#is this what the retired gore artist has come to?

[dr-skazka]

I’ve come with an even worse version of it

But due the state of it I’m putting him under a cut sksksks fucking- look at it on your own accord this one’s cursed as fuck sksksk

I wanted to share a drawing of my narrator as a badly drawn fetus.

Please make a badly drawn fetus narrator chain.

[deancashorrorfest]

We're Baaack... And Bigger than Ever

Come one, come all to the third year of Dean🔪Cas Horrorfest! We've got ghouls and gore, gays and theys! Cannibalism as far as the eye can see! Truly a feast for the senses.

This year I tasked these horrific creatures with a reverse round and they really ate the competition. Below the cut, you'll find things beyond any human comprehension.. Viewer beware, you're in for a scare.

Any Way That You Want Me | M | 10,455 It should have been a cake walk. Get in, investigate the haunted house, and figure out where to dig, salt and burn. But when Cas somehow gets cursed - trapped inside the house's mirrors - Dean finds himself in a race against time. Each day Cas' strength is fading. It's up to Dean to find a solution by digging through the house and the belongings of the former owner.

What he uncovers in the house may change everything. Link to Fic | Link to Art Wicked Muse | E | 15,673 Castiel Novak is a solitary creature. Corporate engineer by day, serial killer by night, and always by himself. Just the way he likes it. Until a new coworker's long, bowed legs, green eyes, and crooked smile catch his eye. He's certain he'll have to kill Dean, at first. He can't afford distractions, living the double life that he does. When the time comes, though, he just can't bring himself to do it. Artistic inspiration, long dormant in Castiel's life, replaces murderous intent.  As his obsession grows, so too does a newfound wish that he could share the deepest, darkest depths of himself with Dean. That Dean would understand, would accept, would even celebrate Castiel's bloody inclinations. But that's absurd. Unthinkable. Dean isn't like that. Is he? Link to Fic | Link to Art Herbicidal | T | 8,249 Dean is settled. His relationship with Cas is going strong, he has a place to call home, and his biggest problems are run-of-the-mill cases and unruly teenagers who think they know everything there is to hunting. Hell, he even plays with the thought of retiring. But then something starts killing people left and right in Lebanon, and Dean and Cas are faced with a case and a foe they have no idea what to do about. Link to Fic | Link to Art Oubliettes of Stone and Sky | T | 9,214 Dean is trying to sacrifice himself for his country like any good king would, and Cas has been sent to stop him. Cas has to keep Dean hostage while journeying through a dust storm and a castle with a mummy inside. Dean is waiting for the chance to escape--and Cas is ready to capture him again. Link to Fic | Link to Art Angel in the Ivory Castle | G | 20,074

Castiel's family is royalty in another world that has lived in peace for many years until recently a darkness has started to spread which has slowly overtaken the beautiful green fields they'd once walk through. Creatures have become corrupted, twisted and turned into something grotesque. Castiel was sent to the other world to find the being he is bonded to in which it's been rumored to save their world but in reality they know what's left doesn't look worth the risk. Link to Fic | Link to Art

Dean and Castiel vs. Evil | E | 31,451

Castiel is trying to survive a camping trip in the Appalachians with his annoying fraternity brothers. At a nearby cabin, Dean is trying to clean up the remains of his and Sam’s recent vamp hunt. Both Dean and Castiel wouldn’t mind exploring their mutual attraction.

But there’s a problem: due to a series of misunderstandings, Castiel’s friends are convinced that Dean and Sam are serial killers. The fact that Castiel's friends keep dying in increasingly grisly ways doesn't help matters. Is there really a killer on the loose? And will Dean and Cas ever manage to score some alone time? Link to Fic | Link to Art

Vacation Interrupted | M | 9,158 Dean can’t remember the last time he took a vacation. Fighting monsters is basically all he’s ever known. They’ve defeated Chuck and Dean finally grew a pair and confessed his feelings and Cas reciprocated. The two of them, along with Sam and Eileen, decide to dip their toes in the sand and take a vacation since the world is relatively monster free. Or at least they thought it was until a Kraken decided to ruin their vacation and start killing people, almost taking Dean for its next victim if Castiel didn’t rescue him in time. So much for a relaxing vacation. Link to Fic | Link to Art Communion | E | 53,639

Few areas in the world are subject to the polar night phenomenon, a period where the sun never rises above the horizon.

When Castiel Novak reaches out to the Winchesters for help, convinced that vampires are about to descend upon one such town during the upcoming polar night, the boys head up to Point Hollow, Alaska to clear the nest before night falls.

What was meant to be a three-day stay devolves into sixty-five days of bloodshed and darkness as resources dwindle and bodies start dropping. Overwhelmed by the calculated organization of the creatures and the size of their nest, it quickly becomes clear that there’s more to the ‘vampires’ than initially seemed.

They’re cunning, they’re ancient, and they’re powerful—and they’ll stop at nothing to be satisfied. But between the starving people and starving creatures, Dean manages to find solace in Castiel—who just might be holding a secret himself. A secret that is key to destroying the creatures and their master, once and for all. Link to Fic | Link to Art Romancing the Exit Sign | E | 125,370

A teenage boy is left to die in a shallow grave and something slithers into his bones. Devotees of an ancient god work to bring Her into the world, as with equivalent fanaticism, a man on a mission picks them off one by one. A lonesome drifter crosses paths with a mysterious stranger and finds himself inexorably drawn into the middle of it all.

Dean Winchester is adrift. All he has is his car, the next hunt, and a conversation he doesn’t want to have waiting for him in California. Then a case involving mangled bodies washing up on shore in an idyllic lakeside community puts him on the trail of a man calling himself Castiel, and the dangerous web he’s entangled in. Dean is used to living in a world of monsters, but the End of Days is a little out of his wheelhouse. Especially when his only ally is determined to keep his secrets behind his teeth, even as they draw closer together. Still, he intends to see things through, no matter how dark the path ahead gets.

It’s either that, or call his brother. Link to Fic | Link to Art Survivalism | E | 14,067

Genetic engineers Castiel Novak and Dean Winchester are on the verge of a breakthrough in cancer treatment and possibly even a cure, using genetic manipulation and incredibly, shark DNA.

Following a devastating diagnosis of brain cancer, and amid growing pressure from his boss, Dick Roman, for results, Castiel is pushed to an act of desperation. He tests the cure on himself with disastrous and violent results.

He has never been so hungry. Link to Fic | Link to Art

These Hallways Echo | M | 10,290 Loneliness. Previously, Dean Winchester had thought he knew the definition of the word, the way it felt to be isolated. That was wishful thinking. It’s here and now, in these never-ending corridors of winding walls and this damn carpet with the nauseating pattern, where Dean discovers the true meaning of being alone. Solitary. Detached. The man hears ghosts, echoes of conversations long since over, but there’s nobody for him to speak to. Dean sees the phantoms of late vacationers stepping through doorways or occupying beds but he can never get anybody’s attention. No one stops to hear him. Not a single soul has looked him in the eye or acknowledged that he, too, is trapped here. Caught in this unending hallway where time means nothing and waiting for tomorrow is fruitless. Link to Fic | Link to Art Ground Control to Major Tom | E | 21,506 Dean Winchester dreamed of being a mechanic all his life, but he never thought he would end up working as a mechanic for NASA and going into space. He is thrust into his first ever space mission after a strange lunar body, dubbed Luna-b I, mysteriously appears in Earth’s sky. Teams of astronauts scramble up to the permanent lunar base and begin analysis to determine if the blue orb is any threat to mankind. Most of the first team is sent home after a few months, nearly all of them having fallen ill with devastating cases of space sickness. As time goes on, it becomes clear that something altogether unnatural is going on here. Dean feels like he’s losing his mind as he and his crewmates also begin to succumb to sickness. He races to figure out what could possibly be the root cause. Is Luna-b I really just some weird, deep space rock that got caught in the Moon’s orbit by chance? Or is it something much more sinister, watching and waiting for the opportune moment? Link to Fic | Link to Art The Forgotten Halls | T | 9,337 A long time from now — maybe decades, maybe centuries — there are only the Halls, and the Entity, and the Angel. They exist in harmony, mostly. When an outsider changes their routine, a routine so long-standing that the Angel remembers nothing that had come before it, the disturbance will threaten the fabric of their entire universe. Link to Fic | Link to Art It's Got A Death Curse | E | 19,101 Dean and his friends have been coming to Camp Garrison for years, first as campers, then as counselors. Their last summer together kicks off with a bang when a figure from their dark past reappears and buried secrets from a near-forgotten tragedy threaten to resurface. It only gets worse when a storm rolls in, and the night becomes a gory fight for survival. The camp may not have electricity, but it's got a death curse. Link to Fic | Link to Art ghost, zero, suitcase & the moon | M | 19,433

Dean has always known it was ending. The world, that is. He knew it when he was three, awake and screaming in the middle of the night with the image of fire leaving an afterburn behind his eyelids. He knew it while he learned to ride a bike, while he went to his first school dance, had his first kiss, tipped back his first beer with his dad. He knew it when dad left, too. When Sammy died. When it all began to crumble.

He has always known it was ending. Now he's alone in a cabin somewhere so far north and so far west that he thinks half the continent never knew it existed in the first place, and he's got the same damn nightmares, the same burn behind his eyes, and the sense that ending is a verb that goes on and on into eternity and outside of time. Link to Fic | Link to Art Rosewood | T | 5,099

Dean believes a lot of things.

He believes the manner of his death was decided by his father the very night that yellow-eyed demon ripped his mom away from him.

He believes he’ll die, broken and bloody and alone on a hunt, and anything Cas does only delays the inevitable.

He believes he doesn’t deserve to be saved.

Dean knows Cas will do it anyway.

Months after Mrs. Butters leaves the bunker, intent on finding a home of her own, a peaceful section of pines set deep into the American heartland becomes anything but. Haunted by Purgatory at every turn, and forced to confront the consequences of decades of torture and abandonment at the hands of his predecessors, Dean and Cas set off to solve a string of disappearances in the forest where they stumble across a familiar face -- and an all-too-familiar feeling. Link to Fic | Link to Art MAW | M | 8,575

The world is full of sorrow, of sadness, of pain. The people within it deserve better than what Castiel's father gave them. They deserve peace and contentment, security and love. They deserve a New World.

And there is no safer place than inside Castiel. Link to Fic | Link to Art hold my hand until it bleeds | E | TBD The five years that Alistair did nothing but beat him. The feeling of no longer having skin. The feeling of no longer having flesh. The feeling of being nothing but bone and blood. Link to Fic | Link to Art The Possession of Jimmy Novak | E | 16,952

Dean Winchester was surprised to learn that when his father died, he left behind a beautiful house in the suburbs of Illinois, complete with neighbors who welcomed the newly arrived Dean with casseroles and invitations to join them at church.

It all seemed so very normal.

But there was something about Jimmy Novak that Dean couldn’t put his finger on, something not normal, and when Dean became an unwitting accomplice to Jimmy’s crime he discovered the horrifying truth:

That wasn't Jimmy Novak. Link to Fic | Link to Art It Will Come Back | E | 13,164

Senior Special Agent Castiel Novak and Special Agent Dean Winchester are partners within the FBI's Criminal Investigation Division. For the past several months, they've been investigating a string of murders, all resulting in cold-cases from what they believe to be the same killer. Despite being one of the best minds in his division, Castiel can't find a link between cases, and it's driving him to his wits' end.

As the cases begin to pile up, Castiel's confidence plummets, the chances of catching the killer are growing smaller, and other members of the division are beginning to contribute to Castiel's decreasing faith in his detective skills. As time goes on, Dean is there to help Castiel, but a final case relating to a horror film might be the start of Castiel's unraveling. Link to Fic | Link to Art Someone to Punish Me | E | TBD

Dean's chasing another lead for his old man, this time ending up in Maine, searching for the town of Silent Hill. Residents of nearby Cushing tell him to stop looking, but he can't help it. He's got a job to do, after all. After a resident finally points him in the right direction, Dean finds his way up the mountain to Silent Hill. But there's so much more to the town than John let on. And so much more that Dean needs to learn about himself. Link to Fic (TBD) | Link to Art 1 | Link to Art 2 Night Shift | E | 67, 758

As far as job opportunities go, replacing the previous night guard of fifty years at the Nebraska Museum of Natural History wasn't Dean's first choice, but a job was a job. Especially considering he got fired from his last job and was in need of the money. However, said job proves to be more difficult than described.

Faced with strange events revolving around one of the exhibits he was tasked with guarding, an angel statue that was more than what it seemed to be, he must unravel the mysteries that arise as a result. Why did the angel statue come to life each night? Why did an unknown number keep messaging him the same sequence of numbers? It was a race against the clock and Dean's dwindling sanity to find answers to these mysteries. Link to Fic | Link to Art A Word in the Mists | M | 23,968

Mist as far as the eye can see. A gloomy ocean that seems to swallow up the sunlight like broken dreams. An old, rusty ship that creaks with every inch of movement. And a crew that could compete in an award for grumpiest people alive.

Dean really hates pretty much everything about this case, and would love nothing more than to call it quits and turn this ship around... if there wasn't the little issue of the disappearance of thousands of people across ten different ships on the open sea.

Saving lives is what he does. But he has to question if he isn't doing more harm than good when the disappearances begin on his own ship—and he still hasn't even figured out what kind of monster they're dealing with. Link to Fic | Link to Art Terror As Sharp As Pain | M | 10,815 After Jack brings Cas back from the Empty, everything almost returns to normal. Cas moves into The Bunker, they go back to hunting, and they do not talk about his confession. With the number of hunts dwindling, Team Free Will takes up a case in Derry, Maine, a town terrorized every 27 years by disappearances and violent deaths. Even though the cycle isn't due to repeat for another 19 years, they will have to face fear itself to free the town. Link to Fic | Link to Art no spill blood. | M | 7,217

A witch hunt becomes far more than that when Dean rescues an unassuming, innocent, harmless stranger. But Castiel is more than he seems, and as the lines of their unlikely connection blur, so does the truth. Revenge, plain and simple. Surviving to see it through, not so simple. Link to Fic | Link to Art You can find the complete collection over on Ao3! Happy Haunting, folks! See you next Halloween 👻🎃🤡

[redleavesinthewind]

Artist: @hawkland

Author: @redleavesinthewind

Rating: Teen&up

Warnings: Graphic Depictions of Violence

Other Tags: Case Fic, Blood and Gore, Plant Horror, Post-Canon, Established Relationship

Word Count: 8k

Summary: Dean is settled. His relationship with Cas is going strong, he has a place to call home, and his biggest problems are run-of-the-mill cases and unruly teenagers who think they know everything there is to hunting. Hell, he even plays with the thought of retiring. But then something starts killing people left and right in Lebanon, and Dean and Cas are faced with a case and a foe they have no idea what to do about.

Excerpt: Dean feels a little stupid, being so freaked out by a few simple plants, but as they’re retreating back to the house, he can’t shake the feeling that something is staring at him, observant and patient. He turns around to throw one last look at the hogweed. Dean swears he sees the plants growing and writhing, the stems undulating and reaching towards the skies, the leaves bunching up into fist shaped balls at the plants’ sides, the flowers shivering in what Dean can only assume is anger and blood-thirst.

When he’s turned around completely, the hogweed in full view, he’s looking at the same mundane bushel of flowers that they investigated only seconds before. Nothing’s changed. He’s not even sure they grew any taller, but it’s hard to tell from where he’s standing.

“Fucking hell,” Dean mutters under his breath as he follows Sam and Cas back to the Impala.

COMING THIS OCTOBER TO @deancashorrorfest

[qat-fort]

The Tale Of Brainpulp, the Defender and Madman of Stinkfinger

So, I've been working on a volcano fort called Stinkfinger, and a dwarf named Sazir has been the most interesting dwarf there with 0 doubt in my mind. I don't have any images of when he originally migrated to Stinkfinger, but here's what he looks like now:

He migrated to Stinkfinger in the year 102, where he was immediately drafted into the army, which at the time was only 3 dwarves. He excelled at this, and before he even became a Expert Macedwarf, he managed to single handedly stop a goblin attack, almost entirely by himself.

I decided that he deserved to become leader of the militia after this. Granted, it was a very small raid (only 4 or 5 goblins), but considering that my other 2 mace dwarves didn't even contribute in the battle, I figured it was a fair promotion. He served me well as Stinkfinger grew, until a goblin raid in the year 103 had resulted in him having motor and sensory nerve damage so severe he could no longer walk, not even with a crutch. I didn't want to take him off the now royal guard because he was technically one of my most knowledgeable dwarves, so I had to settle with demoting him. He couldn't walk and had to crawl around on the ground, but he could at least pass on what he knew about the art of the mace to new recruits. Understandably, this major injury was upsetting to him.

Despite this, he still worked and trained hard, and actually became a Grandmaster Macedwarf, which was his dream! (sort of)

After he achieved his dream, he became sort of lost and didn't know what he wanted to do with his life. This plus the already large mental toll of his injuries, and the trauma that came with those injuries, overwhelmed him, and he started to show signs of madness by the year 107. He'd crawl around the halls, babbling nonsense. At this point I knew I had to do something, so I I checked his needs and his top need was that he wanted to make something. So I decided that I'd make a room just for him to make some rock crafts as a pass time. It seemed to of worked, somewhat, and after getting a few more Grandmaster mace dwarves, i figured it was for the best for him to retire. I ordered him to return his gear in the and to live a life of making rock figures so he could artistically work through his trauma.

Sazir thought this was a stupid idea, and expressed this by throwing a tantrum and giving a bard a DIY LOBOTOMY WITH HIS FUCKING FIST.

