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littlequeenies · 5 years ago

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BEBE BUELL: MUSING ON MUSES AND OTHER FANS

📷BEBE BUELLJUNE 17, 2020

Before embarking on a musical career of her own, Bebe Buell was a much in-demand model but was most often seen as the second fiddle to the famous rock musicians she was dating. She, however, saw herself as the Muse to these musicians, inspiring and sharing ideas with them. Inevitably, the term “groupie” would arise. As she says, “I’m not opposed to ‘groupies,’ per se. I just don’t like being called a name or being tagged like a sheep to slaughter’. Bebe elaborates on this idea for PKM.

I remember the first time I saw a photograph of Oscar Wilde. I was five and it was Easter. We were at the Virginia Beach home of my mother’s friends, Poppy and Tilly, who were hosting a Sunday get together. We were dressed in our pastels and frills and the candy and food was flowing. It was an adult affair and, being the only child there, I wandered off to explore while the grown-ups enjoyed their martinis and snacks. I found myself in a living room study area and on the table was a big book filled with photos of poets, painters, sculptors and scholars. I was immediately drawn to an image of Oscar draped on a chair like a velvet throw! It stuck with me and when I got older I looked him up in the school library. At the age of twelve I read The Picture Of Dorian Gray, but my main interest was in Oscar Wilde, the man and his story. I felt an instant connection, just as I have with all the great inspirations in my life. In 1978, when I was living between NYC, Maine and LA, before finishing the year in London, I never missed one episode of Masterpiece Theatre and their 13 episodes of Lillie about the life of Lillie Langtry, played brilliantly by Francesca Annis. To my delight, it explored in great depth the relationship/friendship between Oscar and Lillie, and I became obsessed with knowing everything and anything I could about their dynamic. I was intrigued, too, by the descriptions of Mrs. Langtry in the press at that time in England and the U.S. She was often called a “Professional Beauty” or “The Jersey Lily” because she was born on Jersey, the largest of the Channel Islands off the coast of Normandy. She was also one of the most featured women in advertising; her face was everywhere. She was the image for Pears Soap and the most respected painters of the day stood in line just to have a sitting with her. In 1877, she met Edward, Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII, and became his first publicly acknowledged mistress.

One of my favorite quotes was attributed to her from her conversations with Wilde: “They saw me, those reckless seekers of beauty, and in a night I was famous.” This reminded me of the back room at Max’s Kansas City, the temple of cool when I arrived in New York during the era of everything! It was this platonic duo that introduced me to the role of the “Muse”—that is the Artist and the Muse. Throughout history and especially in the arts, there seems to always be a driving force that brings the flora. In the series Lillie, they emphasized how Oscar would repeat Lillie’s quips and observations in his writing. Their banter with one another fascinated me and I often envisioned myself as a “Patron of The Arts”, in a sense, as I’ve always promoted and sang the praises of those whose work I liked. I felt an affinity with that spirit—the gift of inspiring and sharing special ideas with an artist I admired. It wasn’t just music. I adored musing with photographers, writers, film directors and designers, too. Creative energies have always fed my soul. The first time I referenced the term “muse” was in a 1981 interview I did with the Emmy-winning writer Stephen Demorest for the edgy publication Oui. Its sister magazine in France was called Lui. Playboy had taken over ownership of Oui so it was a glossy, classy, European-style men’s delight, targeting a younger demographic. When Stephen approached me about the piece, he showed me a couple other interviews with “It Girls” that had been published.

One was with Patti D’Arbanville, the inspiration for some of Cat Stevens’ biggest hits. He even used her last name in one of the songs, “Lady D’Arbanville”. I knew Patti from the early 70s and, in fact, it was she who introduced me to Jimmy Page in 1973 on a night out dancing with her in NYC. It was a quick meeting, as I was eager to get home to my boyfriend at the time, Todd Rundgren. A year later, I would run into Mr. Page again and the rest is the stuff of rock tales.

I adored Patti so knowing that both she and Jerry Hall had done this particular interview sealed the deal. Like Patti Boyd, Jane Asher, Linda Eastman, Maureen Van Zandt, Sara Dylan, to name a few, the musical muse is the most often of the muses referenced. I recall how so many people wanted to know my viewpoints and opinions about the word “muse” and why I preferred it to the term “groupie”.

Even in Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous, his beloved character Penny Lane’s first words on screen are, “We are not groupies. We inspire the music- we are bandaids!”. The film was Cameron’s love letter to women and how even at that time a stigma was attached to calling a woman a groupie; it was not necessarily a compliment. It was almost like a dismissive jab, on par with “she’s such a slut” or “whore”. Another scene in Almost Famous has all of the members of the fictitious band Stillwater squeezed onto a small plane that, they thought, was about to crash. Secrets were spilled and fingers were pointed. In one of the most moving moments, the William character defends Penny when she is described as “that groupie” by one of the band members. William nails it when he points out who and “what” she really is- a bright light and cherished fan. Someone who loved them all and for all the right reasons.

I feel that women have been unfairly branded and labeled without cause. I’ve often said that I’m not opposed to “groupies,” per se. I just don’t like being called a name or being tagged like a sheep to slaughter. Summing me up for the life I’ve lived, seen through someone else’s eyes or, worse, exaggerating the truth. I didn’t want those I’ve truly loved or the relationships I’ve had to be considered less sincere because of the visibility of my partner.

Certainly loving music or dating musicians is not derogatory. Isn’t it logical, then, that birds of a feather flock together? Like-minded tribes mate or unite because of chemistry? Rock boys and models have been drawn to each other since forever! In the Netflix series Hollywood, you find that sex and sexual favors were the core of the industry. Several of the movie stars everyone loved on screen had started out as rent boys or nude models to make ends meet. Who decides why someone can give a blow job to the “right” person and get a starring role in a movie and another blow job by an aspiring talent gets tossed into the trash can of regret.

Why, after having four children with Mick Jagger, a successful modeling career and now being Mrs. Rupert Murdoch, would anyone refer to Jerry Hall as a groupie? Or gold digger, another favorite term used to describe women who marry well. Or Marianne Faithfull, Anita Pallenberg or Winona Ryder, for heaven’s sake? These are the questions I’ve always had and one of the main reason why I have rejected the term groupie in the press. It’s not a personal attack on those who identify with the moniker. It’s my own rebellion against being labeled and frowned on for the relationships I’ve had.

I’ve taken this stand for a long time, even though it’s also caused some judgement and negativity towards me from other women. It’s almost as if they think I see myself as better than them. Or that I’m not being honest when I don’t just call myself a full-on groupie, and own it. My closest friends tell me it’s just jealousy but that doesn’t make it any less hurtful to have tales and lies circulated about you by people you barely know or those who don’t know me at all. Or to have relationships that lasted for years being reduced to a laundry list of “conquests.”

This is nothing new, of course. Catherine The Great‘s enemies within the Emperor’s Court turned on her and started rumors that she was a sex fiend who had intercourse with horses. That stuck with her throughout her life and even in the museums of Russia, the tale has echoed although it’s completely untrue. Cleopatra and Anne Boleyn were also targeted. Ruining reputations was the way people got their revenge in days of yore. Or in some cases, the reason why some lost their heads to the guillotine. Why is it that women who have power or beauty have been subjected to crazy accusations of sexual voracity or deviance? Eve takes the blame for the banishment from Eden and although she was supposedly created from Adam’s rib, she is seen as a temptress and Adam as her victim.

I believe every woman should identify by how she feels comfortable and for the work she does. I personally prefer to be known for what I do, my accomplishments, my career. However, dating a rock star or an actor should not merit a nasty quip or name calling fest. It becomes unbalanced when just because someone gets famous as, say, a model or an actress and then dates a rock star, that she should get called anything other than what she does to earn a living. I’m not sure “groupie” falls under the umbrella of job occupation. I’d file it under pastime, hobby, passion, or fetish.

The origins of the groupie started with nothing more than a desire to be close to the band—the guys who made the music. Or in some cases, the women. The term came into use in the mid-1960s as slang for women who liked to hang out with musicians. It’s fair to say that not all “groupies” are the same. There are many tiers and pecking orders when narrowing it down. Certainly not every girl who dreams of being with a rock star will waltz backstage and demand sex or give oral gratification. That’s the image I despise and wish would not tarnish the entire viewpoint to the outside world. Some of the girls on the scene want to take the word “groupie” back, to personify what it meant in the ‘60s and early ‘70s. It became something entirely different when the ‘80s rolled around. Bands born out of the LA scene liked a different kind of arm candy than the Rolling Stones or the Beatles. They preferred exotic dancers and porn stars, the girls du jour of the time. Just as music changes with each era, so do the kinds of women who pursue the bands. But, more importantly, what kind of women the bands seek out. One man’s status is another man’s yen.

And then there are those who look at being a groupie as a form of prostitution. I’ve never understood that one because most girls who live that lifestyle don’t charge money to be with their favorite rock god or even their crew. It’s a thrill to be with the band, but it seems the glamor that was once attached to that goal has changed. For me, it was a thrill to fight to say “I’m IN the band”… or even “I AM the band!”

When I was living with Todd, he produced one of the first all-female bands, Fanny. They were so great! June Millington could shred! I felt bewildered when I would hear snide remarks wondering if Todd was sleeping with one of them. I thought to myself that would have never been said or thought if they weren’t women.

The bottom line is preference. We all have a choice. And we all can be whatever we want. We can wear many hats. I see myself as a mother, wife, musician, singer, songwriter, writer, mentor, animal lover… many different things. What I do in my spare time is how I make my soul happy. Who I date is based on connections, fate and karma. We end up with who we’re meant to be with and the experiences we have are all meant to be. I’ve been with my husband Jim for twenty years now. Our 18th wedding anniversary is coming in August 2020. So, I’m writing this piece from the perspective of a wife, mother, working musician, writer and mentor. Not just a girl who had lots of suitors in her youth. Every single little thing is part of the journey.

The first time I saw a photo in Rolling Stone of what they called a “groupie”, I was 15 years old and in the 10th grade. It was 1969, and neither the image nor the word was at all something ugly to me. It just seemed exciting and cool. The girls were so outrageously dressed, and it reflected an almost innocent charm. I didn’t aspire to be a groupie but they seemed like they were the ones who made the guys in the band cool. They helped dress them, created make-up looks and spread the word all over town about how good they were. It didn’t seem to be so much about sex and backstage antics. Maybe I was too young to fully understand everything, especially from the pages of a magazine.

On my first trip to LA with Todd in 1973, when I finally did meet some real girls who liked to be called groupies, it still didn’t seem derogatory. I started to see how it was all just tossed together in some people’s minds. It’s a complex dance between an artist and his muse. None of it is something so vulgar or tainted as being only about sexual conquest. Maybe to some, it’s about that. But for me it was a series of fated encounters that have lasted throughout my life.

Some people see a groupie as a girl who will do anything, including have sex with a roadie, to get to the band. There is that element to the rock n’ roll lifestyle. But it’s not the entire package. Others see groupies as a vibe, the girls who are there when the band makes it, the girls that helped them make it, the on-the-road bestie, or the girls who get the bands drugs and food. Or even give them the clothes off their backs if the band is short a cool stage look. I often joke that that’s how wearing your lingerie out became a signature rock girl look- the band had taken her clothes to wear onstage!

I recall reading where Pamela Des Barres said she was still a virgin when she first discovered her teenage heart being drawn to rock boys. It felt sexual to her and it was also just youthful and sweet. Not a salacious sexual quest. More a desire to be near the music and the men who made it. That’s perhaps what one would define as a “classic groupie”. Or, in some circles, “fan” is the preferred analogy. I can relate to that myself as I knew when I was ten years old, I would hang out with Mick Jagger one day. I knew those were my people… my kind.

Pamela has made a career out of her life as a proud groupie. But certainly she has a right to claim the term because she helped invent it! She now calls it her “groupie heart” and that is something anyone who’s ever had a crush on someone or loved someone’s music so much that it altered your DNA can relate to. Hasn’t everyone felt that way? Every guy or gal who picks up a guitar or slings a mic stand had to have been dazzled by their inspiration or felt a need to pursue that for their own futures. So, my point is this- none of it is negative nor should one word hold so much power that when it’s flung at a woman, she’ll feel shamed or scorned.

When I started to get a bit of fame, the media seemed to want to call me anything but “groupie”. It was “Friend Of The Stars”, “Queen Of The Rock Chicks”, “Leggy Model”, “The Mother Of All Rock Chicks”, “It Girl”… so when the internet entered our lives, I began to see just how judgmental and downright mean people were about the women who hung out with the bands. It started to become something so dirty and taboo that I wanted no part of that term. It’s a thin line, a hard one to walk. Personally, I feel loving music and being attracted to musicians is as natural as doctors and nurses getting along. Humans are drawn to their soul tribe. Music, musicians and all art forms attract me. I’m the moth to that flame.

As an entertainer myself, it always hurt me when what I actually do for my job was ignored or not taken seriously because of the famous names I’ve been attached to. It’s so one-sided to only put that burden on women. It has been the norm for men to be patted on the back and admired for their taste in women and especially if they were able to appeal to many and have tons of sexual experiences. Even in the animal kingdom, the male peacock has the massive plume bloom to attract as many lovers as he can. A male lion can rule the pride with his sexual domination. A male celebrity only becomes more famous if he’s got a beautiful model or actress on his arm. Whereas a woman who’s dance card is busy or even full is often ridiculed or bashed. Branded with the scarlet letter of infamy.

It started to get under my skin when I saw myself defined only by who I’d dated or had close friendships with. It’s the luck of the draw. Some women who are in the public eye can date and marry a celeb several times and be embraced for it. They use it to further their already visible life. They are proud and exploit all their lovers as the playthings that they’ve become. Some have become famous by leaking a porno or being on a reality show. What was once a limited field has become wide open with lots of branches of thought and assumption. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy for me to fight for my image… my persona… my legacy. But I did fight. I turned down almost every request I was presented to be interviewed for groupie documentaries or sensationalized TV shows. Sometimes turning down large sums of money. But I wanted to work hard and felt if I worked hard enough one day I’d be thought of for what I did on a stage, in front of the lens of a camera, as a mother and at times even a manager, more than who I shared my life with. Dare I use the “R” word? I wanted RESPECT.

There’s lots of contrast in the definition of groupie or muse but what about “partners”… the duos who took the world by storm. Sonny & Cher, Karen & Richard Carpenter, Debbie Harry & Chris Stein, Jack & Meg White, Jane Birkin & Serge Gainsbourg, Stevie Nicks & Lindsey Buckingham, Annie Lennox & Dave Stewart, Kim Gordon & Thurston Moore, etc… Or Chrissie Hynde and Courtney Love, who both married musicians. There’s a kaleidoscope of ways women are seen. It all depends on how you are first perceived. The general public seem to hold on to how they first heard of you even if you go on to do many different things in your life. Marianne Faithfull is a perfect example of someone who has been able to transcend her detractors and carry on like the warrior she is. But it baffles my mind how anyone could call her or Anita Pallenberg anything but tastemakers and trendsetters. They were the women I would stare at for hours as a young girl. They fascinated me almost more than the guys they hung out with. Yet I still hear them sometimes referred to as groupies.

Like any entertainer, I have an overwhelming need to be loved and to give love and positive energy to others. That’s why I crave being onstage. The connection with the audience is almost like having the best sex in the world. Or at minimum, a great, soulful hug that sends sparks through your body. I’ve been doing this since 1980, in public anyway. This is my life… not the talented, special men I dated in my youth. That’s part of my story and I will never regret a single heartbreak nor will I ever regret loving to the point of forgetting myself and my own pursuits. But I want to be remembered for more than my dates or suitors. I gave birth to a child who grew up to become a superstar so the role of nurturer has followed me throughout my life. I’ve accepted the fact that my fate is to be a vessel for talent and to enrich those who possess it. It’s become who I am- all the parts and pieces of my karma rolled into one big bang! My artistic side occupies just as much space as my musing side- equal parts love and creative energy.

Things come full circle especially when I get approached after one of my shows by young girls that call me “High Priestress” or tell me that they are my “groupies”. When I hear the words “Bebe, Im your biggest groupie!”, my heart swells but I also like to immediately remind them that I do what I do onstage because of them. Because of the exchange being a performer gives to my being. It’s like fuel… hors d’oeuvres for the soul.

One morning in 2009, I got a call from an old industry friend who had landed at Interscope Records. I was awoken with, “Bebe, you’ve been touted in a song produced by Pharrell Williams called ‘Bebe Buell’ by a young band from Boston called Chester French.” I remember thinking “wow, that’s a nice compliment” because the gist of the song was that someone like me or Pamela Anderson Lee were the creme de la creme of rock-boy desire. There’s a clothing line called ‘Muse & Lyrics‘ that has a blouse/top called “The Bebe” and the brand ‘I’m With The Band’ has named their leopard scarfs and headbands the “Bebe”. There’s even a cocktail called “The Bebe Buell”.

But I think one of the coolest things was having Cameron Crowe name the lead singer in Stillwater Jeff Bebe. He gave me the original T-shirt that was used in the movie, too, and boy do I treasure it! Cameron sprinkled all kinds of little clues and messages throughout Almost Famous. I was especially touched by the Jeff Bebe nod because he knew how much I wanted to be a singer in a band. I remember him once saying to me that I should just go for it. At that point, people only knew me as a model and Todd Rundgren’s girlfriend. I hadn’t even done Playboy yet, so I was still trying to figure out who I was and how to do it. I finally did but it took me six more years to get in the studio and front a band!

It’s moving to be honored and it’s also nice to be appreciated by the younger generation of pop culture lovers. The first time my name was in a song, I was excited by it. My old friend G.E. Smith had a line on his solo album that was about coming to visit “Bebe and Liz”… he came over to my best friend Liz Derringer’s house to play it for us. We were elated… it was cool. I would never be so bold as to sit here and make a list of my lovers or the songs they wrote for me because it seems so long ago. I’d rather leave that up to the fans of the music to decipher and besides not all songs written for others are acknowledged as such. I’ve had several songs given to me as gifts or written to me in letters.

Sometimes the authors don’t admit it because their feelings change and they don’t want to upset their new love interest. Didn’t Bob Dylan write “Leopard Skin Pill Box Hat”, “Just Like A Woman”, “Fourth Time Around” and “Like A Rolling Stone” about Edie Sedgwick, only to later deny it? I know the feeling because it’s happened to me. So, at this point in my life, I just cherish the letters (yes, I still have them so one day when we’re all gone they will maybe solve the puzzles) and I respect and allow artistic license to have its day. It’s an artist’s prerogative to change their minds so I hold no hurt feelings. Music buffs are pretty smart anyway and they usually know the truth, so it matters little unless it’s blatant. The one topic that irks me is that I claimed This Year’s Model was about me. Well, that’s impossible because I didn’t meet and start to date Elvis Costello until he was well into Armed Forces. I was living with him in London when he recorded it in the fall of 1978. He included a couple of lyrics from songs on Armed Forces in letters to me but I can say with certainty that “Party Girl” wasn’t one of them. I guess it was the timing of the release that made people speculate I was the subject, but I wasn’t and never claimed to be. He didn’t even know me when he wrote those records. Why this is disputed has always been a mystery to me. The songs Mr. Costello sent me in letters were from later albums, starting with Get Happy. I will always wonder too why he would say something so false and perpetuate a rumor twenty years later in the liner notes of a re-issue. Here’s to hoping it is finally put to rest. And even with the shame and pain I felt at the time, I feel no regret or ill will toward anyone. To me the truth is pretty obvious. Remember the story I told earlier about Catherine The Great? Revenge is often used when hearts are hurt, and it is very common in the entertainment industry.

In summing up my thoughts on the topic, I feel it’s time in our culture to appreciate the roles women have played in art since the beginning of time. Dali had his Gala, Picasso would hide the initials of his mistresses in his paintings and secretly tell them so they would know it was for them, Clapton immortalized his love and lust for Patti Boyd with the ultimate ode in “Layla” and John Lennon may have written the most beautiful love song of all for Yoko in “Woman”. Or was it Paul McCartney with “The Long And Winding Road” about Jane Asher or “Maybe I’m Amazed” about the spectacular Linda Eastman McCartney?

We can’t leave out the spirited and unique George Sand whose given name was Aurore Dupin. She was born in Paris on July 1, 1804 and adopted the name “George” because women couldn’t write professionally with the freedom of men in those days. She became one of the most popular writers in Europe during her lifetime- one of the most notable writers of the European Romantic era. She would wear male attire in public saying it was easier and more affordable than women’s garb. She was a confidant to Franz Liszt and lover and muse to Chopin. She would lie beneath the piano while Chopin composed, saying it sent the music through her entire body instead of just her ears.

Music is primal and it gets into our bloodstream. It’s easy to see why young girls get crushes on their idols and some even grow up to marry their dream man. But the days of defining women by their sexual desires or “conquests” should be on the wane. I never looked at the men I dated or loved as conquests. Humans aren’t territories to be battled over or ceded to. The human connection is divine. Each and every person we cross paths with is part of our magical life story. So, whatever you identify yourself as is fine. That is your privilege and judgement should not follow even if the choices aren’t the norm. As Oscar Wilde said, “Be yourself. Everyone else is taken.”

*Closing side note* As I was finishing this essay, I was doodling with a People magazine crossword puzzle and one of the clues was “GROUPIE”. Guess what the answer was… “FAN”. The timing was uncanny!

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secret-engima · 5 years ago

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I just want to say I adore all your AUs and now you have a transformer Regalia and I. I love it. The Regalia IS family and IS part of the team, and reading that snippet of her was just soothing to my very soul. (Especially cause I just recently rebeat the game and was having Feels). I am forever amazed at how you come up with such rich and perfect AUs.

Thank you, that’s really sweet hgfd! I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks transformer Regalia is a super cool AU. She is totally family. And this (like ... I think all but one of my FFXV’s) is a happy Fixit. Because like pit is she gonna let some prophecy kill her sparkling.

Also can you picture how she and the Chocobros 1.0 met? Because it was great. Here lemme-

-Regis got her when he was like- a teenager? A teenager who really wanted a car of his own, more than that, wanted to PICK his own car rather than have his father just gift him one.

-ANYWAY circumstances and Luck being what they are, Regalia had just crash-landed on Earth and smuggled her way into Insomnia desperately looking for somewhere to rest, her systems damaged from the fight she’d gotten into before coming here. She had to disguise herself, so she scanned a vehicle mode (a custom classic that was sitting pretty in an expensive lot) and transformed.

-Only realized her mistake after she had transformed and passed out for a few hours. Her damages were around her T-Cog area and she had made them worse by transforming.

-She was STUCK in her car form.

-While trying to figure out what the frag she was going to do, because there are no proper cybertronian medics on this planet, Regis comes to the fancy lot of fancy cars looking for one of his own, a long-suffering Clarus and vaguely exasperated Weskham behind him because this is the tenth lot and Regis still hasn’t found one he liked yet.

-Then Regis finds her.

-He doesn’t know what she is yet, but he ... lingers. Places a hand on her hood and they can both feel the tingle of connection between them the little place where magic meets spark (Regalia almost jolts, because this organic has a SPARK, a spark and spark bonds between him and the two following him, Regis gasps softly, feeling life, ancient and quiet and afraid humming through the metal beneath his fingers as sure as a heartbeat).

-Regis buys her. Doesn’t even bother to take her on a test drive. She’s the one he wants, and after she’s been safely stashed in a private corner of the royal garage, Regis ignores Clarus’s and Weskham’s alarmed looks to gently run a hand over her steering wheel and murmur, “I’m sorry I bought you like an object. But I didn’t know how else to get you out of there.” He pauses and Regalia inwardly trembles (this organic knows he knows he knows what will he do to her she is TRAPPED in this garage without her root form-). His magic reaches out and shyly brushes against her spark energy, like a youngling not sure if he’s doing the right thing, “Are you okay? Can you talk?”

-Clarus opens his mouth to ask WHAT IN THE WORLD Regis is doing when Regalia sighs and says, “...I can.”

-Clarus and Weskham freak the flip out, Regis presses the button to lock the doors to keep them from running straight to security and Regalia obediently locks her doors more out of surprise than anything else. Once getting his two friends to calm down for fifty seconds, Regis turns back to her and smiles shakily at her steering wheel, “I thought so. May I ... ask what you are? I’ve never felt a car with magic before.”

-Regalia doesn't have anywhere to go, or anyway of taking care of herself, trapped in vehicle mode as she is so she ... tells him. Bits and pieces. Cybertron’s fall, running for vorns and vorns, the fight that damaged her systems, crashing here and being stuck. Clarus is incredibly skeptical and alarmed (ALIEN??? ALIEN CAR???????? He’s not sure if that’s worse than thinking this is a prank or some kind of Nif trap-).

-Regis, being the guy he is, immediately promises to help her and take care of her however he can. He offers to let the royal mechanics look at her, see if they could fix her systems, but she turns him down. She doesn’t want anyone but these three to know about her and she still hopes her auto repair system will fix the damage for her.

-In exchange for secrecy and fuel, Regalia easily agrees to be Regis’s “car” and drive him (or let herself be driven) wherever he wants to go. Weskham usually ends up playing driver for this, and while Regis is chill with this idea of a living car because he can FEEL her spark and knows she’s a good soul, the other two take a while to warm up to her.

-Her doing crazy driving stunts to save Regis from that assassination attempt a few months later finally cements her place in the list of “okay people”.

-Regis is happy to tell her about Eos, and Clarus is fascinated when he realizes she can use a holoform to interact with them on a more face to face level (and spar, Regalia is a master swords-femme and not afraid to give the Shield tips). Regalia is ... not exactly happy being the only cybertronian on Eos and being stuck in vehicle mode, but she loves these three teenage organic idiots and is happy to be part of their group.

-Then the road trip happens and Regis and co run afoul of some distressed and giant wildlife that flip Regalia over and damage her enough she can’t make her engine run (Regis FREAKS out over the thought of her being crippled or maybe dying but she assures him that this, at least, is something a mechanic can repair and no she isn’t dying, just in a lot of pain).

-They push her to Hammerhead and Regis hovers like a mother hen in the garage until Cid kicks him out, not understanding why this rich boy is making quiet soothing noises at his car like its a skittish cat.

-Cid hoists her up on that ... platform thing mechanics use (sorry to all mechanics reading this I’m blanking on the term) and begins his work repairing her. She really is a beaut, he thinks to himself as fixes damaged things and marvels that her metal and glass are undented and unbroken despite everything. Stupid idiot needed to take better care of a car like this.

-Cid moves from specific repairs to a more general look over, because when he tried her engine she sounded ... off. Not wrong, but not like the engine this model should have.

-He crawls around under her chases and finds what looks like OLD damage. burns and scars and twisted seams and REALLY, Pretty Boy should have gotten her into a mechanic YEARS ago what has he been doing forcing such a lovely lady as this to drive around with damage this nasty?

-He starts pulling things back into place and replacing things on pure intuition, pauses when he swears the car shudders away from his touch and finds himself making mindless soothing noises just like Pretty Boy as he works and metal creaks in something dangerously akin to pain the deeper he goes to repair years old damage.

-He forces the last thing back into its proper spot and will never admit to a girlish screech of surprise when the car above him suddenly shifts and blurs in a whirl of gears and metal until there’s a robot with feminine features staring down at him in shock, her arms and knees braced to keep from falling on him.

-She stares, Cid stares and clutches his chest with one hand while the other holds his wrench above him like a sword.

-Pretty Boy and his group runs in and Pretty Boy gasps, “Regalia! You’re FIXED! Wow you’re tall, I didn’t realize your root form was this tall.”

-The robot blinks at Cid, slowly and carefully sits up to hunch in his garage on her heels, “That ... I have no idea how you did that. I thought it would take a registered cybertronian medic to fix my T-Cog. Thank you.” And there’s actual emotions in that voice, actual, trembling gratitude like someone about to cry from a sudden lack of pain and Cid is just-

-What.

-What is going on.

-The Pretty Boy (Prince Regis) explains things and Cid has to break out the liquor because ALIEN CAR. ALIEN LADY CAR.

-He’d had his hands all up in the innards of an ACTUAL FEMALE PERSON and he is decidedly NOT thinking about that thank you.

-Curse it. Curse it he’s spent the last five hours doing the equivalent of open surgery without anesthetic no WONDER the car kept flinching away from his tools and the metal kept groaning in pain-.

