#god what a bunch of ghouls

[layzeal]

everyday for the past two months it's been waking up in the morning to the most horrifying war crimes being committed by a fascist colonial power run by a death cult, followed by said power fabricating the most offensive and easily debunked lies to excuse said war crimes, then the entire fucking world media believing them and waving around their pathetic little crocodile tears as i pass by the news that the soldiers of that world power shot an old woman in the entrance of a hospital and used her as bait to shoot any medic who tried helping her, followed by a video of parents looking through the charred remains of children's limbs and scalps trying to recognize their own. and then i go to brazilian TV and find the news that a brazilian palestinian has finally been able to leave Gaza and all the reporters wanna focus on is how they're probably a terrorist because of these posts from 2015 where they condemn israel's actions. and then i look at the presidents of the only few nations who have the power to stop this genocide with a single phone call and how they entirely refuse to do shit about it, just to be told on tumblr dot com that praying for the dismantlement of the state of israel is evil and inconsiderate because don't you know they suffered really really badly in the past (but also please don't google the rates of poverty of holocaust survivors and how they're treated by the government of the country that was supposed to be a safe haven. well at least george from pennsylvania can move and have a beautiful view of the burned olive tress from the multigenerational house he stole in the west bank, and isn't THAT what really matters)

[ikeameatballspoisonedme]

Argo Tuulik and Dora Klindzic has received legal threats from Longdue (one of the ex-Disco studio announced back in October), specifically one of the investor Riaz Moola, and ZA/UM for working in Summer Eternal.

Argo alleged that he hasn't worked or signed any paper for Longdue. The company said otherwise.

If you want my personal opinion if no contract was signed then Argo should've been free to do whatever he wants after leaving. Longdue's statement didn't specify about Argo's contract either so I believe that is the case. This just seems so petty to me. Riaz Moola is a Forbes 30 under 30 alumni so I don't really have much confidence in his credibility!

[astrxealis]

on a whim and in spite of my responsibilities i have started on making a whole 9 chapter self-indulgent fic for mr. grim reaper from the hit game 'a date with death'

[spookberry]

For the half normie au

A silly idea:

Does Danny ever off-handedly mention some of his more powerful allies like clockwork?

And spectra whips her head around like “WHOMST????”

Bc she did not just hear this guy refer to what is essentially a god, in the same manner you talk about your neighbor named Daryl inviting you to the street cookout.

(Idk I find Danny being wayyy too casual about stuff that’s a big deal, hysterical. Bonus points if Tucker is also desensitized to it.)

(I hope you found this ask amusing, at least! :) )

Ajdksbs Tucker and Danny both do this, and its funny cuz the ghouls would act shocked everytime despite ALSO knowing a bunch of powerful and important beings.

Like even discounting Frankenstein or Dracula himself, The Vampire Queen is Draculaura's childhood best friend. They all got got by a literal ocean Goddess one time. CA Cupid (arguably also a goddess) was their classmate for a while.

I do like the idea of Clockwork specifically being considered a bit of a myth amongst other ghosts, but Danny is unaware that the fact that hes had several run ins with him is unbelievable. Heck him having met Pariah Dark would spook Spectra and the other ghosts.

[littlelamy]

i seen you did strawberry shortcake could you do monster high obsessed reader

a/n: hi 🥰 thank you so much for sending a request!

you’re scrolling through your phone, lounging on rafe’s bed, when he walks in and catches you giggling at something. without looking up, you absentmindedly say, “oh my god, rafe, you have to see this new monster high merch drop. it’s insane.”

he raises an eyebrow, leaning against the doorframe with that familiar smirk. “still obsessed with that, huh?”

you glance up, meeting his teasing gaze, and roll your eyes. “uh, yeah, because it’s iconic? they just released a new draculaura doll, and it’s sold out everywhere.”

rafe steps closer, plopping down on the bed beside you, his hand resting casually on your leg. “you’re seriously into this, aren’t you? you’re, like… dedicated.”

“dedicated? please. i’m a connoisseur,” you correct him, holding up your phone to show him the picture of the doll, all pink and black with gothic details. “look at her. she’s perfect.”

he glances at it, clearly not as enthused, but he humors you. “yeah, she’s… cute, i guess.”

“cute?” you scoff, leaning closer to him, your shoulder brushing his. “she’s gorgeous. you just don’t get it.”

“you’re right,” he chuckles, his hand sliding up your leg, squeezing your thigh lightly. “i don’t. but seeing you get all worked up over these dolls? kind of hot.”

you shoot him a skeptical look, feeling a smirk tug at the corners of your mouth. “oh, really? you think me being obsessed with a bunch of ghouls is hot?”

“yeah, why not?” he shrugs, his fingers trailing up your thigh a little higher, teasing. “there’s something about you getting all passionate about it. gets me thinking…”

you raise an eyebrow, curious but trying to play it cool. “thinking about what?”

“about how you’d look dressed up like one of them,” he says, his voice dropping low as his hand finds its way to your hip. “you know, in one of those little outfits.”

you laugh, shaking your head. “are you trying to make me cosplay monster high characters now?”

“i mean… if you’re down.” his eyes darken, and you can see the playful challenge in them.

“rafe,” you start, trying to sound stern but failing to hide the grin spreading across your face. “you’re ridiculous.”

“maybe,” he murmurs, leaning in closer, his lips brushing against your neck. “but you know you’d kill it as cleo de nile or …maybe frankie stein with all those stitches.”

you bite your lip, trying not to give in to the teasing warmth that’s building between you two. “you’re out of your mind.”

“nah,” he says, pulling back just enough to meet your gaze, his eyes dark and full of heat. “just really into the idea of you looking all gothy and spooky. fits your vibe.”

you let out a soft laugh, leaning into him, your lips brushing his. “you’d love that, wouldn’t you?”

“maybe a little,” he admits, his voice low as his hand tightens on your waist, pulling you even closer. “but i think i’d love it more if you’d stop talking about those dolls for a second and pay attention to me.”

“oh, now you want attention?” you tease, pressing a kiss to his jaw. “i thought you were cool with me and my monster high obsession.”

“i am,” he grins, turning his head to kiss you properly, his lips soft but firm against yours. “but i think i deserve a little attention too.”

you pull back slightly, giving him a playful look. “so you’re telling me i should ditch my dolls for you?”

“i mean, i’d say i’m a pretty solid trade-off,” rafe smirks, his fingers trailing up your spine, sending a shiver through you. “besides… i don’t think any of those plastic ghouls can do what i’m about to.”

“oh yeah?” you challenge, your voice low and teasing as you lean in close, your lips barely grazing his. “prove it, cameron.”

with that, he pulls you into his lap, his hands gripping your waist as he kisses you deeply, your phone forgotten on the bed. you laugh against his lips, your hands tangling in his hair as you let him take control, the air between you heating up fast.

“you really think you can compete with monster high?” you murmur against his mouth, your words playful but breathless.

rafe grins, pulling back to look at you, his eyes dark with desire. “babe, you’re about to forget those dolls even exist.”

taglist: @namelesslosers @princessslutt @averyoceanblvd @iknowdatsrightbih @starkeysprincess @sixrosberg @anamiad00msday @ivysprophecy @wearemadeofstardust0

[ghoulfuckersincorporated]

If you get pregnant from a ghoul, what would the kid be like? Human? Ghoul? Some weird freakish third thing? Even Gulpers are just mutated humans so anything is possible.

(I'll put a trigger warning here for "mild discussion of pregnancy loss/premature birth", in case that upsets anyone.)

My official answer to this is: "looks human, but closer to a freakish third thing when you get down to the details".

The pregnancy certainly wouldn't be a cakewalk. Frankly, I think you'd have to have a pretty preternatural resistance to radiation to successfully conceive with a ghoul to begin with (which we see is achievable for some people; otherwise I think there would just straight up be no successful fertilization/implantation). If you were able to make it happen, I think the fetus would be quite radioactive itself early on, and you'd struggle a lot. You might be able to get away with the occasional dose of Radaway if you're incredibly sick, like too sick to function, but too much of it and I think you'd be risking unfavorable outcomes. With luck (and maybe a higher-than-average endurance), things might taper off the further along you get. I imagine the birth would be unremarkable, all other regular health factors considered, unless you found yourself so ill from the baseline radiation that you were unable to continue carrying to full term and were forced to deliver prematurely. The odds of that certainly aren't zero. Your breast milk would make a Geiger counter go nuts.

