#if i consume horror content because i enjoy it and then i’m scared later it’s not a biggie. i signed up for this and it was worth it

[giddlygoat]

last night while getting ready for bed i was paranoid af because i had stumbled upon a disturbing youtube short [i hate its algorithm and have been thoroughly reminded of this!] and not only did my shampoo bottle have the AUDACITY to randomly make a loud popping sound while i was brushing my teeth, but my lotion bottle also fell off the shelf and scared me again. i had to sleep with the lights on. it was rough

[newnitz]

Howl's Moving Castle & the Power Narrative Holds Over Reality

Like most 90s borns, my first anime was Pokémon. I watched the first three seasons diligently, and my tooth fairy gifts were always VHSs of memorable episodes. But like most Millennials and even Gen-X before us, my first real entryway to Japanese culture was Hayao Miyazaki. On the tiny TV screen, behind even for 2002, where my mother would watch her TV shows as she worked out, I watched Spirited Away. Chihiro/Sen's coming-of-age story and the movie's numerous themes deserves their own essay, and one I think better bloggers, vloggers and ordinary people have written before me. But after such a masterpiece, I jumped at the chance to see the next Studio Ghibli movie, Howl's Moving Castle. I rushed to the local library to read the book before it aired in the nearby city's bus station mall's small cinema. 18 years later, too nauseous for schoolwork and mooching off of my dad's Netflix account, I decided to rewatch this film. ***Spoiler alert for both book AND film*** The film itself is a staunch anti-war message, released around the same time as the invasion of Iraq, informed by Miyazaki's own childhood in the final years of Imperial Japan and the horrors inflicted on his home country to set the stage of the Cold War. The exposition includes a bombing of Sophie's hometown with...banners. The citizens of Ingary are terrified of the flying machines descending upon their skies, they expect bombs and destruction and untold death and unspeakable horrors. So when they instead get rained down paper pieces with pictures and words we are never privy to, they treat it with suspicion. They refuse to so much as touch them, since it's of the enemy. And the day after, when Ingary soldiers distribute their own country's propaganda banners, they drink it down without a second thought. Again, we are never privy to what they say. Perhaps it was meaningless. Perhaps, to the common contemporary viewer, the content would be incomprehensible. But for me, it got me thinking: What if this was the "enemy" spreading missing posters of their prince? What if this was a warning for the townspeople to evacuate, as they expect to take point there? And if it was, what the hell did it accomplish, outside of everything BUT what it tried to? The people are too scared. They see it as psychological warfare, whether intentional or not, and therefore the papers become a terrorizing presence, whether they were filled with graphic threats or pleas for cooperation, all it ended up doing is scaring the population into a deeper layer of hatred. I personally disagree with the film's apparent message, but I agree with how much of war is the matter of spinning the truth. No character represents a better allegory for spinning the truth than Sophie Hatter, the main character of the movie. The first thing we notice about her is how intricate and colorful all her creations are, while she sticks to a plain hat with minimal detail. We see her displeasure with her own appearance even when trying it on in front of the mirror. She dresses plainly for she thinks herself plain - wearing a mousy dress in both the source book and the film adaption. The book elaborates on this narrative and its subversion: In Ingary, fairytale tropes are accepted as divine truths. Sophie and her sister Lettie have had their mother die as toddlers, so when their father remarried and produced a third sister(briefly referenced in the film), Martha, Sophie and Lettie were doomed to be wicked, hideous stepsisters. But not only did their stepmother raised them as her own, but both all the Hatters were stated to be beautiful, with Lettie in particular having the entire town's male population vying for her affection in both book and film. In fact, the cunning one is the designated "Cinderella", Martha, who uses her guile to warn her half-sisters. See, another trope specific to Ingary was that the firstborn of three siblings will never find their luck - if they ever dare try, they will encounter disaster after misfortune and end up poor and miserable. According to Martha, her mother wanted to enjoy a life of luxury, so she sent Lettie to work in a bakery where she will surely find a man of her liking to start a life with, and shipped her own daughter off to be a magic apprentice far far away from her. Sophie is the only one she kept close, because she knew she buys into the tropes and will make her fortune for her, preferring the safety of her late father's shop to the dangers of the unlucky life of a firstborn. But in both film and book, this blissful avoidance of any exploration is torn away in a chance encounter Sophie has with the notorious wizard Howl. While her sister(s) are terrified for her safety, Sophie has no fear of the 'heart-eating monster' as "he only eats the hearts of beautiful girls", believing her plainness protected her. But oh, how she was wrong. Or was she? In both book and film, the Witch of the Wastes barges into the hat shop. In the book, she seeks Lettie whom Howl is taken with(like literally every man in town) and enters the shop where an overworked Sophie loses her temper at her, and mistaking the hatter for her sister, she curses the girl to become old. In the film, she's explicitly exacting revenge on Sophie, whom Howl is interested in, and follows her and invades her shop after closing time, cursing her to be ninety years old. This is supposed to devastate Sophie - rob her of her youth, beauty and health, ending her life before she started them. But in both versions, Sophie acclimates to the change rather well, constantly noticing the perks of living as an old lady - she can mumble to herself and be seen as normal, she can be assertive and commanding without being inappropriate and/or bossy, and since she has nothing to lose, she might as well go exploring the world, if only to lift the curse. To revisit this as someone who didn’t expect to have the option of growing old, this is an empowering message on its own - growing old is what you make of it. But despite subverting the Witch's narrative, Sophie remains a helpless victim of her own narrative. Book Sophie is explicitly said to be a powerful sorceress unaware of her own powers, even enchanting her hats into the client's shape with her words alone, while in the film it's only implied. But in both versions she Unconsciously Maintains Her Own Curse: She reverts to the eighteen year old in her sleep, or when something silences her insecurities enough. In the film, she's explicitly shown to de-age as she gains confidence in herself under the role of the household maid, going from the frail ninety-year-old into someone who looks and acts as a woman just past middle age - I don't think this is incidental, as many women are at their most confident at that age, when they no longer feel pressured to worry about trivial matters such as beauty and childrearing, and retreat back into the original cursed form when Howl calls her beautiful - a compliment she can never accept. In the book, Howl eventually comes to the conclusion that she likes being old and gives up trying to guide her out of it. The book takes narrative subversion even further. Remember cunning Martha? Turns out, the Hatters didn't conform to their mother's narrative either - Martha was bored by wizardry while Lettie craved it. The two concocted a plan to glamour as one another, which of course the mentor witch saw right though, and preferred Lettie's genuine interest to Martha ghosting the craft. This stings extra once Fanny is shown to be a caring mother who attacks who he thought cursed her stepdaughter - perhaps she fell for the same sort of thinking Sophie did, and wanted her stepdaughter to have the best life possible for someone doomed to fail, thought extroverted Lettie enjoyed the attention and choice of men and wanted Martha to be a powerful, self-sufficient young woman who led a life more glamorous than she did, as someone who lacked magic? That Fanny was a real parent - a well-intentioned woman who completely misjudged her children and their future? Is it possible Martha’s own narrative has poisoned her relationship with her mother, perhaps beyond repair? As for Sophie, in the book she breaks her own curse by breaking the contract between Calcifer and Howl. But the film gives it more nuance - Calcifer and Howl are clearly in a codependent relationship: In both versions Howl gave Calcifer his heart in exchange for magical powers (as well as saving the fallen star's life, depending on your interpretation of the character), but by the time Sophie employs herself at the Castle, Calcifer feels more like a slave than a powerful demon. Howl himself has his own internal struggles, and many online have made convincing cases for BPD being among them. Calcifer is an essential part of his support system. Each one of them believes that if Calcifer isn't fed properly, or gets dunked with water, they'll both die. And once Sophie does so to stop the wizened, depowered Witch of the Wastes from literally being consumed by her obsessive desire for Howl, she too believes to have killed them both with her rash actions. But they live, because Sophie's part in a time loop led her to think otherwise and refuse to give up on them. Within the film’s universe, this ties into Sophie’s innate magical powers talking reality into her perception. But I know real-life, ordinary people who’s own narratives have changed grim fates.  Now, I don’t live in Ingary. I don’t believe the world around me has literal, reality-warping magic. I’m not a spiritual person. But this is precisely why Howl’s Moving Castle appealed to me - because the characters’ thoughts don’t perfectly dictate reality, but the way they act on their perceptions does. I know a man who is alive because his (now ex-)wife changed the narrative of his deathbed to one of optimism and efficacy. When I stopped trying to have my self-image reflected in the eyes of others, I transformed into a more confident, capable person practically overnight. I’m not delusional - I’m well aware of the Dunning-Krueger effect, of how reality exists whether you live in it or not. I’d like to think I live strictly within the boundaries of what is proven beyond reasonable doubt to be real. 

But your spin on reality dictates your life. It can dictate parts of the lives of your close ones. But the message isn’t one of just changing your own view of a situation around you to become happy, oh no. Lettie and Martha didn’t just choose to be happy in apprenticeships they had no passion for. Sophie didn’t just relocate to some quaint cottage to live the few years that weren’t stolen from her as an old hermit. They acted to transform the existent reality within their means, but they could only do so because they felt empowered enough to question their life’s narratives. 

[misstvirus]

** RESIDENT EVIL VILLAGE SPOILERS **

I decided to put this on tumblr so I could hide spoilers from Twitter and full explain why I gave Resident Evil 8 the score 5/10

These are my opinions and my personal review of Resident Evil Village. Everyone is entitled to their opinions and I am in no way saying that anyone’s experiences or enjoyment of the game are invalid.

Please excuse me - I had a hard time trying to put my thoughts in order. This is a game summary and commentary after the first few paragraphs.

I first discuss the graphics, music, etc but it turns into me basically explaining the plot so I could express my dismay at the end. Skip to the last few paragraphs to read my mental nerdy breakdown.

The gameplay, graphics and mechanics are perfect. Each installment since of series since Resident Evil 7 - has improved. The game mechanics while in combat such as switching weapons, healing and guarding are smooth, it’s damn near perfect. The Duke brought a lot of nostalgia and memories of Resident Evil 4’s Merchant. I enjoyed being able to interact to upgrade weapons, buy supplies and sell treasures. The games over all aesthetic, atmosphere and attention to detail. Each location was beautiful and you can see the love, sweat and dedication put into the game. The music is there, it is eerie at times but it’s not as memorable as other installments of the game. Resident Evil 7 had its featured title song, “Go Tell Aunt Rhody” - Resident Evil Village’s “Yearning for Dark Shadows” was not as heavily featured and did not get the hype like it’s predecessor.

Resident Evil Village had a good story (please note this is my thought strictly AS A REVITALIZED RE GAME BEFORE THE CHRIS REDFIELD SEGMENT). The story starts by continuing with Ethan and Mia Winters after the events of Resident Evil 7. I knew Capcom moved in a different direction and accepted that as long time RE Junkie that although it’s from the same universe - they would not be the same type of games. Chris Redfield’s end game appearance in RE7 and a few Easter eggs were the only MAIN (not DLC content) links to the previous RE installments. The new set of villains and interesting tie-ins to village folklore story was a great way to foreshadow the events to come. The village and story behind Mother Miranda and her reasoning for creating the big baddies because wanting to bring back her dead child were good and had this been a stand alone or continuation WITHOUT TYING THE GAME INTO THE RE UNIVERSE I would have liked it fully.

The game starts with Ethan and Mia Winters, a new baby, Rose and are Having marital issues not dealing with Louisiana/RE7 events and Chris Redfield shows up and kills “Mia”. Chris’s team takes the baby and Ethan and knocks him out. When Ethan wakes up in wreckage of a van, without his baby and dead drivers. As Ethan wanders into the woods and makes his way to the village. He discovers something is killing the people and meets up with a group of people who worship Mother Miranda and quickly die by monsters. These monsters are called “lycans” who are products/monsters of the Cadou mold similar/same thing in RE7. Ethan finds himself apart of weird meeting of all five villains - who stole baby Rose and want do some weird shit.

Tada! Ethan has escaped and ends up in Lady Alcina Dimitrescu or “Tall Lady” “Vampire Mommy” castle. You are confronted by her and her three daughters Bela, Cassandra and Daniela.

Let me step in to rustle the jimmies and ruffle the feathers of the Lady D hype group. What you see in the previews is what you get. No more, no less! There is nothing special and there are no redeeming qualities or mentions past notes in game files of Lady D outside your castle encounter. The story isn’t based around her, she’s just a tiny part in a larger story plot 1 of 5 villains/baddies. The daughters are overly sexual and have the most cringe worthy dialog. I love me some sexy characters and villains but the daughters were just so cringe. They could’ve AMPED up the horror with them and created a stronger scare factor but dropped the fucking ball. They were not creepy or scary and brought nothing to the story with delivering lines about wanting to “consume Ethan’s manflesh” “not stale as mother said - tastes so good.” Also to be noted they were not actually vampires but bioweapons. Lady D being a good result to the mold “Cadou” and the daughters the result of the Cadou and mixing of insects. You kill the daughters, get chased by Lady D who eventually mutates into a flying tentacle bat-dragon and it’s done, she gone. Sorry to fuckboys who thought she was bigger player.

After Ethan beats Lady D, he grabs a yellow flask that’s apparently filled with the juice and parts of baby Rose - and each of villains has one of these baby-juice boxes. Ethan will have to collect them all to be able to put Rose back together.

Next visit is House Beneviento. This was the scariest of all five villains and village locations in my review of the game. It reminded me of a Silent Hill installment less a Resident Evil installment - the use of light, sound and overall paranormal factor did bring in a successful horrifying portion of the game . The mutated baby chase was comical yet creepy. You have to hide to escape it and you ended up playing hide and seek with possessed dolls. The entirety of House Beneviento will definitely give you an uneasy feeling. Donna, the woman controlling a doll named Angie is another baddie who you later learn is mentally unstable and uses her abilities to manipulate plants - to cause hallucinations to create the creepy doll house scenario. (Oof it’s hard for me to stay on track). Part 2 of 4 of Baby Rose - which yes it what your game objective says.

Next Moreau, a mutated fish man - gives Ethan the Resident Evil 4 and Resident Evil 5 game play feel - having to complete actions while some oversized bioweapon is looming around and can take you out with a misstep, like falling in the water or moving too slowly. Moreau did not gain any abilities with the Cadou mold, basically his body wasn’t compatible and he just mutates uncontrollably. Mentally slow, weak and kind of a sad story. Ethan runs into Chris Redfield who tells him to stay out of it and than runs away. Ethans fights Moreau and gets another baby juice jar.

Next Ethan faces off and explores a laboratory with Karl Heisenberg - a bioweapon who can manipulate metal (think a less cool and weakly motivated Magneto). He one of the last big baddies - and motivated by being essentially rejected by Mother Miranda. He is the most stable reaction to the Cadou mold. Before Ethan and Heisenberg face off - Chris Redfield comes in - to reveal he was not the bad guy Ethan thought in the beginning of the game. Mia wasn’t Mia but in fact Mother Miranda in disguise- who was attempting to steal the baby Rose which she ended up doing anyway because Chris’s team wrecked with the baby. At this point I’m say FINE WHATEVER, I guess this works

Chris goes into kill Mother Miranda, we the audience discover the BSAA is now not what is used to be. Chris isn’t affiliating with them and his team hides away from them as they attack. BSAA gets struck down attempting to kill Mother Miranda’s mutation - a megacyte squishy organ (that’s keeping her alive and immortal). Chris puts a massive bomb on big Miranda squishy thing and discovers that Lady Dimitrescu, Karl Heisenberg, Moreau and Donna Beneviento are all attempts to create a perfect vessel to bring back her own dead child Eva, who died in 1912 of the Spanish flu. It is revealed Eveline, the RE7 little girl mold baddie wasn’t another failed attempt. Miranda has turned baby Rose into baby juice to use with the Cadou mold in a ceremony to bring her dead child back.

AND drum roll please - we find out Ozwell Spencer, founder of Umbrella and the progenitor virus the big Daddy of it all was in cahoots with Miranda at some point in his youth and supported her crazy ass research but had his own stuff going on. WHY?! WHO KNOWS? NOT ME! WHY WAS THIS PUT IN THE GAME. To piss me off? Yes. Chris has also discovered Mia is still alive in jail cell for what reason? who knows? And Mia reveals that Ethan is special!

Cue black screen, Ethan awakes to see to Eveline - the mold baddie from RE7. Eveline explains - that Ethan has been dead and died back during the events of RE7. Jack Baker had killed him and dragged him into the house. So he was dead the entirety of RE7 - That explains why Ethan is constantly dismembered, beaten and walking the mold keeps him alive. Ethan will not survive much longer because his missing heart but is determined to bring back his baby. Weakly he carries himself to fight Mother Miranda with Chris. Mother Miranda performs her ceremony with the baby juice boxes and out comes not Eva (her baby) but Ethan’s baby Rose.

They fight and Ethan kills Miranda, carrying Rose off to Chris but that missing heart is the end of Ethan so he takes the trigger for the squishy bomb and pushes Chris away and sacrifices himself for his daughter. Chris boards a helicopter with Mia and baby and the body of a BSAA solider. Ethan blows himself and the Miranda squishy up. The BSAA soldier turns out to be a bioweapon and Mia is distraught at Ethan being for reals dead and Chris is annoyed and directs the pilot for BSAA Europe HQ. Credits Roll, now we see Adult Rose (baby juice reborn as mold human) visiting her Dads grave it’s apparent Chris has been training her and her bodyguard (?) pulls up and they argue and she goes all combative on him. It’s implied she’s not normal since she was DUH she was turned into baby juice and put back together with Cadou mold they drive off - apparently you can see a ghostly Ethan in photo mode - I don’t know I don’t give AF enough about The Winters family and this game at this point

The End

5/10 - Story (read below)

9/10 - Everything else

- Katie’s Dismay and Final Review and Rating-

Graphics: 9/10

Setting: 8/10

Music: 6/10

Game Mechanics: 10/10

Story: (pre Chris Redfield tie in): 7/10

Story: (post Chris Redfield) 4/10

As a modern game, it was great, exceptional. It checks all the classic horror boxes but isn’t the scariest entry, Resident Evil 7 was a much more scary game. The story is why my rating is slow and it’s based on my biases and years of following the story.

STOP! Don’t want to hear my angry ranting? SKIP THE REST

THE ANGER OF a grown ass Resident Evil Fan.

They should’ve omitted the entire BSAA story and BSAA bioweapon-man and not included those notes about Spencer and Umbrella. This game was solid as a next installment and sequel to Resident Evil 7 until they decided they wanted to tie the original Resident Evil storylines into the new story.

When Capcom decided to breakdown and rebuild the franchise, it was a blow because so many storylines were unfinished. I understand they needed to keep evolving and I was blown away by the result. RE7 was not and did not feel like an old RE Game but it was new and it brought back the horror and fear the RE Games early installments were known for. A new RE for a new generation!

But TO ME PERSONALLY - The positive thoughts and opinions I had of RE7 are sullied by Resident Evil Village. Why try to tie it in as an after thought after such a successful overhaul? It’s a slap in the face! Capcom has created some of the best characters in video game stories just to say fuck them for this overhaul but WAIT WE REALLY LIKE CHRIS AND THE BSAA STORY LINE LET’S BRING IN THE OLD STORY NOW.

Fucking NO.

I don’t know what’s worse reading that fucking note from Spencer or the BSAA bullshit.

So now one has to say... WHAT happened to all of the characters who worked for BSAA or worked with affiliates of the BSAA? Chris goes on his own way - Now what? What happened??? There’s nothing explaining what happened between RE5 and RE6 to RE7! They failed to create that bridge. If they had established ANYTHING in RE7 it would be easier for me to swallow.

If you want to overhaul and change the series FINE but don’t back peddle now. Don’t try to throw it the last few minutes of the game with some lazy writing and a vague cliff hanger just leaving it like this.

And of course one could think - “maybe they will make a new game, maybe another sequel?”..... BUT HAVE Y’ALL seen what’s happened at the end of every RE game since RE4???? We are finally getting a Netflix series in 2021 to fill the time after RE4!!! That was 16 YEARS ago! So how can crazy ass fans like myself really expect them to fix the plot holes?!

My theory is that - in between RE7 and RE village They were working on the RE2 Remake and the RE3 Remake and it was if someone at Capcom finally asked - “If all these new RE players are going to play RE village - don’t we need a way to connect these stories????”

And someone jumped up in a conference room and replied. “FUCK IT LETS JUST TIE IN SPENCER AND THE BSAA IN THE LAST 10 MINUTES!”

