#does charley have a tag actually

[wilted-woman]

saw this

[coffeeandbatboys]

This is Carol (@clonethirstingisreal)

Congrats on your 300 followers!!! Thanks for the tag! <3

I'd like to request Wolffe and the song "Kiss An Angel Good Morning" by Charley Pride.

I was just listening to it the other day, and I always really enjoy the "Kiss an angel good morning and love her like the devil when you get back home" part. <3 (It actually gives me chills.)

Thanks again!

Thank you!!! It gives me chills too! I was raised on classic country so Charley is a staple for me 😅

I acknowledge that the song is happy but does that stop the angsties? no.

Warnings: angsty, clingy Wolffe with a dash of hot sauce. Mention of the reader dying but its just a nightmare.

Kiss an Angel Good Morning (Wolffe x Reader)

He really doesn't want to leave you. But the 104th's shore leave is up and there's nothing he can do about it. You watch as he straps on his kit, checking the clips at least twice to stall for time.

You don't want him to go either. The two of you have had less and less time together as the war goes on.

His gaze lands on you. Mismatched, but still one of the most beautiful things you've ever seen.

"Kark, cyare." He mutters, kneeling next to the bed to touch your foreheads together. You shush him and press your lips to his. A groan resonates from his chest and his shoulders slump. Now he really doesn't want to go.

You gently push him by the chestplate. "Go, before the General gets suspicious and starts asking around." you giggle.

His lips twitch in a humorless smile for a brief second. "I love you."

You return the grin, albeit much happier than his. "I love you too. Come back safely."

You give him a couple more kisses 'for good luck' and watch as he bolts out the door.

Weeks pass before your apartment door is opened by his key. Happiness wells up inside you as you stir the pot on the stove and peek towards the entrance.

But the sight only makes you frown. He's haphazardly stacking his kit next to the door. He's never treated his armor like that, so you know that something must be wrong.

"Wolffe?" You ask, keeping your voice calm.

He says nothing, only looking at you and striding over to take you in his arms.

With the way he's holding you, something must have scared him. You reach behind you to turn the stove off and return the hug.

"What's wrong?" You ask, pressing a little so that you'll figure out what to do with him.

He shakes his head against your shoulder.

"Force osik and nightmares. I just want to feel you."

You nod, even though he probably doesn't see it and gently guide the two of you to the couch in the living area.

He presses his lips to yours. The kiss starts out slow, and as it goes on it deepens. It's desperate, but you lean into his hold. You won't deny him your affection on any day.

His tongue runs lightly over the edge of your bottom lip before his kisses trail down your jaw, moving to your neck where he gives the gentlest of nips. Your fingers curl into his hair as his kisses find their way to the collar of your shirt. You can't help but blush and giggle as he grabs the soft material with his teeth and pulls it aside to make room for more kisses.

His hand wanders beneath the hem of your shirt and caresses your torso.

"Wolffe," You murmur, bringing a hand to his cheek. "You have to tell me what happened."

His eyes squeeze shut.

"We came in contact with a sith artifact." He groans. "Gave us all our worst nightmares for a week."

You quirk a brow, knowing where this is going. "And?"

He sighs against your chest. "Mine was losing you. Kriff, Mesh'la. I watched you die every night after that."

Your hand cards through his dark curls again. "I'm right here, Wolffe."

He resumes his trail of kisses, nudging the crook of your neck with his nose. His hand slips further beneath your shirt, asking permission to go further.

You kiss his forehead in response as you let him feel you and make sure he knows you’re alive.

[companion-showdown]

#this one's quite hard as well#not only does katarina survive the sacking of troy#one of the few things we canonically know about her is that she can & will try literally anything to defeat an enemy#and she does have one pretty surefire move that WILL end a fight#but im not sure if 'winner' is applicable if she does that#so perhaps charley's the only one capable of actually leaving a fight between them as the victor#just saying

tags by @galacticlamps

Do not vote for your favourite!

Who would win in a fight (hand to hand combat only)?

TOURNAMENT MASTERPOST

[theabominableblogger]

Rewatching “Fright Night” (the 1985 version)

No I ain’t watching the remake with David Tennant.  ‘Cause I said so.

*does Borat impression while loading the movie on Amazon Prime*

“Sit here beside me on the veranda.”  Is this the... TV show scene?  The show with Roddy McDowall?

SCARE CHOOORD!

“So... luminescent.”  *laughs*

Those were some... horrible kissing noises

I like the out of context implication that as soon as the woman asks the dude to lay on her chest, Peter Vincent’s like “NONE IN THIS HOUSE!”

“IF SHE BREATHES...”

What idiot puts their smelly ass soccer cleats on their headboard?

“We’ve been going together almost a year, and all I ever hear is ‘Charley, stop it.’“  Well then maybe that’s a you problem

Also what the hell is that map thing next to Amy?

“Let’s get into bed.”  *bug eyes*

Amy, that is not the look of someone who is ready to have sex.

“It says right here that the divorce rate is 76% higher among couples who don’t argue before marriage.”  Shut up, Mom.

“Thank you [Amy] for helping Charley with his homework.”  ...I was gonna make a sex joke here but nah.

Oh I hate Charley’s friend in his movie.

Charley’s car, while super nice, looks like a sunburnt cow

“My luck.  He’s [the neighbor] probably gay.”  AAAAAHHH THEY EVEN SAID IT!

I really Charley to slap Teach [Ed] at some point but I know it’s never gonna happen.

For a moment, I thought that the carpenter dude partner was gonna be like Kenny from “The War at Home” but nah.  He probably just uses his teeth a lot.

*silently jamming to the background synth music*

*Charley spots a woman removes her bra in the window*  What was this rated again?

AN:  It’s rated R

*yells when Jerry looks over to see Charley through the window*

*Shot of Jerry’s hand pulling down the window blind*  That... is a lady hand.

AN:  They were actually extensions that Chris wore and he helped apply them himself so that he could just rip them off after a day of shooting

*Charley’s mom ruins Charley’s cover*  DAMN IT MOM

This movie is basically “Who Cried Wolf” but with vampires?

“I’m his roommate Billy Cole.”  Can you believe just that the fact that this movie was made in the mid 80s when the AIDS crisis in the US was getting ready to happen and director Tom Holland and the screenwriter went “YES they’re gonna be GAY and THAT’S FINAL”

“You actually saw the body, Charley?”  Uh doesn’t that tone raise any suspicion from the detective STANDING NEXT TO HIM?

*snorts in hilarity when Billy jokingly does the sign of the cross*

Charley, I would not trust anything Teach tries to tell you.

AND OF COURSE CHARLEY’S MOM INVITED JERRY OVER

OMINOUS SYNTH CHORD

My God, Chris Sarandon...

What’s with the celery?

Charley’s mom is the most oblivious character in this whole movie, I swear

FISH EYE LENS

I forget, do we ever see Jerry in vampire bat form or do we just see him as Chris Sarandon with fangs the entire movie?

Why yes, Charley, use your tiny crucifix.

Doesn’t the whole “enter with permission” count with bedrooms too or just the house in general?  If it counted with bedrooms, couldn’t Charley just put up a sign on his door that said “NO ADMISSION WITHOUT PERMISSION” and that would keep Jerry out?

Jerry is the most casual vampire I’ve seen so far.  Someone would just throw a chair at him and he’ll just No-Sell it like “Listen... I was just saying...”

There’s got to be a logical way to explain this Christmas thing.

We just need a vampire that’s like Catherine O’Hara from “Schitt’s Creek”

I love how Charley’s like 80% out the window and yet he can still reach for an entire mug of pencils

NO WAIT WE SEE HIS [Jerry’s] VAMPIRE FACE NEVERMIND

Valium?!?

Christopher Lee!

THAT FRAMING [of Billy kneeling directly in front of Jerry’s legs] ISN’T OBVIOUS AT ALL TOM HOLLAND

The logic for this movie is something else.  Charley sees someone on TV perform a vampire killing ON A TV SHOW and thinks “YES I’m going to ask him to help me with this vampire situation!” 

This is like asking Drew Carey if he can assist in a vampire hunting

*imitates Peter Vincent shooing Charley away*

*snorts at Teach and Amy walking in on Charley setting holy stuff ALL OVER HIS HOUSE*

Also I absolutely forgot about the weird side plot with Amy being an incarnation of a past love.  What is it with this and Bram Stoker’s Dracula going this route?

Man, Roddy McDowall is just a masterclass in classical acting.  You can tell the different style between him and the other actors.

There’s a bust of Klaus Kinski’s Nosferatu in the glass box!

AN:  *in best Janet from ‘The Good Place’ impression*  Fun fact, Klaus Kinski was actually an asshole

I like the red and black plaid night coat

God, all those clocks going off at once reminds me of the scene in Pinocchio.  That would give me so much anxiety in real life.

WHO TOSSED JERRY THE APPLE?!?

OH AND THEY [Jerry and Billy] WALK OFF TOGETHER OF COURSE

*imitates Peter Vincent saying “Good evening good evening”*

*going through AO3′s Fright Night 1985 tag as Peter explains what he’s doing*  Wow there’s four pages.  I might have to bookmark some of these.

Ohhhh kay, nevermind on half of these.  Not into that.  Nope nope nope.

I forget, is Billy also a vampire?  Or is he like some ghoul?  Werewolf?

...Interspecies romance?

For a fact, I know that if CinemaSins covers this movie, they would award Jerry the “eating an apple because he’s an asshole” sin and I would laugh

Oh he’s [Jerry] gonna go for the hand kiss, isn’t he? 

OH GOD DAMMIT

*has to still register it*

Wait, did Jerry hold the bottle up in front of the fire in case there was actually holy water?  Would heating it up counteract the holy water inside?

WAIT DOESN’T PETER CATCH JERRY’S LACK OF REFLECTION IN THE MIRROR AS THEY LEAVE?

How did they do that?  Did they just... comp Chris Sarandon out or did they have him tuck out of frame but still say his lines?

AN:  Tom Holland originally goofed up the shot I guess but they ran with it

JERRY IS BI HEADCANON CONFIRMED

WAIT HE FOUND THE MIRROR SHARDS

The overhead tracking shot following Ed in the alleyway is actually pretty good.  And the way it slides to a normal shot is great.

Oh they do the creepy Dracula fog!

Wait, this movie came out the same year as Nightmare on Elm Street 2.  Dang.

And that movie also had a weird homoerotic tone to it.

You know what, the way Jerry offers Ed salvation only to attack him was actually pretty solid.  Just good acting from both of them.  I was sold.

WAIT IT’S THE CLUB SCENE!

*Peter presses a cross to Ed’s forehead*  Great prosthetic too, holy crap!

*jams out to the song playing at the club*

Why do Jerry’s dance clothes look like either my pajamas or really lame exercise clothes?

God, it’s [Jerry pacing back and forth watching Amy] like a cat stalking a bird holy crap

NOOOO I DON’T NEED TO WATCH THIS SHE’S LIKE SIXTEEEEENNNN

*jaw drops when Jerry runs his hand up Amy’s leg*  NOOOOOO

Not gonna lie, this song almost sounded like a remix of the Nightmare on Elm Street theme

NOOOOOOOO STOOOOOPPPP CEASE DESIST

Amy’s hair just gets wilder and wilder during this dance sequence

STOOOOOOPPPP

Quick, Charley, start a fight!  Just... punch someone!  Commotion!

*just yells when Jerry steals a kiss from Amy*

*Amy wakes up in a white dress in Jerry’s house*  NOPE

God and he [Jerry] took off his shirt too just *hides face in hands*

*covers mouth with hand in attempt not to say anything*

*Jerry’s dragging finger scrapes off wood on the banister*  Oh that’s just mean

*Jerry drapes his arms over the back of Billy’s shoulders*  HMM

They would be that duo who would pick up a phone and take turns to go “...surprise, Sidney...”

*A wolf walks out of Mrs. Brewster’s room*  WHAAAAATTT?!?

Dang they really just tossed a plushie wolf off the stairs

WAIT the guy that did the VFX for this movie also did “Ghostbusters” if I remember correctly

AN:  Yes

They are just... really dragging out Ed’s death scene

That kinda exasperated look Peter gives the smoking house is great

Wait is Billy a vampire too?  Zombie?  What is he?

I really just want Charley to reach out and just slightly poke dying Billy in the chest so that he crumbles backwards.  That would have been hilarious.

How long is Amy’s hair?

HE [Jerry] DOES TURN INTO A BAT!

Real plot twist would be that the bat bite also starts turning Charley into a vampire so Peter would have to kill three birds with one stone (heal Charley and Amy and kill Jerry)

Boss move:  Peter closing the coffin in front of Jerry

And it ends with the same shot as the opening!

“Oh, you’re so cool, Brewster.”  So is Ed alive?

[kingofthewilderwest]

"#just because you have a bias about certain socioeconomic groups which tend to listen to country doesn't mean" // Yup. I tend to side-eye folks who are like "I like all kinds of music except country and [Insert a genre of music usually associated with Black creators like rap and hip hop]" You're not slick, ppl. I know what you're saying.

^^^^^^^^^ You hit the nail on the head.

It’s racial bias. It’s socioeconomic bias. It’s bias against people groups who have less respect and say in society.

From my tags on this post:

#don’t get me started on a long rant of the progressive side of country music and what’s been progressive FOR DECADES#from times near its BEGINNInGS#through the modern age#just because you have a bias about certain socioeconomic groups which tend to listen to country doesn’t mean#that that’s actually what the genre is or who the artists are#I could go for a LONNNNG time about this#a LONG time#some of the best protest songs I know of today’s current political situation#are country#or have like ya’ll forgotten about the folk revival#of the 1960s#or…#gahghfnfddhgnghfngh#I AM GAY AND I LISTEN TO COUNTRY#NYEH!!!!

Now. I understand disinterest in a genre because it’s not your aesthetic, but when people express their feelings for country, R&B, hip-hop, etc. …the dialogue isn’t casual “It’s not my thing.” The dialogue is a hateful, passionate retaliation.

Other genres aren’t treated like this. It’s normalized and encouraged to hate on country and rap. These genres are systematically treated with less respect and that disrespect culturally arose because these genres are associated with less-respected demographics. 

(Country music is associated with people of low socioeconomic status, for people who aren’t explicitly aware.)

Anecdotally: I’ve caught something interesting about anti-country music sentiment. Many people tell me they can’t stand the “twang.” Half the time, I’ve noticed that their internalized definition of “twang” isn’t the vocal technique; it’s that they can’t stand the presence of a Southern accent. And hooboy does that have TONS of sociocultural bias issues. As a linguist, I’ve read endless sociolinguistic studies about how Southern dialects are treated as “lesser,” and how speakers of the dialect are automatically judged to be less intelligent, etc. It’s not good, folks.