-The oil he scrubs angrily off his hands while listening to the explanation (and somehow finding himself BELIEVING IT) suddenly feels too much like blood, even if Regalia (the ALIEN LADY CAR) tries to reassure him that her actual blood wasn’t oil but something called energon that she had managed to refine from fuel and sunlight.

-Cid ends up going with them because 1. who else gets to say they met and traveled with an alien car and a prince, and 2. curse it all these four are heading right into a war zone and potions won’t work on something mechanical. Even if she’s alive (which he believes, he does, even if he can’t pinpoint why) and the way things are looking they’re going to NEED a medic for Regalia.

-Regalia and Cid become two of a kind, she teaches him everything she knows about mechanical work and he mother-hens her whenever they get out of a fight and the two of them team up to keep the other three (and later Cor) in one piece.

-Cor is the last to meet Regalia. Does not understand why the four TALK TO THE CAR like it will actually respond or have an option or why Cid yells at Cor for scratching its paint like he just wounded an actual person until one day he picks a fight with something too big to handle (probably a Behemoth) and Regalia transforms and kills it with one expert strike of her sword, then looms over him and snarls, “Cor Leonis of the city-state of Insomnia of the planet Eos WHAT WERE YOU THINKING!?” And Cor’s hindbrain goes “oh.”

#SE asks #lunarcatninja asks #Secret Engima Rambles #Mom Galia verse

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bluem0use · 5 years ago

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It's about time I introduced you to the cast of The Crackin'-Up Studios. Don't worry. You'll be seeing them again, especially in the mini-comics!

**In order from top to bottom, left to right**

Billie Bob Willie-Nillie Black Sheep: The overall face of The Crackin'-Up Studios itself. She is the ring leader to the whole circus. The pilot to all the flight attendance. The manager to a corporate office. You get the whole idea. She's one poppin' fire-cracker (A.K.A. has a short temper) that's all for the business, but doesn't mind getting silly from time to time. On screen, she is the definition of unpredictable and crazy, fun and silly. She's a gun happy country gal that started off small and came out big with her talents for making people laugh. She worked hard to get her way to the top. And all of it has obviously paid off. If someone was to use words to describe her, it would be fun, loving, friendly, brave, courageous, generous, the list could go on and on. This gun-loving little lady, no matter where she goes, always somehow seems to change people's lives. And for the better.

Poochie Pooh Poodle: Billie's partner-in-crime. Her bestest friend since her younger years. Her ride or die buddy. Poochie is the main co-star to the series, and a serious eye-candy to men. While Billie is featured as the funny, wacky, unpredictable, quirky character on-screen of the trio, Poochie is often featured as the sex-appeal. The sex symbol. The hot mama. She also models as a little side job whenever necessary. She's the sweetest sweetie-pie you will ever meet in your life. However, proceed with caution. When provoked, she's one sassy gal and won't hesitate to give you a mouthful (and probably a gun wound) if you mess with her, or her friends.

Wolfie Blackfang Wolf: What's the three musketeers without a male in the picture? Wolfie may not have known these two women as long as they've known each other, but their his closest family he's ever had since he left the orphanage. He is also the main co-star to the series, accompanied by being the musical genius of the three. Since a young boy, Wolfie has practiced music as not only his hobby, but his life. His alluring ability was able to trap the young black sheep and poodle in a trance on a fateful night in a club where he worked to try and make a living, thus landing him a job and a ticket to materialization through the ladies. From there, he has always acted as the stud of the three, protecting them whenever they needed an extra hand and also charming women with his attractive voice along the way.

Candy Bat: This "monster", this "usually nocturnal creature of the night", this "mysterious shadow" is nothing but a sweet treat in the eyes of many who travel far and wide to Nightwalk Bay to get a taste of his sweet treats at the local candy shop. At least, that's what Billie, Poochie, and Wolfie will tell ya. Famous for his line of business, Candy Bat is a harmless, humble candy man..err..bat that seeks nothing but to fill the mouths of the fortunate with a sweet after-taste. His delicious pastries, frozen desserts, and fizzy drinks aren't the only thing that appeals to the eyes of many. He's also a support character at The Crackin'-Up Studios during the day and a friendly (but hissy, due to his uncontrollable excited hisses whenever he meets someone new and/or is excited) candy shop-keeper at night.

Scratches: Whoa, watch out for that web! There's a BIG spider up there! And his name is none other than Scratches, yet another support cast character for The Crackin'-Up Studios. When in the presence of my six-armed friend, be cautious. Scratches loves the ladies and will go through extreme lengths to entangle you in his web, if he deems you a worthy enough mate. Don't worry fellas, he doesn't swing that way. Though..spider's gotta eat, right? What? Spiders only eat insects? Not this playful, flirtatious one. Note that this spider is dead, and has been ressurrected after a deal made by Ozzan (scroll down to reference Ozzan's bio). Therefore, Scratches likes human flesh too. Dont worry too much though. He's too busy chasing both Poochie and Billie around the studios, trying to declare his love for them. Though...something about a huge demon spider just..turns those two ladies off.

Honey Hyena: As the name implies, this hyena is sweet as honey! Raised on a bee farm, this little lady never expected to end up being a supporting cast character to The Crackin'-Up Studios. That was, until a little Black Sheep mozied on over and decided to offer her the position and the materialization process just like everyone else. She figured the nice lady would need the money boost besides "Milkin' bees all day long" - Billie. Honey loves bees. In fact, on her days off from woking at the studios, that's all she does! Is work, work, work at her long-descended family bee farm, making honey and selling it for some dough (money) as a side job. She is also the motherly figure to all the cartoon ladies on set and often tries to share her knowledge with them in hopes she can help guide them on the right path. I mean, not everyone is perfect, right?

Bon Isabell Bunny: Daughter of a long deceased magician (who was, ironically a white bunny), she has seeked to find more support by becoming a supporting cast character to the TV series. However, though, she wasn't looking to be a supporting character when offered the job by Billie Bob. Bon has a bit of a...strong hatred for Billie Bob. Bon saw how much love and respect the black sheep got, even from her "enemies". So, what does this tempered (its just as bad as Billie's, trust me), quick-to-anger, grumpy gal do? Well, it's like they say, "Kill the sheep, take her wool!". That is...if she could catch her first. Forever caught in this game of cat-and-mouse on screen and off screen, Bon decided to settle into this position for now. Hopefully one day, her magic tricks and traps can pay off and actually earn her a spot in the lead position.

Bon Iseah Bunny: Twin brother to the other Bon Bunny, this bunny seems the complete opposite of his sister. This magic bunny doesn't mind being a supporting cast character, and instead enjoys making others smile with her magic tricks and qurkiness. After all, its what his deceased magician father would have wanted. He admires Billie and everything that she does not only for everyone else, but herself. He just hopes with time, his sister can see that. For now, this calm bunny will just have to play as yin to his sister's yang (A.K.A., trying his best to calm her in her most stressed and ferocious moments).

Molly Cow: Before her rise to fame as another member of The Crackin'-Up Studios crew, Molly Cow, the half-pig half-cow offspring, could not keep a job to save her life! She was lazy, less focused, often slacking or ducking off, and/or giving up before she even set foot in the door! The funny thing is, she wouldn't care, and just go back to living with her parents. Seeing as though Molly's confident and care-free attitude was a necessity to bring on some laughs, all Billie had to do was offer a hand to the voluptuous, intriguing young woman and for some odd reason, this cartoon has managed to keep the job ever since. Side note, if you ask her what her "other" job would be whenever she brings it up, it would be shopping. She is ALL about the fashion!

Malachi (formerly known as "Michael Jamesking"): Yes, Malachi is actually an angel. AND, he is also a featuring asset to the team whenever needed. With the help of one of Veronica's potions (scroll down to reference Veronica's bio), he has the ability to shrink down to size on command. He also is a good line of defense if life-threatening danger ever be-falls the company, for even if he is a judgement angel, he is considered very powerful against a mortal (unless demon weapons are used against him). He is pure, friendly, and kind, however, you must not associate yourself with the presence of evil upon first meetings. He IS a jugement angel after all and will be quick to judge you and shame you for your choice of sin and avoid you like the plague while also be-littleing you. Ironically, the only exception to this treatment is Ozzan (his best friend in all universes) and Bendy (in the head-canon canon universe). Also note, Malachi was never always Malachi. Malachi was once Michael, a regular, normal, working business man who unfortunately got hit by a car on his morning rush to work.

Ozzan: Oh boy. This one's a bad one. If you thought Scratches (scroll up to reference Scratche's bio) was bad, wait until you get a load of this one! This foul-mouthed, ill-mannered, obnoxious, flirtatious pervert is somehow a necessity to The Crackin'-Up Studios. His crude sense of humor and anctics tend to get a good laugh out of adults more than oblivious children. He will flirt with anything, sleep with anything, hell even risk catching some sort of SEXUAL DISEASE for anything that has legs. This man lives, breathes, and embraces everything that is bad at every cost, every time. Its possibly why he was so close to Lucifer (the Devil) back when he was in Hell. Though, take caution. If you piss him off (which isn't really hard to do), he WILL tear you to bits and peices with his bare fists. Also, beware of tentacles and trendils ladies. He has them everywhere and can use them not only in battle, but also for...other things. So beware and..make sure your doors are locked.

Veronica Bat: Born "Daddy's Little Monster", Veronica is the daughter of Candy Bat and Valentine Naxxremis (formerly Bat)(She will be referenced in the next ref). For most of her life, she has lived with her mother and embraced her witch-hood, which usually ends up with the little gloom and doom bookworm getting bullied for being a "half-breed". However, her luck gets turned around when she meets Billie Bob (like a lot of these people's do) who helps instill in her to be happy to be herself and to screw what everyone else says..and to also get back at them at all costs. She looks up to Billie and Poochie as her "Aunties", though, has trouble getting along with her father. She was raised to believe she had left her and her mother and never really loved them. Which, is obviously not true, but, she has a hard time believing that. Once welcomed to the cast, Veronica is a huge hit with the goth little teen girls who aspire to be like her: beautiful and mysterious. Let's just hope she gets he powers under control first, for she struggles with that a great deal on screen for comical effect and off screen.

Patricia Greene Pig: (A/N: She probably has had the MOST change out of all of them, so beware) Patricia is Delloris's (scroll down for Delloris's bio) bestest friend since childhood. Snobby, rude, sassy, class. All of these combined makes her perfect for scenes where she's the girl that thinks she's too good for the male trying to win her heart. Likes are, their only trying to "woo" it for her money. Oh, did I mention she's very wealthy? Her and Delloris aren't friends for nothing. You have to have some sort of status when it comes to getting in goods with the mayor's one and only daughter. Also note that Patricia is an EXTREME germo-phobe and will pelt you down with germ-x if you've so much as TOUCHED an un-sanitized door knob.

Hank Kat: Hank Kat has been an aspired musician since he was a little boy. He has really known the struggles of what it's like to be broke from both of his poor parents. So, as a way to raise some money, he went out on the streets and played his father's old rusty trumphet for some pocket change. Crowds were so awed at his talent, before long, Hank was hitting the clubs to try and win over some cash to take care of his parents once he became of age. Similar to Wolfie, Poochie had just so happened to stumble upon him. Though they didn't exactly see eye-to-eye due to species war, they were able to put their differences aside the night they had spent together, dancing the night away. As they danced, Poochie would listen to this party-goer's story and become sympathetic for the poor fellow. Thus, she figured his wallet could be fed a little more and thus offered for him to be a support character on the team. With his toe-tappin', feed stompin', hand wavin; jams that he can play on trombone, trumphet, pretty much just about any instrument he could blow into, he would become not only a major asset to the supporting cast, but also the music, both at his day job at the studios and his night job in the clubs.

Puncho: This "unstoppable brick wall" can take a punch and also pack it. After all, they don't call him "Puncho" for nothing! Though he's not much of fan favorite unless it comes to his famous boxing episodes, Puncho is a well-served supporting cast in the crew. He's often seen alongside his partner, Scraps Skunk (scroll down for Scrap's bio), no matter what the situation. He has a temper just like Billie, girl Bon, and Ozzan, however, instead of unleashing it by yelling at coworkers and throwing large objects (Billie), chasing someone down the hall with a chainsaw (Girl Bon), or spewing a bunch of curse words that's enough to make a sailor blush (Ozzan), he lets out his steam in the ring. He is the undefeated champion (if you don't count his and Billie's first brawl in one of her posters) within the boxing ring and anyone who dare wants to challenge him in taking his belt, well. Better be prepared for the pain. Bring a lot of ice.

Scraps Skunk: A timid, shy soul who is pure and good at working the ring as a referee. He plays fair though, he always will support his bestest friend, Puncho no matter what. His often scared, frightened, shaky attitude is welcomed on screen whenever needed. He was often bullied through his childhood and unlike those who have toughed up from it, he only seemed to soften. Hell, even Billie has chewed him out for his overly push-over nature. Though, she gives up. For nothing can change this poor man's soft heart and kind ways.

Wallis Moose: What else to say about this guy besides him obviously being a horrible detective? After his first appearance as one in one of Billie's episodes, Wallis fell in love with the idea of being one and even off screen, tries to solve "mysteries" wherever he is needed. However, he always slips up short and makes himself to be a fool. How did he even earn a spot on the team? Well, to put it simple, Wallis is a stone cold, hard drunk. He drinks and drinks and drinks, and when he's hiccuping and stumbling all over the place, Billie couldn't help but find it amusing the first time they met. After all, the first night they met, they both danced drunkinly through the streets of Nightwalk Bay, where they somehow met. As kooky as it sounds, it actually happened. Believe me.

Chico Georgina Chick: This once poor broken flapper was able to leave her broken past of having to prostitute herself on the streets and go some nights starving behind. Coincidentally, Chico was given another opportunity at a better life by Hank Kat (scroll up for Hank's bio), who happened to run into her at one of the clubs and show her a much better life than what she was living by offering her a position at the studios and materialization through the machine. Now a re-born, classy lady, this former flapper...heh...well, let's be honest. Girl loves to party and dance like there's none tomorrow, is ready to bring all the club's joy and bump to the table on screen. Hank is often seen by her side, playing away on his trumphet while she dances on top of a table. Nothing too promiscuous or provocitive. Want to keep the adult's attention but not as much. She's known as the party girl out of the group and also knows a thing or two about fashion. Also, keep her as FAR away from Molly (scroll up for Molly's bio) as possible..they fight a lot.

Delloris Acorn: Delloris is the beloved daughter of the mayor of Toon City, within the alternate world where cartoons "live". Her mother died giving childbirth and though she never knew her mother. She was always expected to act lady-like and proper, is why she carries herself that way. Though, the day Billie met Delloris and her father and was allowed to spend the day with her, Billie turned her upside down and all around. To the point Delloris came home, dress cut into a tank-top, short short overalls, knee-high socks, messy hair, and busted shoes. Billie's excuse was they were pig wrestling (no pun intended Patricia). Her father was awfully upset and almost demanded Billie to be arrested, however, Billie's sly deal to offer Delloris a spot at the studios was the only thing that saved her from some jail time. Now, while away from her rich and perfect life as the mayor's "little princess", she's allowed to get down and dirty. Especially on screen where down and dirty are necessary for some laughs.

Mad Mouse (also known as "Maddison K Mouse"): Why is this mouse so quiet and mysterious? Why does he never speak or even take off his goggles? Wait, is this mouse even a "he" at all? Well, yes and no. To put a long story short, back in these days and times of the early 1900s, women weren't taken seriously. Even toon women. Born a genius, the only way to get people to notice her freakishly large brain talent is to disguise herself as a man and as to go as "Mad Mouse" instead of "Maddison Mouse". However, her little secret couldn't be kept that long, for an incident in her labs caused her to lose part of her disguise and have to come clean to Billie, Poochie, and Wolfie. It was through them who helped her realize that, no matter who you are, your voice deserved to be heard no matter what. From that point on, this support cast member decided to cease wearing the disguse and be her actual self. Though, I wouldn't mess with this quiet little genius. She's a little...mad (crazy), as the legends and cartoons portray her as.

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flourchildwrites · 5 years ago

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Witch, Please! Fictober 2019 (21/31)

A multi-fandom Fictober prompt compilation. Your wish is my command, but be careful what you ask for. You just might get it.

Prompt: “Trapped” from Writetober 2019 Prompt List

Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug

Relationship/Pairing: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug

Genre: Seven Minutes in Heaven, Possible Reveal

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Word Count: 1,371 words

Read on AO3

The rules were simple. Or so she thought.

With 6 minutes and 50 seconds of heaven left, Marinette Dupain-Cheng felt less like a superhero in disguise and more like a regular 15-year-old, forced into a closet by her best friend after a shady spin of the ol’ bottle. With or without the assistance of her kwami, Marinette thought she might be able to escape if things got too awkward. Or perhaps, she could just ooze underneath the closet door when the brilliance of Adrien Agrest turned her into a puddle of teenage angst.

It was one thing to pine for Adrien from afar. It was quite another to find oneself sitting face-to-face with him while swatting at the ends of Alya’s dresses and trying not to crush her best friend’s shoes.

On second thought, Marinette positioned herself squarely on top of a pair of inexpensive loafers and wiggled back and forth to pin several hanging garments behind her. She should have suspected this was a setup from the moment the words, 'seven minutes in heaven,' left Alya’s lips. The only mystery was how the budding journalist had managed to get Adrien, of all people, to play this cringe-worthy middle-school game.

As for Marinette, well, Alya hadn’t exactly given her a choice. And for as long as Marinette could remember, in real life, her luck had always been wanting. She’d just have to bear the awkwardness with dignity, praying for the small mercy of an akuma attack to interrupt Alya’s party. But the electric pulses of Nino’s subwoofer coming through the closet door did not sound promising.

Marinette glanced at her watch. 6 minutes and 40 seconds left. 39… 38… 37...

The incognito superhero wondered if the door was really locked. Nearly 30 seconds of crushing silence were punishment enough for Adrien, and Marinette smiled awkwardly as she grasped at loose ends of prospective dialogue. The creases of her forced grin pressed into her cheeks, and she swore that Adrien would be able to hear her heartbeat as it thumped loudly in her chest.

“Listen, Marinette...” Adrien said. He broke the conversation embargo with that easy grin of his, the one that used to stare at Marinette from the pictures she had plastered all over her bedroom walls. Now, they sat in a box at the bottom drawer of her desk, and her desktop background had changed to a picture of Kitty Section, featuring their fantastic lead guitarist, Luca.

Over the past few months, lots of things had changed.

Marinette shook her head to clear the emotional cobwebs. It wasn’t fair to think about Luca in Adrien’s presence. Or vice versa.

“... I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable. The way Nino explained the rules, all we have to do is stay in here for 7 minutes. 6 now, I think.”

Well, technically, it was 6 minutes and 12 seconds, but who was counting.

“Yeah,” Marinette laughed nervously. She concentrated on forming sentences, enunciating each word as if the well-being of Paris hinged upon her lacking linguistic talents. Thoughts of Kagami and the mysterious girl Adrien had mentioned on their way back from the wax museum flooded her mind, and for whatever reason, these thoughts helped. Speaking of which…

“I just thought that Kagami might not be happy about a game like this. She might get the wrong idea.”

“Why would she get the wrong idea?”

Bless his naive, homeschooled heart. The way he said that made it sound like he really didn’t know.

“Y-You know, it’s seven m-minutes in heaven,” Marinette shrugged, shocked that her words hadn’t failed her completely. “We’re supposed to m-ma…”

“-make out?” Adrien supplied. Through the cover of darkness, Marinette could swear she saw him smirking. “Or talk, tell secrets. Whatever we can both agree to. Why would Kagami get the wrong idea?”

Did she really have to say it? Did she really have to give the fact that Kahami was perfect for Adrien more purchase by speaking it into being?

“B-because she likes you, of course. And she’s my friend. I don’t want to hurt her.”

There was a beat of silence wherein the walls seemed to tremble as if they could hear and understand the significance of this simple conversation. Marinette’s words passed between the two like a boomerang, back and forth, and for a moment, she believed that Adrien would heed her warning. Perhaps, he would leave her in the closet, alone once again with her secrets. But he shifted closer, inching his slim legs forward, making no move to grasp the doorknob. Instead, the young model reached for a stray lock of hair that had fallen free of Marinette’s trademark pigtails. He paused just shy of touching her.

“Can I tell you a secret?” he whispered.

She felt herself nod as his fingers tucked the raven-blue strands behind her ear, brushing a ladybug earring with a feather-light touch.

“I like your hair when it’s down,” Adrian confessed, “I like that I know something about you that most people don’t, and I’d like to know more.”

Sweet Kwami! Did he realize what he was doing to her? Did shy, pure Adrien Agreste know that he sounded the smallest bit cocky when he said things like that. Almost like a certain cat-like companion that Ladybug had come to treasure.

And Marinette would be lying if she said she did not miss Chat Noir’s friendly flirting. After years of discouraging his affection, she expected to feel solace in the absence of his playful advances. Instead, there was only wanting silence where pet names should have been. The occasional fist bump did little to fill the void that Chat’s grandiose gestures left.

“And what about Kagami?” she asked again.

And what about Luca? Shouldn’t she be asking herself that question too?

“I like her,” Adrien said. His pale eyelashes fluttered over emerald green irises, as coy and self-assured as she’d ever seen them. “But I haven’t made up my mind just yet. There’s another girl I like.”

Marinette inwardly scoffed at her terrible, terrible luck. Here they were, trapped in a closet. His legs bent over hers. So close that they might just kiss on accident. And not only had she brought up Kagami -- twice -- but now Adrien was confessing a second crush to her.

She absolutely wouldn’t, absolutely couldn’t ask…

“Who?”

The amused laugh that purred in Adrien’s throat was unexpected (though not unwelcome), to say the least.

“I’m afraid that’s all the secrets I can spill today, my lady. Besides, I think our time is just about-”

What transpired next would remain a mystery to Marinette for - she was sure - as long as she lived. And seeing as Kagami had both a jealous streak as well as expertise with swords, the teenage girl might not survive their next meeting. But hearing the phrase “my lady” again had hit Marinette hard. An atrophied part of her heart sprang to life as she leaned forward and placed a tender kiss on Adrien’s cheek.

Though the gesture was not romantic or passionate, her lips his skin, all soft and supple flesh. But suddenly, Marinette could smell the night air in Adrien’s hair, and with her cheek pressed so close, she could feel the slight indentation where a mask might have sat. Quickly, the two teens pulled apart, and Marinette stared at Adrien with nostalgic eyes, feeling as if it was the first time she’d ever seen him as more than a sum of pieces and parts.

For a moment, she thought he might have felt the same.

“My lady, I-”

“Time’s up!”

The closet door flew open, and light stung Marinette’s eyes. Alya Cesaire stood proudly at the threshold of her closet, with one hand still on the doorknob and the other on her hip. Though initially disappointed not to catch the couple mid-act, the fox miraculous holder allowed room for pause. She searched the shell-shocked expression on Marinette’s face and smirked with a satisfied set to her jaw.

“Everything alright in there?” she asked, winking in Marinette’s direction. “You two sure the cat didn’t get into the cream.”

The rules to this game of Chat and Ladybug were so much more complicated than Marinette could ever have guessed.

A/N: I really wasn't sure this one would be done in time, but I’m thrilled to post it anyway. I'm so in love with the MLB fics that are able to bring the love square full circle (so to speak, lol). I hope I was able to do it some justice. By now, you all know the drill. Feel free to send me pairing requests for particular prompts (Fictober or original) via my tumblr, and if you read something you like, don't hesitate to let me know. Your kudos, bookmarks, subscriptions, comments, likes and reblogs make my day!

#virthiefictober #fictober19 #writetober19 #miraculous ladybug #adrinette #adrien agreste #chat noir #marinette dupain-cheng #ladybug #trapped #seven minutes in heaven #possible reveal #flourchildwrites #and is so very tired

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precuredaily · 5 years ago

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Precure Day 157

Episode: Yes! Precure 5 09 - “Precure is Exposed!?” Date watched: 19 October 2019 Original air date: 1 April 2007 Screenshots: https://imgur.com/a/1yYupZl Project info and master list of posts: http://tinyurl.com/PCDabout

five girls are friends, more on page 2

In the Futari wa seasons, people typically fell unconscious whenever evil was around, and the girls didn’t usually have to worry about being discovered. There was that notable exception in FW14, but it’s been largely glossed over. In this show, though, the activities of the Precures and Nightmare have attracted attention (in fact that’s how Karen and Komachi got involved), and the sudden and kind of unusual friendship between the girls has not gone unnoticed. What’s a nosy reporter to do?

The Plot

The girls find themselves as the subject of several headlining articles in the school newspaper, commenting on everything from their eating habits to their mysterious friendship. The paper’s editor introduces herself and her slogan: “What the people want to know, I want to know!” She gives her name as Masuko Mika, but puns it into “Masukomi-ka” which is shorthand for mass communications.

When the girls can’t give her straight answers about why they’re friends, she decides to further investigate. After school one day, she sees them leaving the school with Mr. Cocoda, but he disappears suddenly. She follows the group to Natts House, where Coco and Nuts are hanging out as fairies, so there appears to be nobody tending the store. She’s still suspicious as she leaves the shop, when she runs into Arachnea, believing her to be the shop owner. Arachnea kidnaps her due to her relationship with the girls, planning to use her as collateral to get the Dream Collet. They chase the villain into an empty department store, but the girls are afraid to transform in front of Mika and give away their identities. Undeterred, Mika tries to question Arachnea and get a picture of her.

Annoyed, Arachnea transforms the camera into a Kowaina. Mika finds an opening to escape her grip, and the girls transform when she’s not looking. She watches them fight and defeat the monster, rescuing her camera, and she tries to interview them afterwards but all they say is that they’re called Pretty Cure, and then they disappear. Mika heads back to Natts Shop, confident that something bizarre is going on and the five girls are involved, but she runs into Nuts in his human form. She asks if he saw the girls go by, and he responds simply that there are some things she shouldn’t know. Mika is taken aback by his attractiveness and quickly agrees.

The next day at school, the girls are nervously expecting a story about them in the newspaper, but instead, the headlining article and most of the front page are taken up with pictures of Nuts, described as a “super hottie”, with only a small, pictureless blurb about “five mysterious girls” at the very bottom of the page. Their secret is safe.... for now.

The Analysis

Since this episode is about Mika, my response to it pretty much reflects my thoughts on her. Masuko Mika is a fun character. Her desire to find out the truth is commendable, and she does ask some good questions, but her methods are a little misguided. She rides the line between investigative journalist and paparazzo, sneaking candid pictures of her targets in order to get a scoop. Unfortunately, these photos are mostly of our heroines engaging in such compromising activities as “having lunch” and “hanging out.” Even Otaka is like “Why don’t you find something else to write about?” She is a curious character. Snooping around Natts House gets her kidnapped by Arachnea but even then she tries to question the villain up until the moment she sees she’s in over her head. She is so committed to figuring out why Nozomi and the others are hanging out, and who Precure are, and then..... she sees Nuts. Nuts suggests she forget everything and so he becomes her muse, the subject of almost all her writing. Precure and the mysterious occurrences at the school are relegated to a small corner of the paper. It’s good for the team, but it doesn’t speak too highly of the paper’s journalistic quality or her diligence as the chief. (Honestly though, I don’t recall ever seeing any other members of the newspaper club in this show, it is entirely possible it’s just her running a glorified gossip rag.) Mika says that she writes about what the people want to know, and I guess that’s true: Nuts will prove to be a very popular figure at this all-girls school, but it’s funny/a little frustrating to see her so easily distracted. However, this will not be her last appearance, not by a long shot, and she’s fondly remembered.

I would be remiss to ignore, however, that Mika has a point. Nozomi has surrounded herself with an unlikely group of high-profile friends, but while Precure was certainly a big factor in them coming together, it wasn’t just that, and someone could probably spin a version of events while leaving out their secret identities. Nozomi and Rin were already friends before the show started and we know they go back to their youth. Nozomi became friends with Urara when she saw her sitting alone all the time and decided to talk to her. Karen and Komachi are a little more complicated, because they only began speaking when Nozomi decided they should become Precures, but nonetheless Nozomi took a genuine interest in Komachi’s writing and in Karen’s overall well-being. She supported and sympathized with them, and earned their respect and companionship as a result. Being Precures isn’t the only thing that brings them all together, they’re actually friends, and I’m glad the show spent the time that it did establishing this. Unfortunately, Nozomi’s people skills don’t put her in the same league of notoriety as the others, which results in Mika and many others wondering what these school superstars are doing with her. I don’t think outsiders ever fully recognize Nozomi’s strength of character throughout the series.

