmed since it had first been presented to you, the diamond had glittered brighter than sunset. it had embodied happiness when you were younger. it had been the thing to remind you that love existed, and you were worthy of it. you saw it reflect the early morning sun as it sat, the last memory of your past life, being covered by dirt. if the group of men hadn't seen you before, they would be sure it was you now. the ring hadn't been seen since the sixties. you had kept it selfishly, hanging onto the last reminder of him.

the gravestone was put up a few days later, the cold grey granite already surrounded by bright flowers. you were alone as you stood in front of it, your white roses carefully scattered in front of the engraved stone. the wind was harsh, blowing the pinwheel on top of the grave noisily. it didn't distract you from the sounds of footsteps behind you, however, and you kept your eyes traced on the name as she walked up beside you.

"i didn't think you would have come," she stared at you as she spoke, but you were too afraid to meet her gaze. you didn't know if she would be angry at you, or disappointed. to your surprise, you felt her hand slide into yours. you felt the wrinkles and the veins from under the pads of your fingers before you finally turned your head towards her.

"i wouldn't have missed it for the world."

"i figured you kept the ring," she didn't sound angry, instead her voice was quiet, as if she afraid to disturb the inhabitants of the graveyard. the ring had been the only thing that tied him to you, that stopped her from being the only one in his life. it felt stupid now, mingyu was the only one you were ever meant to be with, so why did you miss him so much?

"are you angry at me?" you met her tone, quiet, but you knew she heard you by the way her eyes softened.

"i could never be angry at you, y/n. you can't just erase the past. you met him before me, and you were so important to him as well," you watched as her eyes darted around your face, taking in the same sight she had so many years ago. "he missed you, you know? he always wished you would come and visit us. all of us did."

tears floated down her face before you reached up to wipe them, "i missed you all so much. but i couldn't see you again. seeing you all with families, married and happy would have broken me."

"i know. and i don't blame you, so you shouldn't blame yourself."

she wrapped an arm around your shoulder as you both stared at the writing before you. wistfully, you wondered what would have happened if you had never died, how your life would have gone. maybe you and him would have stayed in paris, or moved to america like he had always wanted. you might have had children together, maybe even grandchildren. it was funny how everything you imagined your life would have been like with him was so unbelievably different to what you imagined your life would be with mingyu now.

wickedly, you were grateful about what had happened. it made you sick, but you wouldn't change a thing about what happened to you, because it meant you found mingyu. and you would do anything for mingyu, you always have, and you always would. there was nothing more important to you than him, even as you stared at the gravestone of your past love, your past world, you were glad he was dead, because it meant that chapter of your life was officially closed.

you left her there, in front of the grave of the man she loved. the man that she would do anything for, but it was never fully returned by him. you had always known that you were to him what mingyu is to you now. his everything. and, deep down, buried under her love for him, she knew that too.

as you walked away from the graveyard, your thoughts drifted to what it would be like in sixty years. if you would be standing in front of mingyu's grave, heaving dry sobs, clawing the dirt with your hands, unable to deal with the pain but with nothing to stop it. the thought clung to your brain as you walked home, clouding your vision. maybe you would run to hunters, plead for them to kill you, to end your torment.

you couldn't think of a life without mingyu. you had lived one before, but you were sure you wouldn't be able to live in a world after him, watching as his friends died, leaving no trace of the pack, of the life you have now. perhaps you would be able to move on, start a new life somewhere completely different. you would kill for the fun of it, having lost your sense of right and wrong after the world took the last good thing from it.

images of death and agony fogged your brain as you opened the door to your apartment. you felt his arms wrap around you and breathed in his scent. and you realised, for now, it was okay. he was in your arms and you wouldn't let him go for anything.

a/n: i learnt how to put the gifs on :) also, a bit more history in this chapter, and more storyline soon dw... also, thank you guys so much for the love of this series, i never thought people would acc want to read it so seeing the ask messages of people talking about it makes me soooo happy x

[drsilverfish]

Dean’s Jungian Shadow Arc in S14 - Confronting the Internal Father (2x22 to 14x20)

“This meeting with oneself is, at first, the meeting with one’s own shadow. The shadow is a tight passage, a narrow door, whose painful constriction no one is spared who goes down to the deep well. But one must learn to know oneself in order to know who one is” 

(Jung, The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious 1991: p21) 

Jung believed that the psyche was composed, in part, of a relation to “archetypes” (shared human psychic formations). One of these is the archetype of the father.

He distinguishes between the actual father (i.e. your Dad) and the “imago” of the father (a term he borrowed from Freud). That means, the psychological internalised construct of the father, which partly resides in the unconscious, and which is not identical to your real Dad, because it’s about your childish and foundational perception of them, but, also, for Jung (not Freud) it is linked to the archetypal (or mythic) father. The father archetype (for Jung, who has a gendered perception of the world rooted in his time-period) is about power and control. And when someone subconsciously over-identifies with the father-archetype, this results in out-of-control power fantasies:

"The danger is just this unconscious identity with the archetype, the more a father identifies with the archetype, the more unconscious and irresponsible, indeed psychotic ... he ... will be"

 (Jung, 1906-1916 writings collected as Freud and Psychoanalysis: 1961:p316).

So, subconsciously over-identifying with the father-imago has negative consequences for a person, and those around them. 

Let’s talk Dean, The Shadow and Dean’s Daddy Issues.

Remember this? (Gods but the colour palette was gorgeous back then).

This is Dean shooting Azazel, the yellow-eyed demon who killed his mother, Mary Winchester, with the Colt in 2x22 All Hell Breaks Loose Part II.

He does it with his father, John Winchester’s spirit’s help (released from Hell):

But, when I say help, remember that, symbolically, John has also been mirrored to Azazel, by means of Azazel’s possession of John (1x22 Devil’s Trap):

Hooboy -  Daddy issues right out of the gate. That’s not news to any of us. The whole show is about “wayward sons”, after all.  

Fast foward twelve years, and this is Dean (in the role of The FatherTM) almost shooting Jack, his own adopted Nephilim son (who also represents his child-self) with the Hammurabi, the mystical gun Mark II, which Chuck forged and named after an ancient Babylonian law which codifies “an eye for an eye” (i.e. a “Revenge Gun”TM):

Jack the Nephilim, whose eyes glow yellow when he is in his power, and who has (apparently) killed Mary Winchester (again):

(Jack in 13x14 Good Intentions)

Notice that both scenarios - Dean, mystical gun, yellow-eyed supernatural being who killed his mother - take place in a graveyard. 

Mary is dead twice (at least as far as Dean is concerned) and her death haunts the scenes.

Chuck has deliberately set up the second scenario to mirror the first (he is, in my view, testing Dean, the way he tested Abraham).

At this moment, in Moriah, we could say Dean is possessed by his Shadow, in the form of the father archetype, the Ghost of John Winchester, in his subconsious. He is ready to act out John Winchester’s revenge quest redux, and in doing so, to do violence all over again to his child-self, in the form of Jack, who symbolises child-Dean in this moment. 

A repetition of the damage done to Dean himself as a child; who was forced, by the tragedy of Mary’s death, and his own father’s traumatic revenge-quest, to grow up too fast, is playing out before our eyes.

Jack-the-mirror, who lost his own mother at birth, and looks twenty-something but is only two, kneels, a willing sacrifice, in the role of child-Dean, before his father, adult-Dean, who is shadow-possessed by John’s Ghost, ready to be murdered, just as John “murdered” Dean’s childhood. 

“The psychological rule says that when an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside as fate. That is to say, when the individual remains undivided and does not become conscious of his inner opposite, the world must perforce act out the conflict and be torn into opposing halves.” 

(Carl Jung, Collected Works “Christ: A Symbol of the Self”).

Jung suggests we are subject to “fate” (i.e. our own unconscious forces taking control of our actions) when we do not confront our Shadow. 

Ties in beautifully to Supernatural’s larger theme of fate vs free will, right?

Now, back then, when Dean shot yellow-eyed demon No 1, Azazel, Dean was (as his subconscious taunted him at the time) “Daddy’s blunt little instrument” (3x10 Dream a Little Dream of Me)....

Back then, Dean obeyed his father and called him “Sir”,  “...following Dad’s orders like a good little soldier” (Sam in 1x10 Asylum). Sammy was the rebellious one.

When Dean stood up to his Dad, it wasn’t for himself, it was to protect Sam:

(1x20 Dead Man’s Blood). 

Dean’s obedience was linked to his angel-engineered role as the Michael vessel (God’s obedient son) whilst Sam’s rebelliousness was linked to his equally engineered role as the Lucifer vessel (God’s rebellious son).

They ripped up that script and wrote their own ending in 5x22 Swan Song, but, while Sam said “Yes” to Lucifer (his Shadow-self) and beat the Devil, Dean said “No” to Michael.

S14 is the season in which Dean, having said “Yes” to AU!Michael in order to beat Lucfier (again) in 13x23 Let the Good Times Roll, undertakes his own Shadow-work. 

Dabb’s Ouroboros narrative is in full swing.  

Back then, John’s revenge quest, to get the yellow-eyed demon who killed Mary Winchester, became Dean’s mission too. He internalised it (even before he knew about Azazel). Sam wanted to get out of hunting, Dean was driven to follow in his father’s footsteps (whatever his real feelings and desires were, he buried them to follow the “family business”). 

Here is Young!Dean in Bad Boys (9x07) looking out of the window at Young!Sam in the Impala, about to give up his happiness at Sonny’s and his young love with Robin in order to put his Dad’s way of life (hunting/ revenge), and his brother (who needs him) first:

One way a child deals with a parent who is hurting them is to want to become them, to idolise them and to believe that they’re right (Dad’s car, Dad’s music, Dad’s machismo, Dad’s heterosexuality, Dad’s way of drinking and squashing down emotion). 

DEAN: “We have the coolest Dad in the world.  He’s a superhero.” (3x08 A Very Supernatural Christmas). 

Jung would say Dean internalised a strong identification (partly conscious, partly unconscious) with the father imago. 

Dean’s been on a long, long journey to get out from under his father’s shadow. We’ve seen that struggle over many seasons.

AU!Michael in Dean’s head in S14 represented the repressive ghost of John Winchester embodied as a destructive archangel in Dean’s mind, i.e. serious crunch time for Dean’s psyche - things coming to a real crisis point for him, psychologically. 

Dark!Kaia makes the parallel in 14x03 The Scar (just hear “John Winchester” for “him”):

KAIA: “You’re no different from him. Threats, violence anything to get what you want.” DEAN: “I am nothing like him.” KAIA: “Yeah you are: you always have been!”

You can read some of my previous meta on Dean’s struggle with AU!Michael as his repression/ the Ghost of John Winchester here (which also emphasises that one aspect of John’s repression of Dean is, in subtext, the repression of Dean’s queerness):

Queer Gods and Monsters (14x02)

https://drsilverfish.tumblr.com/post/179226151009/queer-gods-and-monsters-14x02

14x03 The Scar - Dean Confronts Dark!Kaia (Dopplegangers, Mirrors and John Winchester’s Ghost)

http://drsilverfish.tumblr.com/post/179463975289/shirtlesssammy-14x03the-scar-meta-writers

AU!Michael and the Closet (14x10 Nihilism)

https://drsilverfish.tumblr.com/post/182120562849/aumichael-and-the-closet

Jung and Dean’s Journey Towards Self-Integration in 14x11 Damaged Goods

http://drsilverfish.tumblr.com/post/182299438269/jung-and-deans-journey-towards-self-integration

In 14x02 we get this shot of Dean facing his mirror-self, AU!Michael, and Michael tells him, “I own you!”

In 14x10, Dean, desperate to contain AU!Michael, manages (with Sam and Cas’ help) to lock him in a fridge-locker in his own mind:

 And he says, “I am the cage!”

