#i am going on a ghost investigation in january so that will be interesting

[albatris]

just so you all know this about me I absolutely believe in ghosts

[daryfromthefuture]

BTTF AU MASTERPOST

*takes a deep breath*

okay, i want to bring some order into my aus. thus i am making a post about every au that i feel is worth mentioning (some of these are very recent, some of them not lmao). some of them also have like zero content BUT i love them a lot and they're good for brainstorming.

warning. this is a lot

that being said, feel free to send me questions about any of the aus! i'll be only too happy to answer :D

STUCK IN 1885 AU/"UNTIL I GET HOME"-VERSE

as the title suggests, this is an au where doc and marty end up getting stuck in 1885 instead of going home to 1985 post bttf 3. it's obviously not a concept that i myself came up with, but rather my own version of it.

you can read my fic (titled "until i get home", thus the name for this au lol) for it here. i don't want to elaborate on the au further since i don't want to spoil the fic for those who may have interest in reading it. but yeah, that's the idea :)

SOULMATE AU

okay, basic idea: there are two kinds of soulmates - romantic and platonic. you and your romantic soulmate share a mark (almost tattoo-like) on your right wrist, and you and your platonic one share one on your left wrist, romantic soulmarks are usually red-pinkish, and platonic ones are blue. they're in the form of a symbol that stands for your relationship (e.g. doc and clara would have a star because of their shared interest in space/astronomy).

when you haven't met your soulmate yet, your mark is grey. if your soulmate isn't born yet, it only has grey outlines. it turns fully colored as soon as you meet them. when your soulmate dies, your mark turns grey again and slowly starts disappearing. there's the possibility that you ruin your relationship to the point that the mark fades away without your soulmate being dead. if that happens, you have lost that person forever and your relationship cannot be restored (like, if a fight happened or something and you break up/quit your friendship).

doc and marty have a soulmark in the form of a flux capacitor. also its pretty wild for doc who meets his platonic soulmate possibly as early as in 1931, then marty leaves and the soulmark's outlines turn grey (because marty hasn't been born yet). he also believed that he didn't have a romantic soulmate because he didn't have a mark lol. he gets one as soon as he arrives in 1885 because clara was alive back then.

another perk is that the soulmates can feel each other's pain/emotions, so throughout the trilogy doc knows exactly how marty is feeling and where to find him because another thing is that the soulmates can communicate via thoughts.

okay i think that pretty much covers it-

"THE FRIGHTENERS" - AU

the lovely @jayisnotdrawing and i came up with this back in january after watching the mjf film "the frighteners". the au is basically the plot of the movie but with bttf characters.(so. spoilers ahead)

marty is frank bannister, the guy who lives alone in an isolated house, talking to three ghosts - his bandmates who had mysteriously died a few years back. he has given up on music and became a paranormal investigator instead, as these weird death cases keep happening. he's also very upset because his best friend, doc, has died in a car crash due to marty not driving carefully enough (doc has not died because of the car crash but because of the myterious heart attack that also killed marty's bandmates). marty can't see doc's ghost, however. i dont remember why but i think it was bc marty's bandmates were kinda stuck between heaven and earth and thus had a part-life on earth idk

ALSO marty is the only one who can see ghosts because he basically witnessed doc being killed and was almost taken away himself.

he meets jennifer, who had just lost her roommate lucy to that heart attack. toegther, they team up to find out what's going on. turns out it's the ghost of the murderer kid tannen, who had died in a murder trial, and continues killing people by "squeezing" their hearts as a ghost. edna is still alive and helps him, and jennifer and marty have to stop them - and marty is their only hope because he's the one seeing ghosts.

he also ends up getting doc back by the way

THIS was a rant and i hope it makes sense-

DRAGON DOC AU

this is my version of a bttf fairytale lmao

marty is the prince of the mcfly kingdom. however, he doesn't want to be a prince and his parents are getting fed up with him. so they send him on a quest to kill the "dangerous" dragon who has been hiding in a cave forever to get rid of him so he can prove himself as a knight/prince. marty leaves the castle, desperate for adventure, and reaches the cave.

however, upon getting go know the dragon, he realizes that he's quite nice. marty doesn't want to kill the dragon anymore and instead "moves in" with him, being sick of his life as a prince. he affectionately nicknames the dragon "doc" because the creature has a lot of science/alchemy equipment stashed in his cave.

marty's parents send for him and take him back home, disappointed that he didn't kill the dragon, and ground him. however, marty sneaks out and convinces doc to hide him from his parents. marty is very happy with his new dragon dad and actually feels respected for the firsf time in forever, but then gets kidnapped by evil wizard biff.

doc has to save him but gets wounded in a fight, and marty is convinced that he lost doc. it turns out that marty actually saved doc, who had been turned into a dragon by biff decades ago with the condition that only true loyalty to his dragon form would ever turn him back into a human. marty's friendship with the dragon and the way he cared for him when he was hurt allowed doc to become a human again. also doc is a wizard as well, a very powerful one at that, and he can finally turn biff to dust.

@fiddlstyx drew a very cute piece based on this, and you can find it here!

1940s AUs

stuck in the 40s au

au in which marty, on a road trip with doc, takes the delorean to explore los alamos in 1945. getting lost, he hides the delorean in a cave far away from the town and manages to catch a ride back. he finds him in the middle of the manhattan project, and sneaks in after finding doc there. however, he is suspected to be a spy and is not permitted to leave the base.

the first time he leaves is with doc, who had already accepted him in his life, to get the time machine back before the trinity test. well, who knew that the car was in the explosion range - and due to a delay marty and doc arrive five minutes before "the gadget" goes off...

(i wrote a 12k word story for this which is coming to ao3 soon, be a little patient please kdfgks)

famous scientist doc au

(working title for the au lol. i literally came up with this today)

the delorean malfunctions, and since this is the car from the animated series, it crashlands marty in new mexico instead of hill valley, where he actually wanted to be to get some answers concerning his family tree. again, marty meets doc in los alamos, who tells him he'd been offered a higher position at the manhattan project but considers turning it down. marty talks him into accepting it, wanting his friend to earn at least some respect.

back in 1985, marty finds out that due to his interference, doc had been made director of his project and had become world famous. he had been pressured into contributing to the hydrogen bomb, getting fed up to the point where he faked his death and moved into a village under a false name, isolating himself from society. marty has to convince doc to fix the delorean after crashlanding in said village so he can go back in time to fix things.

OKAY IM DONE. i think. yeah.

if anyone has made it until here - congrats. im proud of you.

i don't know what content i'm going to make for any of these aus, but i don't want them to get lost - so here they are, for y'all to read and enjoy!

thanks for reading jkdgfs

[dollycas]

Welcome to Cozy Wednesday! I am happy to share my thoughts today about Haunting and Homicide: A Ghost Tour Mystery by Ava Burke! Haunting and Homicide: A Ghost Tour Mystery Cozy Ghost Mystery 1st in Series Setting - Louisiana Publisher ‏ : ‎ Crooked Lane Books (January 21, 2025) Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 272 pages ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1639109285 ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1639109289 Kindle ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0D2C54943 Audiobook ASIN B0DH5B3GK2 Audio CD ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0DKBCBNDC Lou Thatcher is haunted by ghosts–friendly ghosts–but when she finds herself involved in a murder investigation, she’s in for the fright of a lifetime in this new cozy mystery, perfect for fans of Amanda Flower and Ellen Byron. Tallulah “Lou” Thatcher has a gift: she can see dead people. But in New Orleans, Louisiana, this is not a drawback. On the contrary, her ability to see ghosts helps her host viral ghost tours through the historic Garden District. When rival tour guide Adam Brandt–who accused her of faking her encounters to undercut his business–is found murdered, Lou is the only one who can see him . . . his ghost, that is. It’s no secret Adam and Lou were feuding and with the absence of a suspect, she’s the only one with a clear motive. After detective Dylan Finch, Lou’s longtime crush, reveals the murder weapon was a ceremonial dagger from Lou’s shop, she’s officially declared the prime suspect. Determined to prove her innocence, Lou starts investigating right away. Weaving her way through Adam’s business partnerships, friendships, and kinships, Lou must uncover who wished to see him dead before the killer tries to silence her forever. Dollycas's Thoughts  Tallulah “Lou” Thatcher hosts ghost tours in the New Orleans Garden District and her tours are going viral because Lou has a gift. She can actually see and communicate with the area ghosts and one ghost loves to show off and watch the viral videos with Lou. Adam Brandt also hosts ghost tours but he doesn't have a gift and he believes Lou's tours are complete shams until he is murdered and has his own encounter with Lou. He wants her to find his killer but she is the police's prime suspect due to their prior discord and that the murder weapon came from her store. He doesn't know who killed him but he knows it wasn't Lou so she starts to dig into his past to see who wanted him dead and is framing her for his murder. She just hopes she can find the killer before they have her haunting the Garden District with all the other ghosts. ____ Tallulah “Lou” Thatcher is a wonderful protagonist with an interesting gift - a gift she has had her whole life. She doesn't know why the ghosts are stuck where they are and would love to help them pass to the next realm. Until then she enjoys visiting with them and showing off their talents. We also meet her loving grandmother, her grandmother's significant other Ronald, her best friend Cady, Cady's brother Detective Dylan Finch, Lou's part-time employee Tess, and Lou's teenage brother Bryce. For the first book in the series, the characters were well fleshed out while leaving room for growth as the series continues. There are also some cool ghosts in this story and I loved how cleverly they were created. They had distinct talents and were there when Lou needed them most. We follow Lou through her busy daily life as she works in questioning the living and the dead in her quest to find Adam's killer. She did get herself into some sticky situations but none more so than when the killer is revealed. I truly was on the edge of my seat for the chase that occurred in the final chapters and found the takedown was especially delightful. Adam makes a request of Lou after everyone is safe. It was truly heartwarming. A subplot deals with Lou's dysfunctional family and I appreciated the way Ms. Burke handled the situation. I am sure there will be issues that arise in future stories as there would in real life. What occurred gives us insight into Lou's past which makes her even more genuine. A unique plot set in New Orleans with complicated relationships, family drama, ghosts, and more has set this series off to a terrific start.  It was very easy to get invested in these characters with the interesting and entertaining mystery the author has penned. I highly recommend Haunting and Homicide and can't wait for the next Ghost Tour Mystery! I voluntarily reviewed an Advance Reader Copy. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. Thank you to Crooked Lane Books and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC. Your Escape Into A Good Book Travel Agent About the Author Ava Burke (Amber Camp) lives in Northwest Arkansas with her family and a menagerie of animals. When she’s not writing, she’s usually reading, but she also enjoys hiking, kayaking, and horseback riding. Thanks to the publisher I have 1 hardcover copy to give away! The contest is open to anyone over 18 years old with a US or Canadian mailing address. Duplicate entries will be deleted. Void where prohibited. You do not have to be a follower to enter but I hope you will find something you like here and become a follower. Followers Will Receive 2 Bonus Entries For Each Way They Follow. Plus 2 Bonus Entries For Following My Facebook Fan Page. Add this book to your WANT TO READ shelf on GoodReads for 3 Bonus Entries. Follow Crooked Lane Books on Facebook for 3 Bonus Entries  Follow Crooked Lane Books on Instagram for 3 Bonus Entries Pin this giveaway to Pinterest for 3 Bonus Entries. If you share the giveaway on Threads, Facebook, or anywhere you will receive 5 Bonus Entries For Each Link. The  Contest Will End on February 12, 2025, at 11:59 PM CST The Winner Will Be Chosen Using Random.org The Winner will be notified by email and posted here in the sidebar. Click Here For Entry Form  Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. Receiving a complimentary copy in no way reflected my review of this book. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.” “As an Amazon Associate, I earn a commission from qualifying purchases.” I am also an affiliate of Bookshop.org and I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.” Read the full article

[rexc0re]

Gen Loss: The Unofficial Files

File One: Is this thing on?

- UF!Ranboo

A/N : Hello! Welcome to my Generation Loss AU smile not much to say but enjoy yippie

Summary : College student Ranboo has found some old tapes in the floorboard of his apartment. Over the course of a year we follow along with his discoveries of a organization that isn’t all that it seems…

Warnings : None

< A CLICK, FOLLOWED BY THE ROLLING OF A TAPE>

? : Is this thing…is it working?

< A REPEAT OF [?]’S SENTENCE PLAYS THROUGH A FAR AWAY SPEAKER >

? : Aha! It is! Great.

< SILENCE WITH THE SOUND OF PAPERS BEING MOVED AROUND >

? : January First, 1990, 10 am. Finding out the truth, file one side A.

? : On the night of December 25 I, Ranboo, found a box of 13 tapes under the floorboard of my brand new mind you, apartment.

Ranboo : I’ve only gotten through about 5 of these tapes and so far they have been….interesting to say the least.

Ranboo : The tapes begin at what appears to be some sort of organizations goal. Explaining how “Symphony Industries” is working on a project called “Generation Loss.”

Ranboo : Generation Loss, the project itself, is not explained and is vaguely described as a “mind warping revolutionary project.”

Ranboo : Mind warping is a bit of a weird descriptor. I mean what are they taking peoples minds and warping them? [he laughs] I don’t think that’s even legal.

Ranboo : But that’s not even the weirdest part of the tapes. As they go on it starts talking about a ‘Founder’. Which brings us to right now.

Ranboo : There’s something off about these tapes. The information given is weird. I have a feeling it’ll only get weirder. This town has always been weird and now these tapes make it more odd.

Ranboo : Whoever this Founder guy is, he seems like a bad person. I mean why would you want a project described as “mind warping”. What kind of messed up things are you doing that you have to have part of your, official mind you, tapes talk about your companies innovation with potatoes!?

Ranboo : Even the potato talk seemed fishy and not in the potato and fish meal kind of way. Now, I’ve done my fair share of investigations. I’ve looked into plenty of weird things! Including ghosts. Lost and lots of ghosts. So I think I’m pretty qualified to say when somethings weird. Aka this Generation Loss thing.

Ranboo : The name “Generation Loss” is weird in itself. The actual definition of Generation Loss is the loss of quality in an image or video after being copied over and over again. So how does that apply to a company which is known for psychological work? And the whole “mind warping” talk? Something here is wrong. Very, wrong.

Ranboo : So I, being the curious person I am, have decided to take it upon myself to uncover Generation Loss and it’s secrets. Whatever it may hold I will figure it out. The files are titled “Generation Loss : Chapters of the Project.”

Ranboo : So welcome to my project, “Generation Loss : The Unofficial Files”

< A CLICK, THE TAPE STOPS ROLLING >

A/N : Haha Hi guys so what did you think hoped you like it smile. This is a multi part series that for now will be consisting of 5 chapters or files. These will probably be released every Saturday for the next few weeks. That’s all I’ve got to say for now bye bye ;) [reblogs appreciated!!!!]

[cyberdva]

The Haunting Of Queen Mary's Castle-  C.B  ~P.1☆

 ☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆

Main Masterlist

Colby Brock Masterlist

Summary: Sam and Colby had the bright idea to drag their friends to Scotland, and where would the perfect video location be? How about Queen Mary’s haunted castle? It didn’t help that aspiring physic, Y/N wasn’t too happy to head out of the country, but Colby was there to help. And maybe he wanted something more than being there to help her. Could the spirits be on his side for once?

Word Count: 4k

Date Uploaded:  8/31/20

Warnings: Cursing

A/N: This fic is from the vault. I wrote this around January of this year, I start school again in two days and the work and stress load is going to be horrible, especially with it being half in person, half online. I hope to get some more creativity back when more pressure is put on me. I have plenty of ideas with just not enough passion and time. It’ll trickle back one day.

 ☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆

“Holy Shit…” Colby held his camera closer to his chest as he walked closer towards the breathtaking Neidpath Castle. It’s aura seemed to engulf the curiosity of the young man. His friends splurged on a ten hour trip to Scotland for a quick Youtube video series, he knew near the end, half of them would be begging to go home. The comical routine played its key role in every single episode, no matter what the occasion was. It did make good money to be completely honest. Although, that wasn’t the main focus of their careers. He found himself under a tall bridge-like banister connecting its way to the entire estate. Next to him was his long time roommate, Corey. He sported a bright yellow hoodie in large contrast with Colby’s black one. It was sort of funny, each of his friends had a unique personality, yet connected so well. Of course, they were wearing their own merch. It helped the sales go up, not to mention it was awfully comfortable. A perk to the business if you say.

“And we thought the church was cool…” Sam, Colby’s best friend and other handler of the videography series on their channel, gaped in front of him. This place was bigger than any other private plot they’ve ever visited! It was a couple thousand dollars to rent out for the night, but with the palace’s history it was born to make a hefty income.

“We have this all to ourselves!” Colby nudged Sam, he handed the camera off to his friend Jake, who was talking a mile a minute to the other attendees. A new face poked out of the regular bunch.

“Are you gonna catch me when I get scared, Y/N?” Jake stuck his face in the view of the content woman. Her persona seemed quite drained due to the long trip. She was partially new to the Youtube platform, especially with ghost hunting. Not like Y/N was easily frightened, unlike her friends, it just wasn’t her go to for a cheap thrill. Nerves were indefinitely strained, since it was the first time out with the entire group. Nothing Jake couldn’t fix.

Her laugh trickled out blissfully, ”Wouldn’t Tara get jealous? You don't want to get on her bad side? Do you?” He quickly shook his head and gave a hesitant reply with his sheepish smile.

“We get this all to ourselves?” Colby queried. This place was double the size of the Trap House by far, they had to be scared shitless by the time they left. There had to be some sort of restrictions or a down sided catch to it all.

“Did you do any research on this place?” Y/N  slid up behind the unfocused main man, a small quirk to her. Colby jumped a smidge in light shock. He wasn’t expecting anyone to be genuinely interested with the property. Colby mentally cursed for being so jumpy.

“Jesus Y/N, you scared the shit out me.” He replied, not answering the girl’s question. Y/N met Sam and Colby way back in highschool. Each of them slithered their way into the other’s channels and have made frequent appearances. They definitely weren’t strangers, even though it seemed that way with fans. Y/N had more paranormal encounters out of all of the boys, despite a bit of distaste towards the topic. She was lugged around on long adventures to help them with videos. Some of her videos ranged from ‘‘accidentally’ joining a cult to “selling her soul”. She was the wicca-pedia they needed to not get possessed each trip.

“Ok pussy.” She walked off to talk to Corey, the pair oddly all had a strong connection from somewhere, and Colby sighed as to quickly put on his cheery online persona once more.

Sam waved up at a vacant window as the group, “Hello!” The woman replied unknowingly and aroused quite a shock of embarrassment. A faint giggling came from the couple in the back, “No,no, I do it better.” Corey got a hold of herself, “A Ra-Ta-Ta-tah.” The two burst back into their ceremonial laughs and briefed on about some TikToks they watched on the remotely silent ride from the airport. 

Sam turned back around to see the shorter woman. Notwithstanding her first place in line, “How is he gonna get a kiss kiss? Very ugly to me!” The duo rounded up to each other and laughed on their way up the trail, leaving the others confused and focused on talking to the groundskeeper.

“I’m assuming you are the caretaker of this?” The blonde one waved more at the older woman. She seemed more on the reserved side and peeled her eyes at the sight of a camera. A lovely addition to the already uncomfortable scene.