This episode is another worldbuilding episode, much like episode 7 was and like episode 10 will be. There isn’t much going on with Nightmare, just the usual threats that failure to get the Dream Collet will be met with some form of punishment. Since the bad guys only win on key episodes, and this isn’t the type of show where they make progress towards their goal whether they win or not, it’s starting to feel a little repetitive. It just serves to show how disorganized Nightmare really is, though. Later on, we’ll see how far they take the business concept, it isn’t always Bunbee smugly threatening his employees, while being smugly threatened himself by Kawarino, but that’s a lot of the early part of the show.

There is some truly bad art in this episode. Most times that the girls are shown in full body where they occupy about two-thirds of the frame height or less, they go wildly off model.

The faces get extremely sloppy, with their eyes usually being stretched vertically while their other features are minimized. Nozomi’s hair especially gets drawn as more prominent than it normally is. Their bodies seem kind of elongated, but aside from a lack of shading they’re otherwise fine. Also, there are shots where someone’s movement is just the cell sliding across the frame, not even being moved up or down to indicate the slight bob of walking. I’ll get some gifs to demonstrate shortly. It’s not awful overall, but there is definitely a hint that it’s a less important episode.

Last point of note, Pretty Cure Splash Subs, whose translations were the basis of both Splash Star and this series (the versions I’m using anyway), were a little notorious for sticking some modern jokes, references, and sayings into their scripts, such as “you mad bro” and “a cat is fine too.” Well, this episode gave us this:

I generally don’t like meme translations, because memes and internet jokes come and go pretty fast and they can date a show hardcore. That being said, if this saying was around at the time, it’s exactly the sort of thing a contemporary kid would say. I looked it up the history of “POIDH” and it was just starting to spread at this point, so it’s arguably appropriate. (but I still hate it) Obviously this isn’t a criticism of the series itself, and I’m not going to let it impact my perception, but I do find it a bit annoying that this (and several examples yet to come) made it in at all.

Next time, we get to focus on someone a little closer to home, as Nuts discovers that running a shop is hard when you don’t have any customers. Look forward to it!

Pink Precure Catchphrase Count: 1 Kettei!

#Precure #Pretty Cure #Yes! Precure 5 #YPC5009 #PCD 157

18 notes · View notes

lalunaunita · 5 years ago

Text

Lovesong - an Adrinette AU

I participated in the Left to Write Summer Santa fic exchange this year, and this is my work for @hari-writes. You can find it here and there’s an accompanying Spotify playlist (SFW) here.

Rating: General

Summary: In this AU, Gabriel Agreste becomes reclusive after his wife’s disappearance, but does not seek out the Miraculous or become Hawkmoth. Adrien Agreste finds himself bouncing around a silent mansion with fewer and fewer opportunities to leave. He channels his emotions and frustrations into music, sharing the tracks online under an alias. His biggest fan is a listener named SewSweets, who in real life is Marinette Dupain-Cheng. As time passes and Adrien’s song collection grows, Marinette’s feelings for the mysterious composer do as well. But will she ever find a way to meet him?

Adrien looked dubiously at the gray coating the sky outside his window. A few fat raindrops pitter-pattered on the glass and confirmed his suspicions. The outdoor photoshoot schedule for the afternoon would be canceled. He grimaced. He'd really been looking forward to getting out of the mansion, even if was only for work. He flopped down onto his couch and sighed. The only thing left on his list for today was piano practice. He eyed the piano over the edge of the couch. Nathalie had left a new sonata on the piano bench; he was supposed to start working on it today and share progress with his dad tonight.

Might as well get started, he thought, but he didn't move. Instead, he grabbed his cell phone from the coffee table in front of the couch and tapped a quick text.

How's school?

A reply pinged back almost immediately. Ugh, boring. You better get over here. Did you enroll yet?

Adrien didn't bother to type an answer. He and Chloe both knew it was wishful thinking. Dredging up a sigh from the bottom of his soul, Adrien got to his feet and slouched over to the piano. He swiped the sheet music off the bench, sat down, and turned on the narrow lamp above the music stand. He studied the paper in front of him for a few minutes, then settled it above the keyboard and got started.

He had to admit that playing piano was something he enjoyed. Adrien let himself get caught up in the complexity of the piece, until one particularly difficult spot caused him to play the wrong chord. Wait, was that the wrong chord? he asked himself. He tracked back to the spot and played it again. Oh, yeah, technically it was. But his chord hadn't sounded sour or out of place. In fact, it was unusually pretty.

He played the chord again as an arpeggio, drawing each note out in succession until they gave him goosebumps. Wow. He took two of the notes down low with his left hand, and played a made-up melody with his right. Adrien glanced at the sheet music and bit his lip. He should be practicing the piece, but he didn't want to forget his chord. In fact, the whole melody wasn't bad, especially as his left hand set a gentle rhythm. He played it, over and over. It felt like it was building to something. He switched chords and felt a sensation akin to a slap in the face. Ouch, no. That was definitely not right. He pressed two or three more chords down, feeling his way into the music, and smiled when the sound reached his ears. That was more like it!

The rest of impromptu piece flowed easily. It wasn't classical, obviously; his dad would frown on it. It wasn't a blaring pop song from a modeling gig either. Realization hit him: the song was his. He'd created this song. Excitement electrified his arms, making his fingers nearly nerveless. Should he... should he share it with Father? No. Chloe, maybe? No, not yet.

He played it through again—there were some subtle changes as he felt his way through the piece, but he genuinely liked it. Adrien pulled his phone from his pocket and opened the voice recorder app. The quality would probably suck, but at least he wouldn't forget his own song. He played it through into the app twice and saved the file.

Nathalie poked her head in the door just as he was locking his phone screen.

"It's sounding good, Adrien," she complimented.

Adrien smiled nervously. Nathalie wouldn't know J.S. Bach from a pounding jackhammer; she always said he sounded good.

"Thanks, Nathalie. Hey, I had an idea. Sometimes I record myself to check tempo and stuff like that—it helps me improve. Do you think I could get a microphone? Or maybe even an electric keyboard? Those play directly into digital files you can put on the computer. Not to replace the real piano or anything—I know Father insists on the grand piano. It would help a lot, though. Please?" Adrien lifted his eyebrows in his most subtle version of puppy dog eyes.

Nathalie might not know music, but she knew manipulation. He kept the pleading look on his face to an absolute minimum as her lips thinned in thought. Stay polite, keep eye contact, he counseled himself as he held his breath.

"I'll ask your father. Finish up what you're doing; dinner is in half an hour," Nathalie replied.

Adrien let out a huge sigh around a smile as his door closed softly behind her. Yes!

---

Marinette groaned and threw herself backward in her office chair, toes trailing as it rolled across her bedroom floor.

“What’s bugging you?” Alya asked, glancing up from her perch on the chaise lounge.

“I can’t find anything good to listen to while I sew. This is supposed to be our work-on-projects day, and you’re all set with your laptop and earbuds and a million ideas to research, but I’ve run out of music,” complained Marinette.

Alya smiled and shook her head. “It’s not that big of a deal. We can find you something. Did you sign up for BirdieMuse like Nino suggested? He said a lot of independent musicians are uploading music there. It’s getting popular.”

“Oh, I did! I forgot about that.” Marinette rolled back over to her desk and clicked her mouse.

The music sharing app loaded up and colorful album covers paraded across her computer screen. Several artists had simple profile pictures in place of professional photographs; Marinette assumed those must be more amateur artists.

“I don’t even know what I like today. My brain is being difficult,” Marinette muttered as Alya came over to stare at the screen with her.

“Try an alphabetical listing. Can’t hurt.” Alya shrugged.

Marinette scrolled back and forth, looking for a name that sounded interesting. The word Fashion caught her eye in the listing for F and she stopped to take a closer look. FashionForte, located in Paris, France, had submitted five tracks in the past month. Well, if this person liked fashion and design as much as Marinette did, then the music would be good, right? The profile picture featured a black cat with green eyes. She decided to chance it.

A sweetly somber piano tune swelled as Marinette adjusted her speakers, filling her room with sound. The girls looked at each other, eyes widening.

“Wow,” they said in unison.

The melody sent a little thrill through Marinette.

“Seriously good call,” she said as Alya returned to the chaise. The pair put FashionForte’s tracks on a loop and settled down to work.

Alya left around dinnertime, leaving Marinette alone in her room. She finally turned off the mellow piano music she'd let play all afternoon. Curious, she clicked on FashionForte's profile. Other than the picture of the black cat and the location of Paris, France, there weren't many details. The Artist Summary read: Just a guy who likes music. Each song had a space next to the title entry for artist notes, but they were all empty. Oooookay, thought Marinette. Her cursor hovered over the Comment box for the page. Why not? She clicked it and started typing.

Hi FF! I'm SewSweets and I live in Paris, too. I love your songs—they inspired me today as I was working. I hope you'll post more! Have a great day.

Satisfied, Marinette sent the message. She remembered to subscribe to FashionForte at the last second, then closed the app and headed downstairs to eat with her parents.

The next morning was Sunday and Marinette relished the chance to sleep in. She finally opened her eyes when soft sunshine filtered down through her skylight. Weightless dust motes danced through beams of light as Marinette laid under her comforter. She groggily counted up things she wanted to do with her day. With a yawn and a stretch, she pulled herself upright and knuckled sleep out of her eyes.

Once she was down the stairs of her loft, Marinette sat down at her desk and wiggled her mouse. An icon in the corner of her screen caught her attention. An update from BirdieMuse? She opened it and found that FashionForte had uploaded a new song. For the first time, the notes section had an entry.

"This is the first song I wrote. I've been working on it for a while and it's finally ready to share. Hope you like it."

The note didn't mention Marinette personally, but somehow she felt like the recipient. She clicked the track title: In the Rain. From the opening chords to the build of the melody, Marinette found herself lost in a swirl of emotions as the short track played. It didn't sound so much like rain coming down as it did the quiet drops that fell from the eaves outside her window. She closed her eyes against the sun streaming in, letting a gentle melancholy settle over her as the song evoked memories of gray days. An image rose in her mind of long fingers pressing piano keys as a rainstorm raged outside. The face of the person in her mind was just a blur, but she could see the confident hands that created a beautiful melody. The piece concluded and Marinette opened her eyes.

She went back to the comment she’d left for FashionForte. Her single statement from yesterday sat there with no response. Nonetheless, she typed one in the new song’s comment box.

In the Rain is beautiful. I like it the best out of all your songs. It's the first one you wrote? You are very talented. Hope you have a nice Sunday.

Marinette backed out to FashionForte’s artist page and played the six tracks on repeat as she got dressed. She grinned. It felt like she’d added a new gem to her collection.

---

Adrien thumbed open the notification from BirdieMuse on his phone. SewSweets had left another comment. Well, he had one fan at least. Probably a retired matron with a candy habit that enjoyed quilting. Nonetheless, now that he’d started writing, he didn’t plan to stop. Nathalie had really come through. Adrien had a keyboard that recorded directly to his computer and a great pair of headphones, so no one in the house could even hear him playing wrong notes and trying out chords. He was keeping up his classical practice too, so he’d probably doubled the amount of time he played piano over the last month.

His dad would almost certainly frown on Adrien writing and sharing music. Adrien had deliberately kept his profile vague so it couldn’t be traced back to him. Even if Nathalie or Chloe or someone he knew came across the BirdieMuse account, which was unlikely, they’d never have a clue. And ultimately, the extra practice was paying off. Adrien could see the tiny approving twitch of a smile on Father’s face when he came in to hear Adrien’s musical progress every week. Now, if only music could solve all his other problems…

Adrien had made a couple of attempts to go to Chloe’s school, but he hadn’t yet made it to the door. Nathalie and the Gorilla were always hot on his trail in his father’s gray sedan, waiting for him at the steps of Francois Dupont. He had no choice but to turn back to the mansion or make a scene, and he definitely wasn’t going to embarrass his father by making a scene on a school sidewalk. He stopped texting Chloe about enrolling after Nathalie and the Gorilla foiled the second attempt. It wasn’t fair to get Chloe’s hopes up. If he accomplished sneaking into Francois Dupont, it would have to be a surprise.

Adrien sighed and sat up. He was perched on the stairs outside the front door of the mansion, taking in the nice weather while doing homework. He wiggled his feet in his sneakers and tapped his soles against the marble. The part of Paris he could see outside the mansion gates was quiet on a Sunday morning. He slapped his textbook closed and tucked his pencil behind his ear, grinning. He couldn't deny it. SewSweets' kind words made him want to get back to the piano. He looked at the comment one more time, then headed up to his room.

---

A month after discovering FashionForte, Marinette was still hooked on his music. He'd changed his profile picture—a single eye, peridot with darker flecks of emerald at the edges of the iris. He'd built a small following too, but never replied to any of the comments. He seemed content just to drop beauty on them every other week. Marinette left a comment on every single song, except for one entitled "Chloe". She tried not to let her nemesis make her biased against the song, she really did. But the tune was as irritating and bossy as the Chloe she knew—full of pecky, short notes. Marinette eventually dropped it from her playlist altogether.

She worked on projects as she listened and daydreamed about the composer. Maybe he was... only about eighteen or so, like, older than her—but not too much older. Maybe he had a beard! Mmm, no, she wasn't ready for a beard. Maybe he had black hair like the cat in his old picture. Marinette knew it was silly, but she couldn't deny she wanted to know more about FashionForte. She worried she was wasting daydreams on a forty-something recluse, stuck up in a tower in a ritzy part of Paris. Nah. The songs felt younger than that. She thought they did, anyway.

Marinette's phone rang and she leaned over to see Alya's face on the caller ID. She swiped the video call open.

"So, how is the hat going?" asked Alya.

"I'm almost done, but I forgot to grab a feather for the brim! I have a little bit of embroidery to finish up for the hat band and then I guess I'll head back to the Trocadero—there were lots of pigeons there earlier." Marinette let her tongue slip to one side of her mouth as she concentrated.

Alya shook her head on the phone screen, curls bouncing. "I'll get the feather. I want to meet you at the school and watch you win this competition. It'll be great for the school blog. And you're about to meet your fashion icon! I'm going to get pictures of you melting into a puddle."

Marinette frowned, but both girls dissolved into giggles.

"I'll do my best to keep it together. I really don't want to embarrass myself, Alya." Anxiety rose up in Marinette's chest and she shook her cramped hands out.

"Chill, girl, you won't. You know I was kidding. And I'll be right next to you the whole time. You're going to do awesome," Alya replied confidently.

Marinette felt some of her tightness ease as she looked at the honest belief on her best friend's face. "Thanks, Alya."

"No problem. I'll see you in half an hour, and I'll bring the feather." Alya broke the connection and Marinette bent her head to get a closer look at the hat band.

Half an hour later, Marinette raced down from her room, tossed a goodbye to her parents, and crossed the street to her school. She was nervous about participating in Gabriel Agreste's derby hat competition, but her feather-based design really was good and she was proud of the work she'd put in. Mr. Agreste had a son around Marinette's age who would wear the winning hat, so he'd likely be there too. Chloe was gaga over the boy, always telling everyone that she was friends with him, but no one had ever seen them hang out. Marinette rolled her eyes. Adrien Agreste looked nice enough in the magazine photos she'd seen of him, but Marinette knew looks could be deceiving. If he was anything like Chloe, he’d be a bratty, entitled nightmare.

She rushed into the open doors and saw Alya waiting, feather in hand. Marinette skidded to a stop in the courtyard.

"Where have you been?" Alya hissed. "They're about to start."

Marinette took the feather and tucked it in. "You got the perfect one. Let's go!"

The girls crossed to the center of the courtyard where several podiums had been erected. She set her hat down delicately on the last open podium, then looked at the competition. There were several good designs, but Alya elbowed her sharply and pointed. Marinette hissed in anger. Chloe and Sabrina stood next to a very familiar-looking derby hat, smug smiles on their faces.

"She stole my design!" whispered Marinette.

Alya's eyes were wide as she nodded. Marinette mulled over whether to say anything or simply wait. Chloe didn't know it, but she was too clever for her own good. Marinette could easily prove ownership, and she didn’t even need to go get her sketchbook to do it. Better to wait until the judging was complete, she decided. If she said anything now, it might disqualify them both or bias Mr. Agreste’s judging. Speaking of, where was he?

Marinette turned away from her cheating competition and looked around. A tall woman with a red streak in her dark hair stood next to Mr. Damocles, primly clutching a tablet. Next to her stood the famous Adrien Agreste. He was tan and good-looking, but didn't seem inclined to smile. He's probably too good for us, thought Marinette, eyeing him up and down.

"Where is Mr. Agreste?" Mr. Damocles asked, his bushy eyebrows furrowing.

Adrien shifted his feet uncomfortably as the woman held up her tablet. Gabriel Agreste's face appeared on the screen, looking perfectly coiffed.

"I’m here," he replied.

Marinette and Alya exchanged glances. He was only looking at the hats through a camera? He wasn’t at the school himself? Crestfallen, Marinette sighed. So much for meeting her fashion hero in person.

"Nathalie, please take me to the hats. I would like to see them from every angle," Gabriel Agreste intoned from the tablet.

"Yes, sir," said Nathalie.

Adrien followed them, rubbing his elbow. Marinette watched as he waved at Chloe, who wiggled her fingers with a saccharine smile on her face. Marinette hoped Adrien didn't get a say in which hat was chosen. Apparently he was friends with Chloe, and Marinette knew she'd use every advantage she could.

They walked around three hats before coming to Marinette’s podium. She had to stifle a smile at Alya’s antsy fidgeting. Marinette could feel her own heart beating a mile a minute, but she tried to keep the emotion off of her face. It was time to act professional.

Nathalie stopped, holding the tablet so that Mr. Agreste was eye level with Marinette’s hat.

“And this is, uh, Marinette Dupain-Cheng,” Mr. Damocles said, peering down at a note card in his hand.

“Hello, Marinette,” Nathalie and Mr. Agreste said in unison.

“Hello,” said Adrien, holding out one hand with a shy smile.

Marinette blinked. Adrien Agreste's green eyes were electrifying in person. And they seemed familiar, somehow. She must have seen him in more magazines than she'd realized. She shook his hand numbly, recovering from the disappointment of his father's absence.

“Hello,” she said back, managing little more than a whisper.

Alya stared hard at Marinette for a beat before holding her own hand out to shake. “Hi, I’m Alya Cesaire, reporter for the school blog. I’m here to write an article on the winning hat.”

Adrien let go of Marinette’s hand, politely reaching for Alya’s in turn. The spell was broken. Marinette shook her head a little to clear it.

“Tell us about your hat, Miss,” prompted Mr. Agreste.

Marinette picked up her hat with shaking hands, but spoke clearly. “Everything on my derby hat is handmade, from the embroidery, to the weaving of the band, to the stitching on the brim. All done by myself.”

She showed off the features of the hat with a little flourish, then set it back on the podium. Adrien, Mr. Damocles, and Nathalie walked away to the next hat.

“Nice job, Marinette,” Alya whispered, “but what are you going to do about Chloe?”

“Just wait,” Marinette replied, keeping her voice low.

“Is this a joke?” They heard Mr. Agreste ask as he viewed Chloe’s hat.

The tablet swung to Marinette and Alya, then back to Chloe and Sabrina. Chloe timed her waterworks perfectly.

“How could you, Marinette? You stole my design? It’s scandalous!” she wailed as Sabrina patted her arm. Mr. Agreste’s eyes took on a sympathetic cast as he watched the scene unfold.

Time to step in before this goes too far, Marinette thought. She came forward into the camera’s view.

“Mr. Agreste? I’m sorry about the situation, but I can prove that this derby hat is my original design,” she declared, holding her hat with care.

“Oh, really? Go ahead,” he replied.

“There’s a special design element that only the true designer knows about. I signed mine,” she said.

Marinette turned her hat upside down and displayed the gold embroidery in the light. It spelled out Marinette in neat cursive, fanciful enough to be mistaken for embellishment.

The group startled as Chloe’s podium fell over onto the floor. She ran off without another word, still sobbing. Sabrina stood like a deer in headlights until they turned their attention back to Marinette and her derby hat.

So dramatic, Marinette thought, rolling her eyes.

“You certainly have the laboring hands of a hat maker, Marinette,” Mr. Agreste said. “Congratulations. You win the contest.”

His lips scrunched in what Marinette imagined was meant to be a smile, and then the tablet went dark.

Marinette stared at it for a moment, unsure whether her ears had heard correctly. Alya’s whoop of delight brought her back to reality.

“Congratulations, Marinette!” she enthused.

“Congratulations!” Nathalie and Mr. Damocles echoed.

“Congratulations, Marinette. I had a feeling you would win,” Adrien said, coming closer.

“Oh, uh, you did? Wait, aren’t you friends with Chloe?” Marinette asked, puzzled.

Adrien let out a nervous laugh and rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, um we’ve known each other since we were kids. I’m sorry she tried to steal your design. So dramatic.”

Marinette smiled at his unconscious echo of her thoughts. Adrien Agreste was actually pretty nice. Too bad he wasn’t attending Francois Dupont like Chloe always insisted he would.

“So where do you go to school?” she asked curiously, but Nathalie stepped in before Adrien could answer.

“It’s time to leave. Miss Dupain-Cheng, we’ll send a courier to your home to pick up the hat in three days. Is that alright?” she asked.

Marinette could tell Nathalie was taking her ‘yes’ for granted. She didn’t even look up from her tablet.

“S-sure. Sounds great,” Marinette agreed, taken aback at the woman’s brisk manner.

They exchanged information. Nathalie swept Adrien out of the school so quickly that Marinette could almost believe the entire experience was a dream—until she saw Alya snapping photos of her derby hat. Marinette packed it up carefully in its hat box, inner elation making every movement a delight.

“I really won!” Marinette laughed to herself.

She thought she’d feel drained, but her mind came up with new project ideas all the way home from school. She grabbed her sketchbook and opened up Birdiemuse on her computer. Marinette navigated to her FashionForte playlist. She had a particular song in mind, an energetic anthem that always got her blood pumping. She typed a new comment on the track.

Today was a huge victory, FF, she began. I’m gonna play Bounce Out Of Here full blast and shake the walls! Thanks for always inspiring me.

Marinette grinned and sent the message, not caring whether FashionForte read it or not. The bubbly, fast paced tune she put on turned her empty bedroom into a victory celebration. She cranked the volume on her speakers and spun around and around in her chair, giggling like a little kid.

---

Adrien was on his final round of Mecha Strike 3 when his phone pinged. He recognized the sound—Birdiemuse had its own tone. He smiled as he fired at his opponent; it was probably SewSweets with something about his latest song. She never took long to listen and make a new comment. He was still smiling after reading her words about Bounce Out of Here. Adrien had gained a decent following in the past months, but SewSweets was definitely his biggest fan. She commented on everything with the exception of his song for Chloe. The absence of text revealed how she felt far more than a negative review, he thought sardonically. Finished with his game, he turned over his cell phone to check the messages.

The smile dropped from his face when he saw SewSweets’ newest comment. She’d gone back to one of his earliest tracks, entitled Solo. Adrien had written it just after his father cancelled a trip to the coast. The days of sun and time with his dad had been replaced with Adrien’s same old lonely view of Paris while his father worked day and night on next fall’s fashion line. Adrien’s disappointment had spilled across the keyboard with a sad, slow melody complemented by quiet minor chords for the left hand.

I think I really screwed up, FF. I don’t know how to fix it. I don’t want to be all alone again. nm, goodnight.

Brow furrowed, Adrien read the comment three times. This was nothing like the ebullient SewSweets he’d gotten used to. She felt alone? He clicked on her profile and opened a direct message.

Hey, are you okay?

He left the dialogue open for a few seconds, not really expecting a response. Surprised, he noticed three dots illuminate the bottom of the screen. SewSweets was typing!

Hey, FF. Yeah, I’m okay. Sorry I bothered you. Had a fight with my best friend. It’s no big deal, really.

Oh, Adrien replied. Well, I’m here if you want to talk.

The dialogue box stayed empty for a few moments.

Thanks. I didn’t know whether you even read my comments, came the hesitant reply.

Oh yeah, every single one! Honestly, I would have stopped composing months ago if you didn’t comment on everything, Adrien typed.

Wow, really? SewSweets replied.

I sort of started by accident, and I didn’t know if my songs were any good.

I’m no music critic, but I really like them. As I’ve said before, lol.

Adrien grinned, a blush creeping up his cheeks. Thank you again anyway! So, what was this fight about?

Honestly, I don’t want to talk about it. I’ll call her tomorrow and work it out. Hey, how old are you?

14. How old are you?

That’s cool. I’m 13. How are you so good at piano at 14??

...lots of practice?

Okay, fair enough.

Adrien chatted with SewSweets for about half an hour, a half-smile tugging at his lips the whole time. He found out that she did, in fact, like sewing and wanted to design clothes. If only there were some way he could introduce her to his father! But that would never work out. He had no intention of telling SewSweets anything about himself that could reveal his identity. Making a new friend was awesome, though. In hindsight, he couldn’t remember why he decided not to respond to the comments on his page. Adrien yawned, ending on a happy sigh. It was late and he was tired.

---

Marinette harrumphed to herself and scrunched down into her movie theatre seat. She and Alya had quickly patched things up the day after their fight. They’d even made plans to go see an old movie on the big screen—one that starred Gabriel Agreste’s wife, Emilie. Unfortunately, now Alya had to babysit her sisters according to the text on Marinette’s phone. Marinette sighed. She hated going to the movies alone.

She looked around and realized she was going to be much more alone than she’d anticipated. There was exactly one other person in the theatre—someone down front, with blond hair.

The previews wouldn’t start for another ten minutes, so Marinette took out her phone to pass the time. She saw a new message from FashionForte and opened it eagerly.

Hope you have a great day! It read.

Marinette felt her heart warm. She tapped a response.

So far, so good. I’m at the movies, but my friend had to bail. It’ll be fun anyway. Her phone plinked as the message sent.

Down below, the blond shifted as a chime sounded quietly. Marinette tsked to herself.

They both needed to silence their phones, but they still had a few minutes. She couldn’t see his screen from her vantage point, but he was clearly typing.

Her phone chimed as a response from FF came in.

Nice! That sounds fun. I’m at the movies, too. Not something current, though. Old romance; I know that’s uncool, but I don’t care.

Marinette stifled a giggle. If only he knew. I’m sure you’re plenty cool, she teased. Friends hanging around your piano, just tripping over themselves to hear your latest composition.

She hit send, and heard the blond’s phone chime again a moment later. The person chuckled as they read the screen. Well, that was weird. Wait—FashionForte… was at an old movie? Texting her? Marinette’s suspicion grew as she watched the blond type, then heard her phone chime.

She opened the message.

Ha, whatever. I’m by myself, too. Needed to get out of the house.

The butterflies percolating in Marinette’s stomach plummeted. She stood up, just as the lights darkened. Crap! She had to know anyway. She stumbled down her row, thankful no one else was seated. Uncertain, she stopped at the row behind the blond and crept along, touching each seat she passed in the near dark.

The theatre’s corny “silence your phone, please” film was playing as she found the seat she wanted and leaned forward.

“Excuse me,” she hissed in a loud stage whisper.

The blond—close to her age, she noticed—looked up, startled.

“Are you—” she started, but he interrupted.

“Adrien Agreste. Yes, I am. Do you mind, though? I’m trying to watch this movie.” He turned back to the screen.

Marinette blinked, taken aback. It was Adrien! She felt her cheeks warm. How embarrassing. There was no way Gabriel Agreste’s son could be FashionForte.

“That’s not what I was going to ask,” she mumbled, sitting abruptly in the seat behind him.

Marinette tried to let go of her disappointment and bewilderment as the previews started. Adrien hadn’t recognized her in the dark, and to be fair, they’d only met once. It was possible he’d already forgotten about her. Oh, and clearly he was at the movie to watch his mother on screen, which explained his curt response. Marinette decided she shouldn’t take it personally.

She looked glumly at the preview reel for the theatre’s summer classics series. She’d been mistaken. But something sparked when she looked down at her typed but unsent message to FF. One eyebrow cocked, she hit send.

Adrien Agreste’s phone pinged instantaneously. Too excited to be embarrassed, she held her breath and leaned in as he lifted his phone. She could clearly see the notification that a message from SewSweets was unread.