I have cried, laughed and loved these games my entire life. Some of my major life events happened because of this series! I have followed every game, collected merchandise, gotten tattoos and met the most amazing people because our mural obsession over this series. That’s why it hurts me that’s why I’m tear it apart so viciously and also why I keep playing. There’s always hope that someone will fix the plot holes and finish the stories that lured in the older RE fans and I will always hold Capcom to a high standard and expect them to do right by the fans. I’m not speaking for ALL older RE Fans or ALL fans and I’m definitely not gatekeeping the fandom. This is how I feel - I’m grateful there is a new generation breathing life into RE but I’m screaming a warning - BUCKLE UP BUTTERCUPS - there’s a strong chance your favorite characters new or old aren’t going to get an ending or be reduced to a brief snippet in a file you may not not find.

ANYWAYS

Happy to those who loved it, condolences to those who are pissed off like myself

I’m annoyed but I’ll power through!

Happy 25th Anniversary to my longest obsession!

RE Verse coming in the summer, the Netflix series and the remake Live Action Movies.

HERE’S TO RESIDENT EVIL!

[an-ambivalent]

Yandere! BNHA (main trio) Alice In Wonderland AU

The tales held a certain rhyme that told Alice to be wary--

 It was: 

You are in the role of Alice,

In a fictional universe where everyone’s madness is in denial.

Proceed with caution, for discretion is the key to survival.

Their crazy love will corrupt your sanity,

Keep to yourself, and trust no one if you wish to save your humanity.

--but Alice never heed the warnings, and now she must pay the price. 

(It’s your local ambi again here to deliver you trash no one asked for :^) fund my go2fund ty. Also, it's been a long as time since I’ve watched the film, tbh I barely recall anything from it. This is based on from what I remember so it's probably inaccurate to the actual story but LOL enjoy! Idk what this is ;’^)

Shoto - King of Hearts

If you entered the land Shoto ruled over once, you were never going to leave again. Whatever Shoto wanted in his Kingdom, Shoto would get it. Whether or not you held any feelings for Shoto, would not matter. Once he set his eyes and heart on you, he would have you locked up in a place where only he would see you. If someone else ever mentioned your name to him even simply out of curiosity,  would try see you, or take you from him, Shoto would be merciless about having them killed.

Similar to the personality of the original Queen of Hearts, Shoto could be impatient, and become blinded by his fury very quickly. With his people, this impatience caused him to behead many, sometimes for the smallest of reasons. With you, it would lead to utterly cruel punishments. If Shoto wanted you to do something for him: an act of intimacy, show affection, entertain him and etc, and you refused to it, he would be forgiving for the first few times. Afterwards, he would begin to lose his patience quicker and quicker each time. His punishments would become harsher, and he would continue to mistreatment you until you broke, and began to behave in whatever way he wanted you to do so.

In the instance you obeyed him from the start, he would eventually start to become bratty and demand more from you. His demands would worsen until they were unrealistic. In the moment when you would be unable to fulfill them, he would start to punish you. He would make each punishment crueler than the previous one until he broke you.

Either way, with Shoto’s temper being like thin ice that could break at the slightest of pressure for any reason, it would never be a happy ending for you.

Midoriya - Mad Hatter

In the realm of madness, Midoriya was notorious for his. He even had nicknames like ‘Mad Midoriya’ or ‘Insane Izuku’ that highlighted his peculiar and anomalous personality. Things that were odd, new, and similar to adjectives used to his describe his personality, excited him. You were everything that thrilled Midoriya, and with the way you were, you were just as mad as him if not more.

Whenever you attended his hosted tea parties which were just for the two of you, Midoriya always watched you with awe glistening in his irises. Often you spoke about the ‘other world’ you were from where fantasy was all just a myth and magic did not exist; you had explained to him that you were from a world of science where something like ‘cars’ existed. Your tales were so creative that even he, the mad hatter could not come up with something so bizzare. You were an absolute lovely wonder to listen to,  and you had madness that perfectly matched Midoriya’s. You were perfect, perfectly perfect for him.

“I better get going now. I still need to make my way through the kingdom of hearts and find the bunny,” You said, and this caused the awe in Midoriya’s eyes to morph into panic. As you were about to stand, Midoriya instantly rushed up to you and roughly pushed you back in your chair. You winced, and were about to snap at him, but never received the chance to because he had instantly shoved a piece of cake in your mouth.

Due to the suddenness of the cake being shoved in your mouth, you gagged. Additionally, for a cake its taste was disgustingly thick, liquidy and metallic.

“You won’t need to go to the Kingdom of Hearts or find the bunny. I killed them to make sure you will never need to leave me for them. Also because I wanted to try a new recipe for the cake where the velvety filling was actual blood instead of combination of mixed berries. And since you visited me, I wanted you to be the first one to try it! How is it?” Midoriya asked excitedly, as he leaned extremely close to your face, and his eyes and lips widen in zeal.

His words would have terrified you, had it not been for the black spots that began to cloud your vision. Your consciousness began to fade, and anything else that Midoriya said was heard as distant muffling.

“Oh, I forgot you wouldn’t be able to answer me by now since you’ll be falling asleep. No worries, you can answer me later since you only belong to me now.”

Bakugo - Bunny

“You shouldn’t have followed me [Name]. You still have some time left, get away from me. Stay away from everyone and return to your own world while you still can,” Bakugo warned, and stepped back from you. At his words, you furrowed your eyebrows in confusion, but remained where you were. You  allowed the blond-haired human, who had some features of a rabbit, to build distance between you two since he seemed to feel frightened by you.

His body language screamed scared, but it was anger which was written on his face. His bunny ears were flipped backwards, and would have blended with his hair if it was not so spiky. His tail and nose were twitching in anticipation. As adorable as he was for a weird human and rabbit hybrid, this entire situation confused you.

“You’re the one who practically begged me to follow you though. You led me here, somewhere I’m completely lost and have no idea where to go or what to do. You can’t just bring me to an unknown place, and then tell me to go on my own. You need to take responsibility for that,” You said, and your words seemed to have triggered something in him because right away, Bakugo froze. Then slowly, moments later, like the way a creepy doll turns its head in a horror movie before it begins to chase its victim, Bakugo turned towards you, and his eyes were impossibly wide.

Then, he breathed out deeply, before he took out a small bottle from the pocket of his pants. The bottle was labelled ‘drink me.’ Afterwards, he walked towards you, and you were surprised at the authoritativeness that was now laced in his voiced, and how he wore a stern expression on  his face rather than his previous wary one.

“Drink it or I’ll force you too,” He demanded, and there was a menace vibe concealed in his aura that made you take the drink from him immediately. It was obvious that his words held an absolute threat, and he was not joking. Besides, you had drunk the ‘drink me’ potion on your way into this madness, and the worse that would happen to you was you would either grow really big, or really small. It would not poison you, so not thinking much of it, you opened the lid, and gulped down the drink.

Once you finished consuming its entire content, you began to shrink instantly. You became the size of a chocolate bar, and afterwards, Bakugo picked you up single-handedly.

He smirked at how tiny you had become, before he tossed you in a small glass vase, and locked it. You gasped. You started to knock against the vase, and shout at Bakugo to let you out. However, the only response you received was darkness as he put you in his bag. Due to your own screams, and being locked in the glass vase, you did not hear the dangerous words he murmured to himself.

“Now, I can keep you hidden from everyone else, and only for myself. If someone finds out, and tries to take you away from me, I’ll kill them.”

[mooribi]

Lights Out

Pairing: Chan x Felix

Word count: 1749

By Tokki

Prompt: Felix and Chan are unable to sleep after watching a horror movie, but neither want to admit that the movie scared them.

The aggressive clicking of remote-control buttons sounded through the room in jumbled with an occasional curse and strangled whine. Felix stared intensely at the character on the screen, eyes barely blinked as he unconsciously stuck his tongue out, his attention completely invested in the game.

His concentration only broke when his character had finally died causing him to cry out in agony and flopped back onto the couch in defeat. He huffed, jutting his lip out in a pout as the words ‘Game Over’ mocked him from the screen.

Until the call of his name interrupted his misery.

“Felix, come here!” The voice sounded from a short distance, which meant the other was in his room, the perfect distraction from his defeat!

Felix jumped off the couch and happily made his way to the other’s room. He knocked softly on the ajar door before he peaked his head into the room.

“You called, Chan Hyung?”

Felix smiled; heart softened at the sight he was greeted with. Pretty, delicate fairy lights hung along the wall above the bed where Chan was nestled within a pile of fluffy pillows and blankets that had various snacks and such on top of. The soft glow of the fairy lights casted a warm yellow tint to the room, highlighting Chan’s fluffy curls framing his face where a dimpled smile was displayed.

“Come cuddle with me~” Chan grinned, arms opened wide causing the other blonde to giggle and waddle to the bed.

Chan peeled the blanket back so Felix could flop right into Chan’s arms, and wrapped the blanket over the both of them, warmth instantly encased the two. Felix squirmed around until he was finally comfortable and let out a content sigh.

“So warm.” Felix mumbled into Chan’s collarbone; eyes fluttered shut.

The small vibration of Chan’s chuckle caused a small smile to pull onto the freckled boy’s face and he wiggled his hands underneath Chan for more warmth. Felix hummed, delighted as Chan brought a hand up to comb through his soft blonde locks as a comfortable silence wrapped around them.

The silence was broken a few minutes later when Chan spoke in a soft tone so to not disturb the peace.

“I was thinking…” Chan paused which prompted Felix to flutter his eyes open and tilt his head back to blink lethargically at the leader.

“How about be go watch a movie?” Chan glanced down at Felix, an endeared smile made its way to his face at the peaceful look on the younger, a small, natural pout pursing his lips.

“Here?”

Chan moved his hand to cradle the boy’s freckled cheek, skin glowing like honey under the yellow fairy lights.

“Nah, I was thinking we could go to the cinema,” Chan ran his thumb below Felix’s eye as he spoke, “since not many people would be out on a Wednesday night.”

Felix hummed, eyes fluttering from Chan’s gentle caress, and asked, “What movie?”

“Not sure. We can pick whatever movie is on at the time.”

“I’m so warm though…” Felix pursed his lips at the thought of having to leave the warm cacoon.

Chan snorted softly, “We can leave soon, the cinema doesn’t shut till 11.”

“What time is it now?”

Chan glanced at his phone sitting on his desk, too far to reach from the bed and glanced back down at the boy laying on top of him.

“Not sure.” Chan stated simply as he went back to combing his hand through Felix’s hair.

Felix nuzzled his head into Chan’s neck, “Few more minutes then I’ll get up.”

Chan chuckled at the boy and pressed a gentle kiss to the crown of his hair, “Alright.”

The two idols lay wrapped up in the blankets for another fifteen minutes until Chan gently unwrapped them and coaxed Felix to sit up. Felix sat on Chan’s lap with a pout, already missing the cosy cacoon.

“Don’t make that face, you said a few more minutes.” Chan spoke softly as his hands rested on the younger boy’s waist, thumbs rubbing small circles over his clothed skin.

“I want a kiss for compensation.” Felix jutted his lip out more and opened his eyes to look more innocent which just pulled a chuckle out of the leader.

“Gladly.” Chan leaned forward, lips grazing Felix’s for a second before he pressed gently onto the dancer’s plush lips.

He pulled back so his lips hovered over Felix’s, “Better?”

Felix smiled as he brought his hands to clasp around the back of the elder’s neck, playing with the little hairs at the base of his neck, while his eyes glinted mischievously.

“I think one more will fulfil the payment.”

Chan grinned and pressed his lips back to Felix’s with a bit more pressure, nevertheless just as gently as the last. They drew back a few centimetres and stared lovingly at one-another.

“Let’s get ready.” Chan whispered and after Felix nodded, he placed one more kiss to the side of Felix’s mouth before they both get up to get ready.

 When they had arrived at the cinema, they were met with only one choice: to watch the horror movie, Lights Out. Neither boys thought it’d be too scary, or Felix was more trying to convince himself it hadn’t looked scary, so they thought why not and bought tickets to the horror movie. The first mistake.

Since it was ten-thirty on a school night, the cinema had been completely empty, not another soul in sight except for the workers which both boys had really enjoyed at first since that meant they had the whole theatre to themselves. The second and last mistake.

Why were they mistakes? Well because now both boys were curled up, frozen in their seats as the end credits rolled.

“L-lets go home.” Chan said stiffly as he stood up, Felix standing with him.

And home they went, not talking the whole way home until they were finally in the confines of the dorm. They automatically walked to their own rooms to get changed into their pyjamas, unknowingly both of their hands were still shaking from the movie.

Once they changed, they opened their bedroom doors, which were parallel to each other, and both stood there stiff.

“So, uh…good night I guess.” Chan licked his lips as he stood at his door, hand clasped onto the doorknob.

“Uh yeah, good night.” Felix smiled tightly to the leader.

Both awkwardly stood there, waiting for the other to move. Felix bit his lip, not wanting to sleep in his bedroom alone but not wanting to ask to sleep with Chan encase the other thought he was scared, something his pride did not want to go through. Felix mumbled another good night and   hesitantly turned around, Chan following his actions and turning around himself, until Felix stopped and said the exact thing the leader was dreading.

“Are you going to turn the lights off?”

The blond froze with his back to the younger. Thoughts flew through his head until words slipped from his mouth as he turned around.

“Why don’t you?”

Chan saw the younger go rigid, a deer in headlights look overtook his features, which Chan was sure he probably had looked the same just moments before.

“I-I… what?” Felix stuttered out, caught off guard.

“Why don’t you turn the light off? Unless…” Chan stared right at Felix as he said, “you’re scared?”

Apprehension and pride clouded his mind which prompted him to scoff, “Me? Scared? Nah mate.”

“Then you shouldn’t have a problem turning the lights off.”

“I don’t.”

Chan bit his lip, he felt bad making the younger turn the lights off when he knew the blond probably was scared yet just didn’t want Chan to know. However, he was too scared to turn the lights off either, so he quickly bid the dancer goodnight and closed his door.

Felix stared at the leader’s door then down the end of the hallway where the light switches were. Felix sucked a breath in, mentally preparing himself and walked to the switches. He flicked one switch off after the other, not brave enough to look into the pitch blackness that consumed the lounge room, until only the hallway light was left. He stared down the hall, his bedroom door suddenly looked so far away, and he clenched his fist. He could do this. He took in a deep breath, squinted his eyes until everything was blurry, flicked the last switch and sprinted down the small hallway, his heart thumped wildly in his chest. He quickly darted into his light-filled room and shut the door as quickly yet quietly as possible.

He left out a large sigh and flopped onto his bed as exhaustion finally crawled upon him. He closed his eyes, only to fling them open as images from the movie flashed through his mind. He took a breath in and bit his lip as he realised, he probably wasn’t going to be able to sleep.

He was right as he laid in bed for another three more hours, each hour becoming more unbearable than the next. After the first hour he had turned his light off and curled up under his blanket which was how he stayed for the next two hours.  However as the fourth hour rolled up, he finally gave up.

He flung his blanket off himself, squinted his eyes though the dark as he quickly opened his door than Chan’s. The soft yellow glow of the fairy lights greeted him whilst he slipped into the room and closed the door behind him.

Chan silently lifted his blanket, like if he was expecting Felix and the young Australian happily crawled onto the bed, snuggling right up Chan’s side.

“Couldn’t sleep?” Chan whispered while he wrapped his arms around Felix’s waist to pull the freckled boy closer.

Felix hid his face in Chan’s neck and nodded as his hand gripped Chan’s shirt.

“Scared?” Chan slipped one of his hands under Felix’s shirt to rest comfortingly against the warm skin of his back.

Felix’s grip tightened as he nodded.

Chan placed a gentle kiss to Felix’s temple as he whispered, “Me too.”

Felix mumbled something into Chans neck and as Chan rubbed a soothing circle onto the younger’s soft skin, he asked the dancer to repeat it.

Felix pulled his head from Chan’s neck and pouted at the blond as he grumbled, “I’m not turning the lights off ever again.”

Chan laughed softly, causing the freckled boy to pout even more and Chan placed a soft kiss to Felix’s lips as an apology.

“Don’t worry Lix, I won’t make you do that again.”

Felix smiled as he softly kissed Chan, “I love you.”

Chan smiled and whispered against Felix’s lips, “I love you too.”

(Cross-posted on AO3 @/Channyx01)

[your-iron-lung]

Survivor Blues

also available to read on AO3 HERE

You call that a scar? A bruise? A tear? Pillow-marks. Souvenirs. 

Story Synopsis: 'What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger' is a philosophy Billy's father has been beating into him for as long as he can remember. If you get hurt, suck it up and walk it off. Take the pain and live with it. Grow with it; let it make you a better person.

Surviving the Mindflayer hurt. He should've been able to adapt to the pain; should've been able to let it shape him and make him stronger, but he can't. It's too much. The pain is too great and all consuming, and Billy has far too many things that need to be healed at once. 

In the end, what didn't kill him only makes him wish he'd died.

Word Count: 3416

Pairings: Light Harringrove

Genre: Hurt/Comfort, light angst (but with a happy ending- SOMETHING I DONT USUALLY DO)

Notes: this was just supposed to be a small thing, like, 4 paragraphs max, but it blew up and welp here it is. title comes from the song ‘Survivor Blues (the after hours)’. UHHH ENJOY **************

Surviving hurts.

Laying down, standing up; simply existing hurts him immeasurably. It’s like he can’t get comfortable anymore. Walking, talking, resting, sleeping, eating (especially eating) - anything and everything he does causes him more pain than he knows what to do with. But what else can he do? He’s alive, after all. He survived.

He tries to carry on like nothing’s wrong to prove a point, like, by pretending he’s not in constant pain it’ll somehow prove that he’s still as strong as he used to be, but it makes it all worse. Despair creeps in with the hurt, but before it overwhelms him he adopts it; uses his pain as penance, abuses this new sick form of self-flagellation to try and convince himself that he’s only getting what he deserves for all the hurt he’s caused countless others.

The doctors that saved his life had told him that recovery wouldn’t be easy, but still, Billy thinks, maybe he’d have been better off dying. Some days it hurts even to breathe, and if this is the way he’s going to be for the rest of his life, then he hopes he lives a short one, absolution be damned.

His dad still hits him. It hurts.

For a while after he’d been released from the hospital, things had been fine at home. Tense, but no voices raised. No hands raised. Some semblance of peace descending upon father and son until the bills from the hospital come in and Neil just loses it. Rages for hours. Just yelling, at first, but eventually his hands come flying and Billy is too hurt to escape them.

It becomes routine after that, although Billy notices that his father’s fist is a little bit gentler as it collides into him. Almost like he’s mindful of the places he’s already been hurt, as though by striking him in the places he still feels solid he’s showing his son some kind of mercy. It could be worse. Maybe Billy should be grateful. He isn’t.

Redemption is a far off dream that grows dimmer by the day whenever his father finds cause to blacken his eye.

 ***

He hears about Harrington through Max occasionally. Sees him around town sometimes when his dad drags him out. It hurts.

Part of that hurt stems from the unresolved things he did to Steve that night at the Byers’ place, but most of it actually stems from the night he almost died- should’ve died. It comes from where he’d been lying prone on the floor of the Starcourt Mall, bleeding out corrupted, blackened blood with Max crying over him. He couldn’t move his head after being impaled by so many cruel appendages, but even as his gaze had been fixed firmly upwards, he’d seen that pretty, pretty face of Steve’s looking down at him from over the railing of one of the upper floors. If Billy remembers right (and he does), Steve had appeared stricken. Horror-struck and dumbfounded. Billy pictures that look of terror on his face and feels his chest constrict painfully, because whenever he sees Harrington around town these days, he looks happy. Content. Like nothing ever happened. It pains him to see that he’s somehow made his life livable despite the things he’s seen, but it hurts more when he realizes Steve doesn’t ever look his way, even though he knows, he must know that Billy is near.

They hadn’t been friends before any of this, but rather, they’d been close to being something more.

 ***

It feels like he has nothing left to live for. It hurts.

He makes a list one day and runs down all the things he used to take stock in before his flaying and can’t find one single thing that stands up. His looks? Ruined; his body riddled with deep, ugly scars and a stomach devastated by irreversible chemical damage that leaves him barely able to eat anything. His car? Totaled beyond repair when Harrington had to T-bone into it to save those kids’ lives (and even the memory of that hurts). His friends? Tommy H. had gotten out of Hawkins while the getting was good and took Carol with him; probably the only smart thing he’d ever done in his life. High school was over, the crown he’d usurped passed on to the next sniveling bastard in line who wanted to be king.

He’s bitter when he comes to terms with the fact that he has nothing. Has no one. Can’t even tolerate looking himself in the mirror to see what being flayed has done to him. He’s too thin. Torn. Unrecognizable and dead around the eyes, haunted by the things his handler made him do.

His gaze is drawn to the necklace that keeps his Saint medal close to his heart and hates the way that it hangs heavily around his neck. It gets heavier every time he remembers it’s there until finally it feels like the chain it’s looped on is digging into his skin. He takes it off when he can’t stand it any longer; doesn’t think ol’ Saint Christopher can do anything to help him anymore. Hasn’t helped him in a long time, actually, when he thinks about it.