The woman gracefully approached Sam, “Yes, Yes I am. My name is Katrina.” Sam went on with the lady into a dark back door. The young adults glanced on in uncertainty. 

“Yo, why are they going off by themselves?” Colby asked Jake. The first rule of all of their videos was not to go off by yourself. Bad shit always follows. “He literally was like-”

“He’s been looking at her ass like all day.” Jake joked back, Corey attentively diverted himself from Y/N to get a jump in on whatever that conversation had morphed to.

“That’s whatever the fuck he was doing.” They all snickered and continued on with the inappropriate jokes. Editing this would be like a field day to Reggie.

“Is Kat gonna think…” Colby looked around jokingly, getting another round of laughter from the friends.

“I don’t know..” Colby softly replied. He pressed on to dumbfoundedly impersonate Sam’s girlfriend, “Oh it’s not cheating if he’s not in the same country.”

“It’s sexual relations Jake.” Y/N whispered at him. They continued to poke fun out of the cougar-lady, but her and Sam rushed back soon enough. Just in time to ask questions. 

“Uh, that was pretty much the coolest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.” Sam pulled everyone aside with a smug look on his face. He honestly always had one of those. The blank stares that were thrown back at him weren’t what he expected. 

“Uh Sam what does that mean.” Jake chuckled. He looked around at everyone not able to catch on. The seriousness of the situation began to settle as everyone genuinely thought Sam could have done some weird shit with that groundskeeper.

“All I have say is that was quick man…” Colby scraped some gunk off of her nails while waiting for following instructions.

Sam obviously didn’t understand, “To fill you guys in I had to learn, kind of, where all the specific light switches were. I didn’t even look around. I just kinda looked at the ground until she saw.”

“You were like that’s the coolest thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life.” Colby turned the camera to focus on him and Jake mocking Sam’s slight happiness by seeing fancy rocks.

“It was only the stairs!” Sam said defeatedly, he didn’t want to spoil the real first looks.”That’s just giving you a little hint, but um, I asked her if she could you know fill us in on some of the information of, likewise castles here, the hauntings or any deaths and she said she knows some information.”

“Oh cool…” Colby was already quite unenthusiastic about this idea anyways. Katrina retreated out of the building quickly with keys in her hand. She sprinted over to all of them.

“Look it’s Sam’s new girlfriend!” Y/N cheered. Sam spun his head around, probably pulling a muscle in the process. The pure look of utter horror could not be more hysterical. Sam became flustered with a loss for words, his face tinted with a light shade of pink. Before he could muster up any sort of retort Katrina, the groundlady, came jogging back to the group.

“What’s some of the backstory about this castle?” Jake asked, he spun some rings around in his hand. Paying no mind to the other plot line adhering to his right.

“This castle was built in the second half of the 14th-Century, but there was another castle built before that in here. That was built in 110,so uh.” Few ‘Wows’ and ‘Oohs’ cut her off. “That was quite a while ago, but the Neidpath was built by the Family Of Fraser’s and they built a Buddha made castle. This one was burned down by the English army. After a guy named Simon Fraser, who’s the cousin of Braveheart, was captured and executed and that’s why the Buddha made the castle was burned to the ground. Another family built this castle, which was besieged in 1650 by the Cromwellian army. Legend says that this was the only stronghold of the Scottish borders which actually withstanded the siege. Whether it’s true or not, we don’t know, but what we do want you to know is that one-third of the castle collapsed, non-existing anymore.” She spoke with absolute passion. The place had so much rich history, the surrounding observers listened with extreme intent, not to miss one sentence in case it may help their investigation.

Colby raised his eyebrows at this question, “One-third of it?”

Katrina continued on, “Because of the siege. We do have a dungeon in the castle as well.” Everyone went silent.

“A dungeon?!” Jake nearly dropped a silver band he was picking on by the mention of this. His personality perked up and suddenly the whole crowd was uplifted. Finding weird places in “abandoned” areas is always a plus side, but this tops all of it.

“Guys shut up!” Y/N whacked Jake with her phone, he stuck his tongue out while rubbing his shoulder. She didn’t want to leave too bad of a first impression. It would be mortifying if something went wrong and the owner already hates you.

“Is there a dragon?” Corey brought everyone back to the topic of the castle, he didn’t want to be there a minute longer, but in this group you just do what you’re told and shut your mouth.

“We do have quite a big colony of bats under the roof, so I’m not sure if you really want to go down there Mister.” The group laughed and groaned at Katrina’s statement. Running into bats could be the worst thing to encounter.

Corey nodded in response, “So there are dragons.”

The history went on, “It was quite widely used during the 14th and 15th century because that was the only reason for the whole county.” The darker side of it all became slowly prevalent. It wasn’t just a posh place the others expected it to be. 

“Prison?” Sam posed. This just got a lot weirder than they all expected.

“Yes. You’ll be able to get into it because there is this rough opening through, which was made in the 17th century, but before that the only entrance to the dungeon was through the trap door from the guards. I should have shown you that, but I’m not going to. You’ll find it by yourself.

“Oh god…” Colby rubbed the bridge between his nose, an inevitable  headache was beginning to form.

Sam tittered, “Are we just going to fall through? Is that ok?” He got no proper answer, which set his worries on the run.

“So, the last prisoner was there in 1594, I think. We know there was a teenage boy like a 14 year old boy who was just pick pocketing people and he ended up here. The note didn’t say that he actually came out of there again.”

“Like meaning it’s haunted?” Colby preyed on.

“Uh, it is haunted!” Katrina stated blandly.

“Fun for us!” Y/N shrugged to hide her panic. Colby glanced at her. He sensed her anxiousness, he didn’t want her to be upset. Definitely not in the shitty environment. Of course, he cared for her, he just didn’t know how to open up and tell her. Would this really be the place?

“We do have our own one. Her name is Jean Douglas. She died in 1750, she was the daughter of one of the owners of the castle and she died of a broken heart.” The mood fell, a breeze pulled through and messed with the mics. Leaving just a sprinkle of static in the footage. Just in time.

“She was engaged to a young man, but he wasn't wealthy enough to win her family over, so he went abroad to win his fortune and fame and because he was away for far too long she went really sickly and pale and she didn’t eat. She didn’t sleep, so she was really frail when he finally came. When he was riding his horse through the archway she was at the window and he failed to recognize her because she was so altered and broke her heart and she died on the spot.”

The group had a silent reaction to the news, not knowing how to react.

“Ever since then she is walking through the castle being very tall, very gray, very pale looking, weeping.”

“What’s her name again?”

“Jean.” A tiny shiver racked through Sam’s body. He didn’t tell anyone. Just not to set anyone off. Now he really didn’t want to face this spirit.

“Have you ever seen Jean?” Y/N asked, trying her best not to be insensitive with the approach. These things are held really close to some people. Their experiences could be life changing, for others it could most certainly be a lot different.

“No, but I do have ghostbusters coming in several times a year and I asked what was the best recording ever and they were like ‘We got brilliant ones of screams.” 

“Ah..”

“And I was like inside of the castle. I’m here sometimes on my own in the middle of the night at midnight, one, two, three o’clock. When I have to lock up after the events and such. Do I really want to do that with screams in my head? No I don’t, I said no.”

“Alright sounds like it’s a nice haunted Scottish castle.” Sam tried his best to play off his uncomfortable feelings with humor. It did not work.

“I’m going to do the dungeon now. I’m not telling you what I’m going to do now and then the place will be yours” Katrina headed back into the castle with an odd vibe. 

“So, she’s gonna make us fall down the trap door, wow.” Jake leaned in for slight commentary.

“How much do you want to bet that we’re going to die?” Y/N grabbed her backpack to locate her wallet and pulled out a twenty.

“I bet 15.” Corey grabbed his wallet too.

“Guy, that is so sad though…” Colby came into the center of all of them, “Ok, that story. Imagine your husband comes home on a little horse and you're in this window, literally right there and then you die on the spot because he's like ‘Who’s that?’ It’s a tall, frail old lady that’s crying everywhere.” Colby clung to his sweatshirt, “Oh that’s so creepy!”

“Colby if you ever do that to me you’ll have to go back to VidCon alone again.” Y/N was putting in her best bet and threw a five at him. “You can use that for your ticket.” He blushed, just like Sam moments before.

Sam added more commentary from behind the camera, “They’ve heard screams within the castle.” Katrina came right back out with her deafening personality, handed the keys to Sam and hopped right back in her small, blue car, and left with no exchange of words.

“She creeps me out.” Jake in discomfort. To be fair, she is a creepy ass old lady who owns a castle in the middle of nowhere.

Corey turned away from the groundskeeper's car and shrugged off his jitters, "So we have a castle to ourselves...”

“This is amazing!” Sam couldn’t contain his excitement.

“No Shit. I still can’t grasp why you all buyout expensive stuff like a castle.” Y/N gripped the abundance of bet money and slid it all bad into her bag.

Colby inspected the property more in depth, as if he was waiting for a ghoul to poke out at any given time, “This is where we’re staying tonight.” With a grand motion upwards Sam panned the camera up and down.

“And you guys...” Sam pulled the camera away from the stronghold and directed the frame to the rest of his friends,”..have not even seen the inside at all.”

“I know, I know.” Colby pulled his beanie down his head, the enlightened sun seemed to cascade into the clouds with a faint breeze.

“Let’s go find our cottage, get ourselves completely set up and ready for the night. Take some pictures before sun down and then go into the castle, because like we can’t lose this sunset and we got to figure this out.” Sam did some weird hand movements in front of the camera and handed it off to the other’s opinions.

Colby nodded his head up and down in agreement,” Yeah definitely.” Jake wandered around with a rock and for the most part everyone said eye to eye.

“Unfair treatment. I wanted to go in now.” Y/N gave a side glance to Sam and Corey brushed his hand over her playfully. She walked back into frame,“All I gotta say is, Colby Brock Hot Edits.” Colby walked up next to her with a shit-eating grin in approval. Who doesn’t love Colby Brock edits?”

“Shut up, you’re just jealous that there’s no Y/N L/N hot edits for you.” He playfully jabbed back at her with a growing flutter in his stomach. He fucking hated that feeling to no end, but it was such a drug. Only when she was around.

“Alright let’s go, I’m bored as shit.” Jake came back with his new pet rock and put his arm around Corey. Sam cut the camera and went down the forked path. Right down the road was a cottage for visitors.

“Hey Y/N,” Colby came jogging up to the colleen, “Did you see any weird stuff yet?” He shoved his hands in his pockets, a symptom of his bashfulness, he began to rethink his uncolorful wording in his sentence. He just had the sudden urge to go up to her and she wasn’t complaining one bit.

She looked over at him, “No, not yet. I just got really put-off by that lady. She just was so…” Her eyes connected with his and a glistening highlight overcame the peaking iris. The words weren’t verbally there, but he understood what was there.

Sam cut her off, “Dude. Look how big this place is.” It was rationally smaller than their house back in LA, but it was sizable for an ancient brick living space.

Jake made the most commotion out of the seven, “Whoever is first picks where they sleep!” He dashed ahead of the group and everyone picked up speed, almost dropping the rock he just adopted.

“I think there’s only like three beds.” Sam panted. No one paid much mind to him and kept running. They all toppled into the door and Corey unlocked it, which left the rest to run up to a room. Jake took the first one to the left, Sam tumbled into the one across. A room had a small couch for Corey and last, but not least…

“Looks like we’re bunking L/N.”

“Fuck you Brock.”

Sam peaked his head in, “Guys, we have film some shots of the place. Come on.” The three made it to the living room where all and sundry were. Sam grabbed his camera and got everyone in shot.

“What?!” With grand motions each person stood up in their acts of shock. Even though it had been there for a solid five minutes the audience always has to be entertained.

Colby turned around, “Yo! We got a TV too!” A small Toshiba was put on a step stool. It would probably gain no use tonight anyways. It looked like a piece of crap too, thank god for Youtube.

They all got up from their seats and went to uncover the rest of the place, “This is nice, very cool.” Colby led them into Corey’s room. A huge bed frame was around a pink canopy bed. Old photos and paintings of the fortress were hung evenly around the perimeter. Sam went through the rest of the rooms and told everyone to head off and get ready.

The guys took cold showers and Y/N soaked in a muddled bath in the basement. She didn’t like it here. Her mind couldn’t unravel much. Sam was stationed upstairs doing a camera touch up with Jake by his side talking about the new Harry Styles album. A half an hour later everyone was wearing at least one faction of Sam and Colby merch, phones were charged and beams from flashlights slid across the floor like a jumping snake.

The group divided into pairs as they walked to the castle. The sky grew much darker than expected and it felt like a looming spirit chipped away at the warm function of friends. The camera was whipped right back out.

“Alright, we are all showered, changed, and ready to explore the castle before sunset.” All went under the arch while the audio was whacked around by the wind.

Colby turned from his conversation to the viewers, "I’m still like flipping out that we’re staying here tonight. That’s crazy!” His lantern swung below him and the towering castle was engulfed by the purple skies. “Look at this place! Look at that beautiful sunset!” He yelled.

Y/N raised her eyebrows, “Since when were you PG-13?”

He blandly stared at her,”Shut up I need to make money,” He looked back at the camera, “When I was like blow-drying my hair and stuff after my shower, my hair dryer was insanely powerful. There’s obviously a lot of energy in it, like the voltage.” 

“I thought he said blow-j-.” Corey chimed in. He shut himself up so they wouldn’t get demonetized, it would be a funny way to go down though. Y/N and Colby giggled along with him. It wasn’t a rare occasion that they all were out laughing and joking, just the side chick with the haunted castle. 

Corey swung his flashlight up and down, “His blow dryer started smoking and like almost blew up.”

“So, what I’m saying is the spirits could use all of this energy to talk to us.”

They all made it to the castle and it was around five-thirty. There wasn’t much to do at this time, but she was always watching. There was something about to happen they could all feel it and that thing, it wasn’t going to be good.

 ☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆

Part 2? Send me an ask if you want it!!

[valhahazred]

Cryptid Mythos bonus! Everything that appears on this sheet is an entity reported by real people. Why no Mythos this time? Because these encounters are so strange in appearance or behavior that they could slip right into the Sothic multiverse with little to no alteration or alternative explanation. Good luck Investigators!

All Colours Sam In 1973, in the town of Sandown, 7 year old “Fay” and an unnamed friend encountered a very strange individual as they explored the fringes of a golf course. They first became aware of something weird going on when they heard a sound like an ambulance siren in the distance. Following the sound to a footbridge over a creek, the two children were confronted by a three fingered hand wearing a blue glove that beckoned them from beneath the bridge. Awaiting them was a seven foot humanoid figure wearing strange clownish clothing, seemingly reinforced with wooden slats that protruded from his sleeves and pant-legs. The figure had a book in his hands, which he immediately fumbled and dropped in the water. He splashed around cartoonishly before recovering his book, leaping out of the creek and away from the children. He moved to a small metal shed with a high-kneed hopping gait and disappeared inside. The children went to leave, only for the mysterious entity to exit again with a microphone that appeared to be the source of the wailing that drew the children in the first place. It spoke into the microphone in a friendly, non-threatening tone. “Are you still here?” The children were curious and unafraid, so they moved towards him. He held up his book and pointed at the words in order to introduce himself. “Hello and I am all colours, Sam”. They asked if he was human and he said no and when asked if he was a ghost he replied, “well, not really but I am in an odd sort of way.” The children asked what he was then and he simply said, “You know.” During their conversation with the entity they learned that although he went by Sam, he didn’t really have a name, he claimed that there were others like him and that he was afraid of humans and that he was a pacifist, refusing to harm others even if they should attack him. He invited them into his hut, where he shared some wildberries and showed them a magic trick, where he placed a berry into his ear and seemingly teleported it to his mask’s eyehole and then to his mouth with quick jerks of his head. They continued to converse for almost an hour before the children decided to leave. Was he an alien in a make-do disguise? An animated scarecrow? A figment of childish imaginations? Or just a strange homeless man dressed like a clown? Whatever the truth, All Colours Sam, also known as the Sandown Ghost Clown, was never seen again. The Crazy Critter of Bald Mountain This weird looking creature was sighted by three people in the week following a fiery object that passed over the Bald Mountain near Newaukum Lake in Washington. When the local Sheriff began an investigation into the sighting he was visited by heavily armed and uniformed men who claimed to be from the Air Force and forced him to give up the case. Old Saybrook Blockheads Mary Starr was awoken in the early morning on December 16, 1957 by a bright light shining into her bedroom. She looked out the window to witness a 30 foot cigar shaped craft hovering over her yard, less than 10 feet from her house! Inside the apparent spaceship she witnessed a pair of small creatures with fleshy skirts and clear cubic “heads” containing a floating red bulb. They raised their right arms and as a third entity appeared in the portholes the ship brightened before shooting off into the sky. Space Brains of Palos Verdes As John Hodges and Pete Rodriguez were leaving a party at two in the morning they were not expecting to meet anything from out of this world but as the car turned on its headlights illuminated two bizarre entities! The men panicked and drove away, ending the story for Rodriguez as he made it home with no complications. However, in Hodges case he next became aware of himself two and a half hours later in the driveway of his home, sitting in the car as if in a trance. Troubled by the missing time, he eventually went for hypnosis in an attempt to recover his memories of the night. While under regression he claimed that while he got his friend home safely, when he returned to his own residence the disembodied brains were waiting for him! He asked them what they wanted and suddenly he was elsewhere, in a dark room with entities that looked like the classic Greys but very tall and with webbed six fingered hands and yellow eyes. They explained that the brains were “merely translators” used in order for these beings to interface telepathically with humans. He claimed they warned him that Earth had “too much power” and showed him a map of the planet covered in lights that indicated places where humans might destroy themselves. They showed him images of dead planets and made several inaccurate prophecies before he suddenly found himself back in his car. Unlike many other abductees with similar experiences Hodges did not try to make excuses for their bunk predictions or feel like it made him important in any way. He simply assumed the aliens were untrustworthy and were playing with him. The Casa Blanca Entities This is one of the strangest and most confusing accounts of a Close Encounter of the Fifth kind, as eight children ranging from the ages of four to fifteen were terrorized by a parade of extraterrestrial monsters one summer day in 1955. It started with an array of UFOs, sun-like, disk-shaped and semi-transparent, appearing and disappearing with musical pings. Then came the entities. First was a ghostly being bearing a shiny belt buckle that was so brilliant it could blind someone looking straight at it. It was followed by disembodied arms in riveted armor that seemed to beckon to the children, small strange men that used dual ray guns to paralyze and finally a many limbed creature. All through this strange arrival something spoke to the children telepathically, offering to take them away. The kids they spoke to often seemed to be entranced, moving to the dancing UFOs mindlessly and required physical force or even being hosed down to snap them out. One child even fell off a roof in an attempt to reach a UFO, only to be protected by a red force field. The weirdest part of all is that not only did adults not see anything, they couldn’t. Despite being present for the event a mother of one of the children was unaware of the paranormal happenings. Does this mean it was all in the children’s heads, as they were overtaken by some kind of playground hysteria? Or is there some alien force that not only wants our children but can make themselves invisible to undesirable observers. The Garson Invaders In 1954 three of these insectoid entities appeared to Canadian miner Ennio La Sarza. Their appearance was already exceptional by the usual standards of reported alien contact but in a particularly striking detail their faces appeared to glow in colours La Sarza had never seen before! The beings asked La Sarza to do something for them but he refused, not only to do it but to even speak of it. It was so awful and “outright apocalyptic” that he even considered asking the RCMP to lock him up in case the creatures he’d met had some way to enforce his cooperation. The Poole Pyramid This multi-hued metallic pyramid appeared in 1965 to seven year old Terrence Druce of Poole in Dorset when he awoke to it hovering over the foot of his bed. He shrieked in terror, waking his younger brother in time for him to also witness it as it faded into thin air. That encounter might have never been recorded if the brothers hadn’t seen it again the very next day, lurking in a parking lot. They said it seemed aware of their presence and turned to watch them but it did not follow them when they decided to flee the scene. Delta Dogs An anonymous woman was driving through a snowstorm on route 07 through Syracuse in January 1958. She came across what at first seemed to be a downed plane but as she approached her engine slowly ran itself down and the car stopped itself. As she desperately tried to restart the car the snowstorm calmed and more details became apparent. Projecting out of the large object she’d thought was a plane crash was a 50 foot illuminated pole. Two strange beings rose up along the pole, floating by it as it started to retract. When the pole finished sinking into the object the creatures disappeared and the craft took off so fast she couldn’t make out where it went. The Electric Serpent of Tacoma This is easily the most unusual sighting of a sea creature that I’ve ever heard of. Seven men camping on the shore of Black Fish Bay in 1893 encountered a sea monster that appeared to be cybernetic, if not entirely biomechanical! Disturbed by a horrible noise and blinding lights the men left their camp to find a huge, hairy walrus-like animal with steaming horns, bands of coppery metal and a revolving propeller-like tail! One of the men approached it to get a better look, only to be struck by an electric blast from its copper bands and fell to the ground as if dead. When one of his friends tried to pull him to safety, he was likewise shocked by the impossible animal. The other men fled into the woods after seeing two of their number seemingly killed and the Electric Serpent seemed to lose interest and swam out into Puget Sound. Once they were sure it was gone the remaining men returned to the beach and were elated to find their friends burned and stunned but still very much alive! So what happened? Was it just one of the sadly common newspaper hoaxes of the time? Or did a bunch of 19th century fishermen find a literal fucking pokemon? You decide! Stickmen The Stickmen are an extremely recent phenomenon, with reports starting within the last 10 years or so. They are described as being stick thin and roughly humanoid, sometimes with bubble heads, glowing eyespots or even top hats. They range in size from human-like to towering in excess of 20 feet. What is most interesting about them is their apparent two dimensionality, sometimes appearing the same no matter what angle they are viewed at and sometimes being able to turn to the side and vanish as though they were never there. They are also frequently reported as being accompanied by a feeling like static electricity and of aggression or hostility. Despite those impressions the Stickmen do not appear to be hostile, instead seeming surprised and immediately retreating from a witness.

