#fear street grifter

[cosplaying-memester]

I watched Fear Street the other day and thought that I should do some cosplays of the killers. I'll be doing Isaac Milton, Harry Rooker, Tommy Slater, and (maybe) Ryan Torres.

[iliveinprocrasti-nationn]

dragging everyone into my fear street pit because i NEED more people to see the movies. what do you mean i was given these fantastically done slashers filled to the brim with lore and symbolism and foreshadowing and and and- and tumblr isn’t yelling about them. hello. hello can anyone hear me

[anotherpapercut]

ok sorry I do have one last thing to say on the topic which is that it is sick and evil that when you try to google drug safety and dosage information almost all of the top results are sponsored links to various sketchy rehab centers run by grifters, money/power hungry freaks, and sometimes literal cults with the same 3 copy and pasted paragraphs chock full of the exact fear mongering abstinence only misinformation you would find in a pamphlet handed to you by a preacher on a street corner in the 80s

[aheathen-conceivably]

🎶 All God's people find their place, and I love you like a mountain 🎶

Sometime before noon Antoine finally rose from bed. He had donned a plain vest and then rolled up his sleeves, both for the heat and knowing that his arsenal of robes and patterned ties wouldn’t get him far on the streets of New Mexico. His fingers exaggerated each movement, heavy with the weight of his need to succeed for his family’s sake as well as his own.

As he put his hat atop his head, he knew that he couldn’t drag out the inevitable any longer. He had never felt comfortable asking for help, much less begging for a job. A skilled pianist, a business owner, a decorated war veteran; what was any of it here? He was an unskilled laborer in a foreign land, saddled with debt and nerves.

He took a shaky breath and crossed his arms, a French prayer coming to the front of his mind. Rather than fight it he kept his eyes closed and silently went through the words before signing the cross and walking out the door.

When he walked onto the porch both Giorgio and Zelda were already standing in the middle of the yard, deep in conversation as Zelda pointed to the shed and the crops. He waved at them and asked where Josephine was; with a weary shrug Giorgio called back that she was still asleep. 

Zelda gave him a knowing smile and whispered good luck, her words almost silent but clear to Antoine even across the farmyard.

He set off on foot toward town, following the directions that Giorgio had given him to the places that he heard were looking for workers. He had offered him a ride the day before, but Antoine knew that in their situation gas was a luxury not to be wasted. Besides, there was something about all of these cars and roads that he didn’t trust. 

Zelda joked that it was the city boy in him, afraid of the open road. It was her new favorite nickname and one that he was growing increasingly delighted with as her Henford roots continued to show. Even her clipped English accent, softened by her years in New Orleans and his own Creole voice, had seemingly strengthened in the days since they’d arrived. 

But perhaps she was right, the city boy wasn’t prepared for the speed at which the cars flew by his shoulder. Yet as the loud engine passed him and disappeared down the road beyond, he was left in the peaceful desert air. It felt older and stiller than anything he'd ever known, so much so that it erased the worries from his mind until he forgot the task at hand and actually began to enjoy his walk.

Yet as the days went by the comfort he drew from the surrounding desert began to dwindle. One after another, shop owners and farmers turned him away. The kinder ones gave him a new address, another place to look. They passed the buck along, scared for their own security and unwilling to take on another mouth to feed as the newspaper headlines grew more grim and the line of unemployed longer by the day.

But many simply muttered under their breath and turned away. For others, he was lucky if their insults were so subtle. Hunger and fear had left the worst of them volatile and inhospitable, desperate for a scapegoat for their frustrations in whatever form it arrived.

Get off my land, grifter. Find another place to beg, Okie. We’ve got nothing for you, you damn migrant. He was no stranger to slurs, but these were new, and they held a whole different capacity for insult, new weight and freshly perceived inadequacies for him to digest each time they were hurdled in his direction.

So day after day, week after week, he went home to Zelda as his failures mounted and hopes dwindled down to nothing. Still, their creaky iron bed grew more comfortable and the peeling wallpaper an ever soothing sight. He laid there in her welcome embrace until the word went still and the panic quieted.

Each night it became easier to recount every moment of his day, coupled as it was with his growing fear and worry. When he couldn't, he listened to Zelda speak of the new things Violette had learned, or the progress that she and Gio had made on the soil. In the quiet of the desert air one of their voices filled the void that the world had created for them, until their eyes began to grow heavy and there was nothing left to worry about until the sun rose again on a new day.

Previous / Next

[byrdstrolls]

As You Wish

(teehee, this features a lot of guys! tythus from @moonlit-trolls, the lady of the lake from @celestialtrolls, and finala from @roetrolls!)

(Also please be so nicey to me I haven't managed to write anything in three months)

Dear Diary, 

Five perigees into my leave from the fleet, a strange calm has overtaken me. I’ve found the eye of the hurricane, or some layer of insanity that hurts less than the first. I’ve started to have lunches in the cafe down the street, on the patio. Dangerous, I know. But I am a pack animal, by nature. I could lock myself in this apartment only for so long without breaking. Sitting there, it’s like being surrounded by people while being alone. Even if I talk to no one but my waiter, it’s better than nothing. There have been close calls, inconsequential ones. 