Marinette fell back against her theatre seat, sucker punched. It was true! Adrien Agreste was FashionForte, a teen pianist and composer whose beautiful melodies accompanied her on her darkest and brightest days. That the heart of the artist was clothed in such a handsome facade was almost inconsequential. No, not inconsequential. It was the final nail in the coffin. She realized she’d been nursing a quiet crush on her new online friend, impeded only by his anonymity and the possibility he wasn’t who he said he was. Now the truth hit her like a wave of fuzzy soda bubbles all the way to her fingers and toes. Marinette took a deep breath, collecting herself.

She reached out a hand to touch his shoulder, movie or no movie, when the screen went dark in front of them. She looked up, only to find the view had been blocked by a mountainous unit of a man. Alarm flared in her stomach and she shrank back into her padded seat. The man’s bushy brows were drawn low and his lips made a frowning half-circle of displeasure. Marinette could almost see smoke issuing from his nostrils.

“Oh,” Adrien muttered as he gazed up and up at the human tree trunk standing in front of them. “It’s you.”

He sighed with a bone-weariness that confused Marinette. Shouldn’t they be screaming in terror? Maybe fleeing? Instead, Adrien meekly put his phone away and stood.

Wordless, the man gestured for Adrien to precede him from the theatre. Adrien shuffled along with his head bowed. With one last, longing look at the movie screen, he was gone.

Marinette stayed rooted to her seat, mind awhirl with all that she’d discovered. She tried to watch the film, but she couldn’t concentrate on it at all. Shaking her head in disbelief, she left the theatre as well and ran straight to Alya’s apartment.

Alya answered frantic knocking to find a wild-eyed Marinette on the other side of the door. Her best friend rushed in and threw herself down on the couch, interrupting the game the twins were playing. Surprised, Alya shut the door and turned back toward the living room.

“Marinette! I thought you were at the theatre.”

Chest heaving, Marinette dramatically threw her arm over her face. “Alya, I met FashionForte at the movie!”

“Whaaa?! How do you know?” Alya rushed to sit beside her.

“We were messaging before the movie started. I saw his phone with my name on it. My username, I mean! 100% positive proof. And Alya,” her voice dropped to a screech-whisper, “it’s Adrien Agreste!!”

“Who’s Adrien Agreste?” Etta asked.

“Snack time! Let’s get you two set up in the kitchen,” Alya announced.

Two snacks and a modicum of privacy later, Alya and Marinette regrouped in the living room, heads close together.

“So FashionForte is definitely Adrien Agreste? Wow, he’s one talented guy. I wonder what else he can do.” Alya had her phone out in moments.

The pair read an interview and bio that listed modeling, fencing, and piano as his main activities, as well as Chinese language studies.

“How can this possibly be the same guy I traded Mecha Strike jokes with the other day?” wondered Marinette.

“Hmmm. Well, as a reporter, you learn that the printed word isn’t always the full view of a person. It’s more important to remember that when you read bad things about someone, but in this case, Mr. Perfect is clearly also into video games. A shame that didn’t make it into the article.” Alya grinned and tossed her auburn hair.

Marinette groaned and closed her eyes. “Alya, what do I do? Do I play it cool? Do I tell him online? I have to meet him—or well, not meet him, I’ve already done that—but I have to get to know him. I was trying to deny it, but I was totally falling for him before I even knew he had a face. I mean, before I knew what his face looked like! And now he’s totally handsome, and that’s great—or is it worse?—and ugh, what do I do, Alya?”

Alya’s grin grew wider. “Wait, you’re crushing on him? How did I not notice this?”

Marinette opened her eyes and shrugged. “There was no point in mentioning it. He didn’t even message with me until you and I fought a couple weeks back. I think he felt sorry for me. But yeah, I was kinda um… romanticizing him from his music? Just being silly. And now he’s real and kinda awesome.”

“He was always real, but I get what you mean.” Alya tapped her finger against her chin. “Wait a minute. This is the same guy Chloe is always gushing about. Doesn’t he want to come to our school or something? And he was kind of okay at the hat competition, too.”

“Yeah, he was, wasn’t he? I never trust Chloe to be in possession of the facts, but that’s right—she’s talked constantly this year about whether he’ll show up, and then he never does. Do you think he’s been trying to enroll? What would stop him?” Puzzled, Marinette rested her chin on her hands.

Alya held her phone outward so Marinette could see. “Um, he literally has a song titled “I Wish I Were at School”. I think Chloe might be right—just this once.”

Marinette wrinkled her nose. “I thought that title was a joke.”

With a gasp, Alya clapped both hands to her mouth. She stood and grabbed Marinette by the shoulders, dragging her up from the couch. “Girl, I just figured out what we’re going to do! Here, listen to this…”

---

Adrien sidled up to the exterior stairs of Francois Dupont, looking in every direction at once for Nathalie or the Gorilla to appear. Nervous, he rubbed his hands together and mounted the staircase. Other kids were funneling into the entrance alongside him and for once, he wasn’t the center of anyone’s attention. He wasn’t sure if that felt good or not. Chin tucked down into his collar, he crossed the stone threshold.

Made it! He thought, releasing a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. He darted to the right of the main doors and pressed himself against the wall. A final peek outside revealed none of his father’s employees. Had he really—finally—gotten away with it?

Adrien whipped out his phone and fired off a message. I'm inside the doors. I don't think they followed me.

That's great! SewSweets messaged back. I'm really proud of you, FF. Do you know which classroom you're supposed to go to?

Mme. Bustier, he replied. That was Chloe's class.

Then get going!

Adrien put the phone away, but as he stepped forward a girl with auburn hair and glasses took notice of him.

"Hey! Aren't you Adrien Agreste, the famous teen model?

Adrien backed away from her, but a boy nearby with a red hat and glasses perked up.

"Did you say Adrien Agreste? Here at Francois Dupont?"

The pair advanced toward him. He glanced at a staircase nearby, unsure where to go. A tiny blonde girl and a willowy brunette with streaks of purple in her hair stood up from a bench.

"Adrien? Really?"

"Wow!"

Adrien turned to bolt. If word got out this soon, he'd be back at the mansion within the hour! He started up the stairs, but a hand grabbed his upper arm. A girl with pigtails yanked him along behind her, away from the growing crowd.

"Locker room! Quick!" she hissed.

They ducked into the locker room and found it fortuitously empty.

"Thanks," Adrien huffed. "I only just walked in the door and I don't know my classroom or anything yet."

"No problem, FF. I've got your back."

They stood in silence, Adrien taking a moment to get his breath and the girl just staring him down. Something felt off to Adrien. He shouldn't—wait. She hadn't called him Adrien. She hadn't called him a name at all, at least, not one that anyone knew. He looked at the girl with dawning realization.

"SewSweets?" He asked in disbelief.

She tried to keep a straight face, but her lips gave a funny little wriggle and she burst out laughing.

"I'm so sorry, FF—I mean Adrien! That look was priceless."

"What is going on? You go here? To this school, with Chloe?" Adrien looked all around the room, but the two of them were still the only ones inside.

The girl grimaced at the name, but nodded. "Yeah, I know her."

"How did you know this was where I meant when I said school? Wait, how do you even know who I am?" Adrien found his head spinning a little and he sat down on a nearby bench. SewSweets sat next to him, concern threading the little wrinkle in her brow.

“Let’s start with the movies…” she said.

The pigtailed girl gave him a run down of recognizing him, then inexplicably blushed as she explained how she’d figured out he wanted to go to school and encouraged him to chat about it in Birdiemuse. In hindsight, his wish to join other teens at school wasn’t exactly a mystery, he had to admit. He noticed two of the kids from the courtyard poke their heads in around the time she was done explaining that they hadn’t actually mobbed him— it had been a set-up.

“So once you figured out who I was, it wasn’t too difficult to steer me toward another attempt at coming to Francois Dupont,” he stated, looking at her with new eyes.

The girl blushed even brighter and nodded her head, scrunching her eyes closed.

“I-I should apologize, Adrien. It wasn’t fair of me to push you to come here, but I didn’t know how else I could finally really meet you. I just want to be friends, online and in real life.”

Adrien stared at the small teen next to him. She looked so sweet and innocent. Who could believe such a calculating mind hid behind her pleasant facade? The girl nervously clutched her hands in her lap. She let go when Adrien threw back his head and laughed.

“I needed the push. Coming here is what I wanted! You just coordinated the timing, that’s all. And—hold on, what’s your name?”

“Marinette.”

“Marinette,” Adrien replied, smiling around the word. “I remember now. You won the hat competition. And stood up to Chloe in the process! Yeah, I suppose I can’t actually be surprised at what you can pull off when you set your mind to it.”

He grinned at her and was rewarded with a small smile, but Marinette wouldn’t meet his eyes. He dipped his head low, bringing his face close to hers.

“After the way you’ve encouraged me and been there for me, Marinette, I could never call you just a friend. Thank you.”

For the first time, the girl lifted her bright blue eyes and Adrien could see her worry drain away. She smiled and he couldn’t help but reach forward for a hug. Marinette hugged him back, arms wrapped around his ribs. Her hair smelled unusually sweet, like sugar. SewSweets, he thought, privately amused at the connection.

“C’mon, Friend, let’s go to class,” she suggested once they’d separated.

Adrien followed her out of the locker room, feeling the flutter of butterflies in his stomach. He took a deep breath to calm his racing thoughts and heart. No, Marinette was definitely more than just a friend.

#adrinette #llu writes #adrien agreste #marinette dupain cheng #miraculous ladybug fanfiction

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centralparkpawsblog · 5 years ago

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The 9 Best End Table Dog Crates & Furniture-Style Kennels

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Top Pick: Crown Pet Products Wood End Table Dog Crate

Made from sustainable rubberwood, this end table dog kennel by Crown Pet Products is good for the environment, your dog, and your wallet.

Plus, it’s available in both Espresso and Mahogany!

Check Price

I love sharing my home with my dogs.

However, I have always tried to keep my house looking like the dogs haven’t completely taken it over.

Sometimes I succeed, and sometimes I fail.

There have been numerous occasions over the years that I have had to set up a crate in the house, and quite honestly, I hate the look of them.

Usually, I will use a crate cover to soften the appearance, but at the end of the day, we still have a giant wire box sitting in our room.

My dogs love resting in crates; it’s their safe place[1].

So, when I take down the unneeded kennel, my dogs are generally disappointed.

My solution to the problem was to invest in three end table crates. Though this was a fair investment, it met my needs of being functional and looking good.

Most people don’t even realize the tables are crates until they look closer at them.

Because my dogs have free run of the house, we took the doors off of two of the crates.

We left one door on for Ginger as she has some behavioral issues that require her to take some time to self soothe, but that’s a long story for a different article.

Also, if you are wondering why I have a gate across the staircase rungs, it’s because Sophie likes to eat cat food and is wonderfully tenacious about getting what she wants.

I know it detracts from the décor, but as I said earlier, sometimes I fail.

What are End Table Dog Crates?

The best invention in the dog crate world!

Simply put, they are dog crates that are also functional furniture.

They make having a dog crate in any living space far more bearable and aesthetically pleasing.

There is a fair variety of furniture-style dog crates to choose from, ranging in style, size, and color.

Dog crate furniture can be an investment, but when you combine the costs of an end table and crate, it’s usually the better deal.

Why You Should Buy an End Table Dog Crate

Furniture style dog crates are the perfect solution for having a dog crate and retaining the décor of any room.

I recommend this style table to all my friends and family that crate their dogs.

They blend well into any home and meet the needs of the dogs.

They say (please don’t ask me who they are) a picture is worth a thousand words. Below is visual proof of why you should buy an end table crate:

Unfortunately, we do have the big wire crate set up in the living room.

It is far more bearable than the X-Pen we had up before.

We are currently using this wire crate as a temporary training tool for Miss Ginger (I can’t wait to tear it down and put my end table crate back in its place!).

Looking for a soft-sided crate for temporary or travel use? Click here for the best!

What to Look for when Buying a Furniture Style Dog Crate

Like with all buying situations, different factors need to be taken into consideration.

For the end table crate, here’s a pretty comprehensive list to ponder:

Color/Style

There is a multitude of colors and styles to choose from.

Since you’re making this investment, you will want to find one that matches your room perfectly.

Material

These crates come in a variety of materials from different wood types to recycled polymers

You want to choose one that will both match your interior decorating preferences as well as the wear and tear from your dog.

Ease of Use

Depending on the space you plan on putting the crate, you will want to be sure the door is oriented to open easily.

Some crates have multiple entrances.

Size

This comes down to two factors: the size of your dog and the size of the space.

Be sure to consider height when looking for a crate as you don’t want it to sit too high or low.

Another item of note is there are two sets of measurements: One set is for the inside of the crate, and the other is for the overall table size.

For example, my crate has a 4-inch difference in the length and depth of the crate interior versus table exterior.

Sturdiness

The sturdiness of a crate is vital.

You don’t want the table collapsing on your dog, and you don’t want a flimsy crate your dog can easily escape.

As much as I love furniture crates, the reality is if you have a dog with separation anxiety or barrier anxiety, these crates won’t hold up against a dog that desperately wants out.

Price

These furniture style crates range in price from a little under $100 to over $1000!

The price usually depends on the material and size of the crate.

The Best Furniture-Style Dog Crates

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ModelMaterialColorsRatingPrice Crown Pet Products Wood End Table Dog CrateSustainable RubberwoodEspresso, Mahogany4.5$$$ Check Price Casual Home Dog Crate End TableSustainable WoodBlack, Espresso, Taupe, White4.0$$ Check Price Omlet Fido Studio Luxury Dog Crate with WardrobeWood and WireWalnutN/A$$$ Check Price Boomer and George Wooden Dog Crate End TableEngineered Wood & MetalEspresso3.9$$$ Check Price Zoovilla Dog Crate End TableMDFBlack, White3.6$$ Check Price Polar Bear's Pet Shop Double Door Extra Large CrateWood & MDFEspressoN/A$$$ Check Price Pinnacle Woodcraft Amish Dog Crate Entertainment CenterMaple & OakNatural or Stained4.7$$$$ Check Price Merry Products Dog Crate and TableWood VeneerBlack, White4.0$$$ Check Price Southern Crafted Furniture Custom Indoor KennelWalnut & MetalCustomN/A$$$$$ Check Price

Top Pick

Crown Pet Products Wood End Table Dog Crate

Click the image for more info

Why It’s the Best Choice

The overall style of Crown Pet Products’ Wood End Table Dog Crate is nonintrusive and would easily match most homes’ décor.

The Crown Pet Table is a solid wood crate that comes in two colors and two sizes.

Also, the door to the crate can swing in or out, making it easy to keep the door out of the way when not being used.

Another excellent feature on this crate is the base

It is made of waterproof melamine, making it a breeze to clean in the case of an accident.

The overall crate allows for excellent airflow, to better keep your pup comfortable.

Pros

Made from rubberwood, a hardwood from rubber plantations[2]

Waterproof floor

Swing through door

Cons

Only comes in two sizes

Only comes in two colors

Price

Check Price

Read Reviews

Budget Pick

Casual Home Dog Crate End Table

Click the image for more info

Why It’s the Best Choice

What first caught my eye was the conservative style of Casual Home’s Dog Crate End Table.

This mission-style crate would fit in with a variety of interior decorating styles.

The second thing I noticed was that this crate comes in five different sizes and four different colors.

The smallest crate will fit dogs under 25 pounds, and the largest can hold dogs up to 90 pounds.

The color options available vary on crate sizes.

Pros

Open slats on all four sides, allowing for sufficient airflow to keep your pup comfortable

Made from sustainably-sourced solid wood

Moderately priced

Cons

It is not made for chewers, so if your dog chews on wood or their crate, this will not be the right choice

It is not scratch-resistant

Check Price

Read Reviews

Upgrade Pick

Omlet Fido Studio Luxury Dog Crate with Wardrobe

Click the image for more info

Why It’s the Best Choice

Omlet’s Fido Studio crate comes in a walnut color, giving any room a warmer feel.

What makes this crate unique is that it comes with a wardrobe to keep all of your pup’s stuff neatly tucked away.

The crate features two doors allowing for easier access to get your dog in and out.

While the wires aren’t disguised, this crate may be a better choice for dogs who like to chew on their crate.

Pros

Multiple entries

Wardrobe

Easy wipe down finish

Cons

It isn’t made from solid wood

The wire sides don’t disguise the overall appearance

Limited sizes

Check Price

Read Reviews

Best End Table Crate for Small Dogs

Boomer and George Wooden Dog Crate End Table

Click the image for more info

Why It’s the Best Choice

The Boomer and George crate has a dark espresso finish and metal accents, giving the crate a luxurious look.

The overall design would fit great in most homes and would easily tuck in nicely next to a sofa.

The metal bars give it a sturdier feel, and though it’s far from indestructible, it would hold up well against mild chewers.

The crate sits well off the floor, allowing airflow around the entire crate, ensuring the greatest amount of comfort for your dog.

The wood veneer makes it easy to wipe down and keep clean.

Pros

Unique design

Well vented for natural airflow

Easy wipe down finish

Cons

Made from wood veneer

Limited size and color

Check Price

Read Reviews

Best End Table Crate for Medium Dogs

Click the image for more info

Zoovilla Dog Crate End Table

Why It’s the Best Choice

The Zoovilla dog kennel is a nicely sized medium crate.

It has a beautiful design that is aesthetically pleasing and easy to fit in any home.

This crate has a couple of unique features:

First is that this is a multi-door crate; it opens from the end and the side.

The second feature is the removable tray to make cleaning a lot easier.

This crate comes in multiple sizes and colors.

Unlike many of the crate end tables, this one comes in white or black instead of natural wood.

Pros

Stylish design

Multiple entries

Removable bottom tray

Cons

Made from MDF, which has certain disadvantages compared with solid wood[3]

The latch is not as sturdy as other models

Check Price

Read Reviews

Best End Table Crate for Big Dogs

Polar Bear’s Pet Shop Double Door Extra Large Crate

Click the image for more info

Why It’s the Best Choice

This espresso colored crate by Polar Bear’s Pet Shop is quite spacious and would comfortably fit most large dogs.

This crate is solid wood and features a double door front to allow even the chonkiest doggers to get into the crate.

The wide-set slats allow for airflow and light to keep the crate cozy.

Pros

Double door front

Exceptionally wide and deep

Classic rich design

Cons

Only available in one color

Not sturdy enough to use for crate training

Price

Check Price

Read Reviews

Best Nightstand Dog Crate

Pinnacle Woodcraft Amish Dog Crate Entertainment Center

Click the image for more info

Why It’s the Best Choice

The Amish dog crate entertainment center by Pinnacle Woodcraft is perfect for any bedroom.

It stands slightly taller than most crates.

This nightstand is solidly built from hardwood.

Additionally, this crate has the option of a flip-up top allowing for a storage area under the tabletop.

Pros

Can be customized

Chew and scratch-resistant

Multiple color options

Solid wood

Cons

Only one size

Price

Check Price

Read Reviews

Best Coffee Table Dog Crate

Merry Products Dog Crate and Table

Click the image for more info

Why It’s the Best Choice

Though the Merry Products dog crate would make a slightly taller than classic coffee table, it would still easily work.

It has a slide away door, so it won’t be in the way when the door is open.

This table comes in two different colors and has a classic clean line style, allowing it to blend well in most rooms.

Pros

Slide away door

Moderately priced

The tabletop crate can hold up to 300 lbs

Durable

Cons

Made with solid wood veneer

Comes in only one size

Check Price

Read Reviews

Best Multi-Dog Crate

Southern Crafted Furniture Custom Indoor Kennel

Click the image for more info

Why It’s the Best Choice

This rustic handmade crate can also double as a side or sofa table.

Southern Crafted Furniture’s indoor kennel is custom made and can hold two medium-sized dogs.

There is an option to have a divider in the middle to keep your pups separate, or it can be left open so they can mingle.

Pros

Handmade pine crate side table

Can be customized in size and color

Allows for multiple dogs

Durable

Cons

Price

Check Price

Read Reviews

Conclusion

If you are ready to ditch the metal or plastic crate for something more useful and aesthetically pleasing, then choosing a furniture style crate is your best bet.

Just because you share your home with dogs doesn’t mean you have to live in a dog house.

The dog crate furniture is an excellent compromise between pleasant décor and functionality.

I have had my crate end tables for a few years; they have held up magnificently and work perfectly.

I love the way these crates look and blend into the main room. My dogs love them and spend hours snoozing away in their crates.

In truth, the only thing negative I can say about these is that they are not made as durable as traditional crates, so wouldn’t be the best choice for dogs who are not fully crate trained.

Resources

https://sarahwilsondogexpert.com/creating-safe-place/

https://www.wood-database.com/rubberwood/

https://www.paradeofhomes.org/blog/mdf-solid-wood-furniture-advantages-disadvantages/

The post The 9 Best End Table Dog Crates & Furniture-Style Kennels appeared first on Central Park Paws.

from https://www.centralparkpaws.net/dog-crates/best-end-table-dog-crates/

#dogs #cats #pets #reviews

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le-mossy-elf · 5 years ago

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Animated movies (school project thing don't look I am begging you)

hello mortals, for English class we have to do a blog about specific movie genera. the thing is... I have no clue how to do that... so teacher, if you're looking at this, don't judge.

okay so what you'll find what the hell you'll find here is:

1) rating criteria.

2) History of the genera.

3) Gods of Animation

4) Iconic films.

5) my top 10 must-see movies and shows

Rating Criteria

if I'm being honest like half of these things are useless but I want a good grade so I shall put the ones according to the Motion picture association of America.

G: General audience. Nothing that will upset people.

PG: Parental guidance suggested. There might be stuff not suitable for children.

PG-13: Parents strongly cautioned.there is stuff inappropriate for pre-teens.

R: restricted. 17+ only

N-C: adults only.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

history of animated movies:

Now even tho animation has kinda always existed before cinematography we are only talking about movies so...cinema yeah. (if you want more info I suggest you look at https://history-of-animation.webflow.io/ or https://www.nyfa.edu/student-resources/quick-history-animation/ )

it all started in the early 20th century with the first one being HUMOROUS PHASES OF FUNNY FACES made with stop-motion (1906).

we continue in 1908 with FANTASMAGORIE that unlike humorous phases of funny faces it isn’t atop motion but hand-drawn animation.

1917 we get the first feature-length animation El Apóstol, it was made using traditional methods.

this next name might seem familiar and that's because it’s FELIX THE CAT who is considered the first animated movie star. (1919)

and now we enter the THE GOLDEN AGE OF AMERICAN ANIMATION (1930-1950s), with the rise of Walt Disney, the Warner Brothers, MGM, and Fleischer; with the rise of these companies, animation became part of pop culture.

skipping some years we enter the modern era of animation. You have probably heard of CGI, now this “ new form of stop motion” made a huge impact on animation. an example of this is PIXAR.

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Gods of Animation:

so many films and shows, so much time and effort put into them, here are some of my favorite animators of all time.

James Baxter, have you seen almost any animated movie or show in your life? chances are that James Baxter animated one thing in that movie.

okay I couldn't choose between these 2 gifs so have both.

Hayao Miyazaki: airships are weird right? well for Hayao Miyazaki they are not, look at his work on studio ghibli and you will be mesmerized, but not only with his airships but with whatever he animates. just.. just have a marathon of studio ghibli movies I promise you it will be worth it.

Walt Disney, do I really have to explain my self? I mean he made one of the most iconic animated characters ever, Mikey Mouse.

John Lasseter, Pixar yeah you know that animation company? well he is one of the original animators that helped Pixar’s success.

rebecca sugar. creator of Steven Universe, she became one of my many role models, she also worked on adventure time and has made me cry more times than what I can count.

Alex Hirsch, (this just became a list of my role models) creator of gravity falls, the reason I got into cartoons, again made me cry like 30 times.

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Iconic Films

there are so many animated movies its hard to choose so here are the top 10 movies with no particular order.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

WALL·E

Spirited Away

The Incredibles

The Nightmare Before Christmas

Toy Story

Coraline

My Neighbor Totoro

The Lion King (1994 becuse the 2019 sucks)

Finding Nemo

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my must-see movies and shows

now just because the movies I just mentioned are iconic it doesn't mean those are my favorite movies, so here I shall give you my favorite movies.

1) Spirited Away, the story? Amazing. the animation? Show-stopping. 100/10.

2) Coco. # movies that make me cry no matter how many times I watch them.

3) Coraline. ah yes, sweet childhood terror, Coraline has been one of my favorite movies just becuse anything stop-motion makes me go “ooooohhhhh” and just the fact that it still freaks me out is shocking. also uh it was a book by Neil Gaiman??? that's enough.

4) Gravity Falls. the first show that made me connect so deeply with the characters that they made me cry. one of the few shows that show a wholesome sibling relationship. I absolutely love this show.

5) Over the garden wall. Everything about this show is amazing. form the music to the animation to the story. I love it and nothing will ever change that.

6) My Neighbor Totoro, again with the studio ghibli movies, this was the first studio ghibli movie I ever saw and I could rewatch it a million times and never grow tired of it.

7) steven universe. yeah I talked about the movie but I didn't tell you about the show. emotional, makes me cry, has some good lesbian representation, makes homophobes mad. I like that. (also yes this next gif was animated by James Baxter)

8) Your Name.animation music, and story all of that combined it gives us a master pice. this movie is on NetFlix so if you want to watch it any day you can

9) Toy Story (1,2,3 and 4), the movie that made me think toys are alive and made it extra hard to give them away. thanks Pixar.

10) Bojack horseman. Depression the animated show! you like crying and existential crisis? then you’ll love this show. again just like everything on this list this show has made me cry.

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and now we have reached the end of this blog. i hope you watch at least one of the things i recomended, they deserve it.

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bohrapbachelorette-blog · 6 years ago

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Borhap Bachelorette (Part 1)

Word Count: 2,156

Prompt: This is a Borhap boys x reader Bachelorette AU.

A/N: This was written by @ @wewillfarrokhyou @anuknowha @tooweirdtolivetoogaytodie @freddiesstache @queen-in-funerland @fatbottomedgwil

We hope you like it! Also be sure to vote for who gets the first impression rose.

Taglist: @bitemerog @mr-stank-i-dont-feel-so-dank and @rogerinatrash @roger-bang-the-drum (who signal boosted my original post) Message me to be added to the list/follow this blog)

You had just arrived in front of the mansion. You were extremely nervous about being the star of The Bachelorette - you didn’t have too much experience dating before, and being on this show was supposed to be a chance for you to find love. What could you say? You were a true romantic at heart. You were dressed in your best gown, your makeup and hair done by the specialist, and now you sat waiting. You hadn’t met the guys yet, but they were due to arrive in the limo any second.

Chris Harrison came from inside the house and approached you.

“Hello, (y/n), how are you feeling?” He said, with his T.V. smile on.

“Hi Chris! I'm excited, but also quite nervous. Just really hoping to find the love of my life. I know I’m ready,” you smiled brightly and tucked a strand of hair behind your ear. Just then, the limo started to roll into the driveway and you heart began to race.

“Here we go...” you muttered to yourself.

A tall man with gorgeous cheekbones and a straight jawline got out of the limo and walks towards you, holding a pitch black acoustic guitar. Fender, you assumed - you weren't really knowledgeable about guitars. He had clear blue eyes and chestnut brown hair, with perfectly arranged facial hair. He started singing “You’re My Best Friend” as he walked towards you.

“Ooh you make me live, whatever this world can give to me...” As he was singing, people on the sides threw polaroids at you. You caught one - they were all pictures of him in various cute, Instagram-worthy poses. “Ooh you’re all I see..” you were laughing at how silly and sweet it was.

“Hello love, I’m Gwilym Lee. Lovely to meet you.” He says, taking your hand and giving it a kiss.

“That was a wonderful entrance,” you laugh, and he takes a bow.

He walked past you and into the mansion. He seemed like a genuinely sweet guy and you were excited to see who else was going to come.

Out of nowhere, the song “Boss Ass Bitch” began to play. You were incredibly confused until from around the corner you spotted a giant dinosaur dancing its way toward you. You burst out laughing at the ridiculous sight, your hand coming up to cover your mouth.

“Oh my god!” You yelled out, watching the dinosaur shake its hips.

The dino got on its knees and presented you with a rose. He unzipped the top part of the costume, showing ginger hair and bright smile. He roared and you laughed again.