[talesofafangirlwithadvr]

Jan/Feb 2021 Picks

HELLO! It’s been a while, but I’M BACK!! Life has gotten a lot busier as I started Grad School this January. So, I feel it may be tough being on time with future Monthly Wraps like I’ve done in the past with working on my MFA, and my job. I’m going to probably do more seasonal wrap ups when I get the time. I also think I’ll be posting more individual posts as I watch an episode. Because even with a busier schedule, there is always time for TV and there’s so much I want to talk about!

You know the drill. Spoilers are coming.....

You’ve been warned :)

WANDAVISION

I want to start off by mentioning that I have not watched this week’s episode yet. So the last one I saw was EPISODE  6 with Halloween in the late 90s/early 2000s.

THIS SHOW! OMG.

I didn’t know what I was signing up for when I watched the first episode and I have been blown away. It is such a cool concept and I love the fact that everyone who watches it is confused. There have been so many interesting theories out there and I am so curious what is going to wind up being true. I love all the nods to old sitcoms and TV shows as well as all the MCU Easter Eggs. (I mean they got X-men’s Quicksilver-like WOW.) It feels really Black Mirror at times with the breaking of the fourth wall. I will never be able to shake the feeling I got in Episode 3, when Vision reversed. (And then I saw a bunch of videos with him looking at the camera as Wanda looks at the TV. Eww I don’t like it, but it’s such a good move on their point.) I love the outside plot as well and the characters who were previously side characters in other MARVEL movies. The love for Jimmy Woo is astounding and I’m here for it. I’m glad it’s Friday, so I can watch the next episode. I’m just upset that we’re so close to the show ending. The next Disney Plus Marvel shows better be just as good. Wandavision set the bar high.  

NANCY DREW

If you’ve visited this page recently, you know I have a very strong love for this show. It is the only one I am still watching religiously on the CW and I am tuning in the night it airs. (That is HUGE for me.) IT IS JUST SO GOOD AND I DON’T KNOW WHERE TO START....

2x05 just aired, which would have been the season 1 finale before COVID and I have it saved on my DVR to watch again. There’s just so much I want to relive and catch that I missed the first watch through. It would have been SUCH A GOOD FINALE, but I’m happy that we can continue with new episodes starting next week. And with the way it ended...there’s so much I need to know!! I’m just curious how fast they’re going to develop certain plots. I love the Drew Crew and how they are a family. Each character is so well developed and their chemistry is great. I love learning more about each of them and watching them develop. My favorite character is definitely Ace. I love all his witty lines and how he is opening up more to the group as well as to us, the audience, as we get more of a look into his personal life. I enjoy all of his scenes with his dad and specifically liked when they were celebrating Shabbat. (I am also here for the Nancy and Ace content. I gush more about this on my other blog: lydia-whogowith-stiles. Check it out if you want to hear more.)

THE WATCH

When I watched the Christmas special (or was it New Years? and why does that feel so long ago) of Doctor Who, BBC America kept advertising a new show called the Watch. Due to the extensive amount of commercials, I decided to tape the first two episodes (which premiered back to back) to see what it was all about. I was unaware that this series is based on the book series created by Terry Pratchett. When I came to see if people were talking about it on Tumblr, I saw that a lot of people didn’t like it because of how drastically different it was. As I was unfamiliar with the original, I can’t compare. The TV show was eight episodes and I just watched the last one that aired this past Sunday. I definitely liked the first half of the season more (I noticed my mind start to drift as I watched later ones), but thought the finale was good. I really enjoyed how they incorporated the theme song. I didn’t realize the connection earlier and now can’t stop humming it. (I don’t know if there will be another season or not.) I enjoyed the characters and how it was like nothing I’ve seen on TV before. It got me thinking a lot about blending genres. I would still recommend checking it out.  

ZOEY’S EXTRORDINARY PLAYLIST

I was VERY excited for this show to come back. I loved the first season so much. It’s just such a heartfelt show and it helped me survive the early parts of quarantine. So far, this season I am noticing how detailed the musical performances are. Mandy Moore is doing an AMAZING job. The choreography is *chefs kiss* I also feel like the song choices have been great and not always the ones I think that would be picked. We are getting to learn more about each character and watch Zoey and her family as they continue life after losing Mitch. I am here for Mo and Max’s restaurant. I think the concept would be so cool in real life. Who knows maybe we’ll see one now. (Max’s rendition of ‘Numb’ was amazing. I’ve never heard the song like that and I think it might be one of my favorites of the season so far.) I hope Max and Zoey get back together by the end of the season. It did feel fast, so I do understand why they had to break up, but it still makes me sad that we watched them get together and then it was taken away from us. The last episode before the break was so powerful and I think the show did an amazing job applying real world issues into their plot. It did not feel forced at all and brought so much awareness. Upset we have to wait so long for a new episode. 

SECRETS OF SULPHUR SPRINGS

Are you looking for a good mystery, but don’t think Disney Channel can provide it? Think again. I have to say, when I started watching I was not expecting this show to be a part of my monthly picks. It pleasantly surprised me. The show involves the mystery of a young girl, Savannah, who went mysteriously missing at camp back in the 90s. Apparently, her ghost still haunts the hotel that was on the camp grounds to this day. Then Griffin and his family buy the hotel with intent of fixing it up and reopening it after all these years. The people in the town think they’re crazy because of its past. But there’s something more going on with Griffin’s dad as well as some of the other adults in the town. They know something about Savannah’s disappearance, but aren’t saying anything about it. While this is a kid’s show (and only half hour episodes) it has been interesting to see where the story will go. I’m sure I am imagining much more intense things for her disappearance than what actually happened. It’s also not super cheesy or have bad acting, which is refreshing. (I really feel Disney Channel has gone down.) Either way, I don’t know how many episodes are left to air, but I think we’re pretty close to the end. If you’re looking for a quick, entertaining mystery I would highly recommend.  

MISS SCARLET AND THE DUKE

And here come my period pieces (ironically both from Masterpiece/PBS this time). I know last year I felt like I watched a lot of historical watches at the beginning of the year. We’ll see if that continues to happen this year too. It does serve as a nice escape. Plus, these are some really good stories. 

Miss Scarlet and the Duke is a part of Masterpiece Mystery on PBS, although it aired on a different network in the UK. It is (another) mystery series (shocking I know with that title!) It follows Eliza Scarlet who has a nose for mystery, but as a woman living in the Victorian era does not have any rights except for being a wife and mother (two things she would rather not be). When her father dies (apparently from a heart attack...emphasis on apparently), she takes over his Private Investigator business. Much to the dismay of long time family friend William “The Duke” who is a Detective Inspector for Scotland Yard. Eliza is often in his office as she gets arrested for being places she shouldn’t or trying to get information out of him. This element of Eliza having to work in a very male dominated Victorian society is one that I feel I haven’t really seen on a TV show. I really like her dynamic with William. There’s always that feeling of “will they won’t they,” but I don’t feel the show just focuses on that. The mystery is the heart of it all. This last week’s episode was REALLY GOOD. As we got to find out more regarding her father’s death. I hear a lot of people want a season 2 and I am right there with them. This show deserves it. 

ALL CREATURES GREAT AND SMALL

Another PBS Masterpiece watch. I love this show, so much more than I was anticipating. It is so heartfelt and makes me so happy and in a good mood after watching it. It follows James Herriot who has recently graduated from veterinary school, but is struggling finding a job. Then he gets a call from Siegfried Farnon’s veterinary practice in Yorkshire. Siegfried is known for having a harsh demeanor and temper, so the assistants he hires don’t often last long. Spoiler alert, that should be pretty obvious, James does. The cast of characters are so lovely and I like all their relationships with one another. The show takes places in the 1930s and I realized I don’t often watch things in this era, so that has been fun to explore. The sets and locations are BEAUTIFUL. In the episodes, we often get these amazing shots that sweep over the exterior and I want to travel to Yorkshire like tomorrow. (See more escapism, it’s great.) The main plot follows everyone interact in the town and watching James become a more confident and experienced veterinarian (which I decided I could never do after watching). I heard that it has been renewed for a second season so that is so fantastic. 

FATE: THE WINX SAGA

The first things I heard about this show was how disappointed everyone was in how they decided to adapt the Winx Club show from their childhood. On this I can agree, but I decided to watch the show anyway. I pretended that it was something new entirely and I have to say I enjoyed it. Of course, there were parts that bothered me and then I had to remember it was a teen show, so angst would be annoying. I think overall it was too short (and should have at least 8 or 10 episodes), but I’m happy that they were able to conclude the main plot well. (Although we did get that cliffhanger, but it is exciting that it was released the show just got renewed for a second season the other day.) I really liked Silva-mainly because it was great seeing Thomas from Downton Abbey in something else. I also enjoyed seeing Jacob Duchman in more things. It was a surprise to see him in Medici and I am just happy he is adding more to his IMDB. 

Quick and addicting watch. Add it to your queue. Just forget it’s supposed to be based on something else. 

BLOWN AWAY SEASON 2

Continuing with the Netflix picks, one of my FAVORITE picks from 2020 got a season 2 and it is already on Netflix! That’s right Blown Away season 2 is now available. I seriously loved the first season of this show SO MUCH! Glass blowing is such a magical process and I am mesmerized every time I watch it. It felt weird starting this show with all new contestants, but then Alex came back as a guest judge and I was so happy. It is just as addicting and I cannot wait to see who wins this season. I am just trying not to rush the episodes. 

VIOLETTA SEASON 3 UPDATE

I know you were all dying to know...

After taking a hiatus from watching during the holidays, I have gotten back into watching the Disney Channel telenovela on Disney Plus. I am now on episode 68. Things are really starting to happen and I am finding myself getting sucked in again, which makes me happy. Episode 60 (pictured above) had A LOT happen and really was a turning point for the second half of the show. Can’t wait to keep watching. Some really awesome songs from these last set of episodes. 

AND NOW FOR MY NOT LOVING IT PICK:

LEGACIES

This third season has really disappointed me so far. As I’ve previously discussed on this page, it feels like they are just reusing previous plots from the last two seasons when there is so much more they can do. There was so much promise for this show and I loved the Vampire Diaries and Originals so much, that it’s sad to see Legacies miss the mark. I wish they gave Hope more storylines that didn’t revolve around Landon. She is such a strong character and is SO POWERFUL. This is something we rarely see and it shouldn’t only be shown to save a guy (multiple times). Their couple plot is continually doing the same thing. I want to see a lot more development with this show over this season to keep me watching. I am actually happy that there isn’t a new episode until March 11th. (That’s saying something...) 

[idlecreature]

*sidles up to you* hey man, want a Magnus Archives rarepair? I’ve got one right here you can have for free. It’s Mordechai Lukas/Hezekiah Wakely. Here’s my sales pitch: 

Mordechai Lukas is only forty years old, but he’s in very poor health. Granted, he’s been on death’s door for several decades, having never fully recovered from the excision of a thyroid tumour - a surgery that scarred his throat significantly, making it hurt to speak. But this isn’t his usual moaning about feeling cold and depressed all the time. This is the doctor listening to the slow gurgle of his heart and telling him “you shouldn’t be alive. your days are numbered”.   

(cut for length)

And Mordechai’s honestly fine with dying. A little.... too enthusiastic, even. On his trip to Italy he forwent normal accommodation to break into and sleep in mausoleums, and he might have returned from the continent a little... haunted. He’s designed and redesigned the family mausoleum a dozen times, and he’s had his own funeral planned for years much to the chagrin of his friends. “What flowers should adorn my funerary wreath?” he writes to Jonah Magnus. “Can we please change the subject?” Jonah replies. “And I swear to the one above if you send me a memento mori I am throwing it in the fireplace.”

Mordechai’s fulfilled his life’s requirements -- he’s married into the wealthy mercantile class, fathered children, and spends most of his time either in a graveyard or wandering like a ghost through Moorland house. His wife, Charlotte, really only wanted a man’s name on her letterheads and spends most of her time on a ship somewhere between London and India. She’s only interested in her possessions, her wealth, in ensuring the books are balancing. Her family made their money in opium prospecting and she’s pressuring Mordechai to open the lands surrounding Moorland for coal mining after a few test bores unearthed rich black seams. Mordechai’s essentially like, “over my dead body,” and Charlotte’s like, “so any day now! :))))” and Mordechai’s sole reason for stubbornly clinging to life is to protect his family’s ancestral lands. 

Mordechai has to occasionally rub shoulders with Charlotte’s friends in the East India Shipping Company. Among them are the Beale brothers, Daniel and Thomas. They have a younger brother, rich but temperamentally unsuited for their family’s line of work. His name is Nathaniel Beale, and, oh boy, he is a treat. He’s awfully similar to Barnabas Bennett, shy and closeted and yearning. Nathaniel tells Mordechai all about his good friend Hezekiah, who he’s so, so worried about, who makes poor Nathaniel ache with hunger and longing and shame all the same. Finally, some delicious fucking food thinks Mordechai Lukas. 

But if this man really is like Barnabas, Mordechai wants to enjoy his demise. So he obtains Hezekiah’s address with a mind to murdering Hezekiah and relishing Nathaniel’s grief and loneliness. It might be Mordechai’s last communion with his god. 

And that’s how Mordechai ends up in a quiet countryside graveyard, staring at the man in a dead sleep at the bottom of an open grave. 

And hot damn Hezekiah Wakely is a sleeping beauty. Muscular, square, with hands big enough to circle both of Mordechai’s wrists if he were to pin Mordechai down. (And Mordechai would very much like someone to pin him down.) He almost feels sympathy for poor, repressed Nathaniel but nonetheless summons the fog of The Lonely and it swallows Hezekiah whole. 

But the crawling fog parts around the sleeping man. There is a certain solidness about him, the weight of someone touched by another power. Mordechai sighs in annoyance but keeps watching Hezekiah. Slipping away once the man blinks awake, stretches his long, tanned limbs. 

Mordechai keeps close company with the Beales after that. Nathaniel passes away in January of 1839. Mordechai finds his grave in yet another lonely graveyard and is absolutely delighted that many of Nathaniel’s sparse acquaintances have forgotten him already. 

Hezekiah is curled up on the freshly turned earth. “I should hang for it,” Hezekiah says. 

“How about a new job?” Mordechai says.

“I’m a murderer,” Hezekiah says. 

“Hold my beer,” Mordechai says.

Mordechai convinces Hezekiah to work as Moorland house’s groundskeeper. By the time the pair of them make it back to Kent, Hezekiah knows about The Buried, The Lonely, the whole wretched Lot. 

“You have a lovely mausoleum, sir,” Hezekiah says. 

“Shame no-one’s christened it yet,” Mordechai replies. (He plans to be the first.)

Time passes.

And Thomas Beale passes away in 1841. 

The Magnus Institute opens its London branch in 1841. 

Daniel Beale passes away in 1842. 

By 1843, the world has forgotten Nathaniel even existed. Except, of course, for Mordechai, who keeps Nathaniel and Hezekiah’s correspondence.  

Mordechai’s now spending 90% of his time watching Hezekiah. When one of Mordechai’s many faceless relatives dies, he sits on the steps of the family chapel as Hezekiah digs. He lets Hezekiah sleep in the grave before the burial. He likes how peaceful the man looks, even when the grave dirt falls in his eyes. He even thinks about burying Hezekiah himself, how that would be another kind of embrace. 

Hezekiah more often than not sleeps outside, on the moor, and when the weather drives him inside he sleeps fitfully in his room in the cellar. 

(Hezekiah sings when it rains, bitten-off, wordless, self-soothing melodies that sound like oncoming earthquakes through the thick walls of Moorland House.) 

(Mordechai listens to him sing and tries to harmonize, and, although the knot of scar tissue in his throat makes his voice sound like grinding metal, isn’t that something?) 

The next time Mordechai catches Hezekiah dourly shuffling to the basement for a restless night he snags the larger man’s wrist. 

“You might sleep better in my bed,” Mordechai says. 

“???” Hezekiah says. 

“Come to bed with me,” Mordechai repeats. 

“!!!!!” Hezekiah says. 

And, well, Hezekiah likes the pressure of Mordechai lying on top of him. Hezekiah is warm, and soft, like peat, and if Hezekiah’s hands snake up to circle Mordechai while he sleeps, then what about it? In Mordechai’s world, they can’t be together in any way that matters. It’s just another thing that isolates him from polite society. 