Dean then builds a Ma’lak box and intends to lock himself in it and throw himself (and AU!Michael with him) to the bottom of the ocean. Yikes. At the start of 14x12 Prophet and Loss, he dreams that he is alone, and terrified, in that very box:

Sam says to him about this plan (14x12 Prophet and Loss):  “But what you’re talking about is far worse than death. Michael’s an archangel. He could literally keep you buried in a coffin, alive, forever.”

Remember Dean also described his possession by AU!Michael as like “drowning” over and over (14x03 The Scar): 

DEAN: “I don’t remember most of what Michael did with me because I was under water. Drowning. And that I remember. I felt every second of it - clawing, fighting for air. I thought I could make it out but I couldn’t: I wasn’t strong enough.”

Now hear what is happening, psychologically... 

Dean’s subconscious, his Shadow-self (aka AU!Michael representing the Ghost of John Winchester) i.e. Dean’s own self-repression and over-control, both inherited from John’s impact on him, is saying to Dean “I own you” and “I am the cage”, you will be buried in a coffin, alive, with me forever. You are under water and you can’t make it out.    

That’s pretty scary right? Dean is trapped by himself (by the traumatic internalised impact of his past and his consequent over-identification with his father).

If this were IRL, we’d have given Dean the name of a good therapist, a long time ago. But it’s Supernatural, so instead Dean gets to confront the ghost of his father, John Winchester, in the flesh, in 14x13 Lebanon. He wishes on the magic pearl to get “Michael out of my friggin’ head” and lo and behold John Winchester magically appears before him (cemeting the symbolism of AU!Michael in Dean’s head representing/ mirroring John Winchester). 

Dean gets to hear his Dad say, “You are a grown man and I am incredibly proud of you.” Dean gets to say to Sam, that he wouldn’t change anything: “I’m good with who I am. I’m good with who you are. ‘Cause our lives – they’re ours.”

He gets to tell his father he “has a family”, not a conventional one - “an angel and Lucifer’s kid”, but it’s good: 

 An Angel, and Lucifer’s Kid? Queer-Coding and Dean’s “Found Family” in 14x13 Lebanon

http://drsilverfish.tumblr.com/post/182794294534/an-angel-and-lucifers-kid-queer-coding-and

And he gets to choose to let his Dad go, with love. What beautiful psychological progress, huh? AU!Michael is out of his head and so is the controlling Ghost of his Father, replaced by a loving one!

But, it’s not that simple. When the pearl is destroyed, time is reset and AU!Michael is still installed in Dean’s noggin. It’s only when Dean and Cas have been whammied by the Queer Gorgon, that AU!Michael (Dean’s repression, remember) finally gets out of his mind (14x14 Ouroboros): 

The Kiss of the Queer Gorgon in 14x14 Ouroboros

http://drsilverfish.tumblr.com/post/183323000224/the-kiss-of-the-queer-gorgon-in-14x14-ouroboros

Jack (Dean’s child-self mirror) kills AU!Michael (John’s repressive ghost mirror) but, the burden is great and the cost is (at least part of) his soul. 

Moreover, when Mary is subsequently “killed” by Jack (you all know by now I have a theory she’s been fake re-fridged, and she’s actually been blasted into an AU, and we’ll see her again), Dean regresses. He goes back into uber-controlling mode, over-responsible mode, as a way of dealing with the fact his world has fallen apart again. Psychically (as many of you clever people have already pointed out) he’s been taken back to the trauma his 4 year old self experienced when Mary died the first time. 

So, Dean puts on his control-mask, the one he learned from his Dad, and (just like John did) he focusses on dealing with the yellow-eyed “monster” who killed Mary, to contain the pain. He refuses to listen to Sam or Cas. He tells them to get on board with his (suicidal again) plan or get lost. HE is the one who instigates locking Jack (remember, also a representation of his child-self) in the Ma’lak box:

And he is the one who won’t listen to his loved ones,  but jumps all over and obeys without question, the Word of God (the Law of the Father) that the only way is to shoot Jack with the new mystical gun (Colt Mark II) when Chuck shows up with it. 

 Displaced-in-time John said, in 14x13 Lebanon (having been filled in by his sons):

JOHN: “I-I went out takin’ out Yellow Eyes. I mean, that was the point, right? I mean, get the thing that killed mom.”      

Chuck offers Dean the same choice (and, again, I think it’s a test).

Remember, as well as being the Revenge GunTM, the Hammurabi is also know as “The Equaliser”, so whatever happens to the person who is shot, also happens to the shooter. A perfect, perfect metaphor for the way in which John’s revenge quest rebounded on his sons (compounding the emotional trauma of losing their Mom). 

If Dean’ follows in his father’s footsteps and shoots the yellow-eyed “demon” who killed Mary, his own adopted son Jack (who, did I mention, represents his child-self) he will die - literally, according to the “law” of Chuck’s mystical gun, but also symbolically.

Because symbolically, that choice represents the fact that Dean has been crushing the life out of himself, for a long time, thanks to the internalised Ghost of John Winchester in his head (demanding that he be a substitute-parent to Sammy, that he stay “on mission”, that he perform a certain kind of masculinity, that he is responsible for everything and everyone, that he constantly fails [because he is trying to live up to an impossible standard]).

And at the last, Dean passes the test. He says, “No,” to the ultimate Father FigureTM (God) who is shouting at him to pick up the gun and pull the trigger.

He says “No” even when Chuck promises to bring Mary back from the “dead”. 

He does not repeat the cycle of his father’s revenge quest. He lowers the weapon of RevengeTM and of Re-bounding Suffering/ DeathTM.

He (finally) has compassion for Jack and thus (hopefully, hopefully) for his own child-self mirror. 

On symbolic Mount Moriah, Dean confronts his Shadow-self, the part of him that is “just like” his father, the part that keeps controlling or pushing away his key relationships (with Sam and Cas and now Jack) the part that finds safety in orders, and in a black-and-white view of the world where monsters are monsters, and in which revenge is the answer.

Confronting the Shadow, as I wrote before 14x20 aired, can release us from “scapegoating”:

The Scapegoat: Speculative Musings on S14′s End (Moriah) (Linked to the Season’s Jungian Themes - Scapegoating and the Unacknowledged Shadow)  

https://drsilverfish.tumblr.com/post/184068368304/the-scapegoat-speculative-musings-on-s14s-end

So, Dean says, “No” to God, the ultimate father-figure, and in doing so he is released from his Shadow-possession by the father-imago in his unconscious

DEAN: “No, my Mom was my hero, and I miss her, and I will miss her every second of my life, but she would not want this.” 

As a counter-point, he embraces the feminine (his internal anima, according to Jung). He evolves.

And so, the mirror is broken through between the self and the Shadow-self, the ego and the id. AU!Michael/  the Ghost of John Winchester/ the Voice of God are out of Dean Winchester’s head. They can no longer control him: he has faced them all. 

Now,  Dean has to learn to be himself, a whole new final chapter in the journey.

“The shadow, when it is realized, is the source of renewal ...  no progress or growth is possible until the shadow is adequately confronted and confronting means more than merely knowing about it. It is not until we have truly been shocked into seeing ourselves as we really are, instead of as we wish or hopefully assume we are, that we can take the first step toward individual reality” (Connie Zweig, Meeting the Shadow, 1990).

And, if you’ve been following the thread in the links to my other meta on Dean’s Shadow here, on how John’s repression in Dean’s mind was depicted (in subtext in S14) as, in part, Dean’s repression of his queerness (the Ma’lak box and the fridge-locker in Rocky’s mind-bar being symbols of the closet) then this culminating confrontation with the repressive image of The FatherTM in the form of God himself, as symbolic of Dean’s own controlling, self-repressing, self-closeting, Shadow-self, does seem to clear the way for... interesting developments (dramatic irony claxon - Dean still doesn’t know God is, in fact, himself bisexual). 

However, as always, I caution that the overtly homoerotic denoument is more than likely to remain closeted at the last, in favour of the “familial”. 

[brooklynislandgirl]

Fictober/Day 1 Prompt: “Can you feel this?”

Sunrise By Turtle

Riggs didn’t do funerals.

There was a difference between visiting her grave and telling her about the things that came and went like they had done before, and everything else. He especially hated the fake sympathy afterwards when it was all supportive pats to the shoulders and the same enchiladas that they made for everything, and people you didn’t even know telling you it would be okay. It never would be; when the thing that gave your life meaning was gone and there was nothing you could do to get it back and all it did was leave a gaping hole in your chest begging you to fill it.

He hadn’t gone. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t recognise the aftermath. Three months. No face. No calls. No texts. As if she’d been shut up inside the same coffin and they’d been buried the same way they’d lived their lives. Together. Eventually, he’d broken down and asked Gamble. Ducked the swing that almost connected with his jaw and knew that maybe now wasn’t a good time. The man had lost his partner and presumably she wasn’t talking to him either.

So what does he do? The only honest and reasonable thing he can.

~*~

When she wakes up, there’s stiffness in her bones and a sense that the world isn’t right. A hand is shoved through her hair and when she lifts her head her neck protests the angle it’s held for...she didn’t know how long. She also noticed that she was covered in an orange, brown and yellow knitted blanket that she’s never seen before and the first thing out of her mouth is something incredibly vulgar, even for her. Fortunately, none else spoke Hawai’ian and therefore the blasphemy went unnoticed. The startled flail of limbs that accompanied her words however did not. “Mornin’ Beth,” he said and his tone was so chipper, she wanted to punch him in the mouth.

“Uh...I’m gonna geev ya mebbe two seconds t’ explain dis.”

More than she’s said in months, and her throat’s dry, her voice brittle autumn leaves. As if by magic, he hands over a thermos full of coffee. For which she was grateful. His old truck wasn’t exactly the most pristine thing in the world and there were drafts shivering their way up her legs, her arms, down the back of her neck. She was still in what passed for pyjamas; cotton shorts and a tank top.

“Well, it’s like this. You’re in my truck, and we’re driving to Mexico. What really needs explaining?”

….

….

“And?” “And what?”

“Martin.” It was maybe the first time she’d said his name fully.

“No idea what you’re talking about. And look at you, you’ve finally discovered the letter T.” She lets that last snarky little comment go by. “I mean...How did I get here?” “When a mommy and a daddy-”

She reaches out, tags him in the arm with a balled up fist, knuckles out. He doesn’t even flinch. “You broke into my apartment and grabbed me out of bed, that’s called kidnapping.”

“Technically, I didn’t break in. Technically, I used the spare key you gave me. Technically I asked you and you said ‘yeah, Mar’in, please?’ all breathy like you do when you’re half awake. How could I resist, especially when you were drooling?” “Gross.”

“A little but I’ll forgive you. This time.”

She takes a swig from the thermos. It’s not coffee.

The tequila burns down her throat until she’s coughing and spluttering, high octane breath pushing out through her mouth and her nose, right before her belly goes shrieking for the hills, leaving her queasy.

It’s the first time she’s felt anything since the funeral and she isn’t sure exactly what it is.

“Whoops, wrong one. That one’s mine.” He hands her a different thermos without ever taking his eyes off the road. It’s hard to read his expression through the wetness on her lashes, the mirrored Aviators perched on his nose. Even the deep timbre of his voice leaves interpretation open.

“Oh, don’t with the face. It’s not like I’m drinking and driving. I’m going to be drinking and parking.”

“Uh-huh.”

It’s the last thing she says for the next three rest stops and two hundred and forty miles.