Sometimes, to help friends get out of their anti-country mindset, I’ve “tricked” them into liking country. See, genres like bluegrass grew closely out of Scots-Irish folk music. Often, we’re playing the same tunes on both sides of the Atlantic. So I play a few instrumentals, my friend goes, “Oh! I love Celtic music

The biases against those demographics color how people view the music. There’s endless things that can be said about hip-hop bias, holy shit. I won’t focus on that today because I don’t believe I am qualified to be a spokesman. Someone who understands that genre better, and other genres associated with the African-American community, and is African-American, would be a better human to listen to than me. I defer to their knowledge and experience. It’s hella important to understand what bias has been reflected against those genres.

But there’s just as much bias against country music, against another demographic. And I’ve found it wild how it gets treated on places like tumblr, which wants to stand up for underprivileged groups, but somewhat inaccurately associates country music as “anti-gay conservative evil white person music” rather than music of people historically of lower socioeconomic status.

Yes, some of the demographic that listens to country music or plays country music are bad apples. But like… thinking the music is JUST THAT is a huge disservice to what country actually is and who the music artists actually are.

The history of country music is one giant collaborative melting pot of people from many different cultural backgrounds. Broad West African influence. Mexican influence. Italian influence. German influence. Scots-Irish influence. Cherokee influence. More. Early record labels like OKEH foolishly separated “hillbilly music” (presumably white folk music) from “rhythm and blues” (presumably Black folk music) without understanding the constant racial, demographic, regional, and cultural cross-pollination that occurred between the musicians from country music’s origins. And while there ARE certain issues in country music’s past and present, and we can’t let those issues go forgotten, that’s far from the whole story. We shouldn’t romanticize issues, but we should acknowledge that this music genre has given us major strides too.

Country music is the banjo, brought from Africa, combined with the mandolin, brought from Italy, combined with the fiddle, brought from Ireland, combined with the guitar and the dobro and the accordion and the upright bass and the electric guitar and the electric bass and whatever instruments you want to put in there.

Country music is African-American musicians like DeFord Bailey, the first radio star ever introduced on the Grand Ole Opry (THE most revered country music hub out there), blues harmonica performer, playing to crowds decades before segregation was de-legalized. He toured with white Opry musicians who treated him as one of their own. It’s soul music genre pioneer Ray Charles producing a studio album entirely dedicated to country music hits like “Hey Good Lookin’” from Hank Williams. It’s country star Charley Pride, who despite the racism against him in the 1960s rose to fame and made audiences fall in love with his beautiful voice. It’s the African-American musicians who inspired many commercial country stars, like Arnold Shultz influencing Bill Monroe and the railroad workers inspiring Jimmie Rodgers.

Country music is stars like Johnny Rodriguez and Rick Treviño, singing country music in Spanish, and using obvious Latin flavors in the genre.

Country music is filled with badass women like the ladies who STARTED THE GENRE ROLLING IN THE FIRST PLACE, Sara Carter and Mother Maybelle Carter (whose guitar style is hugely influential to this day) and Maybelle’s daughters Helen, June, and Anita; the first female music manager in the music industry, Louise Scruggs; songwriters like Felice Bryant and Loretta Lynn; the most awarded female artist in Grammy history Alison Krauss; and powerhouses like Dolly Parton who stepped out of an over-controlling entertainer’s shadow to become a badass in all things like supporting the LGBTQ community, contributing to pro-transgender films ahead of their time, and starring in sex worker positive productions like “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.”

Country music is filled with activism. Johnny Cash showed a heart for those forgotten by society. He toured many times in prisons. Cash especially was an activist for Native American rights. He toured with Native American songwriters so audiences could hear their own words (I’ve been trying to find names but I’m having difficulties re-finding that information, so my apologies for not giving names of those who deserve to be mentioned). Cash released albums dedicated to exposing past and present injustices against the Native American people. He went on tours specifically to Native American reservations. 

And it’s not just Johnny Cash!

Country music is many stars from the Grand Ole Opry banding together to release AIDS benefit albums - big names like Alison Krauss, Willie Nelson, Marty Stuart, aurgh I’m too lazy to write them all, PEOPLE.

Country music is Earl Scruggs and his sons playing at the Vietnam War Protests.

Country music is tied in with the fucking folk revival of the 1960s, which was deep in left-wing activism and the Civil Rights Movement. Folk singers sang traditional Appalachian and English ballads alongside their own compositions, topical pieces protesting the current political situation. You can call one artist “folk” or “Americana” and another one “country,” but the influences were intermingling, and it’s why we have Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie and Joan Baez and John Denver and Pete Seeger owning a banjo that says, “This machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender.”

Dammit, I have a full BOOK that discusses country music and political ties. 

There’s another book out there, which I haven’t read, that discusses the relationship between country music and the queer community, and how bias against country music is NOT as reflective of the listening demographic as we stereotype. I’ll take the word of one reviewer who said:

[Nadine Hubbs] explores country music lyrics, presenting a great deal of evidence suggesting that working class America is not inherently homophobic, but that as middle class cultural taste has changed to include formal acceptance of homosexuality, this process has included pinning homophobic ideas on the working class.

Country music is lyrics like this 1975 controversial song “The Pill”:

You wined me and dined meWhen I was your girlPromised if I’d be your wifeYou’d show me the worldBut all I’ve seen of this old worldIs a bed and a doctor billI’m tearing down your brooder house‘Cause now I’ve got the pillAll these years I’ve stayed at homeWhile you had all your funAnd every year that’s gone byAnother baby’s comeThere’s a-gonna be some changes madeRight here on nursery hillYou’ve set this chicken your last time‘Cause now I’ve got the pill

Country music is lyrics like this 2013 song that feels as relevant than ever:

If crooks are in charge, should we let them pick our pockets?If we don’t want trouble, should we not try to stop it?We could just sink into the quicksand slavery we’re born inBut fighting endless wars for greedy liars is getting pretty boringThey think they got us trained, so we’ll think we’re living freeIf we got time and money for junk food and TVBut it’s plain honest people never stand a chance of winning electionsThey just let us pick which liars take our rights away for our own protectionThe corporate propaganda paralyzes us with fearDestroying our ability to trustFear keeps us fighting with each other over scrapsStarving to death in the dustOrganized religion really helps you submitBut the meek are inheriting the short end of the stickFear surrounds compassion like a layer of moldAnd weakens our defenses so we’re too weak to be boldLife could be heaven, but this corrupted systemTakes away our rights, expects us not to miss themThe middle class is shrinking while the lower class growsIf we don’t wake up soon, we’ll have no class left to lose

Country music is Christians themselves criticizing the hypocritical Evangelical culture in the USA for the bullshit hatefulness stewing inside it:

Every house has got a Bible and a loaded gunWe got preachers and politicians‘Round here it’s kinda hard to tell which oneIs gonna do more talkin’ with a crooked tongue

And as that one post I just reblogged shows, there’s MANY queer country musicians out there producing explicitly pro-LGBTQ+ music.

I’m brushing over so much. I’m sorry for the simplification that goes with me doing such a pass-by overview. I’m sorry I’m focusing more on history than the present (I know more about the 1920s-1960s eras, so I’m talking from my strong suit). I hope the information is at least strong enough to get my point across.

There are definitely listeners and artists in country music who are uber-conservative white hateful Christians. Yes. I know why country music gets associated with that. But.

Country music is not ABOUT this uber-conservative white hateful Christian side. The genre is not “polluted”. It is a thousand voices from a thousand perspectives of people from many backgrounds and beliefs. And many of those thousand voices are old traditional songs that came from Black communities, or were composed by Mexican-Americans, or were performed by folk artists as part of a protest for equal rights. 

(Note: I’m *NOT* saying all Christians are bad or that different political angles don’t have merits. I’m Christian myself! And you don’t know my political party. I’m just trying to get the point across that country music isn’t ENTRENCHED in one questionable demographic.)

You don’t have to like country music. It doesn’t have to be your aesthetic. But if you find it fun to get in on society’s popular country hate roasting… please rethink this. The reason country music has been hated from its roots is because it’s associated with the socioeconomically disadvantaged.

I’m with you 100%, Ashley. When someone says they like all genres “except country music and rap,” I get a little leery. I used to be one of those people when I was younger. I had to learn to grow past those biases. But once I did, I realized there was so much I was hating on that I didn’t understand. Now, I hope I can help people overcome their own biases, such as ones they don’t realize they’ve had - for things like music.

Hi ya’lls. I’m queer and I love country.

P.S. If anyone has anything to add or correct, please feel free to add on! I’m doing my best but I do not know everything and would be happy to learn more, too!

[ghostflowerdreams]

Vampire Films

It’s October! The month in which I watch even more horror movies than usual. Each year I tend to have a theme to help narrow down what to watch. So far I’ve done Zombie Films and Werewolf Films. This year’s them will be vampires. I tried to include foreign films (at least those with English subtitles), but only if I was able to get my hands on them.

I also made sure that each of the films listed below primarily revolve around vampires. This isn’t in any particular order either.

30 Days of Night (2007) – is an American horror film based on the comic book miniseries of the same name. The film is directed by David Slade and stars Josh Hartnett and Melissa George. The story focuses on an Alaskan town beset by vampires as it enters into a thirty-day long polar night.

It was fun to watch! I love that the vampires were actually terrifying and not just pretty people with fangs. It does have some clichés and a basic plot, but I still enjoyed it. Did you know that the town of Barrow is a real place in Alaska? And that it does have 30 days of night? It’s a good thing that vampires don’t actually exist, especially these because this place would've been a paradise for them.

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014) – is an American vampire western film directed by Ana Lily Amirpour. It’s tagged as “The first Iranian vampire Western”. In the Iranian ghost-town Bad City, a place that reeks of death and loneliness, the townspeople are unaware they are being stalked by a lonesome vampire.

It’s stylistic, slow placed with a very gothic atmosphere. It might not be for everyone, but it was neat in its delivery for sure.

Fright Night (2011) – is an American horror comedy film directed by Craig Gillespie and produced by Michael De Luca and Alison Rosenzweig. A remake of Tom Holland’s Fright Night, the film’s screenplay was adapted by Marti Noxon. The plot follows a teenaged boy who discovers that his neighbor is actually a vampire, which culminates in a battle between the two.

I watched this film before watching the original Fright Night. This remake is actually pretty decent. It manages to be it’s own thing, while keeping the same concept as the original but with a modern take to it. It was fun.

Fright Night (1985) – is an American horror film written and directed by Tom Holland (in his directorial debut) and produced by Herb Jaffe. It stars William Ragsdale, Chris Sarandon, Roddy McDowall, Amanda Bearse, Jonathan Stark, Dorothy Fielding, Stephen Geoffreys, and Art Evans. The film follows young Charley Brewster, who discovers that his next-door neighbor Jerry Dandrige is a vampire. When no one believes him, Charley decides to get Peter Vincent, a TV show host who acted in films as a vampire hunter, to stop Jerry’s killing spree.

It was released in the 80s so it certainly felt like I went back in time. What still stick with me after watching it was how the vampire dude did an excellent job at radiating charming yet creepiness, especially with his interest in Charley’s girlfriend.

From Dawn to Dusk (1996) – is an American action horror film directed by Robert Rodriguez and written by Quentin Tarantino. Bank robber Seth Gecko and his violent brother, Richie, are on the run – a robbery gone bad left several people dead – and the FBI and Texas Rangers are in pursuit. As they head for Mexico, the brothers meet the Fuller family heading the same way. They take the family hostage and continue the trip in the Fullers’ RV.

It was a fun and campy horror gorefest. Did you know that the director knew that he had a big gory movie on his hands, so to guarantee the film wouldn’t get a dreaded NC-17 rating he made all of the vampire blood green instead of red?

Let the Right One In (2008) – Swedish: Låt den rätte komma in is an Swedish romantic horror film directed by Tomas Alfredson, based on the 2004 novel of the same title by John Ajvide Lindqvist, who also wrote the screenplay. The film tells the story of a bullied 12-year-old boy who develops a friendship with a vampire child in Blackeberg, a suburb of Stockholm, in the early 1980s.

Not bad! It’s not every day that there’s a vampire film that focuses on a vampire kid. It’s definitely not the childish type of film either.

Near Dark (1987) – is an American neo-western horror film co-written and directed by Kathryn Bigelow, and starring Adrian Pasdar, Jenny Wright, Bill Paxton, Lance Henriksen, and Jenette Goldstein. The plot follows a young man in a small midwestern town who becomes involved with a family of nomadic American vampires.

Not bad! If you like The Lost Boys, you’ll definitely like this film too. I could almost see this existing in the same universe.

Salem’s Lot (1979) – is an American miniseries television adaptation of the horror novel of the same name by Stephen King. Directed by Tobe Hooper and starring David Soul and James Mason, the plot concerns a writer who returns to his hometown and discovers that its citizens are turning into vampires.

It was okay.

Stake Land (2010) -- is an American vampire horror film directed by Jim Mickle and starring Nick Damici, who cowrote the script with Mickle. It also stars Connor Paolo, Danielle Harris and Kelly McGillis. The plot revolves around an orphaned young man being taken under the wing of a vampire hunter known only as “Mister”, and the battle for survival in their quest for a safe haven.

Think zombie apocalypse, but with vampires instead. It wasn’t bad.

What We Do In The Shadows (2014) -- Flatmates Viago, Deacon and Vladislav are three vampires who are just trying to get by in modern society. From paying rent and doing the housework to trying to get invited in to nightclubs, they are just like anyone else - except they are immortal and must feast on human blood.

I liked it! It’s a fun mockumentary about vampires.

The Lost Boys (1987) – is an American horror film directed by Joel Schumacher, produced by Harvey Bernhard with a screenplay written by Jeffrey Boam. Janice Fischer and James Jeremias wrote the film’s story. The film’s ensemble cast includes; Corey Haim, Jason Patric, Kiefer Sutherland, Jami Gertz, Corey Feldman, Dianne Wiest, Edward Herrmann, Alex Winter, Jamison Newlander, and Barnard Hughes. The film is about two brothers who move to California to a beach town and end up fighting a gang of young vampires.

This is great! No wonder it’s a cult classic. However, I’m not a fan of the sequels. They’re not that great. So I would recommend that you stick with just this film, but if you really want to watch one of the them...I suggest the Lost Boys: The Thirst which was okay.

Vamps (2017) – is also known as Ghouls; Vurdalaki and Вурдалаки. It is a Russian action fantasy horror film directed by Sergei Ginzburg from a screenplay by Aleksey Karaulov, Evgeniy Kolyadintsev, Tikhon Kornev and Aleksei Timm, based on a story by Alexei Tolstoi (Mario Bava previously adapted it in 1963 for I Tre volti della paura; Black Sabbath). 

In the distant part of the Carpathian Mountains, near the border with the Ottoman Empire, there is an old monastery. The monk named Lavr exiled himself there and is an expert on mysterious powers. Empress Elizabeth sends her godson, Andrey, to bring the monk back to St. Petersburg. Andrey travels to the ill-famed place and meets with Lavr, but before they can return to the city they must face evil forces and creatures of the dark side.