 ***

He almost kills himself one night. Accidentally, but still as an indirect result of all the accumulated traumas and hurts he’s still struggling to contend with months later. It feels good for once.

Max finds him, of all people. Walks right into his room without knocking to ask if he’s seen something of hers she just can’t seem to find but knows is in the house somewhere. She stops talking as soon as she sees him splayed out on his bed, foamy vomit trickling out of his mouth, empty bottles of beer littering the floor and a stomach full of prescribed pain medications that don’t fucking work.

“It wasn’t on purpose, it just never stops hurting. They don’t help,” he tells her later, after his ruined stomach gets pumped and his dad wails on him for that added cost to his already large hospital tab. “Nothing works. I thought maybe more would.”

She looks at him differently after that. No longer cold. No longer calculated; just thoughtful. Contemplative, but not in the same way where, in the past, she’d had to tread on eggshells around him or he’d hurt her in much the same way Neil hurts him. She becomes surprisingly loyal after that, even after all he’s done to her- done to her friends- and that hurts.

She becomes the support he hadn’t realized he needs. Convinces him to try the recommended physical therapy to hopefully get to a place where it doesn’t hurt for him to simply exist anymore.

“I’ll get a job,” she promises him, knowing full well that whatever place willing to hire a 15 year old won’t pay nearly enough to cover the cost of continual therapy sessions. “We all can; we didn’t know how to help you before, so we didn’t, and I’m sorry, Billy, we were so scared- but we know what we can do for you now. We can help you.”

Her words hurt. At first because she’s confirmed for him what he’s suspected all along: that they hadn’t even tried to help him, but before that old semblance of anger he used to rely on can surface, she’s hugging him, and he realizes that the hurt this time comes from a place of emotional vulnerability too deep within him to pinpoint exactly.

It hurts, is the bottom line- but this time it’s a good kind of hurt. The kind that has him hugging her back.

 ***

Slowly, he begins to heal. The pain doesn’t lessen, but other things he hadn’t realized were hurt begin to mend.

He gets to know her friends; manages to apologize to Lucas for all the shitty things he’s said and done specifically to him. In turn, they begin to help him, but all the paper routes, lawn mowing gigs, and occasional pet sitting opportunities they take up don’t really amount to much in the long run.

But he still continues healing.

They try to recruit the teens. Nancy gives what she can, but most of the money she makes goes towards traveling costs so she can continue to see Jonathan without having to rely on her parents. Billy refuses to take her money anyway; he’s not a goddamned charity case, but unbeknownst to him she puts what she can afford to spare in Mike’s hand for him anyway. Not that she’d had anything to do with what happened to him, but some people are just good at heart- something Billy hasn’t had a whole lot of experience with.

They don’t hear back from Harrington.

It helps. He heals. It’s close, but it’s not enough.

He still hurts.

They all struggle to get him through the initial assessment appointment with a therapist, and it doesn’t go well. Billy hates it; hates the fact that he has to rely on other people for the betterment of himself, but he doesn’t want to squander all the hard work those damnable kids are doing for him. It drains him. It drains their funds. He doesn’t know what to say when the secretary asks what day she can schedule his next appointment for. He almost tells her ‘never’, but settles for ‘same time next week’ when Max takes his hand in hers and looks up at him with that determined, patented Mad Max gleam in her eye.

She knows as well as he does that they won’t be able to raise enough money in time for it, but he goes anyway when ‘same time next week’ inevitably rolls around. Somehow, miraculously, he’s able to afford it. When he asks Max how that’s possible, she stays suspiciously quiet. A mysterious benefactor has started funding his therapy visits, he realizes.

He hates it. The knowledge that he can’t know who he’s become indebted to hurts what’s left of his pride.

 ***

Weeks pass and the results of his therapy visits manifest in little ways. He can take deep breaths without his chest and lungs constricting too sharply. It doesn’t hurt as much to walk. On good days he can even laugh without that deep pain blowing up inside him. Not that he laughs all that much anymore.

Max remains quiet whenever he asks her who’s doing this for him.

��A friend,” is all she says whenever he tries to corner her about it.

“I don’t have any friends,” he informs her, to which she shrugs and replies, “You have one.”

He heals. Day by day as he learns the exercises, he heals. But still he wonders who.

Who the hell cares about him that much to help him? Not Neil. Not Susan. Max was already doing her best for him, but her best wasn’t enough. To think that someone out there could care so much about his recovery leaves him feeling oddly funny. He both likes and dislikes it.

The mystery doesn’t stay unsolved for long.

When school starts again, Max can’t go with him to his appointments anymore. She becomes afraid that he won’t go if someone doesn’t go with him to make sure he does (and she might be right about that), and arranges for someone else to take him but declines to say who.

He waits outside on the porch for them, smoking lazily now that it doesn’t hurt him to breathe in deeply anymore. Sunglasses on even though it’s overcast because that fucking thing left its aversion of sunlight in him when it died. Coat on, collar up. Trying to reclaim the air of confidence he used to live by even if he doesn’t quite fill out his clothes like he used to anymore.

He waits until he sees his ride pull up to the curb in front of his house. He lets his cigarette smolder on his lips, lets it burn right down to the filter before he flicks it away as he belatedly comes to understand just who has been helping him.

Harrington honks at him, pokes his head out the window and says, “Shake a leg, Hargrove, let’s get a move on.”

Billy wants to be angry. Wants to be obstinate just because he can, but he’s tired and only has so many spoons left to get through the day with. He goes with him without much of a fuss, but has about a hundred things he wants to say to him as they ride.

It hurts that he can’t get any of them out.

 ***

Recovery is a slow process.

The drives to his therapist aren’t long, but there’s still room enough to hold a conversation if they ever chose to do so. They don’t.

Neither one of them is able to say anything to the other for days until Steve finally takes the initiative to breach that wide, wide gap that didn’t used to be between them.

“So… I’ve been seeing a guy,” he starts, side-eyeing Billy as he speaks to take stock in his expression.

They’re stuck at a red light that hasn’t turned green for two minutes. It’s divine. It’s torture.

It hurts.

“That’s… nice,” Billy says slowly, unsure of what Steve’s getting at. If it’s relationship advice, he has nothing to give.

“No! No, not like, uh, not like that,” Steve stutters. Drums his fingers against the steering wheel. Nervous. “Not that there’s anything… wrong with that, but, no. Not like that.”

“Okay.”

“More like, your kinda guy.”

“’My kinda guy,” Billy repeats dully.

The light remains red.

“Yeah, like, y’know,” Steve continues, still nervous, face colouring with embarrassment. Still waiting for that light to change. “A therapist, but, like, for my brain, or whatever.”

“A psychiatrist?”

Steve winces at the word, looks away, and rubs the back of his neck.

“Yeah. A psych.”

“Okay,” Billy says again. He doesn’t know where Steve’s trying to take this. A show of solidarity? Some sort of admission?

Steve’s quiet for a moment up until the light finally, blessedly, turns green. The car lurches awkwardly forward in Steve’s enthusiasm to get going.

“Yeah, so, I’ve been seeing a guy.” His fingers never stop tapping, playing out the rhythm of his anxieties. “And we’ve been talking uh, a lot about you.”

“Me?” He’s surprised, then, suspicious. “Why?”

“You keep me up at night.”

But before Billy can ask what the hell that means, they’re there, and Steve’s already wishing him good luck.

*** 

He’s lying in bed later that night, reveling in the fact that it no longer hurts to do so when Max knocks and enters. She’s holding something big and boxy in her hand and looks kind of confused about it. A little awkward.

“It’s for you,” she says and waits for him to sit up and take the bulky two-way radio from her.

“What?” he asks stupidly, turning it over in his hands.

Max shrugs. “He said he wanted to talk to you.”

“Who?”

“See for yourself. Give it back when you’re done,” she says, and then leaves.

He waits to hear her footsteps pattering down the hall, back to her room, before he presses down on the communication button uncertainly.

“That you, Harrington?”

“Don’t cream yourself. Yeah, it’s me.”

A ghost of a smile works its way across Billy’s face at the familiar words. He takes a seat on the side of his bed, holds the radio close to where his medallion used to hang.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t do this in person,” Steve says, his voice coming through in crackles and static. Still legible. Still determined. Billy ignores the pounding of his heart. “When I said that you keep me up at night, what I meant was…”

Billy hears him sigh before trying to finish his thought.

“What I meant was that I kept seeing your body on the floor at the mall whenever I closed my eyes, and not being able to do anything about it. I started having dreams where you actually fucking died or some shit and I got all fucked up about it when I remembered how close we were to being- well, you know. But I couldn’t figure out why that kept happening; it’s not like any of that shit was my fault, right?”

“No,” Billy agrees, swallowing hard. “Wasn’t your fault.”

He thinks he can hear Steve exhale a sigh of relief.

“Yeah, so, I don’t know why but it just kept sticking with me. I started losing sleep because you were always there. I didn’t even know you were involved at all until-”

“Until I tried to kill those kids.” Billy finishes his sentence for him, trying his best to ignore the lump forming in his throat as he says it.

“That wasn’t you,” Steve says quickly, and gives Billy a moment to collect himself. “It wasn’t. But, I thought maybe if I just, I don’t know, avoided you, then maybe the nightmares would stop.”

A slight blossom of anger. He quickly discards it; that’s not what they need right now. “Did they?”

“No.”

The lump in his throat doesn’t go away. He swallows it down, but then it grows and starts to take up space in his chest. It pushes down the anger, and pushes the hurt he’s been internalizing up and out. His eyes grow wet. He blinks the tears back.

“I ignored you for so long,” Steve says in a hushed whisper.

“I know,” Billy replies and tries to keep the hurt that’s threatening to bubble out of his throat down.

“And then Max told me you tried to kill yourself-”

Steve’s voice catches, and Billy can hear the hurt that starts spilling out of him. He’s crying. Billy sniffs and stops blinking his own tears back.

“It was an accident,” he tries to tell him, but his voice gives out part-way through. “It was an accident,” he repeats as he clears his throat. Hot tears begin to streak down the sides of his face. “I didn’t mean to.”

“I didn’t know what to do. I tried to talk to Robin but she said she couldn’t do for me what a therapist could, but I’ve always heard that that shits for crazy people, and I’m not crazy, just miserable and then Max came to talk to me about you again and I just. Saw my chance, I guess.”

Billy holds the radio in one hand and his head in the other. He can feel a headache coming on. Steve rambles on, about how the guilt he feels manifests the horrific visions of Billy lying dead on the ground in that shitty mall and how his shrink suggested that maybe just talking to Billy about it might help.

“I could’ve killed you that night,” Steve says at the end of his rant, sniffling uncontrollably. His voice sounds hoarse, but at least they’ve both stopped crying. “I almost drove right into you.”

“You kinda did. Eye for an eye, though. Guess that makes us equal,” Billy replies, and Steve laughs.

His laugh is cheery despite the dark tones of their conversation. Light. It lifts Billy up.

“It could’ve been way worse, though.”

“Yeah,” Billy agrees, breathing deeply. His eyes feel crusty with dried tears. He wipes at them and feels how sore they are. “Yeah, you could’ve missed. You wouldn’t be so sorry if you had.”

Steve gets really quiet at that. Billy knows that Steve knows he’s right. He would’ve killed them if Steve hadn’t done what he did, but it doesn’t change the fact that it hurt the both of them when he’d had to resort to such drastic measures.

“But I didn’t.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“You survived.”

“So did you.”

“Fuck it. I miss you, Billy. I wasted so much time trying to get over the part of you I thought had died.”

They stay up all night after that. Just talking. Catching up, making amends. Healing.

The conversation only ends when Billy realizes Steve’s fallen asleep on his end. He’d been slowing down gradually as the hours passed, so it doesn’t come as a surprise, but still Billy wishes they could’ve talked more.

And they can, he understands. They can talk the whole rest of their lives away if they wanted to, because they survived. He sets the radio down on the floor beside his bed and slips in between the sheets. He closes his eyes and smiles. They survived.

When he wakes up, he realizes he no longer hurts.

[violetemerald]

Crying Over A Fictional Kiss

This is my submission for the September 2019 Carnival of Aros, hosted by aceofarrows, on the theme of “Aromanticism and Fiction”. The Call for Submissions was here. This post has also been cross-posted to my WordPress blog. Please follow that blog of mine too, as I don’t cross-post everything.

Content Note: discussion of varied kissing experiences, including my kissing-aversion. Let me know if I should’ve warned for something else.

Also… I’m not sure how much of what I am focusing on is about my (gray-)aromanticism and how much is my asexuality… it’s hard to really categorize some of this into one or the other category. But I know this is meant to be aro-centric and if you stick with this post I’ll make sure it ties back to aromanticism.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Last month, I listened to the audiobook version of Alice Isn’t Dead by Joseph Fink.

Potential spoilers are in this blog post below by the way, so you have been forewarned. I’ll try to minimize the spoilers (and I’m not spoiling the ending or anything). I’ll also mention, later in the post, details from over halfway through the book All the Wrong Places by Ann Gallagher, and a few details from The Flash (2014 TV series) season 2 and the Veronica Mars 2014 film and 2019 revival for a season 4.

I loved the audiobook of Alice Isn’t Dead. I found it really compelling. I have heard the podcast was probably a better way to first be introduced to the story, but I instead only consumed this fictional tale in its book form, because my asexual meetup group had decided to read it for its book club. It’s a story with a lesbian married couple at its heart—a romance.

Keisha is the main character. Her wife, Alice, went missing and was presumed dead before the start of the story. When Keisha first sees Alice in this story, Keisha is so angry about the depth of grief she’s been in, grief which is all Alice’s fault due to the circumstance of Alice faking her own death and then… they passionately kiss. And I kinda felt like I was triggered by the way the kiss was used in this work of fiction. I don’t know how else to describe it. I had a visceral negative reaction to it.

This is the paragraph:

Keisha could have hit her. Could have killed her, honestly. Let Alice finally actually be dead if she wanted to be dead that badly. But what she did instead was pull her toward her, and their lips met, and it could have been the day they met, could have been the day they got married, could have been any weekday evening before she disappeared. Keisha felt love, right where she had left it, and kissed Alice so hard that it hurt both of them, because what she really wanted to do was to find her way into Alice’s chest and live there among the bones and blood. She wanted them to be one person, but also to be two people; she wanted so many things, most of them contradictory. She pushed Alice away.

I just said I loved this book. I swear, I really truly did. There was so much I loved about this book, the #ownvoices portrayal of anxiety with a ton of depth (and kinda turning it into a superpower without minimizing how hard it is to live that way), the way the horror played out, the characters, and even the way the romance was written. (I’m usually a pretty big fan of romance in fiction even though I’m not alloromantic. I enjoy romantic arcs, and I even feel shipper type feelings a fair amount of the time.)

But also, listening to this audiobook in my car on a drive home late on a Sunday night, hearing about kissing, and how through kissing a character (whom I could otherwise actually emotionally- and personality-wise relate to quite a bit) was feeling a strong positive sensation of love coming rushing into her… it made me cry. I shed real, actual tears. I got distracted by my own thoughts and angst and had to pause the book and switch to playing music on the radio for a little while. I had to rewind it later because I’d missed parts of what came next. I was just. Not in the right headspace for this romantic kissing situation. Not at all.

The timing was partially to blame. I heard this moment in the book while I was driving home from a day spent with the person I’m dating, Asher. (Asher is the pseudonym I use on this blog for my alterous partner.) We had, just that evening, explored if maybe my kissing-averse self might be able to handle closed-mouth chaste kissing on the mouth, but first I had gotten confused and thought I was agreeing to trying open-mouthed kissing for the first time in nearly 6 years. I had indeed agreed on a previous night that I’d try that too, but when we’d get to trying a number of things had still been unclear. But I knew making out would be a thing we tried at least once… eventually.

I knew that I was kissing-averse after my experiences trying kissing in 2012 and 2013, but I wondered what if my partner being a different gender this time around mattered? Or what if it mattered that I have a demi “sensual” attraction switch that has flipped for Asher, considering the fact that that switch hadn’t flipped for the only two people whom I tried kissing back before I knew my orientations? Or what if it wasn’t really that bad and I was exaggerating in my memory how averse I felt to it all? And what if I could be neutral to “making out” briefly?

Asher asked me, “Can I kiss you?” and I was finally ready to give open mouthed kissing a chance with them. I mean, I guess I thought I was. I braced for the experience. I said, “Yes,” then asked what kind of kissing. Oh. Not open-mouthed, after all. It ended up being Asher just… giving me a light peck on the lips. And then asking me if I was okay. And I said I was. But then I was crying anyway, as I do far too often with Asher. I feel hyper-vulnerable when I’m with them or messaging them or thinking about them and I seem to cry at the drop of a hat. And I’m not entirely sure why, in this instance, the tears were streaming but I kept insisting I really was fine with that kind of kissing. It was maybe a little awkward but I didn’t feel averse to that. And it would get less awkward with more time/practice, I was sure.

(I still think it’s often a little awkward, but in the over-a-month since we started those, I’ve never again cried after being given one of those little kisses.)

I think maybe, though, it seemed fine and neutral to me at first but over time it’s maybe felt more awkward to me, more like I have to be extra careful to keep my mouth closed because I’m scared of an aversion sensation I’d feel if my mouth was open, so I can’t just appreciate the little loving gesture. I overthink it each time.

And as I have been writing this blog post and sharing the unfinished draft with Asher, we discussed this more. Now, I’ve requested to instead try goodbye quick kisses on the cheek or maybe blowing a kiss instead of the goodbye peck on the lips. We tried one cheek kiss this morning. 💜💚 We’ll keep testing this out.

Dating Asher for five months now has been a rollercoaster of emotions for me. I’ve been so happy to be in an alterous partnership which in many ways resembles the established “perfect” romance I saw described in Alice Isn’t Dead—cooking together, cuddling while watching TV, having long conversations that the participants never want to end. Deciding to build a life together with another person. I feel so much love for Asher and know they have brought so much that’s positive to my life.

Nonetheless, it’s been very stressful. Lots of aspects of it have been. I’m not touching on all of it in this post. Waves of excitement or joy are interrupted or overlayed and mixed with other things. Some of my emotions are difficult for me to fully understand or process. But I’ve been thrown back into a situation of mismatched orientations, where my partner feels romantically for me, in certain ways I can’t reciprocate. For Asher, the desire to kiss me is connected to their demiromantic switch. When this switch is engaged and “on” (and it fairly consistently stays on for me), they feel this desire to kiss me. For Asher, kissing is very much non-sexual, but it is romantic.

Asher also feels sexually for me in ways I can’t reciprocate, but that is a topic for another time.

We did eventually, not particularly long after that night when I cried in the car listening to Alice Isn’t Dead, try open-mouthed kissing. Compared to maybe the “making out” that I was envisioning, Asher was… gentler and more hesitant; it was a subtler type of kiss. It wasn’t passionate in that way that I imagine is definitely sexual for characters in stories when making out is described. It wasn’t as full tongue deep into each other’s mouths as what I’d experienced with two guys in 2012 and 2013. We tried this kissing because Asher was so full of a desire to try expressing romantic love that way.

I probably already deep down knew, crying in the car, that while I feel deep alterous love for Asher, love that lets me relate enough to the love described in Keisha & Alice’s marriage, I would feel the opposite of all that amazing love in a moment where I would get even close to that kind of kissing. And indeed open-mouthed kissing I just am so viscerally averse to. It’s hard for me to explain, but I’m not neutral. It’s not just a lack of feeling anything like love. It’s the saliva interacting that is a very specific thing my body seems to react to. It feels uncomfortable in a way that’s almost like anti-chemistry, like people are supposed to notice a spark that’s good between them (and they call this “having chemistry”) and for me the spark isn’t exactly missing—there is still a spark, but it just feels bad. I’ve never felt anything like this feeling except for when I kissed two different guys, nearly a year apart from one another, back in 2012 and 2013. But here we are in 2019 and only once I found myself in the midst of an open-mouthed kiss again did I realize my body remembers exactly what this anti-spark feels like. All 3 people I’ve open-mouth-kissed trigger this exact same kissing-aversion feeling in me.

In the book All the Wrong Places by Ann Gallagher, which is an ace/ace romance, there is a part around the middle of the book, slightly over halfway through, where Zafir says he can’t stop thinking of how much he really wants to kiss Brennan. Brennan thinks it might be weird for asexuals to be kissing one another. (Brennan is new to asexuality and Zafir is more knowledgeable.) I’ll share two select passages from pages 139 and 140 of my paperback copy of the book, from a chapter that happens to be Brennan’s point of view:

”And who says it’s sexual? It’s just affection.” He ran his hand up my forearm. “People can touch without it having anything to do with sex.”

And

His hand slid around to the back of my neck, and with the faintest pressure from his fingertips, he drew me toward him.

Our lips met.

And everything… faded.