He manages to get coffee in her, two bites of a microwave burrito that somehow tastes like ash and dust. She’s still not sure how, and isn’t convinced that they sit well in her stomach. A feeling she holds onto when they get to where they’re going and he throws the truck into park in a lot. He loads himself for bear, with a backpack on his shoulders and coming around to her side. She lets him wrap the blanket around her, putting one arm around her knees, the other up higher around her back. She makes a noise when he scoops her up and shuts the truck door with one of his boots. Martin carries her over a little stone plinth and the gravel eventually gives way to a sandy cliff, dotted here and there with scrub pine and sea grasses. She can hear the ocean before she sees it, especially considering her arms are tight around his neck. It isn’t terribly hard for him to pry her off, for all that she’s good at holding on. Mostly because he does it like those shows that deal with troubled animals. He talks her down softly, little more than a raspy rumble in the back of his throat, more thought than word and by the time her toes stretch down, he’s got a hand just below her chest, just above the small of her back. Over the side of the cliff is ocean. Forever down and so deep blue she thinks she can see the sky, the space above sky, and all the stars faded into the foam crests. It’s beautiful really. And it reminds her of what’s lost, a home and her soul and other things that don’t make sense any more. She draws a shuddering breath and claws for his arm because it hurts to look.

“Way I see it...you’ve got two choices, Bee. Sink...or swim.” One hand falls away, the other pushes. Grabs the blanket away from her as he does.

She plummets. Heavy like a stone. Wind hurtling a thousand miles an hour around her and her lungs ache, her heart threatens to burst. It’s fractions of seconds before she stops flailing, corrects herself. Straightens her spine, arches it just so. Something-dynamic, a word she’s always had trouble saying. And there’s just so much animosity there because he knows she used to cliff-dive back in Oahu. That as a free diver she can hold her breath for a long time.

And then she sees….

He’s jumped too. ~*~

Martin Riggs doesn’t do funerals. But he knows a lot about drowning.

He knows sometimes it’s better to let go. To sink.

Either they will break the surface or get pulled deeper under.

Just not alone.

[the-master-cylinder]

SUMMARY The Warlock is taken captive in Boston, Massachusetts in 1691 by the witch-hunter Giles Redferne. He is sentenced to death for his activities, including the death of Redferne’s wife, but before the execution, Satan appears and propels the Warlock forward in time to late 20th century Los Angeles, California. Redferne follows through the portal.

When the Warlock crash lands in the flat of a waitress named Kassandra and her gay roommate, Chas, he is taken in by them. While Kassandra is out, the Warlock attacks Chas, cutting off his finger with a carving knife to acquire his ring, before biting out his tongue, leaving him to die of shock. The Warlock confronts a fake psychic, tricking her into allowing her to be possessed by Satan who tells him to reassemble The Grand Grimoire, a book scattered in three pieces across the world that will reveal the “true” name of God which when spoken backwards will unmake Creation. Satan promises to make the Warlock his second-in-command if he accomplishes this task. Ripping out the psychic’s eyes and using them as a Satanic compass, the Warlock finds the first piece of the Grand Grimoire hidden inside an antique table at Kassandra’s flat. Whilst there, he places an ageing curse upon her and takes her bracelet. Redferne arrives with a “witch compass” with which to track the Warlock. After Redferne explains some basic rules of Witches and Warlocks, such as their weakness to purified salt, Kassandra follows him in order to regain her bracelet which will break the spell and allow her to become young again. Meanwhile the Warlock acquires the power of flight by murdering an unbaptised child and boiling his fat.

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Using Redferne’s witch-compass, Redferne and Kassandra pursue the Warlock to the rural home of a Mennonite family where the Warlock has located the second piece of the Grimoire, increasing his power. After a brief battle with Redferne, the Warlock attempts to fly away but is struck down by a weathervane thrown by Redferne. Redferne, Kassandra and the Mennonite couple hold the Warlock down and attempt to bind his hands and feet with a pair of blessed manacles that will stop him from using his power but the Warlock hexes the Mennonite farmer with the Evil Eye before escaping on foot. Redferne gives Kassandra a blessed hammer with which to hammer nails into the Warlock’s footprints while he and the farmer’s wife carry the ailing farmer back to the house. While the Warlock sheds his shackles, Kassandra follows him and hammers nails into his footprints, causing the Warlock unbearable agony. He manages to escape via a train but not before Kassandra recovers her bracelet from him, restoring her youth. The farmer dies, leaving Redferne even more determined to hunt the Warlock. Kassandra does not wish to go with him but is reluctantly persuaded to when Redferne tells her that the Warlock intends to destroy the universe.

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They take a plane to follow the Warlock to Boston where the third and final piece of the Grand Grimoire is supposed to be buried on sacred earth. There they arrive at the Church where the Grimoire is held and warn the local priest that the Warlock is coming for it. The priest, whose family have protected the Grimoire for generations, reassures Redferne and Kassandra that the book is buried in sacred earth, directing them to the graveyard where it is buried. Upon arriving however, Kassandra realises that due to construction, many coffins have been moved from the graveyard to the other side, which is not consecrated ground. They find Redferne’s coffin and break it open to get the Grimoire when the Warlock arrives, having forced the priest to reveal the location of the book by threatening to give his wife a miscarriage. Redferne quickly carries the book onto hallowed ground but the Warlock grabs Kassandra and threatens to kill her if Redferne does not bring him the book. Redferne challenges the Warlock to a fair fight without weapons or magic and the Warlock agrees. He flings Kassandra into a lake and he and Redferne fight. The Warlock quickly gains the advantage and Redferne is forced to cheat by throwing soil from the sacred ground in the Warlock’s face. With the rules broken, the Warlock uses his magical abilities to subdue Redferne and claim possession of the final third of the Grimore. He assembles it and learns the true name of God.

Before the Warlock can speak the word backwards, however, Kassandra stabs him in the neck with the syringe she normally uses to inject insulin, which she has filled with salt water from the lake. The Warlock’s throat seals shut and he bursts into flames. Redferne and Kassandra bid one another an emotional farewell before Redferne returns to his own time. Kassandra takes the Grimoire and buries it in the middle of the Bonneville Salt Flats.

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DEVELOPMENT The project began in the mind of writer D. T. Twohy, “For a long time I was dabbling with the premise that the warlock would be the good guy,” said Twohy in an interview during filming at a church in the Charlestown neighborhood of Boston. “I spent, if not wasted, a good six to eight weeks trying to make the warlock somebody who was persecuted during the witch craze of the 17th century, and came forward to this time and experienced much the same persecution here for other reasons. It didn’t work that way. Only when I reversed that expectation and made the warlock a bad guy did everything begin to fall into place.”

His script was first discovered in the offices of Inter-Ocean Films, a company that specializes in the sale of movies to foreign territories. After they spent some time developing the script together, a director and another writer were brought in to work on it, but it still wasn’t filmable, according to producer Arnold Kopelson. It was at that point that New World Pictures suggested bringing in director Steve Miner. Recalled Kopelson, “They had been suggesting him right from the beginning. When we finally got together I realized this guy was right.”

Miner returned to Twohy’s earlier draft, and worked with him on fashioning the final screenplay. Such was their relationship that Twohy was accorded the rare privilege for a screenwriter of being present during production. Twohy said that it’s “reflective of the relationship I have with Steve Miner. He and I became creative brethren on this project. We saw no reason to terminate that relationship.”

One thing that meant was that Twohy began to get involved in considering financial limitations on the film. While early on he refused to let such matters “inhibit my imagination,” he found certain practical problems when he and Miner began budgeting out the special effects. The film’s total budget could not exceed $15 million. One such problem arose with one of the warlock’s powers: the ability to create ectoplasm which could then be hurled as a bolt at his helpless victim.

“We feared for a while that we’d have to trim our ectoplasm out,” said Twohy. “We rewrote it, taking it out, but in the rewrite we couldn’t really find a suitable replacement for it. So we wound up switching special effects companies to somebody who could do it more economically and so they say-better.” Dreamquest was originally scheduled to do the special optical effects, including the ectoplasm. They were replaced by Perpetual Motion. Its proprietor, Barry Nolan, became the optical effects supervisor for the film. Such things as whether the budget is too high or too low remains relative, of course. Kopelson noted that WARLOCK will be “the most expensive movie that New World Pictures has ever been involved with.”

Miner also had a large say in the casting. Kopelson had wanted Lori Singer and Julian Sands, but it was Miner who suggested that Sands play the warlock instead of the witchhunter. Kopelson agreed, recalling what Oliver Stone had done casting Willem Dafoe and Tom Berenger against type in PLATOON. Asked about Sands being cast against type, Miner laughed, “You don’t know Julian, obviously. To me, he’s always been a perfect warlock.”

For his part Sands said he “liked doing something a little different” since this is the “first malevolently sinister role” he has gotten to play. Sands also enjoyed playing with some of the humorous elements of the script, “If you can make a cocktail of BEWITCHED and THE ÉXORCIST you’ll get an idea of what the warlock is capable of.”

Miner insisted that both the warlock and Redferne the witchhunter be cast with English actors. Richard E. Grant, who makes his American film debut as Redferne. “I thought it was very important to cast the two males with English actors,” said Miner. “It starts in colonial United States which was an extension of England. They’d been off the boat for five years, ten years at the most. They’re English.”

That desire to at least make a stab at realism in the midst of a story about a warlock is what brought the production to Copps’ Hill cemetery in Boston’s historic North End-a short walk from Paul Revere’s house. The production built its own version of Boston Harbor, including the city’s skyline, on a Los Angeles soundstage.

While Miner’s credentials both inside and outside the horror genre are secure, for most filmmakers such films are used as a stepping stone to what are perceived as more prestigious projects. Why, then, would a producer who has an Oscar on his mantelpiece for one of the most successful Vietnam films want to make a film about witchcraft and the supernatural?

As Sands noted. screenwriter Twohy has invested the dialogue with a great deal of humor and put a fresh spin on conventional horror flick wisdom. Miner has done all he can to bring it convincingly to the screen. eliciting solid performances from everyone but Singer who, apparently, was difficult on the set. Worse. the people holding the purse strings at the late, lamented New World handcuffed Miner. whose FX ambitions exceeded his cash flow.

Sands understands Miner’s dilemma. “The thing about a limited, budget is it means people really have to think very hard and the preparation has to be very good. They have to be alert and inventive. Despite the limited millions, you have to put every dollar on the screen. Steve did just that. He’s a very balanced director.

The budget crunch forced Miner to create atmosphere and to suggest, more than he shows. Still, Warlock boasts its share of gruesome moments, such as the chopping off of fingers and the aforementioned tongue-biting and eye-gouging. Sands didn’t hesitate to go all out for the nastier scenes. “You’ve got to go for those.” Sands maintains. “That’s the fun for me. I enjoyed playing those scenes for just whoever was in the room, one or two dozen people. That was an audience and it was a performance. Now, it’s there for whoever sees the film.

“That was the appeal of the Warlock for me, that sort of heightened, almost stylized fun to be had with this malevolent creature. A lot of my friends said. Oh, you shouldn’t do a horror film, blah, blah, blah. But I just do what I feel I’ll enjoy.”

The tongue-bite scene, however, nearly made the actor ill. “It’s a hell of a French kiss. I did feel like throwing up after I bit it out of the actor’s mouth and it was sitting in mine. I was just happy to spit it into the frying pan,” he jokes.

SPECIAL EFFECTS A scene that proved too unpleasant for some people was Warlock’s breaking lady” sequence. In it. Sands freezes the body of the topless channeler (Woronov), knocks it to the ground and proceeds to stomp on her chest until he frees Satan’s eyes from her breasts. Now. Sands merely plucks out Woronov’s eyes, not exactly something we haven’t seen before, “That first sequence was shot. and I don’t know why it was cut: I think audiences at test screenings found it just too much.” Sands muses. “I don’t know who was in the audience, whether it was executives or people’s wives or brothers. But yes, the eyeballs used to be in the breasts. I see them.” details Sands in a most happy voice, “and I freeze her up and she falls over. I stomp all over her breasts to get to the eyes balls. People just found that too politically offensive, too humanitarianly offensive. There was something too brutal about the Warlock’s boots stomping on her.