But still too many. I do not think the worker at the place suspects a thing, or would even know what to suspect, how to suspect correctly. I feel like an open wound. But enduring in my silence, none of them can tell. Of all people to have this affliction, it could kill me most surely. I do not trust my fellow troll as far as I could throw one. Now every stranger I meet holds my soul in the palm of their hand. I could die tomorrow. I could not die for sweeps. But what kind of living am I even doing anymore? I am so bored. 

The terror has become second nature to me. I learn quickly around fear. I touch a burning stove, I pull back my hand. My only guiding light, relief, is my research. It would be so easy to fail. But I would try a hundred thousand times on the off chance I could have back my life. Even so things move…

…torturously slow. I need to understand what happened to know how to fix it. But I don’t even know where to start. I have wiled away so many hours reading, finding books to read in the bibliographies of other books. But I don’t know what I’m looking for. I don’t know how to discern esoterica from nonsense, skill from parlor tricks, grifters from sages. 

The uniform does not help. One can hardly poke around the city dressed like a fleet officer asking around for magic trolls before those very people start climbing out the back window! It’s too hot for it anyways, even in the cold season. Curse this thing. I will wear it to my funeral. But as I said at the beginning of this entry. Things are just as bad as they have ever been, but it doesn’t bother me anymore. I woke up early yesterday, and watched the sun set from the window, sky dancing in fragments through this tiny place. And I felt a certain stillness, and a strange gratitude, that no matter how humbly I lived now, how much I missed other people and my hive and ship and privileges, things could have been worse. I made it nearly half a sweep. 

I have been very lucky. 

I just need a little more luck now.

.

.

.

.

.

Midway through their lunch break, Leftie peaks over the desk of their stand at a figure who has fixed themselves at the front of the alleyway. At first they thought they were exceptionally huge, but on a second glance, they are just significantly huge, and have on an absolute monster of a coat. Probably fleet. They glance at their own signs, the sandwich in their hand, and then pointedly scot over their chair to face the opposite direction. 

“Excuse me-” The cerulean says, taking a step forward. 

“Excuse me” Leftie retorts. “What does this say?” They say, pointing at the sign on their stand. 

“It says closed, back in thirty minutes, but-” 

“Exactly” The purple replies. “Leave me alone” They order.  

“Nonononono” Viscos mutters under their breath, immediately turning away, walking down the street, they throw up their hands in frustration. 

“G-dammit” They mutter, pulling out their journal and crossing Lefties name off a list. All that poking around, and they had failed so quickly, decisively, and immediately. 

.

.

.

.

.

I shouldn’t have come here, Viscos thinks, but the same protestation entered their mind in a variety of places, from gas stations to libraries to restaurants. So it’s a little more difficult to take it seriously now, even with its precedent. An entire church sect is something more dramatic than some small time magic user. But maybe it was time to be more dramatic, it’s nearly been a half sweep after all, maybe they are this desperate. They can always leave, until they can’t. 

“I understand you are not willing to share the details of your affliction with me.” The hulking mass of the purpleblood says, his plague doctor’s mask tilted ever so slightly downward to stare at the fleet troll. 

“But is there anything you could deluge… anything at all? How does it affect the body? What organs? How did it begin?” Tythus asks. 

Viscos stares up at him for some time. 

“No,” They say. “I can’t tell you that.” 

“As… impossible a task as you have proposed” The man pauses. “To cure a curse without being told what it is, I would try for you.” He says, templing his hands, then pointing them downward. “All I would ask is you stay some time on our commune, working, to repay your debt to me”

“...here” Viscos mutters vaguely, glancing out the apothecaries window. With all these other trolls? 

“Could I serve my time after I’ve been cured?” The cerulean proposes. 

“I… need some kind of assurance you would not run off and take advantage of my kindness. Besides, to figure out your, interesting little puzzle, it’s best for the two of us to get to know each other, right?” 

Viscos stares into the dark black eye holes of the mask, thinking. They had made it this far, farther than they had with other witches. Maybe it was the time to throw caution to the wind. But the reasonable, paranoid voice in their mind that clutches caution so close to their chest their knuckles whiten, calls it here. 

“Then” They say. “I do not think we can work together.” They say, taking one last inhale of their cigarette holder, and leaving the room.

.

.

.

.

.

The next visit is also frustratingly short, or, as it was with Leftie, never really starts in the first place. They are trying to find the domain of the lady of the lake. They can see the peaking lights of hives in the distance, hidden near the water through the flurry of snow, but everytime they try to walk towards them they lose their way, and find themselves back where they started. Ever the pragmatist, they had tried to map the area, on a notepad. With leather gloves and shaking fingers, they marked down monuments and turns as they could, but even the most astute of their markings made no sense. It was as if the landscape itself was changing every time Viscos turned their back. Eventually, it became too cold even for them, and their mother of all coats, to endure, and they went back to the apartment, defeated.  . . .