Despite committing this crime in broad daylight, no civilians reported this crime to the royal guard. Why? I have no clue. If I had to guess they didn't want Sazir to come for them next for snitching. I was upset by this, but since nobody reported him, I couldn't have him convicted. I could of done some cheesing to get him unofficially jailed, but I wanted to see how this would play out. I donned the nickname of "Brainpulp" to Sazir. Now a season or so later, Brainpulp did strike again, killing the exact same way he had before. This time however, someone reported it. Just as I was about to have him arrested however:

The largest goblin siege we've ever had came upon us. After deliberating, I decided it was fate that they had arrived when they did. Sazir could die doing the same thing that had made him so important; defending Stinkfinger. The goblins wanted to have parley, so they didn't mind waiting for Sazir to crawl around the fort to gather up his old equipment. I stationed him across from the goblin horde, alone. He would go down in a blaze of glory, gore, and goblins.

I thought that would be the end for Sazir Brainpulp, but he did the last thing i expected.

He ran.

He had literally nothing left to live for.

He had achieved his dreams, watched Stinkfinger grow from being a hole in the ground to the capital of our dwarven civilization, and had trained a fine royal guard. I figured the reason he had become so angry and hateful was because he was succumbing to the madness of having no real purpose anymore. I thought he knew that his stone crafts were simply a thing i told him to do as a way to distract him from that fact. I thought he was killing people because he was tricking himself into believing those dwarves were a threat to our home, much like the original siege goblins he had fought years prior to now. So I decided to give him one last final purpose and that was to sacrifice himself for the glory of our fortress.

I thought this was what he wanted.

I was wrong.

He crawled all the way back up the mountain to the entrance to Stinkfinger, and despite having clear orders to attack those goblins, he crawled deep into the fort, as far away as he could from the goblins marching upon us.

Fortunately, with our trained royal guard of macedwarves, we made quick work of this attack, despite it being the largest yet. When the last goblin had fallen, I checked to see where Sazir was, and he was sleeping in his room. Hiding from a honorable death.

He didn't want to retire and live out his days making stone crafts, and he didn't want to sacrifice himself in battle for our fort. So I'm not sure what he wanted. But whatever it was I couldn't provide it to him. The only thing I provided was a conviction. I convicted him for the murder of the dwarf he had killed earlier, and i ALSO convicted him of a artifact that someone else had stolen. There was no way we would ever catch the person who had done that particular crime, it was a cold case, so I figured that would be a substitute for the crime that is his cowardice.

So now lets fast forward to now, year 108. Brainpulp, now known as the local mad man, is still in his cell. You can usually hear him babbling if you happen to walk past near the doorway to the dungeon. At some point, in a fit of rage, he ripped all his clothes off and is now completely naked. His days are a cycle of insanity, brief gratuity when the poor carpenter Zuglar comes to gives him some water, then spiraling back into insanity.

Aside from Zuglar the only person he even remembers anymore is Rakust, one of his old students. Even that memory is hazy though, Sazir doesn't even remember what he looks like. The only other person Sazir claims to know aside from those two dwarves is god.

The once proud macedwarf is a hollow shell of what he once was, deteriorating after after being in confinement for so long. His prior injuries have become infected, no doubt after the poor bastard tore out his stiches.

His voice is raspy and hoarse after screaming about repentance for days on end, and his eyes have sunken into their sockets after months of guilt.

Despite his crimes and cowardice, I was starting to feel remorse for Sazir. Sazir as this fellow dwarves knew him had died in that cell ages ago, leaving behind something that could only be described as feral. I decided to see when his sentence was up, surely it would be soon, right? It had almost been a year, a i've never seen dwarve be jailed much longer than a year even for the harshest of crimes.

I checked his convition sheet and was stunned to see this:

Legally, he should of been let out ages ago most likely. Nobody has done it though. I guess the dwarves of Stinkfinger have come to fear Brainpulp, and have decided that he wouldn't be safe to release. I can't say I disagree with that.

Normally this is where his story ends, however when I built my dungeon, I built it in a very special way. I built it above a pool of magma, with levers hooked up to the grates outside of the cells. If for some reason i desired, I could pull the lever to a specific cell and have the convict in that cell killed instantly in the burning magma.

I could put him out of his misery. I'm not sure if I will yet, because theres the chance that, someday, one of my dwarves will free him, and he can leave Stinkfinger and try to find purpose for his broken life. If something important happens to Sazir, I'll be sure to let you guys know.

Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed this little mini story from my fort. If this proves to be popular I may do more of these.

[wolfnanaki]

How are you able to ethically enjoy FNAF content now that Scott Cawthorn's been revealed as a big Republican donor who personally funds anti-LGBT and anti-abortion agendas?

I knew this question would eventually come after all my Roxy posting. :v

But don't worry, as a pro-abortion trans woman, I've been thinking about this a whole lot too. I guess it would come down to the "creator fucks off" principle. When Scott Cawthon realized the situation he had put himself in was unsalvageable, he announced that he's retiring and that once the FNAF movie is done, he's passing the IP on to a successor. I think it's the best move he could've done. Notch did the same thing with Minecraft; he sold Mojang to Microsoft and fucked off. But Notch at least had the benefit of not having anti-queer brainworms at the time; they only manifested long after, and mentions of him were since removed form Minecraft.

Certainly, it stands in contrast against the likes of J.K. Rowling who, after being exposed as a transphobe, only doubled down on her hate; she wrote a whole manifesto about how dangerous trans people are and has since funded numerous anti-trans campaigns in the UK, proudly boasting that she sleeps well at night thanks to her Harry Potter royalties. And as someone who grew up with the Harry Potter books, I couldn't rectify my enjoyment of them with her transphobia, and like many other queer people who once enjoyed the series, I got rid of my collection.

Also, there's a huge number of young queer people who grew up with FNAF and, perhaps inadvertently, the FNAF fandom ended up with a huge queer audience before the revelation of Scott's donations. And I guess many of these fans couldn't let go of something that meant so much to them. Scott claims his donations were not for the candidates' anti-queer stances, that he loves queer people but felt they these candidates were handling issues better that he cared about, but was shy on saying what those issues were.

(Be sure to also check out Kotaku's article discussing Scott's donations and Reddit response.)

In the time since Scott announced he's stepping down, it seems like the FNAF franchise is trying to correct course. Artist Emese Szigetvári (LadyFiszi) was fired after several transphobic comments and writing a story featuring CSA. And Phil Morg (Phisnom) was removed from his own officially-funded FNAF remake FNAF+ after mocking a child who received death threats and gore from Phil's fans.

Also, very neat of Steel Wool to throw hints that Freddie and Bonnie are a gay couple and that Roxy is trans. And since they're not possessed by ghost kids, there's nothing skeevy here. Just ordinary gay and trans robots, as you do. :v

Anyway, I think I've rambled a bit here, so I'll cut this short. Shit's complicated, I'm glad Scott read the writing on the wall and is leaving, it's better for everyone involved.

[howdy-folks-its-showtime]

"Howdy folks! Take your seats please and get ready, cause It's Showtime!"

Welcome to It's Showtime! The tumblr ask blog for the BATIM inspired story of the same name! Here we have the characters in the studio, before the events of the story take place, ready to answer your questions and get into all kinds of antics! Want to learn more about the characters/story of It's Showtime? Check out its wiki/site right here! Or check out it's Gamejolt page if you want to see the game being made for it!

This blog is run by two mods, mod Whirly who goes by They/Them/It/Its and mod Roddy who goes by any pronouns! Below there is more information such as an FAQ which should help you with any question you have and elaboration on the content within the story! But if we missed anything please feel free to send asks about the project and ask blog!

It’s Showtime Is A Bendy And The Ink Machine Inspired Story That Completely Rewrites The Events And Timeline Of The Games. With The Same Characters Put Into Brand New Contexts And Relations To One Another. It Has A Character Focused Narrative And Focuses On Themes Of Abandonment, Grief, Family And Trauma, With Heavy Influences From The New York 1930s Setting.

The story follows Henry a retired animator, who after ten years comes back to his old workplace to find the place abandoned and staff missing. The walls are soaked with ink and the entire place smells of death and misery. Despite that, Henry journeys deeper and deeper into the dark abyss below, discovering what remains of his coworkers and the way grief can tear people apart…

But not even the shadows of his past, clawing at him from the dark puddles is enough to deter Henry from his attempt to find out what happened to his family and making things right…

Assuming he’s not too late to do so…

This story is meant to be rated R, the warnings below elaborate on this.

Warning this project contains: Cursing, blood, gore, body horror and death. Themes of internalized bigotry, depression, discrimination, abusive family members, grief, trauma and self hatred. Mentions of nsfw topics, alcohol and recreational substances. Traumatic flashbacks and panic attacks are depicted but abuse, suicide and self harm are discussed/implied. It should be known the ask blog may not contain these things but the story and larger project does.

FAQ:

Who are the mods? The mod team is me, Mod Whirly and my romantic partner, Roddy, we’ve been together for years and are very in love with this project and story! We have our own art blogs for personal art, but keep in mind art shown off here, even if it contains characters from It’s Showtime, should not be considered official art. Anything not posted by this blog regardless of who drew it, is considered non-canon to Showtime. If you want to look into supporting us as artists and creators you should check those out though! Obviously for legal reasons, we can’t advertise any ways to support us in a monetary sense on this blog <3. Roddy’s art blog is here and Whirly’s art blog is here!

What is this project for? It’s Showtime is currently beginning development as an indie horror game, no promises on scale or when it will come out as we are both very busy, Roddy with school and me with figuring out post high school life stuff, but I have been learning 3D animation and modeling in preparation for it. All work I’m doing currently isn’t really game ready or worthy, but every small step in development makes me more excited to one day maybe make this project a reality <3 Currently the plan is to build it in Unreal Engine. [at first it was gonna be Unity but well… If you know you know.]

Are you okay with fanart? We love fanart! If you tag us in any of your fanart we are sure to share it on the blog and sing its praises! It’s so flattering how much fanart we have already received and it makes us so happy and excited to work on Showtime when we see how beloved our designs are! If you want to make fanart please do! We would love to see it!

Who did the character designs? Who made the site? Mod Roddy did all the refs you see on the site and on the blog! They are based on my old character designs and notes I made on changing them, but overall they are very much the creation of my wonderful darling! It was the work of Whirly however to make the actual website! It’s a bit rough but I do like it a lot <3 I hope to expand it and make it better with time but for now I am very happy with it as a wiki for It’s Showtime.

What is Encore? Encore is the catch all name for all stories based on the world of It's Showtime, currently there is a BATDR inspired story we are also writing called Curtain Call that doesn’t take place in the normal timeline of It’s Showtime. So Encore is just the general name for this universe! Think of it as the franchise name.

I still have a question after reading this? Send us an ask! We’re almost sure to answer it and the more activity in the inbox the more activity in the project as well! Don’t ever feel bad for sending us questions or inquires! We like to talk to you guys!

[feralphoenix]

hollow knight - metroidvania. you hear someone screaming and follow the sound to discover the ruins of a cursed kingdom; now you get to find out what happened here. (it is worse than you expect, and will give you depression.) despite the cute cartoon bug art style it’s a gothic horror/dark fantasy/tragedy, the gameplay is difficult, and there’s a lot of casual gore/body horror. has some pretty intense subject matter so look up content warnings to see if this one is for you. the story is very dense and delivered breadcrumb style, so people tend to come out of this one either interpreting it as a paean to lost empire like breath of the wild, or as an anticolonialist story inspired by australian history depending on what lore they find and what lore they believe/characters they find sympathetic.

haiku the robot - metroidvania also. you’re a little robot who just started up, exploring the virus-ravaged postapocalyptic robot country of arcadia. as you explore, a veiled computer tower recruits you to help restore balance to the land. if hollow knight’s gameplay is too difficult or its storytelling style is too obtuse, haiku is a great alternative. (also a game u should play if you like hollow knight and want more of the same!)

spiritfarer - resource management sim. the boatman of the river styx has retired and now it is up to you and your cat to look after the spirits of the dead until they’re ready to move on. it’s kind of a game about hospice care and very much involved with death and grief.

omori - horror rpg. you’re a young shut-in who’s spent years living in your own head and are about to move away from your childhood home when an old friend shows up to give you a chance to reconnect with people who were important to you, one last time. also has some intense subject matter (and potential jumpscares) so look up content warnings if you think you might need them.

gris - platformer. you’re traversing landscapes symbolizing the stages of grief to process something terrible that happened to you. similar vibes to journey but less opaque/more character-driven.

eastward - adventure game. a miner living in a decaying subterranean town discovers a little girl and adopts her as his daughter. the surface of their postapocalyptic town is said to be cursed, but the girl insists it isn’t, and one day shenanigans lead to father and daughter leaving their town to travel the weird and beautiful world. great use of double protags, very mother 3 influenced.

tunic - adventure/puzzle game. you are a little fox exploring a big and dangerous world while reassembling the instruction manual to the game you inhabit. most of this game is in a phoneme-based conlang so if you’re interested in the story i’d recommend having someone get the language chart for you so you can read stuff but still go in unspoiled. or try to decode it yourself if you’re a linguist!

chicory: a colorful tale - adventure/puzzle game. you are a little dog living in a coloring book world, and through shenanigans you become wielder of the brush, an artifact that allows you to bring color to the world around you! problem: you are not an artist, you are just an art fan. now you must battle your anxiety and impostor syndrome while trying to fill your predecessor’s big shoes.

celeste - platformer. you are trans and full of anxiety but you are going to climb this ding dang mountain anyway!!! walks a thin line of being super challenging and super forgiving gameplay wise via accessibility options.

start again start again start again: a prologue - rpg. you’re a member of the hero’s party and are almost to the last boss. also, you’re stuck in a time loop, unable to defeat that last boss! heavy emphasis on feelings of isolation and alienation as your character tries to hide the situation from the party. the sequel in stars and time will be out in ‘23.

umineko - visual novel. a young man returns to his rich family’s secluded island to see his cousins while the parents discuss finances; naturally, things turn to tragedy as a gruesome series of murders begin. meanwhile, the young man debates a self-proclaimed witch over whether this story is mystery with a human culprit or fantasy with a witch one. massive doorstopper, cw everything you could possibly imagine; also, a 500 level on creative writing, literary criticism, and the spirit of the mystery genre.

By the way I'm looking for very specific games and your help is appreciated! Please let me know if you know a game which has one or several of the following criteria:

- Games that are overall poetic and story-driven

- Games about grief, mourning and/or depression, anxiety

- Games that feel like an experience and that you wish you'd be able to delete your memory to play again because you'll never feel the same

- Games that made you cry

[ambassadorquark]

here’s a long post about a bunch of webcomics i love and recommend. i’ve certainly read & liked other ones and have just lost track of them somehow but these are like, mostly classics that basically anyone who reads newer webcomics will recommend to you and a couple i’ve found more recently that i loved. tried to limit it to FAVES that update pretty regularly or are already completed so you can get quality stories out of it but it still ended up mammoth so uh, it’s goin’ under a readmore

namesake - super long-running comic with beautiful art, consistent and frighteningly frequent updates, made by Webcomics Pros. it’s about people who have the ability to enter the worlds of essentially any fairy tales in which the protagonists happen to share their name, and the lore only gets more intricate from there. this one is a very engaging archive binge as it’s been running for about a million years

gunnerkrigg court - honestly if you’re not already reading gunnerkrigg court i'd be very surprised since this is another one that’s been going easily since the invention of webcomics (not really, but THAT ARCHIVE!). i don’t know how to summarize it beyond saying it STARTS as a story about a girl attending a quirky boarding school and is now kind of a sweeping epic about the intersection of technology, nature, and divinity. there’s time travel or something in there now?! you will love renardine. i love renardine

paranatural - another one i’m sure you’re already reading and if not, WHY? it’s a fun li’l action-comedy about middle schoolers fighting ghosts with the help of other ghosts. has been running for a good while and gone through some weird changes but is also probably one of the funniest serial comics i’ve ever read

he is a good boy - a super weird, cerebral, since-finished comic by online comics vet KC Green, about a little acorn finally leaving the tree he grew on after it dies. this one has more “adult” content than any of the previous ones, but if you can handle some cartoony gore and obscenity it’s really funny, strange, and worth checking out

anything by evan dahm tbh - these come recommended by absolutely anyone with taste because evan dahm makes beautiful fantasy comics. rice boy and order of tales are both completed and have a bizarre, super-unique setting and bittersweet approach to these delicate, human stories (despite having no actual human characters). vattu is still currently running and is a slightly more grounded fantasy comic about a little girl from a nomadic hunter-gatherer culture getting caught up in the machinery of the empire that’s moving in on the land where she was born. cannot recommend these enough TBH

also anything on johnny wander - this site contains a bunch of comics by a couple of married comics pros; a big backlog of their really funny, charming autobio comics, the entirety of their graphic novel lucky penny, a whole bunch of shorter comics you might have seen around, and also their new, longer-form webcomic barbarous, which is about a wizard school dropout who’s appointed as a super at an apartment building full of weird magical folks. recommended because there’s a lot of quality stuff in there for you

the sword interval - on webtoon, completed. legit my favorite thing i’ve read in a hot minute. modern fantasy about a young woman who tracks down a legendary, but retired monster hunter for help on her quest to find and kill the lich-like being who killed her parents. gorgeous art, super awesome monster designs, twists on twists, characters you will never want anything bad to happen to ever. reggie the golem.

widdershins - a pretty well established comic i only just read recently. a series of connected stories following different characters from a big ensemble cast and their various adventures in a magical town in victorian west yorkshire. full of fun old-timey shit and wizards. i read it obsessively in like a day. super funny, super long archive. extremely endearing characters who you also will never want anything bad to happen to.

the last halloween - abby howard is a godly horror artist who’s been doing this comic since her style and sense of humor were almost completely different, but the story really does grow as it goes and is both very spooky and very funny. book one is about a little girl facing the potential extinction of humanity after the spontaneous appearance of billions of monsters. it’s currently in book 2, which is a direct sequel about different characters that actually updates sporadically at the moment because the artist is making other cool stuff. definitely still worth it though. gets intense as hell

string theory - this one got back into regular updates pretty recently! i’m linking the about page, not the homepage, because this one is about nasty people doing nasty things and there’s a few CWs that the author mentions right in the summary. it’s an alternate history sci-fi set in a near future where the USA was devastated by nuclear weapons after the cuban missile crisis but is mostly a character driven story about a jerkhole scientist having a terrible couple years. i can’t explain this one at all. if you like terrible men as much as i do you’ll probably enjoy it

tiger, tiger - a beautifully drawn maritime fantasy about a young noblewoman who impersonates her sea captain brother in order to launch an expedition to study sea sponges. there is a sexy nonbinary sea monster character if that sweetens the pot for you any. awesome, subtly integrated worldbuilding. super funny and charming. i love this one a whole bunch

bybloemen - i’m not just recommending this because i’m vague internet acquaintances with the author, it’s ALSO an extremely one-of-a-kind comic about the dutch tulip mania, and also demons. the art is gorgeous and the character designs are some of my favorites out there in newer webcomics. just kind of an extremely good concept that i think everyone should check out. and it’s funny, duh

mare internum - completed. an extremely affecting sci-fi set on Mars. you really just have to read this one, honestly. i’m also linking to the about page on this one because it contains CWs to keep in mind; it’s an incredibly well-constructed character study of some flawed, complicated people and also awesome if you like space aliens.

ozzie the vampire - another supernatural action-comedy because i know what i like, about a recently turned vampire girl and her best friend defending their small new jersey town from demons. super funny, super exciting, and really grounded and realistic for a story that’s about a vampire punching demons. the artist is also a superhuman wizard who draws a whole other comic, a shounen inspired action story called station square that you should check out if you end up liking ozzie.