It was a okay movie with a decent story, and it was also beautifully shot. I found it engaging enough to finish it.

Vampire Dad (2020) -- is an American comedy horror film directed by Frankie Ingrassia, who co-wrote the screenplay with Kathryn M. Moseley. In the early 1960s, Dr. Raymond is the picture-perfect husband and father until one night when everything changes. Victoria, the “Goddess of the Underworld”, bites Raymond and turns him into a vampire. Victoria recruits Raymond to be the therapist for creatures of the netherworld because monsters have feelings too and they desperately need his help!

It was lighthearted and nice to watch!

Blood Red Sky (2021) -- (also known as Transatlantic 473) is a action horror film directed by Peter Thorwarth, who co-wrote the screenplay with Stefan Holtz. When a group of terrorists hijacks an overnight transatlantic flight, a mysteriously ill woman must unleash a monstrous secret to protect her young son.

It wasn’t perfect, but it was a lot better than I expected. The mashup of terrorist hijackers on a plane, vampires and a protective mother actually worked well. It was refreshing to see something different in the vampire genre. However, be aware that you may need to turn on subtitles because there’s both English and German dialogue.

Boys From County Hell (2021) -- is a vampire comedy horror film directed by Chris Baugh, who also co-wrote the film with Brendan Mullin. A crew of hardy road workers, led by a bickering father and son, must survive the night when they accidentally awaken an ancient Irish vampire.

It was fun to watch! It was great to see something different in the vampire genre. It takes place in Northern Ireland in a fictional backwater town, whose only claim to fame is that Bram Stoker stayed there once and based Dracula on the local legend of Abhartach.

NOTE: This isn’t a popularity list. Just a list of vampires films that I haven’t ever seen and those I have, but it has been a long time since I’ve watched them and wanted to re-watch again. I’m sure by now there’s been plenty of vampire films released. If I really enjoy one of those films then I might come back to this list and add them on.

[balizardsnakething]

TW DRAMA AND ME ACTING ON MY EMOTIONS CAUSE OF THIS POST 

Granted I did post this after sending her an apology and I’m glad I now have official confirmation that she has seen said apology. The very fact that I have sent an apology means that I had got over the situation and just didn’t care about it anymore. I also tagged @toomanyfamdom because we thought it was ✨funny✨ and have gotten over the situation (unlike some). 

It should also be noted that I haven’t had any contact with Maddy since everything that happened and at least had the decency to send an apology and move on. Also, for the record, I had nothing to do with that list of toxicity. That list was put together and shown to me by my friends. I then continued to FORWARD THE SAME MESSAGE to Maddy because I disagreed with the list. 

Let’s see, shall we? Up first on the list of hell that I had nothing to do with (and disagree with) there is... “inconsiderate of time zones and peoples family life.” This eventually turned out to be accurate, not just for me but for many others. Madison would organise events like DnD games at UNGODLY hours in the morning (because she is in American time zones) and when us British people were unable to turn up she would kick them from the game and then proceed to shame their character for an hour. Granted her uncle did pass (im very sorry for your loss), but that had nothing to do with anything. Many of us (including myself) helped Maddy and were there for her, and I have plenty of messages to prove it. 

ANOTHER thing to do with time is when I was added to one of the greatest Instagram group chats in the world! However, my sleep was abruptly ruined when Maddy group-called the chat at 4am because she wanted to play Minecraft with a friend. Please direct call next time... thanks. 

Whilst on the subject of time family life, one of the most memorable things this girl did was shame me and attack me on one of the discord servers we were both on. What made this even worse was that I had an audition for a London West End theatre school which had the power to change my LIFE. And Maddy knew this and also knew that it was worrying me and that I was extremely stressed about it. You may say ‘oh, it's just a coincidence’. If you believe that please explain why said post tagged everyone and was posted 5 mins before my audition. Maddy knew this would stress me out, I spoke about the audition and my ability to read into things many times before and she knew this would get to me! A lot of the things Maddy did were petty shit, but then again, that’s who she is. 

Next up is... “shows blatant favouritism.” Well, it’s no surprise Maddy has so many friends! But which ones does she actually care about? My friends and I witness this first hand on many occasions, one of which being another DnD game where she was the dungeon master. Maddy made the turn order by (and I quote’, “the order is in who I love the most.” This caused some of us to feel a little uncomfortable, but we continued until Maddy put each character on a path to different destinations and explained which each path was. By the time it got to me, my dyspraxia/dyslexia couldn't hold the information, and I asked Maddy to explain them all again. Maddy agreed and but then ended with, “You just used up you go, Charley.” I was so confused! Apparently, explanations waste a turn??? But this was fine by me until Maddy explained the destinations to another player, but this time, she let them choose where they wanted to go instead of keeping them on the bench, awaiting their turn. Maddy would also allow people to have longer goes/round claiming that there was more to their story. My turn would be around 2mins where someone else would be 5. Again, petty shit which still happens to make people upset. 

Note: It was not just me who felt this way! Many others slid into my dms because they felt upset with how Maddy treated others but not themselves. 

Up next is, “making your best friend feel like shit for making a joke”. Another reminder, this list wasn’t written by me, it was written by my friend who was watching from the outside. And this is very true. I would often make jokes with people about Donald Trump and America because their laws and president (not anymore) were stupid. This always seemed to annoy Maddy and hurt her feelings. I would often make a throwaway comment but end up feeling bad about it because Maddy would leave the call. I always felt like I was walking on thin ice with her because if I said something even remotely controversial, she would not speak to me and leave the call. This really hurt me because I cared about my friends a heck of a lot and never wanted to ruin any relationships with them. I would send countless messages to Maddy, apologising and crying to her, telling her not to be mad at me. THAT 👏🏻 IS 👏🏻 A 👏🏻 TOXIC 👏🏻 RELATIONSHIP 👏🏻 One joke shouldn’t be the be-all and end-all of a friendship,, but that is what It always felt like! Also, Maddy never specified it was a trigger until recently, and even after she did say it was a trigger, I held back so she could feel comfortable. 

The final thing is: “made you feel bad for your emotions.” Madison needs to learn that EVERYONE IS DIFFERENT and that people deal with things in different ways. Not everyone is smart, sensitive or skinny like she is. Whenever anyone hurt my friends, I would lash out and act upon my emotions because I didn’t know what else to do. This is something Maddy heavily criticised me for and something that eventually resulted in me listening to high-frequency sounds so I could get rid of my emotions and feel numb. My logic was that I didn’t want to hurt anyone ever again by jumping the gun and acting upon emotion. But thanks to others, I was pulled out of that loop, and I’ve learnt to use logic and reason as well as emotion. 

As for “breaking my heart”. Yes. Our friendship ending did hurt me, a lot. Just like everything with you, it is very one-sided. I was reaching out, listening and trying to help Maddy repair relationships with people whom she’d hurt. We both said equally bad things which made the ‘relationship’ toxic, and I would just like to point out that the name, ‘evil Maddy’ is cringe and I’m ashamed I was ever friends with you considering you used that in a callout post. /hj

---------------

Sarcasm aside, ima be real here because I am not afraid to tell my side of the story. So, @ thenameisnoone / Maddy. Here is a long-ass response to the post you made about me. xx

Look, I’m not going to call you out or use Politics_notmything to cancel you because I’m not like that. I’m an actual good person who really tried with Maddy and dis my best to change myself to make her feel comfortable. I left a group chat with all my friends for a week and blamed it on ‘family issues’ because I didn’t want to make her feel uncomfortable. I made an entire Birthday PowerPoint for her, which included some of my best and favourite bootlegs. I made a genuine effort, but Maddy didn't really do anything else but tell me to “calm down” or “not throw everything away and give in to anger or despair and calm down until you can think rationally and make a logical decision”. 

And I’m glad I actually saw this because this is a classic Maddy move. She argues with people, builds up a situation then removes/blocks them, so they cant see everything she’s saying about them (i have proof of this from a server im in.) It has happened before, and she manipulated people into believing her side of the story. 

“I am allowed to block people who lie to me about serious topics even though they have trust issues which makes them unable, to tell the truth, if it hurts them. I am allowed to talk to people who blow up on me before hearing my side of things where they would have realised what they thought is wrong even though I dont get back to people until 3am and decide to leave them on delivered/read for days at a time when I am happily talking in other servers. I am allowed to block people who accuse me of shit-talking them with my friends who I introduced them to (and I never do that) when I have only defended them and said friends genuinely were being nice to them even if they have proof. I am allowed to block people. Period.” - Maddy 

And I’m not saying Maddy isn't allowed to block people. It’s a free world. Im just defending myself :) 

Granted, Maddy did defend me and say that this situation shouldn’t change anyone opinions on me, and I can say the same. Just because I had a terrible experience with Maddy, doesn’t mean she is a bad person and I encourage anyone online who loves women’s’ history and WATT to befriend her. 

But being honest, she did also call me a bitch on a Tumblr callout post, so I had to come and write this all down for safekeeping and reblogging purposes. Im not a bitch, and that is why I’m not using my following to cancel her. But anyway,  we both had some shit experiences with each other so you can read this and make up your own mind even though I did back her up with the previous call-out post, sent her my support, apologised and didn’t block her when she was at a bad time in her life or when she needed help. If anyone has a problem with me posting this, please contact me via DM. 

Sorry, not sorry ‘bout what I said. I’m just tired of your petty shit.

[ej-forrest]

10 question tag

Thank you @phantom-does-a-thing! I appreciate it once again :)

Rules: Answer 10 questions and ask 10 questions, then tag some friends.

Your questions aren’t boring!

1. What OC(s) do you disapprove of their actions the most, and why?

Definitely Finneas from my WIP Hand of Polaris. He is just straight up a shitty person. Also, his son, Charley, who although he follows in his dad’s footsteps because of his naivety, I still don’t approve.

2. Have you ever (that you know of) made someone cry with your writing?

Not that I’m aware of but I do know that I’ve hit some people in the feels.

3. How do you create and develop characters?

Usually a lot of thought dumping. Sometimes through inspiration and I do also sometimes use character sheets to develop them. The thing I do the most is throw them in random situations and figure out how they would act.

4. What do you do when you’re in a slump (or having writer's block)?

Create a new idea or jump between old ideas. But I do love creating new ideas.

5. What are some of your favorite things to see in other stories and to write in your own?

Of course, found family. I really like romance and emotional situations. I love me some angst and when things that are stake are actually at stake and have an important meaning.

6. Do you listen to music while you write? (A common question, but I’m curious)

Not really. Most times, I get too distracted by the lyrics.

7. Who is your favorite OC to write and why?

Currently, it is Alexander who is also from my WIP Hand of Polaris. I know him really well and I like his thought process most of the time.

8. How long have you been working on your current WIP, and if you know, how long do you want to work on it/want the WIP to be?

I’ve been working on Hand of Polars for a little under six months. I’m not sure how long I want to work on it, but I at least want it to be a decent-sized chapbook.

9. What is the most interesting thing that you like about your WIP or the thing you’re proudest of? (Like characters, plot points, quotes, things in the universe)

My characters because I feel like I can make them realistic and to me, they all have something that makes them interesting. I would hope those who have read my writing would think the same.

10. What does your workspace look like? (Desktop, open tabs, window, the space around you, where you work, all that cool crap)

Usually, it’s either a pen and notebook on my bed or at a table or my laptop on my bed.

My questions:

1. What is one thing that could potentially be controversial about your current WIP?

2. Is there an OC that you could see yourself being friends with? If so, why?

3. What is your greatest strength/weakness in writing? 

4. What is one thing that is almost in every one of your WIPs (this can be types of characters, quirks, settings, etc.)

5. How often do you find yourself wanting to write but not actually acting upon that thought?

6. What’s one thing you’d like to work on with your writing?

7. Someone reads part of your WIP, what do you think their first reaction would be?

8. Are you comfortable sharing your work with others? Why or why not?

9. What is your favorite thing to do with writing?

10. If you could write in any genre, that isn’t your go-to or favorite genre, what would it be?

I tag: @selling-cj @v-snippets @aphteavanawrites @words-in-the-sky and anyone else who wants to do this.

Those tagged above, that is if you want to of course. Thank you again.

[gingerteaonthetardis]

Eight x Charley x Rose for the headcanons ask?

i’m gonna tag @lotsofthinkythoughts in this one, too, because she asked the same thing... and oh boy. you can probably tell i’ve thought extensively about... basically all of these things. (with much help and input and inspiration from thinky.) but yeah, without further ado...

who hogs the duvet

charley. the doctor learns to keep a spare throw blanket on hand for rose, because she’s grumpy when her sleep is interrupted. but he doesn’t even make a token effort at stealing the duvet back, he just thinks charley’s so damn cute.

who texts/rings to check how their day is going

oh, rose. absolutely. once she convinces charley to keep a phone, she’s constantly blowing it up. and she’s the emoji queen.

who’s the most creative when it comes to gifts

the doctor. out of all of them, he’s the one most likely to return home holding a lump of molten metal, pulled from the heart of a star, because it, like, symbolizes the stars he sees in rose’s eyes or the undying strength of charley’s character or something. he’s an idiot and a sap and his gifts are idiotic and sappy.

who gets up first in the morning

the doctor, but does it really count if you don’t ever actually go to sleep?

who suggests new things in bed

rose “the top” tyler. and it’s never really… a suggestion, so much as a very, very strong recommendation.

who cries at movies

charley! it takes her by surprise, because she doesn’t think of herself as a crier, but she sobs like a baby when they watch the notebook. rose would absolutely be crying, too, but she’s too busy handing charley tissues and saying, “awww, it’s okay, babe, cry it out,” and trying not to laugh.

who gives unprompted massages

the doctor. he’s a tactile boy.

who fusses over the other when they’re sick

oh, this one is impossible. i think they’d all take turns. rose knows how to make a good, strong, prentice-family-secret cuppa that’ll clear your sinuses right out. charley has this homemade soup recipe that’s been in her family for generations and it’s perfect for an upset stomach. and the doctor is more… frantically trying to inoculate them against every possible disease.

who gets jealous easiest

charley. for sure. she was probably the slowest to open up to the prospect of them all being together, too.

who has the most embarrassing taste in music

uh, obviously the only one of them who was a teenager during britney spears’ reign of terror. (if you don’t believe that rose tyler belts out spice girls songs in the shower, you’d be wrong.) but i don’t think she’s even a little embarrassed by her taste in nineties pop.

who collects something unusual

you’d think it would be the doctor, but it’s absolutely rose. she collects, like, troll dolls or furbies or something and the tardis comes up with a whole room where she can display them/hide her shame. (also, charley collects swords, but that’s not very unusual unless you’re sexist and also don’t know charley.)

who takes the longest to get ready

the doctor. inexplicably. 