The ocean was suddenly a million miles away. The seagulls were distant background noise. There were people and cars, but my senses were too busy exploring the softness of his lips. His stubbled chin hissed across mine, driving home that I was kissing a man for the first time in my life. That I was kissing Zafir. And I liked it.

Slowly, I wrapped my arms around him. Nothing about this felt as weird as I thought it should. It was… God, it was perfect.

He broke the kiss and our eyes met.

“Wow,” I breathed.

“Yeah. Wow.” He searched my eyes. “Does that turn you on?”

I swept my tongue across my lips. “It, um ... not really, no.”

Zafir’s brow knitted, and he sounded more nervous than I’d ever heard him when he whispered, “But did you like it?”

“I—” My heart thumped against my ribs, and I caught myself missing the softness of his lips against mine. This didn’t make any sense, but … “Yeah. I did like it.”

So I pulled him back to me and kissed him again.

This scene was another scene in a book that made me feel a lot of emotions. I read this book after having been in a relationship (that had since ended) with a gray-asexual queerplatonic partner, and I related a lot to two aces dating each other throughout the book. I loved the portrayal that aces can also be parents, which thanks to Sara K. I knew ahead of time this book would have—possibly the only book out there like that—and I knew that this would be an appeal of the book for me as an ace who wants to be a parent. But I’m more averse to sex than both of these protagonists, and then when this happened on page 139 of the book, I suddenly felt very frustrated that kissing aversion seems to never ever be shown in ace romances. I’d been reading a handful of novels with ace characters, and kissing seems to almost always be utilized by authors as “proof” that a relationship without sex is still romantic.

This kind of thing made me feel more possibly aro, the more I realized I can’t feel what all the alloromantic ace characters seem to feel, but I also was skeptical. All The Wrong Places, as I researched and found out after finishing the book, was written by a bisexual woman. While the asexual representation was overall amazingly accurate and relatable (and the book at various points just made me cry because of its emotional resonance), maybe this kissing thing isn’t actually accurate to how all alloromantic aces feel. Perhaps that scene I just quoted was more exaggerated, hyperbole for the sweet romance of it than actually how first kisses tend to feel for people in their shoes.

Maybe it would be more a sex-averse ace thing than necessarily an aro thing to not feel so positively toward the softness of lips, for everything to not just “fade away”. I really don’t know. I haven’t heard enough from sex-repulsed aces who feel alloromantic. I don’t feel like I know their narratives. What I see instead around are aces who are more sex-indifferent or sex-neutral or even sex-favorable when they explain being alloromantic, so when they maybe say they do like kissing (depending on the person) I still don’t know if the reason they like something I don’t is because I’m averse more than them to sexual things and that kind of kissing is sexual, or if it’s because I’m much more aro than them. I don’t know how to parse out my feelings, my romantic orientation, or any of it. It’s so messy and complicated and I wish I had easy answers…

…but when a lot of what I have influencing my thoughts on all this is fiction, the theme of this carnival, it gets even murkier. Fiction doesn’t necessarily reflect reality. And when I read about what kissing feels like it’s almost always in fictional accounts. Whether it’s fanfiction or published novels, allo characters or aspec ones, none of this is really what I should be basing an understanding of reality on. None of this is necessarily quite accurate. I need more nonfiction accounts to fully make me understand my own orientations.

I recently edited a new, very romantic, fanvideo set to a recently released Taylor Swift song using 23 romantic couples featured on 20 different scripted (fictional) television series.

While I identify as gray-aromantic and classify my relationship with and my feelings for Asher as alterous, I basically feel like I could pretty easily sing 99% of this song to my partner and it be entirely accurate to my happy, excited feelings toward the thought of us one day getting married as nesting partners and everything else. I don’t feel like the song is too romantic for any of my current feelings. (The inaccurate parts are that Asher is not my “baby boy” as we don’t use the pet name baby, and Asher isn’t a boy… and I don’t want Asher in “dirty dreams” because I’m sex-averse and don’t have such dreams… seriously that’s pretty much the only parts that don’t really fit, I think? Well, I suppose we also don’t use the pet name “darling” and the idea that Asher and I were ever “friends” before becoming partners isn’t quite true, since we met via online dating, and other little tiny things don’t quite fit. But overall… I can still be aro-spec while relating a lot to this song. I can. It’s my reality.)

For a long while now, I’ve second-guess any of my choices when it comes to vidding kissing scenes.

As I’ve written about before, for my birthday this year I had friends participate in four collaboration fanvideos where I:

made a rule of no sexual scenes and no kissing on the mouth at all. These collabs were also, by the way, a mix of romantic pairs and platonic bonds. They could vid right before or after a kiss with the characters’ faces close but just not vid the kissing itself.

I told my dad about having made the rule and he turned to me and asked with a surprisingly high level of confusion and interest, “Do you really mind kissing scenes?”—or something like that. I don’t even know what I said but I don’t think I fully tried to explain how complicated it all was for me as someone vidding such kissing scenes for over 12 years. Whose attitude in reaction to seeing characters act sexually changed drastically once I realized 5.5 years ago I was sex-averse, how frustrating it was in my birthday collab in January 2016 when one of my friends vidded one of my OTPs (Jane/Rafael on Jane the Virgin) and she happened to choose, out of SO many scene choices, one of the absolute most sexual Jane/Rafael scenes with them making out while skinny dipping (naked in a swimming pool). How sex averse I felt in that moment and how much I wanted for my birthday collab to not have that happen again.

I think what I said to my dad was that it’s nice sometimes to feel more able to relate to the characters and kissing scenes I can’t relate to. I don’t know.

Now it’s closer to 6 years since I first figured out for sure I was sex-averse, and when editing my “Paper Rings” video, which is embedded above, I couldn’t stop thinking about when to include kissing and when not to. And also what kinds of kissing I feel comfortable with. 

I hadn’t met Asher yet when my birthday happened, so when I was making up the “no kisses on the mouth” rule for it I didn’t have much personal life experience with other types of kisses. Like the guy from 2012 kissed my cheek once but… basically zero experience, give or take. Yet, I still knew on some level that kisses on the top of the head, the forehead, the cheek, the shoulder, the arm… none of these would bother me and feel sexual and trigger my kissing-aversion, and I didn’t know if they’d necessarily feel romantic, in fact I still don’t know if anything feels exactly “romantic” for me which is part of why I’ve gravitated so strongly to the term “alterous”… But it feels sweet and affectionate and wonderful when Asher kisses my upper arm while I wear sleeveless shirts, or my shoulder, or my head.

When I was editing this fanvideo and I chose to include mouth-kisses during lyrics that weren’t specifically “kiss me” or “kiss you” lines of the song (lyrics without the word “kiss” at all), it was because of the surrounding details of the scene being really perfect for a particular lyric, combined with the fact that the kiss itself probably wasn’t that zoomed in on nor super open-mouth style “passionate”. For the lyrics specifically about kissing, as much as I easily could, I included kisses that were on the nose or head, or I vidded just enough of a scene that my fanvideo didn’t even show the actual kiss part of the scene once their lips touched, like in the case of the Barry/Iris during the lyric “’cause you waited your whole life”.

I had a number of my vidder friends and acquaintances on Twitter giving me feedback on my video as I was creating it, suggesting ways to improve it. One of my oldest vidder friends, with whom I’ve been friends for 12 years, suggested that when Logan kisses Veronica’s nose in my video, I should’ve instead used when they first kiss (very passionately and sexually) in the film as it fits that same “cause you’ve waited your whole life” lyric better than the cute nose kiss from later in the movie.

However, I told that friend of mine I checked that sexy Veronica/Logan scene from the film and if either character had kissed the other “Three times” in quick succession to really match that lyric amazingly perfectly i would’ve used it. But because that didn’t happen, so…

I’m kinda partial to using less sexual scenes now, more than maybe I typically would be, if I can avoid them. I just. Dating Asher and not wanting to open mouth kiss at all is proving really hard and I’m really insecure about my orientation(s) and how they manifest and makes me incompatible with almost everyone in the world. The nose kiss is much more a kind of kiss I feel happy seeing right now. Less fraught emotions for me in my super cutesy lovey dovey vid if I keep it this way lol. Also my two “dirty dreams” lyric matches are super tame and cute/sweet rather than actually dirty because of that. But no, I couldn’t think of a 3 kisses moment to use either time the lyric comes up.

It just. It’s all so complicated, my relationship to the way romance is portrayed in fiction. And in popular songs. I mean have you all heard the song “Kiss Somebody” by Morgan Evans? It’s on my local country radio station a lot.

It’s frustratingly catchy and enjoyable as a song for a person like me (see how I just vidded Taylor Swift, above – lol). The only reason it’s frustrating though is that it’s so anatonormative, and that it’s one of just so so many songs that imply if you really like a person you “gotta” kiss them, that such a desire to kiss is essentially inevitable. And that everyone feels these things. It is invalidating. It hurts. Even now. Even over 6 years into knowing I was probably asexual, and 6 years after the possibility of being aromantic first crossed my mind. It’s been such a long time, but it’s still not easy for me.

I’m not nonamorous. I’m not romance-repulsed. I don’t seem aromantic when you consider a lot of my interests and actions, when you quickly glance at my successful dating life. In less than a week I’m moving in to a brand new apartment with the person I’ve been dating and I’m happy and excited by the direction my life is going. I’m so very happy.

But I’m kissing-averse. Not averse to all kissing. I actually deeply enjoy certain kinds of kissing, but I’m very averse to open-mouthed kissing, so much so that I would rather not even engage in closed-mouth kissing, despite not even being personally averse to the closed-mouth type!

I’m not sure I like the phrase kissing-aversion as much anymore now that I realize just how nuanced my feelings on the subject are, but I’m not sure I know of a better alternative phrasing. I don’t want to imply ruling out sweet little kisses on my arm and shoulder and head and cheek. I love those so much. So maybe I should just say I’m mouth-kissing-averse, but that sounds so clunky and just… I don’t see myself really starting to say that. Lol. Maybe a whole descriptive sentence about it would be better in the future. I don’t know. I’ll keep thinking on it.

One of my alloromantic & allosexual (straight) friends actually recently let me know she’s not a big fan of making out, because I was sharing my own… struggles.

She said:

It’s funny, I am not super into kissing. I like it more on the top of my head or the cheek… That is more romantic to me than mouth kissing…that is kind of slobbery, lol.

So I guess to conclude, if you made it these 4,300+ words into this monster of a post, I’ll ask you all to please let me know your relationship to kissing, whether you love it, hate it, or are anywhere in the middle! I’m very curious to know how people feel and how they feel it does or doesn’t relate to their orientations. And I’m curious to know if you have any other thoughts for me after reading my post. Please comment. It means the world to me when people do. (Also I’m happy to answer personal questions; you can ask me more stuff if you’re curious!)

💜💚💜💚

[loretranscripts]

Lore Episode 1: They Made a Tonic (Transcript) - 18th March 2015

tw: horror, bodily mutilation, blood, disease, death, vampires, pseudo-cannibalism

Disclaimer: This transcript is entirely non-profit and fan-made. All credit for this content goes to Aaron Mahnke, creator of Lore podcast. It is by a fan, for fans, and meant to make the content of the podcast more accessible to all. Also, there may be mistakes, despite rigorous re-reading on my part. Feel free to point them out, but please be nice!

Hollywood is… obsessed. Sure, we often think of obsessions like sex, violence, gigantic robots and of course, epic battles between good and evil. But another obsession of Hollywood is vampires. You have to admit though, that there’s a lot to love about vampires. Immortality, wealth, power, and superhuman abilities such as flight and strength. Yes, they come with trade-offs, such as incredibly bad sunburns, but every movie I’ve seen, and I’ve seen a lot, believe me, tends to show vampires that are fairly happy with their lot in life. My exposure to the world of vampires happened in the late 1990s, when I was in college. A friend of mine recommended the Anne Rice novel, Interview with a Vampire. I devoured that and many of the sequels. They’re fun reads! And they certainly set the tone for a decade or more of vampire-centred entertainment. I won’t touch on the vampires of the Twilight books, mostly because I haven’t read them. But I will say this: those books, however lambasted they have been by critics, have shown that popular culture’s love of all things vampire is as undying as the creatures themselves. I’m Aaron Mahnke, and this is Lore.

When most people think of vampires, they envision something that is a purely European creature: a foreign accent, Victorian Era dress, and dark manor homes and castles. It’s a common visual language for most of the western world, so I don’t blame bad movies and books for portraying that image, but it’s one small facet of a legend that has hundreds of expressions. The single most prominent historical figure attached to the modern notion of vampires is of course Vlad III of Wallachia, otherwise known as Vlad the Impaler. Vlad was the ruler of a small Eastern European kingdom known as Wallachia. He ruled from 1456 to 1462. He was known as Vlad the Impaler, because he preferred to execute his enemies by impaling them on stakes. The Ottomons called him “Lord Impaler” after entering his kingdom to find forests of impaled victims. Vlad was a violent guy, you see, rather bloodthirsty, you might say. Now he, like his father before him, belonged to something known as the Order of the Dragon, a group established to protect Christian Europe from the invading Ottoman army. Vlad’s father, Vlad II, was known as Vlad Dracul, which meant Vlad the Dragon, from the Order of the Dragon. When Vlad III rose to power he took the hereditary title and was known as Vlad Dracula, the son of the dragon. That name might sound very similar to the most famous vampire story in the world, and that’s because Bram Stoker, when creating his famous creature of the night, used Vlad III as his inspiration. Well, part of it, but we’ll get to that more later.

The roots of most vampire stories can be traced back to superstitions rooted in ancient cultures all across the world. Western Europe played host to countless stories of reanimated dead known as “revenants”. These were animated corpses which climbed out of the grave to torment the living. The word “revenant” comes from Latin, which means “to come back”. And come back to do what, you might ask? Well, I’m glad you did. At first it was just to terrorise the living, but as the centuries passed the legend became more specific. Revenants were said to return from the grave to torment their living relatives and neighbours. What was key though, was that revenants were specific people, not anonymous zombies of our modern horror genre. These things had a past, and a purpose. Now, in Norse Mythology, we can find stories of creatures known as draugr, “again-walkers”, who would return from the grave and wreak havoc on the living. These creatures possessed superhuman strength, they smelled of decay, and they were reported to be pretty ugly in appearance. They could enter the dreams of the living and while they were doing that, it was said that they left tangible objects near the sleeping victims, so that when they woke up, they would know that their dreams were more real than they feared.

Let’s go back earlier than the Middles Ages though. The legends of some ancient cultures spoke of creatures that, while not immediately similar to the vampires we know today, nonetheless share many core characteristics. First we have the Greek myth of Empusa, who was the daughter of Hekate. Empusa was said to lure young men, at night, and then feast on their blood, before moving on to the main course, their flesh. Another Greek tale involves Lamia, a mistress of Zeus, who becomes cursed by Zeus’ wife Hera, and is doomed to hunt children, devouring them. Stories of undead creatures, or creatures that feed on the blood of the living, seem nearly as common as written language itself. I mean, even on the small, isolated island of Madagascar, there are legends of a creature known as the Ramanga, which was known to attack nobles, drinking their blood and eating their nail clippings. Yeah, I said nail clippings. Deal with it.

Are vampires real? I’ll let you make the final decision on that, but what is clear, is that most of these stories find their genesis in the human need to explain the unexplainable. For instance, early Europeans used the myth as a way of explaining why a corpse wasn’t decomposing at the normal rate that they expected. You can see evidence of this in Bulgaria, where graves dating back over 800 years, have been opened, to reveal iron rods that have been driven through the chest of the skeletons. And in a time when it was very common to bury someone that was thought to be dead, only to find out that they weren’t really dead, you can imagine that stories would quickly circulate that the dead were coming back to life. As a result, Taphophobia, the fear of being buried alive, swept Europe and the United States. Now, of course, when medical science caught up, people got more practical. They built alert systems into graves, just in case the person woke up and, you know, wanted out. Now, I realise that being buried alive sounds like a rare occurrence, but it happened frequently enough that many people were sufficiently paranoid about it to actually spend time looking for a solution.

One of these people happened to be a medical doctor, a man named Adolf Gutsmuth. Now, in 1822, and driven by the fear of being buried alive, he invented a “safety coffin” for his own interment, and then he tested it out himself. Tested it out? You bet! Doctor Gutsmuth allowed himself to be buried underground in his new “safety coffin” for several hours, during which he had meals delivered to him through a feeding tube. He enjoyed a wonderful meal of soup, sausages, and a lovely local beer. Sounds like a great date night destination, doesn’t it? Now, Doctor Timothy Smith of New Haven, Vermont, was another paranoid inventor. He created a grave that can be visited still to this day, if you happen to be passing by Evergreen Cemetery, in Vermont. It was a crypt, buried in the usual manner, but it had a cement tube positioned over the face of the body, and a glass plate was affixed to the top of the tube at ground level. Doctor Smith died a real, natural death, and was buried in his fancy coffin with a view. He never woke up, but early visitors to his grave reported that they had a clear view of his decomposing head, until condensation obscured the glass decades later. Side note: vampires no longer scare me. Waking up inside of a small box buried six feet under the surface of the earth is what true fright looks like to me.

Now, another culprit in humanity’s use of the vampire label, was porphyria. It was a rare blood disorder, but modern science has pretty much closed the case on that one, saying that it’s too far of a stretch to connect the two topics. Rabies, of all conditions, has also been used as an explanation for the rise of the vampire mythology. Surprisingly there are a lot of commonalities between them, such as a sensitivity to light and garlic, as well as altered sleep patterns. But the most recent medical condition with a strong connection to vampire mythology was actually Tuberculosis. Those who suffer from TB had no vampire-like symptoms though, and that’s what makes this one a harder connection to explain. It’s also, incidentally, where one of my favourite New England legends comes into the picture. Ladies and Gentlemen, meet Mercy Brown.

Lena Mercy Brown was a young woman who lived in the latter half of the 19thcentury, in the rural town of Exeter, Rhode Island, and she was a major player in what is now known as the “Great New England Vampire Panic”. Stories like hers can be found repeated all across Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont, echoed in the lives of others in similar situations. And the results have surprising connections to both the modern idea of vampires, as well as the ancient stories, as we will see. The first person to die in Exeter was Mercy’s mother, Mary Eliza. That was December of 1882, and she fell victim to what was then called “consumption”. Consumption, because, as the disease of Tuberculosis ravaged the body, the person would appear to waste away; consumed, if you will, by the illness. She, of course, was buried, because, well, that’s what you do with a loved one who passes away. The next year though, Mercy’s sister Mary Olive died, at the young age of 20. Same illness, same symptoms, same process. I’m not sure when exactly the people of Exeter, Rhode Island started to wonder if the deaths were connected , but it might have been then, or it might have been a few years later when Mercy’ brother Edwin took ill. Edwin, though, was smart. He packed up and moved across the country to Colorado Springs, which had a great reputation for the healing properties of its dry climate. When he finally returned from the resorts out west, some years later, he was alive, but not doing so well, and in December of 1891, he took a turn for the worst. That was the month that Mercy herself became ill. Her Tuberculosis moved fast. They called it the galloping kind, and it moved through her body quickly, like wildfire. By January, 1892, she was dead, and the people of Exeter were more worried than ever. You see, they suspected something… supernatural.

Now, this was surprising, considering how close Exeter is to Newport. That’s the seaside city known for the summer cottages of the wealthy, folks like the Vanderbilts, the Asters, the Wideners, the Wetmores. It was the pinnacle of educated society, yet just a handful of miles away, one small town that should have known better, was about to do something very, very creepy.

Edwin was still alive, you see, and someone got it in their mind that one of the women who died before him, either his mother or one of his sisters, was somehow draining him of his life from beyond the grave. They were so convinced of this, you see, that they wanted to dig them all up. Yes, all of them. Once they received the father’s permission to do this horrible thing, a group of men gathered in the cemetery on the morning of March 17th, and began to dig up the bodies. Now, what they were looking for was any evidence at all of an unnatural state. So, blood in the heart, blood around the mouth, or other similar signs. The first body, of Mary Eliza, the mother, was satisfactorily decomposed so they ruled her out. But of course she was, you might say, I mean, she had been dead and buried for a decade. Mary Olive was also in a normal state of decomposition. Again, being dead for ten years usually helps convince people that you’re really dead. But when they examined Mercy’s body, a body that had not been buried because she died in the middle of winter, and so had been put inside of a stone building inside the cemetery that was essentially a walk-in freezer, they discovered a remarkable state of preservation. Shocking, I know. So what did they do? Well, these superstitious folk did what they learnt from their ancestors. They cut out Mercy’s heart and liver, within which they found red, clotted blood, they burned them on a nearby stone, which, by the way, is still there if you ever visit the cemetery, and then, mixed the ashes with a tonic. That tonic was then given to Edwin, to drink. Yeah, Edwin drank his own sister’s liver and heart. Did it work? No, of course it didn’t work. Edwin died less than two months later. What it did do, however, was set up Mercy Brown to be known as the first American vampire.