. .

When they found a witch who was travelling, they thought meticulously on where to meet her. The apartment was out of the question, obviously. They did not want to easily be found again if things went horribly wrong. They could meet at a cafe, but they didn’t want to be overheard. Somewhere public enough to instill a safety that came with being out in the open, but private enough to dissuade curious listeners. They toiled over this for nights before resolving to reserve a study room at the public library. 

They’re sitting there now, foot tapping at the floor with a restless impatience. Their coat propped up on the chair. Every one of these meetings feels like russian roulette. The woman's first words upon entering feel like the sound of a bullet clicking into the chamber. 

Finala opens the door to the room gently, offering a friendly wave and smile, but it’s not long after she steps into the room that she pauses, a brief concern welling up in her eyes. 

“Oh…” She exhales. “I see. You’re cursed.” 

Viscos stands up immediately, having prepared to dance around the subject of their affliction, and unsettled by how quickly and seamlessly Finala had noticed. 

“How did you know that?” They say, guarded. 

“I have a sense for such things.” She says, raising her arms in surrender. “If it eases you, I don’t know the specifics, but I might be able to help you were you to fill me in”

Viscos stares into her eyes, unsure what they’re searching for. Their paranoia battling with their desperation, and the paranoia wins out in the end. The cerulean picks up their coat, scrambling for the door. 

“Please don’t leave” She says gently, not even knowing what she’s just done. “I’m not going to hurt you.” 

And just like that, they stiffen, rooted to the spot, cursing their luck and their foolishness, turning back to glare at the woman as if she had just done something horrible to them. 

Finala traces the look in their eyes for a moment, thinking. 

“I see. It’s something to do with speech then.” She deduces. “Then I won’t speak until you tell me how to avoid it. If you’d rather simply take your leave, feel free. But know that I will not say another word to you without your permission.” 

If only it were that simple, for them to be released with a ‘feel free’. Viscos once again wills their feet forward, but their body doesn’t listen to them. They stand there, time dragging on. Trying to think their way out. It’s only after the first minute or so they begin to realize Finala is serious about not speaking. She’s still standing across the room, mouth shut, waiting. Was there some way to tell her without telling her? Viscos eventually sighs, walking over and sitting back down in the chair. 

“I can’t… be given orders” The cerulean says, gesturing vaguely. But it’s enough to piece the puzzle together regardless. The realization hits Finala all at once, and works its way backwards through the conversation that preceded it. They had not had a change of heart, she realizes. They had literally been unable to leave from the moment she told them not too. She stares at the cerulean, eyebrow raising as if asking if this was permission to speak. 

“You can speak,” They say. “If you don’t tell me to do things.” They add, as a condition. 

“Poor thing… I can only imagine the strife this has brought you” She says, taking a step closer. She pauses, thinking for a moment, and begins to speak slowly. “I’ll consider my words carefully- wouldn’t want to trigger the effect.” She turns to the side. 

“If… I told you to rest assured that I have no desire to abuse your curse, would that force your hand?” 

“Yes” They answer. 

“Well. Then if you so please, you may choose to rest assured that is the case. Is me telling you not to leave, still in effect?” 

They’re in this deep, Viscos thinks. If they’re fucked, they are already fucked. Might as well not mince words. 

“Yes,” They say. “It can only be cancelled out by another, contradictory direct order.” 

“Then, I order you to leave when you see fit.” She says. 

Viscos pauses. Surely, something like all this had been what they wanted to hear, yes? Was this not the best way this could have gone? They had not made it this far with any of the other witches. But there is no relief in it, all they continue to feel is frustrated with their own vulnerability. They stare at the ground for a long moment, before sighing, rolling up the sleeve of their uniform, to reveal a sigil, that almost looks tattooed onto the skin, a symbol of four wings, a crown, and esoteric scribbling, that had appeared, immovable, on their forearm since the moment they were touched by magic. 

“Do you know how to fix it?” They say, fighting to keep the waver from their voice. 

Finala pauses, delicately taking the arm in her hands, stepping closer to look at the sigil. 

“I’m not entirely familiar with this.” She says. “But… this mark is… it seems like someone worked hard to tie this spell specifically to its caster. You’d likely need that witch to remove it” She admits, knowing that’s likely not what they want to hear. 

Viscos gives a long sigh. Why’d they pick a meeting place where they couldn’t smoke? Their fists open and close around a lack of cigarettes. 

“I hoped you wouldn’t say that.” They exhale. 

“I’m sorry. I assume you and who made it are still on uneven terms?” 

“Worse” Viscos sighs. “She’s dead.”

[mariacallous]

In the summer of 2022, when Liz Truss was about to become prime minister, I noticed that she was an admirer of Rick Perlstein, one of the great historians of modern America. 

Aspiring politicians like to tell the media about their favourite writers, even if they barely look at a book from one year to the next. It gives them a touch of class.

But there was no doubt in this case that Truss was sincere, and knew Perlstein’s work intimately.