It's hard to imagine the 50% genetic spawn of a ghoul wouldn't be significantly more radiation resistant, right? Like, at minimum? Personally, I think if you had a baby with a ghoul, that kid would be constantly drawn to play in puddles of nuclear fallout, to drink from dirty sources, to want to go outside during rad storms. Radiation is healing and refreshing for ghouls, so I would imagine at least some of that would transfer, no matter how much it makes you worry. You'd probably find the kid sucking on a power core if you turned your back for too long.

I, personally, would think that a kid like that would age normally, but since we know ghouls have that super-regenerative ability, maybe there's a chance that they'd shoot through the puberty phase really quickly? I mean, that "growing" phase in adolescence is basically just a bunch of cells dying off and being regenerated/high rates of cell generation to build muscle and bone mass. Again, I'd like to think they'd grow pretty typically, all things considered, but it's certainly something to think about.

That regenerative ability could certainly prove quite...tricky at times. We've seen how quickly it can heal wounds, which is great for something like a puncture or a stab wound...but what about a broken bone? I can't help but be reminded of an audio diary you can find in Bioshock 2 that talks about the Little Sisters' insane regenerative ability and its disadvantages. At one point, one of the girls escapes from the researchers studying them and throws herself over a balcony (trying to escape or end her life, though which is unclear), shattering both of her legs. But by the time they've made it to the bottom where she's lying, her legs have already healed at a bunch of fucked up and unnatural angles, so they have to break her legs over and over again until they can set them correctly. With as quickly as we see ghouls heal in the show (and in the games), it's hard to imagine you wouldn't run into the same issue, as horrific as it is.

Can you imagine your child having to go through that because they fell playing (or fleeing, god forbid) and broke their arm, or their collarbone or something? Can you imagine having to be the person doing the breaking? What if there's no one else to do it?

I'd also assume that, as they age into their teen years/early adulthood, their aging would slow, though I think exactly how much it would slow would depend on the individual child and their circumstances. I do think half-ghoul children would be able to be turned fully ghoul through some conventional means, just maybe over a longer period of time and with much higher doses of radiation.

[danveration]

Could you do a Cooper Howard x reader angst? Something with the reader getting injured or dying and/ or becoming a ghoul?

You and your stories are amazing btw❤️!!!

Thank you!

Parings: Cooper Howard x reader

Summary: You get shot and Cooper comes to your aid.

Word count: 1344

Warnings: Guns, blood, shooting, reader getting shot in the thigh, Cooper being a softy

A/N: sorry if you meant post-nuclear bomb. (if you wanted cooper howard like.. normal human & stuff) ALSO I JUST REALIZED THIS ISN'T VERY ANGSTY 😭😭 FFS. I hope you like it either way :))

It was a hectic situation. There were at least ten people pointing guns directly at you from all around. This was not how you expected your day to go. You didn’t even do anything remotely wrong. Just stumbled into the wrong place at the wrong time. Which was pretty common around here.

You were by yourself right now, which was another downfall. You didn’t have the capabilities yet to kill a bunch of people on your own. Maybe if you sweet talked them..? You doubt that would work. If only Cooper were here. He would have them all dead in a blink of an eye. Especially because they were threatening you. He seemed to have a soft spot for you for whatever reason. You felt the same way towards him. Even though people would look at you like you’re insane, you don’t care. You can see something in him that nobody else can. He always had a bit of a protective nature towards you the moment you two met. You thought he would’ve killed you, but he just laughed at how scared you looked and ensured that he doesn’t kill without a motive. And in his words “won’t dare harm a pretty thing like you.”

He is currently god knows where. You were tagging along with him but he went to go get more vials. He said he knows a spot where he can snag a couple. That was about two hours ago. It would be great if he just miraculously appeared right now.

“L-listen. I don’t want any trouble, okay? I’m just passing through.” You say, trying to sound brave but the whimper in your voice made itself known.

“Yeah, passing through OUR territory.” One of the men said, with a raspy tone.

“I didn’t know! I’ll go. Right now.” You say quickly, starting to move forward.

“Uh-uh!” One of them yelled.

You hear all their guns go off safely and you stop dead in your tracks. The panic and fear you feel makes your skin develop goosebumps.

“We can’t let you go, can we? What kind of example would we be settin’ if we did?” One of them spoke.

“Oh, just walk right into our territory, It’s all good!! It wouldn't be our territory if we did that, would it?” One of them say in a mocking tone.

“P-please. I just-“ You begin to say.

“Now what on hells creation is goin’ on here?” You hear no other than Cooper’s voice in the other direction.

You subconsciously release a breath you didn’t know you were holding.

All the people snap their heads to the ghouls voice. Some of them look scared, but some of them look angry that their fun got spoiled.

“Well? Gonna keep gawking or is somebody going to tell me what the fucks goin’ on here?” He says.

“W-well we caught this one roaming on our territory.” One of the people spoke up.

“And?” Cooper questions them, as if daring them to say what they were going to do to you.

They’re all silent. Except for one. He must be new here or something because he speaks up in an angry tone, “and were gonna kill them.” He says, pointing the gun at you. He looks around at all his other gang members, and how they’re not pointing the gun at you anymore.

He raised a brow, “what’s the big idea? Why’s nobody else-“

BANG

Cooper shoots the man in the arm, not letting him finish his sentence.

Everything went slow from there. You see Cooper giving the man cold eyes, and then from your vision, you see the man look down at his arm, then you see him, with his other hand, grab his gun and quickly shoot you in your thigh before Cooper sends another bullet straight through his head, leaving him instantly falling to the ground.

You hiss out in pain and look down, seeing red liquid gush out and stain your pants.

Cooper whips his head towards you.

“Fuckin’-“ He mumbles as he rushes over, getting on his knees in front of you.

Everyone around immediately makes a quick exit, not wanting to suffer the same fate as the other guy.

Cooper would’ve killed them all for that, if it wasn’t for him not wanting to take his eyes or attention off of you. He feels scared, worried, mad, and mostly desperate. Desperate to stop the bleeding, desperate to go back in time and never leave you alone in the first place. He would laugh at himself for feeling these feelings any other time, just not now. Now he has to focus all his attention on you.

“Is it bad?” You mumble out to him, not wanting to fully look at it.

Cooper thankfully notices how it isn’t in a vital place. The bullet went right through, so he doesn’t have to worry about digging it out or it causing complications.

“Well you got shot, sweetheart. It’s bad but it isn’t deadly. You’ll be alright.” He says, trying to ease the worry off of you.

He’s got to get you to a safe spot so he can properly treat the wound. Luckily he has lots of experience with these kinds of situations.

He stands up and leans down, putting his arm behind your knees, lifting you up and carrying you bridal style.

Your eyes go wide and you gasp in shock, but don’t complain. You don’t think you can walk anyhow.

Your cheeks flush and you feel a swell in your heart from his actions. He walks in silence, his brain wracking at how he shouldn’t have left you alone, and how he swears to make sure this won’t happen again. You’re in his arms, hurting, but for some reason you swear it hurts a little less because he’s close to you.

“This won’t never happen again, I swear it. You better be more cautious around these parts though, darlin’. Especially with me not around. People don’t give no mercy.” He says to you.

A little while later, you’re sitting on a mattress in an abandoned building. Your pants are pulled down a bit on one side, so he has access to the wounded leg. Cooper carefully cleaning and wrapping up your wound with a concentrated face. You stare at him and how his eyes look, how his forehead is frowned down in focus, and how his hands are handling you carefully, as if they aren’t used on a daily basis for killing and violence.

“You’re lucky it’s in this spot. A little to the left or right, and you might’ve not been able to use this leg again. Would’ve had to get you those robot leg attachments.” He says, laughing at the end of his sentence.

“You mean the ones that practically rip your leg to shreds? No thanks.” You say, laughing.

You look at him softly as he’s smiling gently, while finishing up wrapping your leg.

“Now would you look at that? All better.” He says, gesturing to your skillfully wrapped leg.

“Thank you, Coop.” You say. “I’m really lucky you came in time.”

“Well, I’d argue I was a tad bit late, but of course, darlin’. I’m glad I got there before things could’ve gotten worse.” He says back to you, adjusting his hat on his head.