As unusual as an event like this must sound, you might be surprised to learn that it happened quite frequently. In 1817, almost a century before Mercy Brown’s exhumation, a Dartmouth college student named Frederick Ransom died of Tuberculosis. His father was so worried that the young man would leave the grave and attack the family, that he asked that he be dug up. Ransom’s heart was cut out, and burnt on a blacksmith’s forge. Even Henry David Thoreau heard tales of these types of events, and he mentioned one in his personal journal. In September 26th, 1859, he wrote: “The savage in man is never quite eradicated. I have just read of a family in Vermont who, several of its members having died of consumption, just burnt the lungs, heart and liver of the last deceased, in order to prevent any more from having it.” So of course, word spread about what happened to Mercy Brown, as it usually did when a body was dug up and carved into to pieces like that. Mercy’s case, though, actually made it into a newspaper called The New York World, and it made quite an impression on the people who read it. How do we know? Because a clipping from that article was found in the personal papers of a London stage manager after his death. You see, his theatre company had been touring America in 1892. He evidently read the story, found it inspiring, and saved it. Inspiring so much so, that he sat down a few years later, and wrote a book. Who was this man? His name was Bram Stoker. And the book? Oh, I’m sure you’ve already guessed it by now. It was Dracula, published in 1897.

Lore was produced by me, Aaron Mahnke. You can find a transcript of the show, as well as a bibliography of the source material, at our website, lorepodcast.com. If you enjoy scary stories, I happen to write them. You can find a full list of my supernatural thrillers, available in both paperback and ebook formats, at aaronmahnke.com/novels. Thanks for listening.

Transcriber’s Notes:

(These notes a purely from me, the transcriber, and have nothing to do with the official podcast or Aaron Mahnke).

1)     The word draugr does not in fact mean “after-walker” as the podcast seems to state, and actually derives from a Proto-Indo European word meaning “deceive”. There is, however, a related term aptrgangr, which does mean “again-walker”, and is thought to be pretty much synonymous with draugr.

[icarusalchemist]

just lucky

read on ao3 here

summary: After getting a pet, Clint started wanting to do more things with more people. However, it was rare anyone ever had time for him and Lucky.

~

Or five times Clint's family didn't have time for him and the one time they did.

i.

"He's not my dog," Clint said again, for what felt like the tenth time. He had to admit, though, that he was getting attached to the thing.

"Well, his tag says his name is 'Arrow'," the veterinarian said. Clint leaned down a little bit so his face was level with the bandaged dog on the table. The dog lifted its head, blinking at Clint with its one good eye. Clint sighed and ran a hand through his messy and still-damp hair before reaching out and rubbing the dog's ears with both hands.

"I could come up with something much better," he told the vet, not a single note of regret in his voice.

"Welcome to fatherhood, then," the vet said with a chuckle.

~

When Clint managed to unlock his apartment and carry his new pet through the doorway, he had already made up his mind on two things.

One, this new addition to his life would be called "Lucky," because damn if he wasn't a lucky little guy. And, two, he would call Barney to celebrate Lucky's joining of the Barton family.

But, as usual in Clint's life, everything went amiss from there on. Even though they hadn't spoken in a while, Clint had still hoped that Barney would answer the phone and come celebrate. That didn't even go partially as planned, because as soon as the first ring finished, the answer machine cut off the droning tone. And, of course, Barney's machine was full - probably with voicemails from Clint - so he couldn't even leave his stupid big brother a message.

Another typical exchange between the Barton brothers, he guessed.

ii.

A few short months later was Clint's first Christmas with Lucky. Normally, Clint would be content with staying in his pajamas and consuming a few too many pots of coffee throughout the day, not leaving his apartment once. However, this Christmas was different for some reason.

He wanted to celebrate.

Clint honestly should have expected that everyone he knew was too busy for him, though. Each of the Avengers had their own plans with the people they loved, Bobbi wasn't in town, and Natasha wasn't even answering her phone. Even the other inhabitants of the building were too busy to let him crash their celebrations for an hour or two.

So, instead of doing anything special with anyone like he had originally wanted to, Clint changed back into his pajamas, brewed a second pot of coffee, and laid out on the couch with Lucky resting on top of him, slobbering on his t-shirt.

"Merry Christmas, little guy," he said with a sigh, not feeling merry in the slightest.

iii.

"C'mon, Nat, it's your birthday."

Call Clint an idiot, call him an airhead, call him whatever you like, but he would never forget his friend's birthday.

"And how the hell do you even know that?" Natasha asked him. She was only-God-knew-where, doing only-God-knew-what, but it was a day meant for celebration and, dammit, Clint wanted to celebrate another year of Natasha not being killed in their crazy line of work.

"Because I wormed it out of you one time when you were actually drunk," he confessed. "Either that or you voluntarily told me while pretending to be completely wasted, but either way-"

"I'm not having a celebration," she cut him off.

"Fine. Just come to my place and have cake. Lucky loves cake and he loves you, so at least come celebrate with us!" Clint bartered.

"Why should I?" she asked, still sounding very disinterested.

"Uh, I just told you? Lucky misses you, I miss you, we all love cake, and it's your birthday, for God's sake," he said, rattling through his list. How embarrassing would it be if she caught the 'I miss you' part?

"I miss the both of you, too, Clint," Natasha told him, finally seeming focused on their conversation, "but I'm still not coming all the way to New York just for my birthday."

"Then tell me where you are!" he tried. "I can pick up a cake on my way and we can come see you." He was pacing back and forth in front of his kitchen bar now, only going as far as his phone cord would reach, and Lucky was trotting dutifully alongside him. "Lucky can hear your voice right now and it's making him antsy that he can't see you."

"You know that's a lie, Barton. I bet a thousand-to-one that you're pacing in that kitchen of yours with your damn corded-phone," she said, a hint of a smile on her lips. "Lucky may be a dog with good hearing, but even he can't hear off of that thing."

"Okay, fine, that part was a lie," Clint admitted. "But he does still miss you!"

"Not telling you where I am, Clint. Besides, I don't really like cake. You know that."

"I could get something else, we could meet up-"

"Clint," Natasha cut him off, "I really appreciate the effort, but I don't need or want to celebrate my birthday. I don't really see why you would want to, either, but I appreciate the sentiment."

"So... that's a no?"

"It's a no. Sorry, Clint. Give Lucky my love." A moment later, the phone line went dead.

Clint sighed and looked down at Lucky. "Sorry, bud. Looks like it's just us again today."

iv.

"Dateaversary, huh?" Bucky chuckled down the line. "Sounds like it would be cute. Too bad I won't be back home for another week."

"You don't think you could get just today?" Clint asked, scratching Lucky behind the ears. "Lucky misses you."

Bucky huffed another laugh. "I'm sure he does. Tell him I miss him, too."

Clint smiled a little to himself and leaned down to the dog in his lap. "Buck misses you, the crazy sap," he whispered.

"I'm not the sap, Barton," Bucky argued jokingly. "You're the one who wants to celebrate the anniversary of our first date."

"We've been together for six months, to the day! That's a damn good enough reason to celebrate!" Clint argued back.

"Yeah, maybe, but I still can't get the day, sorry." And Clint could admit that Bucky did actually sound sorry. "But hey, maybe we could celebrate when I get back next week."

"Maybe," Clint agreed begrudgingly. "Won't be the same, though."

"Who says?"

"I and everyone who celebrates anniversaries."

Bucky laughed a little and then sighed. "I'm sorry I can't be home. Maybe for seven months. And before you say anything, I know it won't be the same, but we can make it even more special. Six months plus one."

Clint chuckled half-heartedly and gave a soft, unheard nod. "That would be good, yeah. Might make up for this travesty."

"Hey, now," Bucky said warningly. "I'm trying my best, freezing my ass off over here in freaking Russia."

"I know you are," Clint said fondly. "We miss you, though, so maybe try a little harder and come home early." Clint laid his head back, letting it thud against the wall, his neck horribly uncomfortable against the back of the couch.

"I'll try. I miss you, too, Clint," Bucky whispered, voice soft. "I gotta go now, though, but I'll see you when I get home."

"Okay, see you then. Be careful."

v.

"You've reached Kate."

"So I have," Clint muttered. "Leave a message and I'll consider getting back to you," he mocked alongside the recording. Then he sighed, hung up, and immediately tried again.

"This is the fifth time, Barton, what the hell?" Kate said in lieu of a 'hello' after the third ring.

"Well, hello to you, too, Katie-Kate," he sang.

"Hi," she deadpanned. "What do you want?"

"Do you know what today is?" Clint asked, sliding around his kitchen in his socks, trying to prepare an actual cake.

"Uh, August twenty-somethingth?" Kate guessed. "I don't know."

"Twenty-second," he told her. "And do you know what that means?"

"I don't," Kate sighed, "and I also don't have time for guessing games, so come on and spit it out."

"It's Lucky's birthday."

"Oh." That finally got her attention, Clint thought. "I didn't realize it had been a year-"

"Since I adopted him, yup. And he misses you, too," Clint said. "He'd love to celebrate with you, and I'm making him a cake-"

"I swear, Clint, if it's a pizza-shaped cake-"

"Hush, Lucky loves it." Clint grinned to himself and looked into the living room at the aforementioned dog, sleeping at the foot of the couch.

"Well, you and Lucky will sadly have to celebrate one year with your stupid pizza-shaped cake without me," Kate said a moment later.

"What?" Clint asked, taken aback. "Why?"

"I'm in Cali, Clint."

"Since when?"

"Since last weekend. I'm staying with America, it's date night tonight, and I won't be home for another two or three weeks."

"Huh," Clint mumbled. "Just like last year, then."

"What does that mean?" Kate questioned, almost sounding offended.

"Nothing, I just-" Clint sighed. "I tried to see if Barney would come celebrate last year but he never even answered the phone, and now you can't come celebrate a year-"

"Clint," Kate interrupted. "You know this isn't about not wanting to be there or about ignoring you. I am honestly a bit offended that you're comparing me to your dumbass of a brother, but I'll let it pass."

"Sorry," he muttered.

"Don't," Kate huffed. "Shoot me a text when you finish the cake and sing to Lucky. I'll call and America and I will help sing, too."

"Nah, you don't have to do that, Kate," Clint said, waving her off even though she couldn't see him. "Go enjoy your date with America, we'll be fine."

"What about Barnes? Isn't he home to celebrate with you?" Kate asked.

"Nah, he, uh, had another mission, just like last month." Clint cleared his throat and got back to mixing ingredients for the pizza cake. "Lucky and I will be fine, though, don't worry. Call me when you get home."

"I will. I'm sorry again, Clint-"

"I told you, Katie-Kate, it's fine. Have fun with America and tell her and the others that I said hi."

+i

Halloween. The perfect time of year for people to get the shit scared out of them.

A typical Halloween at the Barton 'n' Lucky apartment would consist of closed blinds, probably too much coffee and pizza, and horror movies all day. But, this year, Clint got invited to a party.

Well, a "party." He knew it couldn't have been much when Tony Stark's invitation said "Clinton 'Hawkguy' Barton and Little Lucky," but he was still going to go and enjoy the time with friends. And he sure as hell was taking Lucky.

"Oh, Lucky, no," Clint sighed as Lucky pawed at the eye patch on his face again. This was the third time Clint had managed to get the thing to stay over Lucky's missing eye and the third time that Lucky had pawed it right off. "Do you not want to be a pirate?"

Lucky barked.

There was a chuckle from the stairs as Bucky walked down them, fully dressed in his costume. He had a blond wig braided messily over his loose brown hair and a homemade red coat over the rest of his black outfit.

"I don't think Lucky appreciates the eyepatch," he laughed.

"But he's got to be a pirate!" Clint argued. "He's got the perfect number of eyes for it!"

Bucky laughed loudly at that, tossing his head back and holding his stomach. "Clint, babe, no."

"What? It's the only costume that would be right for him."

"Well, maybe just forego the eyepatch. You've already got the puffy shirt and little pirate booties," Bucky reasoned, walking over and kneeling down to look Lucky over. The dog was just staring at the both of them, clearly confused.

"Too bad he couldn't be a piece of p-i-z-z-a," Clint sighed. "Would've been even more perfect than a pirate."

Bucky laughed at that then turned his head to Clint. "When are you getting dressed? We've gotta leave soon."

"Right now, then," Clint said, pushing himself off of the floor and jogging up to their bedroom.

~

"Make room, make room! He comes armed!" Bucky announced when they walked out of the elevator onto the communal floor of Avengers Tower.

"And he comes with a detachable arm!" Clint laughed, lifting Bucky's metal left arm.

"And the more important one comes with no arms and four legs!" Kate hollered, causing laughter to erupt across the room. Clint laughed as Lucky ran towards the sound of her voice, knocking arrows out of her hip quiver when he took her down.

Clint tucked his blond wig behind his pointy elf-ears and looked around the room; it wasn't necessarily crowded, but it was definitely full of people who loved one another. Everyone was in some kind of clever costume - Kate was Katniss from The Hunger Games (of course), America was Rosa Diaz of the Nine-Nine, Natasha was Sansa Stark (she was such a nerd, honestly), Tony was Alphonse Elric (he and Bucky had coordinated), and so many others were dressed up, too, in varying qualities of costume.

The room itself was decorated with orange fairy lights and jack-o-lanterns and fake spiderwebs in every corner. It was the embodiment of a Halloween party, just a lot more chill and the perfect gathering between friends.

By the end of the night, Clint was glad he had come. He had finally gotten to celebrate something on time, and with his family, no less. Honorary or not, they were all he had.

[thepokyone]

All In

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader (ft. Steve)

Content/Warnings: fluff; angst

Words: 1435

A/N: Wow so it’s been like a week since I last posted BUT in my defense I haven’t had my laptop so I haven’t been able to write as much. Hopefully I’ll have it back by Monday.  Enjoy this sequel to Certainty!

Part 1

Bucky had been uncertain at first. Uncertain that you meant what you said. Uncertain that you would want him after everything he’d done. Uncertain that you’d stay with him since he was so damaged. Uncertain you wouldn’t leave after witnessing the nightmares.

The nightmares. When you had first moved in with Steve, he had had them. Not every night, but often enough that it wasn’t necessarily surprising to find Steve crashed in the living room watching comedy to scare away the horror. More often than not you’d hear him get up and would go to join him, and the two of you would doze off in your separate blanket burritos.

But Bucky… his nightmares were different than Steve’s. While Steve’s were moreso faint mumbling, tossing, and fear, Bucky’s were the opposite. The first few weeks that he stayed with you and Steve he barely got two hours of sleep. He screamed, and fought, and Steve never let you in when he woke Bucky for fear that the ex-HYDRA agent would harm you.

Even after you discovered Bucky was your soulmate, both he and Steve adamantly refused to let you go anywhere near him while he was having a nightmare.

“I could hurt you,” Bucky said gravely. “It’s too dangerous. Just… let Steve handle it. It keeps you safe and lets you not have to see it.”

“Alright.” Eventually, you relented. Every night, without fail, his screaming would wake both you and Steve. And every night, without fail, the three of you would curl in the living room, eventually dozing into uneasy slumbers in the early hours of the morning. It wasn’t the best system, but it worked.

At least, it worked until Steve had to go away on a mission, leaving you and Bucky alone. “It’ll be fine, Buck,” You comforted, reaching out to squeeze his human hand. “Just go to bed.”

“You know I’ll have nightmares if I do, doll. Steve isn’t around to wake me, and I don’t want to hurt you. I’d never forgive myself,” Bucky said softly. “I’ll just stay up, it won’t have been the first time.”

“What if I stayed with you? There have been studies done, Buck - having your soulmate with you has been proven to ease stress and tension. Maybe I’ll be able to help with your nightmares.”

He pursed his lips and looked away, obviously not convinced. “It’s too dangerous.”

You were determined to persuade him - you knew Bucky hadn’t been sleeping and he couldn’t continue running on next to no rest. “If it doesn’t work, I can move back to my own bed tomorrow night.”

He gave a long sigh. “Alright. But if I start to have a nightmare, just leave. Please. I don’t want to accidentally hurt you.”

“As if I’m going to leave you alone to suffer,” You scoffed. “I’m not leaving, Buck, not ever. I’d use Steve’s corny phrase but I feel like I need to make up one of my own.”

Bucky chuckled in spite of himself. “It’s not that corny.”

“It’s very corny. Just admit it.”

“You think you can come up with something better?” He asked, amused.

“Well, I don’t think it gets cornier than ‘I’m with you ‘til the end of the line’, but I’ll give it some thought and get back to you,” You mused.

“Alright, I’ll be nice and give you some time to think about it,” Bucky said, smiling.

“Wow, I appreciate that,” You quipped, finally dragging him to bed after a few more minutes of friendly teasing. “I’m serious, Bucky. It’ll be fine.”

“I’m serious too, Y/N. I could hurt you when I’m having a nightmare. I’m not… me anymore when I’m trapped in one,” He pleaded.

“Just one night, Bucky.” You had already climbed into his bed and reached out to pull him down to lay beside you. “If it doesn’t work, we’ll give it some more time.”

You felt the bed shift as he moved, propping himself up on his elbow to look down at you. “Alright, but just please…” His voice cracked slightly. “Don’t do anything stupid because of me. If I get violent just leave, please. It’s safer that way.”

“Bucky, I’m not going to leave you, not ever,” You insisted. “I’m all in, so you’re stuck with me. Now, I gotta warn you, I’m a sleep cuddler.”

An incredulous sort of smile bloomed on Bucky’s face as he let out a slight laugh. “That’s alright with me, doll.”

You pulled him close to you, and Bucky buried his face into your neck of his own accord, draping a protective arm around your waist. You wrapped your arms around his torso, drowsiness tugging at your eyelids, and your last thought before you drifted off to sleep was that everything would be fine.

Your gut, however, wouldn’t win any awards for its psychic abilities, as several hours later you were woken by Bucky’s soft whimpers. The two of you had ended up in some sort of tangled-up embrace, and his fingers dug painfully into your skin as his eyes danced behind his eyelids.

“Bucky,” You murmured, nudging him. He seemed oblivious to you, letting out another cry and squeezing you closer. You resisted a whine of pain at his actions, instead reaching out a gentle hand to grab his forearm. “It’s okay, Bucky, it’s just a dream. You’re okay.”

Bucky stilled for a moment, going quiet, and you thought for a moment that you had chased the nightmare away from him. A beat later his eyes shot open, his usually gentle gaze replaced by one that was cold, hard, and so un-Buckylike you gasped. He instantly released you, shoving you away to snap to his feet. “Bucky?”

“Who the hell is Bucky?”

You were frozen, staring at him in shock. Steve had never really spoken about what Bucky did when he had his nightmares so you had no idea if this was normal or not. “Bucky, it’s me, Y/N. Your soulmate.”

You thought you caught a glimpse of a struggle in his eyes, though it was gone in a moment and his face betrayed no emotion. “What are my orders?”

“I- what?” You faltered.

“My orders,” He repeated, cold gaze drilling into you. Bucky’s eyes narrowed as he surveyed you, and you felt a pang of fear in your gut. You knew now why Steve and your Bucky were so insistent that you stay away when he was like this. “You are not one of my superiors.”

“Buc-” He moved so quickly you barely had time to react, springing out of the way as you avoided the attacks of your soulmate. “It’s me!” You miraculously avoided another attack. “Y/N!”

“I don’t know who the hell Bucky is,” He snarled, finally grabbing you around the neck with his metal arm and slamming you into the floor, “but I’m not him!”

He was going to kill you, you were sure of it. “Bucky,” You whimpered, gasping for breath. “Please.”

Just as black was about to consume you the pressure around your neck disappeared. You coughed, sucking in deep breaths. It took several seconds before your vision cleared and you saw Bucky, your Bucky, wearing a horrified expression as he pressed his back into the wall.

You took several more gasping breaths before finally speaking, though your words sounded more like croaks. “Are you okay?”

“Y/N, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean t- what? I nearly killed you and you’re asking me if I’m okay?” He asked you, incredulous. Bucky had almost killed you, he wanted you to be angry, leave, do something. Anything but offer your forgiveness. He didn’t think he deserved that.

“Buck, that wasn’t you,” You soothed, pushing yourself into an unsteady stand. “You can’t control your nightmares, I’m not going to be angry for you about something that’s outside your control.”

Bucky hesitantly stepped forward, steadying you with his real hand. “But that was me, once. I killed people, I hurt people, I hurt you, and you’re telling me it’s no big deal?”

“No, I’m telling you that it doesn’t matter because I love you anyways.” You didn’t even think about your words until after they had already left your mouth. “I told you I was all in, Buck, and I meant it. I still do.”

“Are you sure?” His voice was barely a whisper, soft blue eyes wide as he took in your response.