She told journalists from the Times that she read “anything” Perlstein wrote. An interviewer from the Atlantic magazine saw a copy of Perlstein’s The Invisible Bridge on her shelf, the third of his four-volume series on the rise of the radical right in the United States between 1960 and 1980, and said it was just the kind of book you’d expect her to read.

Then there was a weird moment in an interview with the Spectator when  an anonymous spokeswoman for the Truss campaign, who sounded very like Truss herself, explained that her rival Rishi Sunak was failing to win over Tory members because he refused to pander to their prejudices. 

“If people think there is an imaginary river,” the source said, “you don’t tell them there isn’t, you build them an imaginary bridge.”

You can find that quote at the beginning of the Perlstein history of the US right in the mid-1970s that was on Liz Truss’s bookcase.  And it is highly revealing. Perlstein picked it from a meeting between Nikita Khrushchev and Richard Nixon in the late 1950s. The Soviet leader told the then US vice-president that politicians must create their own reality by pandering to the fear in their supporters’ minds. 

“If the people believe there is an imaginary river out there,” Khrushchev said, “you don’t tell them there’s no river out there. You build an imaginary bridge over the imaginary river.”

Truss, or someone close to her was saying that Tories did not want to face facts. They wanted their fantasies confirmed, which is exactly what she did — at enormous cost to the country.

I contacted Perlstein and asked what he thought of having the UK’s next prime minister as a fan.

Let me put it like this: he may have been her favourite historian, but she was not his favourite politician. Not even close. Not even in the top 1,000. He found her astonishingly stupid.

”Liz. Can’t. Read,” he replied, and began a long – and for British readers frightening – account of how and why our new government of wannabe Reaganites would crash the economy.

As they went on to do.

Truss’s notion that tax cuts for the rich pay for themselves had been developed in the 1970s. The new wealth of the already wealthy was meant to boost the economy and tax base and trickle down to the rest of society.

In the fourth volume of his series, Perlstein covered the grifters who sold the idea of self-funding tax cuts and explained how dubious they were.

And yet here, 50-years on, was his devoted reader Liz Truss reading his history as a guidebook rather than a warning.

Why do terrible ideas refuse to die?

You could say in this case that Truss was so stupid she did not understand the past. This was Perlstein’s point.

Then there’s greed. If you want to proselytise for tax cuts for the rich, you will never be short of a paying audience, as the Tufton Street think tanks well know.

Finally, there’s deceit. Conservatives don’t necessarily believe that they will raise money for public services. The enterprise of pretending tax cuts are self-financing is a con designed to weaken state provision.

All three played their part in the voodoo economics of US conservatism and the disastrous reign of Liz Truss.

Here’s how…

Neo-liberalism was forged in the 1970s as the post-war Keynesian or New Deal consensus fell apart.

One of the new ideas that emerged was trickle-down economics.  Until then, the traditional conservative argument was that you needed to reduce spending or increase growth if you wanted to reduce taxes.

This was the case that Rishi Sunak put in his failed attempt to defeat Truss in the 2022 leadership contest.

But in the mid-1970s hucksters and ideologues maintained that there was no need to cut spending. The growth tax cuts inspired would more than cover the cost.

The Laffer curve suggested that there was a point where tax rises were counterproductive. People would turn down work if the state took too much of their income, although where that point was is always disputed.

Getting into these practical arguments misses the point, however. There was an exuberant eruption of voodoo economics in the mid-1970s, which had no concern for technical accuracy.

Perlstein put it to me like this

“[With] conventional Keynesian – ‘liberal’ – solutions failing, all sorts of intellectual entrepreneurs on the right came forth with their solutions to the problem, as I narrate in Reaganland, a volume Liz claims to have read. [Of the] many solutions on the table, the one that prevailed was the one that all the actually half-way qualified experts on the right knew was nothing but a fairy tale on a par with Jack in the Beanstalk. [It was] devised by a dude whose only economic training, in his own description, came from learning to count cards at the blackjack tables in Las Vegas. I wish I were making this up, but I am not.”

Perlstein was referring to Jude Wanniski, a journalist who did indeed coin the term “supply-side economics” in the 1970s after a spell working in Las Vegas. He attracted the attention of Reagan, Jack Kemp and Steve Forbes with his promise that the Laffer curve guaranteed that, if conservative politicians cut taxes, the economy would boom.

As Perlstein notes, Wanniski’s first piece promoting the idea in a 1975 issue of the Conservative journal Public Interest “lacked almost everything that made economic arguments convincing to other economists”. There were only four footnotes. No data. No formal models. Economists thought supply-side economics was a joke. It would take decades to recoup the money lost in tax cuts to wealthy people, they argued.

Milton Friedman, who was hardly a socialist, said the inflation that unfunded tax cuts would produce meant that supply-side economics was merely a “proposal to change the form of taxes” rather than lower them.  They would generate price and interest rates rises as indeed happened during the Truss debacle.