He cares about you. It realized that right when he heard that gun shot go in your direction. His heart sank to his stomach immediately, thinking the worse. He’s going to make sure to keep a tight leash on you from now on out. Not in a bad way, just in a way that he’s able to be there if anything happens.

“Thank you, Cooper.” You say softly out of nowhere, looking at him with a bit of blush on your cheeks.

He nods his head in your direction. “You’re quite welcome, sweetheart. Now why don’t you be a doll and rest up. I might’ve wrapped it all neat n’ all, but you’ll still need to let it heal. We can take a couple hours break here."

[naamahdarling]

Silly Game Time: The Skeleton King has asked for my hand in marriage ... Again (sigh).

How can I let him down gently enough to not make him an enemy, but firmly enough that he'll stop asking?

Listen. I know the Werewolf King is a total chad or whatever they're calling them now, and he has that pineapple farm and everything, and he has a really wonderful, supportive family who are actually very gentle.

I know he doesn't live in the "frozen wastes" which are just moors in winter, come on. I know the Werewolf King doesn't have like fifteen ex-situationships wandering around as banshees and wraiths and what-have-you, which can be a little teensy bit awkward when all you want to do is pace the castle walls, and all they want to do is scream and rend at their spectral hair.

But I need you to know the whole story.

They were friends before, I'm sure people have told you that. But no, yeah, back when the Skeleton King was just this prissy, gay little lich clattering around the dating scene, they were dating. Did you know that?They were really close. I don't know if the Werewolf King told you that. They were like boyfriend close.

They would have gotten married but the Skeleton King's dad finally disarticulated (at like the worst possible time) and he had to ascend and take the crown and that required sacrifices. It was so stupid.

Rather than claim the lives of fourteen of the Werewolf King's family and his husband the Werewolf King in order to ascend to the throne, he married that Viktor von Vampire or whatever his name was. I think we're all still forbidden from saying it even though he's dead. More dead. Whatever.

I know you heard there was backstabbing, and maybe that's why you're hesitating, but it was totally misrepresented. He married the vampire and then all of the vampire's petty, gross little ghouls got what they'd been deserving for four bratty, bratty centuries, and were discorporated.

I know it was like 60 years while the Skeleton King tried to kill that vampire douchebag, and it all looked really bad! It did! He killed his husband! But you know that fully half of the supernatural marriages that don't end in divorce and in some kind of permanent death or discorporation or what-have-you. It's not like nobody saw it coming, they're just being judgy.

And if he'd explained to the Werewolf King what was going on, about getting married just for the sacrifices and all, and told him that they could still totally be together afterwards, well. The werewolf King is a really great guy and would totally have committed his entire pack to the eradication of all those disgusting little vampire lackeys and their cults.

I don't need to tell you how that would have ended. I really don't. I mean, they're really just a bunch of puppies. They're just silly little puppies tumbling around that giant manor, playing all the time and hunting all the game and having music nights and dancing and barbecues, and it's all really fun. I mean, you've been immersed in it for the last 5 years. You know exactly what I'm talking about.

They're great, they're really great, they're very strong and brave and all of that, and the Werewolf King absolutely would have been up for a fight like that, that's why he's like king of all the werewolves ever, but oh my God his auntie? His cousins? Absolutely not the kind of people who could tear cultists apart. And I'm sure you know by now they wouldn't have listened if they were told to stay away. They can't keep their noses out of anything.

So it kind of had to be the way it was to prevent an absolute puppy slaughter. You don't want that, I don't want that, it's all just too awful to think about.

With all that in mind, I know there's some awkwardness about the time he made off with you in the night. The abduction. Okay! Okay, sorry. The kidnapping.

But you also know about the old curse on your family now, and why he really felt like he had to do it. I mean, your family was living on his land, and there were all these exes of his wandering around just waiting to suck your life force away if you had even one toe outside after the sun went down, or if your mirrors weren't perfectly aligned or your salt wasn't the right kind, god, who knew the really tasty flaky stuff was actually worse for that sort of thing? He kind of felt like he owed it to you. Hence the abd-- the kidnapping, sorry. And the gross blood ritual to make you immune to their bullshit. I mean, he's the one who created them, and you can't deny the fact that he absolutely stepped up to deal with the consequences.

I know it was awkward and all, but the two of you really had something together. Like, right away. Do you remember that entire summer where nobody could stop singing because some farmer broke some stone in his field and there was an ancient spirit trapped inside of it and it was just, well it was just a whole thing?

Everybody was just singing their real feelings, right out loud. It was so embarrassing. It was like the musical episode of every TV show ever, so unoriginal. But all of us saw your musical number together and it was really obvious that there is something incredible there.

I'm sorry, I don't mean to defend him, it's just been really hard for him to watch you going around with his ex, and both of you are so happy, cares about you both so much.

Okay, I can see you're not convinced. I'm not supposed to tell you this. I'm not even supposed to be able to? But I'm some kind of quasi feline creature on my dad's side and I can only be loosely bound by curses or geasa or whatnot. Everything just sort of falls off if I lose one of my lives. And don't tell anyone, but that time I saw a bird and ran full tilt into the glass window at your boyfriend's manor? I know you think I knocked myself out, but I didn't.

No, no, that's not what killed me, no, sweetie, you did fine. I actually died of embarrassment three hours later. When you heard me stop sobbing? Yeah. That was when. It was only for like 6 or 7 minutes though so, not a big deal.

Anyway, what I'm saying is that all of that crap I was supposed to swear and all of those spells that were on me, ugh disgusting, they don't apply anymore. So now I can tell you the real reason he asked again? Is that he has to ask three times before he can like, legally let you go. Skeleton rules, whatever. It's all really stupid.

So it's perfectly fine for you to refuse. Would he be sad, would his feelings be hurt? I mean, yeah, but not really any worse than they already have been with you turning him down twice already. At least then he could let it go. And then you can be with the Werewolf King.

No! I'm not being passive aggressive, I really do want to see you happy! We all want to see you happy. We all want to see the Werewolf King happy! I just feel really bad for my boss, because I love him, he's been kind of like a dad to me.

So I think that you should actually invite him down to the manor, and you can formally decline there. And at least that way he'll have some good emotional support from all of those nice puppy cousins, and he'll have a lot of food to drain of its flavor and a lot of flowers he can go wither to make himself feel better and maybe he can be just a little gay and prissy again.

And maybe you and him and the Werewolf King can sit down and talk all of this out like grown adults who love each other.

You are the protagonist in the middle of a love triangle situation, and it's going to get more and more insufferable the longer it goes on.

What I'm saying is you should all consider a throuple situation. The only way to defeat this stupid narrative that is trying to doom us all.

[awakenedsalamander]

This is gonna be a long walk. But I’ll get there. I promise.

In a lot of Chronicles of Darkness games, there are “minor templates” for players to take for their characters. These are basically lesser types of supernatural beings— undeniably marked by magic, but not transformed by it like the main templates are. So instead of being a werewolf, you might be a Wolf-Blooded, i.e., not the monster your stronger cousins are, but still recognizably having a connection to that world.

Again, a bunch of games have these. Mage has Sleepwalkers (and Proximi), Vampire has ghouls, Geist has the Absent, Demon has stigmatics, etc.

In Changeling: The Lost, there are the Fae-Touched. We’ll get to them in a bit. First, more on Lost.

In Lost, like many stories about faeries, oaths and vows are very important. They are, in the form of magical Contracts, the source of many fae powers. Changeling have a neat ability to make any spoken promise binding, invoking the force of the Wyrd to force even minor vows to be taken seriously. And many changelings are taken by the True Fae by getting ensnared in some kind of oath.

See, if you didn’t know, Changeling: The Lost is about humans taken to the home of the True Fae, and then transformed into changelings as the True Fae torment them. The game is very much about the way trauma changes a person, and how even recovering from trauma still doesn’t bring you back to the way you were— you’re healed, but you’re not the same.

And much like trauma changes a person, it isolates them too. Lost represents this in the fiction with fetches— the faerie-forged simulacra left behind in the stolen person’s wake, acting the roles of parent, sibling, friend, and so on while the original person is actually suffering with no escape.

But the Fae-Touched won’t stand for that.