“I’m Joe, Joe Mazzello,” he exclaimed. You took the rose out of his hand.

“Well, you certainly put on a show,” you said, highly amused.

“It’s all in the hips,” he joked.

He smiled and walked past you. You could already tell that Joe was going to be a lot of fun. He had a great sense of humour from the way you nearly cried laughing at his dinosaur dance. You wondered who was going to enter next.

“Remember the Time” by Michael Jackson began to play as a man in full egyptian clothing came out of a limo dressed like a pharaoh. He had tan skin and big blue eyes and his whole look gave a grandiose appearance.

“Hello, your highness,” you bowed at his costume.

“Well I was in Night at the Museum, so I couldn’t resist. I’m Rami Malek,” he beamed, holding out his hand.

“(Y/n),” you grinned, taking his firm handshake.

“I look forward to getting to know you,” he smiled as he walked behind you.

You were impressed by his kingly appearance and beautiful features. Night at the Museum? I only remember Ben Stiller... Who is he?, you thought to yourself. Only one more guy was left to join all of you in the bachelorette house. What kind of a person would he be?

Right on schedule, another limo appeared. It was loudly blaring — “I’m too sexy for my shirt, too sexy for my shirt…” The back half of the baby blue limo was a hot tub with an admittedly very cute blond sitting in it, shirtless, arms draped around the sides. His curly blond hair and chiseled abs were almost too much.

“Hey, baby. Care to join me?” His accent made you weak at the knees.

“Ah...I'm good, thanks.” You blushed and gave him a small smile.

“Oh. Um. Okay.” His pecs twitched almost nervously. Confused, he looked down, but it happened again and you started giggling uncontrollably.

“What was that?” Joe asked.

“What was wh-” the blond started, but it happened again. You and the other boys doubled over in laughter.

“I -” Hot Tub Man turned beet red and lifted himself out of the tub, wrapping a towel around his torso. A small laugh also escaped him. “I'm Ben Hardy. Nice to meet you.” Ben said as he walked over to you. He went to hug you but backed up a little when he realized that he was soaking wet. You muttered a quiet, “sorry” to him.

“I’ll save it for later,” he said, maintaining a suave composure as he walked to the mansion to dry further.

That was it. All the guys had already introduced themselves and made quite the impression on you. From the sweet romantic Gwil, to the funny and charming Joe, the royal Rami, and the gorgeous Ben. It was going to be a hard choice to see who gets the final rose. You just hope that the interviews help make it easier.

The guys were all drinking in the lounge of the mansion when you walked in. Chris Harrison walked to the front of the room.

“Well, this is it, enjoy your first night!” he said as he walked away.

All four guys were staring at you. You couldn’t help but to blush.

This was your time to play coy - you wanted them to believe there were things about them that you didn’t know. You wanted them to be completely honest and after you’d seen them on the set of Bohemian Rhapsody together you knew exactly how they would act both on and off set. Even while they were there, you’d watch them on social media and their interviews when they weren't with each other. Hell, you even knew their favorite foods but you wanted to hear it “straight from the horse’s mouth”, as they say. You knew that this was going to be fun, and you just had to let it play out right. You just had to be careful and pretend to be unaware of these guys and their pastimes.

Rami trailed off first. “Ms. (y/n), I’m not sure if you like cats, but I am severely allergic. Thought I’d let you know beforehand.” He grinned.

“Well, I’m a model!” Gwilym stated.

“We’re all models.” the other three sighed in unison.

Ben seemed to keep his eyes on you, making you a little uneasy.

“Your eyes are absolutely gorgeous Y/N. Look at how soft they are and how the light in this lounge absolutely twinkles off of them.”

It took a moment for you to process the information and once your brain finished establishing his words, you had time to notice that he had a shirt on.

“Oh, oh you’re Ben right?”

He held his hand out as the other three watched him and slowly looked over at you as you shook it.

“Great, now she’s going to like you more, and after I dressed like the best thing since sliced bread. I. Feel. Betrayed. Ben.” Joe huffed as he puffed out his cheeks and crossed his arms.

A small smirk appeared on the blonde’s face. He felt confident that he was the first one who made physical contact with you since you guys entered the mansion. His grip was firm but gentle, he wasn’t using too much force and but you could tell he didn’t seem to want to let you go. But he did.

“I love dinosaurs and the prehistoric age, I love history-” Joe stuttered to try to catch your attention.

“Is that what you majored in college, Joe?” You glanced over at him with a smile.

“Actually, I went to college for the cinematic arts, I wanted to make my experience on the big screen.” He grinned, his hands held in front of his face, and he slowly spread them apart as if he was making some kind of invisible rainbow. Almost as if he were about to do jazz hands.

“Well, I’m British darling, have you ever dated a man from another country?” Ben hummed.

“Not yet, but I’m still available,” Gwilym laughed.

Ben sent a glance over at him, one of slight disgust as he squinted his eyes.

You tried to contain your laughter but it was hard, you could tell you were in the room with a bunch of goofballs but you didn’t hate it- in fact, it made them each stand out, it was cute.

Rami caught your attention as he was sitting there, his eyes fixated on something else.

“Something wrong?” You questioned.

“Hmm?” He looked over at you, a bit embarrassed, as if you caught him doing something wrong.

“Nothing. I was just thinking about how beautiful you are,” A small smile formed on his face.

“Don’t mind him, he’s even like this in interviews,” Gwilym said.

“He’s been like this on our dates too,” Joe tried to whisper so Rami couldn’t hear.

“I hope you know, I did hear you, and I do pay attention, just not to your existence or your-” Rami paused and put his hand to his mouth pretending to cough. “Cold. Isn’t that right, John?”

The room got silent for a second as Joe sent Rami a death stare. But his only response was to return it with a sly smirk.

Soon enough Joe tackled Rami off the couch and was playfully pulling at his suit as the other two burst out into laughter.

You laughed too and watched them all turn to you, momentarily stopping the fight.

Joe’s face lit up some, “Guys, she’s laughing at me. I’m funny.”

“Funny to look at…” Rami whispers.

This time, Joe playfully hit him in the arm and got off of him. And they all tried to gain back their composure. Rami fixed his jacket and straightened his tie.

You were still laughing, but soon tried to gather yourself as well. They were all smiling, you could tell that they were enjoying this talk with you.

“Weird that you’re allergic to cats but here you are playing Freddie Mercury, and being all lovey dovey with the creatures. You love them more than you love us,” said Joe.

“Not true,” Rami said with a small frown. “Not my fault that I was hot enough to play the leader.”

“But bloody hell, I was Roger and everyone loves a sexy drummer,” Ben grinned.

Gwilym let out a small chuckle. “Especially Joe.”

Joe blushed and lifted his white dress shirt to cover his face in embarrassment.

Gwilym turned to you and smirked. “Should I tell her that Joe has a cardboard cutout of Ben?”

You eyes floated over to Joe as he continued to stay flustered and quiet. “Is this true Joe…?” you pondered.

Joe tried not to answer for what seemed like an eternity. Soon he pulled the shirt down and replied with a mumbled “Yes.”

“How do you feel about this, Ben?” you felt a little weirded out but you wanted to find out exactly what was going on.

“I feel honored actually,” he laughed. “He only did it because I was never there for them. They were always touring but I had to go, other things to do.”

You looked at him and than your eyes grew slightly worried. “Does that mean that you won’t be here for me?”

The other three turned to look at Ben, all with faces of questioning.

“N-no of course not!!” Ben stuttered. He seemed surprised that he told on himself, even though you already knew.

“Um, (y/n), could I steal you for a second?” Rami asked, breaking the slight tension in the room and taking his chance to get some alone time with you.

“Not on my watch,” Gwil said pushing him to the side as he grabbed his guitar. “Well, you are a big Queen fan, mind if I play something?” he looked at you so earnestly that you decided to nod.

You all started singing Somebody to Love together, each of you pitching in with different verses. You started to feel at home with these boys. Chris Harrison was surprised when he walked back in to see you all together - the guys were generally more possessive over the bachelorette.

“Well, (y/n), it’s the end of the night. It’s time to give the out the first impression rose. Who will it be?”

..............................

Who do you think made the best first impression, and who would you give the rose to? Vote here: https://doodle.com/poll/3zupusvkkyepfarn

#borhap boys #joe mazzello #gwilym lee #rami malek #ben hardy #borhap #bohemian rhapsody

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antiquery · 6 years ago

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el’s guide to the lovecraft mythos

hey! so this is mostly a post for my dear friend will @wellsforboys, who asked for a primer of sorts on the best lovecraft stories, because his collected works are such a doorstopper, and reading them all in chronological order is quite an intensive task. these are, in my opinion, the cream of the crop; keep in mind that, for a lovecraft fan, my tastes tend towards the unconventional, and if you ask someone else you might get a very different list. i’m going to try my best to avoid the most intensely, egregiously bigoted, but if there’s something i feel merits inclusion despite the aforementioned bigotry i’ll include a warning. i’ll also provide links to all of these stories through the free online archive, but if you’d like to get a hard copy and delve deeper, i recommend this one from arcturus or this one from barnes & noble. if you’re strapped for cash and/or would prefer to read more online, here’s the link hub for the complete works. let’s get started!

lovecraft stories are typically broken up into two categories: the “mythos” stories, and the “dreamlands” stories. the former are the stories you typically think of when you think of lovecraft, if you know weird fiction— they tend more towards hard sci-fi, and usually deal with doomed scholars, hubris-ridden scientific exploits, the massachusetts countryside, outer gods, and various types of aliens. they’re far more famous than the latter, most of which concern the adventures of various vaguely keatsian protagonists in a narnia-ish realm dubbed the dreamlands, which is internally consistent and frequently cross-referenced. the distinction between these two types of stories is only a very broad one, though; characters, locations, and themes. frequently appear in both. the term “mythos” is rather misleading— all the stories take place in the same ‘verse, with the same gods and the same cosmology. really, it’s a division of style and subject material. personally, i prefer the dreamlands stories, but most lovecraft fans (unsurprisingly) prefer the mythos tales (which i will admit are more technically, narratively apt). i’ll try and include a roughly equal amount of both, so that you can get a feel for what you prefer.

so, without further ado, here’s the list! in chronological order:

the statement of randolph carter: first story, first appearance of my boy! here he’s wracked by ptsd from the great war and the recent eldritch demise of his boyfriend research partner; the story is told in the form of a police statement. this is one of the most gothic of lovecraft’s tales, and also the one with Alternate Universe Florida. it’s a fave.

celephais: sort of a dry run for the dream-quest of unknown kadath, but clever and unique in its own humble way. it’s got the same themes of refuge in dream, and it’s got a sweet ending that’s cleverly subverted by the protagonist’s later appearance in the dream cycle.

from beyond: people have mixed opinions on this one, but i’m fond of it. while usually classed as a dream cycle tale, it has that element of scientific hubris that pops up so often in mythos stories, and an absolutely chilling central premise.

nyarlathotep: first appearance of probably the most well-known mythos baddie after cthulhu. here he’s terrorizing innocent humans in the guise of Eldritch Modernist Nikola Tesla. will, for you specifically— if you like nikola orsinov from the magnus archives, you’ll like nyarlathotep (both the character and the short story).

the nameless city: this might just be my favorite one-off tale (though i am fond of the lovecraft reread’s hypothesis that the unnamed protagonist might be our boy randy carter, because this is precisely the kind of stupidity he’s so prone to). top-notch archaeological horror about exploring a deserted city that might not be as empty as it seemed.

the music of erich zann: lovecraft doing chambers, basically. it’s a clever little tale, and has an innovative use of auditory horror, which wasn’t all that common for hpl.

hypnos: probably the second most homoerotic story lovecraft ever wrote (though there are a lot of those, surprisingly enough). local keatsian meets a supremely beautiful, nameless man, they fall into dreaming (and opium addiction) together, things go downhill from there.

herbert west— reanimator: this one’s a bit longer, but it’s a cult classic, adapted into a delightfully campy 1985 film starring jeffrey combs. it’s about a scientist who goes Too Far, in the frankenstein sense, in pursuit of...well, you can guess from the title. it’s a fun modern (for the twenties) twist on the gothicism of mary shelley, and the title character is so much fun.

the hound: another super-gothic tale, and probably the single homoerotic story lovecraft ever wrote. actually, it’s kinda like a mini the secret history via poe. local decadents get into the occult over their heads, pay the spooky spooky price. gotta love it.

the rats in the walls: this one’s another classic poe-esque story, pretty clearly a riff on fall of the house of usher. it’s a wonderfully psychological piece of gothic horror, but huge trigger warning for The Infamous Cat Name. aside from that bit of unpleasantness, this is one of the first pieces where lovecraft handles the horror of ancestry well, with the classic conceit of a literal decaying house (or priory, as the case may be), and it’s pretty cool to see him really come into his own with something that’d so fundamentally define his work.

the unnameable: another carter story! this time he’s acting pretty transparently as lovecraft’s author avatar, talking about the value of horror fiction and, uh, fainting in terror at the slightest hint of any actual horror. better luck next time, randy. we’ll check in with him again in a few.

the festival: first canon mention of the necronomicon! exciting! and, if i recall correctly, the only story actually set in kingsport, one of the small massachusetts towns (along with arkham, dunwich, and innsmouth) that make up the major landmarks of lovecraft country. it’s about, as the title suggests, a Nefarious Ritual, and also astral projection? cool. it’s a pretty neat bit of creepery, nothing really special, but a good example of the kind of regional horror lovecraft was starting to handle particularly well.

the call of cthulhu: i’m basically obligated to include this one, though to me it’s not really a standout, because it’s so damn famous. it does get points for a clever and thematically intelligent narrative structure, and the astoundingly creepy idea of artists’ dreams being influenced by an Imminent Horror.

pickman’s model: another super chambers-esque story, and one where the monologue formatting works loads better than it did in statement of randolph carter. like in music of erich zann (and, to some extent, call of cthulhu) this is lovecraft wrestling with the cosmic-horror implications of the fine arts. it’s also got a lovely twist at the end, one of those really chilling clincher lines lovecraft is starting to develop a knack for.

the silver key: chronologically the third carter tale, though no one’s entirely sure where it fits in the narrative sequence of his stories. it’s basically a modernist diss track, wherein our boy wrestles with the ennui that comes from, uh, reading t.s. eliot? (funnily enough, this is basically “the hollow men” via keats.) it’s not really a horror story, but it’s one of my favorites nonetheless.

the dream-quest of unknown kadath: FINALLY, we get to my favorite. this is a short novel chronicling randolph carter’s adventures in the dreamlands as he seeks out a dream-city that the gods have denied him. it’s the odyssey via lord dunsany, with a few twists— carter’s not really an epic hero, polutropos or otherwise, and it’s fun to watch him navigate a treacherous landscape in such an unconventional fashion. it has an excellent, atypical twist ending, and my favorite appearance of nyarlathotep ever. it’s also the chronological end of the carter cycle,* and our boy goes out with a very pratchett-esque bang.

the case of charles dexter ward: a lengthy slow-build tale of an evil necromancer and his impressionable descendent. it moves somewhat slowly, but it’s so delightfully atmospheric that you don’t really mind. bonus points for the clear riff on wilde’s the picture of dorian gray. also, first appearance of mythos deity yog-sothoth!

the dunwich horror: aaaand now we get into the string of very well-known mythos tales that lovecraft wrote around 1930. this is a classic, about an insular family with a destructive predilection for the occult.

the whisperer in darkness: a lovely slow-build and partly epistolary tale, featuring the classic Intense Stupidity of mythos protagonists. also featuring aliens from...pluto? and the first real appearance of the theme of bodily dissociation, which lovecraft got super into near the end of his career.

at the mountains of madness: this one’s so good. it’s more of a novella than a short story, about a doomed expedition to the antarctic sponsored by our favorite Dark Ivy, miskatonic university. it’s an awesome piece of worldbuilding about the pre-human earth, and a near-unique bit of sympathy for the non-human. it was also the inspiration for john carpenter’s 1982 classic the thing, as well as a tragically abortive guillermo del toro adaptation.

the shadow over innsmouth: i’d call this the climax of lovecraft’s writing on hereditary horror, and it’s brilliant. the ending is one of my favorite final paragraphs in all of lovecraft, maybe surpassed only by dream-quest. the story proper is about a young massachusetts native investigating the strange coastal town of innsmouth, and just why, exactly, something isn’t quite right about it. it loses points, though, for a truly horrible and lengthy application of dialect, and for being a very obvious metaphor about interracial marriage. sigh.

the dreams in the witch house: probably my favorite story after dream-quest of unknown kadath. it’s...kind of dark academia-y, actually, about a miskatonic undergrad who moves into a house formerly owned by a famous witch and discovers a method to travel to other dimensions— at a price, of course. lovecraft was never good at character building, but he did manage to create a genuinely sympathetic protagonist in walter gilman, which makes the ending all the more chilling. there’s also an awesome rock opera adaptation of this story, which i highly recommend.

the shadow out of time: another favorite! it’s the culmination of lovecraft’s late-career fondness for body-swapping horror, and as well as being genuinely cosmically terrifying (and wondrous) it’s quite psychological, in a way lovecraft wasn’t usually very apt at. it’s got alien civilizations! anticipatory soviet terror! the horrors of interplanetary colonialism! awesome libraries! what’s not to love?

the haunter of the dark: the last independent story lovecraft wrote before he died in 1937, it’s a beautiful send-up of providence, hpl’s hometown, and a delightful final appearance of my man nyarlathotep (albeit in a new form). plus...eldritch journalism? it’s great. also, i can’t mention this story without referencing this fic, which you should absolutely read immediately after the actual tale.

and that’s it! happy reading!

* you can read “through the gates of the silver key” if you want, it’s technically the culmination of the carter cycle, but it was mainly written by e. hoffman price and edited by lovecraft, and i (along with plenty of other hpl scholars) don’t really consider it canon. it was lovecraft’s first real foray into body-swap horror, but because he’s trying to shove it into a character arc that’s already over and done with it doesn’t do very well. you get essentially the same narrative with “the shadow out of time,” done much more skilfully. to me, “gates” smacks intensely of derleth, lovecraft’s “posthumous collaborator” and Mythos Manichaean, which...ack.

#bookshelf blogging #o do not ask what is it #sorry will this took foreeeeever to get down on rhetorical paper but It Is Here #it's time for elizabeth's opinion!#mine

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kazjester · 6 years ago

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Just in time for Halloween, and a project I’ve been working on this month as I’ve been enjoying writing quite a lot, here’s the next entry in my “Work Sucks: Short Stories” series.

Except, it’s not quite short, as I got quite carried away in this story featuring Gayle and Terra investigating a supposedly haunted hotel. This features a ton of suction peril through many scenes, and soft vore, so just a forewarning there. Basically it’s an entire arc that would appear in the Work Sucks comic, just on its own here!

Read the full story after the break. Feedback is welcomed.

[Content-warning: vacuum peril, soft vore, ghosts]

– Work Sucks: Side Story – The Hotel –

There was chaos in the hallway. Lights flickered, winds howled, and various furnishings in the halls rapped against whatever surface they could strike. A lone feline lady, a black furred cat in single piece of custodial gear, rounded the corner, tears glowing against her face. A sudden blast of air launched the stout cat forward and she plopped onto the floor. On her hands and knees she froze. The walls, the ceiling, and even the floor, heaved closer together, herself even sinking a bit into it all, as an otherworldly moan slipped by her ears.

The walls shook. The moan intensified, a voice the feline had never heard before. The winds continued around her without her budging, fearing that attempting to get up would cause herself to get carried away by them. A swirling breeze tried its best to lift her off her paws, and almost succeeded before she braced herself against a fastened chair. It was as if the halls themselves were breathing.

Guests would have been pouring out by now, demanding to know what the ruckus was all about. Maybe that would have been enough to save her, but no such thing would happen. There were no guests here, in this hotel located in the middle of nowhere, where not even another soul worked. The cat was alone, with only this hotel to keep her company.

Now this thing, this force, was stalking her. She wanted to cry, and bit her lip even tighter as the air stilled, and the walls and floor settled back down. Hands shaking, she got to her paws, slowly reaching into the large pocket on her belly for her phone.

She stared for a moment at her contact list. Who would she call? Who could even help at this time? Who would even believe her? A sick sound filled her ears. Something was moving behind her against the wall, maybe even through it, like the sound of a million hands pushing at pulling at putty. Something wet dripped down onto the floor.

She caught it pooling up in the corners of her eyes, dripping down like glowing saliva. The corners of some sort of protrusion poked out from the walls, and with one hand her palm covered her mouth, and with her other, her thumb pressed down on the camera button in time as she turned to face it.

A large mouth, with big puffy lips, had grown from the wall, right next to the door of her office. Large teeth and an even larger tongue glistened in the lights. She became radiated in blue light as the lips parted, emanating from the back of the throat. She didn't have time to scream as the mouth opened wide and a heaving force of air snatched at the feline.

A flash of light burst from her phone in the moment she had to snap a single picture.

* * * * *

"I mean, it doesn't look haunted," Gayle commented as they continued on their hike through the forest. The tips of his ears brushed against low-hanging leaves as he completely ignored the forest in front of him, his thumb instead guiding the scroll bar on his phone. He peered through each photo online of the hotel. His view rested on the photo that kicked off all of this: a single, blurry photo of what appeared to be a mouth warping the sides of a hallway.

Attempting to load another web page, Gayle raised his phone high, then low again, grumbling to himself. "We're almost there, right? Hard to believe a motel of all things would just be in the middle of nowhere, and... great. Looks like outside the range of any cell towers, too!"

"Pay attention!" Terra called out from behind, just in time for Gayle to be smacked in the face by a large bundle of leaves stuck to a vine. Gayle seemed unfazed, more upset by the loss of signal in his phone. She joined in that slight frustration, now peering over her own phone. She muttered, "For someone so afraid of walking into quicksand or another plant's mouth you don't really watch where you step."

"I do!" the rabbit gave a quick retort, spitting out a leaf, "If I look down at my phone I can see where I drop my feet, after all. That's multitasking!"

"Besides," Terra said after waiting for Gayle to get leaves out of his ears, "What would the place looking haunted have to do with anything? The article said this was a recent phenomena." She stared at the same photo Gayle had, which she actually saved to her phone instead. Mimics were common, even ghosts. Many animal-kin were open to sharing stories about having survived encounters with both. This case seemed pretty straightforward, but something really bugged her about this photo in particular.

Gayle answered, "A good spooky mansion is so cool! Haunted hallways, possessed furniture and closets, with a group of ghost hunters and an arsenal of rad equipment sure beats the usual monsters we deal with. I'd rather get sucked into a closet than another vacuum monster or machine."

"But it could just be a mimic, right? Or a mold monster that sucks up prey from the walls. We've seen blobs take the shape of just about anything, too, just to get a snack, so what kind of monsters could be lurking in a big hotel in the middle of a monster-ruled jungle?"

Gayle pondered, "Is it a hotel? Those are usually in big cities where people have reason to travel anyways. I imagine a motel in a the middle of nowhere is a good place to hide from the MCP, or like that one place I bought that haze fruit at. A place out this far doesn't scream 'hotel' to me."

Gayle and Terra pushed through thicker and thicker foliage, rows of grass and leaves that stuck straight up but flopped over at the slightest touch. Often with these jungles of various sizes and colors, the flora and fauna could make them feel as they were shrinking, and as they climbed atop a long, flat leaf to cross a section of sticky grass, they sure felt that sensation once again.

"Careful Gayle!" Terra barked. Gayle started sliding down another leaf, tipping it enough to cause Terra to slide along with him. They shot though a large bundle of grass and rolled down onto some soft road as they broke through that section of jungle.

"A road?" Terra gasped, getting up with Gayle's help.

"Yeah," Gayle said, poking his toes into a broken section of road, much overtaken by the jungle and ground itself, growing over it, "Material for long hikes when animal-kin would travel by foot. I don't recall a road out this way, at least not in the map we looked up."

"Over there!" Terra called out and pointed to a familiar structure at the end of the walkway. Looming a bit in the distance was the hotel in the photos: a large, rounded rectangle structure five stories tall, surrounded by thick forest. The trees themselves swirled around the tops of the red building, seeming to cradle the only structure in the entire area.

"Five stories, here?" Gayle perked up as the structure got closer with each step. Judging by the windows and an estimation of the size of the place, Gayle imagined about eight to ten rooms per floor, give or take a closet or two. "Seems like an big place for one person to take care of, all the way out here. Who'd take care of that on their own?"

Terra smirked, "Someone as weird as Kaz?"

Gayle shrugged. "You know, speaking of, how does he even think that by us helping out one person, that's going to help his business at all? Lots of good it did us when we saved that village from Aster. There's no reward, either!"

Terra smiled just thinking about meeting Aster for the first time. "We made a friend, didn't we? Maybe if we can solve what's going on here, we'll meet a new monster we could add to Zeppy. Of course, if the hotel owner wants them gone.

The way I look at it, even a small bit of good will get Kaz's business out there in the public. He's still figuring out what he even wants his company to be, so beyond just selling junk Zeppy sucks up, I imagine he thinks Zeppy can be a place for wayward monsters to go. Just like him."

"You're right," Gayle agreed, then turned his thoughts to the possibilities of this adventure, "We're going to get paid to be ghost hunters, anyways! Maybe we'll get to use some cool tools, or find something possessed we can take back to my lab area and tinker with. Imagine how powerful a ghost powered vacuum could be to clean up the work-space."

The two passed under an opening in the hotel's fence. The welcome sign, dangling from a secured arch, read:

WELCOME TO THE VELVETEEN EMBRACE

Gayle snarked, "This isn't like one of ... those kind of hotels, is it?"

They stood in front of a large red two-section door with gold trim and handles. Terra and Gayle both marveled at the architecture of the place, realizing how old this hotel must have been. While many new buildings were "grown" with specialized rubbers and plastics, integrating themselves into the environment, older architecture was grown from the environment itself and had much more of an organic shell. Even older homes and structures were entirely organic, separating animal-kin building types into 3 distinct periods of history.

Gayle and Terra both pushed into the door, confirming the building fit into that middle model of building molds. The first thing to spring out to the pair was how little spring there was in the floor, as their paws just sunk into a dark red plush. The second thing the pair noticed, or at least couldn't avoid, was the hotel's namesake drowning them in motif.

"Ugh I get enough red being inside monsters all the time," Gayle said. Terra shot him a look.

"You gotta give this place points for mood, though," Terra added as they made their way towards to lobby, the doors closing behind them, finally locking them into mixture of lights and designs earning the name "Velveteen".

The walls and ceiling, both a deep enough red on their own, stood out alongside the lively walls, with patterns of different shades of red diamonds printed on them, or woven in. The lighting helped keep the mood from becoming too overwhelming, and bits of paintings fastened to the walls, plush couches to sit on solidly in place, even large plants of various colors, all worked together to keep the velvet touch of the place from bleeding over everything.

The lobby opened into a large circular chamber, with various unmanned desks at the back with bells obviously removed from each. Couches and tables filled up the front of the area with enough space for many guests and luggage among the center. Between the two counters in the back of the lobby, a large painting hung of an equally large lady, a black cat in a vintage jumpsuit and large poofy hat, quite a luxury item for animal-kin with how often one could lose anything not secured to their suit.

"Socks would probably dig this place a lot," Gayle's mind wandered, "Maybe this place is just Poly in a bold new form."

Terra shrugged, her own mind struggling to deal with the loneliness the room exuded. She could just imagine, in its heyday, this room filled to the brim with animal-kin looking to take a break from outside world. It was like a whole different place here, not even a window to remind themselves of what it looked like outside.

"Well I'm depressed now," Terra sighed. They both halted when they realized they weren't alone in this room. In a "corner" of the room, tucked away and behind what appeared to be a big easel with a paper draped over, a guest glanced around it, making eye contact with Terra before shying away and hiding again. It was a chameleon lady, swiftly turning red to match both the chair she sat on and her red jumpsuit containing the same diamond pattern as the walls.

Terra's eyes darted back to look for Gayle as she whispered, "Should we..."

"HEY!" Gayle slammed his palm down on the desk, near the spot the bell would have been installed, "We'd like a room!"

There was a sudden commotion. The clacking of plastic and rubbing of rubber broke the silence from a side hall. An odd trio, first a lanky goat, followed by a built bear, and then rounding out the group with a short, rotund platypus, entered and swiftly left through the stairway entrance. Each carried with them a duffel bag over their shoulders and each juggling even more loose equipment in their arms. Their jumpsuits were matching with each other but unique from the artist's suit, covered in unfamiliar branding.