who is the most tidy and organised

charley, i think. she really likes to have things in their proper place, and hates when a dish gets left in the sink. (though that rarely happens in the tardis.) she’s always rolling her eyes and shoving rose’s hastily discarded clothing into the hamper or laundry chute or whatever.

who gets most excited about the holidays

oh, all three of them. they’re like… excited puppies. they all completely love christmas, especially.

who is the big spoon/little spoon

they all take turns, i imagine. but somehow, it usually turns into a doctor sandwich that he has to extract himself from once they’re both sleeping, so he can get some work done while the silly humans get their sleep. then, i imagine the girls sort of gravitate toward each other.

who gets most competitive when playing games and/or sports

charley, for sure. she has a competitive streak a mile long.

who starts the most arguments

this one is charley again, i think. she’s probably the most sensitive, and the most likely to lash out. but rose tyler is the most likely to have a knock-down drag-out screaming match. she does not take shit. the doctor’s conflict avoidant behavior is basically the same in any regeneration, as far as i’m concerned.

who suggests that they buy a pet

absolutely rose. and charley and the doctor don’t stand a chance.

what couple traditions they have

this is my most indulgent headcanon, but the doctor absolutely reads aloud to the girls. he puts on specs and does voices and everything, and rose and charley are like little kids, laying on their stomachs with their feet up in the air, just listening. it’s something they all do to relax together, once it comes up that tv kinda gives charley a headache and rose gets bored of reading by herself.

what tv shows they watch together

i don’t think they’d watch that much telly together, but i know that rose would do her damndest to get charley hooked on eastenders. they also probably watch downton abbey and criticize it mercilessly. (rose stops watching when matthew dies, because she’s a romantic.)

what other couple they hang out with

mickey and martha, for sure. they also pop in on jack and ianto frequently - though never without warning, they’re not doing that again, they’ve learned their lesson.

how they spend time together as a couple

adventuring! i don’t think any of them can bear to be still, so they’re always traveling.

who made the first move

i think rose. and probably with charley, actually. like, one second they’re in the tardis wardrobe, just gearing up for some adventure where they have to wear regency gowns or space helmets, and the next, rose is sort of… lingering too long at helping charley with buttons, and she has that look, and charley suddenly thinks, “oh, shit, this girl likes me.” i think jack harkness is instrumental in getting those two to get over their cultural qualms and just kiss already.

who brings flowers home

the doctor, and by “bring flowers home,” you probably mean “grows an enormous tardis garden with beehives and a butterfly garden and everything,” but yeah, sometimes bouquets eventually make their way to the kitchen table.

who is the best cook

the doctor! like, he’s absolutely the one with a “kiss the cook” apron and knows how to make elaborate french dishes that nobody can pronounce the names of. rose isn’t even allowed in the kitchen; she’s too much of a hazard for that. but charley can definitely hold her own! she just doesn’t love doing it like the doctor does

thanks for the ask! sorry this took a million years, i have a lot of thoughts.

[wardencommanderrodimiss]

Chapter 20: I can’t come up with a clever summary for this one that doesn’t ruin the surprise of the nonsense I’ve set loose, I’m sorry, I’m tired

[Beginning] [Chapter Masterlist] [ao3]

Trucy has Christmas off from school – or maybe just takes it off, Apollo doesn’t ask these questions – but it is a weekday and the office is open, so Apollo spends it with her and Vera and Phoenix nowhere to be seen. “We would make a great investigation trio,” Trucy says, adjusting the Santa hat that she has moved from her head to Charley now to her wisp so that it, invisible beneath the hat, bobs about the office as some kind of strange holiday decor. “But I also hope no one comes in today, because – spending Christmas in jail because you’re accused of murder. Can you imagine?”

“Or being murdered on Christmas,” Apollo agrees.

Having said that, he still does like to get paid.

It’s cold, fae cold, like every Christmas Apollo has experienced in Los Angeles. (Like every Christmas Apollo has experienced; they didn’t celebrate it in Khura’in. They had their own holidays, things all dimmed down in his memories.) The dusting of snow across the sidewalk melts by afternoon between the bright sun and the foot traffic through the city, but the chill remains, making Apollo infinitely grateful for his Christmas presents from Trucy, a knitted beanie and scarf, even if the colors she chose for him are pink and limey green.

“I know you won’t really get cold,” Trucy had said to Vera, “but everyone should have cute scarves and hats, so you get one, too!” The knitwear she presented to Vera was pink and bright blue, colors that much better match her typical fashion – and her fae form, when she lets her glamour drop to hold the yarn against her skin. Trucy insists on a selfie with the three of them; right before she clicks the button, Vera washes away her watercolor skin, and grinning back from the photo are three apparent humans.

“Maybe shouldn’t have photo evidence that I’m not human,” Vera says quietly, but she is already reaching for her sketchpad and scribbling a tiny self-portrait, fae ears and all, in the corner of a page. She still takes a sketchbook everywhere with her but doesn’t keep it in hand at every moment, seeming a little more able and willing to express herself with words and either of her own faces.

Trucy tells them that she has also made Ema a scarf so that she can contribute to the scientific assessment that Trucy expects of Iris’ yarn. “Daddy says that humans who spend a long time in the fae world end up with kinds of glamours, too,” she explains to Vera, after catching her up on Iris. Apollo wonders who Phoenix learned this from; if he knew that, shouldn’t he have figured out what Klavier was sooner? Or is this another fact he’s only put together after that one realization? “So we’re all wondering what properties these might have. I expect you to take notes on anything strange while you’re wearing these. Like if people start telling you you’re more attractive.”

Apollo snorts. Trucy smacks him on the arm. “This is for science, Apollo!”

“How much do you talk to Ema, again?” He can’t say that he isn’t curious – could something like this be the origin of the infamous Magic Panties? – and he can’t say that he isn’t more curious than afraid nowadays, but he also can’t say that he’s not afraid of where this curiosity will take them. Everything Clay impressed upon him for thirteen years has collapsed in eight months.

(And Dhurke – well, maybe there was a nugget or two of advice Dhurke left him, half-forgotten, but he let Apollo and Nahyuta make their mistakes, and as far as that goes, Apollo is definitely making mistakes.)

Trucy is powerful, he’ll give her that. And if anyone can turn stage magic into entertainment in a city so full and wary of real magic, it would be her. (That seems to be her latest career aspiration, the latest turn of her Youtube channel after her stint as a cover artist, but she laments that it’s hard to really perform when she knows her audience could easily believe she’s just cleverly editing her videos.)

(If he really thinks about it, he wonders if she, like Klavier, has some innate glamour, if at least some part of her force of personality and charisma and likeability is magic.)

“I have two more very important things to tell you,” she says over a late lunch of Chinese, because Eldoon’s isn’t an option with Vera and he apparently takes some holidays off anyway.

“Uh-oh,” Apollo says.

The lights blink between two stages of brightness; Apollo still can’t really say he’s used to Mia’s rare laughter. “Excuse you!” Trucy says. “I object! I am having a New Years Eve party here and was going to tell you to come and invite your friends but now you are uninvited! Polly is, anyway. Vera you’re still good.”

“You can’t blame me!” Apollo says. “The amount of strange things that happen with Mr Wright, I never know if you’re just gonna tell me that he’s – I don’t know, got summoned back to the Twilight Realm for a stint and you need to crash on my couch – or whatever.”

“Oh, Daddy’s just over at Uncle Miles’ office today,” Trucy says. “Probably not actually doing work.”

“Uncle Miles?” Vera asks the question that Apollo was about to.

“Oh – Mr Prosecutor Edgeworth. Polly, you met him, right?”

“Prosecutor Edgeworth? I – yeah.” So he and Phoenix are close, close enough that Trucy calls him family. That’s probably important to know, another piece to Phoenix’s wide and varied social circle. “Well uh, I guess it’s good that he hasn’t been disappeared by the fae or something.”

“Oh, we’d be warned if something happened,” Trucy says. The cryptic vagueness of that statement seems fitting somehow. “There’s no need to worry!”

Apollo wouldn’t say he was worried; rather more of a neutral expectation he has that Phoenix is someday going to flake in some grander way than he did setting up the Jurist System.

“Anyway, New Years,” she continues. “I’m inviting a friend from school, and Ema, and a couple other people she and I know, and you can invite Clay if you want, and I need your phone for Prosecutor Gavin’s number to invite him.” She extends her hand, palm facing upward, to him.

“Erm,” Apollo says.

“Or you can invite him yourself,” Trucy says. She draws her hand back. “Do you think he’ll be more likely to say yeah to you or me? I mean, I’m cute but you already talk to him on the regular, so it could go either way.” She claps her hands together. “Okay, we’re decided: you invite him on my behalf!”

Apollo wouldn’t say that they actually decided it so much as Trucy decreed it, but sure, he’ll go with it. “I thought you and Ema didn’t know each other at all when we first met her,” he says. The tragicomedy of the white powder ordeal is still, and always will be, fresh in his mind when he thinks about Ema. “How do you have mutual friends?”

“Oh, y’know.” Trucy shrugs. Apollo does not know. “She knew Daddy and Uncle Miles back when, Uncle Miles knows other people who I know, then she meets them, then we meet – the usual. Everyone ends up working in the legal system.” She pauses. “Except me.”

“I think you count,” Vera says.

“You’re co-counsel,” Apollo says. “You definitely count.”

“I guess you’re right,” Trucy says. “Magic just keeps ending up hand-in-hand with the law.” She sits forward conspiratorial, steepling her fingers in front of her face. “Now,” she adds, unable to stop herself from grinning, “the second thing. This is top secret, invite-from-me-only stuff. It’s a secret family tradition that I’m only inviting the two of you and Ema and Kay’s tagging along because she’s like a superspy and found out about my conversation with Ema – anyway.” Leaving Apollo with little time to parse that sentence – does he know who Kay is? Has he heard that name before? He doesn’t think so – Trucy holds up a pointer finger. “You are both cordially invited to The Gourdyversary.”

“The what?” Apollo asks.

“The Gourdyversary,” Trucy repeats, sounding very serious but still grinning all the while. “The Gourdy Anniversary. It’s a very very secret Wright-Butz friendship tradition that is also very very important for the upkeep of Gourd Lake Park.”

“You’re losing me,” Apollo says. “Also, if it’s this secret, and you’re busting it open to everyone--”

“Not everyone! I thought Ema would be super interested, and Kay was being stalky, like I said, and then the two of you are super important parts other parts of the Wright-Butz social circle, so I was allowed to invite you!” Her eyes narrow in concentration. “Also,” she says, with an air of recollecting something, “Daddy mentioned you specifically, Polly, said that he’d like to see the look on your face because you always react a lot to finding out new magic stuff.”

“Great,” Apollo mutters. “I cordially decline your invitation.” He looks at Vera, who is just as confused as him, blinking her huge eyes owlishly at Trucy. “Wait,” he says. “‘Butz’? Who’s that?”

“You know – oh!” Trucy laughs and falls further back into the couch. “You don’t! That’s Uncle Larry’s other last name, the one he had first.”

On one hand, Apollo can’t really blame someone for wanting to be rid of that surname, especially in a profession where names are as important as they are to authors. On the other hand, there’s a certain expectation that Apollo has come to have. “Is this a fae thing in some way?”

Vera is the first to nod. “Deauxnim was one of the names his mentor used.” It appears thoughtless now, both the way she starts to raise her hand to her lips and the way she puts it back down. Is another incentive for her to break her habit of chewing her nails how strange the thought must be that she also has claws in a different form? Could it be possible for her to chew her claws off? “The last name she used before… before she died. She gave it to him.” She picks at the eraser on her pencil, clearly for something to do with her hands. “He – Mr Laurice offered it to me, too. If I want – if I want to sell my art someday and use it for my career, I could be…” She frowns at her sketchbook. “Vera Deauxnim.”

“I’d do it!” Trucy says. “It’s a good name, Uncle Larry says, and Uncle Valant always told me that it’s good to have spare names in case you really need to give one away.” She frowns, too. “But he only had one name. He was only ever ‘Gramarye’.”

“I know it’s a good name,” Vera says. “Mr Laurice says it’s lucky. But I have my name already, and it’s my dad’s. I shouldn’t – I shouldn’t give that up. Should I?”

“You’re not giving up anything!” Trucy says. “You’re Vera Misham and you can be Vera Deauxnim, like I’m Trucy Wright and then Trucy Gramarye on Youtube because that’s both my family and I can be both. Like Prosecutor Gavin said about different faces.” She spreads her hands wide in the air in front of her like she’s spreading something out for them to look at. “We contain multitudes!”

That pulls a grin onto Vera’s face.

“I must’ve missed when you started going by Gramarye again,” Apollo says. She’s called herself Trucy the Enigma, which he knows is a reference to her father’s name, and that was as far as he knew.

“Yeah,” she says, stretching herself out further on the half of the couch she has claimed. “It was sometime after we talked about just – me, and magic, in general, all that. And I thought, it’s my mom’s name too, I want to keep it for her. So I’ll make it mean something good, like I think it should be. Like I used to think it was.”

He wonders if when she holds the mitamah she hears something like he heard music; he wonders if he’d hear it again if he picked it back up. Sometimes he feels drawn to that drawer of Phoenix’s desk, a compulsion to understand who she was – is? A dead body with a bullet in it but a soul that is still here glowing? – that he stifles again and again. He opens his mouth to say something, anything, knowing how hard it all hit Trucy, knowing that she still can’t always find the light behind her eyes, but she forestalls him with a red-tinted grin. (A lie. Her smile is a lie, and it’s magic, a fae blessing, that tells him this.)

“Man, names are so complicated,” she says. And Apollo sees red and oh, this is the limit of it, isn’t it? Her smile is a lie but while he’s seeing that, any words she says might be true, might be a lie, and he’s already going to be stuck on her expression.

(Who was it that gave him Truth? Which one of them thought that was the most important gift? Dhurke? Datz? Nahyuta?)

“And they’d be this complicated even without all the magic,” Trucy continues. She cranes her neck to look at Vera’s sketchbook. “Ooh, nice!”

(Complicated, nonmagic, Apollo knows that too. On his birth certificate, a forgery, his father’s name is Jay Justice because his stage name was Jangly and they didn’t know his real name and even Datz who had the papers drawn up seemed to realize that they couldn’t put that down and just the initial J was a little sparse. His mother’s name they made up entirely. Dhurke named her Hera, because he always thought he was funny. Apollo had looked it up sometime in middle school. Hera wasn’t even the mythological Apollo’s mother.)

Vera has Trucy’s phone balanced up on the piano, showing off the selfie, and she is sketching from it but for herself, pointed ears and big eyes. “So what is the, um, Gourd… Gourdversary?”