Because while Changeling: The Lost recognizes that many promises aren’t serious, that when people swear, “I’ll always be there for you,” they don’t always live up to that, it also recognizes that some promises are different.

The Fae-Touched are the mortals who remember the words they swore, and will not ignore them. They can tell, in their dreams, through the nagging impulses they get in their waking moments, that the person they promised to help needs them now more than ever. They are lead by the Wyrd into the land of faerie to live up to that promise, and they follow it gladly.

A Fae-Touched is the father who knows the smiling fetch who claims to be his daughter isn’t the real thing, and that somewhere the girl he swore to protect is in mortal danger— and so he delves into a world of dreams and nightmares to bring her back.

A Fae-Touched is the woman who fights off briar wolves in a mad, twisting forest so she can find her wife, because when she said “I will never abandon you,” she meant it.

A Fae-Touched is the young man staring down a Lord of the True Fae and refusing to yield. He and his brother went through hell together years ago when their parents died, and they promised one another then that they’d always stand by each other, and some monster in a crown can’t change that.

Not every changeling is helped by a Fae-Touched, and not all of the Fae-Touched succeed. Sometimes you have to claw your own way back home. But God, what a beautiful concept.

I know that Changeling: The Lost is very dark, and the reason I love the Fae-Touched isn’t really because they’re the light to that darkness— I think that simplifies it too much.

I like the Fae-Touched not because they take away the darkness, but because they remind me we don’t always have to face the darkness alone.

Sometimes, when you think there’s no point going on, when you think it will just be the pain and the fear again and again and again… it’s not true. Because sometimes, maybe even more often than we think, there’s someone out there who knows you need help. And they ready themselves, they set out into the darkness, saying only,

“This is gonna be a long walk. But I’ll get there. I promise.”

[the-californicationist]

Cali's Kinktober: Day 18

Kinktober Masterlist dis manibus - "for the ghost" Simon "Ghost" Riley x f!reader Kinks > possessive, dub con, ghosts?? Full tags on AO3 - MDNI - Read at your own risk.

In your little town of Sleepy Hollow, it’s usually not hard to make the news. But, when the headlines start bringing up ghosts from the past, and your fellow residents make claims that a ghoulish biker is attacking drivers on Route 330, you start to regret being the lone journalist in town. Legend has it that the masked rider is on the hunt for the most perfect sacrifice, and he won’t stop his reign of terror until he finds it.

Warning: actual ghosts, possession, dub con?, general spookiness

Yellowed teeth and a dangling cigarette, the stench of sweat and cheap tobacco, shaky hands and disordered movements, plus a wardrobe of ill-fitting, oil-stained jorts with a crooked-cropped Bud Light tee shirt completed Brandi Reddman’s signature look. Mrs. Reddman was standing in her usual spot outside of a dilapidated Pilot truck stop on the corner of Hatchet and Simmons. But, the leather-skinned, bleached-blonde, trailer park queen didn’t go by her late husband’s surname anymore. She preferred to be called by her well-earned title: Beaumont Brandi.

“And don’t you go putin’ no damn Reddman on my fuckin’ report,” she glared at you from her perch on the bright red bollard just outside her favorite Pilot truck stop, “Don’t even know what I’m gettin’ a goddamn ticket for. Two consentin’ adults can do whatever the hell they like, cain’t they? Ain’t this still America?”

“Ms. Brandi,” you sighed, “I’m not a cop. I’m a reporter. And I’m not sure what you want me to do when Mr. Brunson calls me down here to tell me about you tearing up his dumpsters again. You know there's a whole town full of people upset about the destruction of property here.”

Your stomach turned just thinking about writing this ridiculous article. What would the title even be? The Trash Takes Itself Out: a Sleepy Hollow tale. Or, Lot Lizard Strikes Again! With a full cover spread? No. This could not be your life. You tried to control the look of disdain on your face. 

“It wasn’t even me! That asshole is crazy!” Brandi protested, the cigarette in her mouth holding onto her dry, cracking lip with nothing more than God’s will at this point. 

“He said he saw you and a certain truck driver come out of the alcove just a few hours ago,” you reiterated.

“Hell, no. I ain’t gonna fuck no John in no smelly-ass dumpster. I’m a high class lady,” Brandi gestured to her ensemble, “And I’m tellin’ you, that lock was busted before I even stepped over here this mornin’. It’s that damn haint is what it is.”

The Haint of Sleepy Hollow. The Hollow’s Hell Rider. The Ghoul of 330. He went by many names, or sometimes, he was just called The Ghost. 

Back in the late seventies when everyone was doing a little too much of everything, your town earned a bit of a reputation. There had been a string of disappearances off of the local highway, Route 330, and locals claimed to have seen a masked soldier on a motorbike, fresh home from Saigon, carrying his M16 slung across his back and wearing a skull mask over his face. He was riding an Indian 900, blacked out with no headlight and no plate. 

Of course the truckers had been the first ones to sound the alarm, and there was a city-wide manhunt for any bikers matching that description. But back then, no one had cameras in their hands as readily as they did now, so it was all just a bunch of hearsay and over-exaggerated stories about the boogeyman. 

But, that’s all it was. Just stories. There was no masked rider. 

“Hey, you got another one of those?” Brandi pointed to the pack of smokes in your pocket that you’d brought along to bribe her with. 

You sighed, lighting one for her and then for you. You told yourself you needed it to get through the rest of this conversation. 

As she took a long drag, her timbre changed. She became quieted by her own voice, it seemed.

“I seent him, though. He was there. Parked under the bridge.”

She pointed to the overpass, her wrinkled finger trembling a bit as she guestered to the black shadows under the highway. You followed her line of sight, trying to imagine a dark rider in a skull mask, parked in the umber and looking for vengeance in the most boring town in New England. 

“Did he do anything?” You asked, trying your best to scrounge up something more interesting than sex work in gas station parking lots for this write up. 

Beaumont Brandi stared into the darkness with you, remembering… or maybe she was just fucking with you. But, it didn’t seem like it. She took another puff of smoke into her mouth, hissing it out through her stained teeth, 

“No, but it felt like he was looking for somethin’. Felt… lonely. I dunno.”

Shaking you from the eerie moment Brandi had crafted between you both, a big, rumbling Mack truck pulled into the back lot, turning your gaze away from the bridge. Your interviewee hurried to smoke one more pull from her pilfered cigarette and gathered up her glittery, denim purse. 

“That’s my ride. See you around,” she said, her voice still distant and restrained, lacking all of the ruffled animosity she’d presented to you earlier. 

You stayed there, watching her scamper across the wide, drab concrete field, dodging pot holes and puddles, heading for the blue semi that had just parked in the trucker wash station. You watched her until she knocked on the door, standing on her tiptoes to reach the wide passenger window, shuffling around until the latch popped open and she disappeared inside. 

The dark hollow of the highway’s bridge caught your gaze as you turned away from Brandi and her “ride”, and a cold chill shot down your spine. As you peered into the shadowy underpass, a lone biker, all in black, was sitting on his Indian motorcycle, staring right at you. His body was enormous. Even though the bike he rode was large, he was simply unfathomably tall and broad. When he leaned forward on the handlebars, idling there, his shoulders bulged in his leathers, threatening to break free. He was wearing a full-face helmet, but you could feel his eyes burning into your skin. 

The problem was, you had no idea how he got there. You hadn’t heard his engine rev, and you knew you would’ve been able to listen to the roar echo through the underside of the highway, it’s enclosure making an accidental amplifier. 

You stared back at him, but you reached into your pocket and clutched your car keys. Everything in your body was telling you to run. So, you quickly turned away, needing to force yourself to break your gaze, making yourself walk briskly back to your beat-up Miata. 

Get in, and drive away, you told yourself. Get in. Drive away. Get in…

You were trying to calm yourself down, your mind feeding you a million excuses as to why you hadn’t heard him approach, or telling yourself it was just a guy on a bike and not a ghost, but you could still feel your heart in your throat, pounding away like a fist inside your veins. 

Popping open the door to your car, you climbed in and immediately shut it behind you. Luckily, the soft canvas top of your ratty old convertible was already pulled up, but the sooner you got back to your apartment, the better you would feel. You cranked the engine, threw it in reverse, and sped off out of the gas station parking lot, sending your work bag spilling out across the floor. 