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Woronov was outfitted in the scene with latex appliance breasts devised by Oscar nominee Carl Fullerton, the film’s makeup supervisor, who was assisted by Neal Martz.  The building of the breakable glass body was largely the work of Neal Martz, experimenting with candy glass. “The actual manufacturing was done by myself and Vinnie Altamore,” Martz states. “We had to paint in a layer of skin first inside the negative mold.

Underneath that, you’d have fascia or fat, and next to the fat come the muscle groups. Then you have bones and organs. It was all made of candy glass. Most of the candy glass people said you couldn’t mold it. We went the route of painting it in and letting it dry. You’d get a few cracks, and then you’d paint another layer, and that would seal those cracks. We did it for a test, and it worked so well that we decided this is the way we’d have to go because the look of it was exactly what they wanted.”

The transformation sequence was achieved through a combination of picturization and lap-dissolving. “We put her in a chair that would lock off her head,” Fullerton says. “We colored her a little. The important thing is that the subject does not move. We had to shoot three different stages of her in the freezing-up process, which we did with complicated coloration and also an ice material that we added to her. That worked beautifully.”

Miner reportedly reshot the scene with a demonic makeup to suggest the eyes are ripped from the psychic’s face instead.

Another effect in the film that did not come off as planned was Fullerton’s elaborate old-age prosthetic makeup for Lori Singer, who plays a hip waitress who befriends the witchhunter and gets caught up in the battle of good vs. evil. For a sequence where Singer is aged prematurely by the warlock, Fullerton came up with a series of makeups to progressively age the young actress. Although the elaborate prosthetics had been tested and okayed, Singer nixed them on the day of shooting. The first stage of the makeup was to suggest an age of 40 years. Singer refused to wear any prosthetics for this stage at all, forcing Fullerton to resort to such techniques as stippling, shadow, and a grey wig.

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For the more advanced makeup, intended to suggest an age of 60, Singer agreed to wear appliances on her cheeks and chin but not on her nose or eyes. This was a considerable frustration for Fullerton, who found it difficult to blend the prosthetics on Singer’s face. “She has all the classic signs of youthful beauty: smooth skin, long neck, blonde hair,” said Fullerton. “It’s my feeling that she designed the makeup. That’s a personal defeat for me, but will that ruin the film? No: if the scene plays well, it will still work.”

The optical effects for WARLOCK are the work of Perpetual Motion, a small effects company brought onto the production when the original effects supplier failed to submit an acceptable budget. Visual effects supervisor Patrick Reed Johnson gave the work to Perpetual Motion because “Most of the places we talked to had staffs of 40 or 50. Perpetual Motion has a grand total of six-a small efficient crew.”

With almost no time for preparation, such as steady-testing cameras for plate photography, and no one from Perpetual Motion available to be on the set, Johnson underwent a promotion to Visual Effects Supervisor and went to Boston to supervise the shooting of background plates for later optical work.

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“We’ve done a few unorthodox things in terms of shooting plate shots,” said Johnson. One composite scene that required effective miming from Grant involved the witchhunter throwing a weather vane like a javelin at the flying warlock and impaling him in the back. Johnson suggested shooting it optically instead of the physical effect that was planned. “So we filmed Grant as though he had the vane in his hand and then the warlock Sand’s stunt double reacting with the proper timing.” said Johnson. “We’re going to blue-screen in the miniature weather vane and shadow, and have it sail a distance of 100 feet.”

POST PRODUCTION

Another deleted scene shows the Warlock using a spell involving a chicken to track Redferne and Kassandra. A version of the scene remains in the novelization.

SCORE/SOUNDTRACK

Warlock (1989) Jerry Goldsmith

CAST/CREW Directed Steve Miner

Produced Steve Miner

Written David Twohy

Julian Sands as Warlock Lori Singer as Kassandra Richard E. Grant as Giles Redferne Mary Woronov as Channeler Kevin O’Brien as Chas Richard Kuss as Mennonite Rob Paulsen as Gas Station attendant

CREDITS/REFERENCES/SOURCES/BIBLIOGRAPHY Cinefantastique v19n03 Cinefantastique v19n04 Fangoria#80 Fangoria#84 Fangoria#101

Warlock (1989) Retrospective SUMMARY The Warlock is taken captive in Boston, Massachusetts in 1691 by the witch-hunter Giles Redferne. He is sentenced to death for his activities, including the death of Redferne's wife, but before the execution, Satan appears and propels the Warlock forward in time to late 20th century Los Angeles, California.

[bee-careful]

Witch Au Fic Rec

The Sweetest Incantation 40k

Harry has been alive for decades, and yet he’s never been as confused and dumbfounded. He’s a witch, for God’s sake. Can’t get much weirder than all the magical things he’s experienced throughout his lifetime. Never in a million years, however, would he have expected to be mere inches away from a hybrid.

Or: Harry is a witch who’s still working on developing his powers and Louis is a werecat who falls into his life and turns it upside down.

love is divine 25k

Being a witch doesn’t help when it comes to unrequited love.

you’ve got this spell on me (everything you do is magic) ˜3k

Harry accidentally turns Louis into a cat. He doesn’t know how he’s going to fix it, but he does know he’d better do so before he has to deal with Louis’s wrath.

come on, jump out at me 7k

(first one of the domestic monsters series)

Harry is a witch from a long line of power, an ancient line that’s one of the strongest left alive in their hemisphere. He can cast spells without a word if need be, fly on a broomstick, and has a black cat (a kitten, really) named Felix that is his animal familiar. He can shape galaxies in his cupped hands and can destroy them just as easily. He can choose exactly how to use his power, for encouragement and support, or for more nefarious causes if he wishes to.

And as fate would have it, he’s scared of haunted houses.

(Harry is a witch who carries around a stuffed pumpkin, Louis is a vampire with too much time on his hands, and their best mates Zayn & Niall aren’t exactly what they seem…)

wherever you are is the place i belong 10k

(second one of the domestic monsters series)

So a witch, a vampire, a werewolf, and a siren all move into a house together… It’s not a joke, it’s Harry Styles’ life, but sometimes it feels that way.

(Niall and Zayn get jobs, Harry cleans out his feelings, and Louis learns some very interesting things about one of his new flatmates…)

spaces between us hold all our secrets ˜20k

(third one of the domestic monsters series)

The house in Greater Gloomingshire just gets stranger and stranger: Mysterious comings and goings, sneaky glances, and secrets that nobody seems willing to share. Yet.

(Zayn threatens Louis with bodily harm, Niall wolfs out, and when it comes to investigating his flatmates, Detective Harry is on the case!)

i wanna reach out for you (i wanna break these walls) 31k

(fourth one of the domestic monsters series)

The wolf’s out of the bag, the witch is out of the broom closet, the siren’s out of the ocean, and the vampire’s out of the…coffin? Everybody knows about everybody now, but it’s not always so easy, rooming with the supernatural.

(the household shifts and changes, Detective Harry is on the case again, and Louis has to come to terms with who he wants to be.)

if i didn’t have you, i’d never see the sun 16k

(fifth one of the domestic monsters series)

Everything changes when you have a roommate who doesn’t Get It.

(Liam has trouble with inanimate objects, Harry blows things up, Niall is a brat, and Louis finally talks about his life B.V. - Before Vampirism.)

you will find me in places that we’ve never been 12k

(sixth one of the domestic monsters series)

1313 Willow Wisp Lane has seen many things over the course of its long life as a house, but never has it seen a surprise party consisting of an undead king, a witch who can conjure sunlight, a werewolf who doubles as a pastry chef, and a mystery.

(Louis reveals more about his past, Harry makes it rain, Niall makes food, and everyone wonders about Liam.)

i’ll make this feel like home 42k

(seventh one of the domestic monsters series)

It’s St. Patrick’s Day at the house in Greater Gloomingshire….in September.

(Liam’s “secret” is revealed, Zayn returns, Niall eats some cupcakes, while Harry and Louis both have to face the past - and the future.)

when the wolves come out 62k

(eighth one of the domestic monsters series)

Halloween is swiftly approaching; now, if only they could enjoy it.

(Gemma comes to visit, the crows may or may not be spies, and a spirit is laid to rest.)

we will find a way through the dark 31k (wip)

(ninth one of the domestic monsters series)

Louis is tired of running and Harry’s got his back.

(Harry sort-of exorcises a ghost, a Mustang is destroyed, and Louis discovers travel by mirror is not at all what it’s cracked up to be.

Far Afield 11k 

(part 1)

Harry Styles is a witch who owns the best flower shop in Manchester. Lottie Tomlinson is planning her wedding, and brings her brother along to her first appointment. Both men have been having a bad day and sparks fly.

Suited for You 4k

(part 2)

“Louis Tomlinson, you have had that suit for almost ten years. It is time to get a new one, and it is time to get a good one.” Unfortunately, he could tell his mother wouldn’t budge. The discussion was over. They said goodbye, and Louis immediately dialed his sister Lottie.

She picked up straight away, “You have to get the suit, Lou.”                          

“Argh!” Louis yelled, hanging up on her. He missed his old flip phone, hanging up on someone was so much more satisfying.                                   

Louis’ family convinces him that he needs a new suit for some upcoming special events in his life.

It’s All Been Done (Before) 17k

Lilo 

Zayn isn’t normal for two reasons. One, he’s a warlock. Two, he’s Crown Prince of said warlocks. Witches too, actually. Not Wizards though. Those imbeciles give magic a bad name. Especially the one named Liam. He’s particularly awful. It’s too bad that they end up falling in love.

Through centuries of war, revolution, art and innovation; Zayn tries to stay away from Liam, until he can’t

Bewitched 160k

“So what’s your problem, mister?”

“I’m married to a witch.” says Louis, disbelievingly, shaking his head slightly, swirling the ice around in his shot glass. “My spouse is a witch.”

“Cheer up.“ says the Bartender "You should see my wife.”

Louis doubts that his wife is a real spell-casting, cloak-wearing, cauldron stirring, witch, like his new husband, Harry.

But, Louis suspects that nothing could surprise him anymore. Not Harry’s magical friends, not his literally disappearing sister or even the way that Harry’s able to clean a kitchen in 2 seconds.

Louis had always thought that Harry was charming, he just didn’t know how much.

Adaption of the hysterical and wonderful 1960’s tv show, starring, of course, 1D; each chapter is self contained within the universe.

Spellbound 62k (wip)

Louis Tomlinson leads a charmed life. Not because of his good job, nice house or the fact that he’s happily married; despite all those things being true.

No, Louis lives a charmed life because of the fact that his best friends, in laws and (perfect) husband all happen to be magical beings.

And just as he’s getting used to things like his sister in law literally popping in unannounced, or watching his husband turn people into animals, a new bundle of joy arrives and throws a wrench into the works.

But, you know what? Louis wouldn’t have it any other way.

Sequel to Bewitched

a long way down (to the bottom of the river) 24k

“ Most people would call Harry silly for believing in curses. Childish would also be a probable insult thrown his way. In their little town full of little people, Harry’s whimsical nature and beliefs mean that he’s subjected to frequent judgemental looks and whispers. It doesn’t usually bother him. Most people don’t know about the magic thrumming through his veins or about how powerful words can truly be. Most people don’t carry around their ancestors grief like a burden. They don’t have to pay for deeds hundreds of years old like Harry and his family have. They get to love freely without fear.