[vaguelyrotten]

Like a Lily In a Flood

Title: Like a Lily in a Flood Artist: @myulalie Beta: @another-random-stranger​​ Pairings: Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood, mentions of Jimon and Reyhill Word Count: 70k Warnings: Mild Gore, Beheading, Nearly being eaten alive and burned at the stake, Discrimination, Sickness Summary:  Alec returns home to find his town plagued by a mysterious illness. Unable to find a cure, he ventures into the woods to seek help from an unlikely source. We must not look at goblin men... This fic was created for the Shadowhunters Mini Bang 2021: Presented by the @malecdiscordserver

Chapter One

It was raining.

Then again, it was always raining in Idris when it seemed to matter most.

Alec dipped out of the carriage with a sigh and made a beeline for the manor’s front door, knowing that he was going to get wet regardless.

“Alec,” his mother said coldly as she opened the door. “It was nice of you to take time out of your busy schedule and join us in our time of need.” He sighed, following his mother into the house and stripping off his soaked jacket.

He stood, dripping wet, in the foyer as Maryse looked him over with a hard eye. “It doesn’t look like the city nor the additional training you are supposed to be receiving are doing you any good. Honestly, what was even the point of sending you? You should have stayed here. You could have taken over the household when your father fell ill.”

He knew that his mother meant for her words to hurt him, and there was a time only a few years ago when they would have, but no longer. Getting out from under his parents’ thumb had done wonders for his mental health. He knew who he was now and that he had the ability to choose his own path.

So right now? Standing in the foyer of the house he hadn’t set foot in for two years, soaked to the bone and under his mother’s scrutiny? He felt nothing...and it felt good. “You have Jace,” he replied after a moment, accepting the towel that their butler Hodge was offering him.

She scoffed, crossing her arms in that way which meant an argument was coming. “Jace has his duties and you had yours. You were supposed to be head of this house, and this town, after your father retired.”

He’d first left for the city under the pretense of studying law but he’d fallen out of love with that and discovered that his true passion was architecture. He, of course, hadn’t informed his parents of his decision to switch his field of study. They’d be disappointed and there would be words, and while their opinions no longer mattered to him, he needed to be in the right frame of mind for that conversation. He didn’t foresee himself wanting to take that dive any time soon. “I left for the family’s best interest. We need to get out of here. This town is killing all of us.”

Before his father had fallen ill, he’d meant that metaphorically. Generations of Lightwoods had lived in Idris for nearly two-hundred years and had held the position of mayor for most of that. In that time, his family had grown crueler and colder. Once, they’d been a light in the darkness for the people in this town, rescuing them from disaster and leading them through. Today, the Lightwoods still led… but they definitely no longer did it with Idris’ best interest at heart.

No, it was all about power. Alec hated that and all the politics that came with it. That’s what he had hoped to avoid by moving to the city. One day, he was hoping he could have his siblings join him.

His mother chose to say nothing more. He draped the towel over his shoulders with a sigh. “Let me see him. I’m here now, at least.” Alec had tried to get there sooner but the spring rain made getting across the river treacherous. He had to wait a couple of days for the water to get back to normal levels. His mother started up the stairs and he followed her without further comment.

“I have the house and the town to attend to. Someone has to run this place while Robert is indisposed. I’ll leave you to it but come find me when you’re done, Alec. We have issues to discuss.” She closed the door behind her, leaving Alec alone in the room with his very ill and unconscious father.

Alec had seen his father in a lot of ways — some good, some bad, but he’d never seen him like this. The older man was pale and clammy and yet somehow looked peaceful. This illness was like nothing the town had ever seen before. Their doctors had been completely stumped...the first few symptoms had appeared — loss of appetite, attention, and other cognitive abilities that soon gave way to fever. The fever never broke and eventually, the patient lost consciousness. They were slowly wasting away into nothing.

Except not quite. They’d realized that the first few patients never got worse in that way that they did when their ancestors had the wasting disease caused by bad fruit. Instead, their body almost seemed to be turning to stone. And that was frighteningly new and uncharted waters.

“I’m sorry that I couldn’t come sooner,” he whispered as he touched the back of his hand gently to his father’s head. The fever was still there and his skin felt all too brittle. “But I promise I will do whatever is in my power to find a way to fix this.”

“We’re glad you’re finally here, Alec,” a voice said, pulling him from his reverie to turn to the door. “We tried to do the best that we could but...neither Izzy nor I are you, and Maryse just wants to keep doing that thing where she insists there’s no problem at all and it’s business as usual.” Jace closed the door quietly behind him and pulled his brother into a hug.

“Do you guys know anything? Mom’s letter was…” His voice trailed off as he searched for more polite words.

“Entirely lacking?” Jace supplied for him. “Unfortunately, nothing solid. They all seem to have fallen ill at around the same time. There are eleven total and they were all fairly recently on a patrol of the borders. We’ve hired sorcerers from the city, hedge witches, even a psychic or two, but no one can find anything wrong with them. They’re just...asleep. Asleep but slowly turning to stone it seems. We’ve got people digging through old books in the archives but no one has turned up anything even remotely similar to whatever this is.”

Alec wasn’t a doctor — he was, in fact, the farthest thing from one. Isabelle knew infinitely more than he did when it came to medicine. What he lacked in knowledge, he made up for in stubborn determination and his ability to think around a situation. If he wanted to find a possible cure for whatever was ailing the townspeople, he’d have to think outside of the proverbial box. “I’ll do what I can,” he said after a moment, giving his father’s unconscious form one last look before stepping into the hallway with Jace at his heels. “I’m not a miracle worker.” But he’d be damned sure he’d try to be one.

“I’ve got to get back. I just wanted to see you before you passed out or Maryse got to you first,” Jace replied, squeezing his shoulder and heading down the stairs towards the front door. “Good luck in there — she’s been… particularly Maryse since Robert took ill.” That fact didn’t surprise Alec at all. His mother had never dealt with change very well.

She was waiting for him in his father’s office, exactly where he had expected her to be. “Close the door behind you, Alec. What I’ve got to say need not fall on nosy ears.” He knew she was referring to Isabelle and her endless curiosity. While he didn’t necessarily agree with his mother’s request, he did oblige. “Take a seat.” She gestured towards a chair in front of the desk — one that Alec had distinct memories of sitting in any time he’d gotten in trouble when he’d been younger and had been called in front of his father. Alec chose the farther seat instead, ignoring the judgemental look that he received.

“As no cure has been found nor diagnosis made and your father’s condition is only getting worse, we need to prepare for the worst.” She pushed a yellowed document across the desk and Alec took it, scanning the page quickly before realizing what he was holding in his hand.

“This is his will,” he stated simply, his fingers glossing over the page as he quickly read through it. It didn’t look like it had been written recently. His mother nodded her head in confirmation.

“He’s been preparing for the worst. He’s already a few years older than your grandfather and your great-grandfather were when they died… and there have been stirrings on the borders. He was afraid that the men would be called to war any day now.” Alec frowned at that. He hadn’t heard of anything going on that would signal the start of a war. Sure, Idris wasn’t a big town but if war was truly coming, he assumed someone in his family would have told him.

“Oh, don’t give me that. There hasn’t been anything truly substantial. Some whispers, some unrest, but nothing more than that. Robert has been...unwell for a while now. He’s grown...paranoid. He had his will drawn up shortly after you left.” Her stoic facade had broken now and Alec could count on one hand the number of times that he’d seen his mother look truly lost.

“It was his idea to say yes when you asked to go to college in the city,” she continued, holding out her hand for him to return the will. “He thought getting out of here would keep you safe and if you were safe there would be someone to take over when he was gone. That’s what he really wanted and I’m sorry Alec, I know you’re enjoying your time at The Institute studying law but the family needs you here now.”

He wanted to argue. Angel, how he wanted to argue with her. He had had to fight tooth and claw to get them to even consider letting him into the city to further his studies. The Lightwoods had been here for generations and not a single one of them had ever left. This was home or at least it should be. Alec had always felt more alienated than most for reasons he tried to keep to himself.

So while yes, he knew that he should fight and argue and insist that he deserved to go back to the city because he had fought so damn hard for it in the first place, he knew that right here, right now… his argument would fall flat. The very best thing he could do was study and beg and plead and crawl through whatever hell he needed to to find a cure for this illness. When his father was well again and his father wanted him safe, he’d have a better chance of getting out of here once more. “Of course, mother, anything for the family,” he replied, trying to keep his voice level. “I’ll get to work at once.”

She sighed, obviously expecting more of a fight out of him and now not really sure how the rest of the conversation was going to go. “No, not at once. You’ve only just arrived and I’m sure you are exhausted. Besides, you’re still dripping on the mahogany floors. Go change before you ruin the antique wood, and say hello to your sister. She’s been waiting for you to get here.”

Alec didn’t bother with a response, simply turning on his heel and heading towards the stables — where he knew his sister would inevitably be hiding. The rain was starting to slow but Alec didn’t want to get even wetter if he could avoid it so he jogged across the cobblestones and pushed open the barn door.

Isabelle was, as expected, at the end of the aisle, illuminated by the grey hues of the rainy weather outside. She raised her whip above her head and snapped it towards a lone bottle on the rail with a loud crack. Alec continued to watch in silence for a few more moments as she set the bottle back up and went again. Finally, he let out a slow clap and watched as she tensed, relaxing once again when she realized who had interrupted her practice session.

“Good job,” he said, opening his arms to allow her to dash across the room to give him a hug. “You’re getting better at that. I dare say you might even be an expert.”

She snorted, her face buried in his shoulder as the two continued to hug. “Try telling that to mom. She still thinks it isn’t proper and that I should focus on finding myself a husband from a nice family. ‘Leave the weapons to your brothers, Isabelle. Men don’t want a wife who can beat them in a sword fight,” she mocked in a very good imitation of Maryse Lightwood.

“Ignore her. Any man you find would be lucky to have you. Besides, if you stopped, who would be my competition?” Alec asked, taking a step back so that he could look down into her eyes. “I’d have to practice with Jace and you know how he is...he—”

“Cheats,” she interrupted with a sniffle. “Yeah, I know. He hasn’t gotten any better, either. Still just as cocky, still a bad liar, and still telegraphs his moves.” She put the bottles back on the shelf and began to coil her whip back up. “He missed you, you know. I do too...and Max. It’s just not the same without you here.”

Alec knew that Isabelle knew exactly why he’d needed to leave. He also knew that she didn’t blame him, but the Lightwood siblings had always been close. He missed not being able to see them more than once a year.

“Mom’s been...harder since Dad got sick. She’s worried, we can tell, but she’s trying to continue as if it’s business as usual and you know how she is when she gets stressed,” Isabelle sighed. Alec knew all too well. Maryse tended to meddle in her children’s lives far more than was necessary.

That had, in fact, been the final straw for Alec. His mother had been dealing with some Idris politics and had decided to kill two birds with one stone. She’d set Alec up with a nice young girl from the village to strengthen the Lightwood family name and had given herself something to take her mind off the stress from work.

Alec had nearly ended up married.

Nearly. Luckily, Jace and Isabelle had stepped up to argue about Alec’s choice and happiness. The wedding had descended into chaos and Alec had set out for the city the next day under the guise of studying law.

“Come on,” he said after a moment, throwing his arm around her shoulder and pulling her back in for a quick hug. “Let’s head back inside. I want to change into something dry and I’ve yet to see Max. I’m sure he’ll be thrilled to see me.”

----------

Dinner was a quieter affair than Alec expected from a Lightwood family dinner. Without Robert there to judge them, his conversation with his siblings was light and easy. Jace and Isabelle caught him up on town gossip. Max tried to add his two cents when he could but the conversation strayed towards more adult topics like who was marrying who and what the Council had recently decreed.

“Mom says she’s going to send me to boarding school in the fall,” Max stated when there was a break in conversation. “I don’t want to go. I’ll have to wear a scratchy uniform and get up early and it’ll be so far away. I want to be like Jace and fight monsters!”

“Max, don’t talk with your mouth full,” Maryse replied with a glare. “The Carstairs Academy is a lovely school. They’ll teach you manners, for one thing. You’ll learn math, science, and history. You’ll be going to a proper school — like Alec. Doesn’t that sound fun?”

The little boy grimaced. “I don’t want to be like Alec...no offense. I want to kill dragons and fight trolls like Jace.”

“It’s less dragons and trolls and more about upset fathers and a fast horse, little man,” Jace replied, getting a smack on the back of the head from Isabelle. “What? It’s true.”

“That’s enough — apparently, none of my children have manners. Max, it’s past your bedtime. It’s time to let the adults talk.” Max looked about to argue but one look from Maryse had him pushing in his chair and shuffling out of the room. Once they heard the door upstairs shut with an audible thud, she turned her attention back towards her other children. “I’ll be leaving before the sun rises. I’m heading to Alicante tomorrow to seek help from the king. I’ll start in town, we’ll leave two days after that. I’ll be gone as long as it takes to make our case.”

Alec’s fork clattered to his plate. “What? You’re just leaving? Dad’s already indisposed and you’re just going to leave the town without any sort of leadership? You’re going to leave us here alone?” He was well aware that his parents had made some stupid decisions in the past but this had to be one of the stupidest that he’d heard.

“The rest of the Council is still in town, Alec, and in case you have forgotten, I brought you back. We’ve tried everything to cure this and nothing is working. We’re losing more people to this cursed disease each day. We’ve got to try something. Pleading our case to the king and hoping for assistance is all we’ve got left.”

Alec picked up his fork and said nothing in response. He was sure the anger was coming off him in visible waves. “I’m not going alone, Alec,” his mother said after a moment, choosing not to start an argument and stating the facts instead. “Two of your father’s men will be going with me. We’ll only be gone a couple of weeks. With luck, we return with a cure.”

----------

Much later that evening, well after dinner had finished and his mother and siblings had gone off to bed and he’d had time to cool off, Alec found himself in the library staring at shelf after shelf of books that his family had collected over the years. His mother was certain that they’d already exhausted every possible option they had for a cure here, but Alec had never been one to give up that easily.

There had to be something in the thousands of books that they had here — even if it was just a footnote in some ancient text.

Angel, where would he even start?

He walked past the first shelf and ran his fingers gently over the spines of the books, taking in the titles as he did.

A Brief History of Idris, Recipes From the Coast, Nursery Rhymes and Other Tales, The Art of Breaking a Horse…

There was no rhyme nor reason to how anything here was shelved and he wished he was back in Alicante where he had a card catalog to reference at the very least. This could be a futile effort… but he had promised that he’d try, so try he shall.

He pulled the first book off the shelf — A Brief History of Idris —- and flipped to the first page. It was written by one of his ancestors; a Lightwood whose name he didn’t recognize. Maybe, with luck, that Lightwood had stumbled across something — anything — all those years ago that could help him now.

He could hope, at least.

Two hours later, he’d scanned quickly through the book and found it to be completely useless. He’d learned exactly nothing. The ‘brief history’ had been exactly what every child in Idris learned in school. He pushed himself off the chair he’d settled in and placed the book on the shelf. He could skip the cookbook — the likelihood of him finding a cure in that wasn’t high — before he moved on to the next one. Nursery Rhymes.

He meant to skip that one too but as his hand hovered over it, he realized that many myths and legends were often based in fact. It couldn’t hurt to give it a try. At the very least it wouldn’t take him long to read.

Most of the rhymes and stories were useless — schoolyard songs or bedtime stories — but tucked away at the end of the book was one that seemed a bit out of place. This was a longer poem with far more complicated words than the rest of the book. He frowned and glanced at the title.

The Goblin Market.

What?

Alec of course knew of the goblins who lived in the woods — all children in Idris were taught about them. The goblins were dangerous and would kidnap and eat children if they strayed too far into the woods. They used to be friendly with the townspeople but a war broke out and that relationship had ended. The goblins had secluded themselves in the woods — keeping their magic to themselves — and the people of Idris stayed in town and imported anything they needed from the neighboring cities.