As you pulled onto Hatchet, you headed east, avoiding 330. You tried to tell yourself it was because you enjoyed the senic route instead of the shorter path, but you knew that was a lie. 

Behind you, you heard the roar of a bike. 

You looked in your rearview mirror, but you didn’t see any headlights. Then, as you checked the side mirror, you saw him. It was the blacked out biker from the bridge. He was riding close to your back wheel, sitting in your blindspot, staring hard at you. 

He followed you for miles. You doubled back, avoiding red lights, trying to make circles so he would get tired of tailing you, but he never did. If anything, he was getting braver and braver, moving his bike up and down the length of your car. Getting in your way, toying with you just to get a reaction. 

You tried to speed up, but your junker was no match for his machine. So, you turned into a neighborhood, trying to lose him in the curvy, bumpy side streets. 

He followed, and you felt your breath catch in your chest. With every turn, he would drive up next to your window to peer inside, staring straight into your eyes. You almost hit the curb, and when you finally exited the neighborhood, you took a right, trying to race him on a wider road. 

It was one lane, but he didn’t seem to care. He reached out and planted his gloved hand on the glass of your driver’s side window as if he was trying to touch you through it, and you screamed at him through the glass, illogically,

“Leave me alone!”

He threw his head back, and you knew he was jeering at you. If a masked, faceless being could laugh, that’s what it would look like. 

You had no idea what else to do, so you got aggressive. You swerved, trying to sideswipe him, desperate to get rid of your masked tormentor. 

He dodged, nimbly moving himself out of your way. Then, he was right behind you, so you slammed on the brakes. 

There was no way for him to stop in time. No way. 

But, it didn’t matter. You watched in horror in your mirror as his bike and his body dematerialized, and he faded into a black mist, filling the interior of your tiny car, and reconstituting itself in your passenger seat. Your nose filled up with the smell of stale cigarettes and something undeniably masculine. His body filled in next to you in inky layers, pouring from a gas to a solid like smoke into a bottle, and what was supposedly impossible was becoming very, very real in your car. 

You screamed, pressing the brakes even harder, coming to a full, screeching stop in the middle of the road. No one was behind you yet, but you wished there would be. You prayed for someone - anyone - to turn down your street and find you stopped in the middle of it. 

The ghost - because what else could he be? - was staring straight at you, as if he was waiting for something.

“Leave me alone,” you begged, your voice feeling so small and strained. 

You were staring into your own eyes, seeing your face as it was warped and contorted in the gleaming black shine of his helmet visor. Suddenly, you felt your car lurch forward, and it was moving on its own. You tried to turn the wheel, and your foot was glued down onto the brake, but nothing you did mattered. The car was driving itself.

You yanked at your seatbelt and pulled on the door handle, trying to throw yourself from the car, but it wouldn’t budge. You ripped at the handle even harder, trying to slam your shoulder into the door, ignoring the pain. In a last-ditch effort, you reached into the steering column and pulled the keys from the car, hoping to kill the engine. But, it didn’t. Your vehicle was taking you wherever your ghost wanted to go, and there was nothing you could do about it. 

With your keys held tightly in your fist, you lashed out at the biker, using the metal shards to rake across his mask, scratching the visor. 

The speed with which he reacted startled you, and as his hand wrapped itself around your wrist, he tilted his head to the side as if to study you, curious about you and your choices. 

You felt your throat burn with despair, and tears ran from your eyes. 

“Please don’t kill me,” you sobbed, trying to pull your wrist away. 

He yanked your arm to his chest, tugging your body closer to his, forcing you into his space and taking you almost out of your seat, if it wasn’t for your belt. 

You were face to helmet with him, and you could smell the menthols that inexplicably clung to his clothes. He could touch you, and you could touch him. He felt so real, so warm. And yet…

Slowly, he reached out to you with his other hand to touch your face, caressing your cheek and wiping away a stray tear. The feel of his leather glove was so gentle against your skin, it made your head spin. His earlier aggression was still fresh in your mind, and you sobbed from the fear. 

Out of nowhere, a pickup truck swerved around your stopped car, blaring its horn at you, kicking up dirt from the side of the road, obviously upset at the stopped Miata in the middle of a street. 

In the few seconds your attention was snatched from the ghost in front of you, he disappeared. Your passenger seat was immediately empty, and you were alone once more. Your car was dead since your keys were in your hand, and the clicking of a warm engine cooling down was the only noise you heard. 

Another car was honking behind you, less aggressively than the pickup, but it moved around you and you turned back in your seat. 

As you drove home, you were numb. You couldn’t reconcile anything that happened to you, and you had no words to even describe it. You thought about driving to the police, or to your office so that your phantom biker wouldn’t know where you lived, but something in you laughed at your naivety. Why would that matter? He was a ghost. He could reach you no matter where you were. You might as well leave your front door wide open for how much good it would do you. 

When you finally crawled into bed, you left every light in the house on, but it didn’t help.

It was 0417 when you jerked out of your restless sleep, opening your eyes in your unusually bright room. You were breathing heavily, trying to calm yourself down, and the horrors of the night before felt more like a bad dream than a true memory. 

You looked around, trying to determine whether you could manage to go back to sleep or not, when a faint noise pricked your ears. It was coming from outside your apartment window, down in the parking lot below your balcony. 

You sprang out of bed and pulled your curtain. There, parked and sitting on the side of his bike, was your ghost. He was looking up at your window, his arms crossed over his chest. He looked like he was waiting for you. Waiting for you to say something, to do something. But, you didn’t know what.

Grabbing your keys, you flew out of your door and rushed down the stairs, hurrying to see if you could catch him. But, he was gone. You didn’t even know what you wanted to say to him, but you needed to know the truth. Your instincts as a reporter were driving you forward. You craved answers, needed them. 

You turned back around and headed for your car, starting it up and driving out of your complex, back onto the street. You headed for the highway, and he was waiting for you, parked on the shoulder. He took off, and you followed him, swerving in and out of early morning commuters, pushing your crappy Miata to its limit. 

He took the exit toward the old part of town, turning on the road to Ichabod Farm, cutting his speed and letting you catch up to him. Then, as he got further and further away from civilization, the farms turned into forests, and the roads went from pavement to dirt. Just as the sun was staining the clouds with its pink dawn, he stopped, sticking his leg out as a kickstand, and turned around to look at you. 

You waited, sitting in your car, but after a while, nothing changed. He was still just sitting there, staring back at you. So, you killed the engine, and you climbed out of your car. 

“Who are you?” You called to him, willing your voice to carry in the quiet morning. 

As if he was tired of your questioning, he turned forward. He swung his leg over the body of the bike, and stood beside it, still waiting for you. 

You started walking around to the front of your car, beginning to feel like you were a rabbit being led into its own trap, a lamb to its slaughter, and your skin tightened, the hair prickling on the back of your neck.

He put his hand out, gesturing toward the bike. 

“Do you want me to go with you somewhere?”

He seemed impatient. He stalked forward, marching in black leathers and boots, and grabbed your wrist just like he did in the car. 

“Wait! Hey! Wait, no!” You tried to fight him, but he held you fast, dragging you over to the bike. 

He lifted you without struggle and sat you on the back of his seat, and he climbed in front of you, bringing the bike back to a loud roar. He took off, nearly toppling you over, and in your shock, you wrapped both of your hands around his middle, holding on for dear life. 

To your shock, he turned off of the road and into the trees. The leaves made his tires slip and the roots of the tall yews made the ride bumpy and wild. You gripped him tighter and tighter, trying to remember which direction you were going, sure that he was taking you straight to your death, but just in case you escaped, you wanted to be able to try and make it out of the woods.

Suddenly, you came to a clearing. In the middle of it stood a huge, dead tree. The trunk had been struck by lightning, and the branches hung low, dipping towards the ground. Its roots were gnarled and popping like broken bones out of the dark earth, and it gave you a sense of immediate dread. 

He stopped the bike, throwing down the kickstand and climbing off. Then, he held out his hand to you. 

You looked at his helmet for a moment, trying to determine what he wanted, and then you realized he was trying to help you down. You placed your hand in his and felt him support you as you climbed off of the old motorcycle. 

He released you, and he stood beside you, looking up at the tree. 

You waited for a moment, again unsure about what he was trying to show you, but then you stepped forward. Something compelled you to touch the tree’s wide, twisting trunk. 