Harry and his kin aren’t so lucky.”

a practical magic au in which Harry and his sister accidentally kill her abusive boyfriend with magic and Louis is the D.I working the case.

wash him deep where the tides are turning 3k

"When Harry finally tells Louis about his family’s curse and the true love spell that broke it, they’ve been dating for seven months, nineteen days and about twelve hours and Louis’ cock is buried deep inside his arse.”

Part two of a practical magic au.

taken by the wind 8k

When he decided to move to London with his sister, Harry thought he would finally get to learn how to control his magic. He couldn’t possibly have predicted that he would fall for her neighbour.

Or the one where Harry is a clumsy witch and Louis is making everything worse just by existing.

baby, we could be enough 3k

ot5

A few weeks later, they’ve finally begun to settle in, and it’s time for Liam’s first in-home transformation.

He’s dreading it.

Keep Me In Your Pocket 3k

Louis has been living in a teapot since he was miniaturised by a witch, but Harry is determined to break the curse.

take a sip from my secret potion (falling in love) 6k

After running away to Pendle, Louis is being haunted by some angry spirits, and so he seeks solace in Worst Witch Harry Styles. Louis is looking for a potion to fix his problems, but the answer may be a bit simpler than that.

Nocturnal Creatures Are Not So Prudent 24k

Witch!Louis

Louis spins a finger in midair, like he’s indicating someone to turn around, staring pointedly at Liam as the faucet turns itself on and the can rinses itself in the sink behind him. Liam, moon burn him, doesn’t rise to the bait, choosing instead to lean back on his stool and wrapping his hands around his own mug.

“Anyway, like I was saying and that you were ignoring, there’s this new club near my school and I want you to go with me. Could do you some good, getting out once in awhile.”

Louis is a white witch with a little black cat named Hemlock and a best human friend Liam (they’re a lot like Samantha Stephens and Louise Tate). When he’s dragged out to a new club Liam’s heard about from a friend and classmate, Louis comes face to face with that which witches do not touch: a charming vampire by the name of Harry.

Everything You Do Is Magic 5k

October is a month of magic. Most carry on with their lives thinking that leaves change color from science and that the pumpkins no one has seen growing all year actually came from the ground. But others know the truth. That some possess the power to create life and take it away. Harry was one of those people.

(or the one where Harry and Zayn are witches, Liam and Louis are new in town, Niall may or may not be magic, and Harry thinks nothings better than the feeling of magic, till something is)

Try Refusing A Million Times (But You’re in Love) 16k

Harry’s a witch selling tea and sweets in The Umbrella, a shop he and his best mate Niall have just opened. But on ‘Official Opening Day’ he runs into Louis, and there the chaos ensues when Harry’s magic trickles into Louis. With Niall and Zayn at his side, it’s a regular quest for love: either Harry gets his magic back from the forbidden Louis whose dating Liam, or he performs a dark ritual on himself to save himself from Louis’ madness that he most certainly will not survive

[thatishogwash]

No Space Between Us

KuroDai Week 2017

May 11, 2017

Day Six: Distance

Summary: Kuroo's husband, Sawamura Daichi, was pronounced dead after missing in space for four years. Kuroo had lost all hope, until he received several messages from the assumed-dead-Daichi.

Warnings: Swearing.

AO3

“This place is a mess,” Kenma states with a sigh as he buries further into his thick coat and looks around for a spot to sit.

“Yeah man, when’s the last time you been here?”  Bokuto asked as he pressed a couple buttons on the wall console, trying to get the windows to open up but the machine was slow to warm up.  “Why do you even keep it?”

“Need somewhere to sleep when I’m on world and apparently sleeping on my own ship is pathetic.”  Kuroo shoots a look over to Kenma, who shrugs with indifference.  It had been a couple months since he’d been back here and he hadn’t really bothered to clean up before he left.  He had just wanted to leave, wanted to get away from this place with all its memories.

“Ah shit- why did communications come on?  Open the windows damnit!”  Bokuto pressed several more buttons as the communications box slid out of the wall, flickering to life.  “You have 32 missed messages.”  Bokuto, having never heard of privacy before, clicked on the messages and stood back to watch them.

The first was from Kuroo’s mom, a message she had sent to his ship many months ago too.  Another from Bokuto himself, cutting himself off with a curse as he remembered Kuroo was off world.  Bokuto grinned over at Kuroo at that one before the third message started to play.

“Hey Tetsu,” Kuroo’s entire world stopped as he heard that deep rumbling voice, saw that so familiar face that he thought he’d never see again.  “I don’t even know if this will get to you but direct communications is down completely now.  We’re really out there now, I’m not even sure if you’ll get this but it’s been so long since I’ve seen you.  I can kind of understand the stories about those old sailors who went mad when they were out in the middle of the ocean in the old world.  It’s just nothing around you.  Still a couple months until we reach our destination though, and then 14 months until I see you again.”  The screen flickered off.

“Holy shit, I’m sorry Kuroo!”  Bokuto went to turn off the messages but Kuroo grabbed his hand, letting the fourth message click on automatically.

“Kageyama is a brilliant pilot, he really is but sometimes-” His chocolate eyes looked up, searching for the words as he let out a slow breath.  His hair seemed longer, he had yet to shave off his five o’clock shadow.  “Being stuck in a tin can with the same people for over a year can get to you.  Kageyama and Tsukishima won’t stop arguing, Tetsu and I’m at the end of my rope on how to deal with them.  I wish you were- well, you just always seemed to know how to handle Tsukishima best and I feel like I’m somehow failing him.  Failing them all because I can’t- god Daichi, what the hell are you doing don’t send this-” The message flickered out.

“Kuro this isn’t a good idea.”  Kenma spoke softly from behind him but he made no move to turn off the screen.

Over a year ago Kuroo’s entire world came to screeching halt as he finally accepted that his husband wasn’t ever going to come home.  It had been a two and half year mission, and then Sawamura was set to retire and take smaller jobs closer to home, freelance a bit.  Kuroo knew the moment he met Sawamura he’d be the ruin of him, but he hadn’t expected this.

Sawamura had been gone for five years.  He had left to evacuate a failing colony on the edge of their known universe.  Of course he had because he was so soft hearted and stalwart and dependable.  The colony had been on a planet whose moon had been taken out by an asteroid, they had requested help and Sawamura had agreed to take the assignment.

Fourteen months to get there, fourteen months return trip.  Kuroo hadn’t worried at first when they didn’t show up exactly 28 months later.  He knew how unpredictable things could be, how a seemingly small problem with the engine could have them dead in the water for a month.  They had supplies enough three years.

Three years came and went.  Kuroo began to worry but he wasn’t going to panic just then.  They sent out a search party for them to the halfway point but there was no sign of them.

The fourth year came with no sign of them and the entire crew of The Crow were pronounced dead.

Kuroo had fallen apart.  Distance he could deal with, both of them had known what they were getting into when they started a relationship.  Kuroo was off world more often than not, taking month or two long trips doing jobs that some might consider illegal.  Sawamura worked in a more legal capacity, he was a well respected Captain, had earned his spot and had done extended trips in space before.

Distance had never been a problem until Sawamura travelled to a place that Kuroo couldn’t follow.

“So it’s Suga’s birthday, and Hinata and Yamaguchi got it in their head that they want to make him a cake.  Except we don’t have the materials to make a cake so they take what we do have and from the outside it looked like a cake Tetsu, I was impressed. But inside, inside was where dreams came to die.”  Sawamura laughed, he had a full beard now and he rubbed his jaw, running his nails through the short hairs.  “I use to grow out a beard during every long haul, shaved it right before we got on world.  Stopped doing that when you said you hated beards.  Do you remember that?  It was our second date and we were in bed-” A slow grin came over his face, the beard hiding the dimples Kuroo loved so much.  “I thought you were going to kick me out after but you’re such a cuddler-”

“Kuroo’s a cuddle slut?”  An exuberant voice shouted.

“Nishinoya, I thought I told you to go to bed!  Is that another one of those energy drinks, hand that over right now.”  The picture cut out on the beginnings of a famous Sawamura lecture.

More messages played on, mostly from Sawamura tell Kuroo about their days aboard the ship, how close they were to the planet, how much he missed Kuroo.  Kenma and Bokuto stayed close as Kuroo felt his heart break all over again.

“The pieces of the moon have created a barrier around the planet, it’s- Kageyama is sure he can get us down there but how can I risk the entire crew for this?  But we’ve come so far Tetsurou, there are people down there who need our help.  Who have been waiting for us, hoping for someone to come for them, to bring them home.”  Sawamura rubbed at his face, hard.  “I think I might have some of the void crazies because I keep hearing your voice, telling me to leave them but we both know you’re full of shit.  You can act like a scoundrel all you’d like but I know you’re heart, I know you’d risk everything to help even one single person let alone a whole colony.”  Sawamura grinned at the camera, a little of a manic look in his eyes as he made his decision.  “Well, we’ve come this far.”

The screen flickered off as the last message played.

Sawamura’s head was bandaged, there was blood on his previously pristine white shirt and he looked exhausted but alive.

“The Crow took a lot of damage on entry-” The screen fizzled and blurred, the sound cut in and out at random.  “We’re all alive and the colonist are here but-” Sawamura’s lips moved but no sound came out.  “-think they can fix-” “gut a couple things here-” “-fucking can’t believe-” “-love you-” “-no more messages-” Sawamura looked down and Kuroo could make out the blood caked into his hair before he suddenly looked back up.  “I’ll make it home to you Kuroo.”  The screen flickered off and the message box reappeared, reporting zero new messages.

“Kuroo-” Bokuto tried but Kuroo shook him off.

“I have to go talk to Ukai.”  Kenma and Bokuto both stared at him but neither moved to stop him, didn’t try to talk him out of it.

Kuroo played the messages for Ukai, felt his heart hurt all over again as he replayed the last two.  Ukai watched them a second time, mouth pressed into a hard line.  He had been the one to ask Sawamura to take the assignment.  Kuroo remembers a hazy night when he had too much to drink and had blamed Ukai for Sawamura’s death.  That had been right after they had buried an empty coffin.

Ukai sent out another search party and Kuroo was stuck waiting and waiting.  It was a repeat of his past, where Sawamura felt so far away and so close at the same time.  It was agony.

Kuroo scrubbed the house clean, as if that would bring Sawamura back.  He had never gotten rid of anything of the other man's and it made him realize that he never really accepted Sawamura’s death, that he had just been waiting the entire time.

After months of no word back Kenma finally talked Kuroo into taking a job that would take them roughly two months.  It was messy and Kuroo had to use every ounce of his intelligence to talk the locals out of not burning Lev at the stake, but they had managed to escape off world by the skin of their teeth.

“Why do we keep him around?”  Yaku asked grumpily as they unloaded off the ship.

“Because he speaks a dozen different languages and is damn quick on his feet.” Kuroo answered back, though Yaku wasn’t really fooling anyone.  He was as clearly smitten with Lev as Lev was with Yaku.

“When he’s not tripping over them.”  Kenma spoke up from his perch atop their supply crates.  They all let him be, knowing he was making a list of repairs and supplies they would need for their next job, while also searching for said next job.

“But why do we keep letting Lev off the ship?”  Yaku asked.

“Because he’s your linguistics expert.”  Kuroo dropped the crate he was holding and turned towards where the voice had originated, at the entrance of the hangar.

“Kenma?”  Kuroo asked, voice nothing but a thin whisper.

“You’re not hallucinating.”  Kenma assured him but Kuroo was already moving forward, throwing himself against his husband.

His husband who was announced dead and was suppose to be light years away.  His husband who had sent him numerous messages despite the fact that he had no way of knowing if they’d actually ever get to Kuroo.  His husband who was solid and warm and right there in his arms.

“No,” Sawamura said quickly as Kuroo tried to pull back, using his considerable strength to keep him close.  “Can we just stay like this for a moment?”  Kuroo sobbed into his neck, unable to argue because he would stay like that for as long as Sawamura wanted.