You reached out a hand, wrapping your fingers around his metal ones. “Of course I’m sure. Not to steal from Steve, but I’m with you ‘til the end of the line, Buck. Always.”

Tag List: @the-crime-fighting-spider @micachu1331 @esoltis280 @ilvermornyqueen @alittlebitofmagic @bluebird214 @lovely-geek @fleurs-en-ruines @loki-god-of-my-life @awesomehaylzus @ldyhawkeye

[voteforintensepuppets]

Wanting! To grow old together!! (bonus points if they actually do) standing on tip-toes/leaning down to kiss a s/o with height difference

Sorry it took sooooo long, Hana, and that it’s probably not what you were wanting! (I actually hacked it out a week ago and just haven’t posted). 

“Belo, what was she like?”

He doesn’t remember most things. No matter how many times they tell him, he forgets what day it is and if he’s already crossed off the date on the calendar, and it takes him an hour longer than it used to for him to get ready because he’ll undoubtedly spend half of it looking for things he just had in his hand.

But as for “Belo, what was she like?” Well, he knows the answer to that. He knows all the answers and their variables, as he should since he spent fifty-five years memorizing them until they were as familiar as the lines on his palms or the way the keys feel when they’re still in his pocket. What was she like? So many things, too many to tell you, but if you’ll pull up a chair, I’ll try even with my dying breath.

000

It was like Creation. First there was darkness, and then there was light. From nothing he shaped his world, trying to leave behind every horror while still clinging to them until there was no use anymore; if he didn’t forget it, he would wallow in the darkness for eternity. And so he left it behind and ran, ran for anything that might not be the dark, ran in a crooked path that finally gave way to a glow.

He remembers her first as a child who was not a child. The girl with the pink cheeks and pink shorts, whose ponytail bounced as much as her step, the girl who could run and run forever, and when he’d looked at her running down the field, waving that she was open with a smile dimpling her pink cheeks, he’d had to smile too. He remembers her as being infectious.

The summer was so clear, clear and bright and fast, and the weeks had flown by, or maybe he’d just been whiling them away until he would see her. Seventeen, maybe, at the most, and he’d felt terrible because when he saw smiles, he could think of hers and hers alone, big, easy, brighter than the rest. He stretched across from her before and after, hiding his own smile when she’d turn hers to whomever she was speaking, and then one day they’d been smiling and speaking to each other, and they just never stopped.

000

Marry the person you’d ride across the country on a bus with, that’s the advice his abuela had given him.

When he thinks about it, and when he considers the time they spent together, they’d been so young then, even though they hadn’t felt young at the time—uncertain of everything they were being handed, maybe overwhelmed by it all, but not young. Yet they had been young the night they’d sat in his car with the rain pouring down around them.

The night was a trainwreck, just like everything else in his life until that point, and he’d silently mourned his future, since first dates meant everything and there wouldn’t be a second after this. They both smelled like beer even though neither had had any, the festival was rained out with a surprise thunderstorm halfway through, and in the time it had taken them to have hot coffee most likely ruin his chance of having children to the time they’d walked out the diner door, his car key had died, leaving them to a mad sprint through the downpour that ended stuck outside the car.

Still, when he opened his door after tucking her into her side, she’d been laughing too hard to wipe her eyes properly, and once she’d calmed down enough, she’d giggled that it was a disaster.

He’d apologized and meant every bit of it. He should have known better than to ask her in the first place.

“I’ve had a really good time.”

So as they’d sat in his car in the middle of a downpour and laughed until the wetness on their cheeks was indiscernible from tears or rain, he unable to tame his curls, she unable to wipe the mascara from her eyes, he’d thought about asking her if she wanted to catch a bus with him.

000

It was like a flower. Closed but hinting beauty, and for the patient, promising.

He remembers the gradual bloom. A night spent telling her he was sorry he’d pressured her into ice cream, though in his defense, he hadn’t known she’d needed lactase; his nose covered, laughing at how foul it smelled, but laughing alongside her as she clutched her aching stomach; and in the morning, he’d bent down first to kiss her nose, then to tell her he’d see her that evening, and finally to catch her lips in his own where they fit so perfectly. There had been days spent trudging up mountains, she a step ahead until she needed a boost, always pulling him along, pulling him after her, inspiring him to keep going and not look back, and they’d reached the tops breathless but finally able to stop and enjoy the view.

And then the explosion as all the petals settled into place, when they’d finally opened up fully, when I’m afraid of hurting you became I will do anything to keep you from hurting. They’d spent the evening in tears, shouting, him begging for her to let him let her go before she turned to dust in his touch, she, in a show of surprising stubbornness, insisting that they would be fine, and eventually the frantic gestures died away until they were clutching one another with I love yous drying in their tears.

They bought a bus ticket and didn’t look back.

000

What was she like? Well, it was like this:

Prim, proper, and pressed by seven o’clock every weekday, he had always known she was coming by the purposeful clicks of her heels, and he had admired the way in which she had walked, chin high, eyes forward, her steps quick and directed by a confidence more often painted onto her face with her rouge and mascara; had admired the sway of her hips for which he’d always been reaching, even as she’d placed an order with a florist while managing to perfectly cook dinner; he had admired her ability to coordinate everything from a gala to her underwear with her outfit.

But once he’d peeled away the layers, what he admired most were the freckles across the bridge of her unpowdered nose and her unlined eyes, big and dark and genuine, unable to hide anything; he liked how, without her heels, she couldn’t reach his mouth without standing on tiptoe, and he was always meeting her halfway, reaching for her as she pulled herself up to him. Away from the sight of others, it had been his privilege to see beneath her mask.

He’d been the one she collapsed into when she’d had a bad day, burying her head against his chest and, he would later find out, steadying her nerves to the beat of his heart.

He’d been the first one she called with any sort of news or, if she could wait, to tell in person, and he’d known if it was good or bad by the tone of her hello or the look in her eye, though it wasn’t quite so bad when they reacted by sitting in the kitchen floor with ice cream and lactase.

He’d been the one next to her in the delivery room and the one to whom she’d whispered, as he was tying back her hair, that she was scared. They were the last words he’d ever expected from her mouth and had probably never uttered before. Yet he was the one who earned them.

He’d been the one to sleep by her side for fifty years. They’d burned dinners and created masterpieces, had folded the laundry and let it sour in the machine, had laughed and cried and bickered over telenovelas in a weekly ritual that was theirs before they had a house and after it was empty.

And she—on midnight rides through the Texas desert, when he could have lost himself in the wind and barrenness, could have thought himself alone and insignificant had he not had her arms wrapped about his waist and her chest to his back to remind him where he was. She was the one to wipe at his eyes when their daughter started school, and she was the only one he’d believed when anyone said how wonderful it was that their son was like him. She had slept peacefully by his side for fifty years because when he’s snored, she’d said it was like he was purring.

She had weathered his foul tempers with a patience and grace that grew synonymous with her name, but she’d been just as quick to put him back in his place. By his side through everything, from moments of annoyance to turmoil, when he got his third speeding ticket to when he’d broken three ribs and treated her unfairly as she’d tried to help him, which earned him a sharp stop yelling at me that hurt more than any of his ribs. Still, she was there.

She had been the one to pull him to her, to match his watering eyes, for once not being the first to cry when their last child was gone and the house he’d built all for them was empty, and it was just the two of them for the first time time in two decades.

It was the two of them, always.

000

When he thinks about her, he thinks about a warm bed and cold feet, little fingers between his own, and the color pink. He thinks about the twenty-odd years of before when he’d made a mess, and then he thinks about the fifty that came after where he’d put it back together. Where they’d put it back together. He thinks about the things he did and didn’t do, and he is content. No regrets. He’d lived his life with so many already that when he’d met her, there hadn’t been room for anymore.  

“Belo, what was she like?” Oh, mijo, she was so many things, too many to begin, I don’t know where to start. Consuming and compassionate and contagious in her consuming compassion; earnest and eager to the point of overwhelming with a heart big enough for all her idealism; quick to laugh and cry but slow to anger; sweet and silly and soft and steady. She was so many things, but only one feels perfect:

“Mi vida.”

[i-just-love-writing-crap]

Catching Murphy, Part 8

Warnings: Swearing, possible nsfw content, rape and murder of children is mentioned (because of an episode of a show, not just randomly brought up) Word Count: About 3428 Summary: You, Miss (y/n) (y/l/n), had a crush on Connor Murphy for years, from a distance of course. You had always been too shy to approach him, and the fact around school that he was an aggressive stoner caused you to become even more shy. One day, in history class, your teacher decided to assign a project and assigned everyone a partner—you and Connor were partnered together. Could you two grow close during the project and remain close? Or will Connor go back to ignoring you after the project comes to a close? A/N: I apologize if Connor is a biiiiit OOC… ;-; Obviously takes place in an AU where Connor is alive. Masterlist Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11

You and Connor were sitting in the kitchen, and you were eating the grilled cheese that he had made for you. He had used something other than American Cheese and holy crap, it tasted delicious. “This is amazing, Con. Thanks for making it,” you said as you took another bite. “What cheese is this?”

“White cheddar cheese,” he answered.

“Oh, it’s better than American Cheese,” you hummed. “Oh, I’m definitely gonna need some more of this!”

Connor laughed and watched as you ate the grilled cheese he had made for you. “Glad you seem to fucking enjoy it, dork,” he said.

You smiled giddily at the long-haired stoner sitting before you. “FUCK YES!! What are we going to do after this?” you asked.

“I may take you the fuck home? There really isn’t much to do today, unless you have an idea?”

You sat down your grilled cheese and hummed, “Ummmmm! Why don’t we watch tv? For a few hours, then you can take me home. Sound good?”

Connor thought about it and said, “Sure, why the fuck not. After you eat we can go into the damn living room and watch whatever you want, I guess.”

“Yeah! I’d like that, Con,” you said, beginning to eat again.

A few minutes later, you were ready to go into the den. “Okay~! Let’s go, Connor,” you said, standing up from the sit.

Connor stood up after you and walked into the living room. He plopped onto the couch and you plopped down beside him. The brown-haired stoner grabbed the remote and turned on the television. “What do you want to fucking watch?” he asked, looking over at you.

“Hmmm… how about Destination America? I love the creepy shit that they have on there! I wonder if A Haunting’s on!!” you exclaimed.

“Well, let’s fucking see, okay?” Connor asked and went to the television channel you wanted.

You squealed with happiness as you saw that the show you wanted to be on was on. “Yes!! It’s on!! And it’s The Wheatsheaf Horror, my favorite episode!!” you exclaimed, almost falling over in happiness.

“The what?” Connor asked, looking over at you.

You smiled and beamed, “Oh my God! So this episode is set in England, at a pub called Wheatsheaf. It’s really sad because it involves a child being murdered by this jackass named Joseph. And that’s all I’m telling you! Watch it with me, Con!”

Rolling his eyes, he said, “Fine, I’ll fucking watch it.” He sat back into the couch and asked, while it was on commercial (because you two popped into the show 15 mins in and it was time for a commercial), “So, do you only know that info because you searched it up later or do you learn all that shit from the show?”

“Well, most of it I do know from the show, but I know how the girl died. And it infuriates me. Like, this girl was maybe close to ten years old and she gets raped and strangled! I would have murdered that Joseph fuck, I’m glad her father killed that bastard,” you answered, sinking into the couch.

Connor’s eyes widened as you told him that and he sighed, “Wow, that’s fucking terrible…”

“Yeah, it really is, Con. And to think that some kids even to this day die like that is disturbing. I don’t understand the reason behind raping kids then murdering them, like are you so ashamed you raped a child that you have to kill them too? So that you aren’t reminded of the rape you just committed? Or so they cannot report you for raping them?”

“You just got really fucking morbid and fucked up, (y/n). Reel it back in, Jesus Christ,” Connor said.

“Oh, sorry,” you apologized.

Connor looked at you and said, “It’s okay? We all talk about fucked up shit from time to time, I guess.”

You covered your face. “Yeah, but I was actually… oh, it’s back on,” you said as it came back on. “Let us watch it!”

Connor rolled his eyes and turned his gaze towards the television. He watched the show and saw you sitting at the edge of your seat. He hummed to himself, deciding to ask you, “Hey, (y/n)?”

“Yes Con?”

“Wanna go stargazing later tonight? I mean, it’s a fucking Friday, might as well do something interesting, right?”

You looked at him and smiled, “Yeah, sure! Let’s do it! I would enjoy that.”

Connor smiled briefly to himself, said in response, “Good. We can go later tonight. I know a really good fucking spot for stargazing.”

An excited look crossed your face as you answered, “I believe it! And I can’t wait to go stargazing!!” You went back to watching the show.

The long-haired stoner leaned back and closed his eyes. His eyes were getting really heavy, and he noted that normally it would take him longer to get tired while high. It was weird that his eyes were so heavy, but he knew he wouldn’t be napping for long.

When Connor opened his eyes, he was under a star-speckled sky. “Orion is out, what do ya know,” he said to himself.

A female’s chuckle came from beside him and he snapped his head to look in its direction. It was you, smiling brightly as your eyes were focused on the starry sky above you two. “Yeah, my favorite constellation is Orion. I love how it’s so recognizable because of it’s belt stars. You know what they’re tied to?” you asked, placing your hands on your stomach.

“The Giza pyramids,” he answered. “I know that much.”

You giggled and looked over at him, the same bright smile on your face and your eyes were filled with love and what seemed like adoration. “I’m glad you know that, Connor. Makes it seem like you’re taking an interest in my passion,” you said then casted your gaze back at the sky. “The night sky is gorgeous, huh?”

Connor watched you, his heart slightly speeding up. You looked so beautiful with you (h/c) hair splayed across the grass beneath your head. He took a moment to take in the way your eyes twinkled as you stared at the sky. As he continued to take in you, he thought to himself, What the absolute fuck has she done to me? He wanted to reach out and touch your hand, and tell you that he’d always be there for you, even if he had a terrible temper.

He wanted to do a lot of things he would have never done before he had been partnered with you. Dare he say that in two days of talking with you that he had began falling for you? Yes, yes he did dare say that. Connor Murphy was quickly falling in love with you, the teacher’s pet. Gathering himself, he began, “Hey, dork?”

You tilt your head toward him again, “Yes, Connor?”

He felt himself grow flustered under your gaze, knowing he would regret what he was about to ask, but he still wanted—no needed to ask you this. For what seemed to be the first time in his life, Connor stuttered like Evan, “W-Will you go out with me…? It’s okay if you don’t want to!” You quickly sat up and stared at him, disbelief swirling in your eyes, thinking that this was a joke. Beginning to feel embarrassed he asked, Connor stammered, “F-fuck, you know what, just f-forget I said anything… I’m sorry that was s-so weird. S-shit, look, do—”

You cut him off with a cute little laugh and a smile, the disbelief swirling in your eyes just moments before gone. “Oh Connor, I would lo—”

You were shaking Connor by his shoulders excitedly, while exclaiming, “Connor! Connor! Look you’re gonna miss the good part!” You pointed at the television.

Connor’s eyes focused on the screen, the episode was a different one and he rolled his eyes, grumbling, “God dammit, it was getting to the good part.”

Laughing, you answered, “Yeah, I know, that’s why I woke your ass up, Con!”

15 minutes later, The Wheatsheaf Horror ended and another episode of A Haunting came on. But this time it an episode that dealt with demons, and you were slightly spooked. Thankfully the sun wasn’t ready to set yet but you still subconsciously scooted closer to Connor. “Why the fuck are you scooting closer to me, dork?” Connor asked you, raising his eyebrows in confusion.

“I, umm, I, uh…” you laughed nervously, “I don’t like… demons. Th-they scare me…”

“Then why do you watch this stuff, you fucking idiot?” he grumbled.

“Because, I-I like this stuff!” you answered.

Crossing his arms, Connor said, “You’re a fucking moron, you know that?”

Nodding, you shoved your face into Connor’s clothed chest, “Yes!! This is an episode I haven’t seen yet.”

Connor gasped a bit as you buried your face into his chest. She’s so fucking cute, he thought to himself, resting an arm hesitantly around your shoulder. It happened without him putting much thought into it. Connor wanted to protect you, but he also was freaking out, he had never protected someone before in the way his heart was saying he wanted to protect you.

You hummed in surprise as he unknowingly pulled you closer to his body. He was warm and you splayed across his chest. The demonic episode faded in the back of your mind, as your senses were flooded with Connor. Only Connor. You listened to his breathing and heartbeat instead of listening to the television. Again, everything was consumed by Connor’s presence—your thoughts, your hearing, your smell, your touch, everything. Subconsciously you grabbed a fistful of his shirt as your buried your face into his chest yet again. 

The smell of his cologne filled your nostrils and you felt like you were getting dizzy. You thought to yourself, Can I just smell him all day? His scent is so fucking intoxicating! Fuck everything but Connor Murphy right now!

Connor felt you burying your face into his chest and thought it was only because you were frightened because of the episode. He wasn’t aware that you were just enjoying both the warmth and scent of his body. “Don’t fucking worry, dork. Nothing’ll get you. I fucking promise,” he said out loud and mostly to himself.

Luckily, you were not remotely listening to what he could have been saying. You were still absorbed in Connor to care. Ah, fuck, he smells too good~ you thought to yourself. “You smell fucking amazing, Con,” you said aloud and dreamily.

Connor heard you, looked down at you and said, “The fuck? What did you just say, dork?”

Now that you heard. Hearing his voice, you stopped immediately. D-did I just say that out loud…? “W-what? What did you say, Con?” you asked in a stammering voice.

“I asked you what the fuck you just said, moron,” the long-haired stoner said, his eyes boring into your soul.

You felt yourself grow anxious. Yes, of course you knew what you said. “I, umm… I said nothing, Connor,” you said quickly.

“That’s bullshit, because I know what you said. I just fucking wanted you to admit what you said, idiot,” he hissed. “Now get the fuck off me.”

You shot off Connor, throwing your hands in the air. “Okay, okay, okay. Sorry… you were just so inviting and I didn’t want to leave your chest,” you spoke quickly.

Connor pushed himself off the couch and said, “Whatever. Fuck. Do you want to just go on a drive? While we wait for the right time to go stargazing?”

“Sure…? It is a Friday, so I can stay out much later,” you said, standing up yourself.

“Okay, let’s fucking go then,” he said, grabbing his keys from his pocket. Walking towards the front door, Connor looked over his shoulder and saw you bounding up behind him. He smiled to himself as he opened the front door and walked out to his truck, you following on his heels.

As you two got situated in his truck, you looked over at him and said, “Hey, could we still listen to my music? I promise it’s different than Marianas Trench!”

Looking over at you, he said, “The fuck kinda music are you going to play then?”

“A musical…” you muttered.

“A WHAT?! You’re into that shit?” he laughed. You nodded shyly, made a little noise and he stopped laughing. Like, you were so cute and you weren’t even trying. After Connor composed himself, he said, “Which fucking musical?”

You hummed to yourself, looking at your phone, “It’s more of which musicals… I’m obsessed with Heathers, Hamilton and Be More Chill… d-don’t ask me why, blame Alexa!”

Connor rolled his eyes as he answered, “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“NO! I’m not kidding! B-but, we don’t have to listen to my music… I don’t have much that would i-interest someone like you, Connor.”

Sighing, Connor pulled his phone out. “Do you like Arctic Monkeys, dork?” he asked.

“Arctic what?” you asked, tilting your head.

“Never fucking mind, you’ll learn today,” he handed you his phone. “While I drive, plug my phone into the AUX cord and play my Arctic Monkeys playlist. Do you fucking understand? Oh, and while you’re at it, I guess you can put your number in there, too. Y-y’know so we can text about this damn project!”

You nodded, plugged his phone into the AUX cord, put your number in his phone and played his playlist. “Okay, it’s done, Con. You can start drivin’ now,” you said.

“I already did, fucking dork,” he laughed under his breath.

“Oh… cool. Also, I’m gonna text myself from your phone so I have your number,” you said, typing out a text from his phone. After you got the text and saved his number. You clicked his phone closed and set it down. “Okay, have your number now, Con,” you said with a smile. “So, we just gonna drive around town until it’s premium stargazing time?”

Shrugging, Connor answered, “Pretty fuckin’ much. We can go on the back roads if you don’t mind.”

“Am I witnessing Connor Murphy asking for someone’s agreement? I just you would just force me to do whatever the fuck it is you want me to do,” you laughed from behind a hand.

Rolling his eyes, Connor answered, “Pssh, you wish. You’re in my truck, we do what ever the fuck I want to do, goddammit.”

You laughed and looked down at your phone. Three people had texted you. Your mother and Evan and Jared (yes, you two exchanged numbers too). Your mother just wanted to know your plans for the night and you told her you would be back at home by midnight.

From: Smol Bean🌱 Hey, (y/n)… it doesn’t bother you if I text you, does it??

You could hear the anxiety as he typed that, you answered him with a smile.

To: Smol Bean🌱 Why would it bother me, Evan? Got anything you wanna talk about?