It wasn’t an ideal situation but it was the one that they’d come up with quickly, and no one had ever seen fit to try and fix it.

The poem followed the story of two sisters who had heard the goblins crying in the middle of the night as they were trying to sell their fruits. One of the sisters tried what they were offering and fell ill when they returned home. She became listless and began to fade away. Her sister tried to save her and returned to the goblin market to obtain another fruit which she brought home and fed to her sister. The sister was cured and both girls lived happily ever after.

Alec frowned. That was similar to what the town was experiencing now… but the poem mentioned nothing about the sister turning to stone. After all the warnings about venturing into the woods that were drilled into them when they were little, surely none of the men who had fallen sick had been stupid enough to go to the goblins to try and trade.

He sighed and glanced at the grandfather clock in the corner of the room to find that three hours had passed since he’d been in here and it was now well after 2 in the morning. He should retire to his room to get a few hours of sleep before he had to wake up but...perhaps he had time for one more book.

Instead of putting the nursery rhyme book back on the shelf, he pushed it off to the corner of the table. Worst case he’d put it back later. There was no harm in leaving it out for now.

He walked back to the shelf and skipped over the book on horse training. The very next one was titled Herbal Remedies of Our Ancestors.

Finally. That was more like it.

----------

When his sister pushed open the door to the library the next morning, Alec jumped. He glanced at the clock and found that nearly five hours had passed since he’d pulled the book of herbal remedies off the shelf and began reading.

A few pages in, he’d pulled a sheet of paper out from the desk and had begun taking notes. One sheet had turned into two, which had quickly turned into far more than that.

There were so many plants that had been used to treat common illnesses when people weren’t so reliant on modern medicine or the magic from the sorcerers found in the cities.

Catnip for recovery from colds. St. John’s Wort for inflammation. Marigold for skin diseases.

It was a start.

Isabelle came up behind him and glanced over his shoulder with a frown. “That’s a lot of plants you’ve written down. I’m sure the hedge witch tried at least some of them. It’s not like we have a stock of these. Where do you expect to find Elderberry without a day’s ride out of Idris and a day’s ride back? We don’t really have that sort of time.”

He hadn’t considered that.

But perhaps there was a solution.

He glanced out of the window and a plan began to form in the back of his mind.

“I’ll have to visit the woods,” he said after a moment, grabbing the two books and his stack of papers and heading back to his room. He needed to prepare if he was venturing into the unknown.

“Alec! You can’t go into the woods. You know that we’ve all been banned from there. It isn’t safe!”

“I know, Izzy. Trust me, I know, but right now this is the only idea we’ve got to try to save our father and the rest of the people who have fallen sick; unless you’ve got a better idea that you’d like to share?” She remained silent and Alec shook his head. “I’ve got to get ready. Tell Jace to find me if he hasn’t left already and can you saddle Flame?”

She looked like she wanted to say more but eventually relented with a shake of her head. Alec watched her go with a sigh. He knew she was right — heading into the woods was a stupid and reckless idea at best...but it was one he had to try.

He quickly got dressed and grabbed a satchel from his closet. He’d leave the books here, just in case, but he needed a way to carry the list of plants he wanted to collect...as well as any plants he may actually find.

What else did he need to take?

He dashed down the stairs and into his father’s office, thanking the small miracle of his mother heading into town early this morning. Map...he probably needed a map. He rifled through the desk and found one tucked away at the back of a drawer. It was old but it would have to do. After all, no one had been in the woods in years. This was probably the most recent map they had.

Alec looked around, trying to figure out if there was anything else in here he’d need as Jace knocked on the door. His brother frowned at Alec’s frantic state. “Isabelle says you're going into the woods to pick some flowers? Come on, Alec, that’s a stupid idea. We can’t risk losing you too.”

“I know, Jace. I’ll be safe and I’ll be back by nightfall. I won’t push myself unnecessarily today but you know that everything that has been tried hasn’t worked. I came back to try and help with finding a cure, and I’m willing to give this a shot.”

Jace sighed, “What can I help with? Izzy said you needed to see me.”

“I need you to stay here… and I need some weapons. Have you seen my bow recently?” He hadn’t taken it with him when he’d moved to Alicante — he only hoped that his siblings had hidden it and that his parents hadn’t done the unthinkable.

“You’re sure about this?” Jace asked as Alec nodded. “Alright...then I’ll get it and meet you outside.”

Isabelle was waiting with Flame’s reins in her hand. The chestnut thoroughbred stamped his feet impatiently, unhappy to be standing still as long as he had been. Jace joined them with Alec’s bow and a small collection of knives a few moments later.

“I still don’t think this is a good idea,” the blond muttered, handing Alec’s weapons to him one by one before holding the horse steady so that Alec could mount. “Reckless is my style, not yours.”

“I’ll stay close to home. I’ll be on my guard. You’ve crossed through the woods a time or two and lived to tell the tail. I may have moved to the city, Jace, but I’m not inept. Remember who taught you.”

“Oh, trust me, you never let me forget it. Just be careful, alright? There are supposed to be some things in those woods that would frighten even me.” Alec tilted his head in response and spurred his horse on towards the woods. He’d stick to the trail as long as he could, but instead of veering left and heading into town, he’d take the worn deer trail through the trees.

He reminded himself that he would take any chance at saving his people and his family — even if it meant venturing into the deep woods and confronting the dangerous creatures that were said to live inside.

When he said he’d try anything — he meant it in every sense of the word. He still didn’t entirely believe the myths and legends of the goblin men that were said to inhabit Edom Forest but the town’s elders seemed to believe they did truly exist and Alec was certain no one had thought to go to the monsters for a solution.

He’d told Jace and Isabelle of his intentions, but instead told his mother that he was heading into town. It wasn’t entirely a lie. He’d had to cross the bridge that would lead him to Idris before he’d reach the path that would take him off the road and into the forest. When the cobblestones ended, he was faced with an overgrown dirt path that seemingly led to nowhere. He pulled Flame to a brief halt and quickly glanced over his shoulder to make sure he wasn’t being followed before clicking him on and making his way into the woods.

His first impression of Edom Forest was that it wasn’t anything spectacular. He rode for two hours and noticed that the trees were like any other trees, the birds like any other birds, and there were certainly no trace of goblins in sight. He was beginning to think he’d been tricked by children’s tales when a scrap of color flapping in the wind caught his attention. He brought his horse to a halt.

It was a scrap of purple cloth with texture that Alec had never seen before. He’d never seen anyone in the town wearing anything this color either, as purple dyes tended to be expensive. If they were in the city, sure, but not here in Edom Forest. He left it fluttering where it was tied on the branch as he noticed another piece a little further down the path. If he strained his eyes, he could see a third splash of purple past that.

He had no way of knowing who had left these markers here or for what reason, but right now this was his best lead to finding the goblins in the woods. And like he kept telling himself, he was willing to try anything.

He could be met with swords,traps or wild animals. The goblins themselves might make an appearance. His people had no knowledge of what existed this deep into the woods outside of old wives’ tales and cautionary tales for children. Who knew what he would come across?

He took a deep breath and nudged his horse forward. The gelding hesitated for a moment — feeding off Alec’s own growing unease — before taking a few slow steps in the direction he’d been pointed towards, his head high and eyes wide the entire time.

Alec had certainly been expecting to find something after following the trail of purple scraps. What he hadn’t been expecting to find was a stray horse who was calmly grazing under a tall, oddly shaped Ash tree without a human in sight.

The stallion was solid black and soaking wet, like he’d been ridden hard despite the lack of tack or rider around him. Alec gently jumped from his horse’s back and took a few slow steps forward hoping that he didn’t spook the animal. “Whoa, boy. It’s alright.” He held his hand out gently and let the horse take a cautious sniff. “Surely, you aren’t out here alone.”

The horse’s nose touched the back of Alec’s hand gently. Alec took a moment to look him over. He was small...around 14 hands if he had to guess, and not much bigger than Max’s pony. There wasn’t a lick of white on him, and while his mane and tail were wet and slightly tangled, the rest of him was in good condition. The pony didn’t look like he’d been living rough — so he’d either just escaped or had dumped his rider and somehow escaped his tack. “Where’s your person? I can’t leave you out here like this.”

The horse huffed and nosed at Alec’s pockets. “Hey now, that’s enough. I didn’t exactly come out here prepared to take in a stray. I was looking for something else. I don’t suppose you’ve seen any goblins have you?”

“He likes you.” The voice that came from above startled Alec, and he took a step back from the mysterious horse to glance upwards. There was a man sitting on a thick branch about halfway up. With the sun behind him, Alec couldn’t see little more than that. The voice sounded amused though, and Alec had to wonder what the mystery man was doing this deep into the woods.

“How can you tell?” It was a stupid question, he knew that, but he couldn’t stop himself before the words had passed his lips. He should be asking for a name or providing his, not asking why the horse liked him. Not the smartest thing, he thought to himself.

“He hasn’t eaten you yet,” The man jumped gracefully to a lower branch before performing an elaborate flip for a dismount and landing steadily on his feet. “Kelpies have unusually sharp teeth, a taste for flesh and blood, and an attitude that would give even the haughtiest of lords a run for their money.”

Alec instinctively took a step back, which didn’t seem to phase the horse — kelpie, apparently — who continued to search Alec’s pockets for some sort of snack. “He doesn’t look like a kelpie.” As far as he was aware, kelpies weren’t real. Even if they were, the books said they were supposed to have seaweed in their manes and tales, backward hooves, and razor sharp teeth. This looked like a small, lightly built riding pony.

“And how many kelpies have you actually seen? They wouldn’t be very effective hunters if you could see what they are before they strike.” The other man replied, patting the horse on the shoulder affectionately. “I’m Magnus Bane. And who are you, handsome stranger?”

“Alec.” Now that the sun wasn’t casting a silhouette behind him, Alec could get a better look at the man. He was shorter than Alec, though his heeled boots gave him some height. His skin was the color of honey, his hair was dark with a streak of blue through it, and his eyes…

Alec lost himself in Magnus’ eyes. They were golden with slit pupils...quite like the cats that hung around the barn. And they were enough to tell Alec that the man wasn’t human — no human would have eyes like that.

“You’re a goblin,” Alec stuttered. The books hadn’t really said what the goblins looked like. He vaguely recalled something about a cat’s face and a rat’s tail...or was it furry and like a snail? Humans didn’t have cat’s eyes, though. Even if Magnus weren’t a goblin, he was certainly something different; and that was maybe, just maybe, another avenue that Alec could try for a possible cure.

It was only after he had these thoughts that he wondered if he should worry about his own safety. His hand went to the knife on his belt before he’d realized it.

Magnus hummed, watching the realization cross Alec’s face before he laughed. “Not quite. I’m only half. My father is but my mother was a mere human. Nothing goblin about her. In fact, if I had to guess she was from your town. Idris, am I right? Though, this was quite some time ago, well before you were ever around, pup.”

“How did that happen? And my name is Alec, not pup.” As far as Alec was aware, the goblins stayed deep inside the forest and the people of Idris were told to avoid them. They hadn’t actually been seen in years. Many of the younger people thought they were nothing more than a myth. Alec certainly hadn’t believed in them. Until now, that was. It was hard not to believe when reality was staring you in the face with cat’s eyes, a wisp of blue hair, and a sharp look.

“How do you think?” Magnus replied, fishing around in his bag for an apple. “‘We must not look at goblin men, we must not buy their fruits, who knows upon what soil they fed, their hungry thirsty roots.’ That’s how it went...I think. It’s been a while since I’ve read it. Books aren’t exactly easy to come by out here.” He took a bite and held the rest out towards the kelpie.

“I’m sorry, that was a stupid question.” Alec knew which poem Magnus was referencing. He had run across the poem during his research but he’d passed it over as nothing more than a cautionary tale for children. Maybe he should have paid more attention.

“It’s fine, I’m used to it...and you didn’t know any better. How many dashing half-goblins have you ever met in your life?” Magnus winked and Alec felt a blush rise across his face.

“You’d be the first.”

“And what are you doing out in the middle of the woods looking for goblins, my lord? Aren’t you humans warned of the dangers you could find? I’m pretty sure that poem specifically mentioned all the terrible things that could happen to a fair maiden.”

Alec snorted, and continued to rub his hand down the kelpie’s nose. “Well, for one I’m not a fair maiden, nor am I a lord actually, and to answer your question: I was hoping to hunt down a lead on the illness that’s currently plaguing the village.”

“And you think the goblins are to blame?” Magnus’ voice had been playful before, but now his words took a cutting tone.

“No, of course not,” Alec replied hastily, holding up his hands in surrender. “We’ve co-existed, sort of, for a while now. As far as I know, nothing has changed in that regard. I’m just…” he sighed and glanced back towards the direction he knew his parents’ house to be. “I’m hoping for answers, I’m willing to try anything at this point. They’ve called physicians from the city, a psychic or two, a hedge witch...the people who have fallen ill are good people. They don’t deserve what’s befallen them. I found a book in our collection last night. It’s got some herbs in it...so I made a list. I’m no expert but it can’t hurt to try.”

He chose to leave out that some of those people were only mostly good — his father certainly wasn’t the best man, but there was no reason Magnus needed to know that. Not yet.

“I haven’t heard of a disease in the village, but I wouldn’t go looking towards the goblins for a cure. They aren’t the most helpful of people — they’re more liable to cause you harm than anything close to help.” Magnus tapped his finger against his chin in thought. “An illness you say? You humans are susceptible to so many things. There was a plague about a hundred years ago if I recall. What makes you think it isn’t something like that?”

“Well, for one thing no one has actually died,” Alec replied as Magnus circled him slowly, feeling every bit like a deer cornered by a leopard. “It starts with a fever. Eventually, confusion. Finally, they fall into a deep sleep. And…” His voice trailed off. That did make it seem like a normal illness but Alec knew there was more.

“And?” Magnus had stopped circling him to lean against the tree with his arms crossed.

“Their skin gets hard. It feels almost like stone? I know that probably sounds stupid. I just don’t know how else to explain it.”

“It’s not stupid at all,” the half-goblin replied. “Magical illnesses can have all sorts of weird side effects. A friend of mine once turned prickly.” There was a pause as he looked Alec over once more.“You said you had a list?” Magnus asked finally, pulling on a purple tailcoat that had been discarded haphazardly behind the tree. “Can I see?”

Alec pulled it out of his bag and handed it over to him. “You’d help me find these? You think this might be caused by magic?”

“Magic, a curse, anything is possible but if you’ve tried as many cures as you say you have then it’s probably safe to assume that it’s something your people haven’t seen before. Ergo, magic.” Magnus read over the piece of parchment with a frown. “Some of them are out of season and others aren’t in this part of the woods but I can show you where to find the majority.” He glanced around before a smile crossed his face that had Alec’s heart flipping. The half-goblin bent down and plucked a small purple and yellow flower from the ground in front of Alec. “Heartsease. Kiss-Me-Quick. Banewort...also known as a wild pansy. It’s good for skin conditions and colds. I believe that’s on your list.”

Alec felt a blush rise in his cheeks as he took the flower. Why on earth was being handed a single flower by a strange (but beautiful) man he just met affecting him this way? “Thanks,” he managed to stammer after a moment. He gently wrapped the flower in a cloth and placed it in his bag.

Magnus’ eyes twinkled as he grabbed a lock of the kelpie’s mane and hoisted himself on it’s back. “I saw some Meadowsweet earlier this morning. It isn’t far and I wouldn’t mind collecting some myself. It’s good for pain.” He glanced back at Alec with a raised eyebrow. “Are you coming?”

Alec had never mounted a horse faster in his life.

----------

“Do you even know what you plan on doing with these?” Magnus asked as they wove their way through a dense and varied forest.

“The book had some suggestions,” Alec started, frowning as they passed by a group of trees with large, bell-shaped yellow flowers. “Though I’m by no means an expert. I went to school for architecture, not herbalism.” He pulled his horse to a halt and reached out to touch one of the flowers that was now hanging eye-level with him. “I’m sorry — is this Angel’s trumpet? I thought it only grew in the tropics.”

Magnus laughed. “Or Devil’s trumpet, depending on who you ask, and I wouldn’t mess with it. It’s not exactly safe. Well, it’s not necessarily poisonous to touch but I still wouldn’t mess with it. It's hallucinogenic, among other things...and I don't think a bad trip was really what you had in mind when you came out here today.”

“And how’s it growing in the middle of Edom Forest? If it’s that dangerous I would feel much better if it grew far, far away where the weather is much more suited to it?” He nudged Flame until he was level with the kelpie.

Magnus merely laughed. “That’s the beauty of magic, my dear Alexander. There’s no rhyme nor reason to it. Anything can happen.” He raised his hand as blue sparks danced around his fingertips. “Haven’t you ever noticed that it never snows in the woods? You’ll have three feet out there and yet, not a flake falls here. It’s warm and sunny year round.”

As he said that, Alec realized that he hadn't noticed. He’d never paid much attention to the woods since they were forbidden to go there, but it wouldn’t take a genius to see that the weather was entirely different a few feet away.

“Don’t look too distressed,” Magnus chuckled upon seeing the face that Alec was making. “There’s all sorts of spells and old magic around. Spells that grew into the very trees, wards set by goblins past and re-set by goblins present...other magical creatures whose very existence spells safety to those who live around them. You wouldn’t have noticed if you hadn’t been purposefully trying to look through the magic. The Look-Not spells surrounding the woods are strong.”

Wait, Alec thought as he kicked his horse into a trot to catch up with Magnus and the kelpie. “What other magical creatures? I thought it was just the goblins that lived in the woods? Well, I guess the goblins and the half-goblins.”