“You’re here.”  Kuroo managed to choke out.

“I promised I’d make it back to you.”  Sawamura curled his fingers into the hair at the back of Kuroo’s head.  The embrace was a little too tight, bones rubbing against each other to the point of paint but Kuroo wouldn’t let go for anything at that moment.  “You sent them out for us, you didn’t give up.”

Kuroo listened quietly as Sawamura explained.  They had gutted a couple of low range ships on the colony and patched up the Crow, who had crawled its way back to civilization. It was all backwater colonies out that far, so they could only pick up bare essentials.  Enough food and drink to supply the crew, the twenty colonist they had picked up stayed on another planet while they made their way towards home.  Except their ship had gone dead in the water.  Sawamura had sent his crew off in the escape pods when the life support system had started to fail.  The search party crew had found him passed out in the captain's chair, near dead.  All the crew had been recovered.

“You’re not allowed to leave my sight.”  Kuroo said sternly, or as sternly as someone who was still openly weeping could be.  He pressed kisses all over Sawamura’s face.  He was clean shaven, his hair cut short again, but there was a new long scar that cut into his temple that Kuroo made sure to kiss carefully, softly, despite the fact that it was obviously healed completely.

“Fair enough.”  Sawamura grinned, his own eyes a little glossy as he stared up at Kuroo, ran his hands down the other man's side.  “I love you.”

“I love you too.”  Kuroo answered back easily, honestly still not allowing any distance between their bodies.

[marymosley]

Spooky Torts: The 2018 List Of Halloween Litigation Horrors

Here is our annual list of Halloween torts and crimes. Halloween of course remains a holiday seemingly designed for personal injury lawyers around the world and this year’s additions show why. Halloween has everything for a torts-filled holiday: battery, trespass, defamation, nuisance, product liability and more.  This year’s addition is a real dozzy.

So, with no further ado, here is this year’s updated list of actual cases related to Halloween.

This year’s notable Halloween accident occurred in Madison, Tennessee at the Nashville Nightmare Haunted House.   James “Jay” Yochim and three of his pals went to the attraction composed of  four separate haunted houses, an escape room, carnival games and food vendors.  In the attraction, people are chased by characters with chainsaws and other weapons.  They were not surprised therefore when a man believed to be an employee in a Halloween costume handed Tawnya Greenfield a knife and told her to stab Yochim.  She did and thought it was all pretend until blood started to pour from Yochim’s arm. The knife was real and the man was heard apologizing “I didn’t know my knife was that sharp.”

It is not clear how even stabbing with a dull knife would be considered safe.

The attraction issued a statement:

“As we have continued to review the information, we believe that an employee was involved in some way, and he has been placed on leave until we can determine his involvement. We are going over all of our safety protocols with all of our staff again, as the safety and security of all of our patrons is always our main concern. We have not been contacted by the police, but we will cooperate fully with any official investigation.”

The next scary moment is likely to be in the form of a torts complaint.  Negligence against the company under respondeat superior is an obvious start. There is also a novel battery charge where he could claim that he was stabbed by trickery or deceit of a third person. There are also premises liability issues for invitees.  As for Greenfield, she claims to have lacked consent due to a misrepresentation.  She could be charged with negligence or a recklessness-based theory of battery, though that seems less likely.

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Last year, a 21-year-old man surnamed Cheung was killed by a moving coffin in a haunted house in Hong Kong’s Ocean Park.   The attraction is called “Buried Alive” and involves hopping into coffins for a downward slide into a dark and scary space. The ride promises to provide people with the “experience being buried alive alone, before fighting their way out of their dark and eerie grave.” Cheung took a wrong turn and went backstage — only to be hit by one of the metal coffins.  The hit in the head killed Cheung who was found later in the haunted house.

While there is no word of a tort lawsuit (and tort actions are rarer in Hong Kong), the case is typical of Halloween torts involving haunted houses.  The decor often emphasizes spooky and dark environs which both encourage terror and torts among the participants.  In this case, an obvious claim could be made that it is is negligence to allow such easy access to the operational area of the coffin ride — particularly in a dark space.  As a business invitee, Cheung would have a strong case in the United States.

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A previous addition to the Spooky torts was the odd case of Assistant Prosecutor Chris White. White clearly does not like spiders, even fake ones. That much was clear given his response to finding fake spiders scattered around the West Virginia office for Halloween. White pulled a gun and threatened to shoot the fake spiders, explaining that he is “deathly afraid of spiders.” It appears that his arachnophobia (fear of spiders) was not matched by a hoplophobia (fear of firearms).

The other employees were reportedly shaken up and Logan County Prosecuting Attorney John Bennett later suspended White. Bennett said “He said they had spiders everyplace and he said he told them it wasn’t funny, and he couldn’t stand them, and he did indeed get a gun out. It had no clip in it, of course they wouldn’t know that, I wouldn’t either if I looked at it, to tell you the truth.” It is not clear how White thought threatening the decorative spiders would keep them at bay or whether he was trying to deter those who sought to deck out the office in a Halloween theme. He was not charged by his colleagues with a crime but was suspended for his conduct.

This is not our first interaction with White. He was the prosecutor in the controversial (and in my view groundless) prosecution of Jared Marcum, who was arrested after wearing a NRA tee shirt to school.

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Another new case from the last year involves a murder. Donnie Cochenour Jr., 27, got a seasonal break (at least temporarily) on detecting his alleged murder of Rebecca J. Cade, 31. Cade’s body was left hanging on a fence and was mistaken by neighbors as a Halloween decoration. The “decoration” was found by a man walking his dog and reported by construction workers. A large rock was found with blood on it nearby. Donnie Cochenour Jr., 27, was later arrested and ordered held on $2 million bond after he pleaded not guilty to murder.

Cade apparently knew Cochenour since he was a child — a relationship going back 20 years. Cochenour reportedly admitted that he he had had a physical altercation in the field. Police found a blood trail that indicates that Cade was running from Cochenour and tried to climb the fence in an attempt to get away. She was found hanging from her sleeve and is believed to have died on the fence from blunt force trauma to the head and neck. Her body exhibited “defensive wounds.”

When police arrested Cochenour, they found blood on is clothing. _______________________________________________

In 2015, the federal and state governments are cracking down on cosmetic contact lenses to give people spooky eyes. Owners and operators of 10 Southern California businesses were criminally charged in federal court with illegally selling cosmetic contact lenses without prescriptions. Some of the products that were purchased in connection with this investigation were contaminated with dangerous pathogens that can cause eye injury, blindness and loss of the eye. The products are likely to result in a slew of product liability actions.

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Another 2015 case reflects that the scariest part of shopping for Halloween costumes or decorations may be the trip to the Party Store. Shanisha L. Saulsberry sued U.S. Toy Company, Inc. after she was injured shopping for Halloween costumes and a store rack fell on her. The jury awarded Saulsberry $7,216.00 for economic damages. She appealed the damages after evidence of her injuries were kept out of the trial by the court. However, the Missouri appellate court affirmed the ruling.

_________________________________________ The case of Castiglione v. James F. Q., 115 A.D.3d 696, shows a classic Halloween tort. The lawsuit alleged that, on Halloween 2007, the defendant’s son threw an egg which hit the plaintiff’s daughter in the eye, causing her injuries. The plaintiff also brought criminal charges against the defendant’s son arising from this incident and the defendant’s son pleaded guilty to assault in the third degree (Penal Law § 120.00 [2]). However, at his deposition, the defendant’s son denied throwing the egg which allegedly struck the plaintiff’s daughter.

Because of the age of the accused, the case turned on the youthful offender statute (CPL art 720) provides special measures for persons found to be youthful offenders which provides “Except where specifically required or permitted by statute or upon specific authorization of the court, all official records and papers, whether on file with the court, a police agency or the division of criminal justice services, relating to a case involving a youth who has been adjudicated a youthful offender, are confidential and may not be made available to any person or public or private agency [with certain exceptions not relevant here]” (CPL 720.35 [2]). This covers both the physical documents constituting the official record the information contained within those documents. Thus, in relation to the Halloween egging, the boy was protected from having to disclose information or answer questions regarding the facts underlying the adjudication _____________________________

We discussed the perils of pranks and “jump frights,” particularly with people who do not necessarily consent. In the case of Christian Faith Benge, there appears to have been consent in visiting a haunted house. The sophomore from New Miami High School in Ohio died from a prior medical condition at the at Land of Illusion haunted house. She was halfway through the house with about 100 friends and family members when she collapsed. She had an enlarged heart four times its normal size. She also was born with congenital diaphragmatic hernia, which prevents the lungs from developing normally. This added stress to the heart. In such a case, consent and comparative negligence issues effectively bar recovery in most cases. It is a terrible loss of a wonderful young lady. However, some fatalities do not always come with liability and this appears such a case. Source: Journal News

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As discussed earlier, In Franklin County, Tennessee, children may want to avoid the house of Dale Bryant Farris, 65, this Halloween . . . or houses near him. Bryant was arrested after shooting a 15-year-old boy who was with kids toilet-papering their principal’s front yard. Bryant came out of his house a couple of houses down from the home of Principal Ken Bishop and allegedly fired at least two blasts — one hitting a 15-year-old boy in the right foot, inner left knee, right palm, right thigh and right side of his torso above the waistline.

Tennessee is a Castle Doctrine state and we have seen past cases like the notorious Tom Horn case in Texas where homeowners claimed the right to shoot intruders on the property of their neighbors. It is not clear if Bryant will argue that he was trying to stop intruders under the law, but it does not appear a good fit with the purpose or language of the law. Farris faces a charge of aggravated assault and another of reckless endangerment. He could also face civil liability from the boy’s family. This would include assault and battery. There is a privilege of both self-defense and defense of others. This privilege included reasonable mistaken self-defense or defense of others. This would not fit such a claim since he effectively pursued the boys by going to a neighbor’s property and there was no appearance of a threat or weapon since they were only armed with toilet paper.

The good news is that Farris can now discard the need for a costume. He can go as himself at Halloween . . . as soon as he is out of jail. _____________________________________________________ As shown below, Halloween nooses have a bad record at parties. In 2012, a club called Pink Punters had a decorative noose that it had used for a number of years that allowed party goers to take pictures as a hanging victim on Halloween. Of course, you guessed it. A 25-year old man was found hanging from the noose in an accidental self-lynching at the nightclub in England.

The case would appear easy to defend in light of the assumption of the risk and patent danger. The noose did not actually tighten around necks. Moreover, this is England where tort claims can be more challenging. In the United States, however, there would remain the question of a foreseeable accident in light of the fact that patrons are drinking heavily and drugs are often present at nightclubs. Since patrons are known to put their heads in the noose, the combination is intoxication and a noose is not a particularly good mix.

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Grant v. Grant.

A potential criminal and tort case comes to us from Pennsylvania where, at a family Halloween bonfire, Janet Grant spotted a skunk and told her son Thomas Grant to fetch a shotgun and shoot it. When he returned, Janet Grant shined a flashlight on the animal while her son shot it. It was only then that they discovered that Thomas Grant had just shot his eight-year-old cousin in her black and white Halloween costume. What is amazing is that authorities say that they are considering possible animal gaming charges.

Fortunately, the little girl survived with a wound to the shoulder and abdomen.

The police in Beaver County have not brought charges and alcohol does not appear to have been a factor.

Putting aside the family connection (which presumably makes the likelihood of a lawsuit unlikely), there is a basis for both battery and negligence in such a wounding. With children in the area, the discharge of the firearm would seem pretty unreasonable even with the effort to illuminate “the animal.” Moreover, this would have to have been a pretty large skunk to be the size of an eight-year-old child.