“Gourdyversary,” Trucy repeats, as though she is teaching them an actual word that they might need to know. “You know Gourd Lake Park, maybe?” Vera shakes her head. Apollo nods. It was in the vague area of Apollo and Clay’s high school and a corner of the park was the popular hangout for stoners, which meant Apollo wasn’t surprised when a lake monster was sighted there. (He was surprised that tourists and not stoned kids who first made the claim.) In their senior year, he and Clay camped out in the abandoned, allegedly-haunted, boat shack, or tried to, made it to about midnight when Clay swore he heard a voice, and then later lied about it to their friends and Clay’s siblings to claim that they totally spent the whole night there and nothing happened. Every few years there were attempts to revitalize the park and make it a real community location. Those never worked.

“Well,” Trucy continues, “always sometime after Christmas, this year, it’ll be the 27th that, we go, before dawn, to the lake, to make the annual sacrifice.”

“I don’t like the sound of this in the slightest,” Apollo says.

“We don’t sacrifice people,” Trucy says. “C’mon, Polly. Really.”

“I hate that you know exactly what I was about to ask because it is actually a reasonable question in these circumstances.” Apollo smacks his head into the couch and stares at the ceiling. “Sacrifice what, then? To what? The lake?”

“You have to come along to know,” Trucy says smugly. “Exact time and meeting location will be disseminated only to true believers.”

“Believers of what?” Apollo demands.

Vera has folded her knees up onto the couch and has her sketchbook propped against them, her dark human eyes peering out from behind the top of it, darting between Trucy and Apollo.

“You’ll see,” Trucy says.

-

The next morning, Phoenix enters the office and asks for Apollo’s help getting the doors so that he can carry inside a heavy grocery bag filled with twelve-packs of hot dogs. “What is this for?” Apollo asks, when he’s followed Phoenix into the kitchen (not even asking why Mia wouldn’t get the doors because he knows the answer is going to be that she rightfully thinks whatever is going on is stupid) to watch him maneuver the contents into the refrigerator.

“The Gourdyversary,” Phoenix replies. He pushes the fridge door closed only for it to pop back open and six packs spill back to the floor.

“Is this a hazing ritual?” Apollo asks. “Like, am I getting hazed?”

“Apollo, I’m pretty sure the entire Kitaki case was the universe conducting a hazing ritual on you,” Phoenix says. “Why would I bother with anything else?” He winks. “See you bright and early tomorrow, huh?”

“I haven’t agreed to this ridiculous venture,” Apollo says.

Phoenix slams the refrigerator shut with more force this time. “But are you really going to disappoint Trucy?” He manages to take one step before, in defiance, the fridge spits some of its contents back out. “Come on, seriously?” he asks, turning about in a circle and gesturing helplessly to the room at large. “Just let us do our dumb shit, Mia, c’mon.”

Apollo leaves him to fight with the ghost of his mentor, only to find that Vera has definitively declined to join in on the Gourdyversary, and consequently, Trucy is pouting at him with the most pathetic puppy eyes he has ever seen from a person.

It isn’t that – he tells her, several times, it isn’t that – which gets him, and she, seeing Truth, should know that is the truth, but she keeps proclaiming victory for her powers of persuasion – “Powers of getting people to pity you, if anything” – when he acquiesces. It’s curiosity, purely and painfully, and if it’s only painful in the moment for everything required to make it to the main gates of Gourd Lake Park at 6 am, the chances are high that it’s going to be worse next time. And there’s going to be a next time, he’s sure of it: he’s come to feel at home in an office filled with the lingering wraith of a fae queen, followed Trucy and Klavier in pursuit of grimoires and faery rings, and he’s becoming desensitized, he’s sure of it. He’s on the road to becoming a missing persons report or a cautionary folktale for future generations.

But damn if he isn’t curious as to why Phoenix ��cheapskate” Wright bought more than a dozen dozens of hot dogs.

Trucy’s gifts, the scarf and hat, seem to block out the wind better than any other he can recall owning, which Apollo tells her to note down for her experimental records when he reaches the park entrance. Twilight Realm yarn, helping him resist the fae’s cold snaps. The dead brown grass is dusted with snow and a few more errant flakes drift down from the dark sky. Whenever the sun finally rises, they probably won’t see it. Trucy is waiting when he arrives, bundled up in a heavy coat and matching blue knitted hat, scarf, and gloves, and talking with two women. One is Ema, recognizable by the crinkling snack bag in her hands – “Are you aware of the time?” “Yeah, it’s snack time.” – and the dead-eyed glare from over the pink scarf Trucy apparently saddled her with.

The other, Apollo has never seen, but when she spots him, she abandons her conversation and bounds over to him, grabbing his hand and shaking it enthusiastically. “Hi!” she chirps. “I’m Kay! Kay Faraday! Super glad to finally meet you, Apollo!”

Finally?

“Uh,” he says, allowing her to wrench his arm about, “I’m sorry, but I have no idea who you are.”

“That’s okay!” She lets go of his hand and strikes a pose, one hand in the air and the other on her hip. None of her clothing seems quite to match, a puffy pink coat with a huge dark scarf, gold hair accessories, and leather gloves that look more expensive than his life. “Kay Faraday, homicide detective, Great Thief and Mr Edgeworth’s first and best assistant, at your service.”

“You lost me at ‘thief’ right after ‘detective’,” Apollo says. He can already see why Trucy likes her, though.

“Get used to confusion,” Ema says dryly. “That’s all she does for you.”

“Rude,” Kay says. She skips back past Trucy and Ema and down the park path. “Let’s go get gourded out of our gourds already!”

“I don’t know what that means but I refuse to do that,” Ema says. She doesn’t move, watches Trucy race after Kay, and then holds out the Snackoos bag to Apollo. “Kay wasn’t even invited. She was just creeping around and was unrelenting in demanding to accompany me in finding out whatever Trucy’s on about.” Apollo declines the Snackoos and she shrugs and shoves a few more into her mouth. “That’s also how she makes friends so watch it or you’re next.”

“I see,” Apollo says, even though he isn’t sure that he does. “It sounds, uh, interesting down at the precinct.”

Ema snorts. “We’re like two steps away from being a coven at this point.”

“Prosecutor Edgeworth said something like that.”

She nods sagely. “He thinks he can stop it but I know it’s futile.” She stuffs the Snackoos into her jacket pocket and pulls her scarf up against the sudden onslaught of wind. “How’s Trucy doing?” she asks quietly, eyeing the distant backs of her and Kay. “Haven’t heard from her much since October and” – a pause, a search for a tactful phrasing that she doesn’t find – “all that shit.”

And it was, nothing but a bunch of shit, no more honest way Apollo can think to say it, Ema cutting back to the heart of the matter. “Better, I think,” he says. “We had a couple conversations about her family and er grandfather that seemed like – like she’s figuring it out.” Or just coping, but even that is harder than it sounds. “And Mr Wright is spending a lot of time looking into the mitamah thing trying to deal with that.”

“That’s good.” She sounds like she means it. “If anyone can find a way to fix it, it’ll be Mr Wright. I’m sure of it.” And on that she sounds so confident that Apollo almost believes her. Isn’t that how Trucy said magic works? And what must Phoenix have done for Ema that she still has such faith in him?

Trucy stands planted in the path ahead, fists on her hips, facing them. “Hurry up!” she calls.

“Bunch of snails!” Kay yells. Ema flips her off but above her scarf, her eyes squint up like she’s grinning.

“So clarify for me how you all know each other,” Apollo says when the four of them have reconvened. Along the edges of the path the trees thin out and he can see the dark glassy surface of the water. “Through Prosecutor Edgeworth?”

“Basically!” Kay says. “I first helped him investigate cases years ago – I saved him when he got kidnapped – then there were some international incidents – I got accused of arson once and murder twice – it was a ridiculous month. And we ran into Emmy” – Emmy? Apollo raises an eyebrow and Ema stares back with unchanging expression – “and she already knew Mr Edgeworth from stuff and she helped us out. And then later working with Mr Edgeworth, I met Mr Wright, and my little apprentice thief.” She throws her arm around Trucy’s shoulders and grins.

“I thought you were my assistant,” Trucy says.

“Anyway!” Kay barrels past that statement. Trucy sticks her tongue out at her. “Then Emmy came back to work at the precinct and hang with me again, and then she met you, and here we are!”

Apollo almost keeps pace with that. He has about half a dozen follow-up questions about the arson and murder, but they’ve come up to the biggest gathering area of the part, a few vendor’s stands unattended for the weather and time of day, and Phoenix and Larry waiting by the one bare tree in the area, the bag of hot dogs at their feet. “Hi, Mr Wright!” Kay shouts. “Hi, Mr Steel Samurai!”

“You’re never gonna let me live it down, are you?” Larry asks.

Kay swings a friendly punch at his shoulder. “Nah, but I don’t let Mr Edgeworth forget about it, either, if that helps.”

“It absolutely does,” Larry says.

“So are you gonna tell us what’s going on or drag out the mystery for a little longer?” Ema asks.

Phoenix and Larry look at each other. “I’m thinking we drag it out,” Larry says.

“I already have my reputation for being cryptic,” Phoenix says, turning his head to stare directly at Apollo, “so yeah, let’s torment the kids a little longer. And besides,” he adds, stooping and wincing as he hauls the bag back up into his arms, “we’ve still got a little further to walk. We’re heading back through the woods there – there’s a little outlet to the shore that’s a little more hidden.”

“The hot dogs are the sacrifice, right?” Apollo asks. Larry gives a thumbs-up. “So then you could just answer what we’re sacrificing to—”

“Wait.” Ema stops walking. “Trucy, you didn’t tell me there was ritual sacrifice involved. You just said ‘hey, there’s something you will want to see, scientifically speaking’ and I asked to make sure it wasn’t a hoax like the last time people said there was something cool at Gourd Lake—”

Phoenix and Larry glance at each other. Trucy looks up at them both. “No,” Ema says. “No, do not tell me that the lake monster is real.”

“You proved in court that it was a hoax,” Apollo says. “You proved that it wasn’t a real—”

“I thought I proved that,” Phoenix says, thankfully not taking any time to dwell on the fact that Apollo knows his cases well enough to know exactly when this happened. “I did prove that loud banging noises aren’t the hallmark of the monster, and that Larry was out on the lake looking for a bigass balloon he’d launched into orbit—”

“The balloon was also very real,” Larry supplies helpfully. “It was the Steel Samurai. It was pretty cool until I slipped up inflating it with the air canister. Launched that, too.”

“—but we were accidentally enlightened as to a little more, when was it – a couple days after the trial?”

“The day after,” Larry says. “And already you were moping about being lonely with Maya going back to Fairyland—”

“—so I went all the way to the bottom of my contacts list and came to hang out with you at your hot dog stand—”

“You had like, three people in your phone then. Don’t pretend like I was your last-ditch social reject friend! You’re my last-ditch reject friend!”

Ema coughs. Phoenix and Larry both clearly take the cue to continue the narrative. “We were about the only people in the park, hanging out back there.” Phoenix points back over his shoulder with his thumb. They are passing by the old boat shack now, its shattered windows and unstable rotting dock, and Apollo shudders. One step on that and it’s straight into the water. “And then, just, out of lake—” He waves vaguely and purses his lips together. “There she was.”

“And that’s why hot dogs?” Apollo asks. “Because he had a hot dog stand then?”

“Yeah.” Larry shoves his hands in his pockets. “Like hey, we didn’t know if it was gonna eat us, figured we’d throw some food that wasn’t us and hope that was enough.”

“And now we come back yearly with offerings to hopefully appease her and never find out why she was sealed away in the first place. Because as it turns out,” Phoenix continues, grinning broadly, far too amused for the fact that they are discussing the potential of some lake monster to eat people, “someone’s flyaway balloon got caught on a warding sigil and tore it off. Make a hoax monster while releasing the real monster.” His grin shrinks just a little. “We found the place where the seal originally was and went looking all over the park hoping to find it and put it back, but no such luck. Not like you can dig magic rocks out with a metal detector.”

“I cannot believe that Mr Edgeworth and I solved an entire murder conspiracy here at this lake and he never told me there’s a real monster in it!” Kay pouts. She does a good impression of a moody teenager, kicking a stray rock out of the way on the path, but she can only hold it for a few seconds.

Phoenix and Larry again exchange a look.

“He uh,” Kay says, her eyes narrowing, “does know about the lake monster, right?”

Phoenix sucks in a breath through gritted teeth. Larry elbows him in the ribs. “This one's all on you, buddy,” he says with a wicked grin. “You justify yourself.”

“Edgeworth does not know,” Phoenix says, sounding pained. Kay gasps exaggeratedly loudly. “Listen, we weren’t on as good of terms back then! He knew the part that came out in court about the hoax, and then I was not exactly sure that he would appreciate me reaching out to tell him no, there’s an entire fae monster actually there now.”

“And the ten years since then where you’ve been on very good terms?” Larry asks, still grinning.

“Fuck you,” Phoenix says to him. “I’d call it eight, also.”

“I think you should tell him,” Kay says. “He could stand to have his preconceptions shaken up every so often, that there’s more magic just chilling around than he thinks there is.”

“Yeah,” Phoenix says dryly, “until he asks me how long I’ve known and I have to figure out whether he’d believe it if I lied to him. Like logically I know the best thing to do, but at this point half of the fear of telling is the ‘why did you not mention that you knew this sooner?’ so I just drag it out even longer in the hopes that we’ll all live and die before Gourdy ever makes a situation where I’d have to mention it to him.”

“That is a very bad way of handling secrets, Daddy,” Trucy says.

“Oh, believe me, sweetheart, I know.” Phoenix frowns and sighs and shakes his head. “Though this isn’t just me covering my ass right now, but I think our new Chief Prosecutor has a lot more important things to deal with.”

The path they follow through the woods is almost overgrown with the tangled underbrush and buried beneath icy dead leaves. Phoenix and Larry, when they aren’t bickering, seem to confidently know the way, leading their small troupe out onto the saddest beach Apollo has ever seen. Sand and mud mix with snow for a slick surface that slopes straight down into the water, and an old weathered sign prohibiting camping is the only apparent clue that people come out here – though why anyone would want to camp here, Apollo has no idea.

Phoenix drops the bag into the wet ground. “Oi, Gourdy!” Larry calls. His voice doesn’t echo on the open lake but seems to be swallowed up by the white fog that has begun to swirl across the surface of the water. “We’ve got your yearly sacrifices!”

“Please don’t say it like that,” Apollo says. “That makes me think you’re going to throw us into the lake.”

“If I’m throwing anyone, it’d be Larry,” Phoenix says.

Larry, standing right at the edge of the water, flips him off over his shoulder. Through the fog, Apollo can see the water rippling, before it moves, pointedly, a long white wake pushing toward the shore. Larry scrambles backwards up the slope to Phoenix and the bag of hot dogs, grabbing an entire pack but not attempting to tear it open.

At first Apollo thinks that it’s a catfish, coming up strangely above the water. Then it keeps rising out of the water, far higher than a fish could, and he sees – he doesn’t know what he sees. It has a face like a catfish with the wide, gaping mouth, the barbels, and the beady eyes at the sides of its head; but past its eyes, it has small pointed ears and an otherwise horse-like body, its skin a slimy-looking brownish-green and its mane a long tangled curtain of seaweed. “Oh,” Kay says, very softly. “Oh, geez.”