“It may have started with the goblins but it certainly didn’t end with them.” Magnus stopped a moment later, sliding off the back of his horse to kneel in front of a grassy plant with yellow flowers. “Toadflax. This was on your list as well, I believe. It’s good for treating rashes and the like. You make it into a compress using milk. I hope the specifics are in your book. This is more my friend’s area of expertise than mine.” He handed the flower to Alec who wrapped it gently in more white cloth and placed it in his bag.

“What’s your area of expertise then? And you still haven’t answered my question. What other creatures?”

“My area of expertise is magic itself, of course. I’m uniquely qualified to be good at magic,” Magnus replied as butterflies made of blue energy danced around them.

“And what makes you qualified?” Alec asked, crossing his arms. “Are all goblins this cryptic?”

Magnus laughed, “I’m not being cryptic, I’m being coy...and I can’t tell you all my secrets on the first date — no matter how pretty you are.”

Alec huffed as another blush rose on his cheeks. “This isn’t a date...but fine, how about you elaborate on the other magical creatures thing then? I don’t like finding out that everything I’ve ever known about a place is false.”

The goblin studied him for a moment before he nodded. “Very well. Once we put the spells and the wards up to stop the needless death that was happening at the time, humans were driven to stay away. It was the only thing that we could do to keep ourselves safe without being driven out of our home. Because we were now safe from humans, the other creatures that were hunted for merely being creatures of magic began to take refuge here as well.”

Magnus chose not to mount back up so Alec slid from his horse’s back as well. They walked in silence for a moment before the half-goblin turned around. “Actually, it’s quite curious that you got through. You should have wanted to turn tail as soon as you got too close.”

“I was uncomfortable,” Alec said after a moment, recalling the sense of dread that had washed over him before he’d guided his horse off the path. “But I’d do anything to help my family...even if that means taking a risk I’m not necessarily meant to take.”

Magnus had stopped again, this time in front of a fluffy, white, flowering weed. “The promised Meadowsweet. It’s typically made into a tea or an elixir. Pick your poison. Well, not poison but I’m sure you catch my meaning.”

Alec collected a few of the flowers as Magnus did the same. “I’m not sure that tea is going to do much good when the patients are unconscious.”

“You’ll have to try one thing at a time. Maybe treat the symptoms first until you have a better idea of the root cause...perhaps you’ll get lucky and by treating one you’ll learn more about another. Medicine, like magic, is a lot of trial and error.”

“Well, I’m certainly willing to try,” Alec said after a moment. He threw his bag over his horse’s withers and pulled himself into the saddle once more. “I seem to be the only one left willing to try. Everyone else seems to have given up. They’re getting ready to petition the king for some kind of miracle.”

Magnus hummed as he pulled himself onto the back of his own horse. “Well then, I suppose we better find a few more for you to try. It sounds like you don’t have any time to lose.”

Alec followed the half-goblin dutifully all afternoon, trying to remember each and every instruction he was given as he was handed plant after plant. Finally, the sun began to duck behind the treetops and Alec grimaced. “I best be getting back. If I don’t return before dark, my brother will send a search party. Trust me, we don’t want the kind of mess he tends to bring with him.”

“Fair enough,” Magnus replied with a smile. “I figured that would be the case. Your trail awaits, my lord.” He swept his arms towards the dirt path that Alec had taken when he’d first entered the woods this morning. He hadn’t even realized that they had circled back.

“Thank you for all your help today. I’m not certain I could have found any of these without you.” He probably wouldn’t have even managed to find one if Magnus hadn’t helped.

“It was no trouble at all — definitely an interesting way to spend an afternoon. The sight sure didn’t hurt either.” Alec blushed and Magnus plucked a single blue flower with a yellow star center off the ground and held it out to him.

“What’s this one supposed to do?” Alec asked as he took the flower and twirled it gently in his fingers.

“Absolutely nothing. I just think it’s pretty. Good luck playing doctor, Alexander.” With that, he turned his horse and trotted back into the woods, leaving Alec standing in the trail alone.

----------

My Dearest Cabbage,

I’ll preface this by saying that yes, I do know exactly what you’re going to say after reading my letter so I will save you the hassle of a fire message in response.

Yes, what I did was incredibly stupid and reckless. Trust me, I’m well aware but you know how I do so love a good enigma.

It seems some sort of mysterious and possibly magical illness is plaguing the citizens of Idris. They’ve apparently tried all sorts of methods to heal their sick to no avail.

No, I haven’t been taking a risky trip into the city. Trust me, I’ve learned my lesson there. One of their people somehow managed to get through the protections and spells in the forest and came looking for plants that could potentially be used to treat the disease.

I have my doubts that any will work for him, but I sent him home with some regardless.

Could our wards be fading? No mere human should be able to pass over the border. We should meet sometime soon to check that the spells still hold strong. They are all that are standing between us and the people of Idris.

I’ll keep you advised if I receive any more information.

Delightfully yours,

M.B.

[buckybarnesbingo]

BBB Week 26 Roundup

You wanna hear something disturbing?  There are TWELVE WEEKS LEFT in this round of the BBB!  AMAZING AND FRIGHTENING.

And you get the very first whisper of this news... next weekend (October 17th) we will be having another Discord party!  More info to come about that...

Title: On the watch Collaborator: Menatiera Link: AO3 Square Filled: Y1 - BAMF Bucky Ship: background Stuckony Rating: Teen Major Tags: Winter on a mission, Bucky and Winter are separate personalities, happy ending Summary: The Winter Soldier takes his missions seriously. This Mark shouldn't cause any troubles. And then he does. Word Count: 3427

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Title: The One Death Left Behind Collaborator: rebelmeg Link: AO3 Square Filled: B3 – “Dyin’ ain’t so bad.” Ship: None Rating: Teen Major Tags: assassination, death, introspection, angst Summary: Bucky Barnes has had just about every kind of experience with death that there could possibly be. Except one. Word Count: 850

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Title: Making Waves Collaborator: hddnone Link: AO3 Square Filled: K3 - Arranged Marriage Ship: WinterIron Rating: Teen Major Tags: Creature fic, octoBucky & merTony, allusions to sex & public sex Summary: Tony and Bucky come up with an unconventional plan to escape Tony's arranged marriage. Word Count: 1106

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Title: Reveal on skin Collaborator: Menatiera Link: Tumblr Square Filled: B3 - Team dynamics Ship: Stuckony Rating: Gen Major Tags: cursed!Tony, moodboard Summary: Moodboard and summary. Villain of the Week casts a curse on Tony to “reveal his true nature on his skin”. Instead of horrors, though, Tony’s hands start to resemble the night sky with thousands of stars. Word Count: 363

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Title: Art: Fireworks Collaborator: dreaminglypeach Link: Tumblr Square Filled: Y5 - star watching Ship: Stucky Rating: Ten Major Tags: pre-war, pre-serum Steve, fireworks, fluff, art Summary: Steve and Bucky and fireworks

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Title: Sight Collaborator: Menatiera Link: Tumblr Square Filled: C2 - [picture of Steve and Bucky standing next to each other] Ship: Stuckony Rating: Gen Major Tags: moodboard, retired!steve, blind!steve, happy!steve Summary: Steve goes blind and retires - much to his boyfriends Tony’s and Bucky’s bafflement. Word Count: 222

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Title: air and space Collaborator: plutosrose Link: AO3 Square Filled: C1 - Mistaken Identity Ship: Stucky Rating: Teen Major Tags: Identity Issues, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Memory, Smithsonian, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Whumptober 2020, alt. 9 memory loss Summary: “He was smaller,” he breathed to himself, forgetting for a brief moment that one of the cardinal rules of any mission was to make sure that he didn’t make any noise.-A man visits the Smithsonian. Word Count: 2027

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Title: Is It Better to Have Loved and Lost? Collaborator: Purple_ducky00 Link: AO3 Square Filled: B4 - Rescue Mission Ship: WinterIron Rating: Mature Major Tags: Graphic Violence, Torture, Gore(?), Kidnapping, Not Really Character Death (assumed), Angst, Hopeful Ending Summary: Tony was kidnapped, and Bucky goes to rescue him. It doesn't all go according to plan this time. Word Count: 846

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Title: The Curious Witch and the Cursed Wolf - Chapter 1: A Man and A Wolf Collaborator: riotwritesthings Link: AO3 Square Filled: C2 - AU: medieval/fantasy Ship: WinterIron Rating: Teen Major Tags: fantasy AU, witch!Tony, wolf!Bucky, fairytale vibes, Non-graphic injury Summary: Once upon a time there was a man, and a wolf. They both went into the forest looking for different things, and instead they found each other. Word Count: 1288

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Title: Breaking Free Collaborator: shadow-ravin Link: AO3 Square Filled: Y1 - AU: Supervillain Ship: None Rating: Teen Major Tags: Alternate Universe - Supervillain, podfic included, Podfic Length: 0-10 Minutes Summary: Bucky breaks free of Hydra before the movies. Hydra tells the world he is the villain. Word Count: 419

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Title: To Love Every Peace Of You Collaborator: Fighting_for_Creativity Link: AO3 Square Filled: K1 - Kink: BODY WORSHIP Ship: WinterIron Rating: Explicit Major Tags: Angst and Fluff, Body Worship (Kink), Clowns, Idiots In Love, mentioned PTSD Summary: James Bucky Barnes and Tony Stark have been together for several months. But somehow they haven't gotten intimate in bed yet. Some miscommunication could be the reason for it. Oh, and Tony's birthday is around the corner, meaning James needs to come up with a present. Thankfully, the villain of the week gives him the perfect idea. Word Count: 4080

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Title: To Be Warm Collaborator: darter-blue Link: AO3 Square Filled: K1 - Huddling for Warmth Ship: Stucky Rating: Mature Major Tags: Bucky Barnes Recovering, Fluff, Huddling for Warmth, Sharing a bed, Getting Together Summary: It's cold. Like, ridiculously cold. And Bucky is awake - partly because his brain just won't shut off tonight, and partly because the comforter, the blanket, the other blanket and the three pairs of socks he's wearing are just not enough to keep the cold out. Bucky hates the cold. Back living with Steve and finding his way to recovery, Bucky just wants to be warm... and it just so happens that the warmest place in the apartment is in Steve's bed - right up next to Steve, the human furnace... But does Bucky have it in him to crawl in next to Steve and borrow some of that warmth? Will Steve let him? Will it turn out that Steve has wanted Bucky there all along? For my Bucky Barnes Bingo Square: K1/ Huddling for warmth Word Count: 1015

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Title: in the woods somewhere Collaborator: nightwideopen Link: AO3 Square Filled: B5 - Bucky/Natasha/Clint Ship: Bucky/Natasha/Clint Rating: Mature Major Tags: several mentions of death & suicidal ideation/attempts, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Past Character Death, Magical Realism, Dark Fairy Tale Elements Summary: The only thing Clint cares about is the aching sadness in his bones that won't go away, and that one way or another, the witch can help him.And if that means feeding him to a feral snarling beast, then so be it. Word Count: 2271

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Title: Emotional Complications - Chapter 1 Collaborator: TiBun Link: AO3 Square Filled: - Major Injuries Ship: Steve/Bucky/Clint Rating: Explicit Major Tags: Major Character Death, violence, ABO, explicit sexual content Summary: Clint was hurting. He'd lost the love of his life, and suddenly life wasn't something he wanted to participate in as he kept himself locked away from the outside world. Steve hated seeing Clint like that and reached out, hoping to be enough to help the archer experience some of the good in life once more. Neither of them ever expected to see Bucky again. Word Count: 8709

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Title: Modify, Babe. Collaborator: fightingforcreativity Link: Tumblr Square Filled: K3 - Kink: BODY MODEFICATION Ship: WinterIron Rating: Mature Major Tags: DARK, not cap friendly, not avengers friendly, Rhodey is a good bro, Pepper is a good bro, Bucky POV,  Body Modification (Kink) Summary: Word Count:

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Title: After a Long Day Collaborator: saganarojanaolt Link: Tumblr Square Filled: U1 - Lingerie Kink Ship: None Rating: Mature Major Tags: art, nsfw Summary: Bucky art

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Title: Stop Me if You've Heard This One Before Collaborator: Faustess Link: AO3 Square Filled: K1 - Vulnerability Ship: pre-Bucky/Tony/Steve Rating: Teen Major Tags: Anxiety, Angst (with a happy ending) Summary: An artist, a super-soldier, and a billionaire walk into a bar - you haven't heard this one yet, have you? Tony Stark, recently divorced dad, head of Stark Industries' R&D department, and Iron Man, has been lonely. Rhodey's the best co-parent anyone could ask for, but he's moving on... and Tony's lonely. Bucky Barnes was pulled out of the ice almost five years ago. Even now, he's still not comfortable with the celebrity that goes along with being Captain America. And it's isolating being both younger than your teammates and at least 3 generations older. Bucky's lonelier than he'd ever thought possible. Steve Rogers made a name for himself as a graphic designer and illustrator - good with both digital apps and hand-drawn sketches. But romantically, there may as well be tumbleweeds and dust in his bedroom - it's that close to a ghost town. It's hard to be taken seriously, though when you're 5'4" and 100 lbs soaking wet... and that's a lonely life. So a better way to phrase this would be: three lonely hearts walk into a bar to see what they can find. Word Count: 4007

[witchyrem-ains]

Beetlejuice and Betelgeuse - Headcanon + Story

I have the “too much gene” and as a result a quick idea turned into a short story/beetlejuice x reader/beetlejuice HC.  I’m dyslexic, grammar and spelling aren’t my strong suits. 

Beetleb@bes DNI.

--

Having lived in the city your entire life you’ve never actually seen stars. Pictures on a projection are okay, and the view of city lights over the hills are beautiful. But it certainly can’t compare to the majesty of the universe. 

You received a job offer on the east coast, some nowhere town in Connecticut. You’d be able to work from home and still maintain your passion for art. It didn’t take you long to pack your bags and say goodbye to your family before you were off. 

Arriving in Winter River Connecticut was less than favorable. A downpour had done serious damage to your new home, and you wouldn’t be able to work in the house until repairs were done. 

At least there was one motel you could stay in while repairs were underway. Before heading there, you stopped by the Art Supply store and bumped into a vibrant woman; who was lecturing an employee on the differences between water-based and polymer clays. Having noticed that you’d picked up some sculpting tools the vivacious woman introduced herself as “Delia Deetz” and excitedly grabbed hold of a teenager decorated in gothic closing, “And this is Lydia! She’s my step-daughter!” 

You exchanged quick casual conversation but found that Delia was relentless; wanting to know everything about you and your skills. You mentioned you’ve shown in a few exhibitions, nothing big. Positively dazzled (and much to Lydia’s embarrassment) you’d been swept off your feet and invited to their home for dinner. 

The Deetz’s home was... unique. A blend of modern geometric furniture and shapes that clashed with rustic homemade furniture. Once Delia got wind of your situation in your new home you were ushered into the guest bedroom. Guess you were staying the night then? 

Delia talked your ear off. Her husband, Charles, was constantly amused by her enthusiasm. Lydia was interesting though; she’d duck behind walls and whisper to a small group of people, two wearing green, and another in a striped suit. 

It didn’t take long for you to pipe up and ask, “Who are the people in green and the guy in the suit?” 

The entire household went quiet. 

“You can see us?” Piped up a man in green plaid. 

“Yes. Obviously.” 

Elated, the plaid shirted man introduced himself as Adam Maitland and the woman in green was his wife Barbara. They quickly explained they were ghosts and didn’t have much company outside of the Deetz’s. The most peculiar of all, the man in the striped suit, stepped forward. With a snap of his fingers the house turned into a party worthy of a macabre Great Gatsby. Zombie Showgirls dancing, champagne popping, jazz blaring from a skeleton band, singing from sirens, darkness and light dancing at his fingertips. As quickly as it has all appeared, it was gone... he introduced himself as “The Ghost with the Most!” 

“He’s Beetlejuice.” The rest of the house sighed, obviously used to his shenanigans. 

One way or another you’d been at the Deetz/Maitland household for 2 weeks. Repairs were taking longer than you had hoped. 

They were all kind people. You worked with Delia in her studio on your art, you were learning new crafts with the Maitlands, you bonded with Charles over architecture, Lydia took a liking to you after you introduced her to some new bands and horror movies. Beetlejuice remained an anomaly. Every time you were alone with him he’d put on outlandish shows, Mardi Gras themed, Carnival, Greek, each theme peppered with his signature goth and gore. Each party also had an abundance of alcohol and drugs that Beetlejuice ravenously indulged in. 

You didn’t actually know him though. Not as well as you would have liked. He partied hard, he hung out with Lydia, complained a lot, but mostly put on insane shows to keep himself busy. Or so you thought.

-

The skies had been dark for nearly 3 weeks, icy rain continuing to fall. At this rate you might as well unpack your things and move into the house. You were relaxing with Lydia, helping her sort out her photography into various photo albums.  “Hey Lyds...”  “Hm?” She asked, only half paying attention, as she tried to decide if a picture of crows belonged in the “Foreboding”, “Ominous”, or “Murder” pile.  “How come Beej’s hair is always pink?”  Lydia scoffed, “It’s not pink you dingus. It’s usually green. His hair changes color with his mood. Purple when he’s bummed out, red when he’s angry, and green is his usual M.O.” “Oh...” you sat puzzled, “But, everytime I see him his hair is pink. What does pink mean?”  “Dunno...” she shrugged, sliding the last of her pictures into the albums, “Ask him yourself.” 

Retiring to your room, you pondered about Beetlejuice. Strange guy. You couldn’t quite nail him down. 

You flopped down on to your bed, ready to reply to emails when something glimmering caught your eye. 

Outside of your window you saw them: stars! 