You were suddenly aware of the state of your dress. You were in socks, sleep shorts, and a tattered old tee shirt, shivering from fear and from the chilly morning. But, still, you stepped forward, moving with your hand out towards the tree, trying to ignore the pinch of stray rocks and sticks beneath your feet. 

Right before you touched the bark, you looked over your shoulder at the biker, and he was still standing there, waiting for you. 

So, you pushed forward, laying your palm against it, and you were instantly overwhelmed with flashes of images and sounds, memories which were not yours. You saw him. It was your ghost. He was fighting in a war with muskets and swords, and then he was in a trench with grenades. You watched him crawl on his belly through a wet, dense jungle. Then, you felt the heat and the sting of desert sands, and watched him dragging the bodies of his friends from the rubble of a bombed building. 

As quickly as they had begun, the visions stopped. You looked back at the masked rider, and he stepped toward you. His hands went to the neck of his jacket, and he raked the zipper down, revealing his bare chest and belly. He was riddled with scars, but he looked very much like a real man. The jacket fell with a thud on the forest floor, and he moved to shuck off his helmet. 

You watched the reveal with wide eyes and an open mouth. Black, inky smoke surrounded his face. He didn’t have a head. It was only a skull mask, cracked and broken around the edges, perched on him where his face should have been. It was just a swirling darkness, nothing else. His head was gone. 

Your heart nearly stopped.

“What… happened….” You managed to ask, your voice lower than a whisper. 

The helmet clattered to the ground, rolling until it rested against a thick root. 

He walked toward you, and you were staring into two black pits where there should have been soft brown eyes. You’d seen him in the vision. You knew what he should look like. And yet, all you were left with was this ghastly form. 

His body was warm. You could feel it as he towered over you, mere inches away from your face. You reached up to touch his cheek like he had touched yours in the car, and he let you. As your hand swiped across his jaw, you saw flesh appear where there was none before. More and more, you touched him, painting his face back on with your hands. You moved over his eyes and nose and mouth, feeling the softness of his lips and watching in awe as he became a man again. 

“Oh, my God.” You gaped, watching his face twist into an unknown expression, “You’re…”

“You made me real,” he spoke, his words sounded hellish; the noise was a terrible smear of shadow and violence. It was as if a million of voices were speaking at once. 

“I…” You were trying to talk, but he wasn’t interested. 

He leaned forward and slanted his mouth against yours, kissing you with a smoky musk on his tongue, forcing you to open and take his writhing muscle inside of your cheeks. He was breathing just as raggedly as you were, pushing himself onto you, dragging you to the leaf-covered ground. 

He repeated his mantra, gasping it, his timbre full of disbelief,

“You… made me… real…”

His mouth was on you again, the top half of his face still hidden by the skull mask. He kissed your neck, and you felt his gloved hands grabbing at your clothes, shoving down your shorts. 

“What are you doing?” You whispered. 

“You.” His voice reverberated through you like a snarl of thunder. You could feel the sound move through your bones, “You can bring me back to this place.” 

The air was cold as it billowed across your skin when he pulled away your shirt. The leather of his gloves was such a rough contrast to the smooth, furry expanse of his chest and belly, and he crushed himself against you, pressing you with all of his weight into the forest floor. 

Your mind was in a haze. All of the magic and memories from the tree were whirling around you. His many lives, all stacked together, repeated like the rings of its trunk, year after year, his wars, his scars. All of them now real and raised to the touch. 

His mouth moved over you, hungry and wanting. You weren’t ready to be taken so roughly, with so little regard, in the dirty, dank mud of this clearing. But, you wanted to be. You found yourself completely captivated by his movements, his hands, and the way he consumed you, making you feel like you were the key to his entire existence. 

You spread your legs for him, and he had the audacity to laugh softly in his ghostly throat, rolling his hips between your legs to fit himself there, spreading you further with his wide body. 

You felt the button of his leather pants loose and dangling, flapping open against your thighs which meant…

His cock lolled across your mons and belly, warm and hard. He humped himself against you, rutting along the curve of your tummy and teasing you with a preview of his strength. You reached down very slowly, stroking him carefully, barely touching his velvety foreskin, feeling the slip of it as he moved against your hand.

He let out a long, heated moan, his breath warm as it surrounded your neck, and he whispered to you in his million voices,

“Give yourself to me,” he chanted, “Bring me back.”

No sooner could you whisper back your consent than he grabbed you by your jaw and forced you to look into his black, soulless eyes. He notched his cock at your trembling hole, letting it dip into the wetness he had crafted there. Then, he pushed forward, stretching your walls around him, making you take his drooling head, raking himself in and out so that he could go deeper and deeper with each thrust. 

You cried out, grasping your hands around his shoulders, and he squeezed your face in his huge paw, making you feel like he might break your jaw if he held you any tighter. 

Once he was fully sheathed within the hollow of your body, he moved with a powerful, pistoned thrust, slamming himself through you and making your core heat from his friction. You felt yourself being broken by him, the parts of you that were holding together your sanity were slowly slipping away with each punishing movement, and the deeper you allowed him to fuck you, the further away from reality your thoughts were. You were back in his memories, imagining his life before, his warfare, ancient and modern, and all you could think about was why he would want to be back here. What did he want? Was it you?

His hand slipped between your lips, and he pressed into your throat, rubbing your tongue and making your jaw ache from his pressure and invasion. You tried to suckle from him, taking his fingers past your teeth, licking and slurping up your own spit from his glove. 

“Such a good girl. Perfect for me. A new vessel.”

Vessel? What were you holding?

You whined, trying to understand, and he silenced you with a growl, low and deep. He was fucking you at a pace full of fire and fury, and your whole body felt like it was being pounded into submission. You could hear the wet, gushing slapping noises that his cock was making as it churned inside of you. Your legs felt weak, and you couldn’t help but leave them hanging open, allowing him to fill you as deep as he could go. 

Your mouth burned from his fingers, and your pussy was begging to come, clenching and shaking with need. He felt you, and he pushed through your shuddering quim harder and harder, using you to bring himself to his own crescendo, joining you on the edge. 

“You’re mine…” He hissed, moving himself right against your most pliant spot, massaging you up to a tumbling explosion of feeling and fervent want. 

As you came, you screamed, but it was muffled by his invasive hand. He came with you, filling you as you tightened around him, dumping his thick load into your hole, smearing it all over your lips with each covetous thrust. 

Then, you couldn’t believe what you were seeing. He was melting into you, his body turning back into mist, covering your skin and seeping into your flesh. You felt him inside of you, curling and twisting around all of the parts that made you who you were, turning them for his own benefit, staining your soul with his own. 

You gasped, searching for air, watching helplessly as the last thing you saw before he disappeared completely was the black sockets of his skull mask, and it felt like he was smiling. 

You lay there, alone, and yet full of him. He was feeling and sensing and thinking right alongside you. And he was… playing with you. You could feel him moving his cock deep within you even though, when you looked down, there was nothing there. 

“Please…” You begged, closing your legs together, trying to stop the sensation from happening.

“Pretty thing,” the Ghost chuckled, “We’re just getting started.”

[skele-bunny]

Can I ask for some age regression dewdrop with aether as his care taker?

OOhHHHHHHH MY GOD THANK U THANK U!!! Me and @artificialmoth talk about agereg Dewy all the time 🥺 this is so special thank u

Little Dew, who we call Kitty (name idea thanks to Sphylor), came around during era 3. He finally felt comfortable and safe in his environment to relax after so many stressors, giving him the opportunity to just... Be small! Kitty is extremely non verbal, and in the tinier age range of 2-4. Unfortunately, within my canon, his environment became too unsafe to have such vulnerability so kitty just, basically, hid.

It wasn't until the beginning of Prequelle did kitty come back again. In the old bedroom with Aether to get some of their things to move to the new den when he seen one of his old toys. Just gently going over the ridges and bumps before he slowly sat down, playing with it and eventually so lost in that comfort it kinda just... Slipped.

Now, I think ghouls can change their size and appearance. Age regression plays into that a bunch! Aether came back to a tiny Dew surrounded in toys and playing, looking up at him and freezing. Just a fear response. But Aether slowly sat down, tilting his head before smiling and picking up a teddy bear.

"What are you playing?"