Alan Greenspan, who once again was a man of the right, who hung out with Ayn Rand no less, nevertheless said he knew of no one who believed that Arthur Laffer’s curve would magically turn tax cuts into increased government revenues.

And so it has proved again and again. Ronald Reagan’s administration provided the classic example. It cut taxes but the promised surge in tax revenues did not happen. All that happened was the national debt increased.

David Stockman, Reagan’s Director of the Office of Management and Budget admitted that "none of us really understands what's going on with all these numbers," as the experiment played out. He rapidly came to the conclusion that the administration needed to cut spending to balance the books. But as he said in his The Triumph of Politics: Why the Reagan Revolution Failed Conservative politicians preferred large deficits and an increasing national debt to cutting programmes their constituents liked.

Under Reagan, Bush and Trump they were happy to keep cutting. One of the features of US politics is that the national debt is as likely to rise under right-wing as left-wing governments,

Obviously, arguing that cutting the wealthy’s taxes was virtuous in itself pleased the wealthy.  It pleased Republican party donors in the 1970s, and it pleased the Tory donors who poured money into Liz Truss’s campaign in 2022.

But there is more to it than that.

In an article for the Wall Street Journal in 1976, Wanniski said the problem with the old right with its insistence on saving money was that it wanted to be Scrooge when it should be Santa Claus. 

It should deliver tax cuts, forget about the national debt, and sit back as a grateful citizenry showed their gratitude at polling stations. Left-wingers wanted to give taxpayer-funded goodies to their supporters. Very well, right-wingers should want to give tax cuts to theirs.

In the 1970s, Irving Kristol, the editor of Public Interest, was explicit that politics must trump economics. The political advantage tax cuts would provide to the Republicans was so historically imperative they should be blasted through whatever the effect on the budget.

“The neo-Conservative is willing to leave those problems to be coped with by liberal interregnums,’ he wrote in the Wall Street Journal. “He wants to shape the future and will leave it to his opponents to tidy up afterwards.”

We are now in a moment like the 1970s. Taxes keep rising and Conservatives and indeed the rest of us have yet to come to terms with the cost of an ageing society. As anger grows, I doubt that Truss will be the last Tory to try to magic away reality and build an invisible bridge to a fantastical future.

[kassandrasdisciple]

I think I've seen posts floating around about a potential back up to Jon if he died during his markings, but I'd like to make a comprehensive post for why I firmly believe it was Oliver Banks.

Firstly, why would there be a back up? The Web isn't omniscient, their plans can be messed with and they can make mistakes, as we see with Annabelle admitting, her calling Martin in the eyepocalypse was "sloppy". The reason their plans usually don't fail however is that they make contingencies and plan things far in advance, decades if necessary, you can cut many threads of a web before it collapses.

Moving on to why I think Oliver is a prime candidate, firstly his immediate loyalty, the End, means he's not dying any time soon, it wasn't the first power to mark him (more on that later) but neither was the Eye the first to mark Jon. By being an End avatar the Web could keep him on ice for centuries, slowly adding marks, whilst using more suitable but unfortunately more perishable avatars like Jon in the mean time. Secondly the Eye and the End are both very passive, the Eye sees all but doesn't comprehend and the End knows it claims all in time, the Eye was exploited by the Web as it wouldn't act against the mother of puppets in time to stop its grand ritual as it cannot act on the knowledge it aquires, in the same vein if an End avatar was to be used I don't think the End would fight the Web, atleast not like the Desolation or the Stranger would.

The hitch here is that the Eye was comfortable to let the apocalypse slowly fizzle into a heat death scenario, whilst if the End assumed total power it might of been more aggressive, however from how it acts in the show I think it wouldn't create an apocalypse so different from the Eye, it is patient, I don't think it would gorge itself by killing everyone in the new world immediately. Most likely instead of the domains being reset it would just allow victims to die after each act, so not disastrous for the Webs plan, just scaling up the time frame.

On to the marks, going through the supporting characters, Oliver has a suspiciously high amount of marks only being beaten out by the archives crew, namely Martin. I'll make a list and explain my reasonings as I go and I'll list them in how confident in the event being a mark I am. I will note that both Jon's Slaughter mark and Vast mark were very brief and if they count I'm sure some of my less tenuous ones do too. I'll also include references when I can.

The End - the most obvious and unquestionable mark, being the one that propels him to avatarhood.