Just for the record, the average weight of a standard spotted skunk in that area is a little over 1 pound. The biggest skunk is a hog-nosed skunk that can reach up to 18 pounds.

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We also have a potential duel case out of Aiken, South Carolina from one year ago. A 10-year-old Aiken trick-or-treater pulled a gun on a woman who joked that she wanted take his candy on Halloween. Police found that his brother, also ten, had his own weapon.

The 28-year-old woman said that she merely joked with a group of 10 or so kids that she wanted their candy when the ten-year-old pulled out a 9 mm handgun and said “no you’re not.” While the magazine was not in the gun, he had a fully loaded magazine in his possession. His brother had the second gun. Both appear to have belonged to their grandfather.

The children were released to their parents and surprisingly there is no mention of charges against the grandfather. While the guns appear to have been taken without his permission, it shows great negligence in the handling and storage of the guns.

What would be interesting is a torts lawsuit by the woman for assault against the grandfather. The actions of third parties often cut off liability as a matter of proximate causation, though courts have held that you can be liable for creating circumstances where crimes or intentional torts are foreseeable. For example, a landlord was held liable in for crimes committed in his building in Kline v. 1500 Massachusetts Avenue. Here the grandfather’s negligence led to the use of the guns by these children. While a lawsuit is unlikely, it would certainly be an interesting — and not unwarranted — claim. Smith v. Taunton High School

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Tauton High School District

I am still trying to get the correct name of this lawsuit filed last year, but it involves a Halloween prank gone bad in Massachusetts. A teacher at Taunton High School asked a 15-year-old student to answer a knock on the classroom door. When the boy was startled when he came face to face with a man in a mask and carrying what appeared to be a running chainsaw. The student fell back, tripped and fractured a kneecap. His family is now suing though the state cap on such lawsuits is $100,000.

Dussault said the family is preparing a lawsuit, but is exploring ways to avoid a trial and do better than the $100,000 cap when suing city employees. This could make for an interesting case, but would be better for the Plaintiffs as a bench versus a jury trial. Many jurors are likely to view this as simply an attempt at good fun by the teacher and an unforeseeable accident.

Source: CBS

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In Florida, a woman has sued for defamation, harassment and emotional distress after her neighbor set up decorations that included an insane asylum sign that pointed to her yard and a fake tombstone with an inscription she viewed as a reference to her single status. It read, “At 48 she had no mate no date/ It’s no debate she looks 88.”

This could be a wonderful example of an opinion defense to defamation. As for emotional distress, I think the cause of the distress pre-dates Halloween.

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Pieczonka v. Great America (2012)

A family is suing Great America for a tort in 2011 at Great Falls. Father Marian Pieczonka alleged in his complaint that his young daughter Natalie was at the park in Gurnee, Illinois for the Halloween-themed Fright Fest when a park employee dressed in costume jumped out of a port-a-potty and shot her with a squirt gun. He then reported chased the screaming girl until she fell and suffered injuries involving scrapes and bruises. The lawsuit alleges negligence in encouraging employees to chase patrons giving the tripping hazards.

They are asking $30,000 in the one count complaint but could face assumption or comparative negligence questions, particularly in knowingly attending an event called “Fright Fest” where employees were known to jump out at patrons.

The one-count suit seeks $30,000 in damages.

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A lawsuit appears inevitable after a tragic accident in St. Louis where a 17-year-old girl is in a critical condition after she became tangled in a noose at a Halloween haunted house called Creepyworld. The girl was working as an actress at the attraction and was found unconscious. What is particularly chilling is that people appeared to have walked by her hanging in the house and thought she was a realistic prop.

Notably, the attraction had people walk through to check on the well-being of actors and she was discovered but not for some time after the accident. She is in critical condition. Creepyworld employs 100 people and can expect a negligence lawsuit.

Source:

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Rabindranath v. Wallace (2010)

Peter Wallace, 24, was returning on a train with fellow Hiberinian soccer fans in England — many dressed in costumes (which the English call “fancy dress.”) One man was dressed as a sheep and Wallace thought it was funny to constantly flick his lighter near the cotton balls covering his body — until he burst into flames. Friends then made the matter worse by trying to douse the flames but throwing alcohol on the flaming man-sheep. Even worse, the victim Aberdeen supporter Arjuna Rabindranath, 24, is an Aberdeen soccer fan. Rabindranath’s costume was composed of a white tracksuit and cotton wool.

Outcome: Wallace is the heir to a large farm estate and agreed to pay damages to the victim, who experienced extensive burns.

What is fascinating is the causation issue. Here, Wallace clearly caused the initial injury which was then made worse by the world’ most dim-witted rescue attempt in the use of alcohol to douse a fire. In the United States, the original tortfeasor is liable for such injuries caused by negligent rescues. Indeed, he is liable for injured rescuers. The rescuers can also be sued in most states. However, many areas of Europe have good Samaritan laws protecting such rescuers. Notably, Wallace had a previous football-related conviction which was dealt with by a fine. In this latest case, he agreed to pay 25,000 in compensation.

The case is obviously similar to one of our prior Halloween winners below: Ferlito v. Johnson & Johnson

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Perper v. Forum Novelties (2010)

Sherri Perper, 56, of Queens, New York has filed a personal injury lawsuit due to defective shoes allegedly acquired from Forum Novelties. The shoes were over-sized clown shoes that she was wearing as part of her Halloween costume in 2008. She tripped and fell.

She is reportedly claiming that the shoes were dangerous. While “open and obvious” is no longer an absolute defense in such products cases, such arguments may still be made to counter claims of defective products. In most jurisdictions, you must show that the product is more dangerous than the expectations of the ordinary consumer. It is hard to see how Perper could be surprised that it is a bit difficult to walk in over-sized shoes. Then there is the problem of assumption of the risk.

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Dickson v. Hustonville Haunted House and Greg Walker (2009) Glenda Dickson, 51, broke four vertebrae in her back when she fell out of second

story window left open at the Hustonville Haunted House, owned by Greg Walker.

Dickson was in a room called “The Crying Lady in the Bed” when one of the actors came up behind the group and started screaming. Everyone jumped in fright and Dickson jumped back through an open window that was covered with a sheet — a remarkably negligent act by the haunted house operator. She landed on a fire escape and then fell down some stairs.

OUTCOME: While no criminal charges are planned, this would appear a likely case for a lawsuit for negligence. Since it only happened yesterday, we may have to follow up next year to see if this got really scary.

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Maryland v. Janik (2009)

Sgt. Eric Janik, 37, went to a haunted house called the House of Screams with friends and when confronted by a character dressed as Leatherface with a chainsaw (sans the chain, of course), Janik pulled out his service weapon and pointed it at the man, who immediately dropped character, dropped the chainsaw, and ran like a bat out of Halloween Hell.

Outcome: Janik is charged with assault and reckless endangerment for his actions. Charges pending.

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Patrick v. South Carolina (2009) Quentin Patrick, 22, an ex-convict in Sumter, South Carolina shot and killed a trick-or-treater T.J. Darrisaw who came to his home on Halloween — spraying nearly 30 rounds with an assault rifle from inside his home after hearing a knock on the door. T.J.’s 9-year- old brother, Ahmadre Darrisaw, and their father, Freddie Grinnell, were injured but were released after being treated at a hospital.

Patrick left his porch light on — a general signal for kids that the house was open for trick and treating. The boy’s mother and toddler sibling were in the car.

Patrick emptied the AK-47 — shooting at least 29 times through his front door, walls and windows after hearing the knock. He said that he had been previously robbed. That may be so, but it is unclear what an ex-con was doing with a gun, let alone an AK-47.

OUTCOME: Charges pending for murder.

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Kentucky v. Watkins (2008)

As a Halloween prank, restaurant manager Joe Watkins of the Chicken Ranch in Paris, Kentucky thought it was funny to lie in a pool of blood on the floor. After seeing Watkins on the floor, the woman went screaming from the restaurant to report the murder. Watkins said that the prank was for another employee and that he tried to call the woman back on her cell phone.

OUTCOME: Under Kentucky law, a person can be charged with a false police report, even if he is not the one who filed it. The police charged Watkins for causing the woman to file the report — a highly questionable charge.

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Mays v. Gretna Athletic Boosters␣95-717 (La.App. 5 Cir. 01/17/96)

“Defendant operated a haunted house at Mel Ott Playground in Gretna to raise money for athletic programs. The haunted house was constructed of 2×4s and black visqueen. There were numerous cubbyholes where “scary” exhibits were displayed. One booster club member was stationed at the entrance and one at the exit. Approximately eighteen people participated in the haunted house by working the exhibits inside. Near and along the entrance of the haunted house was a bathroom building constructed of cinder blocks. Black visqueen covered this wall.

Plaintiff and her daughter’s friend, about 10 years old, entered the haunted house on October 29, 1988. It was nighttime and was dark inside. Plaintiff testified someone jumped out and hollered, scaring the child into running. Plaintiff was also frightened and began to run. She ran directly into the visqueen-covered cinder block wall.

There was no lighting in that part of the haunted house. Plaintiff hit the wall face first and began bleeding profusely from her nose. She testified two surgeries were required to repair her nose.”

OUTCOME: In order to get the proper effect, haunted houses are dark and contain scary and/or shocking exhibits. Patrons in a Halloween haunted house are expected to be surprised, startled and scared by the exhibits but the operator does not have a duty to guard against patrons reacting in bizarre, frightened and unpredictable ways. Operators are duty bound to protect patrons only from unreasonably dangerous conditions, not from every conceivable danger.

As found by the Trial Court, defendant met this duty by constructing the haunted house with rooms of adequate size and providing adequate personnel and supervision for patrons entering the house. Defendant’s duty did not extend to protecting plaintiff from running in a dark room into a wall. Our review of the entire record herein does not reveal manifest error committed by the Trial Court or that the Trial Court’s decision was clearly wrong. Plaintiff has not shown the haunted house was unreasonably dangerous or that defendant’s actions were unreasonable. Thus, the Trial Court judgment must be affirmed.

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Powell v. Jacor Communications␣

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

320 F.3d 599 (6th Cir.2003)

“On October 15, 1999, Powell visited a Halloween season haunted house in Lexington, Kentucky that was owned and operated by Jacor. She was allegedly hit in the head with an unidentified object by a person she claims was dressed as a ghost. Powell was knocked unconscious and injured. She contends that she suffered a concussion and was put on bed rest and given medications by emergency-room physicians. Powell further claims that she now suffers from several neuropsychological disorders as a result of the incident.”

OUTCOME: Reversed dismissal on the basis of tolling of statute of limitations.

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Kansas City Light & Power Company v. Trimble␣

315 Mo. 32; 285 S.W. 455 (1926)

“A shapely pole to which, twenty-two feet from the ground is attached a non-insulated electric wire . . Upon a shapely pole were standard steps eighteen inches apart; about seventeen feet from the ground were telephone wires, and five feet above them was a non-insulated electric light wire. On Halloween, about nine o’clock, a bright fourteen- year-old boy and two companions met close to the pole, and some girls dressed as clowns came down the street. As they came near the boy, saying, “Who dares me to walk the wire?” began climbing the pole, using the steps, and ascended to the telephone cables, and thereupon his companions warned him about the live wire and told him to come down. He crawled upon the telephone cables to a distance of about ten feet from the pole, and when he reached that point a companion again warned him of the live wire over his head, and threatened to throw a rock at him and knock him off if he did not come down. Whereupon he turned about and crawled back to the pole, and there raised himself to a standing position, and then his foot slipped, and involuntarily he threw up his arm, his hand clutched the live wire, and he was shocked to death.”