"The groundskeeper? The man who smells like a bog?” Charlotte says, but she’s relieved it’s not a mistress who might want to live more ambitiously, that they might have to keep a London townhouse for because Charlotte’s the one who’d be saddled with the fiscal responsibility. She’s already writing monthly cheques to buy the discretion of a certain J. Magnus.

And Charlotte has an idea. “Dear husband :)” she says. “If you don’t let me open a colliery I might expose your little affair and you’ll get thrown in jail and I don’t think you’d last very long, dear, with your poor heart :) and when you die I’ll do it anyway :) so how about it?”  

Charlotte never makes empty threats. But at the same time, Mordechai is connected to the lands around Moorland house in a very real way.  

He doesn’t really have a choice. 

Charlotte opens a mine on Lukas land. 

They have their first grandchild, a boy, and Mordechai names him Nathaniel. Hezekiah just smiles at the baby, warmly. (His smiles are so warm.) (Mordechai is spending more and more time at his bedroom window, watching his groundskeeper. Surrounded by bottles of medicine that never make him feel any better.) 

“Are you going to die?” Hezekiah says. 

“It’s likely,” Mordechai says. For no reason he can name, the prospect of his funeral no longer delights him. 

Hezekiah is silent. “I hope the Lord forgives me,” he says, eventually, and a tremor runs through the entire house, and Mordechai hears, far-off in the distance, the desperate peal of a ringing bell. 

An accident in the colliery, they call it. A mineshaft cave-in, trapping 26 men and boys 150 feet under the earth, running out of breathable air, scraping at the cold, unforgiving rock until their fingers and lungs bleed. Crushed and choking and feared enough to paint the walls with it. There’s a thin plume of black smoke. (Mordechai can hear them crying and begging.) 

The mine closes. There’s a lengthy investigation. It will cost a considerable amount of money to sink another pit. Echoing, cloying silence wraps around the abandoned worksite. Mordechai can leave his bedroom for the first time in months. 

He sits on the chapel steps and watches the muscles of Hezekiah’s back work under his sweat-slick blouse. “Do you think...” Mordechai starts. 

There’s something in Mordechai’s voice that makes Hezekiah straighten up. 

“Do you think, when I die, you might cut a hole in the side of my coffin?” Mordechai says. “So, when you die, if there’s a hole in your coffin, our coffins could. Lie together. And. We might be able to hold hands under the earth.” 

It’s the most he’s said at once in decades, and his throat is raw for it. 

“I could do that,” Hezekiah says. “When are you going to die?” 

Mordechai sighs. “You’ve bought me a little time. Soon.” 

“I’ll make you a Coffin,” Hezekiah says, his voice oddly constricted, as if he’s speaking through silt. He drops his shovel and walks off, towards Moorland house. 

Later, from his windowsill, Mordechai watches Hezekiah cut down a whitebeam, feels the heft of it in his large hands. He’s too far away to gauge his expression accurately, but he seems to appraise the wood and finds it passable. He hauls it inside. 

The mere act of watching has left Mordechai feeling bone-tired, and he sleeps. 

And sleeps. 

(In between the sleeping, Mordechai finds himself cradled in long arms, sunburned by the late summer sun. The press of a spoon to his lips as he’s fed a soup that tastes like dirt and tannins.)

And sleeps. 

(When he chokes a little on fluid-filled lungs, he feels warm hands rubbing his back and the choking eases.) 

Moorland house is awfully quiet. 

A hand scraping softly on his collarbone shifts Mordechai blearily into consciousness. “It’s done,” Hezekiah says. “Would you like to see it?” 

Mordechai nods. His limbs are oddly discombobulated, his heart feels heavy and dragging, and he looks up at Hezekiah. The man scoops him up like he weighs nothing and carries him, bridal-style, down the cold, empty hallway.  

The gate to the mausoleum opens on well-oiled hinges. It’s no longer empty; a single coffin now sits in the marbled room. It’s simple - rough, even - the whitebeam a pale, unvarnished yellow. But there’s undeniably a presence to it, an undercurrent that draws you towards it. Hezekiah approaches close enough that Mordechai can run his hand down its flank. 

“I’m not an artist,” Hezekiah says. “It’s even a bit simple-looking, in this grand place.” 

“It’s perfect,” Mordechai says. “Would it be too morbid for me to give it a christening? Try it on for size?” 

“Pot and kettle,” Hezekiah says. 

“True,” Mordechai says. 

“Mordechai...” Hezekiah shuffles on his feet. “I would like to embrace you. Under the earth. It has to be deep enough that nothing can live there, where it is quiet and cold and the dirt clings like damp to your skin and dark enough that our touch can hide in secret, that’s the place we can be together. I think if I stayed here when you were buried the pressure of the world would be so much more than the pressure of the dirt and I don’t think I could bear it. I would like to hold you, under there, and you would have space from the choke and I would not be alone. I think I would like to do that forever, or, at least, until our bodies are less human than they are water and earth.” 

“I would like that too,” Mordechai says. “It’s like a marriage.” 

“It’s more than a marriage,” Hezekiah replies. 

“Yes,” Mordechai says, and lets his head sink down against Hezekiah’s chest, measures Hezekiah’s strong heartbeat against his own, thready and uneven. It’s so much more than he deserves. 

Hezekiah opens the coffin. It makes a comically sharp scraping noise like it’s the door to a vampire’s crypt in an opera, like thousands of paper bats will fly out of it and fill the room. 

It is silent, and cold, instead. 

Mordechai never gets his funeral. 

Most of Mordechai’s papers get passed along to the Magnus Institute. 

And two hundred years later, Jonathan Sims reads some letters. 

[iron-touch]

Author’s Notes: Chapter 7 (Ghosts in the Rearview Mirror)

What? I’m posting twice in one month? I know, unheard of.

If you’re wondering what happened to chapter 6, it was a bonus chapter that went over Cab’s backstory. These bonus chapters won’t receive author’s notes, but they will be considered part of the chapter order just to keep consistent with how they’re organized on AO3.

If this chapter feels segmented, that’s because the two parts were going to be their own, separate chapters in my original draft. There would have been a fight scene placed between them where the group fought an enemy Stand user at a restaurant that tried to poison their food with his Stand (think reverse Tonio). He wasn’t going to be a Masquerader or anything, he was just very racist against French people and tried to poison Michelle as soon as he heard her accent. The fight was cut because it ultimately accomplished nothing in the overall narrative and the Stand itself was severely underdeveloped. So long, racist Belgium chef, you will be missed.

That being said, the first part of the chapter where the group crosses the border was also heavily reworked from my initial outline. In order to circumvent border control, Michelle would’ve hidden in the trunk of the car under all of Sara’s bags (we also would’ve seen the guitar here rather than at the hotel). At the border itself, the group would’ve been pulled over by an uptight border control agent who insisted on investigating their trunk. This would’ve ultimately lead to Iron Maiden shield bashing the border control agent, knocking him unconscious. This scene was cut because apparently, yeah, there really isn’t much border control in that part of Europe. I knew it was much laxer than it is in the US, but damn, no passport check? So I ended up reworking the whole scene. I’m glad I did, honestly, this much better shows how Michelle tends to overthink things when she doesn’t need to.

The date of Rumor’s first diary journal entry is dated January 6th, which was the same day that the first chapter of Iron Touch was posted!

Again, I’m aiming for locational and cultural accuracy, but I have never been to Belgium and am only going off of the internet for details. If I get something wrong, please let me know.

The second half of the chapter is also interesting because it’s technically the first part of Iron Touch that I wrote. I wrote a scene of Michelle and Sara talking about their respective families as I was conceptualizing them all the way back in September. While not much from that first draft made it back into the final product, some moments did, such as Sara deflecting Michelle’s questions by pointing out the pony-shaped cloud.

Trust me it is absolutely essential that Sara mentions how buff Polnareff is trust me guys I’m the author I would know 🙏

On a more serious note, this chapter should really start to highlight the duality between Michelle and Sara. It goes a lot deeper than just introvert vs. extrovert. Michelle is stuck living in the past, while Sara encourages her to leave it behind and move forward. Yet Sara herself ignores her own past the best she can and gets agitated whenever it comes up.

The way Sara wears her hair in every scene she’s in is symbolically relevant.

Music references:

None this time! Don’t worry, we’ll get a bunch of new ones in the next chapter.

[kukurubean]

really long character survey » kassem

tagged by @to-the-voiceless​! i feel like i’ve done a version of this for rothe before, so i picked kassem. tagging: @theseventhdawn​ gimme jorge, @aethernoise​, @ahlis-xiv​, @holyja​, @coeurlfist​, and whoever else wants to!

BASICS.

FULL  NAME: Kassem Tariq

NICKNAME : Tariq

AGE : 29

BIRTHDAY : 8th Sun of the 1st Astral Moon (1/8)

ETHNIC  GROUP : Midlander Hyur

NATIONALITY : Hannish

LANGUAGE / S : Eorzean Common, Hannish

SEXUAL  ORIENTATION : Asexual? probably? hell if I know anymore

ROMANTIC  ORIENTATION : I would’ve said aromantic but uh SOMEONE fell in love

RELATIONSHIP  STATUS : :^)c

HOME  TOWN / AREA : Radz-at-Han

CURRENT HOME RESIDENCE : Ul’dah

PROFESSION : Alchemist; private investigator

PHYSICAL.

HAIR : Very thick, considerably curly, and pushed back the best he can manage lol

EYES : Glow-y because I say so. Ice blue.

FACE : Defined cheekbones, brows, perpetual scowl

LIPS : Probably frowning.

COMPLEXION : Gods bless Thavnairian skin care bc otherwise he’d have enough frown lines to make any middle-aged woman gasp in horror.

BLEMISHES : Let’s be honest this man’s gonna have circles under his eyes for the rest of his life

SCARS : Minor acid burns from cheap Ul'dahn gloves

TATTOOS : None

HEIGHT : 5'6"

BUILD : Small for a midlander; not exactly petite, but it’s starting to become obvious his current habits are taking a toll on his body

FEATURES : He has a pretty large birthmark on his lower back 

ALLERGIES : None 

USUAL  HAIR  STYLE : Pushed back, usually falls into his face esp when it’s late.

USUAL  FACE  LOOK : (눈_눈)

USUAL  CLOTHING : Long cloaks, muted colors, Ikraam’s Laziest Model Ever

PSYCHOLOGY.

FEAR / S : Dying on Ul’dahn soil.

ASPIRATION / S :  To go home. Raise their family’s standing. Make $$$.

POSITIVE  TRAITS : He’s a genius.

NEGATIVE  TRAITS : He does not use his genius well.

MBTI : INTJ (The Architect)

ZODIAC: Nald’thal

TEMPERAMENT : I googled this. Melancholic?

SOUL TYPE / S : I also googled this. Thinker?

ANIMALS : Cat

VICE HABIT / S : Not sleeping.

FAITH : I’ll say Twelve until we see a Thav/Hannish character throw us a bone on what they practice. But I HC they have a different faith distinction.

GHOSTS ? : Nope.

AFTERLIFE ? : Nope.

REINCARNATION ? : Hm. Maybe. I’m not allowed to say maybe on him but I honestly can’t decide what he’d reply with rn.

ALIENS ? : Nah.

EDUCATION  LEVEL : (Brianna, yelling about Thancred: HE HAS A PHD.)

FAMILY.

FATHER : Eilqar Tariq

MOTHER : Firuzeh Tariq

SIBLINGS : Ikraam Tariq

EXTENDED  FAMILY : I mean, yeah. Have I made them? no,

NAME MEANING / S : Tariq usually refers to things that appear at night, describing both travelers and the stars.

FAVORITES.

BOOK : Some big complicated alchemy tome that he has at home and desperately wants back. The only copy he’s found in Eorzea is grossly marked up by a Ruby Avenue vendor.

DEITY : Thal,

HOLIDAY : Heavensturn

MONTH : January 

SEASON :  Winter

PLACE : His room. At home.

WEATHER : Rainstorms

SOUND / S: None. Silence. (or rain)

SCENT / S :  Incense

TASTE / S :  Nut bake

FEEL / S : Putting on clothes warmed by the sun.

ANIMAL / S : cat,

NUMBER : 9

COLORS : Blue

EXTRA.

TALENTS : ...alchemy skfdjhsd

BAD  AT : normal human functions

TURN  ONS : idk

TURN  OFFS : idk

HOBBIES: Working. Passing out when the work is done and starting all over again.

TROPES : Good Is Not Nice, Icy Blue Eyes, Badass Longcoat, The Insomniac, Deadpan Snarker,  Bunny-Ears Lawyer , Black and White Morality, i don’t want to spend any more time on tv tropes,

QUOTES : “You’re blooming at the mouth again. / A field of red, your hands catch like tinder. / This messy hunger dissected on the table with open eyes. / To say you gave a name for the rain.” — Ana Carrizo, A Field of Red

MUN QUESTIONS.

Q1 : If you could write your character your way in their own movie,  what would it be called,  what style would it be filmed in, and what would it be about?          

A1 : I’m no good with movies. I’d stick him in an Ace Attorney game so he can be even more of an illegal menace than Edgeworth with the autopsy report (because Kassem made the report.)

Q2 : What would their soundtrack/score sound like?          

A2 : Boy do I have the album for you. (It would be the Suitei Yuuzai OST.)

Q3 : Why did you start writing this character?          

A3 : I was bored in a course I was taking to get a law assistant certification. I was joking with friends about this text post and making a character who could be that law professor.

Q4 : What first attracted you to this character?          

A4 : I feel like it’s obvious how much more comfortable I am with Kassem compared to Rothe. He’s a bunch of tropes I like.

Q5 : Describe the biggest thing you dislike about your muse.

A5 : It’s frustrating having to define all things to black/white. I can’t duck out and go halfway with him; I have to make a solid decision and he has to carry it out.

Q6 : What do you have in common with your muse?          

A6 : Our MBTI’s are one off so take that as you will. (INTJ vs INFJ.) We’re both a little too averse to sleeping than we should be. I’m a boring ex-law student turned accountant. Though I wish I could calculate numbers as well as he can...

Q7 : How does your muse feel about you?          

A7 : LMAO. We’d get along, especially if we were working together. 

Q8 : What characters does your muse have interesting interactions with?        

A8 : I really love his involvement with @theseventhdawn​‘s mafia, Vigil. It was a setting I never really considered putting him in, so it’s fun to think of him interacting with a group that doesn’t exactly abide by his personal creed or expectations.

Q9 : What gives you inspiration to write your muse?        

A9 : ...I just really enjoy picking on him.

Q10 : How long did this take you to complete?          

A10 : I honestly have no clue because I was doing about 4 other tasks while I filled this out (over several days,)

[not-a-statement]

Chasing ghosts. Chapter 2

So for some reason I can’t edit my masterlist for this story. On of us - me or tumblr - is definitely a clumsy fool. 

Anyway, it’s been a long time but here I post again. This chapter introduces original characters and focuses on them exclusively.

Critics and opinions are always appreciated.

Baton Rouge,LA, January 23, 2035

The general office of the State Police Department was filled with sounds and people typical for Monday morning. Investigators, detectives, even a couple of court clerks were moving slowly between the work tables. Phones ringing, Maggie's coffee machine softly grumbling, detective Nate Parker rants about his little rendez vous with a couple of girls past weekend, which caused an occasional bursts of laughter from a small group of listeners. Someone’s complaining about son, who’s got yet another detention at school. That scallywag was caught smoking in the school closet during lunch break. “I mean, come on! What’s the school’s backyard is for? What’s wrong with these children?”

All this leaving no chances at all for detective Robert Brooks to focus on completing the report. Frankly, if there was anything consistent to write then probably no excuses could take place. The missing was found the week prior in the Pine Prairie area - one of the tourists called the police and said that near the shore of Lake Millers lied a body of a dead girl dressed in a white light dress. By the time detectives and the team of medical experts arrived, a decent crowd of onlookers gathered around the corpse, hence searching for traces at the crime scene wouldn’t be for big avail.

What else?

There’s no doubt that the victim was killed - even though the lungs were full of liquid and the fact that clothes and skin of the deceased were pretty much hinting that she’s spent plenty of time in the water, a rope trace was found on her neck. So, the drowning was staged.

By whom?

Well, here’s where interesting questions start.

No wonder why the crime scene was so crowded - case after case were quaking the whole country. People kept disappearing in a daylight - single men and women of different ages, usually without family and friends - those who wouldn’t be immediately claimed missing. Generally the search would last for about a week or two only to let detectives stand before such corpses (and it could’ve been worse, if one believed Nate the Chatter Box) or find victims alive but absolutely insane. Wearing rags, disoriented, and with no memory at all, no one even remembered their names.

People were frightened. And no one had even a small clue, even a hint, about this maniac’s whereabouts or appearance. His work was flawless - every time a new case appeared in press, this bastard’s already in another state. Probably.

At least everything looked like that  - no one had accurate information. And, which was a very bad thing to say, such cases were a nightmare for any detective - perfect addition to the record. There were adventurers, of course, who wanted to catch their own Zodiac, but most people were genuinely concerned about their careers.

And so it happened that careerist Brooks was not only brought to a partner of the adventurer Tam Bennett, and more so, he was appointed to investigate such a case.

Robert sighed, once again glancing over the printed report page on the computer screen.

Elizabeth Arthrisha Marlowe, born in 2019, blah blah blah ... Numerous abrasions on the arms in the forearm, blah blah ... The time of death was determined between 9 pm and midnight on January 17 of this year ... and more rubbish. Seriously, what else to write?

When he and Tam just started the investigation about two weeks prior Robert was saving hope that that time would be a fluke. Children and adolescents haven’t figured in such cases so far, and a sixteen-year-old girl could go to carouse with friends, or with some guy - anything. But the fact was bulletproof  - the corpse of Lake Millers was identified, parents were heartbroken, Captain Hernandez was constantly inspecting for progress on the case, and Bennett was obsessed with all sorts of theories. Or women.

Where is, by the way, that boy this time? Monday, ten in the morning! Wasn’t it Tam who kept calling me all Sunday while I tried to spend the day off with family, and reminded of all the chores to do on Monday? That’s not even funny.

Okay...This won’t work. Perhaps the morning coffee-tobacco ritual will help clear the thoughts? Yes, sounds good. A cup of Colombian black with cream, a spoon of cane Mexican sugar and a pinch of cinnamon in a compartment with a cigarette and fresh morning air. The first good idea for today, Brooks.

Robert got up from his desk stretched and headed for the dispatcher's counter. After receiving his equivalent of the Holy Grail from  Maggie, he passed the doors leading to the office, a corridor filled with civilians who were brought here or who came by their own will, then the hall and finally went into the parking lot in front of the department building. The weather was pleasing, here and there, however, small flocks of clouds were gathering, but the sun was shining warmly. The city, long awakened, performed a symphony of the weekday - passing pickup trucks and small cars, ordinary townspeople and important birds like lawyers and real estate agents scurrying around here and there. You could even hear a heavy truck driving in the distance.