After you sent that to Evan, you looked at Jared’s text.

From: Glasses Kink 👓 Hey, sexy, what’cha doing tomorrow night? Wanna fuck? …or go to a party with me and Evan? Connor may go if that idiot ever answers his fucking phone!

To: Glasses Kink 👓 Sorry, Glasses. You know I only fuck Connor right now, but thanks for the offer, if I get desperate and I stop fucking Con, I’ll hit you up. As for him answering right now, he’s… B U S Y

From: Glasses Kink 👓 Are you with him?

You laughed and looked at Connor, biting your lower lip. Jared didn’t need to know that you were just driving around, so you thought why not fuck with him? Couldn’t hurt? After all, had to keep up that you and Connor had actually had sex.

To: Glasses Kink 👓 Yeah, I am. I think we’re about to fuck or something. But, idk, Con likes to tease me with a small taste of it I’m gonna get then sometimes he just doesn’t give it to me. But then again, this is our like, THIRD day having sex, soooooo

From: Glasses Kink 👓 ARE YOU TELLING ME YOU AND CONNOR HAVE BEEN FUCKING SINCE YOU MET?!

To: Glasses Kink 👓 That’s exactly what I’m saying, Glasses. So, if I randomly stop texting you know why ;p

From: Glasses Kink 👓 Oh that is so unfair that Murphy gets to fuck you but I don’t

To: Glasses Kink 👓 Is that so? Maybe I should tell him what a fucking treat it is to be sexing me up?

From: Glasses Kink 👓 You don’t have to tell him that, but do know when you’re done with Murphy, I’m right here for you ;)

You rolled your eyes and sighed out loud. Your sigh caught Connor’s attention and he said, “The fuck are you sighing about?”

“Glasses Kink…” you muttered.

“Glasses Kin—” he started then gasped, understanding who you meant, “Jared. What the fuck are you doing texting that dork?”

You shrugged and looked back down at your phone, saying, “I’m also texting Evan, too. Jared also said that there’s a party tomorrow, is that true?”

“I fucking guess? He may have just texted me about that shit. That nerd is always getting us invited to parties and Evan and I end up dragging his drunk ass out of the party. Usually he ruins the whole goddamn outing for us,” huffed Connor.

From: Smol Bean🌱 I was wondering if you could help me with some history homework?

To: Smol Bean🌱 Yeah, I can. Text me whatever you need, Ev

From: Smol Bean🌱 Thanks, (y/n)

To: Smol Bean🌱 Please, call me (y/n/n), Ev

From: Smol Bean🌱 Ookay

You laughed and looked at the text you just got from Evan. “Well, that fucking sucks, Con. But, if I am invited, I can make sure Jared doesn’t get too drunk!” you laughed.

“Yeah, because you’ll be the dumbass fucking drunk. You are the type of fucking dork who has never gone to a party before. Because she was too guarded as a freshman in high school,” scoffed Connor.

Nodding, you answered, “Okay, guilty as charged, okay, but fuck. It would fun to go to a party with you, Connor. We can see how explorative I get when drunk.” You teasingly lick your lips at him, which of course he caught out of the corner of his eye.

It almost caused him to fucking choke on his own spit. “FUCK!” he coughed.

“Sorry, Connor!” you exclaimed.

“I could have,” he trailed off into another cough, “FUCKING killed us because of that!”

You shrunk, apologizing, “I said I was sorry… I won’t do it again…”

“Thank fucking God!”

“While you’re driving. I’m definitely going to lick my lips, you always look delicious to me,” you finished, winking at him, biting your lower lip. Connor glared at you in a side-glance and you buckled over in your seat, covering your mouth, laughing hysterically. “OH MY GOD!! I can’t believe I said that with a straight face,” you cry-laughed to yourself.

“You are absolutely fucking horrid, (y/n),” he hissed.

“But you still wanna fuck me!” you laughed, “You have to wanna fuck me around Glasses Kink!”

Connor groaned and focused his eyes on the road, “Well, the sun has gone down, we can go to the park and stargaze now.”

You nodded, “I’d like that. Can we fuck afterwards?” You bit your lip, knowing Connor was so done with your shit.

His sigh gave it away. He was so fucking annoyed with you, but something about you was endearing. Like, he really did grow feelings for you in the two or three days you two had been talking. Taking an entirely different approach to his retort, he surprised you with a serious sounding, “Yes! Okay, fine, we’ll fuck on the hood of my truck! Are you satisfied, (y/n)? I am going to fuck you on the hood of my truck and you will enjoy it like you always do, you fucking slut for me!”

“Oh wow… that was actually kinda hot, Connor,” you said aloud.

“That was the point,” he said, turning his attention to you at a stop sign. He leaned over, grabbed your chin and forcefully kissed you. Not that you minded in the slightest. No, you were actually liking the kisses you had been receiving from Connor the last day and a half. When he pulled away from the kiss, he started driving towards the park.

TAGS: @saturdayschilddrivesmewild  @defenestrate-yourself-please  @hamilton-canyouimagine  @philyylester  @arsonboirich

Also, I plan on the parts getting longer after this one. I plan on ending “Catching Murphy” at part 15 and starting a new one, taking place in college called “Loving Murphy” because why tf not, right?

[themikeymonster]

went in to halfprice books today, remembered the terrible theory of not being able to tolerate books because of the awful cliches - --- --------- the boring main male characters and regrettable plots --- ----------------- which i also saw a lot of ----------- and quickly fell into despair --------------

i defaulted to horror, because even if your protagonists are awful, you just cheer the monster on :3c

saw a lot of John Saul??? I don’t know authors very well. If fanfic didn’t let me immediately access all of an authors works, then I’d be even worse at following someone’s entire anthology. anyway.....

Picked up one of his books, Creature. Im screeching, because I just checked and apparently this is a book from 1990? nice. The back is like “A powerful high-tech company. A postcard-pretty company town. Families. Children. Sunshine. Happiness. A highschool football team that never-ever-loses. And something else. Something horrible ....” What made me buy the book was where it switched to italics. “Now, there’s a new family in town. A shy, nature-loving teenager. A new hometown. A new set of bullies. Maybe the team’s sports clinic can help him. Rebuild him. Then they won’t hurt him again. They won’t dare.”

If John Saul ends up being a tolerable writer, I’ll have lots of material to read. I mean, the shelves were full of all kinds of books - apparently he’s pretty prolific.

I also picked up a couple of werewolf books, because I’m always a slut for werewolves, and I’ve been thinking a lot about my original story which riffs off the standard horror tropes involving werewolves (but seems like it’s actually going to feature a lot of social commentary ............ a favorite default of mine, it seems. :\ )

One is Wolf’s Trap, the back of which reads like a hilariously bad cop/noir novel. “Nick Lupo is a good cop - a bit of a renegade at times, with the instincts of a great detective .... or maybe a wolf. Lupo has a lot in common with wolves, which is only natural considering he’s a werewolf. He’s battled the creature inside him for years, but now there’s another predator in the area. A bloodthirsty serial killeris leaving  atrail of victims, and it’s up to Lupo to track him down and stop the slaughter. Will Lupo dare to unleash one beast to stop another?”

I’m going into that book with no expectations, because Lupo, are you serious? The cover art is also a bit ridiculous. This one is a bit harder to date, but apparently was a finalist for the Bram Stoker award in 2004.

The other book, I wasn’t initially certain was a werewolf book despite the title “Red Moon.” I found out when I cracked it open looking to avoid any first person pov, where someone is explicitly called a Lycan. This one reads, “When government agents kick down Claire Forrester’s front door and murder her parents, Claire realizes just how different she it. Patrick Gamble was nothing special until the day he got on a plane and hours later stepped off it, the only passenger left alive, a hero. Chase Williams has sworn to protect the people of the United States from the menace in their midst, but he is becoming the very thing he has promised to destroy. So far, the threat has been controlled by laws and violence and drugs. But the night of the red moon is coming, when an unrecognizable world will emerge ... and the battle for humanity will begin.”

It’s got a rather minimalist cover and seems to have been published in 2013, so it’s probably the most recent of the books I picked up. It seems to be a more classic type of book that I enjoy reading from time to time - like the way Michael Crichton writes. The kind where the characters take second position to the plot. I find that’s the easiest original content to consume for me, where as with fanfiction, I have to have character exploration and focus on relationship dynamics to remain engaged.

Then I somehow came across a legit zombie heroine. I actually didn’t read the title until I got it home: “The Year of Eating Dangerously”. The back of this one reads, “As a lawyer, Mallory Caine considers it her duty to defend the innocent. As a flesheating zombie, she knows how to take a bite out of crime. So when a scared ten-year-old boy asks for her help - claiming that his mother wants to eat him - Mallory rises to the occasion. Unfortunately, the occasion is a Satanic Ritual, the mom is a monster, and the boy is a sacrifice. Before you can say ‘the devil made me do it,’ Mallory is caught dead center between a family of freaks, fire-breathing demons, and the final battle of good versus evil. If she doesn’t have enough on her plate, the brain-chomping lawyer has to defend her zombie-hunting father in court. And, oh yeah: her flesh-eating secret is about to be exposed by a sexy LAPD detective who’s good enough to eat. What’s a zombie girl to do ...?”

IT’S JUST SO DELIGHTFUL??? I HOPE THE STORY IS AT LEAST AS GOOD AS THAT BLURB. I was pretty bored until I discovered that book. Horror is entertaining and all, but few things are as delightful as the completely absurd. I’m only dismayed to discover it’s not the first in the series - i really prefer to read series in order - but if it follows the usual format of book series of this genre, then I can probably deal with it. It’ll probably be one of the last ones I read, because I always save the delightful for last =w= This one came out in 2012.

and the book that I picked up that I’m most excited to read, “Heart Sick” which actually wasn’t in the horror section but next door in the Mystery/Thriller section. This one reads: “Portland Detective Archie Sheridan spent years tracking Gretchen Lowell, a beautiful and brutal serial killer. In the end, she was the one who caught him .... and tortured him ... and then let him go. Why did Gretchen spare Archie’s life and then turn herself in? This is the question that keeps him up all night - and the reason why he has visited Gretchen in prison every week since. Meanwhile, another series of Portland murders has Archie working on a brand-new task force ... and heading straight into the line of fire. The local news is covering the case 24/7, and it’s not long before Archie enters a deadly game of cat-and-mouse with the killer - and his former captor. But this time, it’s up to Archie to save himself ...”

I mean, aside from the fact that i’m always a slut for serial killers, EW LITERALLY DRAWS COMPARISONS TO HANNIBAL LECTOR ON THE COVER, IM CRYING!!!!! LIKE??? IS THIS NOT THE RED DRAGON??????? UM??? Only made extremely heterosexual lmaooooo

but it’s somewhat interesting for the man to be the victim, and also I was seduced by the bright red cover and crude heart shape and the title “heart sick”, I am predictable and weak. “Love hurts. Sometimes it’s torture.” COVER BLURB PLEASE, I ALREADY PICKED THE BOOK UP, IT IS PAID FOR.

It’s definitely taunting me lol

I mean, I’m 99.999999% sure already that whatever I’m dreaming up in my own head is better than this book, if only because I can cater to my own psychological quirks 100% and ahhh ahhh but i loVE some psychos in love ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤

[maximumpenetration]

heavensward: the snacktaku review

My friend, my buddy, my brother in arms for the past year and a half Mettic posted his own Heavensward retrospective about a month and a half ago. And since we all know that originality and creativity are fake news, I’ve decided to do the same thing - I even copied his patch-by-patch breakdown because what is he gonna do about it?

Going into Heavensward, I had been subbed for most of ARR (minus one month). I’d tried forming a raid group in 2.0, telling myself I was only leading it until someone else would step up to the plate, and ended up making a big mess of things. Between then and 3.0 launch I left my FC, rejoined my FC, cleared T5 and T9, and fell behind in Extreme primals, only really catching up with Shiva EX (since it was so easy).

June 10th will also mark the 2nd anniversary of the end of my Quest for Nepto Dragon,  a month-long fishing adventure in catching some of the biggest fish assholes in 2.0. The tag is a sparse two pages, but I can’t tell you how many days I lost tracking weather and trying to catch Kuno the Killer and Shonisaurus - the fact that there’s 20 days between me turning in the first three and turning in these two should be evident enough. But I ended up with the title that I still proudly sport to this day.

With that all said, I ended up going into Heavensward feeling pretty conflicted. I was excited about the content the expansion would bring, but my FC was pretty bare bones, and I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do outside of “fish more”. I had all jobs at 50, and I’d decided to plow through the Main Scenario as a Warrior for both easy tank queues and because it was the only job I felt comfortable with, so I geared it up as much as I could and stood by for early access to start.

3.0 - Heavensward

I’ve said a few times to my friends that I think Heavensward’s story was heavily rewritten in the middle of production. I have no proof of this, outside of a comment from a presentation at the first set of fanfests that the CG trailers take upwards of a year to complete - it always seemed weird to me that Lolorito is featured looking menacing in the trailer, only to have the entire Before the Fall plotline bottom out early on in the Heavensward main scenario.

Beyond that, though, I really enjoyed the 50-60 experience - even crappy moogle hunt quests couldn’t help keep me down. I blitz through the main scenario - Lodestone tells me I got my WAR60 achievement on the 22nd of June, two days after early access started. Looking back now that seems absurd!

But there’s a weird bit of tranquility that comes with pushing ahead of the majority of people (a lot of whom were busy grinding out the new jobs in Northern Thanalan). Being one of the first people in places like Churning Mists and Dravanian Hinterlands felt like treading on forbidden lands. I remember walking into Idyllshire, recognizing that it was meant to be the new Revenant’s Toll, and just quietly appreciating that very few people were going to get to experience it the way I saw it - almost completely empty save for NPCs, no crowd sounds, no dudes on giant Behemoth mounts crowding around the tomestone vendor.

And even though I felt like I went way too fast, there were still people farming Neverreap and Fractal when I first stepped in there, for the first time really making me appreciate how to pull more than one group of enemies, while also scaring the pants off me in my barely 60, not even fully geared with Law gear setup. 

The very first thing I did after getting to 60 and finishing the main scenario? I went right back to fishing. And then I leveled the other two gatherers for good measure and to get rid of shared gear. Why not? I was planning to level crafting jobs down the line, and I should be able to gather whatever I needed.

Along the way I decided to give this new tanking job a try. My main job was still warrior, though!

Also, in late June/early July I started hearing about this little program called Discord, that made it fairly easy to set up a voice chat server for your groups. I’d been wanting to get away from using the Mumble server of an old, general group of friends for a while now (sometimes the channel names were... not good, and I wanted to invite random people to do group things with and not have them see something stupid and bail immediately).

Now, I don’t mean to brag, but I’d like to personally take responsibility for helping the FFXIV community embrace Discord. In every Extreme party I ran, I’d mention that we used Discord as our VOIP, and that it was free and easy to set up. And then I noticed more and more people picking it up and mentioning it in their PF listings, some of whom I knew I had invited to my server before. So, yeah, everyone make sure to let Hammer & Chisel know how much I mean to them. I’m waiting for my check.

Along the way we also picked up a few new members straight from this blue hellsite! Carlego came a-callin’, and Mettic not long after, and more of their friends after that. People have come and gone since then, but Carlego and Mettic (and Ian, I guess) helped form a new core to our small FC, and the fact that they stick around despite the fact that I’m the FC leader is a testament to their ability and our friendship.

We had a bunch more people in the FC, and a few inactive members even came back. Almost as if we could get a static group of people to do content with. Hmm.

Other quick notes because this section is getting way too long (the others won’t be as long I promise): Bismarck and Ravana EX were fun fights. I had a lot of fun main tanking, off tanking, and later (once Mettic got his Warrior to 60) DPSing and healing Ravana. I still hadn’t planned to do Savage in 3.0, and hearing the horror stories of A3S didn’t make it sound any better. Also I absolutely hated doing A2N, and the thought of that fight being even harder chilled me to the core. No thanks. Gordian gear looks like trash. I’m really proud of this dumb post.

3.1 - As Goes Light, So Goes Darkness

I’ll be real with ya’ll - I get absolutely petrified when it comes to doing new difficult fights. This is a weird thing to say as someone who allegedly leads seven other dudes into really hard fights, but it’s true. I try to get around it by consuming as much about a new fight as I can before we do it, but even then I think there’s no better way to learn a fight than to actually do it, and it’s super frustrating when, in this game, you need to learn the back half of a fight, but you’re still somewhat shaky on the front half.

Thordan EX is alleged to have eleven phases, some of which require more precise positioning than others. I could mostly pick up the first half of the fight, but as a group we barely got to the back half of the fight often enough that I found myself constantly second-guessing my positions for certain mechanics. I absolutely hate this fight - not just because we didn’t clear it before 3.1 ended, but because even today I cannot make the back half of the fight click in my head. It’s a wonderfully designed encounter with great music and cool looking weapons - I’m just not keen on going back without being able to clown it at 70. ᵃᶫˢᵒ ᵗʰᵉ ᶦᶰᶠᶦᵍʰᵗᶦᶰᵍ ᵈᶦᵈᶰ'ᵗ ʰᵉᶫᵖ ᵇᵘᵗ ʷʰᵃᵗᵉᵛᵉʳ ʸᵒᵘ ᶜᵃᶰ'ᵗ ᶠᶦˣ ˢᵒᵐᵉ ᵖᵉᵒᵖᶫᵉ

By this point, Mettic had taken up the mantle of the group’s Warrior, and I’d leveled both Paladin and Dark Knight to 60, but for learning new fights I felt infinitely more comfortable on Paladin. I’d kept leveling other jobs slowly, but nothing really clicked with me outside of tanking. 

We still never touched Savage, and most of our hardcore groupups were for throwing our bodies at Thordan more. Not the best time in terms of progression, but no one was quitting out of frustration or anything, and we had a pretty decent stable of people in the FC covering a lot of time zones, so I like to think everyone had a good time.

I don’t know who the two cats are.

3.2 - Gears of Change

3.1 extreme primal was kind of a bummer, but I think we hit the ground running with 3.2. Obviously, not everything worked out for everyone (you should go ask Yamcha Mettic that), but Sephirot was a strong fight, and one that I found myself really enjoying. The mechanics are cleanly spelled out for you, tanking that wind up punch feels metal as hell, and the 2nd phase music is bumpin. It’s also the first time I decided I should really hash out how to play Dark Knight - it’s the first time I really started noticing PLD was popping at the seams, although I wasn’t ready to give the job up completely yet.

Yes, I know Carve and Spit is off cooldown. I was learning!

3.2 also saw us starting up our raid static! We stepped in there with our shiny new Shephirot weapons thinking we were kings of shit mountain, but I think we were humbled pretty quickly, even if our first Hummelfaust kill was absolutely dirty.

Let me take the time to say that I hate the Faust series of mobs. I realize that having a bodyguard at the front door check your DPS license before you’re let into the club lets weaker groups know that they need to work on their gear/skill, but as a poor idiot tank it’s the most boring stuff in the world. Don’t move, run your cooldowns, and hope the rest of your team can shit out enough damage to kill it before you run out of cooldowns. These fights are fuckin’ lame.

I’ll touch on Midas more in the next section, but on reflection I think 3.2 was when I started jumping into party finder groups less and less. It stemmed mostly from frustration with pubbie Sephirot parties seemingly unable to grasp very basic mechanics, but at the same time I think I was scared - my biggest fear when it comes to public groups is walking in thinking I’m Mr. Big Dick after clearing the content and messing up some incredibly basic thing. I’ve also gotten more and more reliant on voice comms for hard content, so joining a group that doesn’t have a VoIP setup started becoming an instant turn off.

3.3 - Revenge of the Horde

I’m not sure how I feel about Nidhogg Extreme, mostly because I don’t remember much about it. As a group we had some trouble tank swapping the adds, and I know other people (😏) had trouble with positioning and figuring out where divebombs were coming from, but the fight itself seemed pretty trivial from a tank perspective. It’s another fight I went on Dark Knight on after getting comfortable with Paladin, and playing Dark Knight started necessitating that I experiment with dropping tank stance more often. This is definitely one of my favorites out of this expansion.

I think my refusal or inability to put my foot down when it came to people missing days in Midas is what really dragged the group down. It’s something I’d tried to be more proactive about both as Midas continued and we shifted to Creator, but as far as the game goes I feel like a lot of the burden from us not getting farther in Midas is on me. That’s not to say it wasn’t fun - holy shit, some of our groups best memes and jokes came out of Midas, especially T6 with how stir-crazy we were going from being stuck in that tier for so long. But I should’ve been ready to drop people sooner, instead of holding out hoping they’d be able to fix themselves. We ended up eventually clearing A6S, then going in to A7S a couple of times before things started falling apart. After the dust settled, we'd lost one member to personal obligations and the other to the allure of an EU server. We found replacements in-house where we could, but Midas was done. We’d take a fresh step forward with Creator, and hopefully do better.