Gayle bent over to pick up a small piece of hardware that had dropped to the floor during their shuffle across the room. It was a lens of some sort, that when he peeked through it turned the room blue. Terra gave off a subtle glow as he looked her over through the piece of lens, Gayle blurting out a single, "Cool!"

"Stop that!" Terra motioned him to put it away as someone was approaching from a hallway behind the counters. Gayle stuffed the lens into a pocket, mentally noting the trio and the need to follow up on what they were up to.

"Sorry about the wait, darlings," a playful voice entered the room as a feline with ruffled black fur and a tight dress suit walked up to the counter. She was quick to get to business, "It's nice to meet you both. Call me Rose if two could. Rooms are seventy-five prints a night, and forgive me in advance for the limited room service. Checkout is morning the next day unless you pay for an additional night, but honestly just don't make a mess and I don't care when you check out."

Terra just sorta glanced over to Gayle, motioning to the painting only a feet away with the nameplate "Rosalia Velveteen II" on it. Gayle tugged at his own collar, not sure how to approach this, and was sort of hoping Terra was going to take over the conversation from here.

Gayle stammered, "Um, a room, yes! My uh, friend? Yes we have been traveling all day and saw this lovely place and thought a room would be lovely tog-"

Terra stepped on his foot and corrected, "Two rooms please. We're tired. A big worm chased us on the way here. Do you have complimentary breakfast?"

Rose gladly accepted the one-hundred and fifty prints from the two, starting to rummage through some drawers as she replied, "You bet, but you'll have to cook it yourselves. Sort of short staffed at the moment. Names?"

"Gayle."

"Terra."

Taking a moment to eye both Gayle and Terra, Rose disappeared under the counter for a moment and yanked out two pairs of pajamas for the duo. "Complimentary comforts for your stay," she smiled. The clothing had the same patterns as the clothing worn by the chameleon artist, who had already snuck off with their easel. "You know, it's okay for you two to be here for the ghost."

Gayle clammed up, as if trying to come up with an unnecessary story, which Terra didn't bother with, asking, "Were you the one who posted the photos? What happened after? Is the ghost still here?"

Rose tossed each of them their clothing. For a moment her expression wavered into somberness, saying, "We've gotten some business since I sent that photo to a friend. I wasn't sure if posting that was the right thing, as I'd hate to put anyone in danger, but if people find a good time trying to hunt down that spirit, well, that can't be a bad thing, can it?

I reckon it's still around here somewhere, but that can't be the only reason you two came all the way, is it?" She leaned in a little, waiting a moment as some unseen guest came down through the stairs and into the kitchen area. Gayle and Terra kept their eyes on their host, much to her relief as the guests slinked out of view. Rose asked, "Enough about me, though. What curiosity brings you here? What are YOU two DYING to see tonight?"

Gayle and Terra exchanged glances, but Gayle was first to blurt out, "What kind of question is that?"

Terra, not wanting to be totally embarrassed by Gayle's rudeness, interrupted, "What my associate means is that you're the one that posted about the ghost online and we thought we could help. We're here on business, nothing more. We take care of monsters troubling towns, give them a place to stay for a bit, then let them back out into the wild. We're definitely not exorcists or anything, but most likely this is just a lost and afraid monster."

"How dull," Rose said as she stared Terra straight in the eye, "Well I haven't much to give in terms of a reward or commission, and I'm not planning on it. I'm thankful for any help in the matter but no one's had any luck dealing with this little devil. So let's talk something more fun. So Terra, what made you come here? What sort of monster would you hope to find?"

Terra paused. It was true, this trip wasn't for any sort of financial gain, and other than offering to cover the costs of the nightly stays, Kaz made it clear this was to be a wholly optional trip, leaving it up to Gayle and Terra to collectively decide to scrap it if they weren't feeling it.

Terra answered after a brief moment, "Even ghosts are just another species of monster, right? It'd be cool to see a new type of monster like that, or get to know its kind more. How do they move, or how do they eat?" She stopped herself, recognizing she could just about ramble about monsters as much as Gayle could about machines. Rose kept staring, so she indulged her, "It's probably just a scared monster who wants out. I'm sure a little attention and loving care would be enough to get it back to feeling safe again."

Rose chuckled, swaying over to Gayle with her arms playfully crossed under her on the desk, "What about you, silly rabbit? What would make you come all the way out here, the middle of nowhere, to see?"

The question seemed rather oddly prodding for hotel hostess, making Terra more uncomfortable than not. Gayle didn't seem to pick up on any ill intent, quick to answer, "Well, it'd be cool to see some wild tech, but I guess even if it's a haunted toaster that'd be neat to see!"

"Well," Rose pressed, "What tech do you usually see?"

"I guess I end up in a lot of vacuum cleaners," Gayle answered, more than he needed to.

Rose nodded, not letting that trivia phase her, as she rummaged through a desk drawer, pulling out a stack of plastic cards. She shuffled them with ease, ruffled them together with the claws on her thumbs, and then splayed them across the table in a ribbon spread. With one finger she flipped them all in a row. Two cards were face-up. With a proud smile, Rose tossed each of those cards to each of the pair of new guests. She then pointed to a nearby map framed on the wall, pointing each to their rooms in the corner.

"Floor two, rooms two-oh-five and two-oh-six, are yours," Rose hummed, "Please, listen. I don't know what this ghost wants, but it will know what you two want. So enjoy your stay, and be careful about wandering the halls at night. That's my only warning. Not like it can be any more dangerous in here than out there, right?"

"Uh, thanks," somehow both Gayle and Terra synced their gratitude.

They turned toward the stairs until Rose cleared her throat intentionally. With the same grin she tended to brandish with new guests, she offered to them, "How about this. Help me figure out what to do with this ghost, and I'll put in a good word for your business, too. It's not... like I thought it'd be, and there, I could use the help. Deal?"

They nodded, fiddling with their key-cards before ascending up the staircase. Rose chuckled to herself under her breath, "Amateurs..." before realizing she had dropped one of her own key-cards.

The moment her fingertip touched it, the card wiggled. Instead of shock, only aggravation surge through her body. Without hesitation she brought a foot down on it. What did shock her was the card suddenly sprouting ten globby legs and scuttering away before her paws stomped down on top of it. She tossed a couple cards throwing-star style at it in frustration, the escaping key-card able to twist and deform to dodge each one.

* * * * *

The hotel layout was pretty simple, with stairs located near the center by the lobby. Despite the first impression of a rectangular building, Gayle and Terra found the building to be C-shaped above the first story. Windows lined a courtyard area built atop the first floor itself, and they could see the east and west wings of the hotel's current and upper floors. Seen in the the emergency map, stairs were also at the ends of each wing.

The look of the floor shared the aesthetic of the lobby, and it was easy to imagine the rooms doing the same. Terra's room was located in the east wing, with Gayle's room right next to hers at the other edge of the same corner. What must have been managerial or janitorial rooms were tucked into the corners themselves.

"Second floor's not bad," Terra prompted conversation, "but I wish we had a chance to see what's near here. I doubt we could get onto the roof but we should look from the top floor later."

Gayle fumbled with his card, his door beeping but not opening. He tried again, grumbling, "I don't know if I can be adventurous already after all that hiking, and running, and panicking. I think I'm gonna collapse in bed for a bit and convince myself it's worth waking back up."

"Hold it for the second beep," Terra instructed as she opened up her door. She took a peek in before adding, "You know we can't stay away from trouble, right? Kaz will be happy with our names getting out there more, and I guess for us, the sooner we get to the bottom of it, the sooner we can go back."

"Just wish Zeppy would have parked closer," Gayle whined, swinging open his door after a moment, "I'm still putting bets on this being a prank, or at least, a scheme by the owner to get more suckers like us. I'll catch up with you later."

"Later, Gayle!"

With the door shut behind him, Gayle didn't pay much attention to the layout of the hotel room. Belly first, he flopped onto the queen-sized bed, just short enough for his large feet to hang off the edge. He didn't care. The last thoughts in his head wondered, if this was a prank, what sort of device or monster could cause as much trouble as what was being rumored on the 'net. With the complimentary jumpsuit as a pillow, Gayle swiftly passed out.

* * * * *

Terra had taken her time changing into the hotel's pajamas, storing her own clothing in the small drawer by the bed. A single lamp jutted from the wall above the dresser with its pull-cord dangling below. Ambient light came from soft bulbs in the ceiling, giving the room a cozy, warm feel. Other than a small desk provided with a pudgy stool, there was the standard closet and bathroom spaces.

The corners of the room were rounded, and the diamond pattern which adorned the hotel was present here, but patterned to be more subtle with smoothed tips on the diamonds, as if it was trying to bring about a calmer mood, but keep the trademark patterns. The pajamas Terra was given matched the room more than it matched the halls, and felt as comfortable as the room wanted her to feel.

"Wish I had brought Lilliput," Terra sighed, getting up beside the bed and stretching. Other than the nights she got lost and/or passed out in Zeppy, she had gotten so used to falling asleep with Lilliput curled up beside her. Not concerned that they would get into danger here, she still missed the adorable worm.

"Right! Fifth floor." Terra, being honest to herself, was sort of hoping that the first day would be pretty uneventful. As certain as Gayle was that this was all a prank, Terra was sure it was just a lost monster needing a new home. Maybe even a family of lost monsters were just caught up in the walls, and she'd get to hug every one of them.

Making her way to the top floor, Terra appreciated that the halls were as cozy as the room she was staying in. Between rooms there were light fixtures keeping up the mood of the place, and along the courtyard walls it alternated between soft sitting couches and potted plants, secured in place as everything else was. The floors were so soft that paw-prints were left in them for a moment before smoothing out.

Terra walked along the hall, doing her best to gaze out of each window and find a good angle that overlooked the jungle. Various shades of blue, green, and in between blocked her from seeing too far, and even larger trees reached up into the skies above the horizon. The sun was rapidly setting, or their planet was just flopping over.

"We'd need a skyscraper to even see anything," Terra muttered. She rested on a cushy bench on her knees, pressing into the clear squishy panel that were part of the windows of this world, with both palms. Not even a monster in view among the trees. Thinking over it, there weren't many monsters seen at all as they got closer to the place.

"Great," she huffed, her breath fogging up a bit of the window. Terra pressed her cheeks up against it, looking down at a familiar site far away in the courtyard. The artist sat there, alone with a sketchpad, in the corner of the yard. They seemed to be looking around for something, and finally, glanced up, meeting eyes with Terra's.

Terra waved.

The artist ignored her, instead returning to their sketchbook.

Terra wandered for a bit more, keeping an eye out the windows for any signs of non-animal-kin life. The place was a bit too quiet for her liking, which upset her because any other time on the job she prayed for quiet. Terra, now on the third floor and bored enough to want to go hang out with Gayle, placed a single paw on a stair before meeting eyes with the artist once again.

The artist blushed a moment, averting her eyes as she pushed past Terra into the hallway. Terra knew to mind her own business, about to head down a floor just as a large chameleon finger tapped on her shoulder.

"I'm so sorry," the artist squeaked, holding out the sketchbook. There was Terra's face, penciled roughly on the paper. Terra didn't know the polite way to react, but an emotion built up inside her and she couldn't help herself.

Terra giggled, then laughed, immediately catching herself and apologizing, "Oh no I mean... I mean it's..."

The artist laughed, too. She smiled, letting Terra hold the doodle. "It was meant to be goofy, so I'm glad you like it," the artist said. The drawing was of the moment Terra had her cheek pressed against the window, looking down at the courtyard. A bit of her tongue poked out from her lips. Nothing was flattering about this drawing, and Terra loved it.

"I'm Terra," she introduced herself while handing back the sketchbook.

"Santina," the chameleon smiled, closing and holding the book close. She glanced back toward her room, her eyes darting from there to Terra and back in a moment of unfocused thought. "Say, I'm done having no idea what to draw. Do you like to drink?"

"You bet!" Terra exclaimed, following Santina to her room.

* * * * *

With a soft, comfy thud, Gayle rolled out of bed and onto his butt, the complimentary pajamas landing on his face.

"Well, that screws up the sleep schedule for the week," he admonished himself.

A quick change into the velvet jumpsuit later, Gayle was ready for... whatever they needed to do on this trip. Wasn't like there was a ton to investigate until something happened, and even then, Gayle was pretty sure he had no meaningful way to interact with ghosts or poltergeists. They brought the usual protective items in compact storage, which was not any part of the hotel's clothing. Gayle didn't think to bring any weapons as he hadn't a single clue what could be used on a ghost.

"Butts," Gayle yawned with Terra not answering his knocking on her door. Gayle could go for a kitchen raid at this time but wasn't sure if it was stocked this late. Time was so hard to tell on a planet that could move at its own mood. It was clear it was night time, at least.

Terra wasn't answering her phone the one time Gayle managed to get a signal. Considering Gayle had to fish his phone from his casual outfit he wore on the trip, even if Terra's phone had a signal it wasn't probably on her person. He decided to leave it behind as well. This was only going to be for a moment, anyway. He did remember to take along the lens he found.

The fifth floor was Gayle's first stop, as he was most likely to give up if he searched the second or third floor and had to climb up after. Gayle already debated giving up after a few moments not seeing her up there, until a commotion caught his slender ears.

Approaching the only open door on the floor, Gayle jumped back as a piece of electronics flew out and bounced off the floor. Shouting followed.

One high-pitched voice shot out, "Dude be-e-e careful!"

A deeper, throaty voice shot back, "Can't break a piece of junk already, can I?"

A third, somehow deeper voice, kept calm and addressed them both, "We got a reading once, we'll get it again. You know it always goes quiet when new people arrive, right?"

There was a more calm discussion following from the room that Gayle paid no more attention to. He was too busy sneaking up to the thrown equipment, some sort of screen with a handle and a battery pack. It looked hobbled together, it looked busted, it looked like a hunk of junk, and Gayle wanted to touch and fondle every bit of it.

Gayle gave an audible yelp as a tail came down and smacked his reaching hand. The platypus from the trio of engineers in the lobby met eye to eye with Gayle, who froze bent over near the busted tool. As the platypus picked the device up, Gayle creaked out, "O-oh! This is yours, isn't it?" He fished out the wayward lens and held it up, ready to spark a following conversation.

Without a word said the platypus snatched the piece of lens and waddled back into the room, shutting the door afterwards.

"Cool!" Gayle whispered to himself.

* * * * *

Santina, laying on her belly and hanging over the bed just near Terra, who sat up against the wall, continued her musings, "...and just like that, nothing. No inspiration for the past month. Just me, starring at a blank canvas every evening with another set of paint about to dry up. So nothing too exciting there. How's your day to day been?"

Terra let another moment pass for the buzz to die down, then answered sleepily, "Oh, yeah. Thought I stepped in something recently and it just turned out to be a blob that tried to eat me again. You know, the usual. I think my only day to day inspiration is the hope the next belly will be less cramped than the previous one."

Terra passed the empty cup, compliments of the hotel, to Santina, who tossed it into a bin next to the art easel. The chameleon flopped back down, letting her scales match the color of the bed sheets enveloping her. She let out a large burp, Terra attempting to match or beat it but coming up short.

"Hey," Santina said while continuing to disappear into the color of her covers, "Sometimes I wish I could just get lost in one of my paintings, you know? Just explore, feel it, get swallowed up by it like you do on a daily basis."

Terra groaned just thinking about it. "I became paper once," she added, "Wonder what kind of painting I'd be good for..." She didn't bother mentioning the time Gayle got turned into a painting himself.

"I bet you'd make a cute canvas to draw on," Santina thought would be a flattering thing to say and did so without any inhibitions. They both laughed again, something they had done much that night.

"Okay," Santina said as she helped Terra up, then wobbled over to the canvas, "You like monsters right? So I do too but I have a confuss... confession. Check this stupid shit out." She revealed the mess of paints and sketches on the canvas, spinning the easel around a bit for Terra to see, which took way more concentration than she was prepared for but somehow managed.

Terra took her time starring slack jawed at the half-planned painting, before observing, "You draw... mouths?"

Santina excitedly nodded, spinning easel back. "Monster mouths," she clarified, "There's something goofy and spooky and kinda cute about them. I kind of want to capture that and the colors they can be and, well, get lost in them. Well, not INSIDE the mouths, like you. I mean like, the colors of it all. Lose myself in those reds."

"Red, huh?"

"Yeah, I think I don't need to explain why I thought I could find some inspiration here. More than I've drawn in a while so maybe it's working."

"I wanna find a bed," Terra yawned, about to crawl into Santina's.

Santina redirected Terra to the door, "You're one floor down, right? Think you can make it on your own?"

Terra nodded, too tired to say much else, and hugged Santina goodbye. She made her way to the staircase in the center of the building without much trouble. The halls were quiet, as would be at this hour, whatever incredibly late hour it could have been.

"One more day of treating this like a vacation wouldn't hurt anyone," she told herself, prepared for another day of not much happening. At least it wouldn't involve walking. Terra had seen so many fantastical creatures over the past few years, but the thought of not getting to see a single monster in this hotel started to disappoint her.

With her first step on the second floor, a chill shot up Terra's leg. Something squishy, something wriggling, something alive was underfoot. Not out of fear, but of concern, she fell back onto the stairs, awkwardly grabbing the railing to keep from falling completely back onto them.

Where she had stepped, thankfully unharmed, a little creature sat. The creature was as big as a balled up fist, pyramid shaped, with a feeler or leg on each point of the bottom side of it. It had a single mouth with puffy lips on one side of the fleshy pyramid, but had an eye near the top point of each side.

The color of the tripod monster was the only odd thing about it. Standing out from the hotel, it was an almost white hue of blue, with the lips, eyes, and feelers a darker shade. It seemed to radiate an aura off of it, and slightly lit up the ground underneath.

"Cool!" Terra whispered to herself.

* * * * *

"Oh crap," Gayle said as he stood there, alone, frozen with realization on the steps of the second floor with his hands in the only two pockets of his pajamas.

No key card. Oh crap.

No problem, Gayle thought to himself. Terra had to be back to her room by now, so she could survive being woken up at whatever hour it was. If that didn't fix it then a quick trip to the lobby would solve everything and annoy Rose as a bonus.

A few sets of knocking later, each with more feeling behind them, and nothing. This was her room, right? Gayle took a look up at the room number, baffled.

305.

"Terra?" Gayle squeaked out, wanting to shut out what he was looking at. All the rooms started with a three, and as he padded around, confirmed his suspicions as he stared out the window with no courtyard on this floor.

Gayle collected himself, wondering if it being so late had any affect on him. He was still tired after so much travel to get there, and the worry about being locked out probably added to his carelessness. No problem. Just needed to go down another floor.

As soon as Gayle stepped onto the below floor, he ran to the nearest door. 301.

"What the hell..." he breathed out, walking up to the window and looking over the missing courtyard. The light was so faint out there, making it appear like only a void was outside. Gayle wondered, if he opened the window, what would happen, and decided it would be best not to try that out on his own.

"Hello!?" Gayle called out, caring less by the second if he woke up anyone. He went down another flight of stairs. Still the third floor. Gayle ran back up. It was the fourth floor, finally.

"Okay, just had a moment. Nothing to worry about. Nothing to pa... ow!"

Gayle stepped on something oddly shaped as he walked along the fourth story's carpet. Raising his leg up, he plucked off what was now stuck to his foot. A... screw of some sort? Those engineers were always hauling equipment around, but Gayle would have thought they would have been more careful to not drop stuff in a place filled with a bunch of barefoot creatures.

There was a slight glow from the chunky screw. It was a pale blue, with a bit of an otherworldly glow shining off the surface. Gayle picked up on another glow in the hall and saw a few more bits of pieces just like the screw in his palm.

At least it used to be in his palm, until it seemed to roll off on its own. It attracted to another piece on the floor, some rubber and some wire, bundling together and continuing to roll down the hall in a ball of bits. Gayle didn't feel any wind, so the first assumption was some sort of magnetism. Gayle was used to making bad assumptions.

Gayle kept up with the moving parts, padding along the hallway at a brisk pace. Rounding a corner, more bits joined the ball of parts, now slowly growing in size with each new bit it slurped up. The parts consisted of mostly other bolts, rubber, wiring, and tubing, though each seemed to melt into the rolling pile as they disappeared into it.

Gayle followed it along another corner. The ball picked up speed as it grew in size. It rolled along at the size of a basketball now, hoovering up more pieces along the way, just snapping right to it from the sides of the hall. The mess of parts gave off that same eery blue glow, leaving a sort of bio-luminescent trail in its wake which Gayle dodged with each turn around a corner.

The same right turn, down the hall, for the fourth time. There was more hallway to run down, and there were more corners to turn around. The ball had stopped rolling by this point. Gayle's mind was elsewhere, trying to figure out if this building was really rectangular shaped or C-shaped. Maybe it was both, since he wasn't quite sure what floor he was on. The nearest room read "333" on the door. So did the next one. So did the one next to that.

Gayle went to kick the pile of parts out of frustration, whiffing as it rolled to the side, appearing as it had dodged the rabbit's foot. Something whipped out of the pile, just barely missing Gayle's leg as he yelped out and jumped back against a door frame. His hand grasped the handle and started yanking it, the door itself bulging out as Gayle pulled, but refused to open. The thing that had tried to strike him rose in the air and then relaxed itself. It was a... cord?

A cord and an electrical plug, to be precise. The ball of parts was no longer a ball. It had formed into the shape of a strange yet familiar device. The body, or bucket, of the device was pyramid shaped, with three ball-wheels at the bottom of each bottom-most corner it rested on. One side of the pyramid, which was most likely the front, jetted out a wide yet short hose, and attached to that hose was a tri-corner funnel, with the point of the tri-shape at the bottom like a chin. The funnel around its lips was a bit wide and bulged out like cheeks. On the other two sides of its three-sided body, vents, or buttons, and other patterns, lined it.

Gayle chuckled. It was just a vacuum cleaner. He had seen plenty of these, and often stood too close, as he was doing at that moment. He'd never had seen one with that sort of design, or capable of self repair or healing like this one. He bit his lip to keep himself from making any expressions. Inside he was debating if he should let his curiosity get the better of him, or wisely listen to the other voice in his head saying to get away from it.

Gayle wanted to touch it, to see how it was moving on its own. He wanted to dismantle it, and see what tech gave it the ability to pull itself together like this. It had to be magnets. It always was magnets. He wanted to tear this machine apart and see every wire crisscrossing through the machines body. Gayle didn't consider the danger he was in.

The machine picked up on Gayle's malice. At the top of its head, two eyes popped up, ghostly, blank, but staring somehow at Gayle and with a rubber scowl. Gayle hesitated at the sight of it staring back. This vacuum cleaner was only a few feet high, certainly not big enough to...

Gayle reminded himself that a machine the size of a tennis ball was strong enough to suck in most animal-kin. Of freaking course, there was a small uvula handing down in the back of the funnel where it connected to the throat-like hose.

Gayle stepped back, almost in apology, unsure what to say to it. He forgot his place. He didn't pay any attention to what was happening around him this whole time and certainly didn't think that this had anything to do with WHY they even came to this hotel in the middle of nowhere. He was subconsciously patting down every pocket of his pajamas. No phone on him, and that was all his fault.

Continuing to back away, Gayle braced himself as he shuddered from a sudden chill. A noise was filling his ears, a constant, low but discernible whirl of air flowing by his ears that felt distant even as it grew louder. As his ears flapped down in front of his face, Gayle realized it was the sound of this vacuum powering up, somehow. The noise was still nowhere near him, but he knew it was coming from the device. There was a hum of machinery coming to life around the small cleaner. The machine's whining matched his own.

Gayle's cheek fur was pulling from his face. His heels were lifting up as much as he tried to back away, pushing back with all his might using the balls of his feet. His pajamas fluttered to life as much as all the fur on his body, and every inch of fur pointed toward that petite vacuum cleaner. At first he was stumbling closer to the vacuum cleaner as the suction guided him, but with enough fearful composure, the rabbit was able to lean back and begin stepping in the other direction.

Gayle had made some distance between him and the glowing machine. He weighed his options. Go for a full run and hope it didn't sweep him off his feet, or manage a lunge for the machine and give it that good kick he missed earlier. Screw it. Gayle was going to go for the default way out, the cowardly option. He turned, and leaned as far forward as he could, treading away, and every new step was like going up the tallest hill, but at least it was progress.

The vacuum had a good sense of timing, and ceased its sucking just long enough for Gayle to fall forward and land on his face with a satisfying smack. It didn't wait a second longer to start hoovering up again, lowering its neck and funnel toward the ground and focusing all of its petite energy on the tall rabbit.

Gayle dug his fingers into the plush carpet but as much as could expend the energy to grab for the ground, there was not much to actually hold onto. He was sliding back, and quickly, toward the pyramid-shaped cleaner. Gayle attempted to roll to the side to get out of the jet-stream of air being sucked into it. He was so caught in the middle of it, like an undertow, that he was centered just as fast as he could roll away.

The green rabbit scrambled up on all fours and attempted again to make headway against the suction. He quickly failed, sliding back as his fingers and toes pressed against the floor in resistance, but forward progress was not his goal. All he needed was just one moment of both feet on the ground, and when he felt himself dig in as much as he could, the rabbit bounded to the side, latching onto the corner of one of the hallway couches by a window.

Doing this sacrificed the ability of his paws to touch the ground at all, as they now became locked in the air toward the center of the vacuum's funnel. He gave out a prolonged grunt as he pulled himself up over the couch, using every bit of his muscle, or what little muscle he had, to pull himself closer to the window itself. His feet, still locked together, pointed at the vacuum cleaner, but his hands were just close enough to the window to grab onto a latch. Doing so ratcheted up his body even more into the air, crying out some more as his grip had to be even tighter on even less stuff to hang onto.

"Open up!" Gayle strained as every attempt to twist and turn his body to get enough momentum on the latch wasn't enough. He wasn't even sure he could open the window at this point, and doubted he could get out. He could see nothing out there, just a dark, empty void. Opening the windows at this point could even suck him out into a much worse fate.

Gayle let out an exhaustive sigh, dropping down and being carried back by the winds, returning to hanging onto the edge of the couch. This pull wasn't giving up, and neither was the power supply to the cleaner. Another chill coursed through Gayle, this time from the bottoms of his feet as they touched up against the vacuum's funnel. It was inching closer, and the vacuum pulling harder, with each moment. Gayle was going to get sucked in, he realized, feeling himself being pulled closer, his pajama pant legs flapping wildly as they stretched over his paws. His toes attempted to hook against the sides of the funnel to push back, but instead the intense suction just drew both feet right into its rubber maw.

"Screw it!" Gayle exclaimed, proudly doing what he should have been doing in the first place and kicking the vacuum with a heel right into its small uvula.

Gayle tried to shut out the terrifying whine of the vacuum as it reeled back in shock and tumbled back down the hall. The vacuum suction stopped immediately and Gayle hopped right up, ready to bound off to safety. But he couldn't do it. Everything was telling him to run, to get the hell out of there before the little vacuum started back up. Instead he felt bad, and looked back at the little machine.

It was crying?

"Oh come on!" Gayle hollered at it, "You started it!" He was ready to start up another kick, but didn't want to risk getting any closer. He was still in range to be caught by the winds if the vacuum picked up again. Even at such a small size, the tiniest vacuums were capable of sucking in large animal-kin and monsters. Some devices, as Gayle found out recently, pushed this to an even farther extreme that covered miles. Even if he ran, he was probably too close.

The little ghostly vacuum cleaner sniffed a bit. Its crying had calmed. Gayle could clearly hear the rolling of familiar wheels. He heard the same otherworldly breathing that filled the halls. Something was approaching. A large shadow, from the barely lit hall now, with a familiar silhouette, rolled up next to the smaller vacuum. The new device, a much larger device, lowered its neck and nuzzled the smaller cleaner.

Gayle gulped, then whimpered, "You gotta be kidding me."

It was not quite the same vacuum, but did share almost the same body, or bucket type, that the smaller vacuum had. The main difference was its size, almost four times wider and taller than its weaker counterpart. Instead of the short hose and wide funnel, a long, wide rubber hose protruded from the front, hanging and slithering around the ground like a snake. Perhaps being the vacuum's trunk was a better way to put it, as it shared the ghostly and angry eyes of its smaller kin, but on the bucket itself.