Someday all this will be rewarded, Brooks thought, releasing cigarette smoke and slowly sipping from a mug with the inscription "Best Daddy in the World". Another five years, and I’ll be in higher position, and five more - and here comes the retirement. A small house in California somewhere in Palo Alto, a neat little garden for my Mary and a home winery for both of us. Our Aaron and Lucy would come over for Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter ... imagine - a festive table with the family and you are sitting at the head of the table. What else can you dream about? Life will be like this cup of coffee - warm, reliable and with a very long aftertaste, if sipping small ...

“Aaaaaah!!!!”

Mother of…!!!

Brooks threw up his hands in surprise, spilling half the contents of the mug on the sidewalk. Thank God not on a work shirt.

"Are you trying to give me a heart attack at thirty-seven?" he yelled into Bennett's laughing face, sticking out of the silver Volkswagen’s window. Tam's hand was still on the honk.

"Seriously," he panted through his laughter, "you would see your face, Bob! Standing there, caught up in a daydream, and then this - Aaaaah!”

He mocked Robert’s grimace of horror.

That laughing blond face was so tempting to throw the rest of coffee at it! First he’s late for work, and now he decided to mock me!

All right, calm down, Robert, calm down. It would be disrespectful on your part to respond to the pranks of this toddler overgrown.

"Not funny, Tam," he said, trying to sound dignified, "what took you so long, by the way?"

“Oh, oh, oh! " Tam started fidgeting in the seat, shaking his arms around him.

"Wait ... where was it ..."

He began to search for something, bending in all imaginable and unthinkable directions. The front passenger seat, glove compartment, pockets on the doors, even under his feet. As Tam reached there, his head fell on the steering wheel with a swing, causing one more honk.

"Just find a spot and park already" Brooks said, rubbing the bridge of his nose with two fingers, pain in his voice. Seriously, not a partner, but a complete disappointment.

After Bennett parked his car in the far corner of the parking lot, and Brooks reached the porch of the building, finishing his coffee (great, the sugar at the bottom did not dissolve completely, and now the last sips are too sweet, splendid), they exchanged a handshake and went inside.

"I'm still waiting for the answer, young man" Robert said as strictly as he could as they crossed the hall.

"First, I'm not your son," replied Tam, smiling. "And second, I decided that I’d make you a surprise."

"What surprise for God’s sake? What are you up to again?”

"Don’t worry, Bobby, you'll like it! Very much!”

"Can you at least pretend sometimes that you're a professional?”  Robert didn’t like all those glances from people around, attracted by Tam's enthusiastic exclamations.

"Nah, I'm gorgeous just as I am" Bennett shrugged as they approached the door leading to the general office.

"Take the keys and wait for me at your car. Mine is... umm ... not in the purest condition today. I need to go to Sam, I'll be back in a moment”.

“Oh for love of...”

"Maggie! My doll!” - Bennett exclaimed, pressing his lips to the hand of the dispatcher, who immediately blushed and playfully giggled. The white blouse, she was wearing, obviously lacked buttons in certain places, which caused a lot of discomfort to Brooks. Bennett, apparently, didn’t mind this kind of view.

"How was the weekend, my sugar? Had many men kneeled?”

"I think you'd know better, detective," Maggie purred innocently  "or am I wrong?"

Really? In front of the whole office, these two would exchange so unconcealed expressions of passion and lust? Where’s the ethics committee when you need one?

"I'd love to know more ... dig a little deeper if you let me put it this way ..."

Wow! Okay, not listening to this! Gross and obnoxious!

"All in good time, detective. But next time you shouldn’t forget your promises about ... special equipment.”

The phone rang at the dispatcher's desk, putting an end to this vulgar scene much to Robert's relief. While Maggie, still crimson and still with a half-detached blouse, were answering the call, Tam winked at his partner and pronounced "handcuffs" with his lips, pointing his finger in the direction of that spicy’s lover. Just like a student at a dorm party.

"Don’t forget the keys!" he added, quickly moving away from the counter in the direction of Captain Hernandez office “I'll be in a sec!”

Brooks stayed where he stood, setting the mug on the counter. 

Here we go. Got nothing else to do but to stand here and wonder what this scoundrel has in mind. Every time. Every goddamn time. Easy to wound up with a half-turn, and everybody better run away within a radius of a couple of miles around. Cars soar into the air, tiles fly from the houses’ roofs, women in  panic, children crying. A real hurricane. Safe for the name - Tam, not Andrew.

"It's not even the first month that he works here. Sam lectures him constantly, I give instructions, and look at him. Always jumping ahead, as if his head’s made of stone and will demolish any wall”  Robert thought out loud “what's even going on in his brain? ..”

"Dunno much about the head, Bob," Maggie said in a caramel voice reappearing at the counter, dreamily slapping her eyelashes, "but trust me, what's going on in his pants ..."

"You know what, I already regret saying it out loud!" Jesus Christ, would this vulgarity scene come to an end already?!

Brooks got to his desk and sat down in the armchair. The plan for today, which could hardly be called consistent as it was, began to become completely insane. First the report, which he had nothing to write in, then spilled coffee, all sorts of bedtime insinuations - yes, Robert knew what sex was and where the children came from, he himself was a father, but that's too much - and now it's time to arm with a trowel and a little plastic bag to walk this boy. We ought to find a leash. Maggie probably would have one ...

No, no, that's a bad joke. Very bad.

Okay, probably the report can be a time killer, while Tam’s chatting with the captain. It’s not like time killers are always pleasing but what you gonna do, right?

At least there were some people who’d probably be happy with whatever Brooks wrote for a report of an adolescent girl’s horrifying murder. Newspaper editors.

It looked like they’re making it a competition to draw more attention to their source of information compared to competitors. "The Oregon maniac visits Louisiana." "Yet another reason to use the door chain." "Mysterious kids killer at large".

Blah blah blah. Scribblers.

Of course the case is serious and everybody mourns for the girl and prays for her parents to smother their misery, but is it really necessary to play with people's hearts like that? Add in the photo plastered on the front page - a police tape in the foreground and a bunch of people crowding behind it. Fresh stuff, just from the crime scene.

On Friday evening, when Brooks was about to leave home, anticipating a delicious chicken breast with Parmesan and eggplant for dinner, he found Nate and Tam in the interrogation room, staring intently at that exact photo from the newspaper. Enthusiasts. They say that the criminal always returns to the crime scene. So both decided to play bloodhounds. Also Robert could smell some booze in the room too, so...

On the other hand, if one took a sober look at things, then there wasn’t anything consistent either. No traces, no clues, even the smallest. Absolute zero. Robert had already suggested Hernandez to hand over the case to the special squad to take that burden of a case off his shoulders, but every time that question popped up Sam would just grin and pat Brooks on the shoulder.

"Bob, what are talking about? You have such an experience, such record! And what a chance to be a mentor to the young one!"

Sounds easier than it is...

“Surprise!” a folder fell sharply on the table in front of Brooks.

Oh my God…

“Cheer up, partner!" Tam said, plopping down in the armchair opposite to Brooks. "We have a case!"

"Um, I know," Robert raised an eyebrow, "and you always find an excuse to slick away"

"No, you don’t understand, Bobby." Bennett majestically placed his palm on the folder, touching it with his fingertips, and slowly moved it towards Brooks. "We have a case."

Robert, still looking suspiciously at the youngster, took the folder and opened it, going into reading. Photo, name, surname, lots and lots of text. With every line he read, the hope to at least somehow bring the present day to an acceptable level, was slipping away. It seemed that having a leash wasn’t a joking idea, but a very real necessity.

Brooks gave his partner a glance full of fatigue and disappointment.

“Well, am I good at making surprises or am I the best?” Bennett's brows creased conspiratorially.

"Please tell me this is a joke ..."

“Why?”

“Tam, I’m begging you.”

"What's wrong, Bob?"

Brooks heaved a deep sigh and began to read aloud.

“Mabel Jessica Pines, born in 1999, Piedmont, California. According to her landlords arrived on January 18 of this year from the city of New York. According to Smiths couple - owners of the apartment at 881 West Roosevelt Street Miss Pines rented - she came across as a modest, quiet woman, not particularly talkative and constantly thoughtful. Her interests were the surroundings, especially the University of Louisiana and Manchac swamps. Mr and Mrs. Smith also noted that she preferred not to answer questions about family and relatives. Only said that she was married, but got divorced a few years ago. Wasn’t seen participating in any phone calls. On the 20th of January she left the rented apartment and never came back. Was dressed in a gray coat and a long skirt, carrying a medium-sized travel bag and a mobile phone, which she stopped responding around 7 pm. Left a laptop and a notebook in the apartment”.

Brooks put down the folder and brought his hands to the bridge of his nose, resting his elbows on the countertop.

"Great, isn’t it?" exclaimed Tam. “Full set - you’ve got clues and description! All we need to do is restore her route, trace each her step, find her perso... What?”

Brooks, still holding his hands on the bridge of his nose, pointed to his partner with his finger, as if asking him to plug his fountain of enthusiasm.

"What's bothering, Bobby?"

Calm down, Robert, calm down. You are reasonable, smart man. You’ve had many of such conversations with your young son Aaron. It's the same, no differences.

"Bob, you're straining me."

Easy, easy. I'm straining him, you see. Well, well, let it be, a little bit of tension didn’t kill anyone so far. I'm still alive.

"Listen, you're breathing as if you've gone too far with pepper in the soup, Bobby.”

All right, that's enough.

Robert slowly raised his head, holding his hands together at the tip of his nose. He was breathing really deep and quite noisy.

"First," he began softly, clearing his throat, "call me Bobby one more time and you'll be riding in the back seat. And second, we have no new case. Foot down”.

Tam whistled.

“Hmm, mate, you're …”

"Let me ask you something" interrupted Robert, "when you accepted this case, which part of your organism was functioning as a thinking part?"

“What does it have to do with it? It's such an opportunity!”

“What opportunity? Tell me" Brooks asked, still keeping his coolness.

Tam looked at him with an expression of complete perplexity a second or two, then leaned forward and began:

“Listen. What’s the main problem we had with the Marlowe’s case?”

“The case itself.”

“I'm serious.”

“You don’t say! You know how to be serious?”

"Look, this isn’t funny” Tam frowned. "Our main problem was time which we’re lacking of. What did we initially know about the Marlowe girl? Almost nothing, neither where most likely she could go, nor her full circle of acquaintances. So no one expected that her loss could be just such a case.”

“What case?”

"Such a case" Bennett pointed to the folder, "clear as day."

Brooks raised his eyebrows.

"Give me at least a hint because I don’t really understand ..."

“There’s nothing to understand here. A lonely woman, from another city. Comes to nowhere and almost immediately disappears!” Bennett could barely restrain himself from being excited. "This is our Oregon maniac, I'm telling you."

Well, here you go.

When it comes to do paperwork, he has plan for the evening. And when it comes to burden me with additional stress, so he's first in line. It’s already becoming unbearable. How do I explain him?

"Ok, Tam," Robert said, restrainedly. "Here’s what we’ll do. You’ll take this muck to where you took it, wash your hands with soap and then we'll go to your piano tutor.”

Bennett made an uncomprehending face.

“Seriously. We are not taking this case and that’s final. We've had enough trouble with that Marlowe girl" Tam started to protest, but Brooks stopped him, lifting both his hands “No, I'm saying that’s enough. Get yourself a notebook, call it "My hasty conclusions that have nothing to do with reality" and write down all your speculation there.”

Robert got up from the table and began to pull on his jacket.

“Now you and I will get in the car, go for a coffee and do some work.”

With these words, Brooks took his car keys from the table, checked once more whether the token that hung on his belt of trousers was there and was ready to the exit the office when Bennett found something to say:

"So you'll go to Sam yourself?"

“For what?” Brooks froze half a turn, looking back at his partner.

Bennett just shrugged.

“Well, to tell him personally that you refuse to take the case, which he himself commissioned, for example?”

Sam did what?

“Come again.”

"The captain of the state police department assigns us a case, and you stand against the decision of your superiors." Bennett smiled ingenuously.  “Pretty brave of you, I must say.”

Oh no. No no no.

So it’s not Tam? Can this day get any worse?

Brooks sighed noisily and lowered his head, staring at his polished black boots. How many thresholds were overstepped by these guys, how many pursuits for criminals and capture operations they saw. How many times did Brooks polish them to shine, to look neat, while receiving a new title or listening a praise for a successfully disclosed case. How long have they gone and for what? In order to soon go to the dump together with the Robert’s career.

The vision of the house in California again appeared before him and immediately melted in a light haze. Nothing of the sort will happen if the captain continues to charge Robert with such hopeless cases and companions.

“So what?” Tam behind Brooks pointedly looked at his watch. “What did you say about coffee? Can we grab a cup for Sam? Well, you know, as a sign of respect and …”

"Come on ..." Robert muttered softly.

“Sorry, what?”

Brooks raised his eyes to the ceiling and repeated a little more distinctly:

“Come. On”

Bennett, grinning in a broad smile, instantly jumped from his seat, grabbed a folder from the table and flew past a still motionless partner, slapping him along the shoulder.

“That’s more like it!” he proclaimed joyfully. “New case, baby!”

Would you just shut up already an unfortunate thought flew through Robert's head as he sadly followed Tam out of the office.

***

“And she had very kind eyes. Hazel” Brooks looked into his notebook. Yes, this phrase has sounded for the third or fourth time for those half an hour from the time that detectives arrived to the landlords of the missing.

“Kind, but very sad eyes …”

"Yes, Mrs. Smith, I think I wrote it down," Robert said, holding out his hand to his cup of tea on the coffee table in front of him. Mr. Smith tumbled in the room noisily puffing, holding an ashtray in one hand while the second was already groping for his pocket.

“Anna really liked the girl” Mr. Smith perched in a chair next to his wife. The ashtray was placed on a table next to the cup of Brooks, and in the pocket finally found the coveted pack of cigarettes. A mischievous smile played on Mr. Smith's lips.

"Henry, for heaven's sake!" His wife threw up her hands. "How many times have I asked you not to smoke in the house! You know, my back does not welcome airing so often.”

"You can bear it once a week honey" Henry brought his lit-up match to a cigarette with trembling fingers then inhaled and immediately fell into a ruthless throaty cough.

Anna Smith shook her head worriedly, looking at her husband, and turned to the detective:

"I told him that forty years of smoking would make some consequences. Imagine - he wasn’t listening to me until he laid down on the surgery table! Who knew that you can get a tumor like that, right?”

"Benign," Henry finally cleared his throat, "it was benign, my dear. And the main thing I’m still in one piece. Head, hands, legs” he winked at the detective and folded his old mouth into a grin like a little mischievous schoolboy.

“And what’s betw…”

"When you, ahem ..." Robert hastily intervened to stop the phrase, which beginning wasn’t biding anything good "when you applied, you mentioned that Mabel reluctantly talked about herself. I believe that you’ve learned at least something about her?”

"Yes detective but very, very little." Mrs. Smith clasped her fingers and put them to her forehead, concentrating on something.

"She said she came from New York," her husband said, releasing a cloud of blue smoke, "god knows what called her to our backwoods ..."

"Oh shush, Henry." Mrs. Smith shook her finger in vexation. "I'm sure detective knows already where the girl came from."

“Can I clarify the question?” Brooks put the notebook aside on the table. “The bartender from the diner near the bus station mentioned that in a conversation with him Mabel said that she came in search for someone. Didn’t she tell you the same thing? Maybe mentioned who it was?”

"Ah, poor thing! Did she have to eat breakfast there?” Mrs. Smith shook her head in frustration. "If she came at once, I would feed her with a decent breakfast. What kind of muck could she be offered there?”

"They used to have good burgers," Henry shook the ashes, "at least five years ago, when I last had them ..."

“Nonsense! Burger for breakfast?”

“Ahem. Mrs. Smith …”

"Yes, sorry" Anna turned her attention to Brooks. "No, she didn’t say anything like that to us. She was married, that's all I know about her life. But her husband didn’t interest her very much, as far as I can tell. I did not see a ring as a lock, so he’s probably still alive. Maybe he was quite a scoundrel”

"And what’s her husband's name?"

Anna just shook her head.

"Forgive me, detective, but I never heard it from her."

From above came the sound of the door being opened, followed by hasty steps down the stairs. Found something a thought rushed through Robert's head. A moment later, Tam appeared in the room. His face was ... disappointed?

"Mrs. Smith, you wrote in a application that Mabel had a laptop and a notebook."

"That's right, young man, she left them in her room."

Brooks stared at his partner's face, puzzled. Tam only shook his head briefly.

"Is something wrong, gentlemen?"

"Have you left your house in the last couple of days?"

"Just to do shopping yesterday afternoon ... what happened?"

Brooks rose abruptly, and they both hastily rushed to the stairs to the second floor. Mabel's room was nothing particularly noteworthy - a bed, a desk, a window and four walls. Things were lying neatly, the bed was made. It seemed that the guest had left a minute ago.

“Checked the window sill?”

“Yes, it’s dusty as if no one touched it for several years”

“A lock on the door?”

“Just a latch, any fool would open without a trace ..”.

Brooks slowly walked to the table, on which was a layer of dust accumulated over the past few days. All the items seemed to be in their places, but two square spots were barely noticeable near the edge, in which dust seemed to sink.The distance between the spots was about 9 inches, as between the pads of a small laptop.

"I think we're done here" Robert muttered.

***

"So someone broke into the house at night, or when the hosts were not there," Robert and Tam were driving away from the Smiths' house toward the police department, "I think we both understand that it was our client."

“Here you go, drawing conclusions again!” Brooks briefly honked the driver who was still standing on the green traffic light signal.

"Maybe it's our client, or maybe just a burglar."

“Burglar who took only a laptop?”

"Did you have time to inspect the rest of the house? Found anything valuable?”

“No, but …”

“Exactly. Maybe he was in a hurry”

“Come on, you're just looking for an excuse not to solve for 2 and 2”

“I'm looking for an excuse to conduct an investigation of a case imposed on me correctly”

"Come on, Bobby, this is an adventure! Now we write a request to New York, find her family ... hey, need to have a leak?”

Robert pulled over and stopped abruptly. After that, he turned his head staring at his partner intensely.

“What?”

Brooks slowly moved his head toward the back seat.

"What’s that?" Bennett looked back “I can’t see anyth…”

Coming to a realization he slowly turned and gave his partner an incredulous look.

"Are you kidding me?"

Robert shook his head sarcastically.

"You're not serious."

"Very serious, Tam." Brooks looked at his watch briefly. "Hurry up, we're running late."

Rolling his eyes Bennett leaned back in his seat looking up above while groping for the handle. Twenty seconds later, when he got into the back seat and slammed the door behind him, Robert said with satisfaction:

"You have to bear responsibility for your words and deeds, dear Tam. Welcome to the world of adults”

He heard a loud raspberry being blown from behind and noticed in the rearview mirror that Bennett was now staring out of the window with his arms folded.

“Who I'm talking to though…”  Robert tiredly complained without addressing anyone “Seriously, my eight-year-old son behaves more adequately”

He accelerated and detectives continued their way to the department building.

[nakediconoclast]

Bracken: Professor Raoul X    Posted on January 14, 2011

Western Rifle Shooters Association

It was late June and I was sitting in a café seven hundred miles from home, doing a little web surfing. There was plenty of room at mid-morning, so I could sit at the end of the coffee bar with my laptop. I was scanning the breaking news about the new mass-shooting. Like most people I was morbidly fascinated with the deranged young man who was the killer. That is, the trigger puller. But I was looking over his shoulder for something else: signs of a guiding hand.