The Eye - giving a statement to Jon to awaken him from his coma, we know giving a statement makes you relive the trauma in your dreams and he says as such before his statement. (Mag 121)

The Web - in the same episode as his statement Oliver says the Web sent him, most likely compulsion as he says it's best not to fight the mother of puppets, Jon's mark was similarly him being compelled by a Web aligned Leitner. (Mag 121)

The Corruption - whilst giving her statement to Gertrude, Jane Prentiss says she worked in the same magic shop as Oliver, saying he looked at her with sadness and then once with fear, most likely the corpse roots showing him her grizzly fate, I think it's safe to say that the corpse roots, as an extension of the End, serve only to show and provoke fear in their observer, in this case Oliver, not dissimilar to Jon and taking statements. (Mag 32)

The Slaughter - similar to Jane, Oliver pops up in another subjects statement as an observer, seeing premonitions of their fate, this time it's Jennifer Ling, the victim of Grifter's bone where he asked what she was listening too, and likely saw corpse roots coming out of her ears, predicting the affects of the Slaughter. (Mag 42)

The Stranger - we're still dealing with a manifestation of the fears but this time less direct, Graham was the victim of the NotThem in Across The Street and was also Oliver's boyfriend, although they broke up just before Graham got Got. However it's unlikely Oliver never learned of Grahams demise and, once he became more immersed in the supernatural, what really happened to him, I think it's unlikely the NotThem wouldn't of orchestrated atleast a few run-ins as it loves toying with the loved ones of it's victims. (Mag 3)

The Buried - no longer dealing with confirmed supernatural manifestations however it is talked about, in both his statements I believe, that Oliver worked at the Barclay's building before cracking under the pressure and having a mental breakdown, talked about most in Dreamer. We know from Mag 129 that financial debt can invoke the Buried, and when Gerry summerizes the Buried he says it feels like the whole world is coming down on you. I think given the fact it kick-started his descent into the fears, and it's where he starts all his dreams in dreamer, the breakdown was atleast supernatural adjacent if not fully, regardless he still felt the inherent fear of the Buried even if it was mundane in nature. (Mag 11)

The Desolation - the previous entry was actually me prepping you for this leap, all of Jon's marks had a supernatural component so it's unclear if the fear being supernatural is necessary or not, I.e. interviewing a desolation avatar vs losing your home and family to a mudane house fire, the fear is the same but the supernatural is unique. I personally believe it's the fear itself that's needed, creating a specific trauma/phobia of the fear, Jon's were all supernatural just because it was a reliable way to get a specific trauma. If this holds true then Oliver's Desolation mark is easy, the Satalite impact killing not only himself but over a dozen crew and scientists, spreading the Desolation to their friends and loved ones, no bodies ever recovered or laid to rest.

That leaves us with 6 unaccounted for, when I first made this theory I thought the satalite was the Daedelus reentering earth's atmosphere, which I used to neatly cross of the Dark, the Lonely and the Vast, but not only is there no evidence to them being the same, I don't think that would mark Oliver simply because evil money sponsored the space station. The other 3, the Spiral, the Hunt and the Flesh I also have no evidence for, although if the weight of his 9 to 5 didn't class as a Buried mark, the following breakdown might be claimed as a Spiral one.

However having 8 marks still makes Oliver one of the most marked characters, only behind Martin and Jon, the antichrist and his plus one. Also Jon was going to get himself killed or expire within a century possibility, depending on if he would have to body-hop like Elias/Jonah, and so the Web had to speedrun their plan. Oliver most likely would be around for far longer so the Web could afford to take her time and mark him at a leisurely pace, as a back up to Jon if that plan failed.

I hope you have all enjoyed this meandering mess, the word Mark has truly lost all meaning to me at this point, I do think I'm on the right track however as the Web wouldn't put all her eggs in one sac as it were, the only other candidate being Martin, though thinking about it he also had heavy Web ties as well.... a theory for another day. Thank you for reading and stay scared.

[gcldfanged]

ㅤusually they've got a pretty good knack for identifying a good target to steal from — someone who's not likely to notice quick fingers dipping into their pockets, who'll remain oblivious until the thief is a block or two away — but every now and then they fuck up. this happens to be one of those instances. poor judgement has resulted in their wrist grabbed before they can scarper off with what they've managed to get their hands on, and byan freezes as a wave of panic washes over them. wide eyes dart to the man's face, but they otherwise maintain composure in spite of the fear that begins to build in their chest.

ㅤㅤ" just a joke, man. "ㅤit's a weak lie and they know it, but they don't have to talk their way out of this — just need to distract long enough until they can tear themself free one way or another. keeping eye contact, they flash a devious grin while their free hand discreetly moves toward their pants pocket, where one of their numerous knives lay hidden.ㅤ" chill. let me go an' you can keep your shit. "ㅤㅤ(feel free to lmk if you'd like something else sent! i just love the concept of byan being caught mid-theft & jae feels like the perfect candidate for that lmao)

[I LOVE IT, WHAT A LITTLE SCAMP-]

Maybe it's because there's a big crowd, maybe it's because there've been slim pickings for this street kid, or maybe it's the dumb reusable bag covered in anime kitty cats slung over Jae's elbow with green onions poking out of the top- whatever it is, his new acquaintance has made a terrible choice trying to sneak up on a man who kills people for a living.

The younger man is not without skill, he'd managed to keep hidden so it wasn't quite so obvious he'd been staking Yoon out in particular. But the follow through was enough to make him almost cry- Seriously, who had taught this kid to be a grifter?

"Sheesh, kids these days..." Jae-hyo sighs heavily, twisting Byan's arm just so- then he can't make a clean getaway without straining something or doing some impressive gymnastics.