And from there, Aether met Kitty. He's kitty's immediate caretaker and they wouldn't have it AANNYY other way. He's also met "Dewey" (specifically with an e, his words) which is Dew's middle. Bitey little thing and has a lot of fits. Doesn't know how to regulate himself a bunch so Dewey requires a lot more attention, structure, and gentle parenting rather than Kitty who just needs gentleness.

Kitty has pacifiers he doesn't really use unless he's really small, but the handle? Yeah? He doesn't like it. Fussed CONSTANTLY until the point Aether figured out what was bothering him, and learned to remove it.

He also kneads on Aether a bunch! He doesn't mean to, but sometimes his lil claws will prick Aether. Aeth never gets mad tho :3 just gently redirects to another area. Sometimes Aeth will fold the blanket in half to help prevent getting nicked

Aether got Kitty an extra soft blanket for his first gift! Kitty fuckin LOVES it sooo much!!! It also smells like Aether so it's a plus. You'll never see him without it in his lil nest

Also, have you ever seen the videos of cats and weenie dogs in a hoodie/jacket sleeve? Yeah, that's Kitty.

Kitty doesn't like a lot of noise or lights, so they have fairy lights and a specific playlist dedicated for little time. Sometimes if he needs visual stim, Aether will put on aquatic videos of like... Jellyfish or an aquarium live stream. There's also led around the TV that matches the screen to help with lighting! He's just in straight awe, purring, eyes full and watching. Lil tail thumping cause he's so invested

[kujakumai]

I go back and forth a lot on the actual scale of Marik's egoism, because while he's definitely a spoiled brat, I think a significant portion of his ritual cult of personality is less by choice and more standard-issue cult social engineering; that is, enough candlelit ceremony and show-offy magic tricks can go a long way towards convincing the ghouls to obediently worship him and lowering the mind-control effort threshold, and makes them more self-enforcing and less capable of breaking out. I would not be surprised if he and Rishid came up with half of it while trying not to laugh the entire time. The fact that he needs a bunch of useful underlings to believe he's their god doesn't necessarily mean he genuinely considers himself a god or wants to be. A more low-key arrogance is sufficient to pull of that sort of magic-boosted grift.

So like. how much did he want to be god. and also if you start out running a fake cult of personality to keep control of your minions but then you do it 24/7 for five or six years at what point do you just end up internalizing your own scam

[bitterkarella]

Midnight Pals: Lukundoo

Edward Lucas White: Submitted for the approval of the midnight society, i call this the tale of the lukundoo White: ok so imagine this White: an explorer in darkest Africa falls victim to a witch doctor's curse King: oh boy this sounds like it might be a little bit yikes White: buddy, you have NO idea!

White: and this curse causes him to break out in sores White: and erupting from each sore, like pus from a zit White: is a tiny African man King: Poe: Koontz: Barker: Lovecraft: [sweats] now THAT'S scary!

White: so he's just got little African men just popping out of him constantly White: it's a real problem! King: yeah i guess it would be Lovecraft: see? finally someone gets it King: it's not a problem for the same reason you're thinking howard

White: also these little African guys coming out of his sores? White: they're really rude White: like, they're yelling and taunting him as they come out White: what a bunch of little assholes!

King: have you got anything else? White: I've got some stories about ghouls Brian McNaughton: now you're talking! McNaughton: I'm a fool for ghouls! McNaughton: ghouls rule!

White: now the thing about ghouls is they mostly look like people White: but with extra boobs McNaughton: how many? White: six White: no wait White: eight

McNaughton: god, let me tell you McNaughton: ghouls are SO hot White: for sure, for sure White: i mean White: the stench, the sickness, the carrion eating White: what's not to like?

[readriordan]

Happy Halloween!

A day of ghouls and specters, there isn't a better time to be a chthonic demigod - aka a demigod of the Underworld! So let's check in on some of our favorite chthonic kids and see how they spent their holiday:

Nico di Angelo

"I'm not exactly the most popular kid in Camp Half-Blood most days, but Halloween is different. We didn't really celebrate it back in my day in Italy, but I almost feel obligated now. I mean, I'm king of ghosts, I think that means I win Halloween, right? Anyways, I turned Cabin 13 into a haunted house for the other campers this evening. I've even got skeletons roaming around, and Jules-Albert is giving out candy. Usually people would be screaming about that, but the other campers love it. It's nice to be seen as cool for a change."

Hazel Levesque

"Camp Jupiter is busy during the holidays! Everybody's going trick-or-treating around New Rome. In the legion the cohorts are giving out candy to each other and holding a competition to see who can get the biggest haul. Even the lares are getting in on the fun trying to prank campers. Frank and I are on duty in the praetors' offices for any trick-or-treaters who come by. Usually some of the houses in New Rome stay open a little bit later though for the centurions once they get off of door duty, so we'll still have time to go wandering later. Plus, we get all the leftovers anyways, so we'll have plenty of treats regardless!"

Clovis

"Oh, Lou Ellen and I made a deal for tonight - she's going as Kiki from Kiki's Delivery Service, and she said if she can turn me into a cat for the evening she'll split her candy with me 50/50. And I get to nap the whole time. Not too bad of a deal for me, honestly. If I want I could honestly probably make the rounds again for seconds, since nobody would know I was already there. Total win-win."

Lou Ellen Blackstone

"Clovis probably already told you about my costume, but what he doesn't know is that my cabin is going all out. We're not gonna let Cabin 13 win spookiest haunted house, at least not without a fight! Sure he has skeletons and ghosts, but like, c'mon! That's gotta be cheating, right? Us Hecate kids take Halloween very seriously, of course. Especially trick-or-treat. Let's just say we tend to prefer the trick half a little bit more. We'll see how many campers get turned into animals by the end of the night. Unfortunately, Clovis doesn't count towards that."

Alabaster Torrington

"Well, normally I would be spending Halloween with my family, but seeing as the gods exiled me, I can't. That's alright though - I have a plan. You see, me and Dr. Claymore are gonna go scam campers out of their candy. I may be exiled, but as long as I stay outside the borders of Camp Half-Blood, I'm not breaking the rules, and they never said anything about Mistforms. And I might be able to say hi to my half-siblings while I'm there. Just as long as nobody rats me out to Chiron we're good. I'm sure I can convince them to keep quiet in exchange for king-sized candy bars. Oh, someone's coming - gotta go!"

What a spooky bunch! We hope you all had a happy and safe Halloween with plenty of treats.

[deadsetromance]

any jet star or fun ghoul content 🙏 i adore your writing

A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME

not my gif!

fun ghoul x gn!reader

summary: you didn’t know loving someone could hurt this much. but god, you love him so much, you’re dying

warnings: angst, hanahaki, body horror, illness, blood, gore, mentions and graphic depictions of death/dying, no use of y/n, not proofread

note: thank you so much anon ! that made my day <3 i combined two prompts here! i had sososo much fun figuring out a way to work hanahaki into the killjoy universe. hope you all enjoy :))

there was no room for love in the cruel world you lived in. if your heart hadn’t been hardened by the drugs bli pumped into you, or the fear alone, the desert sun would wither it for you.

partnerships–if they were formed at all–were purely beneficial. you’d seen  it countless times. shell-shocked, desert hardened duos, with nothing left to cling onto but each other. 

you were part of the unlucky bunch. by some cruel joke the phoenix witch played, you found yourself tumbling head over heels for one of the fabulously famous killjoys. you’d met fun ghoul during a supply run which had gone costa rica. he’d saved your life, taken you under his wing, and somehow managed to run laps around your heart.

you weren’t entirely sure when you’d fallen in love with him. maybe it was when he patched you up after a run-in with a drac, scolding you for not being careful, his fingers leaving trails of goosebumps on your bare skin. it could have been one of the times you sat together on the roof of the diner, where you both mapped out made up constellations. if you had to guess, it would have been the time he’d shown you how to fix up a part of the trans am, his chest pressed up against your back as he whispered instructions to you. 

you would have been perfectly content running with your adopted crew of killjoys, denying the extent of your feelings for a certain black haired renegade. 

but fate was cruel, and reserved no mercy for you.  