"Your brat started it!" Gayle snapped, which he immediately regretted. He dropped to the floor as the vacuum kicked in, immediately sucking him in close. As the rabbit slid closer, the vacuum stopped hoovering in air and let Gayle finish sliding nearby. Not giving him a chance to resist, its long rubber hose slithered all around his body, coiling tight so the rabbit couldn't budge.

* * * * *

Terra sat on the stairs as she played with the little creature. She giggled as its tiny lips pecked at her ankles and it tried to climb up her leg. She pushed it back away with a free foot only for it to latch onto the other pant cuff and start gumming at it, as if it wanted to try and swallow her pant leg. "Settle down," Terra laughed during the playful order. She pushed it away with both hands, then patted it on the head, as if to say goodbye or that playtime was over.

The tri-pod creature pattered around in a circle, then shook its head. It immediately ran back up to Terra as she stood up, dodging underfoot to get back in her way. Terra's heart could melt at the site of it looking up at her, the little creature almost at a stage of whimpering.

Terra knelt, petting it again and reassuring, "You run off. I really need to get to sleep. It's really late!"

The creature smooched at her hand. It was quite clingy, and seemed to sucker itself against her palm for a moment until popping off. It kept making a smooching motion at her even as she rose up again to walk off. Terra was good at ignoring overly needy monsters.

She stopped herself and glanced back as another sound sprung from the monster. It was heaving! Its cheeks flushed and puffed up, its mouth puckered up even more in a great strain, and little grunting noises, as cute as they were, followed in quick succession.

Terra, transfixed, watched to let nature take its course. Something slimy, and covered in saliva, slipped from its lips after they widened almost as big as its own body. Any other animal-kin would cringe at such a sight. Terra smiled, then caught herself, perplexed. What popped out of the creature was another version of itself.

The canine disappointingly patted herself down for her phone, knowing just as well she left it back in her room. Socks would have loved to get evidence of a new monster, or some sort of reference to draw from. Terra wasn't even kidding herself. She wished to capture this little critter for her own memories. This kind of self-duplicating wasn't unknown in the world of monster study, but it sure was uncommon! She wanted to rush back to her room. Even Kaz would kill to see this, and he was too cowardly a lion to hurt a bloat-fly.

Terra's excited expression mellowed out as she realized there were now eight of these critters, and they were already in the process of coughing out eight more. Those sixteen quickly spit out sixteen more, and those thirty-two were quick to start doubling again. Terra steadily backed away. They were going to completely block the hall, and stairway down, at this point. Terra was losing count, and patience. She would much rather leave this newly found mess to the hotel staff and get some rest herself.

Terra's tail was no longer wagging in excitement over her new friend. Or friends.

Maybe she would rather call for help, instead. They were all staring in her direction as their multiplying completed. There had to be over two hundred of the critters clogging up the halls, smooshing each other, climbing over one another, tripping over each other. They all chittered together. It wasn't a cacophony of excitement, which Terra would have found somehow adorable. This was a unison of the same pitch and same monstrous voice, aimed in Terra's direction. It was one voice, and still many.

"Okay going to bed now!" Terra reassured herself, picking up the pace as she walked backwards, now turning in the right direction and hastening her steps. She didn't need to look back. The noises the little creatures made echoed with each other, but again, was not a cacophony of random sounds but instead sounds that coordinated with each other. She could hear them slosh and tumble over their bodies, almost fill up the entire width and height of the hall as they pushed forward toward her. They kept up in their chase, and Terra kept up in her run.

Terra had enough foresight to dive into her pockets for her room key, letting out all of her pent up terror as she held it tight against her door, waiting for that second beep which now took an eternity. As soon as the door beeped a second time she rushed in, slamming the door behind her, diving onto the bed as a wave of tiny monsters splashed against her door. A haunting wail rang out in unison from just outside, and her door bulged inward, with the faces of many tiny monsters screaming for her.

Terra was shaking. She never shook, at least, she told herself that. The canine's teeth chattered for a moment until she bundled all her covers together and hugged tight into them, almost burying her head into them. She wished she hadn't done what she did next.

Her eyes peeked out over the covers when a familiar cooing sound reached her ears. A single monster sat at the edge of the bed. It was smiling. It hopped closer to her, and resumed nipping at her pant cuff. Terra resisted every single urge she naturally had as an animal-kin to bop it with something.

She heard a PLOP, followed by another. The plopping turned into a stream as more and more of the little critters poured in through the bottom of the door. Terra was certain there wasn't any wiggle room to get in, but Terra also knew such assumptions were meaningless when it came to monsters like these. The floor was rapidly filling up with tiny monsters, all of the same size, exact shapes, and synchronized sounds. They filled up the room to the edge of her bed. Terra was certain she'd drown if she fell in.

Her phone was still in her original clothing, tucked away in the desk that was now possibly shut away under the pool of monsters.

Terra tried to joke to them, or maybe just herself, "At least you guys are fans, so you wouldn't want to lose me by eating me, would ya?" She had backed up against the back of the bed at this point, but there was nowhere to go.

The monsters in her room had not peeped a single peep since they filed in. Slowly they all, in unison (which Terra really hated seeing every time) turned to face the corner of the room. A flow of the little critters started disappearing into the corner, as if something was drawing them in. More got flushed away, until Terra could finally make out what was happening in that corner.

One of the monsters started inhaling them all back in. It was the only monster to cannibalize itself, and it continued to do so, now taking in more and more with each gulp. That single monster grew rapidly with each smaller monster sucked in, and was keeping up the pace in pulling in the rest. Terra could feel herself getting caught up in the monster's inhaling, struggling to hug to the covers in her arms, and soon needing to grasp onto the bed to keep from being swept away herself. Her legs dangled off the side of the bed as she held on, not wanting to look at what was happening as the monster continued to hoover itself in. The last monster, the one hanging onto her pant cuff, finally got sucked away and the winds died down.

Terra lost the comforting covers but she didn't need them anymore. No amount of comfort could settle her down with her new roommate in the room. The army of small monsters, all the same size and shape, had now been replaced with a single monster of the same shape, at least, that oozed in the side of the room to the right of Terra's bed. Quite fat, quite heavy, and quite slow moving, it was the same as all the other monsters, but its size betrayed its cuteness. It stared at Terra with the same loving look.

The canine wished she could find it as cute as before. She wanted to say something to judge its intentions, but it answered for her. A large squishy tongue rolled out and lapped at her face. The tongue was so large it instead lapped at her whole body. She sunk, almost entirely, into the tongue as if she was getting sucked against it, and as the monster reeled it back in Terra could feel her square frame being pulled in with it.

Not wanting to be monster chow, Terra pushed against its body and lips, her fingers, toes, palms and soles, sinking deep into its body and lips. She felt enveloped by monsters flesh as she lingered close to the monster's mouth and was able to struggle enough to keep from being slurped inside its maw. The monster smiled. It was just saying hello, Terra told herself.

The gargantuan critter smile wide with an open maw. All Terra could see was a fleshy and glistening mouth, with an enormous uvula dangling in the back against the light of her room's lamp. The tongue was still somewhat blue and the rest of the mouth a lighter shade of it with that glistening ghostly glow from earlier. As the mouth breathed in Terra pushed away against the natural suction force it caused. Another breath pulled her closer with her paws slipping onto the bottom lip again.

The tongue lashed out once more at her, this time completely smothering her against the bed. She pushed back all she could against it but it flattened over the canine and completely engulfed every inch of her, her fingers sinking deep into it as she was almost hugging back against it. She gave a muffled cry underneath, and forced herself to try and think about what was happening.

This felt real, as real as any other monster that had toyed with her the same way before. She expected a certain warmth in such a situation. That warmth wasn't coming, nor was it cold. That unsettled her the most. It was as if nothing was there but she still felt it all around her.

The photos from the morning flashed in her head. Was this monster born from the same phenomena? Why would this monster be related to the reported haunting of the hotel? It was all Terra could do to keep calm. To re-contextualize the situation was her goal for the moment. The tongue folded back in, Terra prepared to keep away from it. She was able to stay out of the maw for now. She thought again about the critter. Was this the same ghost, or a new one?

What bothered her about the photograph snuck back into her mind. If the owner had snapped the photo in the first place, was she even able to get away from it, if the ghost was this forceful? What happened after Rose encountered the ghost?

Terra flipped over onto her stomach, now staring down off the edge of the bed to the cleared floors. She could make a run for the bathroom now, hide, or go for her clothing in the drawer, grab the phone, and call for help. Gayle was probably fast asleep, and the shelter of the bathroom would be enough for her. Maybe she could...

Terra was reminded of the monster's habit of sucking on her pants cuffs, only because that feeling returned with one-hundred times the force on both of her feet. Her legs were locked together, and as she whipped her head back, she saw her pajama legging tugged on at full power by the large set of the monster's lips sucking on her ankles. There wasn't even time to grasp to the bed as her thighs slid along the bottom lips and disappeared inside, her tail and rump quickly following.

A single kiss turned out to be super effective against the mutt as she was quickly sucked between the lips like a single noodle of spaghetti. Growls mixed with frustrated whimpers of panic as more and more of her torso slipped inside the mouth and she was up to her armpits in monster lips. She felt an incredible sucking at the back of her head as the lips enveloped her head and pillowed all over her face. Her arms shot out for anything to grab onto, even if she needed to cling to the lips herself. The last thing her fingers could think to do was clench to the bottom lip and hold on for as long as they could. Even then, they began to slip back and out of sight from the room.

Inside the mouth, Terra could still see thanks to the blue glow the creature gave off. Confined in this wet and closed-off space, the glow turned Terra blue and her pajamas, now becoming soaked in ghostly saliva, a shade of purple. The tongue cupped around her and guided her. She once again felt herself sinking in the immense softness of it, but it was still doing its job as the mouth-filling muscle, scooping and pushing her back toward the creature's throat.

Ducking to the side was her first instinct, but the tongue was ready for that, scooping her up some more and tossing her deeper back. Terra could already feel herself sinking, with a combination of gravity and pulsing muscle sucking her down. With nothing left to reach for, Terra shot her arms up and clung tight to the monster's uvula.

A guttural noise vibrated all around the dog. It wasn't a fan of Terra's new handhold, but it also wasn't giving up its attempts at swallowing her. The uvula stretched with each passing second as Terra held tight, but each passing second pulled her down farther into the throat. She felt around with her paws in hopes of finding any sort of purchase. Instead the throat muscles constricted tighter around her legs and torso. With another prolonged swallow, her hands slipped from the monster's uvula, and she quickly disappeared down the throat, the last view of her hands wriggling about as they vanished into the belly.

* * * * *

Only Gayle's head and paws were free from the rubber hose's coiling, and they could barely move an inch with how well the vacuum cleaner had constricted around him. He could breathe fine, quickly learning that the goal of the possessed shop vac was not to asphyxiate, but instead, hold him tight. "Watch it!" Gayle yelped as the tip of the hose loomed over his head, and the vacuum powered up. A suction strong enough to decapitate Gayle started up, and though he slipped just a couple inches closer, the rabbit was held tight enough to keep from being slurped up. All it would take would be the coils to loosen just a bit and he'd go flying down the rubber hose.

Nearby, the smaller cleaner watched. This was just torture now. Maybe repayment for that earlier kick. He thought about trying to kick the bigger once instead. With his paws still free to wiggle about, they brushed against something, and gave him an idea.

With total control over the situation, the hose did loosen its hold, but just a little. It wasn't enough to let go and send Gayle right in. Worse he still felt the incredible pull around his face and head, with each floppy ear flapping wildly and about to fly right off the top. He slipped just a bit closer after every second, with the threat of a head-first trip becoming more of a promise as his head started to enter the hose.

Gayle waited for his chance. The coil loosened completely, ready to let Gayle get sucked right in, but he didn't budge much after that. Gayle had tied up his feet in the longer cord of the larger vacuum, just in time to anchor him from disappearing into the hose. The whining of winds and motor halted while the vacuum thrashed about to get the rabbit free, and in its coiled mess of hose, got itself tied up on its own.

The smaller vacuum rolled out of the way as Gayle tumbled out of the snake-like grip and jumped up without a moment's hesitation. He booked it, without taking a single look back, sure that the larger vac was ticked off even more. He flew down the central steps with one hand on the rail, making his way to the second floor.

Gayle's hope that he had made any progress was certainly dashed on his trip down the stairs. Ready to land his paws on the carpet of the lower floor, a force stopped them from descending and instead pulled them right back up. The rabbits pajamas were no longer fluttering due to the pace of the descent, but instead madly flapped as gale-force winds lifted him up the staircase.

He held onto the railing with both hands, and his legs shot almost straight up. The pull was intense and his grip tried to match that intensity. He felt pretty anchored at the moment, which gave way to curses of frustration as, still locked to the railing, Gayle slid upwards along it like a track. He felt himself twist around, disoriented, still locked in the upwards airflow, as he curved around the back side of the stairs and up to the previous floor. Now back in the wind tunnel with the vacuum cleaner, Gayle leveled out and resumed being sucked horizontally.

The walls, floor, and ceiling all heaved inwards as if the place was collapsing, and Gayle's legs were strictly locked back in the direction of the peeved vacuum cleaners. The large one's hose was completely extended, its hose flaring wide as so much air was pouring inside of it. If a vacuum could let loose a motherly fury, Gayle was surely experiencing it.

Climbing down the rail was next to impossible with the amount of wind swirling through the hotel. His body wavered with every twist of the air, doing its best to rip him from his railing hold. He'd kick his legs but they'd snap right back. At times he'd wave widely in all directions, but would always snap back to point right at the shop vac's raging hose. With no way to get out of the force of suction, Gayle's lost grip was on schedule as the rabbit tumbled back down the hallway.

Gayle wailed out in panic as he was rapidly approaching the pair of vacuums. He'd slide, tumble, and bounce up, with barely any sense of direction to guide him. For a moment he hooked himself on a lighting fixture, letting out some cries of “No-no-no!” With feet locked in the air and the winds buffeting his entire body, the hold didn't last long. He attempted some more holds on the couches, and finally, the last armrest before he'd reach the vacuum, but his grip could only hang on for a moment by himself.

Gayle's pant legs were stretched to their limits as his feet were dangling near the entrance to the vacuum's hose. His pajamas were pulled so tight Gayle was certain that they were going to be ripped off if he could hang on any more. The vacuum had an almost supernatural power, winning with Gayle's last grip being torn from the couch. Effortlessly his legs slurped deep into the hose. Not wanting to let the bigger vacuum win here, as his tail and torso swiftly followed, Gayle braced his arms to the side in an effort to catch his armpits against the rim of the hose.

It worked, but now Gayle's entirely body vibrated with the suction of the hose whirring past his whole body. The rubber hose heaved in an out around his frame, and the vacuum's force was concentrated entirely around him. Gayle felt like he could start stretching with the vacuum pulled at his toes as much as it was. His legs bounced side to side from within the shop vac's rubber trunk, vibrating with the straining hose.

Gayle's arms couldn't keep up the fight, and the rest of his torso was sucked inside the rubber throat. Without any energy in his upper body, Gayle's last bit of strength rest in his fingers, which gripped the lip of the cleaner. The air continued to get sucked down past his body, Gayle burying his face in the side of the rubber to keep from being blinded by the winds.

His fingers gave out, too. Gayle quickly slid through the rubber hose, not going without a fight. He pushed and tried to ball up to clog it, and at times, with his frame clearly pushing out from within the hose, could slow his descent. The vacuum's hose was fairly strong, and any resistance from Gayle quickly died down, with him sliding deeper into darkness as he was completely sucked inside the vacuum's bucket.

Gayle pushed around with hands and feet, his impressions raising up against the vacuum's body on the outside, but whatever material the device was made out of, it pushed back and wore him out. Gayle was certain he'd be trapped here forever, or until Terra or the hotel's host could find him. The place he was trapped was neither warm nor cold, but soon a warmth did find him. Gayle felt something seeping in from outside. It was the warmth of the morning sun. Soon, more than warmth poured in.

The sunlight was seeping through the vacuum itself, and its body grew translucent with more sunlight enveloping it. Gayle could see the whole hallway now. He could see the smaller vacuum staring back, fading away in more light. A final flash of light enveloped the area as the sun still rose, and after a moment of confusion, Gayle realized he was on the ground, alone, still balled up.

He rose to his feet, rubbing his eyes and fixing his hair and pajamas. Maybe it was shock, or just the long night, but Gayle didn't feel a tinge of panic anymore. His vision focused, and a familiar number was just beside him. Terra's room.

With an ear to her door, and not a word, Gayle just heard snoring. She must have been out cold. With further listening, it felt pretty close, as if she was passed out near the door. Gayle wondered what she had encountered over the night, but the need for sleep was quickly overtaking him.

Gayle shot awake for just a moment. He could have sworn, out of the corner of the eye, he saw something crawl into view from under his own door. He rubbed his eyes again. A huge, yet sleepy, sigh of relief rumbled out of him. It was his key-card. He must have dropped it over the course of events of the night.

One beep, then two, and then three seconds later, Gayle collapsed face first in his bed, using his original clothes as a pillow. His key card crawled up his body and tucked itself into the pockets of his pajamas.

* * * * *

Gayle awoke in a puddle of drool-drenched clothing, his head almost face down on his makeshift pillow. There was a slapping on his door, as Terra stood outside, knocking on it with the palm of her hand. "I can't find the owner!" he heard through the doorway.

There was a certain comfort to not having to debate if what happened the night before was real or not. Of course it was real. The soreness surging through his body proved it. His arms still ached from all the holding on he was forced to do last night, and his whole body still felt stretched from being caught inside that vacuum's suction for so long. He could easily drift back to sleep. He sure wanted to.

Gayle stretched out and snatched up his phone, transitioning from a yawn to a frustrated sigh as he saw the time. Pocketing the mostly useless device, he stumbled over the door to great his coworker. Terra paced around outside, wide awake and plastered with concern. Gayle glanced past her through the windows. Night time already.

"What's wrong?" Gayle asked to Terra's dismay.

Terra practically yanked him into the hallway. She repeated herself, "I can't find Rose. I can't find anyone else, either. For lack of a better term, this place turned into a ghost town."

Gayle chuckled, "Maybe we're the only ones alive and everyone we've seen so far was eaten by the hotel years ago. That'd be pretty fun, wouldn't it?"

The canine paced around again, looking up, then looking to the stairs, her mind wandering to the artist she spent time with just a floor above. "That'd suck," she said, "and be pretty boring! How can you be making jokes anyways? What time did you get back last night? Did you see the same monsters?"

Gayle selectively answered, "I passed out when the sun came up. If you mean monsters, there was a couple weird vacuum cleaner things I got sucked into. You know, the usual."

"Yeah. Ended up inside another monster, myself. The... usual. Wait, you don't think it was weird, do you?"

"Of course it was weird! That was definitely a ghost thing. Usually they're just monster spirits, or floating balloon things that harass us. That seemed oddly specific that we'd just end up in the stuff we normally get hoovered up by, isn't it?"

Terra paused, glancing back up to the ceiling. It slightly bulged down, usually a sign of someone walking above in a multi-story building. Terra was certain whose footsteps those could be. "Hey, I need to check up on someone that I met. Could you continue the search for the owner since I didn't have any luck?"

Gayle patted his foot, curious about Terra's plans for the evening. "We get gobbled by ghosts on the first night, and our first instinct is to split up?"

"Okay when you put it that way it sounds bad, and it is, but I just need to check if someone is okay before we resume any sort of investigation." She entertained the thought about having Gayle come along, then immediately suggested, "How about this, snooze a bit more or wait here, and when I text you let's meet down in the lobby and we can start searching for Rose."

"Sure," Gayle agreed, lying. Terra was quick to run up the stairs of the center staircase, but Gayle had other plans, walking up the steps at the end of the east corridor, making his way to the fifth floor, like last night. If Terra had someone she could bug, then Gayle had his own group of weirdos to investigate in the meantime.

All the while, during his walk down the hallways, Gayle watched closely at the windows. Nothing but jet black waited outside. It was as if the world no longer existed beyond the courtyard below. No hint of jungle poked through the darkness, and no lights or planets shown in the sky. As Gayle looked away, a streak flew across the sky. He shrugged it off as lightning, but in the corner of his eyes, he caught what looked like a row of pointy teeth piercing the darkness before it faded back into nothing.

"I hate this," Gayle muttered.

Gayle wondered what sort of hassle he'd run into tonight. He was quick to get into a defensive posture as the site of a plastic bolt entered his view. Just like last night, the lone piece of a broken device just sat there in the halls, waiting for him to stumble on it. This piece was darker, a deep green, that gave off no glow. Picking it up, Gayle wondered what sort of sinister device it could belong to, and how long before it assembled itself into a bigger cleaner ready to consume him whole and-

A door shot open, just missing Gayle's nose. The piece of machinery flew from his hands in his own moment of panic, and an otherworldly yelp escaped Gayle's lips. The rabbit scrambled back for something to hold onto, wrapping his hands around a nearby plant, ready for the worst. His ears perked up, ready to hear the haunted whirring yet again. Instead they heard laughing.

"Get in here," a deep voice rumbled in Gayle's head. The bear from the electronic-carrying trio reached out a paw, helping the rabbit up, then lead him into their hotel room. "You and your partner really gave us some entertainment last night," he smirked, pushing Gayle into the room and quickly shutting the door.

"Whoa!" Gayle exclaimed, almost running around the room like a kid in a candy store for the first time. The two-bed hotel room hardly resembled a traditional stay. The beds were pushed aside in the corner, covered with duffel bags and electronics instead. The bags were now being used the hold empty soda pop bottles as all of their previous contents were scattered among the desks and chairs in the room. The platypus was tucked away in a corner, typing in a laptop, while the goat was monitoring the main station, which was a collection of 5 monitors with multiple screens on each.

"This is," Gayle stammered, "This is the hotel! You're monitoring us?"

"Well not you, particularly," the goat chimed in, "We're just doing what ghost documenters do: looking for proof of paranormal activity to add to the collective archives. We got cameras on each floor, running every night. Don't worry, not in any rooms or other personal spaces."

The bear, his grumbly snout very close to Gayle's own, leaning down a little to meet him eye-to-eye, warned, "And this is without permission. So we're going to hope, if you're as much a nerd about this stuff as we are, you're going to keep quiet about it. Got it?"

"Y-yeah!" Gayle nodded, "But, where's the ghost hunting stuff? The infrared, the capture devices, or the night vision? These all just look like regular cameras."

"They are," the platypus replied, then went back to tapping away on the keyboard.

The goat rummaged through a pile of data cards, continuing as they found a particular one and inserted it into the largest computer drive on the desk, "The great thing about most ghosts is that they don't really bother hiding, so we don't have to bother, in return, with that complicated shit. Saves money for pop, too!" The goat cracked open another soda.

"Check this out," the bear pointed to the main monitor. On it, from a camera hidden in the corner of the hall, was shown a video of Gayle pacing down the third-floor, chasing bits of electronic pieces that later formed the vacuum cleaner that almost got him. The bear motioned for Gayle to keep watching, and he could see himself walk back into view, chasing a larger ball of electronics, but this time coming from the opposite direction.

The bear explained, "We can't videotape what visual distortions you see, but looks like this critter lead you around quite a bit before getting to the main show, huh?" Next up on the video feed was Gayle hanging on to the couch as an assembled vacuum-ghost was in the middle of sucking him closer. The rabbit never considered how goofy it looked, with the trio of friends laughing as Gayle's cheeks bellowed in the wind.

The goat skipped ahead to a cut of Gayle reaching the floor below, only the get whisked away back up the stairs a moment after. The next video showed what happened to Terra the previous night, with a torrent of tiny monsters flowing through the hall, and eventually knocking out the camera. "We still need to put that one back up, but we're too chicken to go out right now," the goat said.

Gayle asked, "Why are you showing me this, anyways?"

"Because you don't belong here," the platypus coldly interjected.

Before Gayle could protest, the bear brandished an electronic wand device connected to a small handheld screen, running it up and down his sides. A howling sound crackled from the monitor in the handheld machine, the bear shaking his head and commenting, "You're covered in ghost, man. My friend's right. Where's your equipment? Where's your scientific method with this? You're just going to show up, offer yourselves up as ghost chow, and do it again the next night? You're out of your league without a plan."

"We like to wing it," Gayle proudly declared.

The bear growled, "You're going to wing it into the next dimension if you remain careless."

Gayle wished to further antagonize the group, or boast about all the other trouble he got into working on Zeppy, or do anything to rebuke them and their smug attitudes, but he was still tired from the previous night. "Maybe I should go meet up with my coworker..."

"You should," the bear said as he lead him out of their hotel room, "and listen, we just hate seeing amateurs getting caught up in this stuff. You could really be in danger if you poke around where you shouldn't."

"Well, thanks for the concerns, I guess."

"Listen," the ghost hunter said with both paws on the rabbit's shoulders, "If you want to help, talk some sense into the owner of this place then get out of here. She doesn't understand what's going on as much as you guys do, and if she keeps this up it's going to end up with guests disappearing."

"Wait, what?"

There was a commotion erupting from the bear's hotel room, with his partners calling him to come back in. Before he turned away, he gave one last piece of advice to Gayle, "Whatever you do, if you see a source of blue light, stay away, or if you can, hang on until morning, got it?"

Before Gayle could nod, uncertain if he understood, the door slammed shut. He weighed the worth of pounding on the door and bugging them further, but his attention drifted down the corridor to the stairs at the end of the east wing. A tall, thin, figure rose up along the stairs. Five sets of eyes gazed back at him. Five sets of legs carried it up the stairs. Five mouths smiled at Gayle. The being pressed up against the door at the end of the hall, and oozed through it, leaving the rabbit to his lonesome again.

"Oh right, the lobby," he reminded himself, and took off.

* * * * *

"...It moved?" Terra responded, joining Santina in the corner of her own hotel room, both huddled around the work on Santina's latest canvas. It was a painting of frustration, multiple colors, unfinished monsters. A disgruntled smile of a monster making up the landscape of the painting. It was both a place and a creature, captured in abstract shapes of paint competing with one another.

"I hate this painting," Santina grumbled to Terra, running her fingers along the saturated acrylics, "but I needed to crap this one out if I'm going to get anything done. You ever just need to let something out in frustration, like a muffled yell, but inside your own work?"

Terra chuckled nervously, "Oh yeah I yell all the time from inside my work. Okay, but seriously, what do you mean it moved last night?"

Santina gently grabbed Terra's right wrist, running her hands along her own down the painting. "I did this," she described, "then it like... tried to kiss my hand back. It was really weird, like the lips of it were protruding from the painting itself. Like it was trying to... chomp at my hand!"

Terra's laughter stopped abruptly, painfully shown to be masking something to Santina. The chameleon's eyes darted over to the canine, who readily avoided making contact like dodging an attack. Terra cleared her throat, taking both of her new friend's hands and guiding her away from the painting, across from the lone bed, between the painting in the back of the room and the only door out of there.

"Terra," the artist calmly yet sternly said, stopping herself from being pulled along by her friend, "If something's wrong you can tell me. This weird stuff started happening last night, right? You can tell me, it looks like you seen some crazy shit, huh?"

Santina wrapped her hands around Terra's as she deflected, "Well we were both drinking, and..."

"Nuh-uh," Santina stopped her right there, "You saw something, and we both know there were weird rumors to begin with about this place. So you either saw something, or you know what's happening, and you're going to tell me, right?"

Terra let out a frustrated whimper and nodded, "You know, Santina, it's just that I hate that I totally believe you on the whole painting thing. It's more like, I just wanted to make sure you were doing okay after us both being kinda sloshed last night, and now that you are and telling me about this painting weirdness, I'd like to get as far away from it before, well..."

Her eyes were still avoiding the chameleon's, as hard as that was. They locked to the painting, which as if on cue, the colors fudged themselves a bit. On any other night Terra would have disregarded it. After the events of the last night, Terra's paws were ready to bolt out of there.

"Ah, I get it," Santina giggled, "It's acting funny, isn't it?" As Santina said that, Terra pulled her new friend a bit closer, as if to silently tell her to leave, right then. "Hey Terra, it's cute you wanna protect me, but I think I can handle my own art-"

The chameleon's eyes easily gazed toward her work-in-progress. Ready to be in awe of her work coming to life, it was a bit more than she was prepared to handle. Practically falling into Terra's lap, she stumbled back onto Terra's feet, tripping them both up and sending them to the plush carpet below. The mouth of her painting was practically staring back, having protruded more with its colorful lips, a giant smirk opening, stretching the canvas from frame to frame, distorting the artwork and acrylics making up its canvas.