Larry tosses the pack of hot dogs, plastic wrapping and all, in an underhand arc toward the creature. It stretches its neck out and catches the hot dogs in its wide mouth, throwing its head back and appearing to swallow the package whole. “You feed it plastic?” Ema asks. “It – her?”

“I call her ‘her’,” Phoenix says, “but that’s mostly because all the most powerful and terrifying fae I’ve known have been women, and not for any actual reason. But yeah, most of the fae and fae creatures I’ve known also have not been concerned with what humans do or don’t consider edible.”

“That sounds like some people I know,” Ema says. Kay pouts, but Ema isn’t looking in her direction. Her eyes are fixed, understandably, on the horse-catfish creature.

“S’good as far as keeping litter out of the lake,” Larry says. He grabs another package to throw. Phoenix hasn’t reached for the bag but is instead grinning at the stunned expressions on their three faces. “But yeah, we just show up, feed it a couple dozen hot dogs, and then do it again next year. Simple stuff.”

“So you really did just invite us to see the looks on our faces,” Apollo says. Phoenix’s grin does not waver. Trucy grabs two packs out of the bag and tosses them each at different sides of the creature – Gourdy, they call it Gourdy, a cute name for something that is frankly terrifying – and it swings its head about, inhaling one after the other.

“Worth,” Kay says, still wide-eyed.

“You weren’t even invited,” Ema says. She frowns, staring up at Gourdy from narrowed eyes. Is this how tall horses usually are? Did it get the size right when it took this nebulously horse-like shape? “I wonder,” she mutters, more to herself than anyone. “Do you think it always looked like this, or it tried to look like things that do exist in our world as a – disguise, I guess. An attempt at one?” She glances over to Phoenix. “Because you’ve said the fae in their true forms look sort-of but not quite like humans, but that they can’t really – alter their glamoured appearances very much?”

Phoenix nods. “It’s more innate,” he says. “What, say, Mia looked like is what Mia looked like. She didn’t just decide, oh, when I pretend to be human I want brown hair. But that’s just the fae, and fae animals are an entirely other barrel of catfish.” He reaches up to adjust his beanie. “Horses. Catfish-horses.”

“Someone who can’t really draw’s idea of a horse,” Apollo offers.

“Don’t be rude!” Trucy scolds. “She’s beautiful!”

Gourdy turns one tiny beady eye on Apollo. Maybe it’s just coincidence, but he decides that he’s not going to say anything that can be perceived as insult again – he doesn’t know how smart this thing is and if it’s fae it probably has very dangerous responses to insults.

“But it’s like…” Ema pulls her phone out of her pocket and starts frantically typing something. “Was it trying to look like natural wildlife? Is it coincidence? Convergent development? How long has it been sealed here and was that before horses were introduced to North America? I have questions!”

Phoenix chuckles and Ema lowers her phone, turning her furious glare on him. “Don’t laugh!” she snaps. “This is interesting! These are real questions!”

“I knew you’d think so,” Trucy says brightly, instantly diffusing the first bits of tension. “And since I dragged you and Polly out on... “ She sighs. “You know. So I thought I’d at least drag you out to some fun magic stuff!”

She thinks she owes them, to make up for the debacle of finding her mother’s soul. Or she was hoping for something like an adventure and wanted to bring them on that. Apollo isn’t sure whether he’d count this as fun, either, learning that there’s a catfish-horse that could probably kill all of them somehow in the lake, but Trucy seems happy.

“I promise I’m not laughing at you, Ema,” Phoenix says, holding his hands up in an attempt to placate her. Apollo doesn’t see that he’s lying. “It’s just nice to see you get a bit of your spark back.”

The angry huff of her cheeks deflates instantly. “I was probably real annoying as a kid, babbling like that the whole time while you were just trying to investigate, huh?”

“Not at all,” Phoenix says, and again, he isn’t lying. “I mean, I’ll admit to having been a little terrified that if I let you out of my sight you were gonna summon something or make a bad deal trying to get more tools for investigating, but I wasn’t annoyed.”

Ema pulls her scarf back up over her nose, but Apollo catches a glimpse of the sad smile on her face as she does. Then she steps forward and grabs a pack of hot dogs, extending it in her hand to Gourdy on approach. With about a foot between its mouth and her hand, she apparently decides not to risk having her arm be swallowed, and she gives the pack a little toss to get it to its destination. “Oh,” she says, “sort of related, Lana asked about you the other day, Mr Wright. Wanted to know how you’re doing.”

“Ah.” Phoenix rubs the back of his neck. “At least with the Jurist System you’ve got something to tell her more than ‘still sucks at playing the piano’.” His sheepish expression looks a little less when he reaches the part about the piano, and Trucy laughs. Apollo again wonders why he ever bothered to get a piano for the office. “Where is she now, anyway? She got out a year or two ago, right?”

“About two years now, yeah,” Ema says. There is a rhythm to them feeding Gourdy, now, Larry, Trucy, and Ema. Phoenix seems content to hang back, and while Kay bounds forward, Apollo has no inclination to join in on this part of it. “She’s out near Reno, just wanted to get away, and she’s talking moving out to London where we’ve got some family. She’s hesitating now that I’m back, or something, but I told her just get outta here, flee the continent, go somewhere that no one knows your name, y’know?”

“Oh yeah,” Phoenix says. “I’d – had that option, honestly, but—”

“But you didn’t do anything,” Ema interrupts. “And she kinda did… most of it.”

“Do you think Gourdy would let me pet her?” Kay asks.

“I would not try it,” Phoenix says. Kay’s shoulders slump.

“She was gushing about the Jurist System when we talked about it, though,” Ema continues, with only a brief roll of her eyes at Kay’s question.

“I can’t imagine her gushing,” Phoenix says.

Ema shrugs. “It’s – a big thing, y’know, to her. To all of us, but, she’d said – she’d said that maybe it could’ve helped stop Darke, put him away before even more people died and…” She looks from her phone down to the hot dog bag. Its contents are mostly depleted but she grabs one and hurls it with a surprising amount of force. “Good for cases like that. Common sense, no evidence, maybe now justice gets served.”

Apollo can’t say why the name Lana, Lana Skye, seems familiar, but he knows with the expression on Ema and Phoenix’s faces, he’s not about to ask.

Kay whispers something to Trucy and, both giggling, Kay hefts the bag and whatever remains in it onto her shoulder and flings the entire thing at Gourdy. Its mouth doesn’t look wide enough to take in the entire bag, but it does – the bag is there and then gone with a wet sucking sound in the time it takes Apollo to blink. He suddenly wonders if when Klavier complains about Vongole eating everything he has, he means everything, takeout containers and all.

“That’s, um…” Ema taps a finger against her chin. “That’s something. Kind of impressive. Kind of horrible!”

“And scientifically fascinating?” Kay prompts.

“Absolutely!”

“That’s all we’ve got,” Larry says to the beast, showing it his empty hands, like he’s sending off a dog that has gotten its share of treats but continues begging. “Good talk as always, Gourdy. See ya next year.”

Gourdy tilts its head, seeming to carefully survey Larry. It trots forward and for a horrible moment Apollo thinks someone is going to be eaten but Gourdy bumps its square fishy head into Larry’s face and makes an arc back into the water. Its tail is the same as its mane, stringy green and brown weeds with sand and grit tangled up in them. The water around it barely ripples as it enters, doesn’t splash when the creature goes from being half-visible to gone, and the wake moving away from them is weaker than the one that arrived. The arc of its hoofprints left in the snowy sand are backwards, like it left the water where it really just entered.

“Very slimy,” Larry says, wiping his face with his jacket sleeve. “Sticky, slimy, would not headbutt again.”

“But you’re friends now!” Trucy says. “Officially!”

“You never knew what its skin was like before?” Ema asks. She has her phone out again for notes. Kay peers over her shoulder. “Or beyond what you could see that yeah it’s probably fishy. How long have you been doing this again?”

“It’s… Shit.” Phoenix shakes his head, laughing again. “Ten years, now.”

“Plenty of time to have observed and thought about some of the questions on my list.” Ema lowers her phone and stares at Phoenix. “I have questions.”

“My answer is gonna be ‘I don’t know’ to most, but go for it,” Phoenix says.

“There’s gotta be somewhere open for breakfast, right?” Larry says. “Right? Who’s up for that?”

“Eldoon’s!” Trucy says brightly.

“Oh no, no no.” Larry holds up his hands and takes a step back from her. “Eldoon’s for breakfast reminds me of being broke as hell and I’m not about that.”

“That mean you’re paying wherever we go?” Phoenix asks dryly. “Since I got the hot dogs and you’re worth your weight in faery gold now.”

Apollo looks at Ema. Ema glances out of the corner of her eyes first at Larry, then Apollo, then Kay. Kay looks back and forth between Phoenix and Larry.

“Metaphorical gold,” Larry says, jabbing a finger at Phoenix. “You can not phrase it like that, so they” – he points a thumb toward Ema and Kay – “can not be terrified.”

“I’m super down for breakfast, if nobody else is gonna say anything,” Kay chirps.

“You not gonna eat garbage for once?” Trucy asks. She says it with a grin so big that Apollo would find it impossible to take offense if she directed those words or similar at him.

“Hey!” Kay protests. “It’s cheap! It’s cost-efficient!”

“Like you have to worry about that,” Ema says, elbowing her. “Like hell won’t be frozen before Mr Edgeworth lets anyone threaten your salary.” Kay elbows her back, apparently harder, because she staggers. “Anyway,” she adds, looking more at Larry and Phoenix again, “Interrogating you both over breakfast sounds great.”

“Do you ever worry that bringing more and more people in on these secrets makes them untenable?” Apollo asks Trucy. It’s probably a better question for Phoenix, but Ema has already begun the process of cornering him. “Just – showing off magic to us all?”

Trucy shrugs. “Maybe?” she offers. She hooks one arm through Apollo’s elbow and the other through Kay’s. “You and Ema already know so much other stuff.” For a moment her eyes are sad, downcast, and then she turns a sharp look on Kay. “You, though—”

“Guilty of whatever you say,” she laughs.

Trucy shrugs again, jostling Apollo’s shoulder too. “But also we’re like family, and family should get to know some of the weird fun secrets that we have.”

Again Apollo wonders at her definition of fun. But family. Or like family. Like-family is nice to have.

Phoenix, over Ema’s head, raises an eyebrow at her. “Hey Truce,” he says. “Does that mean you’re gonna run off and tell Edgeworth without warning me?”

“I might,” Kay says, snickering and nudging Trucy, who bumps Apollo with the force of it.

Phoenix snorts. “Yeah,” he says. “I know you would, but I’m not sure he’d believe you.”

[creamybeemovie69]

Shawn and JJ HCs

I don’t know what to say except you’ve never met 2 people so different yet so similar in your life

They are the complete opposite to what you’d expect too, and normally hide their actually personalities

Shawn’s a sweetheart that tears up if he smiles too much or gets too happy, but he pretends to be salty and distant because he doesn’t want to be bugged by people constantly

JJ’s actually really serious and if he had the choice he probably wouldn’t smile much, which is a stark contrast to his seemingly chirpy personality and it’s mainly just to be polite

Basically their real personalities are the others fake ones

JJ’s just a fucking Titan at this point and even though he’s shorter than Shawn he’s definitely got Travis’ broad build

And he hates it

Shawn’s a long lanky boi with about 1 ounce of fat on him

They share a room

They both have their wedding rings on permanently

In all fairness as much as JJ’s the serious one and Shawn’s the sweet one JJ will never pass up an opportunity to hug someone because he has big stronk arms that were made for hugs and Shawn still has the worst temper known to man

Unless there’s a child involved

Then Shawn will not under any circumstances stop hugging this child

Jaime tried to teach Shawn to dance once

They ended up on the floor in a big cuddle pile

most people find tall men attractive, and that’s true for Jaime, but there’s nothing attractive about walking into every fucking door frame going Shawn.

Well, it’s not attractive, but it’s still adorable

Shawn’s autistic and you can’t convince me otherwise

That’s partly the reason he worked with fabrics, he likes the feel of them

Shawn and Jaime have appalling handwriting

I don’t think words can express just how protective of eachother they are, and normally any threat they use against others works very effectively because Jaime has The Soldier Glare tm and Shawn is very quick witted

In all fairness it’s only eachother and later Anti that know what their true personalities are

I can’t really say that ones PTSD is worse than the other because what Jaime saw was constant and a permanent image in his head but what Shawn saw was genuinely scary

While Shawn doesn’t sleep much he doesn’t struggle getting to sleep like Jaime does

Once when Jaime couldn’t sleep Shawn just hugged him while he told him about everything he’d seen while he was at war and it basically just ended up with them 2 laughing there asses off at Shawn because Shawn asked him if he’d ever talk again but jaimes like “um you’re deaf mate why do you care” and the conversation ended with Jaime calling Shawn “dense as a rock”

Shawn’s like 36 and already almost completely grey he doesn’t know what’s happening

Jamie’s the 2 youngest with Robbie being the smolest bean

Fuck it I’ll do their ages here in oldest to youngest

Henrik: 38

Shawn: 36

Angus: 30

Jackie: 29

Marvin: 28

Chase: 28

Jaime: 26

Robbie: 24

Anti doesn’t even have an age any more he just knows he’s somewhere between 2 and 1000 and that’s it

Shawn’s even more confused because henrik’s more stressed than he is yet there’s not a single grey hair on his head

They’re all convinced he colours it though

Once Chases youngest Sophie ran out of the room with wet hair and one of them hooded towels and Shana could tell Chase was struggling so he played with Sophie for ages

He learned more about the modern world from a 3 year old in 30 minutes than he has from fully grown adults in a year

All 3 brothers can/could sing

JJ was weirdly relieved when Shawn started sharing a room with Anti because he’s always scared he’s going to hurt Shawn in his sleep

He still doesn’t like sleeping alone though

26 years of dealing with Shawn Flynn will wear you down to same resting bitch face JJ has

Marvin accidentally summoned about 20 cats that all just threw themselves at Shawn and he was just crying because he loved them and he loves all animals and baby’s and cute things because he’s a child

Jaime spends 2 hours every morning getting ready because hair and moustache

Jaime has 6 tattoos

A deer skull with flowers growing out of it, a rifle with a pocket watch’s chain wrapped around it on his right arm, Jack Hunters dog tag information on his left, angel wings on his back, ‘whisky’ written on his lower back and ‘Shawn Flynn’ on his right wrist

Shawn has “Jameson Jackson” on his left wrist

Tom and Jaime rant about Shawn’s stupidity on the daily

Shawn, Jaime and Jackie are literally the only tall ones

Anti’s like 5 foot

Jaime will literally write an entire musical in 3 hours just because he’s bored

Jaime’s a morning person

Shawn is the farthest thing from it

Jaime’s cursed like 2 times in whole life and will scold anyone who curses around him

Shawn swears like a sailor and it drives JJ insane

Are you surprised the times JJ cursed they were at Shawn?