Why? Because I know something about the subject.

You see, being a guiding hand is my life’s avocation. My secret avocation, that is. Outwardly I’m a tenured professor of sociology at a Mid-western university. A life-long bachelor, so my summers are my own. Ostensibly for writing, research, quiet reflection, bungee jumping or what have you. My summer hobby is traveling and meeting interesting people. Everything I do on these road trips can be explained under the rubric of field research, but even so I pay with cash and move like a ghost. I’m old school. It’s a harmless quirk. Nobody cares.

I suppose if you polled my students, they’d declare me to be left wing, but not a rhetorical bomb-thrower. Am I closer to Karl Marx than to Ayn Rand? Well, naturally. Progressive politics were part of my upbringing and education. And of course that is also the best way to get along in academia, and I do like to get along.

No question my academic career has been lackluster. That does not concern me. I have no wife or significant other to be concerned with my apparent lack of greater ambition or wealth. Seeking publication for papers that a few academic gnomes might eventually peruse does not interest me in the least. Writing some groundbreaking tome that will be reviewed in the New York Times and read by millions is not a realistic aspiration. I am no Jared Diamond in the rough. I won academic tenure, and that was enough. I have a house and a ten-year-old Beamer. I enjoy my little comforts. A small circle of friends, none close. I’d be the first to admit it’s been a mediocre life—outwardly.

But my secret life has been anything but mediocre. I have engineered extraordinary events, but truth be told, there is little joy in secret celebration. So I am creating this document, properly encoded and hidden, to save for posterity. When my unsurpassed run is finally over, due either to my natural demise or other more precipitous causes, my secret history will conjure itself from millions of computer screens unfiltered, unspun and uncut. The truth will be known. This is my story, and no one can take it from me. My name will ring down through the ages, when my complete story is told!

But not yet. There is more secret work to be done.

I did not drive seven hundred miles to ponder my life’s ledger and tap on a keyboard. What interested me was the creature standing on the other side of the white coffee shop counter. The gaunt, long-haired young man by the espresso machine could have been taken for a college student in a college town. Really not too bad looking in person. Pushing six feet, skinny. Gray-blue eyes, a little too closely set. Decent complexion for his age. Maybe a few days since his mouse-colored hair had been washed or properly brushed, but overall he was quite presentable. Duncan it said on his plastic name tag. I already knew that his last name was McClaren. I wasn’t in this picturesque college town by accident. I was here to meet him, but he didn’t know this.

Duncan McClaren was one of the most promising prospects I’d run down in years. My own students unknowingly provide me with many of my leads. We have free-ranging discussions, in and out of the classroom setting. From practice I know how to guide them toward a discussion of the weirdest people they’ve ever known. Duncan went to high school with one of my female students. His first name was mentioned casually by the student, tossed off her lips and promptly forgotten. Duncan sometimes heard voices, she said. Talked to himself. And he could not stop talking about whatever obsessed him at the moment. He cut right into conversations among people he hardly knew, and went off onto bizzaro-world tangents. And what really set him off was the country’s most famous talk radio host.

Following that disclosure I did my own internet research. There was only one Duncan listed in her year at her high school. As a professor, I stay on the cutting edge of internet trickery. A critical part of my secret avocation involves doing internet research without leaving digital fingerprints. My students constantly come up with what they believe to be new ways to cheat or plagiarize without detection, so I’ve become somewhat of an expert at internet security. I do not take risks. I’m a very careful person. Typing this secret history and hiding it inside my computer is perhaps the biggest risk I’ve taken.

In the course of my background investigation I learned that he had been expelled or otherwise ejected from high school numerous times. He’d been arrested and he’d been to juvenile boot camp. There were a number of sealed records and denied files, both medical and legal. But reading between the lines of what I could access, it was a safe guess that there had been serious drug use and there had been family violence. Rumors of arson at a very young age. His family had money and pull, and he was accepted for admission to an out-of-state institution of higher learning. His brief transcript was telling. His GPA for three completed semesters was made up equally of As and Fs. He had not finished his second year. No reason was given.

Since dropping out of college Duncan had been adrift for a year, hitchhiking around the country, supporting himself mostly as a dish washer or at other menial short-term jobs involving limited social interaction. On his own walkabout journey of self-discovery, to give him the benefit of the doubt. He was for the moment a barista in this New England college town, and I arranged for our paths to cross.

It’s always an intense moment, my first close look at a subject I’ve known only as an internet phantom. Duncan came over to take my order: regular coffee, with cream and sugar. When he filled my cup I laid a few dollars on the counter.

Duncan tapped the bills and said matter-of-factly, “So, somebody still believes in paper money.”

I looked directly at him and replied, “For some things, yes. Like paying for coffee.”

He returned my gaze, his eyes narrowed to slits and he said, “Smart. Fly under the radar. Render unto Caesar—while you can. But it’s all just a matter of time. Just a matter of time.” He slowly nodded his head, as if agreeing with himself.

To release his floodgates all I had to ask him was, “What do you mean?” Then I listened attentively to a five minute diatribe covering many tediously familiar theories and a few original ones. A thirtyish female with a severe hairstyle, whom I guessed was the café’s manager, edged over and tried to redirect my waiter. “Dunc,” she said breezily, “You’re not bothering this man, are you? No more talking about that bank stuff, right?”

Holding the full pot of hot coffee he slowly turned his entire body and fixed an icy glare upon her, but said nothing. He held his stare, boring into her with flat eyes. His arm seemed tensed to hurl the burning-hot brew at her. Her smile wilted, she turned and walked away. “She doesn’t understand,” said Duncan when she was gone. “Her mind is closed to the reality around her.”

“Does that bother you?” I asked him.

“I’m used to it. Ninety percent of humanity is closed off to reality.”

I laughed and said, “I think you’re giving humanity too much credit.”

He smiled in a peculiar way. One side of his mouth went up markedly while the other side remained nearly flat. “Yeah. Probably. Look, I have to serve some other humanity or I’m going to get canned. I’m on thin ice around here.”

Twenty-year-old Duncan, who had a post-graduate’s demeanor and a startlingly high IQ, had never held a job for longer than a month. He could operate independently in society as a functioning adult in most situations. He could shop for himself and drive a car. He’d briefly kept an apartment in college. But he could not hold a conversation without promptly veering into the Bush-family CIA dynasty, the truth about 9-11, the Jewish bankers, right-wing talk radio and God help me, the Queen of England.

Duncan was a bug. A raving lunatic. Yet in his outward appearance and mannerisms, he was as normal as you and I. But what does one’s outward appearance signify? The faces we show to the world are mere avatars, are they not? Who truly knows our inner hearts, our souls if you will? No one. Certainly not a God who doesn’t exist. So am I normal? Define normal. A sophomoric tautology. Yes, outwardly I can easily pass as normal, and I have for most of my forty-seven years. But inside? Honestly, what a question. Who wants to be no more than a random semi-conscious insect in a hive of billions?

Not me. No, I’m not normal, and have no desire to be.

Normal means average, and let me assure you, I’m way above average. Average people don’t make it their life’s work to ferret out certain types of borderline personalities and convert them into useful tools. As far as I know, I’m the only human toolmaker of my kind. No semi-sentient insect brain resides within my skull, making me a slave to laws, traditions or norms of so-called acceptable behavior. I operate outside of the rules of the hive, and I enjoy a freedom mere insects can never know. So what, you say? I’ll say what. By my actions I have personally changed the course of history, and I will do so again.

Can you say the same thing? What “normal” hive insect can claim to have done that?

Have there been others like me? I tend to think so, but it’s an area of pure conjecture. A familiar example. Most Americans dismissed the story of James Earl Ray’s mysterious helper, known only to him as “Raoul,” as a self-serving fantasy. I always thought that Raoul was more flesh than fantasy. James Earl Ray’s actions and travels before and after Memphis make me believe that he had assistance of the kind that I have given to some very special people.

If you take a ‘Parallax View’ of history, you might allow the possibility that rogue government agencies or other cliques could also be grooming likely candidates, but I tend not to believe in elaborate conspiracies. Could it happen? I suppose. But in my experience, no conspiracy involving a large cast of characters can remain a secret for many years.

On the other hand, the temporary private relationship between a mentor and a singular student, that relationship can indeed be kept a secret. My writing this secret history in freedom instead of in captivity proves that this is so. And even if one of my human tools is someday arrested alive, his mad barkings will be disregarded. His minor side-story of a mysterious helper, if heard at all, will be disregarded as just another in his cornucopia of delusions.

Converting a certain type of lunatic into a useful tool is not too difficult when you understand the dynamics that are in play. Practice makes perfect, and I’ve had a lot of practice. Good candidates for a direct action mission are often quite intelligent, at least as measured on certain scales. They can navigate by themselves between cities, and arrive at a place and time without causing alarm to the general population.

But in my experience the best candidates for a guiding hand are not true “loners.” They often seek friendship and employment, and they may even succeed for a while. But the men who interest me invariably sabotage their social relationships by compulsively discussing their paranoid obsessions. Each human rejection adds heat to their simmering rage. Yet still they crave human companionship, and simple affirmation of their delusional belief systems. This makes them soft putty at my touch. These men, deftly guided, become my arrows. To the world, these arrows seem to plunge at random from the clear blue sky. Sometimes they do, but not always!

It’s not hard to convert a lump of inchoate anger into an arrow. At first all I do is offer them a receptive ear, and confirmation that they are not alone in their beliefs. Our dialogues lead me toward the best approach to take. I adapt my temporary cover story to fit my current subject’s preexisting delusional views. In the past I’ve pretended to be a liaison from the CIA, from Mossad, from Al Qaeda. I’ve posed as a former leading member of the Trilateral Commission, now working against their globalist designs. Sometimes I’ve convinced them that their medications are part of a conspiracy to chemically lobotomize them, robbing them of their most brilliant insights.

After a few private conversations I eventually steer the subject to “doing something really important.” Hypothetically, of course. At least at first. Then we play a conversational game of, “If I could, I would.” A good prospect will soon be describing the precise medieval tortures, punishments and execution methods merited by his worst enemies. Once I have tapped into his personal fantasy realm of gory revenge, it’s “game on,” as they say in the vernacular.

At that point it really doesn’t matter to me who or what is the focus of the subject’s hate, or what group he blames for his own shortcomings or for the ills of the world. Left, right, capitalism, socialism, religion, nationalism…in truth I stopped caring very much about them long ago. When an action will advance the cause of social justice that’s great, but generalized mayhem is also a worthy end in itself. “The worse, the better,” in Lenin’s words. Create the pre-revolutionary conditions. Some days I still half believe the old dogma. But at least I’m not just another insect in the hive.

I slid my empty cup away, and awaited the return of my barista. In a minute I’d be commiserating with him, discovering that we were practically soulmates, rare men of true vision. Posing as an out-of-town business visitor, I’d ask him the best place in the area to eat. It would turn out that he and I shared similar culinary and beverage tastes, fancy that! And I’d gladly spring for lunch or dinner if he’d agree to be my local guide. Then we’d discuss further his hatred for the Jewish bankers who run the world, and the right-wing talk radio hosts who are their willing accomplices and mouthpieces. At least, in the world according to Duncan McClaren.

Right-wing talk radio was very much on my mind, because one of the icons of that loathsome industry was going to be passing through the region two weeks hence. Ben Rafferty wasn’t the king of right-wing hate radio, but he was one of the rising princes, nearly up there with the big three. Currently he was on a national book tour, promoting his latest toxic spill of racist hate-speech. Oh happy day, his entire schedule, with bookstore locations, dates and times, was available online.

I’d discovered some other useful information in an interview Rafferty had given to a pro-gun blog. The talk host traveled without an armed bodyguard, due to the vagaries of conflicting state gun laws. This was particularly a problem when flying into New York or New Jersey. It was just too damn hard to stay in compliance with a thousand local gun laws that could cause you to be imprisoned over a technical firearms violation. So instead of an armed bodyguard, he had some kind of karate guy for protection. An ex-soldier who had been wounded in one of America’s wars of imperialism. Poor Ben Rafferty, who never saw an assault rifle he didn’t want to French kiss, couldn’t have a gun during his East Coast book tour. Beautiful.

The imminent proximity of Duncan McClaren and Ben Rafferty had brought me seven hundred miles to this coffee shop. With a little stroking and massaging of Duncan’s twisted and deformed ego, I hoped to convince him that his empty life could at long last have genuine meaning. He could make a real difference! He could change the world! He could accomplish something important, and be remembered forever. I already had an untraceable pistol to provide him, if he proved receptive to my guiding hand. Oh, the mayhem potential, when one of the leading right-wing haters is finally knocked off! Mayhem-fest, indeed. Mayhem squared. Mayhem cubed!

Radio talker Ben Rafferty meant nothing to me, but he had millions of rabid right-wing followers who clung to his every screech and scream for three hours a day. After Duncan McClaren approached the book-signing table, pulled out his pistol and gave his miserable life meaning, Rafferty’s fans would rise en masse in blind rage. And a few of his most rabid fans, feeding their own dark fantasies, would predictably strike out in violent reprisal against progressive leaders. Secondary explosions, if you will. A chain reaction, possibly my greatest work ever.

Duncan returned to my end of the bar when he saw my empty cup. While he poured my refill I quietly said, “You know, you’re right about those Jewish bankers and how they control talk radio. They’re all in New York, right? I mean, most people have no idea what’s going on around them.”

His eyes widened and a half-smile formed on his lips. He set the coffee pot down and leaned on the counter until his nose was a foot from mine. One eyebrow raised in expectation above the high side of his demented grin. He glanced back down the counter to see who was in earshot and then said, “You know about the Illuminati, right?”

Did I ever.

I smiled.

This plan might actually work. I’d know better after a long conversation with Duncan McClaren in a dark restaurant. Duncan might be my masterpiece, the one to light the fuse of Civil War Two. And if he does, eventually I want the world to know who handed him the matches, the gun and Ben Rafferty’s book-signing schedule.

But for now just call me Professor Raoul X, a guiding hand of history.

*************************************

Fiction by Matthew Bracken, author of the Enemies Foreign And Domestic trilogy and the upcoming Castigo Cay.

[callan-joy]

2020, look out! it’s me, ya girl.

welcome to my official blog!

My name is ATHENA and I thank you for finding this page. Here’s some stuff about me.  ALL OF MY SOCIAL MEDIA: https://allmylinks.com/theathenaj Updated as of August 2020:

Be for warned, this is the nitty gritty ---

It’s taken me almost two 2 years but finally I am able to feel confident in the fact that I am a writer. I’ve been interested in writing mainly from the encouragement of my mother since I was about 13/14. The “arts” was something that was focused on about 98% in my household: Turner Classic Movies, true crime novels & investigative shows, classic literature, music, art history and more. I think Tumblr was one of the first sources of that culture I could get from the bubble of growing up (I did travel back and forth from Phoenix to Sedona) in small town Cottonwood, Arizona. I was born in River Falls, Wisconsin originally though!

While dealing with abuse from my father, mostly from after my parents divorced and I had to live alone with him for a time, it took a very long time before I felt confident in anything I did. Being an only child, I really only had myself.

It started at the end of 2018, I took a step into shaping my skills and intentions with writing. After a few shots of whiskey, trying not to collapse from nervousness, I read a story in front of a group of people in a dimly-lit, tiny comic book store. It went overwhelmingly well. People came up and thanked me. It felt...strange to have the compliments. Almost foreign. Another event later on Valentines Day 2019, feeling warm with red wine, I read a poem. Another round of people smiling and congratulating me. It’s weird when your passion is appreciated and I still have trouble with it when I do speak in front of people or share something I’ve created. 

Mental illness is something I do talk quite a bit about but it’s because it is part of who I am as a person which I’ve come to accept (mainly through therapy.) It bleeds into my creativity and how I manage it. 

Around July of 2018, I began seeing a therapist when I was first diagnosed with PTSD, anxiety and depression. I had been struggling with these issues for almost 12 years when it felt so validating to have someone finally acknowledge this. To tell me it was okay for feeling sad or hating myself. But to focus on growing and changing by helping others in anyway that I could without throwing myself on a pyre. By that time, I had/still have my job working at a health insurance company as a specialist for Behavioral Health Case Management. I’ve had people kind of laugh at me on why I do SO many things all the time. It is extremely difficult to maintain my life without staying busy. When I am not busy, I have room to over-analyze every aspect of my life. It’s just something I can’t completely do at this point. And that is okay. 

So who is Athena?

- Student; currently studying clinical psychology. First year down and one more to go! - Behavioral Health Specialist at a health insurance company; Basically helping a nurse do case management, helping people figure out mental health claims, connecting people to therapists/facilities, and trying to give a shit. - Writer; I’ve written 1 full-length play, around 80ish poems, and a few short stories with 1 unfinished screenplay. The themes typically are; poems about self-hatred, sexual poems because I am a horny monster, gothic horror, fantasy, or drama. Think Stoker, Anne Sexton, and David Fincher mixed together. I’ve spoken at about 10 events and soon to be more. I also am a writer on LongLiveTheVoid.com - an online host of horror film (and others) reviews and horror podcast with a wonderful group of people. You can check my reviews on here as well! - Performer; I have performed stories and poems at several events which I have detailed below. You can find videos on my page as well! - Gamer; I wouldn’t call myself “avid” anymore but when I HAVE the time, check out my Twitch sometimes! https://www.twitch.tv/thenesthebeans - Animal Lover; Mainly dogs but most animals. I have a 2-year-old Chihuahua Dachsund named Maso who is a derp but I love him. - Film Snob; As I grew up with OG hipsters, I have been a film fanatic since I learned how to talk. I used to spend my summers before I had to get a job watching 3-4 films a day. My taste does change but I usually go for dramas, horror, and really fucking stupid humor (if it’s a dog farting, why the fuck not.)  - Bisexual Vampire; I WISH I was a vampire but the first part is 100% true. I suppose I would be an advocate for the LGBT+ community as if a person is being prejudiced against, they don’t HAVE to be in the room for me to say something. Got a problem? Fuck off. - Food/Drink Lover; I really love making cocktails, desserts and more! You can find me here @ https://www.instagram.com/the_midwest_barkeep/

What has Athena performed/done?

Below are events/shows in Arizona I have done. Interested in recordings? I have those included on my page

- Love Notes: A Romantic + Erotic Poetry Reading @ Lost Leaf, February 14th, 2018 - Untidy Secrets Storytelling - Bad Kids From The Start @ Ash Avenue Comics, June 29th, 2018 - Untidy Secrets Storytelling - Take This Job and Shove It @ Ash Avenue Comics, August 31st, 2018 - ArtSplat! Queer Poetry Weirdness @ Stacy’s, October 11th, 2018 - Chatterbox: Haunted @ Fair Trade Cafe, October 24th, 2018 - If You Have Ghosts, A Night of Storytelling @ Wasted Ink Zine Distro, January 11th, 2019 - 7 Minutes in Love @ Space 55, February 8th, 2019 - Turn the Page Storytelling presents: A Mother of a Story @ Delante Coffee, May 31st, 2019 - Getting Stoked, July 8th, 2019, Podcast - Slice: Manly Myths & Legends, July 25th, 2019 @ Space 55 - Roar! A Celebration, performed by actors, September 14th, 2019 @ Tempe Center for the Arts - Letters from the Earth - September 27th, 2019 - Host - Crunch Time’s “Between the Vines” - December 2019

Okay, so she’s not terrible, right?