"You gotta do something to lead the eye, fool! Bump into them, make a big scene apologizing and straightening them out afterwards, flirt with them, just make sure they're focused on your snot-nosed little face and not their wallet..." he trails off, making sure his own money is taken back and quite secure.

"And then shit like this won't happen."

'This' being Jae armed with a wicked looking balisong he'd plucked off of his unwilling student for the evening.

"Damn, this is actually a pretty nice piece... I'm keepin' it so maybe this lesson will stick up there in that dumb little baby brain of yours," he explains, flipping the knife closed and tap-tap-tapping his index finger against Byan's forehead.

[cosplaying-memester]

Happy Halloween, guys! This isn't my costume for today, just a lil something I thought I'd upload, along with another Fear Street cosplay lol

And yes, I redid the mask some lol

[iliveinprocrasti-nationn]

i keep hearing rumours about fear street 4 and people going “oh they should do this book” and no they shouldn’t do any book they should give me backgrounds on all the different killers. we got little details but it was barely anything i want biographies here i wanna be able to fill out entire character wikis and have in depth lore

[chaos-and-kromer]

my tma notes from ep 41-75 :]

Season 2 

41 too deep- the buried, the spiral, the dark, & the eye 

42 grifters bone- the slaughter 

43 section 31- the eye (lightless flame) 

44 tightrope- the stranger (Gurtrude speaking) (circus of the other?) (Gregor O) 

45 blood bag- the corruption (mr salesa) 

46 literary heights- the vast (Jurgen Leitner) [mike crew] 

47 a new door- the spiral (Helen Richardson) *1 

48 lost in the crowd- the lonely & the stranger  supplemental- [Jon needs to chill; bro is absolutely manic] 

49 the butcher’s window- the flesh (jarred Hepworth) see 17   supplemental- Elias Bouchard pothead??? The eye 

50 fortified- the buried   supplemental- police lady keeps coming back. Tim is suspicious 

51 high pressure- the end, the vast, the dark, & the buried (Simon Fairchild)  supplemental- Not Sasha, weird table, the web? See “across the street” 

52 exceptional risk- the slaughter & the dark (Robert Montauk) ep 9 (Maxwell Rainer)  Supplemental- cut in from Basira. Not Sasha, wax museum, boyfriend? 

53 crusader- the dark & the eye  supplemental- magnus is not the first archive, Alexandria 

-Jon has scars from the worms & 5 stiches from Micheal 

54 still life- the stranger  supplemental- “I broke into Gurtrude's flat!” eyes cut out of book covers and removed 

55 pest control- the corruption (Jhon Amherst)  supplemental- good night sleep!!! 

56 children of the night- the hunt & the corruption (see vampire killer)   supplemental- martin said Trevor died but he didn’t, Jon confronts him “you keep lying to me martin! About what? I don’t know!” martin lied on his resume not about anything serious 

57 personal space- the vast & the lonely (E109GHT8) (Fairchild)  supplemental- Jon's looking in Sasha's desk? (the stranger) 

58 trail rations- the hunt  supplemental- Tim and Martin heard faintly talking about Jon 

59 recluse- the web & the corruption (hilltop road) (agnus) (the table?) “I have no interest in thinking about spiders more than is professionally required”  supplemental- the others are avoiding Jon 

60 observer effect- the eye  supplemental- Jon Sims intervention. ccttv files, everyone has an alibi. [hopefully Jon calms down a bit] 

61 hard shoulder- the buried (daisy) (breaken and hope)  supplemental- vampires are real 

62 first edition- the eye & the end (Mary Keay) (Jurgen Leitner) (Mary's mother worked for the institute) (the end is directly mentioned) (the Keay’s don’t serve a specific fear)  supplemental- Getrude's secret compartment, laptop and key 

63 the end of the tunnel- the dark (Sir Robert Smirk) (peoples church of the divine host has relations to the dark)  supplemental- Jon can't unlock the computer, Melonie King needs help getting into the library 

64 burial rites- the buried  supplemental- Basira, Jon is not sneaky at all 

65 binary- the spiral & the end [he is jonbinary] “god it’s like talking to my grandpa”  supplemental- access to Gertude's computer, Tim: “I’ll catch you when you're not scheming”, Tim and Jon fight 

66 held in customs- the buried (Makale Salisa) (Peter Lucas)  supplemental- Gertude traveled a lot and had weird purchase history, including Leitner’s (key of Solomon) 

67 burning desire- the desolation (Agnus Montague/Feilding) (Alice? Short hair, hell tattoo, strong) [oh dear, this one's sad]  supplemental- Jon asks Elis for the key to the tunnels “I need to know” “good lord, don’t be so dramatic Jon” 

68 the tale of a field hospital- the end & the corruption (Amherst) (Jurgen Leitner) [Jon's figuring out the connection between insects and disease; the corruption]  supplemental- the spiral & the stranger, not Sasha and the tunnels 