You flew out of the bed and flung open the window as fast as you could, pulling yourself out the window on to the ledge. You gasped, clasping your hands together, “Stars!” You cheered, “Such beautiful stars!” For the first time in weeks the sky was clear and bright; and more beautiful than you ever imagined. 

“Heh.” you heard a chuckle. Just a few windows down was Beetlejuice, lounging on the roof, “Ya act like you haven’t ever seen gas. Just let one rip and light it on fire. That’s a human thing, right?”  You rolled your eyes, boldly moving towards him, “You don’t get it!” you exclaimed, “I’ve never SEEN stars before! Where I’m from you can see 3 or 4, there are more helicopters in the sky than actual stars! And oh my god, aren’t they gorgeous?” 

Your hands fell over your heart, the romantic in you bursting through. “I love them! I love them all. They’re like jewels in the sky! I wish I could pluck them out of space and hold them in my hands, admire it, love it, set it free like a butterfly--” 

Beetlejuice laughed, for the first time you finally noticed that his hair was a bright green instead of pink. The more boisterous his laugh the brighter green his hair became.  “Oh you’re somethin’ else sweetheart.” He taunted, throwing himself back against the roof dramatically, “Oh stars! Come to me and let me worship you like a lil lap dog!” He mocked, “I’m so deep, I’m a struggling artist! Misunderstood by the world! Only the emptiness of the universe understands my dark soul!”  His taunting continued, mocking your adoration for the stars relentlessly. You’d patiently taken his mockery until you decided to turn the tables.  “What about you, huh?” You took a large step forward, “Are you so bored with everything that you need be drunk or high to keep your mind off your own misery? Don’t think I haven’t seen you at your insane parties! All you do is create them so you can get high off your ass.”  Beetlejuice stopped his mockery on a dime, the green in his hair shifting into shades of pink and red.  “Watch it Breather.” He warned, stepping forward until you two were nose to nose, “It’s a three story drop and I’m not above murder.”  “You watch it!” You snapped, “I thought you were this upbeat, optimistic guy! But you’re actually just a shell of what USED to be a person, absolutely dead inside and trying to fill the void.” Turning your back to him, you headed towards your room, slipping back inside and slamming the window. 

Those stars you wanted to see for so long? Not worth it after all. 

What you didn’t see was The Ghost with the Most, slouching outside your window, quitely cursing himself for being an ass. His hair fading into a deep violet. 

End - Part 1

[shanewbpz822]

Why Nobody Cares About Showboat Film

Why How To Make Independent Films are Booming

Table of ContentsWhy The Greatest American Independent Movies are So PopularThe Only Guide to Independent Filmmakers You're Going To NeedHow Sundance Film Festival are Changing the World

e., cooperating the profits), but possession still resided the founders. As the years passed and the characteristics of business transformed, these "producing companions" drifted away. Goldwyn and also Disney left for RKO, Wanger for Universal Pictures, as well as Selznick for retired life. By the late 1940s, United Artists had practically discontinued to exist as either a manufacturer or supplier.

Selznick, Alexander Korda, as well as Walter Wangermuch of the same individuals who were members of United Artistsfounded the Society of Independent Movie Producers. Later on members included William Cagney, Sol Lesser, and also Hal Cockroach. The Society aimed to maintain the rights of independent producers in a sector overwhelmingly managed by the workshop system.

The most amazing guide to American Indie Filmmaking

In 1942, the SIMPP filed an antitrust suit against Paramount's United Detroit Theatres. The grievance implicated Paramount of conspiracy to regulate first-run as well as subsequent-run cinemas in Detroit. It was the first antitrust suit brought by manufacturers against exhibitors affirming monopoly and also restriction of profession. In 1948, the USA High Court Paramount Choice ordered the Hollywood flick studios to sell their theater chains and also to get rid of certain anti-competitive methods.

By 1958, several of the factors for producing the SIMPP had actually been corrected as well as SIMPP closed its workplaces. The efforts of the SIMPP and the introduction of low-cost mobile cameras throughout The second world war efficiently made it possible for anyone in America with a rate of interest in making movies to create, produce, and direct one without the aid of any kind of significant movie studio.

Filmmakers such as Ken Jacobs with little or no official training began to explore brand-new ways of making as well as firing movies. Little Fugitive came to be the initial independent film to be chosen for Academy Award for Ideal Original Screenplay at the American Academy Honors. It likewise obtained Silver Lion at Venice.

The top 5 things Best Independent Films can help with

As the 1950s advanced, the brand-new low-budget standard of filmmaking got increased recognition globally, with movies such as Satyajit Ray's critically well-known (19551959). Unlike the films made within the studio system, these new low-budget movies can manage to take dangers and explore new artistic territory outside the classical Hollywood narrative.

16 You Always Wondered About Independent Film Directors

Based upon a typical idea that the "main movie theater" was "running out of breath" and also had actually become "morally corrupt, visually out-of-date, thematically superficial, [and] temperamentally boring", this brand-new plant of independents formed The Film-Makers' Cooperative, an artist-run, charitable organization which they would make use of to distribute their movies with a central archive.

When he went back to America, Ken Rage would debut a number of his essential works there. Mekas as well as Brakhage would certainly take place to found the Anthology Movie Archives in 1970, which would certainly likewise show vital to the development and preservation of independent movies, also to this particular day. Not all low-budget films existed as non-commercial art endeavors.

Low-budget movie making promised exponentially better returns (in terms of percentages) if the movie might have an effective run in the movie theaters. Throughout this moment, independent producer/director Roger Corman began a sweeping body of work that would certainly come to be epic for its frugality and also grueling shooting timetable. Until his supposed "retirement" as a supervisor in 1971 (he remained to produce movies even hereafter day) he would certainly produce up to 7 movies a year, matching as well Source as typically exceeding the five-per-year timetable that the execs at United Artists had once believed difficult.

Corman's instance (which of others like him) would assist begin a boom in independent B-movies in the 1960s, the principal purpose of which was to generate the young people market which the major studios had actually lost touch with. By assuring sex, wanton violence, substance abuse, and also nakedness, these movies wished to attract audiences to independent theaters by offering to reveal them what the significant workshops might not.

All The Things Influential People In Independent Film Has Changed

As these tiny producers, cinemas, and also suppliers remained to try to damage one an additional, the B-grade shlock film quickly was up to the degree of the Z movie, a specific niche group of movies with production worths so reduced that they became a phenomenon in their own right. The cult audiences these pictures brought in quickly made them optimal prospects for midnight film screenings focusing on target market involvement and cosplay.

Romero shocked audiences with, a new kind of intense and also unrelenting independent horror movie. This movie was launched just after the desertion of the production code, however before the fostering of the MPAA rating system. Thus, it was the initial and also last movie of its kind to take pleasure in a completely unlimited testing, in which little ones had the ability to witness Romero's new brand of highly sensible gore.

With the production code deserted and fierce and also troubling films like Romero's getting popularity, Hollywood opted to pacify the uneasy filmgoing public with the MPAA rankings system, which would place constraints on ticket sales to young people. Unlike the manufacturing code, this score system positioned a danger to independent movies because it would certainly impact the variety of tickets they might offer and also reduce right into the grindhouse cinema's share of the youth market.

Nevertheless, having a movie audience-classified is strictly volunteer for independents and also there's no lawful impediment to releasing films on an unrated basis. Nevertheless, unrated flicks face barriers in advertising because media outlets such as TELEVISION channels, newspapers and also sites usually position their own constraints on films that do not featured a built-in national score to avoid providing flicks to inappropriately young audiences.

Most Unusual Indie Film To Studios facts

Widescreen processes and technological improvements, such as Cinemascope, stereo noise, 3-D as well as others, were created in an effort to preserve the diminishing target market by providing a larger-than-life experience. The 1950s as well as very early 1960s saw a Hollywood dominated by musicals, historic legendaries, and also other movies which gained from these breakthroughs.

[grigori77]

Top 10 Horror Movies, like, EVER (reissued)

10.  THE MIST

In 2007, writer/director Frank Darabont once again proved he does his best work when adapting master of literary horror Stephen King (after The Green Mile and solid gold masterpiece The Shawshank Redemption), this time turning to pure horror with one of the author’s lesser-known early novellas.  The result is another tour-de-force cinematic blueprint, a taut, harrowing tale of humanity pushed far beyond the brink by unexplained supernatural events and the monstrous lengths normal people will go to to stay alive, as a small-town New England supermarket is cut off from the outside world by a mysterious, monster-filled mist.  The Expanse’s Thomas Jane proves a complex hero, beefy yet vulnerable as local artist David Drayton, leading a high-calibre cast of Stephen King-movie/TV regulars – Jeffrey DeMunn (The Green Mile), Andre Braugher (Salem’s Lot), William Sadler (The Shawshank Redemption) and Frances Sternhagen (Misery) – and “newcomers” – Laurie Holden (who must have really impressed Darabont, since he subsequently cast her alongside DeMunn in The Walking Dead), Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’s Toby Jones (as one of the most unorthodox action heroes in cinematic history) and Miller’s Crossing’s Marcia Gay Harden, pretty much stealing the film as deeply unhinged Bible-basher Mrs Carmody, who goes from unsavoury town nut to fervent cult leader as the situation grows increasingly desperate.  Darabont once again proves what an exceptional screen storyteller he can be, effortlessly weaving an atmosphere of mounting dread and knife-edge tension, as well as delivering some nightmarish set-pieces featuring magnificent Lovecraft-inspired beasties designed by The Walking Dead’s creature effects master Greg Nicotero.  When cinematic horror was becoming increasingly saturated with “gorno” Saw-derivatives, this was a welcome return to old-fashioned monster movie thrills (Darabont himself was heavily inspired by the monochrome scary movies of his childhood, and longed to make the film in black-and-white – indeed, this is definitely worth watching at least once in the “director’s cut” B&W version he included on the special edition DVD release), and not only proved one of the best examples of King on screen to date, but also one of THE key horror movies of the “Noughties”. Not least thanks to that ending, one of the greatest sucker punch twists of all time – reputedly King was most envious of Darabont on seeing it for the first time, wishing he’d thought it up himself. Coming from the King of Horror, that’s high praise indeed.

9.  30 DAYS OF NIGHT

When Steve Niles, the undisputable master of post-modern horror comics, originally came up with the concept for his definitive work, it was intended for the big screen, but he ultimately wound up committing it to print because he just couldn’t get anyone to produce it.  Interesting, then, that the comic’s runaway success led to its optioning by Sam Raimi and his production company Ghost House Pictures, Niles adapting the first volume alongside Stuart Beattie and Brian Nelson, with Hard Candy director David Slade at the helm. Of course, the concept was always a killer – for one month every year, the sun never rises over the Alaskan town of Barrow, a fact that a coven of hungry vampires have decided to exploit in a midwinter free-for-all feeding frenzy.  Josh Hartnett manfully crumbles in what remains his best role as town sheriff Eben Olemaun, ably supported by Melissa George as his estranged fire-marshal wife Stella, Memento/Batman Begins’ Mark Boone Junior as hard-as-nails town loner Bo, Ben Foster (one of my very favourite actors) as a mysterious drifter with a dark agenda, and Danny Huston, who created one of the best ever screen vampires with nihilistic pack leader Marlow. It’s ironic that David Slade should have followed this with Twilight film Eclipse (although he was an inspired choice – after all, it’s the one that DOESN’T suck) – this is about as far removed from the toothless, blood-lite young adult series as you can get, an unrelenting, gore-drenched exercise in relentless carnage and ice-cold terror.  These vamps wouldn’t be caught (ahem) dead sparkling – they’re man-shaped mako sharks, all dead black eyes and jagged teeth, gleefully revelling in slaughter and playing sadistic games of cat and mouse with the isolated townsfolk.  This is definitely not a movie for the faint of heart, and it takes itself deadly seriously right through the unapologetically bleak ending, but it is nonetheless an endlessly rewarding thrill ride for the faithful, paying respect to all the great conventions of the genre while simultaneously ripping them to shreds.  Brutal, bloody and brilliant, this is BAR NONE the best vampire movie of the post-Interview age, and very nearly my all-time favourite EVER ...

8. POLTERGEIST

1982 saw the release of TWO of my all-time fave horror movies, and the lesser (but no less awesome) of the two is what I personally consider to be THE DEFINITIVE haunted house movie.  Tobe Hooper, director of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, pretty much reinvented ghosts on the big screen with this thrilling tale of a small-town-American family, the Freelings, whose seemingly perfect home comes under the influence of a powerful supernatural force.  At first the effects are harmless – moving furniture and the like – until a night-time thunderstorm signals a terrifying escalation and younger daughter Carol-Anne (Heather O’Rourke) is sucked through a portal into the spirit world.  Long before he was the dad in The Incredibles, Craig T. Nelson had already become a pretty definitive cuddly American screen father as Steven Freeling, while JoBeth Williams is a lioness defending her cubs as mother Diane; then-newcomer Heather O’Rourke, meanwhile, is a naturalistic revelation as Carol-Anne, her innocent delivery of “They’re here!” becoming a genuine geek phenomenon all on its own, but the film’s real runaway performance comes from Zelda Rubinstein as diminutive Southern belle psychic medium Tangina Barrons, whose every screen moment is a quirky joy.  As you’d expect, Hooper’s scares are flawlessly executed, the atmospheric tension ratcheted with consummate skill, even if the director’s characteristic gore is kept to a PG-13-friendly minimum ... then again, this was a summer offering from Back to the Future producers Frank Marshall and Steven Spielberg himself, who was also the main screenwriter. Indeed, his influence is keenly felt throughout – the suburban world the Freelings inhabit is very much in keeping with Spielberg classics like Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T. – and there have been consistent rumours that he was all but the de-facto director on set.  The film (along with its sequels) has also gained a reputation for being cursed, with no less than FOUR cast members dying not long after (most notably Dominique Dunne, who played elder Freeling daughter Dana, who was murdered by her boyfriend just five months after the film’s release).  Whatever the truth behind these rumours, there’s no denying this is a cracking film – taut, atmospheric and consistently terrifying while also displaying a playful, quirky sense of humour and lots of heart, it remains one of the most rewarding and entertaining screen ghost stories around.

7.  BUBBA HO-TEP

Bruce Campbell is Elvis Presley!  He really is!  Although maybe he isn’t ... all right, TECHNICALLY he’s Sebastian Haff, a washed-up, long-retired Elvis impersonator languishing in a retirement home who claims he really IS the King (apparently he swapped places with the REAL Haff because he’d grown tired of fame).  Meanwhile one of his fellow residents is an old black man who claims he’s the real JFK, maintaining that President Lyndon Johnson had him dyed black and secreted in anonymity with a bag of sand sewn into the gap in his brain ... confused yet? Well hold on, cuz there’s more – the retirement home in question has been invaded by the malevolent spirit of a cursed soul-sucking mummy, and only these two fallen heroes can save the day ... yup, writer/director Don (Phantasm and John Dies At the End) Coscarelli’s initially criminally overlooked but deservedly seriously cult adaptation of Joe R. Lansdale’s novel is as typically oddball as the rest of his filmography.  It’s also his most moving and spiritual work to date – behind all the supernatural weirdness and quirky, offbeat humour this is a deeply-affecting meditation on the pains of growing old and losing your place in the world.  Bruce Campbell’s Elvis/Haff is a tragic hero, regretting his current lot and pining for former glories, but he still has the odd little twinkle of his former charm and bravado (particularly during his interactions with his nurse, played with spiky gutsiness by Ella Joyce), while screen legend Ossie Davis is stately and charismatic as “the former President Kennedy”, even when he sounds REALLY crazy.  Meanwhile the creature, “Bubba Ho-Tep” himself (Bob Ivy), is a fantastically weird creation, Coscarelli’s skilful use of atmospherics elevating him far above the “guy-in-a-suit” effects – he’s mean, cranky, and just as strong a character as his flesh-and-blood counterparts.  Coscarelli really let rip on this one – it’s chock-full of his characteristic leftfield comic-scariness (Elvis/Haff’s early encounter with one of the mummy’s scarab familiars is a particular zany gem), visually inventive and frequently laugh-out-loud hilarious, but in the end plays out on such a heartfelt, genuinely powerful and moving denouement that you can’t help getting a lump in your throat, even while it is one of those movies that leaves you with a big dumb goofy grin on your face.  It’d be pretty sweet if Coscarelli and his mate Paul Giamatti ever get their long-gestating “prequel” Bubba Nosferatu: Curse of the She-Vampires off the ground, but this is one that you can’t help loving all on its own.  See this if you’re a Coscarelli fan – it’s his best work to date – see this if you love quirky, unusual and original horror ... hell, see this if you love MOVIES. This is a true GEM, not to be missed.