Jaime has a half sister somewhere too

She’s also Irish

He can’t escape them

Long story short, Jaime has like 50 siblings somewhere or another and Shawn’s literally the only one he talks to

Shawn rolls his eyes that much Jaime suspects he knows what the inside of his head looks like better than his own appearance

Jaime has a girlfriend that know one knows about

Well I mean obviously Marshall knows because it’s Marshall but he can keep secrets so it’s fine

If you can understand him, the things Shawn says in his sleep will either scare the hell out of you or make you laugh your ass off. There is no in between.

Jaime swears he’s the only straight ego in the house

The weird thing is Shawn doesn’t even look old, he doesn’t have any wrinkles or anything, which makes his hair even more confusing

Do not. Let either of them. Near chocolate.

They will inhale that shit in seconds

Neither of them really leave the house much just because the world confuses them

Jaime is on social media a lot? Probably because he doesn’t really consider it talking

No one can figure out Jaime’s mutism, because he makes no effort to stay quiet if he’s laughing or making any other sort of noise, he just refuses to talk

Jaime can use magic, but it’s more cartoon physics than the big flashy stuff Marvin can do

Shawn and Jaime know each other’s boundaries

Said boundaries are not calling your younger brother ‘discount Charlie Chaplin’ and not calling your older brother ‘elongated spud’

Outside of that there is no insult they won’t throw at each other

That being said, don’t try to get involved or something will end up broken, and it will be you

Do not under any circumstances start a fight with either of them

Jaime’s a pacifist, but his fights will either disarm or kill you

Shawn will never back down from a fight, and after years of running through the studio he’s very light on his feet. He’s not necessarily strong, but you’ll struggle landing a hit on him

And they’ll back each other up, so on one end you’ve got a big burly soldier that could probably squash you between his fingers and on the other a hot headed wippet

Just don’t do it

You’ll loose

Jaimes skin, aside form his scars, is perfect

Shawn, on the other hand, has acne scars, freckles, birthmarks, the whole fucking lot

Jaime’s good at slight of hand and any form of card game, but Shawn can and will beat you at any and all games as long as it’s not a video game

The only person who has ever come close to beating Shawn is lacie

Shawn really likes stars? Like JJ thinks they’re pretty and stuff but Shawn adores them and he loves constellations and stuff

Neither of them are religious just because Shawn’s dad was a really heavy catholic and they hated it

It seems to be a reoccurring pattern that not one of the brothers accents faded. Shawn’s didn’t just because he’s deaf, but Jaime has always had a British accent and Travis has always had an Irish accent, even though they’ve both lived in America for most of they’re lives

I’m going with the HC that Shawn’s Charley from the Butcher Gang so he has a pretty bad limp but he’s sort of learned to ignore it? Like if he needs to defend himself from something he can literally just shut off the pain until it’s over but then it hurts like hell afterwards

Other than that it’s not really that much of a problem other than not being able to walk for as long the others and not being able to ‘switch it off’ when he wants, it’s just sort of a reaction he has to extreme situations, like adrenaline almost

They both have shit eye sight, hence JJ’s monocle (which he only wears if he wears a vest, which is normally only in winter)

Shawn broke his glasses once and he had to tie one of Jack Hunter’s hair ties around the middle and he just never took it off

Motorbikes were cheaper and easier to get back then and Shawn needed a quick way to get to work but he actually really liked it because it was fast and he’s a child

Anti brought him one for his birthday

Jaime fucking hates it

It’s dangerous, loud, takes up space, there’s no seat belt, and Shawn doesn’t wear a helmet

Not that he’s scared of going on it or anything

He swears

Jaime always hides his tattoos

He sleeps face down to stop him from waking up Shawn by screaming

Jaime’s friends with Henrik now and sees him as more of a brother than the enemy, but Shawn hates him with a passion just because he A) hates doctors because the one who visited his mum fucked up and she probably wouldn’t have died as young as she did if the doctor focused and B) associates his accent with the fuckers that gave his brother PTSD, why wouldn’t he?

That being said Henrik really has to watch his volume because Jaime is silent in every way and you don’t really know when he’s going to turn up behind you so if he shouts in German then Jaime will end up having an anxiety attack and Shawn will slap him up

Never in your life have to met anyone as sarcastic as Jaime. He’s British and Shawn was his main influence growing up, what else did you expect

They live off cornflakes. Religiously.

Shawn loves kids

Jaime doesn’t even really sleep on the bed anymore, he just sleeps on a mixture of Shawn’s chest and Shawn’s thousands of Teddy’s

[chrliekclly]

do you think charlei and dee had sex because they mistook their genuine platonic bonding as attraction? (serious question, steming from thatlesbian dee post). I never thought of it that way, and I'm interested to hear that side !

YES that’s actully smthn i lose my sht abt !! iv blown up ppls mssgs with this kinda talk like, im a mess. ok lemme type right nd lemme type A Lot Again Anyways cz thos 2 giv me Way too many feelings (im spposd to b working on a final rn christ…)

okay…i scrolled back up after finishing nd turns out i went…literally insane…aka Much too far…so i need to under-the-cut it. mobile…viewers…i’m rly so sorry. swipe hard to leap ahead…hell im sorry fr computer viewers too. my theme is rough.

to start, my HCs surrounding chardee are rooted in charlie being on the ace spectrum and dee being gay (or like @ least bi, but imo all the men stuff is straight up compulsory heterosexuality).

i will always cling tight to the deleted scene wherein charlie says he thinks sex is gross and will genuinely get sick when he thinks about it unless he thinks about it with one specific woman. i know he shows sexual interest a decent amount of times throughout the show and has canonically had sex (on camera too, yeesh) but i see each time as very out of the blue moments (coming onto dee @ multiple points while worked up, agreeing to bang tatiana cuz she says to, that kinda thing) or relating to his long standing and delusional obsession with the waitress. in that vein, he’s also canonically enjoyed sex, and I don’t try and blind-eye any of it, because ace doesn’t always mean sex can’t be enjoyed in the moment. charlie definitely has a libido, and bodies be bodies. hell, sex-repulsed can sometimes even flip 180 in the right conditions. shit is one fun spectrum i’ll tell you that…but either way, to start with him, i think him going forward with banging dee was very much a misjudgment of what feelings are and being extremely caught up in a moment where he felt real, genuine, closeness with someone else who he was having a damn good time making terrible poetry with.

as for dee, i, first of all, just agree with everything in that post. in the context of chardee, as much as i will lose my mind in tags about how hard i ride or die the ship, it’s mostly my obsession with their dynamic. i don’t think chardee is meant to be endgame. i absolutely 100% believe that dee, too, is misinterpreting her feelings. i think part of it is her consistent comp het, and the other is she’s never been close with someone the way she has been with charlie, and she doesn’t know what she’s meant to do with it. i think she was similarly caught up in a moment in which she showed her own vulnerability, opening herself up to someone who could easily just ridicule her as she’s used to (”right now? i’m scared”), and she receives support from him instead (”you’re not gunna bomb, you’re gunna do great”). we’ve seen how much dee craves validation, thats her entire thing. i’m not shocked she dropped her pants in this moment lmao. she probably felt her damn heart flutter cuz she got told by someone who she at least somewhat trusts that she really is good, even if she doesn’t think so. the only rational explanation for the feeling associated with that person is that he’s The One right? pretty big leap

just…basically i dont think either of them know what a relationship is.

charlie’s lived nearly his entire life deluding himself into thinking that, 1. he and the waitress have a relationship that is anything other than creepy, and 2. that the warped-ass mess of an image he’s created in his brain for what he and the waitress are to each other is what love is. he thinks he’s making progress in getting close to her when the only thing she’s Ever done pre-s12 is ask him to leave her the fuck alone. he’s never even attempted to look past the waitress before, and the only time he shows interest in other people it’s purely his libido talking. he doesn’t pursue romance, and the one time we’ve seen him do so he was using her to get to, who else?, the damn waitress. 

dee’s lived her entire life having to prove herself to every single person she interacts with, and its familiar to her to getting ahead by using men, usually as sexual objects. i’m hesitant to bring this up on a post wherein i speak on dee’s sexuality because i don’t want to link this trait to it in any way as if its related, but to be fair, dee is as much a serial rapist as dennis is in that regard. the gang are shitty people, we know that. she will get men drunk to have sex with them, or pressure them into it, or trick them into it. she’s not having sex with these men for pleasure, she’s literally doing it for power. it’s absolutely fucked up, but so is she.

when she Is romantically involved, she’s shown to leap headfirst into those relationships and blow them out of proportion on 0 grounds for it. she buys a promise ring for a guy who didn’t think they were dating, it’s implied she’s going to actually go ahead with the brad fisher marriage thing after the episode ends, she gloats about how important she is to a stripper who was literally shame-crying during sex (also? she says “we BOTH wept,” and she can say that’s because it was that good, but i really doubt it). i mean the woman GAGS when talking to men she’s “nervous” around, something she takes as meaning she’s attracted to them? lmao uh???

at this point i’ve probably repeated myself over and over, my brain is on backwards and my train of thought went off the rails years ago. but i’m still gunna retype an old set of tags i found:

i hc that neither of them end up together but they do go through a relationship-ish phase, but dee’s gay and charlie’s okay with that (and always ace in my mind) because they finally move on from their own irrational drives to adhere to what they think is expected of them. i dont think either of them have any idea what a relationship is meant to be and they pathetically grasp at each other because they’re kind-ish to one another and that feels safe for once. chardee may be my main ship but i purposefully backtrack on myself because i know they’re two people who barely know love and have found each other, both as underdogs in their environments, and feel an electrifying Something that they Cant Name wen theyre together, and that something just so happens to be friendship and they don’t realize it cuz they’re doofuses who’ve led really unfortunate lives where friendship and hatred are always intermingling.

i’ve never brought it up here, but i often imagine a timeline of their relationship, because i enjoy the idea of them figuring themselves out through each other, just because they are genuinely amazing (platonically) together, and they get into some of my favorite shit. the thought of late night talks and confessions about their worries and confusion about their feelings while lying in bed, just close because they feel comfortable that way, realizing they can keep loving each other and not force it to mean something it doesn’t, the relief that comes with that, a final kiss that really doesn’t mean anything but thank you, not losing what they had but rather gaining a whole new kind of intimacy, and still getting into absolutely ridiculous situations. maybe dee realizes shes, ironically, found herself with a crush on the waitress and it cracks charlie up. he doesnt mind. he’s finally learned that if he Is going to be with someone it should definitely be with someone who makes him feel at Least half as comfortable as the way being around dee does, and knowing he doesn’t have to make himself look for that, but when he knows he will know. plus, he cant imagine dee pulling that one off. but maybe one day she does. dees gentler around the edges, and she gets butterflies when talking to women, but she never gags. charlie’s a terrible wingman but he keeps convincing dee to let him try. she brings a girl home for the first time and charlie all but backflips in an empty pool that day. they’re still shithats but they’re learning to let that go. people can get better. AA would probably help.

iv gone too far goodbye

[withwitandhope]

15 headcanons

Tagged by: @simplicity-of-control (forever ago, but the app ate my original reply)

Repost don’t reblog. Tag 15 people

Tag: @icanfeelyouchangingshape (for whichever muses you want), @americanparamedic, @followthedrums13, @flxbber, @misstheroses, @compassionate-captain, @enduringcaptain, @i-stand-with-the-doctor, @aurora-gallifreytimelady, @cxnstantcompaniion, @defenderrosetyler, @cptharkness, @intelligentxhalfwit, @brillicnt

Eight is genderfluid.  They will typically use they/them pronouns, but don’t often correct people using he/him pronouns.  On very rare occasions they will use she/her.  They may also dress differently depending upon how they feel that day.

They suffer from depression.  While they do have a bouncy, excitable personality, they often get stuck in their own head, over analyzing their own actions and the reactions of those around them.  This can be a problem day to day, but it’s especially notable in the wake of any sort of major problem and can drive them to suicidal thoughts and actions.

They don’t do well when left alone.  Unlike Ten, who became a bit of a megalomaniac when left to his own devices, Eight tends to go the opposite direction.  Loneliness will drive them to self-isolation and it gets to be a bit of a downhill spiral.

Physical contact is very important for them.  Contrary to the norm for most Time Lords, Eight is very cuddly.  They thrive on contact and will tend to seek that out if they feel whoever they are with may be receptive to it.  Anything from quick hugs to curling up together somewhere and just staying there for hours.

Along the same lines, they do have abandonment issues.  Probably this stems from the loss of all of their companions over their lives.  They fear being left alone.  Their companions tend to either leave them, or they get them killed somehow.  (And they do always blame themself when a companion dies.)  This can make them reluctant to form close bonds with people, which is something they need in order to be happy.

Their favorite room in the TARDIS is the butterfly garden.  They love seeing all the colors and all the delicate little creatures.  It’s a good reminder of how vibrant and beautiful life can be.

They’re practically allergic to cleaning and they almost never get rid of anything.  Charley has called them a hoarder on more than one occasion and she isn’t really wrong.  They also have a tendency to leave books and half finished projects everywhere. The clutter doesn’t really bother them.

Yes, they really are that oblivious.  Eight is ace as can be and does not tend to notice their effect on other people.  Even when it’s pointed out, they have a hard time understanding it.  They are, however, sex-neutral. It’s a little different to them than other forms of physical contact, largely in that as a Time Lord they’ve been conditioned against it. Additionally, they don’t tend to experience arousal, so that’s a bit strange to them. If they don’t fight it, they will react physically to being touched, but because of the unfamiliarity and the conditioning, it can be an unnerving and uncomfortable experience. It’s mostly down to how their partner mitigates that.

Despite being ace, they are panromantic, although they are also demiromantic. But it’s kind of funny, just how terrible they are at picking up on flirting. As mentioned in the previous point, yes, they really are that oblivious.

They are altruistic unto the point of being self-destructive. They tend to out everyone else’s needs ahead of their own. If something is bothering one of their companions, they’ll do everything in their power to fix it. But if they’re having an issue - like if they’re having trouble managing their depression symptoms - they’ll keep quiet about it and not ask for help because they don’t want to be a burden to those around them. This can be problematic, especially when they reach a point where things are driving them to intentionally put themself in danger.

On that note, though, they have the worst poker face. They are the worst liar ever. The worst. They are terrible at it.

They love animals. In fact, they have pets. Sort of. It would be more accurate to say they keep a menagerie.  The butterfly room could be considered a part of this.  Since the TARDIS is infinite, it allows space to house each animal or group of animals with plenty of room and can simulate their natural environments.

They can knit.  They actually find that to be fun and relaxing.  Most of their hobbies include making things with their hands.  This one, though, is the source of a certain past regeneration’s frankly ridiculous scarf.