The painting breathed in just a moment, with breath powerful enough to slide the two animal-kin closer along the floor. As they slid closer, Terra felt the squeeze of Santina's tail wrapping around her waist as tight as their arms were wrapping around each other. The work of art then bellowed out a long, drawn-out cry, sending the pair, huddled in each others arms, back across the room, pressing them deep into the soft walls of the room and holding them in place with air pressure.

"That's wild!" the chameleon lady laughed as the air pushed them deep into the walls. Terra, with cheeks blown wide open from the wind, stared deep into the colorful maw of the painting, filled with its own inner workings going more deeper than the one-inch canvas could allow. She wanted, with every muscle in her body, to reach for the door, but the air bellowing out was not allowing them much movement.

The painting finished its breath outwards, leaving the two to slide back down besides each other on the floor. Santina's tail was not wrapped as tightly, worrying Terra about what could be coming next. Terra heavily suggested, yanking on the artist's arms, "We can discuss the finer points of your art in the morning, but for now, let's scram, okay?"

Santina shook her head up and down eagerly. The painting was more eager to not let them leave. The lips stretched to the limits of the canvas as it opened its mouth open wide, and the wall behind the two heaved in, as if pushing them off. Air rushed around the room in a chaotic torrent, swirling inward down the painting's "throat". Bits of painting supplies and clothing scattered along the room, along with the works in progress of a handful of sketches, danced to life in the air before swirling into the acrylic maw.

Terra and Santina were sliding rapidly toward the bed, caught in the swirl of rushing air that circled the painting like a drain. Terra squeaked out a gasp of panic when she no longer felt her friend's tail clinging to her. Santina, closer and perhaps more of the target of her own painting, was pulled away from Terra's lap and into the air. Terra's own fingers did their best to cling to the chameleon's, but Santina's two-toed feet quickly swung behind her back into the air despite her anchor.

Most of the belongings in the room had been sucked into the painting's maw. All that was left were the two animal-kin caught in the maelstrom and getting closer. Terra instinctively fell to her back propping up her paws and letting them smack against the bed. Santina whipped up higher over the bed as Terra tried her best to pull her back down into a hug, but the winds were not letting go. The chameleon's tail wrapped tightly into itself, as if winding itself up in panic as she was caught directly in the intake of air.

"You're used to this, aren't you!?" Santina cried out, picking up on the calmness in Terra's face as she tried to hang onto her. The artist's grip flew out of Terra's, Santina grabbing to the edge of the bed like hanging off the edge of a soft cliff.

Terra grunted as she dove to the side of the bed to keep from being sucked over like Santina. She could feel the winds doing their best to tug at her clothing and fur in order to lift her up. Terra kept herself down as best she could, and balled herself up near Santina in an attempt to stay aerodynamic. "Unfortunately!" the canine finally answered back over the sounds of howling wind.

The covers of the bed were already yanked into the swirling maw, leaving the bed bare to anything else to hang onto. Chameleons, more than many animal-kin, were pretty good at hanging on to the environment, but the squishy bed made it easy for Santina's fingers to unceremoniously slip off. She yelped as he felt her grip slide down the mattress, and was certain she'd go flying in until Terra's left hand made a last second save.

Terra was pulled up sideways along the bed, left arm and left leg dangling over toward the vacuuming painting, her right hand and right foot lodging themselves into the sides of the bed. The strain was incredible, and Santina picked up on this with Terra's painful grunts. The chameleon held to Terra's single hand with both of her own, and at this point was lifted completely off the bed by the winds.

"I never asked you what you did for a living!" Santina shouted, "I feel pretty bad about that! I just got so caught up in wanting to blab about art, I forgot to ask more about you!"

"Why..." Terra grunted again as she felt herself getting pulled harder up over the bedside, "Why are you telling me this?" Her ears smacked against her face, her hair and floppy ears obscuring the scene as she also felt Santina's grip leaving hers. She heard laughter belting out of the chameleon. "Why are you doing that! Come on, climb up!"

Santina gave one last shout out to Terra, "I guess I'm getting my wish!" Santina flew from Terra's grip. The shock of it caused Terra to flip up over the bed. She scrambled against the surface to hang on, being pulled across it, all while watching her friend get directly sucked into the painted maw.

Terra watched in horror as Santina slid deeper and deeper down an acrylic throat, grasping for anything to hang on to as she was sucked out of view. She missed catching the lips of the painting, sliding deeper with each second, and slipped easily down the oozing tunnel into a swirl of colors and then darkness.

Terra was spared as the lips of the painting shut tight. Content, the painting's animated state settled, and in its colorful landscape, Terra spotted a familiar friend trapped among the many colors, sketches, and paint. Santina was now part of her own works, her body matching the colors that surrounded her.

With a gulp, and no time to admire the art, Terra ran out of the room. She hoped Gayle had already made his way to the lobby. She bounded down the hall, ignoring the hotel's attempts to mock her as she approached the stairs. The walls were now lined with portraits, all of Santina, her eyes following Terra with each step. She was smiling in each portrait. Terra kept staring straight ahead, teeth clenched.

* * * * *

Terra stood alone, almost as expected, in the center of the main lobby. She scorned as softly as she could, "Gayle! I know we didn't agree on any sort of time but I could REALLY use you here right now!" Her tail wagged about with an intense anxiety she hadn't felt in a long time. She paced about the room, almost wanting to kick something in frustration and anticipation, all the while the painting of Rosalia watched her every move. Terra's inherent kindness prevented her from tearing it down, as much as she wished to indulge her angry inner voices.

With a strong desire to get out of view of the towering painting, Terra leaned up against the main counter with her back to it, elbows "resting" on it as much as she could despite the circumstances. A rustling of papers and unknown objects shocked her from behind, as well as a thud, and familiar cursing. "Gayle!?"

Her best friend and coworker rubbed his head as he rose up from behind the counter. Terra's scowl intensified as she rushed over, peering over the counter to see the piles of folders and key cards scattered around his fuzzy feet. "You couldn't even wait for me to start snooping through her stuff," she huffed.

Gayle explained while fixing his hair and ears, "Hey, I had enough time to get something to eat while waiting, and let me assure you, their complimentary food sucks. My exploration was also a bust. Just some geeky voyeurs that make me look restrained when it comes to tech. So I figured, with no other clues to go on, why not just assume that the owner isn't telling us something?"

"Of course she's not!" Terra exclaimed, keeping her voice somewhat low, "She wanted us to help find out what's going on, so she wouldn't have any more idea than we would! You were supposed to text me when you got down here."

“No, you were supposed to text me.” Gayle casually leaned up on the counter, placing a set of folders featuring a couple relevant numbers, "My room, your room, and the ghost peepers' room. Want to know what they have in common? Also, why are you whispering? If the owner finds us then we'll just interrogate her. Or are you more afraid the ghosts will find us here? Or, let's just think about this, the owner IS a ghost and will try to eat us? Yeah, I'm kinda leaning on that hypothesis and..."

"Gayle!" Terra snarled as she yanked his collar, "Santina, the artist we saw a couple nights ago... a friend, got inhaled by one of her own pieces of art! We gotta rescue her before..."

The rabbit brushed her paws away, going back to his folders, "Before she wakes up in her room the next morning like we did? You ended up in the belly of a monster and you turned out alright, right?"

"Yeah but this is different, she..."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah okay it's the same thing."

"Good!" Gayle smiled, patting the desk in a not-so-subtle attempt to steer the conversation back to ghost conspiracies. The last words of the ghost-watching trio came to mind in that instant, giving the rabbit pause, and he returned to the subject of Terra's friend in another attempt to calm her mind. Depending on the answer, he wasn't so sure it would have the desired effect. "So, uh, she didn't get sucked into any blue lights, did she?"

"No, why?"

Gayle let out a breath of relief and fiddled with the folders again, a bit more excitedly. "Great! Well I think that's great! I just know the three weirdos on the top floor told me the blue light is bad, so uh, great to hear she's not gone or anything! Well maybe she is and we just don't have a full understanding yet of what's going on. Oh, but let's not think about that."

Terra's scowl returned, "Yes, let's." She pulled back her hands, ready to yank Gayle over the counter, and inquired, "So, folders. What's the deal there? Since you're stealing stuff, find anything interesting?"

"Hey, not stealing! These are our records anyways, and that's the point. They're empty." He flipped open each of them, revealing literally nothing inside. Terra's instinct was to assume this had been a hotel that caught up with the times but not a computer was in sight, and in hindsight, she remembered the owner didn't so much as write down a single thing when they got their rooms.

"I'll admit, that's a little suspicious," Terra agreed as she fished out her own key-card out. She flipped the card over and around for a bit. "I guess it's not common for room cards to have a number on them, right?"

Gayle shrugged, feeling around his pockets for his own card. He abruptly dropped down to his knees, scrambling around and fishing through all the cards that had dropped by him on the floor. "Ugh, I must have dropped it down here. Of course you say that right as it would become a huge problem."

Terra chuckled, "Well if you need to you can crash in my room. I doubt we'll be able to find the owner at this hour anyways. Unless you're up for combing around the first floor for her office, maybe if she's a ghost, she'll find us."

Gayle tossed a few cards aside, now sitting cross-legged in defeat.

"Oh, there it is!" Terra pointed out, "Stuck on your back. Good job managing that."

"Is it even mine?" Gayle asked, groping around his own back with both arms. Terra let out a squeaky gasp as Gayle seemingly couldn't find it clinging to him. "What, where is it?"

"It's, it's..." Terra stammered, her finger wildly pointing around Gayle's body. The card had moved, on its own, across Gayle's pajamas, deftly dodging each grab with his fingers. The rabbit could now feel it moving around his back, with something that felt like little legs.

"Gayle!" Terra called out, tossing her own card aside as it had sprung multiple legs and started scuttling up her arm. The card ran up the side of counter, and joined a swarm of other cards that had now jumped to life and climbed all over Gayle's one-piece suit. In a panic the rabbit smacked them off, sometimes needing to rip them right from his clothes. They were quick and relentless, sticking awkwardly to the rabbits clothing and fur. He could feel each pair of legs cling and climb all over him and it was doing a great job freaking him out.

The "cards" had lost all feeling of rigidity and stuck tighter to the rabbit, more and more piling on and forming a layer of goo around him. His left foot made a sick plop as it struggled to pull off of the ground, now completely wrapped in more cards as they suctioned themselves against his body, forming a vacuum seal. More of Gayle was being covered up by the cards as they hopped up and covered his legs, starting to glow brighter with their ghostly aura.

Gayle's legs could hardly budge now. He was becoming mummified with each passing second, and more cards burst from boxes and joined their fellow sticky tape forms, wrapping around the rabbit's slender body. Gayle reached out for Terra, but his arm locked up as they were swarming with such precision over every extremity and sealing him faster.

Terra backed away, aghast, and further upset as she saw the eyes of Rosalia's painting locked down on her. Gayle was in a muffled panic as there was hardly any red or green left to poke out from under his ghostly wrappings. Terra, spying the ancient safety standards of the building, noticed the fire extinguisher from under the painting. She took a gamble, unsure which era the device came from or if it even worked, and yanked it from the wall.

"Please be up to code!" Terra braced herself, pointing the nozzle of the cylindrical device at an almost completely immobilized Gayle. There were two common types of extinguishers in the world, and often used interchangeably by businesses. Older models relied on the tried-and-true method of robbing fire of all the oxygen around it. Some modern ones went a bit further and actually applied something to the fire. Terra hoped for the former, squeezing down on the handle.

Gayle's mummified form was instantly broken, as every card freaked out at the same moment and like confetti popped off of him. The cards hung in the air for just a second before all swirling together in a vortex toward the extinguisher's nozzle as it sucked them in. Gayle, also caught in its suction, pushed back on his tip-toes before flying toward Terra. With the last ghost card pulled in, the extinguisher flew out of her arms as Gayle landed on her.

"Well that sucked!" Gayle said without even thinking, his arms wrapped around Terra's.

Bodies frozen, they both watched as the fire extinguisher propped itself on its own and lifted off the floor, as if a string was pulling it. The guise of the red device melted away and then expanded as a bubble, until three rows of blank eyes with a wide grin opened up on its face. Two little nubs hung from the side like little arms dangling free.

The ghost belched loudly and continuously to expel all the air it had inhaled, sending Gayle and Terra's ears flopping back away from their dumbfounded expressions. With another prolonged burp, an entire belly's worth of ghost cards flew out and oozed together to form a second ghost, one that was more rectangular shaped, and the same color as the key cards.

The ghostly duo rose together towards the ceiling, laughing, in tones the pair of animal-kin had never heard before. The paranormal mimics pressed into the ceiling, sinking into it, and vanishing out of sight.

"Of course," Gayle huffed, "It wasn't ever just a single ghost."

Terra wanted to give chase up the stairs, but was more willing to wait for her friend to regain his breath. She let out a tired breath herself, as something else caught her attention, "Yeah, and it's not over. Looks like the owner was here the whole time."

Eyes fixed on the biggest attraction in the lobby, the painting, Gayle and Terra scooted back on their butts as far away from it as they could, soon pressing up against a couch across a couple fastened chairs, where the artist had worked a few days back. The canvas oozed out tar-like paint onto the floor as a figure reached out from within the frame of the canvas. Rosalia's image grew larger as more of her arms and torso pulled themselves out, like it was a great muck she was crawling herself out of. Her sharp fangs glowed in the red light of the lobby lighting, her blue eyes now purple in that red glow. Rosalia's upper form braced itself against the floor as her cold eyes locked on the two guests cowering in the corner of the room. She practically filled the whole lobby now, having stretched and filled out the room.

"Of freaking course!" Gayle shouted as he almost shot up from his seat, Terra desperately clawing at him to get back, "Way to make us think you were one of us, but we're just food to you, aren't we? Or just entertainment!"

Terra did her best to scramble up to Gayle and try to yank him back, but Rosalia's painted form wasn't having any of it. The black cat's large mouth opened wide with a sinister hiss. A heavy wind flowed out, carrying Gayle and Terra back in each others arm to the corner of the room. Her snarls filled the entire lobby with a throbbing echo, and each breath out pushed the pair of animal-kin deeper into a couch's cushions.

It was Terra's time to chime in, "Give back Santina you showboating spirit! I've dealt with monsters hundreds of times your size and they were scarier than your little ... show!" Terra was lying. She was almost as terrified as Gayle, trying to put on an act as big as his.

Hugging each other was the only thing the pair could think to do as their haunted host grinned. The giant protruding painting of Rosalia lowered itself, its chin sunk to the floor with its mouth opening wider. As if a welcoming carpet was rolling out, the tongue cupped and lowered itself and the throat beckoned wide. The ghostly feline breathed in an otherworldly breath.

Terra and Gayle cried out almost in unison, letting go of each other in order to hang onto something themselves. Their holds on the couch were short lived, with Gayle soaring atop a table and grabbing hold, and Terra flying up over a chair, able to sink her claws onto the top of it. Their legs kicked back behind them in the brief moment they had to try and get away, but paws soon locked in the direction of Rosalia's glowing maw.

"The blue light!" Gayle warned, turning his head to confirm the worst possible situation. The room's lighting pulsated with purple now as the light emanated from Rosalia's endless throat. Gayle was certain if they got sucked in, they wouldn't end up in a ghost's belly, but instead, the ghost's own dimension. Fixated on their possible fate, Gayle didn't give attention to his grip, fingertips slipping from the rounded edges of the tabletop. The rabbit was quickly sucked back in the airflow, whimpering out for help as he soared over Terra. His coworker was quick to kick up her legs, just in reach of Gayle's hands as he gripped to her paws, clenching his fingers onto her toes in a last second anchor.

Gayle's body lowered to the ground with the help of gravity, but only for a moment as the winds lifted him back up and pointing deep into Rosalia's maw. "Teamwork!" Gayle joked as his secured his grip on Terra's paws.

"Teamwork I guess!" she replied back, "We worked together to piss her off! I was wondering how I'd die but getting sucked into an inn's painting wasn't the way I'd imagine it!"

"How were you imagining it? Why were you imagining it!?"

"Oh, you know! Just the inevitable workplace mishap with a friendly monster. Or accidentally trampled by Aster. How about you?"

"Terra I could really go for not answering that!" Gayle didn't want to tell her but he could feel his own grip slipping some more. There was nothing left to hang onto between Terra and the painting, and Rosalia's humongous form was doing a great job at pulling the two in. "Terra," Gayle strained himself to say as his own hold faltered by the second, "Please just promise me... you'll make sure I can somehow haunt Kaz instead!"

The rabbit cried out as he lost his hold, leaving Terra's paws to swing up without him anchored to them. Terra cried out as well, with her grip failing as equally fast, letting go to follow him. They soared back toward their haunted host, immediately enveloped in the uneasy warmth of her mouth. Terra could do the only thing she could think of, to hang onto Gayle's legs, returning the favor. She was so caught up in the moment that she didn't even question how she was able to hang onto Gayle when he had been sucked in first.

"This is great footage!" the platypus belted out, with a camera in both hands. He was floating in the air, with a harness tied to a rope, connected to a suction cup device stuck to a nearby wall. The platypus was completely airborne, yet safe, filming the entire incident on his own with the camera zoomed in right down Rosalia's throat, capturing Terra and Gayle in the shot.

The bear, wielding his own weight and leverage to keep from being dragged in with Gayle and Terra, had snatched both of Gayle's arms and held on as a new anchor. The rabbit and canine were pressed into the ghost painting's cheek, the full force of her breath still trying to pull them in, but the bear easily held them back.

The goat was doing his small yet important part, acting as a jack with feet on the bottom lip, and hands on the top, to keep the painting's chompers from coming down on them. Gayle was pretty sure that particular step wasn't necessary, and the goat felt that too, but it was nice to think he was helping.

"Look who else I found!" the goat declared, motioning one thumb back before resuming his anti-chomp duties.

The ghost-hunting trio had brought with them a familiar figure. Rose herself, in her usual inn-keeping attire, slid out from a hallway, having poked enough in to be dragged closer by the painting's vacuum. With one arm at the back of the goat, and the other clinging to bear, she held on between them, doing her best to not kick Gayle in the face.

"Wow, that's terribly tacky!" she exclaimed, "To use my own relative as a cheap scare? I'm almost disgusted, you guys, this was the one thing that was off limits!" She reached up and smacked Rosalia's nose, losing her own balance and being carried into the painting's mouth. She grabbed to Terra's shoulders, her own legs now kicking up behind her, joining in the chain of animal-kin.

"The blue light!" Gayle yelled, "Something's dangerous about this one. You guys have to pull us out now!"

"Oh yeah that's your fault, probably," Rose smirked, seemingly unworried.

"What!?" Gayle and Terra both shouted back.

"Yeah, yeah," Rose explained, "It's kinda hard to explain hanging on like this, but this ghost kind of just... gives people the fright they want to see. I'm assuming someone was scared of paintings or had them on the mind, and another got this blue light nonsense in their head, and looks like it combined into this big abomination which, I'd like to remind my friend here of, was NEVER supposed to happen! Grand-mama would roll in her grave if she saw herself being used as a cheap attraction!"

"Wait, why are you talking like that?" Gayle strained further to hang onto the bear's grip, "Maybe this would be easier if we weren't hanging on like a bunch of weirdos in this thing's mouth!"

Terra pressed further, "Why are you talking like you made a deal with them!?"

Rose confessed, "Because I did. They kept acting up like this, and I thought this whole time it would attract a ton of business but instead just a bunch of ghosts moved in and became a hassle all on their own. I know..." Rose paused herself for a moment as she slipped down Terra's back, now hanging onto her waist, her own paws starting to kick themselves deeper in Rosalia's throat. She finished, "I know this won't mean much but I'm still lost at what to do! I can't have guests stay if these ghosts won't give them an evening of peace!"

"Why'd you even think that was a good idea!?" Gayle hollered back.

Rose explained, slipping farther down Terra's legs with each passing sentence, "This place was abandoned before Rosalia passed. I thought I could..." Rose grasped now to Terra's ankles, now having to shout to cover the distance, "I thought if I could spark a rumor of this place, we'd give a reason for people to come!"

"Weirdos, wrap it up!" the bear snarled at them all, struggling to not get pulled in himself.

"I mean it kind of worked," Terra chimed in, "I don't know if this hotel is for us anymore! This might seem wild, but why not keep it as a hotel for ghosts? People would come from all over to check it out, and you get to keep your grandmother's hotel running!"

Gayle laughed. Of course Terra would suggest that. Kaz must have been really rubbing off on her if a ghost hotel was the first thing to spring to mind. Gayle just prayed Kaz would never rub off on him.

The hotel's new owner gave a lot of quiet thought to the idea, slipping further down Terra's paws in the process. The ghost hunters grew tired of the waiting, the goat and the platypus having headed back to their rooms, and the bear just leaving Gayle to grip to the side of the painterly feline's mouth while he went out for a smoke. The painting itself was in its own state of suspended animation, despite the constant airflow rushing into the back of its maw.

"Okay," Rose finally pepped up, "That's going to be a lot of dedication, but I think I can make it work! See you two tomorrow!" Rose let go, against Gayle and Terra's audible protests, sliding off into the blue light. After a few moments the painting had stopping trying to inhale Gayle and Terra, letting them roll out of its mouth before the fake Rosalia slinked back into the frame, resuming its still creepy watch over the lobby.

"I don't have my key card anymore," Terra said.

"Oh boy," Gayle muttered.

* * * * *

Morning came with Gayle collapsed on a couch, Terra below him on the floor, sunk into it a bit with just as much comfort. "Hey sleepy head," a welcomed voice greeted Terra awake, with a two-toed foot prodding at her side.

"Hey Santina," Terra yawned with a lazy stretch, suddenly springing awake from the sight of her friend's return. Santina carried with her all of her painting tools and easel, folded up and stashed in carrying equipment. She could easily handle carrying it all in its compressed state. Terra asked, "You okay?"

Santina yanked up her last bag over her shoulders. The sounds of a hundred small containers of paint and brushes could be heard rolling around inside. "I'm fine," Santina said with her usual warm smile, "Last night was quite a trip. Just like I wanted, I got to see what it was like to be a part of my own paintings. It was... kind of messy and kind of a nightmare? Anyways, I gotta get back to my main studio. Rose said the stay was on the house, so I can splurge a little more on supplies on the way home. You cool, Terra?"

"Yeah, just glad you're okay."

"Cool! Now give me your phone number, you nerd."

The morning continued, Gayle and Terra turning in their complimentary clothing and returning to their exploratory jumpsuits, having found new key cards mysteriously left out on the counter addressed to each of them. They waited in the lobby for Rose to return. Terra was off in the corner, texting back and forth with her new friend, while Gayle was approached by the ghost-monitoring trio.

"Your friend signed these release forms, so can you..." the platypus instructed, getting his papers snatched by Gayle as he quickly signed them with the caring of an afterthought. "Cool, thanks!" The platypus waddled off, the goat in tow, carrying a bunch of equipment with him.

Gayle asked, "So what was the deal with you guys and Rose last night?"

The goat responded before getting too far away, "We convinced ourselves we needed to show Rose the footage, especially after all the trouble you guys got in. We might like chasing weird stuff, but we got a little concerned with how much weird stuff liked chasing you two."

"You're not a ghost hunter, are you?" the bear asked as he sat across from Gayle, "So why bother coming?"

"Just another scheme from my boss," Gayle shrugged, shuffling around in his seat. He yanked out his phone, showing the bear a picture of Zeppy, adding, "See this nightmare? That's my workplace. I'm stuck putting together junk that this thing sucks up, and was hoping I'd get to see some cool ghost busting equipment. You know, for ideas of what to make? Instead, well, it was just cameras. Oh, and vacuums. I build a lot of those, turns out."

The bear chuckled, laughs booming out from within his belly, "You're overthinking, man. We're not ghost 'hunters', per se. These things have much a right to live here as any other monster. As you or me do. But, hmm..." The bear pulled out a card and gave it to Gayle. "Visual documentation is important, and so are reliable tools for ghost tracking. If you guys give a good price, maybe we can work out a deal. Some shared knowledge and tech. Cool?"

"Yeah, cool." Gayle revealed he had kept the platypus' pen, and scribbled something to a piece of paper, which he handed the bear. "Honestly it's best if you contact Kaz, and give him what you want built. He's way better at negotiating prices than I am. Who knows, maybe working on cameras and stuff, documentation or whatever, would be good for Terra's monitoring, and good for our place." Gayle shook hands with the bear, and the trio was on their way.

"This is a nice pen," Gayle nodded, pocketing it.

"I can't believe we brought nothing on a ghost hunting trip," Gayle said as Terra sat by him. Terra didn't have much to add, tapping away on her phone with Gayle doing the same.

Rose walked up to the counter, just as she had done on the first evening, greeting them as they walked up, "I'm sorry about all... this, that happened. Last night, those three gentlemen showed me what the ghosts were doing to the guests. I didn't think they'd go that far. Maybe a jump scare here or there, or a silly noise, but I should have known a ghost monster is still a monster after all, and that comes with, well, let's say monster-ly habits."

"Uh," Gayle rose a finger.

"Yes, your nights are absolutely free." Gayle and Terra both sighed in relief. Gayle pondered if they should still tell Kaz they paid for each night on their own.

Gayle pocketed the money returned to each of them and inquired, "This has been bugging me for a while now. Why a hotel, all the way out here?"

"It wasn't always in such an isolated spot," Rose sighed, fishing through some files, and showing the pair an older photograph of the area. The photo was taken from the roof, showing an inn surrounded by buildings suspended in the air by various balloons and devices. "There was a city here, a nomadic city, like many are, before the jungle took over the area. My grandmother thought the city finally found a home, and offered to be the first to permanently build a place for animal-kin to stay.

After the hotel was established, the forest unexpectedly grew faster than anticipated. No one wanted to invest in the area, and simply moved on, leaving this place behind. It did try to stay in business for a bit, but I didn't get to help out much before the place closed. I only knew of work in a casino before coming here so the thought of having my own place was a bit of naive fun."

She continued, unprovoked, "When I first encountered the ghosts, they showed me a hotel bustling with life. Ghost life, maybe, but still! I realized they were just showing me what I wanted, and I thought, if I brought in guests, they'd want to stay and see stuff they wanted to see. Turns out it wasn't that simple, and it could manifest in weird ways. Either that or your two are just wrecked by anxiety and the ghosts played off that."

Gayle and Terra gulped, and said nothing.

"The ghost hotel angle sounds exciting," Rose said as she playfully bit at her fist in thought, "You guys were the first visitors anyways, I mean you and the ones who just left, and this wasn't about making money. I don't know if this is what my dear grandmother would want, but Rosalia was always more about show than profits. Actually, that probably explains why she went out of business so fast!"

Rose laughed, not in a forced way, but still in a way that didn't make Gayle and Terra feel comfortable laughing with. "Maybe if things pick up, I can still live up to my promise to you two. You guys came here for your own reasons, ended up getting in way more trouble than any of the other residents, and now I can't really offer anything in return."

"It's fine!" Terra chimed in, cheerfully, "I met a new drinking partner!"

Gayle blinked, then added, not really wanting to address that, "Um, I think we got some business out of it, at the end of the day! If things pick up, uh, when you get famous for your ghost hotel, just mention it's like the famous Zeppy, holder of so many unique monsters!" Kaz would love this. Gayle felt even more hollow.

"Deal," Rose smiled, shaking each of their hands. Somewhat somber, she turned away to return to her chambers, giving a final farewell, "I wish you two the best. Things may have gotten rough, but I hope you two get to actually relax a bit once you get back to your regular lives."

The two parting animal-kin bit their lips hard against that statement, and gave their own farewells. Rose left them alone, to leave on their own, and return to their daily lives of... getting inhaled by machines and munched on by monsters. Totally different than their hotel ghost adventure.

As Terra and Gayle opened the doors to leave the hotel, hopefully to never return, an unknown voice had the last say. As if on the wind itself, through the open door, the duo heard, "Hope you had a good stay!" The voice was elderly, and carried with it a kindness the pair was not used to. Despite their instincts to keep going, Gayle and Terra looked back across the empty lobby, with only the painting of Rosalia Velveteen the Second gazing their way.

The End.

#Work Sucks #novellla #vacuum peril #soft vore #wsss #work sucks short story #Gayle #Terra #haunted hotel #suction peril

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