☠︎ ☠︎ ☠︎ ☠︎

you had heard of it in rumors, whispers floating around in the sand until the origin was as lost as you were. they called them desert roses, blooming after unrequited love. no one knew where it came from. some suspected it was the work of bli. others pointed to otherworldly forces, or even some twisted form of survival of the fittest. there was only one thing about it that was certain. it was fatal. 

no one really talks about how painful it is. 

it starts with shortness of breath, deathly rattling coming from deep inside your chest as roses sprout in your lungs. it’s supposed to progress rapidly. one day you start coughing up rose petals, and within a week your throat is torn to shreds. when you die, roses sprout from your throat. whether you suffocate before or after is unknown.

 after all, no one has lived to tell.

☠︎ ☠︎ ☠︎ ☠︎

you hadn’t thought much of it at first. shortness of breath and rattling wheezes go hand in hand with the coarse sand of the desert. everyone gets static-throat at least once, but it goes away after a few days. 

after the third day you began to worry. the pain working its way up your chest paired with an unfamiliar tightness was concerning. and then came the coughing. it sounded like death, shaking you violently, to the point where fun ghoul would shoot you worried looks. 

“hey, you alright?” he’d asked you after one particularly bad coughing fit, arm draped around your shoulders. 

“‘m fine.” the hacking noise you made said otherwise. you coughed into your palm, surprised when you felt something wet. blood. 

it trickled down your arm, but what scared you most was the blood spattered rose petal lying in your palm. 

“what’s that?” you were quick to hide your hand, assuring him that it was nothing. “honey…you’re coughin’ blood.” 

you couldn’t say anything more after that, the sound of the pet name leaving his lips made your chest constrict so tight you could hardly breathe. 

☠︎ ☠︎ ☠︎ ☠︎

you’d never told anyone before, but you’d seen a body once. it was in one of the villages in the outskirts of zone four. it was just…lying there, the roses spouting from the poor soul’s mouth beginning to wilt under the scorching desert sun. someone was digging a grave.

that was you, in your nightmare. your decaying body replaced the one you had seen, bloody roses sprouting from your mouth. someone…fun ghoul, was digging your grave. he turned, locking eyes with you and…

you woke up screaming. your stomach flipped, and you ran out into the sand, spitting up a mix of stems and thorns. fun had followed you out, waking at the sound of your screams. you kicked sand over the blood before he could see anything. 

“sweetheart…” at the sound of his voice you turned around again, watching in horror as rosebuds fell from your mouth. “hey. hey you’re not okay.” he was worried. you could hear it in his voice, but you couldn’t look at him. 

“i told you, i’m fine.” wiping the blood from your chin, you turned to face him. “i promise. ’s just sand in my throat…promise.” you could feel the stems creeping up your throat.

☠︎ ☠︎ ☠︎ ☠︎

you were dying. you knew you were. you couldn’t eat or drink because of the roses in your throat. you were withering away, and no matter how hard you tried to hide it from everyone, they still noticed. 

fun ghoul was ever so worried about you. by the time you realized his connection to the roses growing in your chest, you feared it would be too late. 

the sound of someone saying your name woke you up. “hi.”

“hi,” you whispered back. you couldn’t do much more than whisper at this point, your throat slowly being shredded by the thorns you would spit up. 

“i’m worried about you.” he pet your forehead, wiping away the sweat from your face.

“fun…” you could feel the tightness of your chest grow. you held in your cough. he couldn’t know. if he knew…

“you haven’t eaten, or drank, or…” his voice was shaking. or maybe you were just hallucinating. “you’re running a fever, and i know you’ve been coughin’ blood…just….talk to me. let me help you…please.”

he was pleading now, and it made you feel sick. you loved him, god you loved him so much, and he didn’t love you back, and now you were dying. that was it then. you would die, and he would never know how you felt. at least, not until it was too late.

you coughed so hard you saw spots. fun ghoul must have left the room at some point, but you didn’t notice.

you knew you were going to die tonight.

you didn’t know dying hurt so bad. you would feel yourself slip closer to death with each rattling gasp you took. you were dizzy and you couldn’t breathe, stuck in some sick limbo between alive and dead.

they say the phoenix witch grants you peace with happy memories before you die. maybe they were right, because in your not quite dead state, you saw it all. the bad jokes, and the nor so subtle flirting, and hell even the longing glances shared between you and fun ghoul. you saw the time he saved you all those years ago, and the time you scared him while he was working on the trans am. you saw yourself sparring with him, and the other killjoys laughing in the sunlight. you saw the time the both of you had got caught in the garage during an acid storm, all the times he had kissed you forehead, and the way you slept wrapped up in his arms.

you were going to die, but he had to know how you felt. 

your legs felt like jelly and you almost didn’t make it to the door. the walls spun and your body slammed into the doorframe of fun’s room. the handle wouldn’t twist bo matter how hard you tried, you were going to die outside his room and he would never know. 

you couldn’t even call his name, your voice gurgling behind blood and roses. vision going dark, you heaved one last time, your chest caving alongside the door.

it was dark, but you could still see him sitting up. he looked so…comforting, and you all but collapsed into him gasping as he stroked your face.

“hey, what’s goin’ on? wh-“

“i love you.” you were choking on the words as the tumbled out of your mouth, flowers blooming in the back of your throat. you couldn’t breathe but you had to tell him. “i love you and i’m going to die”

he didn’t say anything and you gasped, fighting to stay alive for just a little longer.

“please. i just…the flowers….say something…” your words died in your throat as a rose bloomed in your mouth, silencing you. it was over.

his panicked face would be the last thing you would see, and it would all be over…..except….“you love me…?” his voice was warm, and sweet, and tired, and it sounded like heaven. you couldn’t do anything but nod, choking on your last breath. “you love me…”

*** 

the sun was always warm in the desert. but it felt different today, kissing your skin as you curled up against fun ghoul, who had been whispering love letters to you all night. he had told you he loved you with everything he had, he had held you close as you both thought that you were going to die. but death never came. 

he had been oblivious to the way you felt…just as oblivious as you had been to him. it all meant something, the touches, and the jokes…it was all there. it didn’t matter much, you had each other now…and while your throat still burned from the rose that had bloomed over the week, the way he kissed you made you forget about it all…

he took you out to the roof that night, careful and slow and you coughed, watching as a great red rose fell from your lips, before it shriveled and turned into star dust, joining the rest of the sand that you called home.

“i love you…” his voice was soft, his fingers trailing over your skin and you couldn’t help but smile. 

you were tired, worn to the bone but you were alive. alive and perfectly in love.

[vaultie-and-theghoul]

The Finger

Cooper didn't put up a fight as the so-called "sheriffs" hauled his ass to the "govermint" headquarters. Nothing but a bunch of idiots if you ask him. That being said, it gave the ghoul plenty of time to think. The empty finger of his glove occupied most of his mind. That and the little Vaultie's finger stashed away in his coat.

He wasn't sure what possessed him to keep the digit. Maybe Cooper wanted a trophy of his time with the Vaultie. A time that was surely over. That's when a devious thought fluttered through his mind. The ghoul needed a finger, why not use Lucy's? Maybe then some part of him would be inherently good.

Cooper felt the corner of his mouth curve into a smirk. What would the harm be? He didn't expect to see the Vaultie again, even if the thought made his chest ache. Then it was settled. Once this situation was cleared, Cooper would find the time to sit his ass down and sew on his new digit.

It took no time at all to adjust to the new slimmer digit. In fact, over the next several nights making his way to the observatory, Cooper caught himself caressing his mouth with the finger.

When the ghoul realized what he had been doing subconsciously, he felt dirty like he was violating Lucy's consent. Surely she would never voluntarily touch him, much less caress his lips. Cooper's stomach burned and his lungs seized. As his lips wrapped around the inhaler, he cursed as images of the Vaulty bending over to place said life-saving drugs within reach.

"God damn it," Cooper shouted after he caught his breath. He couldn't get the Vaultie out of his head. Desperate to drown out his self-loathing, the Ghoul set out to find whatever hooch or moonshine he could find. Thankfully, it took only a short time for Cooper to find a hefty stash and a decent shelter. So what if he had to kill a few fiends to get it?

Coop settled in for the night after setting up his usual camp protection. The alcohol was vile even on his withered tastebuds, but it did its job. The Ghoul's head spun as he placed his cowboy hat over his face. He prayed for another dreamless night, but God wasn't on Cooper's side. That night his dreams were plagued with imaginary soft touches and whispered words came from the Vaultie. HIS Vaultie.

AO3