OUTCOME:

Frankly, I am not sure why the pole was so “shapely” but the result was disappointing for the plaintiffs. Kansas City Light & Power Company v. Trimble: The court held that the appellate court extended the attractive nuisance doctrine beyond the court’s ruling decisions. The court held that appellate court’s opinion on the contributory negligence doctrine conflicted with the court’s ruling decisions. The court held that the administrator’s case should never have been submitted to the jury. The court quashed the appellate opinion.

“To my mind it is inconceivable that a bright, intelligent boy, doing well in school, past fourteen years of age and living in the city, would not understand and appreciate the fact that it would be dangerous to come in contact with an electric wire, and that he was undertaking a dangerous feat in climbing up the pole; but even if it may be said that men might differ on that proposition, still in this case he was warned of the wire and of the danger on account of the wire and that, too, before he had reached a situation where there was any occasion or necessity of clutching the wire to avoid a fall. Not only was he twice warned but he was repeatedly told and urged to come down.”

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Purtell v. Mason␣ 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 49064 (E.D. Ill. 2006)

“The Purtells filed the present lawsuit against Defendant Village of Bloomingdale Police Officer Bruce Mason after he requested that they remove certain Halloween tombstone “decorations” from their property. Evidence presented at trial revealed that the Purtells placed the tombstones referring to their neighbors in their front yard facing the street. The tombstones specifically referred to their neighbors, who saw the language on the tombstones. For instance, the tombstone that referred to the Purtells’ neighbor James Garbarz stated:

Here Lies Jimmy, The OlDe Towne IdioT MeAn As sin even withouT his Gin No LonGer Does He wear That sTupiD Old Grin . . . Oh no, noT where they’ve sent Him!

The tombstone referring to the Purtells’ neighbor Betty Garbarz read:

BeTTe wAsN’T ReADy, BuT here she Lies Ever since that night she DieD. 12 feet Deep in this trench . . . Still wasn’T Deep enough For that wenches Stench!

In addition, the Purtells placed a Halloween tombstone in their yard concerning their neighbor Diane Lesner stating:

Dyean was Known for Lying So She was fried. Now underneath these daises is where she goes crazy!!

Moreover, the jury heard testimony that Diane Lesner, James Garbarz, and Betty Garbarz were upset because their names appeared on the tombstones. Betty Garbarz testified that she was so upset by the language on the tombstones that she contacted the Village of Bloomingdale Police Department. She further testified that she never had any doubt that the “Bette” tombstone referred to her. After seeing the tombstones, she stated that she was ashamed and humiliated, but did not talk to Jeffrey Purtell about them because she was afraid of him.

Defense counsel also presented evidence that the neighbors thought the language on the tombstones constituted threats and that they were alarmed and disturbed by their names being on the tombstones. James Garbarz testified that he interpreted the “Jimmy” tombstone as a threat and told the police that he felt threatened by the tombstone. He also testified that he had concerns about his safety and what Jeffrey Purtell might do to him.”

OUTCOME: The court denied the homeowners’ post-trial motion for judgment as a matter of law pursuant to and motion for a new trial. Viewing the evidence and all reasonable inferences in a light most favorable to Officer Mason, a rational jury could conclude that the language on the tombstones constituted threats, that the neighbors were afraid of Jeffrey Purtell, and that they feared for their safety. As such the Court will not disturb the jury’s conclusion that the tombstones constituted fighting words — “those which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace.”

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Goodwin v. Walmart␣

2001 Ark. App. LEXIS 78

“On October 12, 1993, Randall Goodwin went to a Wal-Mart store located on 6th Street in Fayetteville, Arkansas. He entered through the front door and walked toward the sporting goods department. In route, he turned down an aisle known as the seasonal aisle. At that time, it was stocked with items for Halloween. This aisle could be observed from the cash registers. Mr. Goodwin took only a few steps down the aisle when he allegedly stepped on a wig and fell, landing on his right hip. As a result of the fall, Mr. Goodwin suffered severe physical injury to his back, including a ruptured disk. Kelly Evans, an employee for appellee, was standing at the end of her check-out stand when Mr. Goodwin approached her and informed her that he had fallen on an item in the seasonal aisle. She stated that she “saw what he was talking about.”

OUTCOME: Judgment affirmed because the pleadings, depositions, and related summary judgment evidence did not show that there was any genuine issue of material fact as appellant customer did not establish plastic bag containing the Halloween wig which allegedly caused him to slip and fall was on the floor as the result of appellee’s negligence or it had been on the floor for such a period of time that appellee knew or should have known about it.

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Eversole v. Wasson␣ 80 Ill. App. 3d 94 (Ill. 1980)

“The following allegations of count I, directed against defendant Wasson, were incorporated in count II against the school district: (1) plaintiff was a student at Villa Grove High School which was controlled and administered by the defendant school district, (2) defendant Wasson was employed by the school district as a teacher at the high school, (3) on November 1, 1978, at approximately 12:30 p.m., Wasson was at the high school in his regular capacity as a teacher and plaintiff was attending a regularly scheduled class, (4) Wasson sought and received permission from another teacher to take plaintiff from that teacher’s class and talk to him in the hallway, (5) once in the hallway, Wasson accused plaintiff of being one of several students he believed had smashed Wasson’s Halloween pumpkin at Wasson’s home, (6) without provocation from plaintiff, Wasson berated plaintiff, called him vile names, and threatened him with physical violence while shaking his fist in plaintiff’s face which placed plaintiff in fear of bodily injury, (7) Wasson then struck plaintiff about the head and face with both an open hand and a closed fist and shook and shoved him violently, (8) as a result, plaintiff was bruised about the head, neck, and shoulders; experienced pain and suffering in his head, body, and limbs; and became emotionally distraught causing his school performance and participation to be adversely affected . . .”

OUTCOME: The court affirmed that portion of the lower court’s order that dismissed the count against the school district and reversed that portion of the lower court’s order that entered a judgment in bar of action as to this count. The court remanded the case to the lower court with directions to allow the student to replead his count against the school district.

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Holman v. Illinois␣

47 Ill. Ct. Cl. 372 (1995)

“The Claimant was attending a Halloween party at the Illinois State Museum with her grandson on October 26, 1990. The party had been advertised locally in the newspaper and through flier advertisements. The advertisement requested that children be accompanied by an adult, to come in costume and to bring a flashlight. The museum had set up different display rooms to hand out candy to the children and give the appearance of a “haunted house.” The Claimant entered the Discovery Room with her grandson.

Under normal conditions the room is arranged with tables and low-seated benches for children to use in the museum’s regular displays. These tables and benches had been moved into the upper-right-hand corner of the Discovery Room next to the wall. In the middle of the room, there was a “slime pot” display where the children received the Halloween treat. The overhead fluorescent lights were turned off; however, the track lights on the left side of the room were turned on and dim. The track lights on the right side of the room near the tables and benches were not lit. The room was dark enough that the children’s flashlights could be clearly seen. There were approximately 40-50 people in the room at the time of the accident.

The Claimant entered the room with her grandson. They proceeded in the direction of the pot in the middle of the room to see what was going in the pot. Her grandson then ran around the pot to the right corner toward the wall. As the Claimant followed, she tripped over the corner of a bench stored in that section of the room. She fell, making contact with the left corner of the bench. She experienced great pain in her upper left arm. The staff helped her to her feet. Her father was called and she went to the emergency room. Claimant has testified that she did not see the low-seating bench because it was so dimly lit in the Discovery Room. The Claimant was treated at the emergency room, where she was diagnosed with a fracture of the proximal humeral head of her left arm as a result of the fall. Claimant returned home, but was unable to work for 12 to 13 weeks.”

OUTCOME: “The Claimant has met her burden of proof. She has shown by a preponderance of the evidence that the State acted negligently in placing furnishings in a dimly-lit room where visitors could not know of their location. The State did not exercise its duty of reasonable care. For the foregoing reasons, the Claimant is granted an award of $ 20,000.”

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Ferlito v. Johnson & Johnson␣

771 F. Supp. 196 “Plaintiffs Susan and Frank Ferlito, husband and wife, attended a Halloween party in 1984 dressed as Mary (Mrs. Ferlito) and her little lamb (Mr. Ferlito). Mrs. Ferlito had constructed a lamb costume for her husband by gluing cotton batting manufactured by defendant Johnson & Johnson Products (“JJP”) to a suit of long underwear. She had also used defendant’s product to fashion a headpiece, complete with ears. The costume covered Mr. Ferlito from his head to his ankles, except for his face and hands, which were blackened with Halloween paint. At the party Mr. Ferlito attempted to light his cigarette by using a butane lighter. The flame passed close to his left arm, and the cotton batting on his left sleeve ignited. Plaintiffs sued defendant for injuries they suffered from burns which covered approximately one-third of Mr. Ferlito’s body.”

OUTCOME: Ferlito v. Johnson & Johnson: Plaintiffs repeatedly stated in their response brief that plaintiff Susan Ferlito testified that “she would never again use cotton batting to make a costume.” Plaintiffs’ Answer to Defendant JJP’s Motion for J.N.O.V., pp. 1, 3, 4, 5. However, a review of the trial transcript reveals that plaintiff Susan Ferlito never testified that she would never again use cotton batting to make a costume. More importantly, the transcript contains no statement by plaintiff Susan Ferlito that a flammability warning on defendant JJP’s product would have dissuaded her from using the cotton batting to construct the costume in the first place. At oral argument counsel for plaintiffs conceded that there was no testimony during the trial that either plaintiff Susan Ferlito or her husband, plaintiff Frank J. Ferlito, would [**9] have acted any different if there had been a flammability warning on the product’s package. The absence of such testimony is fatal to plaintiffs’ case; for without it, plaintiffs have failed to prove HN9proximate cause, one of the essential elements of their negligence claim.

In addition, both plaintiffs testified that they knew that cotton batting burns when it is exposed to flame. Susan Ferlito testified that she knew at the time she purchased the cotton batting that it would burn if exposed to an open flame. Frank Ferlito testified that he knew at the time he appeared at the Halloween party that cotton batting would burn if exposed to an open flame. His additional testimony that he would not have intentionally put a flame to the cotton batting shows that he recognized the risk of injury of which he claims JJP should have warned. Because both plaintiffs were already aware of the danger, a warning by JJP would have been superfluous. Therefore, a reasonable jury could not have found that JJP’s failure to provide a warning was a proximate cause of plaintiffs’ injuries.

The evidence in this case clearly demonstrated that neither the use to which plaintiffs put JJP’s product nor the injuries arising from that use were foreseeable.

But in Trivino v. Jamesway Corporation, the following result:

The mother purchased cosmetic puffs and pajamas from the retailer. The mother glued the puffs onto the pajamas to create a costume for her child. While wearing the costume, the child leaned over the electric stove. The costume caught on fire, injuring the child. Plaintiffs brought a personal injury action against the retailer. The retailer filed a third party complaint against the manufacturer of the puffs, and the puff manufacturer filed a fourth party complaint against the manufacturer of the fibers used in the puffs. The retailer filed a motion for partial summary judgment as to plaintiffs’ cause of action for failure to warn. The trial court granted the motion and dismissed the actions against the manufacturers. On appeal, the court modified the judgment, holding that the mother’s use of the puffs was not unforeseeable as a matter of law and was a question for the jury. The court held that because the puffs were not made of cotton, as thought by the mother, there were fact issues as to the puffs’ flammability and defendants’ duty to warn. The court held that there was no prejudice to the retailer in permitting plaintiffs to amend their bill of particulars.

OUTCOME: The court modified the trial court’s judgment to grant plaintiffs’ motion to amend their bill of particulars, deny the retailer’s motion for summary judgment, and reinstate the third party actions against the manufacturers.

Spooky Torts: The 2018 List Of Halloween Litigation Horrors published first on https://immigrationlawyerto.tumblr.com/