6.  DOG SOLDIERS

My favourite werewolf movie is also easily one of the most offbeat – think The Howling meets Assault On Precinct 13 and you’re pretty close to the mark.  Before visionary British horror director Neil Marshall had his big break with masterpiece The Descent, he made an impressive cult splash with his feature debut, a fiendish comedy horror in which a six-man British Army unit on training manoeuvres in the wilds of Scotland stumbles upon a pack of hungry werewolves and are forced to take shelter in an isolated cottage.  With their ammo dwindling and their weapons largely ineffective against the monsters (not a silver bullet between them, of course), it doesn’t look likely that ANY of will survive the night ... setting the humour dial for JET BLACK, Marshall keeps the atmosphere tense and the substantial gore flying (I was amazed when I saw this in the cinema that it was only a 15 – even just ten years earlier stuff like this was GUARANTEED a solid 18 certificate), while the squaddies are a likeably foul-mouthed bunch with a winning, sometimes enjoyably geeky line in spiky banter (Marshall makes frequent references to everything from Star Trek and The Evil Dead to The Matrix and, in one of my favourite nods, Zulu).  Trainspotting’s Kevin McKidd is brawny but enjoyably self-deprecating as nominal hero Cooper, Sean (son of Doctor Who Jon) Pertwee gives great earthy-shoutiness as Sgt. Wells, Darren Morfitt consistently steals the film as mouthy little bugger “Spoon” (short for Witherspoon), and Game Of Thrones star Liam Cunningham injects a strong dose of dark and dangerous as Captain Ryan, the special forces operative with a sinister plan, while Emma Cleasby is far from just a token female as zoologist Megan, who came to Scotland in search of the legend and seems to have found a whole lot more than she bargained for – she’s smart, tough and flat-out refuses to be a love interest, and definitely proved a good trial run for Marshall’s all-female cast in The Descent.  It’s impressively paced – after an initial character-driven set-up so we can get to know the lads (including a fun little scare-on-top-of-a-laugh moment), the action kicks in fast and rarely lets up for the rest of the film’s tightly-packed 105 minute running time.  The set pieces are thrilling and frequently fun (particularly Spoon’s ballsy little distraction technique), and the werewolves are impressively brought to life through physical animatronics created by Image FX (the Hellraiser effects team!) and a talented troupe of stilt-walking stunt performers – no cheesy CGI here!  Altogether it marked a blinding debut for a singular, visionary sci-fi/horror talent who’s still making his presence felt – Doomsday was a delightfully old-school slice of super violent sci-fi in the John Carpenter vein, while tight, gruesome little Roman-era suspense thriller Centurion proved that a historical epic doesn’t have to be 2+ hours long with a big budget to impress, and Marshall continues to garner real acclaim through his extensive TV work on the likes of Game of Thrones. That said, I can’t wait for him to return to the big screen, preferably with more dark, edgy, blood-soaked fun like this ...

5. TREMORS

I’ve always had something of a bias towards horror movies that are also comedies, or at least that have a strong sense of humour throughout, and when it comes to funny horror movies, this brilliant throwback to cheesy 1950s monster movies is KING, baby!  While it snuck in under the radar on its 1990 release, director Ron Underwood’s sleeper universally wowed critics, word of mouth helping it to become an impressive cult smash once it hit home video ... which meant I saw it at JUST the right time, the film quickly becoming a firm fixture in my favourites lists and a major milestone in my own geek development.  The premise is simplicity itself – giant underground worms with tentacles in their mouths terrorise an isolated desert community – but underneath the goofy concept is a surprisingly sophisticated movie that continues to influence filmmakers today.  Kevin Bacon was in a bit of a career slump at the time (Footloose had been SO LONG before), but this gave him both the shot in the arm he needed and one of his most memorable roles ever – odd-jobbing slacker Val McKee, who has to get off his arse and think big to beat the beasties; Fred Ward is the perfect foil as Val’s crotchety “business” partner Earl Basset, while Finn Carter is thoroughly lovable as scientist Rhonda LeBeck, a no-nonsense smart girl who can go toe-to-toe with the boys (and manages to lose her pants WITHOUT losing her credibility), but the film is consistently stolen by Family Ties star Michael Gross as tightly wound survivalist Burt Gummer – this might be Bacon’s movie, but Gross is the real star, deservedly becoming the driving force of the film’s various sequels AND the spinoff TV series.  The film opens with a killer of a funny line, starting as it means to go on – frequently hilarious and smart as a whip, consistently defying character and genre tropes and wrong-footing the viewer almost a decade before Joss Whedon started doing the same with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, all the while balancing the belly laughs with some genuinely scary set pieces.  The worms themselves (or “Graboids”, if you want to get specific) are spectacular creations, some of the most original movie monsters out there, and they still stand up well today, just like the rest of the film.  A cornerstone of the genre that wins over new fans with each generation, this is one of those films that deserves to be remembered for a very long time, and looks set to do just that. 

4.  EVIL DEAD 2: DEAD BY DAWN

Nobody does screen chaos like Sam Raimi, particularly when it comes to his horror offerings – still his first and purest love. His original debut feature The Evil Dead is rightly considered the DEFINITIVE indie horror, and to this day remains the standard blueprint for all young, aspiring directors starting out in the genre ... it’s also a work of pure, unadulterated MADNESS once it gets going.  Raimi upped the ante with this part-remake, part-sequel, the increased budget and proper studio resources meaning he could REALLY let his imagination run riot, and the results are a cavalcade of tongue-clean-THROUGH-cheek, jet black comedic insanity that STILL has yet to be equalled.  Bruce Campbell returns as unlikely “hero” Ash Williams, thoroughly out of his depth and failing miserably to hold it together as the ancient tome of evil itself, the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis (“Book of the Dead”), unleashes a horde of undead demons on the isolated forest cabin he’s brought his girlfriend to.  Wildly expanding on the supernatural back-story of his original, Raimi and co-writer Scott Spiegel also ramped up the humour, playing the horror on the blackest edge they can, albeit cut with a hefty dose of Tex Avery – Ash’s battle with his own possessed, eventually severed hand is like some demented skit out of The Three Stooges, while the absolute comedic highlight is the ridiculously over-the-top “laughing room” sequence, in which the seemingly inanimate objects in the cabin suddenly come to life and begin to taunt Ash; add in the great wealth of re-view-friendly visual in-jokes scattered throughout and this remains Raimi’s FUNNIEST film to date. Campbell clearly had a ball, throwing himself into the action with everything he had, and he’s ably supported by a meaty (ahem) cast that includes a very pre-Slither Dan Hicks as a seriously scuzzy redneck and Raimi’s own brother Ted, virtually unrecognisable as one of the maniacal Deadites (“I’ll swallow your soul!”).  The creature effects from the great Greg Nicotero still stand up spectacularly well today (they remain some of his very best work), from hideous gurning beasts to insane fountains of blood, while Raimi’s direction is pitch-perfect, playing the humour beautifully while still (sometimes simultaneously) building up a near-unbearable atmosphere of unholy dread, and the climax is ingenious, beautifully setting things up for the enjoyably madcap trilogy-closer Army of Darkness: the Medievil Dead.  Raimi has finally brought the trilogy the follow-up fans had been waiting decades for with the fantastically bonkers Ash Vs. the Evil Dead series, but this delirious masterpiece remains the franchise’s zenith.  Groovy ...

3.  JAWS

It may be the oldest film on this list (released in 1975, it’s THREE YEARS OLDER than I am!), but Steven Spielberg’s breakthrough feature has aged incredibly well.  Indeed, it almost single-handedly changed the face of big budget cinema, establishing the idea of tent-pole summer blockbusters and blanket-bombardment advertising campaigns (in particularly it was one of the first to make heavy use of television to drum up excitement and interest), ultimately taking over $400,000,000 on its original release (the equivalent of multi-billion big earners like Avatar today) and paving the way for Star Wars two years later.  Not to mention the film’s famous negative effect on beach-going for years after ... but under all that there’s a magnificent, masterfully-crafted film, still (rightly) considered one of the director’s best.  The plot may be ridiculously simple – New England beach-community Amity Island is terrorised by a man-eating Great White shark – but there’s a stealthily subversive story here, taking old genre conventions and twisting them in new, unexpected directions (which would, ironically, form a template for a great many later horror movies); while the first hour is a slow-burn thriller, the second is more like a light-hearted nautical action adventure with added scares. The French Connection’s Roy Scheider virtually CREATED the everyman-out-of-his-depth hero with his portrayal of Amity police chief Martin Brody, a former New York cop who’s terrified of the water, Richard Dreyfuss is lovable comedic gold as rich kid marine biologist Matt Hooper, Lorraine Gary did a lot with very little as Brody’s wife Ellen, and Robert Shaw effortlessly steals the film as shark hunter Quint, a ferocious, scenery-chewing force of nature in the mould of Moby Dick’s Captain Ahab.  The film is immensely rich in great character moments, from Hooper’s rib-tickling arrival on the island and the dialogue-free moment Brody shares with his younger son Sean, to the undeniable high point of the film, where a humorous comparison of scars (which has itself become a popular homage-magnet in film and TV) leads to Quint chilling account of his wartime experience onboard the U.S.S. Indianapolis (the ship transporting the Hiroshima atomic bomb which was torpedoed in the Pacific, leading to over a thousand stranded sailors being eaten alive by sharks); indeed, this is one of Spielberg’s most well-written films, sitcom writer Carl (The Odd Couple) Gottlieb’s polish of author Peter Benchley’s adaptation of his own original novel still zipping and zinging today, although some of the best dialogue was derived from the actors’ own on-set improvisations (most famously Scheider’s now-legendary “We’re gonna need a bigger boat.”).  It’s also one of his most well-directed, with near-hypnotic tricks in editing and bold, adventurous choices in atmosphere-building, often a result of the shoot’s infamous difficulties – the animatronic shark (affectionately named “Bruce” by the director, and “the Great White Turd” by the crew) created by Bob Mattley (the guy who did the giant squid in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea) was impressive when it worked, but this was so rarely that the director had to devise several means of creating maximum tension WITHOUT showing the shark, which ultimately ADDS to the effectiveness of those scenes, particularly the “barrel-chasing” in the second half.  None of these tricks, however, work better than the score from Spielberg’s most faithful collaborator, John Williams, based around a deceptively simple four-note melody that evolves into something spectacularly evocative, which has rightly become the film’s most iconic element.  Humorous, intriguing, intense and still thoroughly terrifying when it wants to be, this is, bar-none, the finest man-versus-nature horror EVER MADE, and surely always will be.

2.  NEAR DARK

I’m a fool for vampires (much like I’m a fool for redheads, but that’s a whole other conversation), so bloodsucker horror is one of my very favourite sub-genres.  I’m also a big fan of Kathryn Bigelow – two of her most recent features, The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty, both pinged VERY LOUDLY on my radar (the former is my favourite war movie of the current decade), while her collaboration with then husband James Cameron, Strange Days (he wrote, she directed), rates high on my list of criminally underrated screen gems.  So what do you think happened when she made a vampire movie?  The results SHOULD have become one of the most celebrated and legendary features in the genre ... except that it came out in October 1987, two months after the admittedly cool and fun but far more glossy and dumb The Lost Boys.  Needless to say in the wake of that, Bigelow’s film got kind of lost in the back chatter, nearly flopping at the box office and all but vanishing into obscurity ... until its subsequent release on video (quite rightly) earned it an impressive cult following.  Myself included, because this movie is RIGHT UP my dark and dangerous alley.  Collaborating with The Hitcher’s screenwriter Eric Red, Bigelow crafted a (largely) deadly serious modern day supernatural “western”, in which cocky farm-boy Caleb Colton (Heroes’ Adrian Pasdar) hits on cute drifter Mae (Jenny Wright, probably best known for her supporting turn in Young Guns 2), only to get WAY more than he bargained for when her kiss leaves him with a crippling hunger and one serious tanning problem.  Pasdar’s all-knowing youthful swagger disintegrates as he tumbles further down the vampiric rabbit hole, while Wright’s fragile beauty compliments her character’s deep, soulful melancholy – the pair make for a compelling, tragic romantic centre anchoring the horrors that unfold as Caleb begins to lose himself to his burgeoning nature; even so, the true dark and twisted soul of the film lies with Mae’s predatory nomad “family” – Lance Henriksen is the definitive “dark father” as nihilistic pack leader Jesse Hooker, while his Aliens co-star Jenette Goldstein is his perfect mate as punk rock femme fatale Diamondback, and Joshua John Miller excels as Homer, the bitter old man trapped in a child’s body ... meanwhile Bill Paxton consistently steals the film as mad dog Severen, chewing the scenery to splinters with gleeful, feral aplomb and stealing all the best lines.  It’s a potent, heady ride, taking itself pretty seriously throughout but deriving a subtle, inky black sense of gallows humour from the situation, and the set-pieces are intense and thrilling (particularly the shootout in a roadside motel at dawn, where shafts of sunlight become as lethal as bullets).  At times it’s also powerful, soulful and bleakly beautiful, Bigelow’s heavily stylised visuals brilliantly augmented by the spiky electronic score from Tangerine Dream. It also subverts the classic vampire conventions with great skill and originality, with nary a cross, coffin or even fang in sight.  Like 30 Days of Night, this is the perfect antidote for anyone suffering from Twilight-overload – the monster can be quite interesting when he’s the hero, but he’s just so much more fun when he’s the bad guy ...

1.  JOHN CARPENTER’S THE THING

While I’m sure many will think I’m mad for preferring this over Carpenter’s other seminal horror classic Halloween, this one’s much more my speed, a perfect exercise in sustained tension, paranoia and white-knuckle terror. Critically mauled and under-performing on its release (it was labelled by many as a sort of “anti-E.T.: the Extraterrestrial”, which came out two weeks earlier ... and interestingly this opened the same day as Blade Runner!), it nonetheless became a massive cult hit now rightly considered one of the true DEFINITIVE horror movies.  Faithfully adapting John Campbell, Jr.’s novella Who Goes There? (certainly more so than Howard Hawks’ admittedly entertaining but ultimately very kitsch The Thing From Another World), it revolves around the all-male crew of U.S. research station 4, Outpost 31, in Antarctica, who come under threat from a body-snatching alien entity that can perfectly imitate its victims after investigating the mysterious destruction of a neighbouring Norwegian facility.  Carpenter regular Kurt Russell (Escape From New York, Big Trouble In Little China) is at his gruff best as helicopter pilot R.J. MacReady, the taciturn blue-collar Joe called upon to play “hero”, Keith David (Pitch Black, Carpenter’s They Live) angrily flexes his acting and physical muscles as hot-tempered researcher Childs, Donald Moffat crumbles as ineffectual station commander Garry, and screen legend Wilford Brimley effortlessly makes the exposition compelling as tightly-wound biologist Blair.  The freezing Antarctic atmosphere perfectly complements the razor-edged suspense, the idea that ANYONE could be the creature lending every scene a palpable sense of implied threat, while the science of the fiction is thankfully largely put on the back-burner in favour of the story and scares; meanwhile there’s a cheeky edge of jet black humour throughout, from the scuttling disembodied head to Garry’s explosive reaction to MacReady’s improvised humanity-test.  Rob (The Howling, Robocop, Fight Club) Bottin’s fantastically nightmarish creature effects are a magnificent achievement, still looking as good today as they did back in 1982, while master composer Ennio Morricone’s subtle, atmospheric score is a triumph of creepy, insidious subliminal effect.  For me, this film is the definition of fear – the idea that the threat could be literally ANYONE, that you could even become that yourself, be taken over completely, body and soul, is absolutely terrifying, and Carpenter executes this potential reality with surgical precision from the intriguing, icy start to the bleak, desolate ending.  Perfect.

[doomedandstoned]

Top 10 Albums Of The 2010′s

~By Calvin Lampert~

I think it is safe to say that underground metal has enjoyed a period of unprecedented growth and popularity in the last 10 years. But when I am saying this I am not only thinking about the heavy underground; those adherents of the Sabbath sound and this whole new wave of doom metal bands. I am thinking of the fact that (underground) metal has undergone a change in image, too.

Though frequently maligned as hipster bands (or metal for people who don't like metal), acts like Deafheaven have brought metal to a whole new audience and raised awareness of the genre as a genuine form of art that does not just exist for its own sake; that metal fans only go for gore, beer and self-referential horn-throwing. Not that Neurosis and Godflesh haven’t been ambassadors of this mindset for more than three decades already, but it feels that the understanding of metal as art seems to have finally broken through to an audience outside of the traditional metal subculture in the past decade.

I think it is in no small part thanks to some of the bands on this list I have assembled (though I may have forgone obvious picks like Alcest and Deafheaven for more personal choices). And in retrospect, it should’ve been a list of bands rather than records, as most of the artists on this list would’ve have had a claim to a spot on here, with any record they put out. Take that as a hurray for consistency. So, without further ado, my picks for the best and most remarkable records of the decade.

10. Akhlys – 'The Dreaming I' (Debemur Morti - 2015)

The Dreaming I by Akhlys

I can’t help but wonder if Naas Alcameth of AKHLYS (also of Nightbringer, Aoratos and Bestia Arcana) set out with the express intent to create what is essentially a nigh perfect atmospheric black metal record when he started working on The Dreaming I. It damn sure feels like, each strum, syllable, and beat sits at the right place; the pieces of this nightmarish puzzle fit with an unsettling ease.

Photograph by by Kuba Leszko

The sound really does justice to the underlying concept of dreams and nightmares, as you’ll rarely find a record with such an impenetrable atmosphere. Once you hit play you’re soon enveloped by countless layers of swirling guitars, all at the command of Naas Alcameth, and he seems hellbent on suffocating you with them. The Dreaming I is about as close as you can get sleep paralysis-made-music. If you put off black metal as spooky noise made by a bunch hooded esoteric nerds you might’ve found your match in Akhlys. They are just that, they’re dead serious, and the results are impressive.

9. Elephant Tree – 'Elephant Tree' (Magnetic Eye Records - 2016)

Elephant Tree by Elephant Tree

I’ve observed myself growing increasingly apart from most stoner rock as of late, sometimes even antagonizing the genre. I’m afraid I’m just burned out on it and grown embittered, so a record from those genres ending up on my Albums of the Decade list should give you a hint of just how special it really is.

That is not to say that there haven’t been some real stoner rock heavy hitters this decade, such as Gozus Revival, Valley of the Suns Sayings of the Seers or Lo-Pans Salvador, but there’s something to ELEPHANT TREE's self-titled record that just so narrowly sets it apart from the others.

Photograph by Phil Smithies

What that is I am still not quite sure, and I had my fair share of relistens. Maybe it is the tasteful balance act of the production that makes this record so wonderfully ethereal but also ridiculously crushing. Or the sleek as all hell songwriting where every hook fires but the flow remains impeccable. Or the gorgeous harmonic interplay of Jack Townley and Pete Hollands vocals. Or maybe really just the sum of it all.