They adore music.  In fact, they play a frankly ridiculous number of instruments, including violin.  Hitchimus has been one of their favorite planets to visit thus far because of their love of music and musicians.

Food is one part of traveling that really excites them.  They love trying local foods, although as a general rule they typically don’t eat meat or anything with ginger in it.

[billys-hard-grove]

Rules; after getting tagged, answer all the question things, then tag a few of your favorite people, mutuals or not, doesn’t matter

OooOOH, i am superbehind on all the tag stuff, but thanks @digitaldevilqueen for tagging meeeee <3 (i love this one a lot because i get to shamelessly ramble about myself which you know, i love)

1☆Name five of your favorite people

my best friend who i would love to tag, but she does not know about this secret sideblog and she must never find out, because i can never talk about my kinks ever again. (love her though) (she wouldnt judge, but i would die)

my sister and brother

the rest of my friends and family

im being awefully specific in naming my fave people arent i

ill tag 5 of my fave tumbleloggers too:

@benalras

@billyandsteve

@women-seem-wicked

@hoppnhorn

@harringrovehearted

ill also tag you guys for this thing

EDIT: kesha

2���Five of your favorite songs

Magic - B.o.B. ft. Rivers Cuomo

Pusher Love Girl - Justin Timberlake

Changed The Way You Kissed Me - Example

Fine By Me - Andy Grammer

Wonka Bar - Charley Marley

this is a very random list of songs that i love that does not really represent my taste in music at all, but good shit anyway. 

3☆Favorite type of flower

Peonies & Sunflowers

4♡Most peaceful thing you can think of?

not having to set an alarm and sleeping in and then waking up well-rested. (i heard its real nice)

5☆Prettiest time of day

twilight

6♡Five of your favorite musical artists

Rise Against

Frank Turner

Kesha

Shinedown

Panic at the Disco

7☆Eight things that make you happy

this fandom

the song Stolen Dance by Milky Chance

the fact that 15 people are flying over to Dublin to visit me in the 3 months that im here (i could honestly cry, i love them so much)

my new piercing (i cant stop staring at it)

the fact that Kesha is doing well in life. and

the album Rainbow by Kesha

hitting pan on eyeshadow

being surrounded by people i love

8♡Hobbies?

Reading, watching movies, music & concerts & festivals, writing, facepainting

9☆Favorite type of candy

Sour worms & Milka Oreo chocolate

10♡Dream job?

I honestly dont know and im slowly slipping into a mood just staring at this question (honestly, i would love to be a housewife and do like volunteerwork and do all kind of little jobs and committees that help people/communities)(but housewife sounds like a very ambitionless answer for someone who is about to get a mastersdegree in biomechanical engineering so i cant really say that)(so in that field its probably research and development for things that can help people walk again)(damn everytime i talk about it, it sounds so fucking interesting and i do really love this field but im just a bit ugh sometimes)(its good though. i do enjoy it. its supercool)(anyway sorry)

11☆Favorite smell

Freshly washed sheets & Lush’s Yuzu and Cocoa showergel (WHICH THEY’VE DISCONTINUED!  (AFTER THEY’VE DISCONTINUED MY PREVIOUS FAVOURITE SHOWERGEL (GRASS)!)(IM BOYCOTTING LUSH NOW HOW DARE THEY))(i am a bit over lush though, but i savour the last bit of yuzu and cocoa that i have left) 

12♡Favorite sound

I can go all deep here, but its just the music that i love. 

13☆Six things you want most

for the people i love to not be sad

to be able to drop everytime and take a break

a damn hug

a large bag of sour worms & a large bar of milka oreo chocolate

a cat

not to be full, because i just made a declicious pasta and i want to eat more of it.

14♡Five things you want to know

what people think about me (this is probably a lie, because i dont want to know, but i want to know. you know?)

are pistachios healthy even if you eat a fuckton of them?

will i ever get over my massive emotional unavailability and actually fall in love with someone and have a relationship?

who is the divine being that wrote build it better?

will i ever shut up about this fic? 

15☆If you could change the world, what would you want to change about it?

i would make everyone just a bit kinder.

[youngerdrgrey]

Would you mind writing about what happened in between charley and remy's two conversations in 2x13?

title: what do you see (if not you and me?)about: when Charley invited him over, the last thing she expected was to spend the night actually talking to Remy. 2x13 continuation. + ao3+ I imagine Charley texted him before he came over with just “dessert sounds amazing, Remy.” and then he got in his car and came over. 

Charley pours short glasses in case their talk doesn’t go over so well. No need to waste good wine on unpleasant conversation. She might need the rest for once he’s gone. Once he’s realized that the future he wants isn’t something he can have with her.

Remy settles down at the table, and that should be her cue to continue the conversation. Now, they’re clothed and in a more neutral setting to really talk about what they could be. But sitting down feels a lot like being trapped.

She walks to the table with their glasses in hand. “Just because I don’t want to think about it, that doesn’t mean that I won’t, Remy.” She hands him his and cups her own while she stands. She already has a kid — a whole teenager with an evolving personality. “I’ve been going pretty much nonstop my whole life. Having another child would mean slowing down when I can barely afford to take my eyes off of the Landrys for a second. You get that, right?”

He opens up his chest. “Explain it to me?”

She practically sighs. “I don’t know if I can.”

Society sees a pregnant woman and constantly tries to judge every decision that she makes. They ask if she’s working too hard, or not working hard enough, or how the father feels about her working at all. They chalk up every decision she makes to her hormones rather than her mind, and these farmers out here wouldn’t even hesitate to drop her if they thought she were making bad decisions. If they thought, or could be convinced, that the only reason she cared at all was because of some thing with a baby, then all of the work she’s put in will be for nothing. It’ll be practice at running a business that never really got off the ground.

Remy’s never had to deal with that level of constant microscopic interrogation, where every choice is questioned. She can’t jump back in to being a new mother again so soon. She can’t walk away from this project just because he wants a future tomorrow. If that what he needs from her, what he really and truly wants, then maybe they can’t do this.

Remy twists the stem of his wine glass. One full circle before he stops and plants his palms on the table. His eyes come up to find Charley’s, and she opens herself up to stare back.

“So,” he clears his throat, “You don’t see forever?”

“I didn’t say that.” She said she wanted to be with him. They only went on their first date a few weeks ago. To talk about anything else at this point is more than just presumptuous, it’s almost irresponsible. It’s unnecessary pressure for something so young. But, he doesn’t seem to see it that way.

“Then what do you see, Charley?“

She sees the brick wall in her kitchen. Her neck strains as she focuses on finding the divots instead of meeting his eyes again. “I don’t know.” Her robe flutters with the wind from her A.C. She’s not cold, per say, but she is more naked than she needs to be for this. More exposed on too many levels at once. She closes her eyes, though, wills a future to form around her. “I see the festival, next year. I meant that, earlier. We do good work together, and we could make it even better on our second try.”

His disappointment seeps into his words. “You see business.”

Her fingers itch to run through her hair. A little tug would be all she needs to ground herself. She sits down instead, though. If they’re on the same level, then maybe he’ll hear her more clearly.

She admits, “It’s easier for me to see business than it is to see anything else.“

Until a few months ago, Davis was her future. He was her dreams, her business, her everything. So, honestly, at this point? Her forever is Micah and her sister and her aunt Vi.

She can see Micah unpacking a dorm room. Or, Violet cooking until she’s so old that she’s half leaning on the counter just to make her pies. A taller Blue’s right there beside her. There’s spades with Nova as her partner, and then Micah when he’s old enough, and Rah’s taken Nova back for himself. Darla’s in a wedding dress, and she spins Blue around a ballroom.

Charley doesn’t even really see herself when she thinks of the future; she sees them. Her family.

Remy could be there. Laughing on the couch during the spades game. He’d probably look good with a baby in his lap. Respectfully talking smack while Micah messes up a book. Remy could glance up, say, ‘Need me to tag in?’

Micah would groan, say, ‘I’ve got it. You’re on diaper duty.’

Maybe Micah’s cut his hair back down by then. He’ll be done hiding from a barbershop, actually okay with sitting down at another man’s mercy again.

Remy clears his throat. He sips his wine while Charley brings her eyes back to him. He licks his lips the way he does when he’s frustrated with her. He doesn’t say anything though. No, Remy stashes his words in his puffed up chest. Lets them fester in there until they roll up out of his mouth of their own volition.

She begged him to be with her not even a month ago. She shouldn’t have to do it again so soon. "It might take me some time to see anything else clearly. But I’m not opposed to it. I just don’t want to force something when it’s still so early.”

She doesn’t want to force anything at all. They fell into this relationship before either of them even really knew it was happening, and to be stalled by some borrowed problems?

“What do you see, Remy?” If he expects it to be so easy for her to answer, he must know too. “What’s your future?”

He licks his lips again. They’ll split if he keeps it up. He settles his glass back down onto the counter and parts his lips.

“I don’t want to move,” he says. His eyes settle on her shoulder, which gives them both a nice enough eye line without him actually having to look right at her. “That house is where I became a man. I could change it around a little, but I can’t see myself actually living anywhere else.”

“Okay.” She nods, motions with a lift of her brows for him to continue. She’s fine with staying near St. Joe, though a second property wouldn’t be a bad idea. Vacations are necessary, after all.

“Eventually, my cane should be all over this land. As many farmers as I can convince to take me on. I’ll adjust it as needed. Teach a few classes. Cook for you.”

“That’s the plan?”

He pitches forward. “It’s not so much a plan as an idea, Charley.”

“We stopped our night over an idea?” That sounded judgmental.

He licks his lips again.

She drinks. “I’m sorry, I just —“

“It’s fine. Yes, we stopped our night over an idea, but, baby, I don’t want that idea to be all this is.”

“Neither do I.”

The one good thing about this conversation happening now is that there are no distractions. No one needs them for business. Micah’s gone, Darla’s busy with her family, so it’s just them.

“Okay, we’ll start there.”

.

.

a/n: a little more conversation for the two of them in what was an all night ordeal. y’all think they needed to have this talk now, or should it have already happened, or could it have waited?

[tardisly]

Fandom Tag Meme

I was tagged by @amelias-sunflowers, thank you! :D

1. Your current OTP(s)/OT3(s)/OTX(s):

Tbh I’ve never really been one for shipping, I tend to enjoy stories themselves much more! That said I adore Eight/Charley (listen to Big Finish guys, they’re as canon as a Doctor/companion ship can get!!), and also Doctor/Clara! It actually took me a while to get around to Twelve/Clara because I just saw them as a really intense platonic friendship for a long time, but then I started reading romantic fic and the rest is history :)

2. A pairing you initially didn’t consider but someone changed your mind (bonus points: who was that person).

Probably Twelve/Clara. I don’t think anyone changed my mind, I just started reading shippy fic for them haha.

3. A pairing you used to love, but it all fell apart for you.

I wouldn’t say it all fell apart, but I just don’t care for Doctor/Rose anymore. It’s been a while since I’ve seen those eps and I remember I used to really ship them then (I think almost everyone does lol!), but as more time has passed and I’ve delved deeper into Doctor Who their relationship just isn’t as compelling to me anymore. (That said I have absolutely nothing against it, you’ll never see any ship hate on my blog!)

4. Have you added anything cracky/hilarious to your fandom, if so, what?

Well, I made a few of those “distracted boyfriend” memes before, but none of them were very popular haha. Maybe I’ll make something funny soon :)

5. What’s the longest you’ve ever been in a fandom?

Probably Harry Potter, which I’ve loved since the first time I read it when I was nine!

6. Do you remember your first OTP, if so who was in it?

It was definitely Lyra/Will from the His Dark Materials books! I remember being so happy when they got together ^^ (and then having my heart broken at the end)

7. Name a fandom you didn’t care/think about until you saw it all over Tumblr.

It’s not really a fandom but I only started watching Classic Who because of the things I saw on Tumblr haha. I wanted to understand all those memes!!

8. Say something genuinely nice about a character who isn’t one of your faves (chars you’re neutral on are fair game, as are chars you dislike).

River isn’t one of my favourite DW characters, but she can be really funny and sweet :)

9. Name three things you wish you saw more of in your main fandom (or a fandom of choice).

Agreeing with @amelias-sunflowers about less hatred of showrunners/eras... I respect all opinions and like, like what you like, but sometimes it’s just ridiculous. It would also be cool to see more people watching the classic series and/or getting into the EU! :D But I’m happy to say that overall the Doctor Who fandom is a pretty nice place (at least in my experience.)

10. Choose a song at random; which ship or character does it remind you of?

I don’t really listen to music, sorry! But I recently stumbled across this post where Paul McGann sings a song that really reminded me of Eight and Charley.

11. A pairing you ship that you don’t think anyone else ships.

For Doctor Who - I don’t really think I have any? There’s not much Eight/Charley content because they’re kind of obscure but people do ship it. But recently I was rewatching Frasier and found myself shipping Niles and Roz?? Judging by the fact there’s no works in the tag in AO3, I’m probably the only one :P

12. Your most scandalous headcanon for your current OTP(s)/OT3(s)/OTX(s).

Don’t have one haha.

13. Do you have any hard and fast headcanons that you will die defending, about anything at all (gender identity, sexual or romantic orientation, extended family, sexual preferences like top/bottom/switch, relationship with poetry, seriously anything)?

I’m sure I do but I can’t think of any right now??

14. 5 favorite characters from 5 different fandoms.

Doctor Who - Clara Oswald

Harry Potter - Hermione Granger

The X Files - Dana Scully

A Series of Unfortunate Events - Violet Baudelaire

Frasier - Daphne Moon

15. 3 OTPs from 3 different fandoms.

Doctor/Clara (Doctor Who), Mulder/Scully (The X Files), and Jim/Pam (The Office)

16. 5 brotps:

(@amelias-sunflowers​ you listed your platonic ships here, and since there’s already a section on otps I thought I’d change the question!)

Ten & Donna

Bill & Twelve

Eight & Lucie

Frasier & Roz (Frasier)

Harry & Luna (Harry Potter)

17. Just ramble about something fan-related, go go go (prompts optional but encouraged).

I’m not really sure what to say here so how about I go on a little rant about how much I love Doctor Who?? It’s honestly one of my favourite things, there’s something amazing and astonishing l about the way it can keep reinventing itself practically forever and still be entertaining. It’s almost impossible to run out of content too because there’s the whole classic series, novels, comics, Big Finish. There’s a little corner of the show for everyone, and it can lead you to watching things barely even related to it, if at all (looking at you, Midsomer Murders episodes I watched for actors.) It’s just such an interesting and insane idea for a show, and the fact that it’s been going for so many years and will keep going in some form for many more makes me so happy :D

Tagging (only if you wanna): @gallihafry, @beccaland, @eightsgirl, @brightnessrandom, @clarasleafs, @accionarnia, @thjrteen!