69 thought for the day- {pre-statement: Martin and Jon speaking. Martin brings Jon tea, (Not)Sasha is with her bf Tom, Martin tries to get Jon to speak with Tim}  (Anabel Cane) The web & the corruption  supplemental- No visits to the tunnels “I can't not know” 

70 book of the dead- the end (Jurgen Leitner)  supplemental- looking for Leitner’s 

71 underground- the lonely & the buried  supplemental- nothing 

72 takeaway- {pre-statement: The dark. Basira calls, there arresting Rainer. Jon says to get flashlights (peoples church of the divine host) (Maxwell Rainer)}  (oopsie daisy cannibalism) the flesh (Tom Han-the flesh)  supplemental-  

73 police lights- the dark (statement by Basira) (divine host vs lightless flame?) (Basira quit the force)  supplemental- n/a 

74 fatigue- the spiral (Micheal) tooth coffee?  supplemental- Sasha and an unknown figure are in the tunnels 

75 a long way down- the vast (Mike Crew)  supplemental- Basira brought tapes 

[rebelliens]

𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗕𝗢𝗡𝗘𝗦 𝗢𝗙 𝗖𝗥𝗢𝗣𝗦 𝗔𝗡𝗗 𝗕𝗔𝗡𝗞𝗡𝗢𝗧𝗘𝗦 𝗣𝗔𝗩𝗘 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗪𝗔𝗬. ╱ 1899.

valentine, new hanover. a little-known and well-to-do livestock town up until recently. the trouble with livestock towns, is that the sale and retail of bodies aren’t just restricted to cattle, sheep, and pigs. many a good man lives and dies on the stinking sod that surrounds valentine, working himself into the ground to support his own. that was all but fine and natural by common concurrence, up until leviticus cornwall moved in. there’s a certain curse that follows the industry of a man like him, and where cornwall settles, like a stone chucked into a still pond, prices rise and lower around him in a far-reaching ripple, much to the disdain and suffering of the local workforce who teeter on this delicate balance. however, also much to the benefit and enrichment of the local bankers, who fix prices and reap land out from under the heels of those poor unfortunates. they hover like hungry vultures all the while and are quick to seize an "opportunity", a convenient misnomer for idle cruelty. frank fontaine, a certain proprietor (grifter, more like) of valentine is a name that comes to mind, although he's little-seen, and even less so liked by the people of valentine; a parasite, capitalizing off all their, at times naive, values, and hard work he's much too high and mighty to do himself. after a while of this, something has to give. the wheel has to spin back around in the favor of the common man, in every story and every tale, and so it does. but, perhaps not in the way you would expect. enter atlas. he appeared to come out of nowhere but walked and acted as if he'd been in valentine all his life, besides the points when he was playing the simple and good-intentioned Irish charm up to a tee. blending in with the farmers and the stablehands like a goat among sheep, it very quickly became apparent however to the hands that money washed, that atlas was not a man to be looked over, and his horns were to be feared. it started small; an argument over fixed prices set in grocery stores by the bank, much too low for any profit to be made from the fruit of the local farmer's toil and labour. then it escalated, whispered words in speakeasies turning heated and frustrated, a simple vent of frustration turning into a searing melting pot of annoyance, and irritation, and then suddenly brutal agreement. soon enough, the lid that had been held over valentine's boiling community cracked. a strike was organized, atlas's face at the forefront, and it was agreed that any man caught selling produce or product to the local storefronts that walled in valentine's streets, would face a hearty consequence. and it's been held. valentine has not seen whiskey, beef, pork, milk, wool, or flour for the better part of going on two years now. the pulling and pushing forces of valentine, supply and demand, are at a standstill, a cold war of a different kind. there have been rumours, of strikebreakers being sent. lawless men deputized who capitalize on brutality and violence. Pinkertons coming to wet their parched and bloodied mouths. the restless, the hungry, the poor, and the cruel all crowd valentine, and all on eyes are on her. and on atlas, as well, who's numbers swell and grow with each frustrated farmer that rallies to a cause that frightens the men who have turned them out of loan offices, decent jobs, and their very homesteads.

[goryhorroor]

fear street → killers

[restinslices]

Real quick, I got a Fear Street theory.

So we all know the killers are possessed, but I have a theory that they still know what they’re doing. Hear me out, when the Goodes posses someone, you can’t just take over their body easily. So what happens is, they’re possessed but the actual them is still there. They fight against an evil force and no matter how hard they try to fight back, no matter how hard they try to stop themselves from hurting the people they love, no matter how much they scream internally, they can never win.

They only ever “win” when they can die. Like, Ryan was shot by Nick Goode, Tommy was stabbed then had his head chopped off, Ruby ended herself, Pastor Cyrus Miller was killed by Solomon Goode. It’s apart of the process. If a part of them is still there, it makes controlling them harder. When their body is killed, it kills their actual spirits which leaves them an empty shell and therefore, leaves nothing there to fight back.

I just think the idea of them seeing what they’re doing, but having some invisible evil force hold them down and not let them control their own body is depressing.

[eleanorskys]

This is it, this is their dynamic

[cyberxhex]

is it so wrong to want to give them hugs