I mean most human beings are awful, but I am a reasonable sort. Why not take a chance with this weird, perverted, alien like myself? Follow me if you’d like to continue down my road of perpetual absurdism!

[theempathbeauty]

Asshole Spirits: The Old Hag

March 17, 2017

St. Patrick’s Day, Reno NV. 

My buddy Mish calls me... She invites me to an investigation, at The Gold Hill Miner’s Cabin, in Virginia City, NV. Given the fact, I’m not much a drinker, I  FUCKING LOVE Virginia City, and of course, who can turn down a spur of the moment investigation?? Especially with my awesome buddies!?! HELL YEAH!!

Needless to say, my answer was yes. So I got ready, grabbed my camera, and off we went! I’ve never been to the miner’s cabin before, so I was excited to experience something new. I even got some pretty amazing pictures, because besides investigating, I also love para-photography! 

One thing I always love to do pre-investigation, is explore the area. I like to walk around, scope out the vibes, and feel the energy. I can’t necessarily say I “see” spirits, per se... Because I have seen things, here and there, that are paranormal/spirit related. But, I can definitely feel them. I walk into a building, and the sensory is intense! It’s a rush, that I feel in my core of my chest... Almost like an adrenaline rush! I LOVE IT!

I also love investigating with my buddies. They’re all like family to me. I fully trust them, and I feel like they understand me, and vise versa. I can be myself around them, and that’s important to me!

Being a newbie in the paranormal field, I know I have much more to experience and learn...  Both good, and bad. 

This was my experience.

On the way to the minor’s cabin, my buddy Mish informs me on the backstory of the old hag. Mish goes on telling me about her own personal experiences, and how the hag followed her home from a previous trip, from the minor’s cabin.

“I fell asleep on my couch. Then I woke up in the middle of the night, out of a dead sleep, and there she was! An old hag was standing on her tippy toes, at the end of the couch... She was leaning over, and just staring at me!”

Just imagine waking up, only to see THIS on their translucent toes, hovering over you! 

Luckily, Mish was able to banish the old hag, back to Virginia City. She flat out told the old hag to leave... In which it did. But here’s what’s interesting: My other buddy, Rebecca, had a dream of the old hag, prior to this... Towards the end of January of 2016. 

Crazy, right? 

Note: The following is quoted from Rebecca’s Blog: “Ghost Seers”

“I could see the old hag as I descended down the mine shaft in an old elevator.  She was standing nearby on one of the underground levels that I was passing by.  As the elevator lowered past her, she tried to get my attention.  I stopped the elevator and went back up to where she was.  

I could see she was wearing and old grayish torn and tattered material draped over her head and body.  The old woman appeared to be two hundred years old.  She said the name, “Michelle Le Baron.”  I asked her, “What about Michelle?”  I couldn’t get her entire message, however.  Something about a daughter and a niece.  

What I did pick up from her energy was that the old hag was trying to prevent me from becoming close to Michelle.  Almost as if she was trying to come in between our friendship and make me question her as a true friend.  And then I woke up.” 

I believe dreams are a powerful intuitive messages. Whether it’s guidance, clarity, a vision, and/or like what I have, premonition dreams. Like missing pieces of a puzzle, I’ve noticed some dreams are slowly coming together, and/or coming true. I feel it, immensely. Energy doesn’t lie... And as crazy as it sounds, there’s just somethings, or feelings you just can’t ignore, no matter how hard you try. 

So Mish and I finally pulled up to the minors cabin. Then with a dead serious  look on her face, she tells me how I need to heavily guard, and protect myself. Then once we get out of the car, we did our own protection ritual, and she sprayed me down with liquid sage. I’ll admit, I was nervous, as I am with all investigations. But I’m glad I listened to Mish. 

Usually I’m open, yet cautious when it comes to investigating. My guard is only up, at such a level... Because honestly, when you’re trying to connect with spirits, they know who's open, and who’s willing... Or if its a malicious spirit/entity, they know who’s an easy target. So, depending on each location, or what energy I’m feeling, I adjust my “levels” accordingly. 

Besides Mish’s warning, I had a feeling to keep my guard up particularly that night. As if some really bad shit was going to happen. Although the night begin with laughs, and good energy... Shortly after investigating, it wasn’t long before things turned intense. It was very emotional, and such a surreal experience... One that I won’t ever forget.

This is why you never investigate alone. 

This is why you make sure you have a good balance of your guard, and your openness. 

This is why you make sure, you know what you’re doing, and what you’re getting into. Because anything can, and will happen, while investigating, without warning! 

God forbid, if you, or anyone should get attached, or even attacked by a malicious spirit, hopefully you know damn well how to handle it, and/or have someone there who does. 

Attachments and attacks from malicious spirits, affect everyone. This is why you remain strong and grounded at all times!

It’s hard not to talk about what had happened, without tearing up. Experiences like that, implants itself in you. This is down right SERIOUS stuff... Stuff that I needed to learn, and be educated on. The signs, and symptoms... The behavior changes... The emotional and physical effects... The “before and after”... But most importantly, what needs to be done, so that it’s dealt with properly.

Take a deep, emotional breath...  

One of our buddies decided to go off by himself and investigate. Which is a HUGE no-no... He also lowered his guard, to where he was VERY vulnerable, and an easy target for a malicious attack. Again, it’s never recommended to do ANY of those things, while investigating.

Our buddy, with Mish, and myself, are all standing outside the miner’s cabin. I knew something was wrong... Mish and I both felt it. But I just didn’t know “what” exactly yet. I also saw it in our buddy’s face. He wasn’t himself. He was a different person. Mish knew EXACTLY what was going on. 

“Are you attached? Did she attach herself to you?” 

That is what Mish asked our buddy. His blank stare... His lethargic responses of “No”... We both just knew something was wrong. Afterwards, we all headed back inside the miner’s cabin. We decided to take a break from investigating, and decompress for a bit. The energy still felt felt thick, so we tried to focus on reviewing some evidence... Which only lasted for “so long”.

Through out the night, our buddy kept going in, and out of the cabin, and outside, by himself... Like he was in a trance, or being lured against his own will. While everyone was reviewing footage, myself, observing, and taking everything in, on a learning scale... It was at that moment, when our buddy calls out for Mish. 

“She's here.”

-“Who’s here, buddy? Where is she?” 

“She’s here... She attached herself to me...” 

Then, in a faint-like state, his body collapses on to Mish. (He’s a big guy too!) She yells out his name... As he's is having tense muscles spasms, he’s holding on to Mish, unable to let go. I went over, without any idea of what was going on... Much less what I was about to experience, or witness. 

“You need to leave! You need to get out!! NOW!!” 

Mish yells out to the old hag, all the while, having our buddy’s full body weight on her. The whole time this is happening, I’m speechless... I feel the intensity of what’s going on... My heart is racing. Yet, I remained calm. I really can’t explain why either. It’s like something came over me. At that moment, I just imagined light, and I’m standing next to our buddy, my hands placed on him only releasing positive energy... I was grounded, standing by, waiting for what was going to happen next. 

“Open the door, NOW!!!... Open the DAMN DOOR!!!”

The door was opened as Mish instructed. Everyone is in shock, and emotionally frozen with their own reactions. Mish calls out to the old hag one final time. We both felt him go from a tense clamp, to finally a his muscles loosened, and you can feel his body decompress. As the old hag was leaving our buddy’s body, Mish could feel the old hag go through her own, followed by an intense silent pause.

“Close the door!! Close the door NOW!!!”

It was after that moment, our buddy collapses to the floor. He’s conscious, but with minimal responsiveness. He’s weak in strength, and can barely sit up straight. Minutes later, he’s now sitting on the couch, unaware of what had just happened. In a “coming to” state, sweat has completely covered his face... To the point where it was fogging up his glasses. We get him a cooling rag, his hands are shaking, and Mish and I are by his side, while asking how he feels, what he remembers, if anything hurts, etc... etc... While paying close attention to his reactions, and to his responses. 

Sometimes when you're a paranormal investigator, you also have to be a physical, and a spiritual nurse.... Even if it’s just being there. You also have to be strong for emotional support. 

When you’re in the moment, and your main focus turns into helping and protecting your buddies from harm, and/or any personal danger, you forget what’s even on, or recording. It wasn’t until afterwords, Mish realizes her digital recorder captures the whole occurrence. The playback is more haunting than the experience itself... No, scratch that... The playback is an experience, all on its own! We all got overwhelmed with emotion and tears, as we all listened. It captured things that we couldn't hear with our own ears... Which only added validation to what has just happened. 

During the playback...  (Emotional Pause)

 After you hear Mish yelling, “Open the DAMN DOOR!!!” you could hear the sound of the door opening, by one of our buddies. It was the haunting sound that followed... It would blow a skeptic’s mind silent! What we heard with our own ears, is the intense silent pause. What we all heard on the recorded playback, was a “strong gust of wind” going OUT to the door, clear as day. But when the door was opened, there was no wind... And even if there was, it would be blowing IN, not OUT. 

I’ll never forget it. Experiences like this... It’s one thing for myself to be crying, but when you see your buddies cry, and how they were all affected, because of how emotionally intense it was... Those are moments that forever echo in your mind, and heart. 

That wasn’t the last of it either...

Another one of our buddies, who's a healthy skeptic, kept hearing a voice inside his head, telling him to “go outside, go outside”... While another buddy of ours started to hyperventilate... Out of nowhere too! She literally couldn’t breathe, and was in tears! There was also some spot in the cabin, where everyone started to feel sick. Needless to say, the old hag wasn’t finished. Mish decides to take liquid sage, and sprays us all down. Then I follow Mish outside, and she’s spraying every doorway, window, and opening, basically telling that old hag to fuck off, and for good. 

Still being a newbie in the paranormal field, I’ve never gotten an attachment... At least not yet. Nor, have I ever got affected so badly, to where I lost control over myself, my mind, or my body. But there are times where I’ve gotten over-whelmed with feeling, and emotion. It’s a given you’re a empath.

After we all comforted our buddy, who couldn’t breathe, I gave her one of my famous hugs. She then looks me in the eye, and asks “How do you do it? How are you remain so strong?”

“You just have to be a spiritual badass” I told her. “You have to be strong, and stand your ground.” 

Then with a smirk on my face, I proceeded to give the finger towards the window, where the old hag was seen doing circles around the cabin. (Clearly the old hag was still pissed off.) We both chuckled, and my buddy was feeling better. She was still a little shaken, but at least now, she was smiling. 

As for our buddy, who got attached, he’s doing better. It’s not something we bring up, but it’s something we definitely won't ever forget. I feel it’s also brought us all closer together. He was so apologetic that night, for having to put us through that. But we were just glad that he was ok. He’s also learned his lesson. We were all grateful that Mish was there that night, and we all hate to imagine what could of been if she wasn’t. 

As for myself, as scary, and emotionally intense that night was... I’m also grateful for the experience. Because every experience is a learning opportunity,  and learning opportunities are a chance to grow. 

Plus now, I know the signs and symptoms of an attachment. I’ve witnessed how they’re removed, and I understand there’s different levels and intensities, of how attachments can be. I also understand how it affects everyone, in different ways, and what kind of power it takes to remove one. I’m sure there’ll come a day, where I’ll have to face something like this again... Possibly face something a lot worse. But it comes with being a paranormal investigator... And it’s only going to push me to become better and what I love to do. 

[ecotone99]

[SF] The Gulf | Ep. 7: Prisoner Swap (Season Finale)

Elijah was telling the truth. Or at least part of it.

A Gulf Sails Board Member is suspected of extorting Ben Rupert before Ben killed himself.

As soon as the new year hit, news broke. Then it came out that this same Board Member had influenced the decision to hire the third party investigator who urged the arrest of Elijah Braze.

And like Elijah said, the investigator did have a small conflict of interest. He owns about $25,000 worth of shares of a competing real estate company in Gulf Sails.

Elijah is clearly a sexual predator. But maybe he’s not a murderer.

Never-the-less, he’s still here on the island. (And I’ve woken up in a cold sweat more than once, after nightmares I don’t even want to repeat.)

The investigator was fired, and the join Gulf Sails/ Paradisia task force brought on someone new who in addition to investigating the death of Ben Rupert is now looking into the last investigator, and the Board Member.

He resigned his position on the board, but says it was just because he would be a distraction. He says the decision to hire the investigator was based on merit, and that the conflict of interest is a small one, almost impossible to avoid given the number of industries Elijah is involved in.

He claims he is innocent of everything, including extortion of Ben Rupert, and the media is just spinning the facts to make him look bad.

Plus, the revitalized task force insists it still has enough evidence to convict Elijah.

Francesco, the leader of Paradisia where Gulf Sails is docked, says that he can’t trust Gulf Sails anymore and insists they leave port within a week.

Gulf Sails will be leaving a number of platforms behind, people who defected and will now stay docked at Paradisia permanently.

“It’s like a ghost town,” Majorie tells me when I finally wish her a happy New Year on January 3rd. “So many people have left. Like, a quarter of the platform slots are empty. It looks so weird. Remember that club out on the northwest spoke, Giorgio’s? Not a dance club, the bar and restaurant. Iit also had a marketplace, and hosted events.”

“Yeah,” I say, “my family used to go there when we felt like slumming it for seafood.”

“Ohhhkay. Mine went when we wanted to indulge.”

I feel my face getting a little pink with embarrassment.

“Anyway,” Majorie continues, “They left, and took the whole neighborhood with them. Giorgio’s platform is the center of a new, like, 20 or 25 platform community. And some of the platforms were apartment complexes, so there are like 1,500 people just from that one incident who just floated away.”

“That’s crazy, but I guess I can’t say I’m surprised. Wasn’t that neighborhood full of the fringe type? They always had the dumbest complaints at community meetings.”

Majorie laughs, “That’s true, I remember them complaining that they always kept that side of the island pointed north, so they never got the good sunsets or sunrises.”

“Yeah, I remember the CEO was like, uh, doesn’t it say that in your contract? That’s why it was cheaper… And they always wanted to veto neighboring platforms if they didn’t like the business or the style.”

“Still they had a sort of appeal to them, like a fisherman village feel mixed with Mediterranean port. I loved walking through there on the weekend, when they’d have street markets. People selling homegrown veggies and homemade crafts. I kinda want to go visit the place in a few months… see what it’s like on its own.”

I smile, but can’t think of much to say. My heart sinks at the thought of her going off on an adventure in a couple months without me.

“So I’ve been getting great results from your analysis,” She says with pep, changing the subject.

She’s talking about the program I made to analyze videos against a cache of deep fakes versus real clips, to see if the patterns match up.

She says, “I’m already making more money just knowing who and what evidence not to waste my time on. And it’s so much easier to find corroborating evidence that it was manufactured if I already know it in the first place. Seriously, definitely worth the money I’m paying.”

“That’s great! Well definitely keep them coming. Glad I’m helping.”

“How’s work on the interface? Can you send me the tool yet?” she asks, once again.

“I’ve still got a couple snags to figure out,” I say.

But the truth is, I could probably let her use it now. There would be a couple issues I’d have to work with her on ironing out. But the real reason I don’t want to send it, is because, well, its mine.

Once I let go of the tool, I’m not that much use to her anymore, she could just analyze her own videos. And I know that probably sounds horrible, but what am I supposed to do, just give away something I poured all that work into it, which is now making me money I need to get off the prison island?

I doubt she would mind if I brought up some kind of licensing, but I just don’t know how to navigate that, what to charge, how to make sure it doesn’t just get out and I get nothing from it. Maybe I should just release it as a free tool online, and make money from traffic to the website.

“I could help you fine-tune it,” Majorie suggests, “After all, I am your first user, and successful test case,” she winks.

“It won’t be long,” I promise.

“It definitely has a lot of potential beyond just me using it too. Imagine if we could work together to get it recognized to use in official settings. Then you’d be making baaank. But that’s a way off. I’m sure you’d have to have studies done, and get it reviewed by experts…”

“Sounds exhausting,” I say.

On the next batch of videos she sends me, there’s a strange one in there.

It’s a video of Elijah Braze, meeting with two guys. They aren’t wearing any anti-facial recognition glasses or anything and can be easily identified. They are gang members.

I remember that Majorie mentioned gang members had stayed at the hotel during the time that Ben killed himself, and were suspected of being hired by Elijah to kill Ben.

You can even make out some of the conversation. So this seems to be the damning piece of evidence the task force has on Elijah.

But when I analyze it with my system, the video is a deep fake. Elijah never met with the gang members–at least not in this video.

“Hey you didn’t tell me you were sending a video related to the Ben Rupert case,” I say, next time I chat with Majorie.

“Wait, which video?” she asks, sounding shocked.

I explain.

“Oh, I… I must have sent that by accident.”

“Where did it come from?”

“It was just another piece of evidence the investigators sent me.”

“Well do you know where they got it?”

“I… don’t know. I guess it would be from the security system of whatever restaurant they were meeting at.”

“Well, you’re going to want to tell the investigators that whoever they got it from is a suspect. The video’s a deep fake.”

“Oh, wow. That’s crazy, I will definitely tell them. Thanks for letting me know! Glad I accidentally sent it to you.”

“Yeah, but there’s still the main video of Ben’s suicide I haven’t had the chance to analyze. That could confirm, at least, whether or not it was a suicice.”

“That’s true. Hey, I’m sorry, I gotta run, something just came up for work, I’ll talk to you soon,” and Majorie signs off.

It doesn’t add up. Someone is trying to frame Elijah for Ben Rupert’s death, whether or not it was an actual suicide.

And I’m still trying to figure out how the Gulf Sails Board Member fits in.

Even if it was a suicice, caused by the Board Member extorting Ben, why would he go to such lengths to make it look like a murder? I doubt they would try to somehow prosecute him for a suicide. And blaming Elijah for the death doesn’t cover up evidence of extortion.

So then the whole thing would have to be aimed at Elijah. Maybe it’s something to do with Elijah’s sizeable stake in Gulf Sails?

As the weeks wear on, little more happens with the investigation in Ben Rupert. The investigators maintain that they are sorting everything out, and preparing to try Elijah for the crime. Gulf Sails’ reputation hasn’t recovered. They island sailed to Lapachicola early after Francesco kicked them out of Paradisia.

And Francesco still maintains that Elijah is being falsely prosecuted. In fact, he’s the main relentless voice hammering away at Gulf Sails for being corrupt.

And Gulf Sails doesn’t have any one, singular cult-personality to counter his voice. Elijah was the biggest personality on the island, had the most celebrity. And the Gulf Sails CEO just isn’t a showy guy. So right now, Francesco is winning the battle of public opinion.

I didn’t get it at first, why Francesco would want to part ways with one of Paradisia’s biggest money makers of the year. But seeing the results now, it’s starting to make sense.

He keeps preaching that Gulf Sails is greedy and toxic, and that people need a simpler, less money-focused way of life. They can opt-out of the rat race by living in (or off the coast of) Paradisia. His numbers are swelling, and he doesn’t need to rely on Gulf Sails anymore to subsidize his society. Now it’s stand-alone, and his power has increased.