Also 3.3 added the Novice Network. What a terrible, horrible, no good very bad shithole that place is. I’m pretty sure the chat actively turns new players off from playing the game (at least on Hyperion). Worthless discussions, dudes who think just because they’ve got a crown they’re king of shit mountain, and completely ignoring actual requests from new players for assistance are just some of the dumb shit that goes on in there. Another mentor actually sent me a tell once when I offered to make a new guy some gear that I shouldn’t spoonfeed newbies. What the fuck? Fuck you.

I hear in JP servers the novice network serves its purpose. That’s great for them. Delete Novice Network from Primal and Aether.

3.4 - Soul Surrender

Sophia Extreme was a joke. It also made joining PUGs more appealing to me. Using the fight to kit out most of my active jobs was a nice way to spend time, but the fight itself left zero impact on me and the weapon designs are boring as hell. I did end up going Paladin on this fight more so we could cheese one of the tankbusters with Invincible.

Our Creator static started off extremely well. We downed A9S quickly (fuck Faust fights still) and A10S fell not long after that. Then we. . . kind of stalled at A11S for a while. Mettic says we cleared A11S before 3.5, which I don’t clearly remember so I’ll defer to him on that. There was always something tripping someone up, and I got incredibly frustrated with some of the group seemingly unable to “get it”, or worse acting outright belligerent at the idea of following a laid out strategy at all, and that was if we didn’t suddenly have a last minute cancellation from a member. I did follow through with trying harder to find replacements for absent members, but sometimes you can’t and I’d rather guarantee someone a quick A9 and A10 win than go begging for someone to come learn A11 with us.  It was frustrating for me personally because I felt like we were right back in A6S - all the pieces were there, but we couldn’t put them together. Thankfully we did pull through, but it would take us another four months after our A11S clear to finish the fight in A12S.

What did end up happening during our A11S prog was I stopped pussyfooting around with the idea of playing DRK in endgame content and just dove in. The idea triggered after a particularly nasty wipe that we had gotten so close to winning, and my basic thinking was that if I had been a DRK, that would’ve given us enough DPS to win it. There was an immediate improvement in our times after I switched, and it’s a job I’ve grown from almost hating in 3.0 to considering it my main through the rest of the expansion cycle.

I don’t have a ton of screenshots from this patch. There just wasn’t a lot going on at the time. We were plugging away at our Creator prog, and I’d be working on my Paladin relic (finish what I started) or some other fluff, but for the most part this patch was all about the raids for me.

3.5 - The Far Edge of Fate

I suspect when my FC members heard me say I wasn’t that interested in farming Zurvan, they thought it was because I thought it was too hard. Not really - on paper, the mechanics looked simple enough, and I was sure we could get it done. But at this point we’d had A11S mostly on farm, which meant each week one very special boy was getting a 270 weapon. Suddenly the appeal of a weaker primal weapon was a lot lower. In fact, the rest of my raid group ended up getting their Zurvan clear before me - I don’t remember why exactly, I think I was just busy on the day they wanted to run it. I did eventually clear it, but it’s the one fight I’ve never tanked, having taken in a SCH with ghetto Accuracy melds to do some passable DPS. Not my finest hour, but it’s just so hard to care.

A12S prog continued along. We still had issues with people missing days or becoming busy, but we worked along with it as much as we could.

And then almost in quick succession, we lost two people. To real life obligations - they didn’t die or anything.

Since this is 3.5, and the cross-world Party Finder had just been added, we found ourselves in a good situation where we had the ability to recruit from beyond our server. We eventually ended up picking two dudes, and progress continued. We had a lot less interruptions, and made some good progress. We were dangerously close to getting a clear!

And then one of the dudes just unceremoniously dropped from the Discord server.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll continue to say it - if we hadn’t had so many interruptions in our raid schedule, we would’ve definitely cleared Creator Savage before echo. Everyone knew what they were doing, and even if we clowned around a lot we still got shit done. But there were too many interruptions, too many people having to dip out at bad times. It didn’t help that our A12S strategy drew more from Angered FC’s clear, when Xenosys’ video strat ended up becoming the one most people got used to (side note: I fucking hate video-only guides).

But we, eventually, after enough blood, sweat, tears, and a little bit of echo, were able to get our clear in.

Onward to Stormblood

Two years ago, I wouldn’t have thought that at the end of an expansion I’d be sitting here today, telling you about how much of a failure I felt like trying to raid the game again. I’d honestly thought I was done with prog after my Binding Coil group fell apart, and I really thought I was done when a Second Coil group I joined also broke apart due to infighting. But here I am anyway, and despite feeling like I could’ve done so much better than I did, at the same time it’s a weirdly good type of feeling - I know I can do better, that we as a group can do better, and it’s something I want to push for as we get ready for Stormblood and Omega. And I’d love to say that I’ll be tanking as I always have, but man they added Red Mage to the game and that’s my job, and from the Live Letter and subsequent info it looks so fun you guys - so I’ll be picking that up, with another one of our trusty members jumping in as a tank instead. We’ve got a group that’s mostly stuck together through two raid tiers, and one of our Midas members is even coming back to us!

Aside from actually clearing a raid tier on time, I’d like to dive back into Party Finder and not be so scared of failure on a public front anymore.  Cross-server PFs means that I’m just another faceless dude in a sea of faceless dudes, and even if I screw up royally as long as I don’t make too big a scene the other dudes aren’t even gonna remember me. And hey, if you’ve made it this far and somehow aren’t someone who follows me, give me a shout-out and let’s work on stuff together! (as long as you’re on a Primal server). I’d love to meet new people from this site now that cross-server play is easier than ever.

In conclusion:

[awesome-shirley-fan]

What's old is new

What's old is new

DESCENDER

One young robot’s struggle to stay alive in a universe where all androids have been outlawed and bounty hunters lurk on every planet. A rip-roaring and heart-felt cosmic odyssey that pits humanity against machine, and world against world, to create a sprawling space opera from the creators of Trillium, Sweet Tooth, and Little Gotham.

ASCENDER

Powerhouse creative team JEFF LEMIRE and DUSTIN NGUYEN launch an all-new sequel series to DESCENDER with the launch of ASCENDER! Set ten years after the conclusion of DESCENDER’s storyline, magic has taken the place of machinery and the rules are very different indeed… Mila, the daughter of Andy and Effie from DESCENDER, spends her days exploring the lonely wilds of the planet Sampson and trying to stay out of the clutches of the evil disciples of the all-powerful vampire witch known only as Mother. But, like her parents, Mila doesn’t like to play by the rules, and when a certain robot pal of her dad’s shows up, nothing will ever be the same! With all the scope and heart of the sci-fi classic DESCENDER, LEMIRE and NGUYEN reunite to take readers on an unforgettable fantasy quest!

Like you I’m sure you can tell when something is good, whether it’s a book, comic book or podcast you can’t stop consuming it. This is one you won’t be able to put down. Like most of Lemires work it’s excellent and addicting.  The whole future dynamic between robots and humans is fascinating to all of us, especially now when AI is getting closer than it ever has been. The art is gritty and fits the story telling. The story starts with Descender and chapter two is Ascender. Also as I have said before I like the story because it has a beginning and ending.If you like the conflict between humans and robots you will love Jeff Lemires Descender/Ascender.

            This isn’t new, but it’s new to me. EC Comics collection from Dark Horse. When you think Dark Horse might be down for the count they hit back hard, THE EC ARCHIVES

Entertaining Comics, more commonly known as EC Comics, was an American publisher of comic books, which specialized in horror fiction, crime fiction, satire, military fiction and science fiction from the 1940s through the mid-1950s, notably the Tales from the Crypt series. In 1954–55, censorship pressures prompted EC Comics to concentrate on the humor magazine Mad, leading to the company’s greatest and most enduring success. Initially, EC was privately owned by Maxwell Gaines and specialized in educational and child-oriented stories. Later, during its period of notoriety, it was owned by his son, William Gaines. He sold the company in 1960, and it was eventually absorbed into the Kinney National Company, the same corporation that later purchased DC Comics and Warner Bros.

EC had success with its fresh approach and pioneered in forming relationships with its readers through its letters to the editor and its fan organization, the National EC Fan-Addict Club. EC Comics promoted its stable of illustrators, allowing each to sign his art and encouraging them to develop unique styles; the company additionally published one-page biographies of them in the comic books. This was in contrast to the industry's common practice, in which credits were often missing,

They were also known for their shock endings in the stories, like Weird Fantasy #18 (April 1953) The story depicted a human astronaut, a representative of the Galactic Republic, visiting the planet Cybrinia, inhabited by robots. He finds the robots divided into functionally identical orange and blue races, one of which has fewer rights and privileges than the other. The astronaut determines that due to the robots' bigotry, the Galactic Republic should not admit the planet until these problems are resolved. In the final panel, he removes his helmet, revealing himself to be a person of color. Which in 1953 America was shocking. Almost all of their stories had an ending like this.

  Another fun series is Adventure into the unknown. One of the stories simply titled Haunted house might be what a Scooby Doo episode was based on. A couple has to stay overnight in a haunted house in order to get their inheritance from a rich relative. The lawyer in charge of the estate tries to scare them out of the house by making the house appear to be haunted. Classic story and art from 1948. At the time these stories were considered edgy before the comics code of authority. These comics are the reason for the code.

What a great idea! Rather than create new characters and stories why not go back 75 years and retell stories to many who have never seen it.

This concept fits the saying “why recreate the wheel” you have great stories very few today have seen, why not reprint and give a chance for new readers to experience and enjoy an old story.

IDW also released a special limited run edition feature the best artists edition, but I believe the Dark Horse reprints are complete and unabridged.

If you have listened to this podcast for any length of time you can tell I’m a bit of a nostalgia nut. Seeing these old comics even though I didn’t live in this time period I still like the vibe I get from reading them. The optimism they project is inspiring, for example the writers had humans traveling in space like we drive to the grocery store. Yes, I will admit some of it is a bit corny but getting a glimpse of what people living in that time period were thinking is fun to consider.

Look at least one of these volumes and see what you think. The people who created these comics and stories were the pioneers of the industry that we enjoy today. They were learning as they went along. They created the medium and creators today are perfecting the medium.

          This reminds of the SNES classic my kids gave me. To clarify if you don’t know the SNES classic is a small Super NES console with 21 SNES games on it. No carts and they included controls identical to the original 1990 controllers. The games play just like the originals. again, what's old is new again.

Favorite games: Zelda Metroid and best of all you can hack it to play even more retro games from the NES to Sega Genesis and more.

Nostalgia is in and in a big way. With all that is going on in the world I believe people like to go back to what they believe in their mind was a simpler time. Whether it was or not is debatable, but if you go back to when you were 10 it was a simpler time. Or at least I hope it was for you. When you are 10 you don’t have to concern yourself with a job, house payments and getting the next promotion. The most you had to worry about is who you are going to hang out with today and what game to play.

Some may knock people who like to talk about and buy things from their childhood. I would say like most things there is a healthy and unhealthy balance that needs to be adhered to. For example, do not put a second mortgage on your house to buy that one-of-a-kind limited-edition Star Wars action figure. The guys over at the MEGA podcast came up with the idea of having a mini collection of MOTU figures. I believe the number to be considered mini was 8-10 figures. I thought this was a good way to not go overboard, but still have a piece of your childhood.

Overall, I don’t think it’s bad to have a few things from your past. You know the feelings and memories that come rushing back when you hold that one thing from your childhood and instantly you are 10 again and you have your whole world to explore. Even if it’s only for a few minutes at least let people enjoy it and let them share their memories with you and the excitement they got to experience. A friend told me his wife didn’t understand why he collected and talked about old MOTU figures. He said because it brings back feelings and memories from a good time in his life and made him feel good to revisit those memories again. She still didn’t understand why. A few months later her birthday came around and he bought her an original bear she had as kid that she mentioned she had lost during a move when she was a kid and wished she had never lost it. When she opened the box she was stunned and started to cry as the memories of the bear came rushing back. He had bought her the exact bear she had lost. And he said this is why I buy those old figures. That story nailed it for me. Maybe you have a similar story. If so you can email me cn@covertnerd.net or go to covertnerd.net to find out how to reach me. I will put a link in the show notes that you can access on whatever device you are using to listen to this podcast.

Let me know about your thoughts on this episode and any ideas you have for future topics I would love to hear what you think.

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[noelle-is-decaffinated-blog]

The Power of an Audience - The It Premiere

I love horror movies but I wasn’t always the extreme horror buff that I am today. In fact, when I was younger I didn’t start watching horror movies with my friend for years because I hated being scared. As a child, my parents were always fans of CSI and I just remember going downstairs to get water at night and running as fast as I could past the living room, so I wouldn’t see the scary things on-screen. Since finally getting over my fear of the horror genre I have gone on to study film and television, many of the programs studied being horror films. Now I think it’s safe to say that horror is my favourite genre and I think I’ve seen every horror movie worth seeing from the 1970s to now. So, naturally, I had to go and see the remake of Stephen King’s “It” with my roommates as soon as the film came out in September. Not only did viewing this movie with my friends place me directly in a literal audience, interacting with them on social media and using mediated communication allowed us to become part of a larger audience – a community. In many ways, this experience was an audience experience which allowed us to execute much of our power as an audience through consumer and social power while also serving as a venue where we could engage in mediated communication with the fellow audience and community members. Now I love a good scare, so let’s get started!

My experience with the movie It as an audience experience started before the movie had even come out. Being the film buff that I am, I follow a lot of social media pages that post full-length trailers of upcoming movies. Some of the trailers I’ve seen on their pages have been Get Out, Happy Death Day, and of course, It. One of the potential reasons that I became so quickly intent on seeing the movie is that I trust this source for good movie trailers, and I also know and trust that Stephen King is capable of delivering a stunning narrative. In Jayoen Lee’s paper, he discusses that in his study of how a journalists’ credibility influences their ability to influence. He notes that since social media is a part of a larger electronic ecosystem, there are many cases in which an individual will come across a journalist (or in my case, a social media page) that they are familiar with – these preconceptions about the individual will influence the audience member’s impressions on the media (Lee, pg. 325). Being a huge fan of Stephen King’s narratives and having become obsessed with the trailer after watching it, I was hooked before it even started. My preconceived idea about Stephen King completely influenced my decision; had the movie been based on a story written by an author I did not know, I may not have been as intrigued. Seeing that the movie’s premiere week was going to be the second week back to school, I thought it would be a great idea to tell my roommates about the movie and make a plan for a movie date when it came out. I tagged them all in the trailer on Facebook which engaged us in a conversation about the movie and opened up opportunities for mediated communication. Mediated Communication can be explained best as any communication that takes place through the usage of Information Communication Technology, or ICT – and as Jennifer Goode of Brock University says, it is most likely the first thing you do in the morning and the last thing you do at night. Since tagging my roommates in the trailer, we all became part of the community that has formed around this pop culture phenomenon. We actively took part in the community by tagging each other in various social media posts and memes related to the movie and engaging in online discussion about the film. 

Our mediated communication pertaining to the film increased dramatically when we all got back to school in September; many of us had friends who were also planning to see the movie, so we started tagging them in any relevant posts as well. By communicating with this large group of people, we formed our own community at Brock where we were able to engage in mediated communication over social media. Through this communication, we were not only socializing and engaging in community activities, we were also planning our movie night where we could all physically come together as an audience to enjoy the film. Even after the movie (which was phenomenal, if you ask me) our mediated communication continued to grow. At this point, we weren’t planning a movie night, but we were still acting as a community by sharing information about the movie and sharing media with one another. Now, anytime I see a post on social media such as a video or a meme that pertains to the film, I will more than likely tag the friends I saw the movie with. This action keeps us all involved in the community that has formed online around this film. Our audience continued to grow as more of our friends and people at school went out to see the movie. If I heard someone in my classes talking about the movie, I’d make comments and engage in their conversation, thus expanding the audience and opening up opportunities for more mediated communication later. When engaging in this continued mediated communication after seeing the movie, we are exhibiting a low level of audience involvement. William J Brown calls transportation, the lowest level of audience involvement, being cognitively and emotionally involved in the story, identifying with characters, and exhibiting an attachment to them (Brown, 262). He goes on to say that transportation in a way transports the reader or viewer into the narrative world and allows them to get lost in the story.

While at the actual screening of the movie, the energy of the audience was intense. Even before we got into the theatre the audience present felt overactive and energized – you could definitely tell that the audience was excited to see the film. The energy that we felt in the lobby continued all the way through the line and into the theatre, where the energy seemed to go up another level, which I hadn’t thought possible at this point. We slowly worked our way through the massive crowd towards our designated seats and got cozy before the movie started. Throughout the previews, the theatre was full of audience chatter while people discussed the movie and what they were predicting was going to happen. By the time that the movie actually started, the crowd had fallen mostly silent but you could still feel the tension and excitement crackling in the air. This being a crowd of predominantly young university students, the crowd was understandably rowdy. I immediately drew connections to this audience and the nineteenth-century idea of Rowdyism. Many members of the audience loudly shouted comments at funny or suspenseful scenes of the film, and audience reactions to things like jump scares or kisses were amplified due to the excitement in the crowd. While not devolving to the point of being savages, in many ways this audience seemed to exhibit many characteristics of early audiences in the sense that they were extremely overactive. The audience behaviour was somewhat similar to seventeenth-century audiences, who would often shout things at the performers in response to the content being shown. At this point in time, the present day crowd at It did not go as far as to throw food at the screen because they disliked what they were being shown but had it been socially and morally acceptable to do so, I’m sure many would have. These actions were previously seen as audience rights, but in the twentieth century, those rights were quickly revoked and seen as impolite and an example of poor manners.

As an audience viewing the film we had power, in the simplest terms that power was because we were a large group of individuals grouped together and we had actual physical power. By buying tickets to the show we were also able to execute a certain degree of our consumer power, and as an audience, that power is much stronger than normal. This film was a huge box office hit, and its successful turnout can be directly attributed to the power the audience holds. But why does the audience choose to support this movie? I mean, sure the trailers have been going around for months, and many fans of Stephen King’s original works saw this movie coming, but why was it this popular? As discussed in Professor Goode’s lectures, audiences can be seen as outcome, mass, or agent and each of these viewpoints tries to explain how audiences make their decisions. Audience as outcome claims that we are acted upon by the media, and this idea raises concern over how much power that the media holds over society and its inhabitants. If the audience is seen as mass, they are viewed as autonomous beings with no immediate knowledge of one another. Audience as mass may seem like the most realistic comparison to modern day audiences, but the description of the audience as agent is most likely the best bet. This views audiences as consisting of free agents who choose their media and interpret the texts around them using their own unique skills which help them to derive their own meanings. In my opinion, all the members of the audience at the It screening were there because we as an audience are free agents capable of making our own decisions and interpreting media in our own manner. 

The audience, as well as the media, hold a certain amount of power in the sense that they are both able to mold the public’s opinion about media. Earlier, it was discussed that If someone sees an article written by a journalist whom they know and trust then they are more likely to trust that journalist’s opinion. Similarly, in modern audiences, many members view the media as genuine and credible sources that are to be trusted, so upon seeing positive media coverage of the movie, those individuals are more likely to trust that coverage and go see the film. By the same logic, these audience members will also trust fellow audience members when they recommend the movie to them. But there is the possibility that this willingness to trust anyone has caused a spiral of silence surrounding the negative reviews of the film. John L. Sullivan describes the theory of the spiral of silence as individuals naturally fearing social isolation and therefore repressing their own opinions if they are not in-line with the dominant ideology (pg. 71). The spiral of silence gives an immense amount of power to the audience; as members, we are able to influence the reception of certain pieces of media. I personally have not talked to a single person who disliked the movie, however, this could potentially be because they fear that their non-normative opinion will go against the grain of society.

There are many ways in which an audience may execute their power – whether that be political power, consumer power, or simply the power to shift the dominant ideologies and influence the consumption of media in society. By viewing the film and engaging in various forms of mediated communication, my roommates and I effectively became part of the community and inserted ourselves into the narrative. This mediated communication allowed us to share the film with others and expand the audience that was a part of our community. Members of the audience are able to influence others because of their social power; others will conform to the opinion of the dominant therefore giving the audience power over others. By using all these methods and more, we as audience members have successfully executed our power.

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Works Cited

Brown, W. J. (2015). Examining Four Processes of Audience Involvement With Media Personae: Transportation, Parasocial Interaction, Identification, and Worship. Communication Theory, 25(3), 259-283. doi:10.1111/comt.12053

Lee, J. (2015). The Double-Edged Sword: The Effects of Journalists Social Media Activities on Audience Perceptions of Journalists and Their News Products. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 20(3), 312-329. doi:10.1111/jcc4.12113

Sullivan, J. (2013). Media Audiences: Effects, users, institutions and power. Sage Publications Inc., New York, NY.