A few weeks after the New Year Crenshaw pulls me aside and asks if I’ve had any more trouble with Elijah.

“No, I’ve barely seen him since New Years’, he doesn’t even look my way.”

“Good,” Crenshaw says, “I didn’t want to have to extend my sentence here. But I would have.”

When I ask Eric about this later, he tells me how Crenshaw put the fear of god in Elijah one day when they ran into each other on the main path.

I would have loved to see how the blood drained from his face, and he lost his confident posture for a few moments. But hearing Eric describe the cowering apologies is almost as satisfying. Never thought I’d make such good friends in prison.

Unfortunately, that night I still wake up with a start from another nightmare about Elijah preying on me. I’ve taken to sleeping with the brass knuckles Eric gave me on my fingers.

By early February, my conversations with Majorie are finally drifting away from being consumed by Ben Rupert’s murder, or suicide, or whatever it was. She’s got a little more of her glow back, but I can still tell there’s anxiety in the back of her mind.

“Hey, remember how you mentioned wanting to check out that new neighborhood that floated away. The one centered around Giorgio’s?” I ask Majorie.

“Yeah, they’re growing too, I think they’re calling it New Sicily. What about it?”

“If you wait until this summer,” I say, “Maybe I can join you.”

She’s surprised, and the first honest smile that I’ve seen in months breaks out on her face. “Really? Things are going that well?”

“Yeah, I paid down seven grand of the debt in January. At this rate, I could be out in May.”

“That’s amazing, it can’t all be from analyzing the videos for me though, right? What are you doing? Did the blog take off?” she laughs, before catching herself, and smiling in a guilty way.

“Ha, no. Actually, you remember Dean? He’s been giving me business coaching advice. I started outsourcing a lot of my bug-catching job to people in places where labor is worth about half as much. I get four times as much work done in a quarter of the time. And even though they are only making half as much as me, compared to their cost of living, it’s like twice as much where they live.”

“Very cool,” Majorie says. “You’re almost running a charity.”

“Are you being sarcastic?”

She laughs, “I’m only joking, it is good. It’s a great way to spread the wealth around the world, really, teach a man to fish, and all that.”

“Yeah, and it gives me more time to focus on building out the deep fake tool.” I stop short realizing she’s still waiting for me to send her the program.

And a bit of an awkward silence commences until she says mechanically, “How’s that going?”

“Oh, it’s kinda still a mess,” I say. “It was easy enough for me to put it together so I can understand it. I know code enough to get the results I want, but not the interface side, how to make it easy for the user.”

“Well we’ll have to work on it together once you get off the island. The task force already put together their case against Elijah. They decided the suicide video was fake, but I’m not sure how they are going to present it at his trial.”

“So they still have their sights set on Elijah? I gotta be honest, I don’t think he did it. If someone took the time to fake a video of him meeting with the hitmen… kinda seems like he’s being framed. I mean you have more experience than me with investigations…”

I can’t believe I’m defending the guy…

Majorie shrugs, “The investigators cut me out of the loop a few weeks ago. I guess they got all they needed from me.”

Work. Work. Work.

A month passes in a snap.

On my birthday, March second, Eric invites me over for a low key celebration. Crenshaw and Brenton are there, waiting with a toast to yell “Surprise!” (Not that I’m too surprised… I assumed they’d be there for poker as usual.)

“You know, 21st birthdays used to be a big deal,” Eric says to me, “Time for you to have your first alcoholic beverage.”

Crenshaw and Brenton laugh. Looks like they may have started the festivities a little early.

“You remember that, old man? Going to yah first bah on yah 21st?” Crenshaw says, his New England accent even thicker from the booze.

Eric smiles, “I’m not that old. Being born in the New Dark ages meant I was going to bars by the time I was 11. Maybe I went to my first real bar around 21 though… by then things were rebounding. There were actual commercial establishments available to people who weren’t elites.”

“And we wouldn’t be 50 fuckin’ years behind,” I hear another voice break in, “If people hadn’t let the politicians destroy society.”

It’s George. I look on in disbelief. Is he here for my birthday?

“Ah, gawd, here we go, Mr. Anti-establishment has arrived,” Crenshaw says, nudging Brenton.

“Oh just wait til you see–or rather hear–the present I brought with me for the birthday boy here,” George says, just barely acknowledging me. “Kid loves history. So I came well prepared to give him my insights on growing up in The Kingdom during reconstruction.”

And learn about The Kingdom I do. In fact I get much more than I bargained for.

It starts innocent enough. A basic–albeit condescending–overview of The Kingdom while we all play poker. How it was started by a large farming family in Georgia in the wake of the collapse. How they held everything together by keeping the area safe enough to grow food, keeping people fed enough to not go entirely crazy.

But by the time George was born two or three decades later in the late 2050s, The Kingdom was a full fledged government. Technically a monarchy, although it was run more like a business. And it sounds to me like there was a little bit of feudalism mixed in there too.

But apparently, according to George, they still had the “Puritanical Judeo-Christian tendency to legislate morality.” And that’s where things fall apart.

Mind you, by this point it had been a couple hours, and a few bottles of moonshine later. Eric had taken all our chips, demolishing us in Texas Hold-em.

The history lesson culminated in George drunkenly opening up–if you can even call it that–about what exactly got him landed on a prison island with a life sentence for murder.

“And those god-damn sons of bitches wouldn’t just let my wife die with dignity, in a humane way. I had to do it myself!” He sobs, “I had to do it for her, she was so weak, she begged me, she begged me to take away the pain! And I had to do it with the tools I had available because they wouldn’t let me, let us, have the simple fucking medicine we needed! They had it right there. They used it execute murderers, but when it came to a sweet gentle woman who just wanted to move on from her disease, they wouldn’t… they just couldn’t…”

George is grasping for words, exasperated, practically gasping for breath, now just bawling with his head in his arms on the table. Crenshaw, Brenton, and I are just frozen in shock, sobered up pretty quick.

We meet Eric’s somber gaze, and he signals us to leave with a flick of his hand.

We happily oblige.

One day I see Elijah as I make my way to the cafeteria. I’ve been pretty good about avoiding him.

But now he has his bags with him in the lobby where the airships land. And as usual, I’m caught staring in disbelief, trying to interpret what it all means.

“That’s right,” Elijah says with a smirk, “I’m out of here. Like I said, my innocence would be proven. How sad in this day and age that you have to prove your innocence rather than being innocent until proven guilty, as it should be. But don’t worry. My replacement will be here soon.” He winks at me as he boards the airship.

What does that mean? Did they charge the Board Member instead? I haven’t seen anything about this in the news.

The next day it hits, the big headlines that the charges are dropped against Elijah, and the investigators are preparing to charge someone else. But they haven’t announced who, pending the arrest.

It’s really a weight off my shoulder. The bad dreams go away, and I can finally sleep easy.

And around the same time, I realize the money I just made will reach the threshold to get me off the island by mid April. Of course I’ll still owe Francesco the other half when I leave.

I never honestly thought I could become this successful, let alone in under six months. I owe a lot to Dean’s guidance, but also the focus provided by the prison island. And of course the incentive to pay off enough of my debt so I can leave.

“Well it wasn’t the blog, was it?” The warden laughs.

God he’s annoying. I just give him the raised eyebrows and a smirk. But when I think about it, if it weren’t for the movie blog, I might have never thought about how to detect deep fakes using a database of video clips.

“Hey Dege, if it’s okay, I’d love to get permission for Elba to contact you after you leave. You’re a pretty big success story… it’s not too often that someone becomes as productive a member of society in as short a time. We’d love a testimony, but I’d say there’s an opportunity for even more. I mentioned it to the higher ups, some sort of promotional deal…”

“Oh, really? Well yeah, you can contact me for sure. I’ll have to think about the rest.”

I imagine myself being the poster boy for a prison camp… not sure if that’s the image I’d want out there. Not that I could hide this episode in my life from anyone who bothered to look into it.

“Of course, and I’ll get in touch with more specifics. It’s been a joy having you here Dege, but don’t come back!” He laughs.

I can’t believe that I’m actually getting out of here this soon. It still hasn’t sunk in that I’ve paid my debt off in just six months when I thought it would take two years. And now, I’m actually making good money, I feel empowered, independent, useful, important.

The hardest part is saying goodbye to Eric.

“It’s days like today I question my sanity,” he chuckles, “living on a prison island…”

“Well you can leave for vacations if you want, can’t you? Take a break and come back.”

“I suppose I could. But I haven’t left this island in 25 years. I guess I’ve just been boycotting the real world. I don’t know what I would do with myself. I guess I’m just an old man stuck in my ways now,” he shrugs.

“Then I’ll come back and visit you,” I say confidently.

“I appreciate that Dege,” he says with sad eyes, “But I don’t want you to beat yourself up about it if you never seem to find the time.”

I scoff, “Come on Eric, of course I’ll be able to find the time.”

He pats me on the back, “Rodigio, it’s been great spending time with your these last few months. I don’t think my evening conversations will be quite as intellectually stimulating without you.”

I’d never really thought of myself as intellectual before.

As I’m walking down, with my things all packed, I pass George’s cabin. He’s outside, as usual, working in the garden. He stands up and walks over to his wall and looks at me. I stop.

Stand. Stare. Wait.

“We’re cousins,” he says. “Well, your dad and I are cousins.” Then he turns around and resumes what he was doing.

I just laugh.

“Hey, I might still hit you up for another history lesson online,” I say.

“At your own peril,” he replies, without looking up.

Down by the docks, I see the airship approaching from the bay. I look around, and breathe in the air, taking in the beauty of the shimmering green hillside. I still can’t believe this is what a prison island looks like. There’s a salty breeze, and the light sound of water lapping at the shore. And those birds… I never did figure out what kind they are, or where they came from.

I board the airship that will take me off the island.

To my shock, Majorie is on board!

I’m baffled. She came all this way just to fly back with me?

But no… She’s sitting in the prisoner section. She’s waiting to be transported to the women’s prison island en route to drop me back off at Gulf Sails.

“I didn’t know how to tell you,” she says, here eyes dissolving into tears. “But it’s not what you’ll hear. Believe me, it’s not what they’ll say about me!”

“What is it? I don’t understand.” But amid the sinking feeling in my chest, I’m starting to make sense of it. She was involved in Ben Rupert’s murder.

“Rodigio, you’ve got to listen to me, and believe me. Whatever part I played in this murder was entirely by accident. I helped them pay the hitmen, but I didn’t know what I was doing. They used me!” She breaks down in tears.

I want to comfort her for the remainder of the short flight, but they force me to sit in the visitor section, since I’m no longer a prisoner. All I can do is watch her cry from a distance. And think about what this means.

The realizations are washing over me. It was Majorie who made the deep fake of Elijah meeting with the hitmen. That must be why she wanted the analysis tool. Did she make the video of the suicide too? Then she would have had to know what was coming…

The flight is landing. They’re escorting her off.

“Help me clear my name!” she begs me through sobs as she is led off the airship.

“I will, I promise I’ll do whatever it takes!”

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[life-in-every-limb]

John and I were married thirty years ago today, at 12:30 p.m. to be precise.  To celebrate our anniversary and to reflect on what all those years have meant, I am sharing one picture from each year, with commentary.

August 12, 1989, as we emerged from Immaculate Conception Church in downtown Knoxville, immediately after the ceremony.  Like any newly married couple, we were starting a journey that we couldn’t have imagined or predicted.  We were 23 and 22 when this picture was taken.

April 1990, at the Tidal Basin in Washington, D.C.  John and I met at Georgetown University, and lived in Alexandria, Virginia just outside D.C. for most of our first year of marriage.  John, who graduated in 1988, was already working as a Federal Investigator and I found a job as Secretary of Georgetown’s Department of History.

Fall 1991.  A lot happened in a year and a half!  We learned we were expecting our first baby.  We decided to move to Knoxville to establish residency so John could attend the University of Tennessee College of Law.  We left good jobs in D.C. for no jobs in Knoxville and settled into a two-bedroom apartment,  I found a job as Secretary of the Liberal Arts Advising Center.  John worked in the UT Traffic Office by day and sold shoes at Proffitt’s (a local, now defunct department store) by night.  Emily was born in February 1991, and John started law school later that year.  We have never regretted this decision.

February 16, 1992, dressed to go out to celebrate our 5th dating anniversary.  We still celebrate that day every year.  At this point we were living on a combination of student loans and part-time jobs.  John was making fundraising phone calls for Tennessee Right to Life and I was the Foster Care Promotional Coordinator for Sertoma Learning Center.  Later that year John started working as a law clerk.  Childcare for Emily was cobbled together: my little sister watched her all summer, my grandmother helped once my sister was back in school, I brought her with me when possible, and she spent one day a week in a Parents Day Out downtown.  I hated having to leave her.

July 1993, New Orleans, where we were taking part in Katrice and Rico’s wedding.  Katrice was one of my best friends in high school.  She and Rico are godparents to our oldest son, and we celebrated their son’s college graduation with them earlier this month.  What I remember about this day is that I was hot and miserable and suffering from morning sickness.  John was getting ready to start his third year of law school and I was preparing to return to grad school and my Graduate Assistant position in the College of Liberal Arts.

May 1994, John’s graduation from law school! I love this picture.  We were very popular in law school because students with babies were rare and ours were spoiled by all our friends.  Jake was three months old when John graduated.  And he was four months old when we found out we were expecting another baby, just days before John took the bar exam.  Thankfully he passed and landed a job in Oak Ridge reviewing OSHA regulations shortly afterwards.  I was able to quit my job and have never worked outside the home since.

Easter 1995, a classic picture and one of my favorites of all time.  Teddy arrived when Jake was 12.5 months old.  He had only learned to walk about two weeks earlier.  Two babies at once were a lot to handle and most of that first year is a blur.

Christmas 1996.  We still had two babies in diapers (and two cribs!) but we also had our first house! A year in a dreadful two-and-a-half bedroom apartment after Teddy arrived spurred us onward to home ownership and we loved our sweet 1940s house in South Knoxville.

Halloween 1997.  The kids were two, three, and six.  They spent most of their time outside, and I spent a lot of time outside as well, having discovered a love of gardening.  By now John had his own solo practice, and I did (and still do) very part-time grant writing and editing for my mother’s non-profit organizing work.

February 4, 1998, John’s 32nd and Emily’s 7th birthday celebration.  Looking back now, those years of being overwhelmed by the needs of little kids seem like the golden years.  It was hard, but it was simpler.

February 1999.  The date is a guess, but this was taken at a restaurant at what was probably a birthday celebration and we have four of those at this time every year.  I make a lot of cakes for awhile!

January 2000, dressed for church.  Teddy’s hat came from a New Year’s Eve celebration John and I had attended at Club LeConte.

March 2001.  And then there were four!  The arrival of William was exciting but rough, as I had postpartum hypertension and had to remain in bed for about a month after he was born, with ten-year-old Emily taking care of her brothers when John was at work.  We were beginning to be very cramped in our 1400 square foot house and our Mercury Sable.  Both were replaced later in the year.

Christmas 2002.  When the big kids were little, every December meant a trip to the portrait studio for Christmas pictures to insert in our Christmas cards.  By this time I was taking a roll of film with my own camera and then sending triple prints.  The closest family members got the worst pictures!  Here the kids are standing in front of the house where we had lived for just over a year, a 3000 square foot Queen Anne Victorian built in 1889, in a non-gentrified but walkable neighborhood just a couple of miles from John’s office downtown.

August 2003, the big kids’ first day of school.  It was the last year they would all attend St. Joseph School together.  Jake was in third grade, Teddy in second, and Emily in sixth, but Jake and Teddy were both homeschooled for their fourth grade year.

November 2004, Lorelei’s first trip to church.  We didn’t know it then, but she would be our last baby and the last family member to get to wear John’s heirloom baby dress.

Christmas 2005 marked the end of a hard year that included periods of unemployment, financial difficulties, and John’s hospitalization.  Looking back now I can see that it was the only beginning of the most difficult period in our family’s life so far.

September 2006, celebrating my mother’s birthday.  This photo includes Ella and Zachary, my sister Anne’s children.  Ella is 17 months younger than William and Zachy is 17 months older, and they grew up playing together.

Spring 2007.  William is wearing his St. Joseph School uniform.  Kindergarten was his only year in Catholic school.  He spent the next year at the public school down the street, then was homeschooled for several years while I struggled to figure out why he wasn’t as easy to teach as Jake and Teddy had been.  We called the back stairs in our kitchen the “snack steps” because that’s where I would sit the little kids to eat something while I was cooking.  You can see evidence in this picture that our old house was starting to crumble a bit.

May 2008, Jake’s graduation from 8th grade, taken next to Holy Ghost Church.  We were all smiles, and very proud of Jake who graduated with straight A’s and won some academic awards, but I was putting on a brave face.  The day before this I was in the hospital undergoing outpatient surgery after having miscarried our last baby.

November 2009.  I’m not sure who snapped this picture of John and me the afternoon of our move into a new home.  It wasn’t a happy move, springing from financial necessity of being upside-down on the mortgage of our disintegrating but much-loved Victorian home.  But I love that the picture shows us supporting each other.

May 2010, Jake’s first prom.  I love this picture for the personality it shows, but also because it was a bright spot in an otherwise difficult stretch where John and Jake (who have a great relationship now) did not get along well at all.  Something else noteworthy about 2010 is that it is when I became John’s legal assistant, working from home to run his office.

September 6, 2011.  Our rental house had just burned down and we lost almost every material possession.  Thanks to the overwhelming kindness of our family and community, we were able to move into the home in which we still live three weeks later.

Fall 2012, Senior Night.  John and I are not athletic, and our kids showed no interest in sports until Teddy wanted to play football in 8th grade.  It was all new and exciting to us and we thoroughly enjoyed those few years as football parents.

May 2013, Emily’s college graduation.  Emily attended Spring Hill College in Mobile, Alabama, graduating with a degree in Creative Writing.  We thoroughly enjoyed our many visits to Mobile, where my mother’s family has roots, especially the seafood!  Just a couple of months later, we sent another kid off to college as Teddy began his freshman year at the University of Notre Dame.

August 12, 2014, a 25th anniversary selfie.  This was taken at Club LeConte, a fancy restaurant on the 27th floor of Knoxville’s tallest building.

July 2015, in a Chicago skyscraper more deserving of the name.  We were in town to attend a wedding and to visit Teddy, who was doing a summer internship there.

March 2016, a Spring Break trip to Chattanooga.  Traveling was starting to get easier.  On our last family trip with all five kids, we had to take two cars and book three motel rooms.

May 2017, Teddy’s graduation from Notre Dame.

March 24, 2018, our first wedding.  Jake and Jessica were married at Frozen Head State Park.  Six months later, they moved to Nashville.

July 2019, our first cruise.  We sailed on Royal Caribbean’s Grandeur of the Seas to Bermuda, in honor of our upcoming anniversary.  I haven’t blogged about the cruise but I plan to.  It was wonderful and we deserved it.

“[Love] is the unity that binds us all together, that makes this earth a family, and all men brothers and the sons of God.”  ~ Thomas Wolfe

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