Whatever it is, Elephant Tree get it so very right and it is a true joy to behold such a well-written and fine-tuned record in a genre that has become all too prone to shoddiness and idle Kyuss worship. If there is any justice in the world, Elephant Tree will be looked back as a classic of the genre.

8. Oranssi Pazuzu – 'Värähtelijä' (Svart Records/20 Buck Spin - 2016)

Värähtelijä by Oranssi Pazuzu

So many have tried to do it. Countless chonged out Hendrix worshippers. Australian neo-psych darlings. But they all failed. Turns out the holy grail of psychedelia was dug up by a bunch of dudes in the frozen wastes of Finland when they decided to throw together black metal and almost every imaginable psych rock permutation under the firmament. Absolute insanity inducing balls-to-the-wall trippiness ensues.

ORANSSI PAZUZU is their name, ego-death squared in hyperspace is their game and Värähtelijä is the latest in a slew of attempts to smear your brain across the event horizon, and their most accomplished one so far. Think Hawkwind trying to interpret the soundtrack of Interstellar with a guy being spaghettified by a black hole screaming on top of it. Huge, plodding riffs and spacey synth fuckery abound.

Film by Shelby Kray

This madness extends to their live shows, yours truly (being completely sober) suffered a sensory overload when they launched into the crescendo of the album opener "Saturaatio" at Roadburn 2016. This band is taking things to the next level, and something tells me that Värähtelijä is just another chapter in an increasingly maddening venture.

7. Conan – 'Blood Eagle' (Napalm Records - 2014)

You can’t really draw a picture of the doom scene in the '10s without CONAN. And I do mean that in quite the literal sense, as seemingly every self-respecting doom fan seems to own at least one Conan shirt and you can’t really go to a gig without seeing one.

By all accounts the band probably could’ve retired years ago and just live off those rad merch designs. But Conan knows no rest -- always writing, always touring, always scheming. Thus the band has fed a steady stream of releases to a cult-like following over the years and narrowing down the output of such an important band to just one record is no small task. My choice eventually fell on the fan favorite, 2014's Blood Eagle.

Photograph by Sally Townsend

Conan had already pretty much established themselves as the emergent sludge-doom act of the decade at that time, but as we know they’re not one to rest on their laurels and Blood Eagle was just them driving the point home and the stake deeper, solidifying a grasp on the scene that hasn’t waned ever since, and they did it oh so righteously, by the primordial might of tonal displacement and drop F glory.

Conan might have the closest thing to a universal doom appeal because they speak to your baser instincts. Songs like "Foehammer" or "Total Conquest" seem like trebuchets aimed at the synapses of your reptilian brain, and I can’t help but admire these noble DIY barbarians, who so deservedly have carved out their place in the canon of the genre.

6. SubRosa – 'More Constant than the Gods' (Profound Lore - 2013)

More Constant Than The Gods by SubRosa

SUBROSA was one of a kind. If one band calling it quits this decade broke my heart, it was them. But before doing so they gifted us three outstanding post-metal records, whose folk and chamber music flourishes felt completely unique, intimate, and anachronistic in a genre dominated by more vast and spacious narratives. They reached inward rather than outward and did so with a no-parts-wasted mentality.

In a world rife with one-trick bands, SubRosa's employ of multiple vocalists and two electric violins felt natural and unabashedly non-gimmicky, and they would reveal the true potential of their sound on 2013's harrowingly beautiful More Constant than the Gods.

Photograph by Alyssa Herrman

More Constant is remarkable for its elegant and restrained way of instilling dread. Hardly any harsh vocals, the tempo never goes beyond a steady stride, just those horrific and yet also beautiful violins, plodding guitars, and downright poetic lyrics. And SubRosa seem to feel right at home on either terrain, be it the skin-crawling lead guitar line of "Affliction" or the grandiose outro section of "Fat of the Ram." One can only hope that SubRosa will return one day. A band that was truly novel, and not just a novelty.

5. Tchornobog – 'Tchornobog' (Fallen Empire / I, Voidhanger - 2017)

TCHORNOBOG is many things. Among others, a dark, ancient Slavic deity. In the world of music, a monolithic amalgamation of extreme metal, some Eldritch chimera of cavernous black, death, and doom metal. And the beast of one Markov Soroka, though him stating that the Tchornobog inhabits his head begs the question who might really be in charge?

Photograph by Nona Limmen

Soroka does indeed seem to be guided by spirits since he started the project at the age 14, and eight years of gestation and arduous work culminated in one of the most engrossing, all-consuming records I have come across this decade. Far be it from me to reduce Tchornobog’s remarkability down to the young age of its creator, but Sorokas ambition and execution of those ambitions could run circles around a lot of veteran extreme metal bands. The man is just flat out talented. And that is not even taking his various other projects (Drown, Aureole, Krukh) into account, or his curation work through his own label, Vigor Deconstruct.

As such, Tchornobog ultimately is, among many other things, a bright spotlight shining on a young man who has all the makings of being the next big underground metal mastermind. I’m sure you’ll be inclined to agree as soon as Soroka brings out the grand piano and saxophone on "III: Non-Existence’s Warmth (Infinite Natality Psychosis)" to perform what I’d like to call Lovecraftian Lounge Music. He must have a thing for Demilich too, judging from those song titles.

4. Hell – 'III' (Lower Your Head / Pesanta Urfolk - 2012)

Hell III by Hell

There is a subtle power in melodies, particularly melancholic and sad ones. Doom, and more specifically funeral doom, have long since sought to harness the power of the melody, but I think nobody has been quite as effective or moved me so profoundly with a simple plucked melody as MSW, the singular mind of HELL.

Just one minute into Mourn, the opening (and penultimate) track of Hell III), I am already instilled with a deep sense of melancholy, but also foreboding doom. However, few songs can just thrive from having a good riff or lead -- and there’s 17 minutes yet to go. I’ll spoil you and say that in this time Hell shifts between doom, black metal, neoclassical music, and dark ambient. That’s a lot of territory to cover and it becomes apparent that for how meticulously well crafted its individual parts are, MSW never loses sight of the bigger picture and the transitions between these different sounds are seamless.

Film by Billy Goate

At the danger of sounding like a huge fucking nerd, I really am more inclined to refer to "Mourn" and its follow up "Decedere" as movements rather than songs and if the songwriting doesn’t clue you in you’ll be persuaded by the time Decedere breaks out the operatic vocals and a flute accompanied by a string ensemble. And no matter if he’s performing a contemplative acoustic piece or pounding you in the ground with some absolutely hellish (the band name is apt as can be) blackened doom, MSW always manages to maintain an aura of grandeur. MSW is not just a great songwriter, he’s a veritable composer, and III is his magnum opus.

3. Mizmor – 'Yodh' (Gilead Media - 2016)

Yodh by מזמור

If whatever has come before was bleak, then Yodh is pitch fucking black. This decade hasn’t lacked in dark records (not even taking metal into account -- Mount Eerie's A Crow Looked at Me, Nick Cave’s Skeleton Tree, or The Caretakers Everywhere at the End of Time), but taking on existential dread specifically (and thereby becoming a vessel for it) MIZMOR's Yodh remains unsurpassed in its sheer effectiveness to instill said dread in the listener and is possibly the most harrowing record of the last 10 years.

Photo by Kento Woolery

As befits the theme, Yodh genuinely sounds like the work of a broken man. A miserable slab of glacial funeral doom and grimy black metal, but delivered with a brute strength and conviction that really suggests more defiance than self-pity. I’d be remiss to not point out ALN's incredibly varied vocal performance, ranging from wretched snarls and air-starved bellows to what I can only describe as pterodactyl shrieks, all carrying the same biting vitriol as the instrumentals.

Film by Shelby Kray

Yet for all its doom and gloom, Yodh surprises with occasional moments of tenderness and outright (if melancholic) beauty, too, such as the acoustic intro of "II: A Semblance Waning" or the massive main riff of "III: The Serpent Eats Its Tail" that feels like the sort of thing Pallbearer would’ve come up with if they had been more into Mournful Congregation than Warning.

All these things combined with thoughtful, introspective lyrics make Yodh into an incredibly powerful and downright visceral record, and if for you the main draw of doom metal lies its emotional potency (as it does for me) then Yodh is an essential listen. Let ALN shout down the very pillars that uphold your personal beliefs of life’s meaning.

2. Pallbearer – 'Sorrow and Extinction' (Profound Lore - 2012)

Sorrow And Extinction by Pallbearer

Warning was the first band to try to bridge the gap between traditional and modern doom metal, and while Watching from a Distance might have a fair claim to be one of the saddest metal records out there, in my eyes it was PALLBEARER who took that formula even further and perfected it with their 2011 debut Sorrow and Extinction. To me, it’s a classic record in both senses. A landmark of post-millennium doom and a throwback to the days of yore, when Saint Vitus and Candlemass were in charge of bumming everyone out; while still maintaining the larger-than-life-feel and sonic heft of modern doom championed by bands like Yob or Neurosis.

Photo by Sally Townsend

But Sorrow and Extinction isn’t just some roided up epic doom sans the operatic vocals, Pallbearer are far too clever to suffer such a pitfall. Granted, Sorrow sounds huge, and while there’s plenty of the heavy stuff to go around what makes Sorrow so great is how catchy it is. There is no weak song on this record (admittedly there’s only five), and while most bands could only hope to one day write a riff as good as "Devoid of Redemption's" main theme, it seems like Pallbearer just comes up with them on a whim, and their ability to do so doesn’t seem to have faded three records into their career -- not even to speak of Brett Campbell's soulful lyrics and passionate delivery.

Film by Billy Goate

Then, of course, there’s the amazing guitar interplay between Campbell and Devin Holt, chiefly on the casket closer "Given to the Grave," whose second half essentially boils down to them constantly trading dramatic leads with each other like the world's most woeful ping pong game.

Sorrow and Extinction is not only a deeply moving yet utterly anthemic record, but also one that successfully marries the past and the present of doom. In that regard, it is a preciously rare and so far unsurpassed record.

1. YOB – 'Clearing the Path to Ascend' (Neurot Records - 2014)

Clearing The Path To Ascend by YOB

Writing about metal without resorting to superlatives is hard. Try to practice restraint in the presence of something whose very nature lacks restraint. I am definitely guilty of that lack of restraint; one has only got to scroll up again to confirm it. But luckily some records are so very superlative that I do not have to take that editorial high road and can fire all the “mosts” and “-ests” at will. In fact, they almost require you to use them. Clearing the Path to Ascend by YOB is one such record. Even among all these preceding superlative records it stands above and beyond.

Photo by Angelique Le Marchand

Clearing the Path to Ascend is so vast, it feels singular. It is one and it is all. When I think larger-than-life sound, Clearing comes to mind first. It has become the very benchmark with which I measure other records. Yob's big and beautiful only consists of four tracks, but they made each feel like a distinct part of a greater journey. "In Our Blood" opens with a recording of Alan Watts telling you it is "time to wake up," before the song slowly rises into a stretched-out draw and crash, eventually unfurling into a manic guitar line.

"Nothing to Win" feels like Yob's own take on Neurosis’ Through Silver in Blood. It is an unrelenting, steady 11-minute march down a highway of broken glass, utterly windswept and viciously hopeless. "Unmask the Spectre" seems to tread similarly bitter paths but manages to wrestle itself free into two grandiose spiraling crescendos.

Film by Billy Goate

The death knell of an album closer that is "Marrow" shouldn’t really need much of an introduction at this point. It still feels like I’ll see a link, post or share of it every other day. It has become an omnipresence in the doom scene, and deservingly so. Yob dials back on the gloom and shines all the brighter. "Marrow" is not just hopeful; it is downright ecstatic and by the time Mike Scheidt launches into the grand solo of the track (so very gracefully accompanied by a Hammond organ played by producer Billy Barnett) has ascended to a genuine sermon.

Though Clearing had its fair share of dark moments "Marrow" closes the record on a remarkably conciliatory note and I really think that speaks of Yob as a (metal) band. Call it a big move to offer closure -- a fitting end to such a big record. One that suits the title of ‘Album of the Decade,’ and embodies the spirit of metal that wants to be just more.

Calvin's Choice: 100 Best of the Decade

YOB - Clearing the Path to Ascend

Pallbearer - Sorrow and Extinction

Mizmor - Yodh

Hell - Hell III

Tchornobog - Tchornobog

SubRosa - More Constant Than The Gods

Conan - Blood Eagle

Oranssi Pazuzu - Värähtelijä

Elephant Tree - Elephant Tree

Akhlys - The Dreaming I

Clutch - Earth Rocker

Merkstave - Merkstave

Gozu - Revival

Chelsea Wolfe - Pain Is Beauty

Valley of the Sun - The Sayings of the Seers

Inter Arma - Paradise Gallows

Thou - Heathen

Om - Advaitic Songs

Bell Witch - Mirror Reaper

All Them Witches - Dying Surfer Meets His Maker

Horn of the Rhino - Weight of Coronation

Boss Keloid - Melted on the Inch

KALEIKR - Heart Of Lead

Jeremy Irons & The Ratgang Malibus - Spirit Knife

Woman is the Earth - Torch of Our Final Night

Weyes Blood - Titanic Rising

LINGUA IGNOTA - Caligula

Queens of the Stone Age - ...Like Clockwork

Messa - Feast for Water

Anna von Hausswolff - Dead Magic

Mamiffer - The World Unseen

Samothrace - Reverence to Stone

Primitive Man - Scorn

Fórn - The Departure of Consciousness

Khemmis - Absolution

Bongripper - Miserable

High on Fire - De Vermis Mysteriis

UN - Sentiment

Cult of Luna - Mariner

Slomatics - Future Echo Returns

MISTHYRMING - Söngvar elds og óreiðu

Dvne - Asheran

Earth - Primitive and Deadly

Mars Red Sky - Apex III (Praise For The Burning Soul)

The Midnight Ghost Train - Cypress Ave.

Panopticon - Panopticon - Roads to the North

Mare Cognitum - Phobos Monolith

Sólstafir - Ótta

Have a Nice Life - The Unnatural World

Furia - Księżyc Milczy Luty

Tardigrada - Emotionale Ödnis

Yellow Eyes - Immersion Trench Reverie

Stoned Jesus - Seven Thunders Roar

Höstblod - Mörkrets Intåg

Ulver - The Assassination of Julius Caesar

Zola Jesus - Okovi

Funereal Presence - Achatius

Wormlust - The Feral Wisdom

Daughters - You Won't Get What You Want

L'Acephale - L'Acéphale

40 Watt Sun - The Inside Room

Vilkacis - Beyond the Mortal Gate

Bossk - Audio Noir

Carpenter Brut - Trilogy

Sumac - What One Becomes

Death Grips - Exmilitary

Red Fang - Murder the Mountains

Lo-Pan - Salvador

Whores. - Gold

Truckfighters - Universe

Greenleaf - Trails & Passes

Bölzer - Aura

Monolord - Vaenir

Dead to a Dying World - Elegy

The Body - I Shall Die Here

Mutoid Man - War Moans

Neurosis - Fires Within Fires

Opeth - Pale Communion

Planning for Burial - Below the House

Triptykon - Melana Chasmata

Graveyard - Hisingen Blues

Saor - Aura

Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower

Egypt - Endless Flight

Emma Ruth Rundle - Marked For Death

Deafheaven - Sunbather

Kadavar - Kadavar

Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats - Blood Lust

Vanum - Ageless Fire

Dai-Ichi - Dai-Ichi

Lord Mantis - Pervertor

Ne Obliviscaris - Portal Of I

Loss - Horizonless

Tome of the Unreplenished - Innerstanding

Elder - Lore

Witch Mountain - Cauldron of the Wild

Ahab - The Giant

Alcest - Kodama

The Dillinger Escape Plan - Dissociation

Sleep - The Sciences

[pengiesama]

Panopticon (Fic, TGCF/Coraline AU, HC/XL)

Title: Panopticon Series: Heavenly Official’s Blessing (Tian Guan Ci Fu) Pairing: Hua Cheng/Xie Lian, Jun Wu & Xie Lian, Jun Wu & Mei Nian Qing

Summary:

Jun Wu has built a very splendid home for Xie Lian, with gifts and friends and wondrous sights just for him. He will be very happy there.

Xie Lian won't take this house arrest lying down.

(Inspired by the book/movie Coraline, by Neil Gaiman.)

CONTENT WARNINGS: Horror, Body Horror, Psychological Horror, Gore, Bittersweet Ending

Link: AO3

Read on Tumblr!

Eight hundred years ago, there was a kingdom known as Xian Le. 

--

--

“Why does she want me?” Coraline asked the cat. “Why does she want me to stay here with her?”

“She wants something to love, I think,” said the cat. “Something that isn’t her. She might want something to eat as well. It’s hard to tell with creatures like that.”

– Coraline, Neil Gaiman

--

 Eight hundred years ago, there was a kingdom known as Xian Le.

The kingdom had four treasures: beautiful women, music, riches, and its crown prince.

 “And this is…”

Forgetting himself in his excitement, Xie Lian took the sword down from where it was displayed on the wall to examine it more closely. He turned it this way and that, examining the pommel, spying down the length of the blade to see the fineness of its edge.

“…jingeom, Four Dragons!” Xie Lian exclaimed. “Unmistakably! A Four Dragons blade can only be crafted once every twelve years, you know, and only by the finest blacksmiths.”

“Just so,” Jun Wu confirmed. “Foreign pieces often find their way into my collection. I don’t discriminate when it comes to quality.”

Nor did Xie Lian, but it was nigh-on impossible to keep his attention on a single dazzling artifact when he was surrounded by hundreds more. Xie Lian had already handed off the blade to Feng Xin, and was back to eyeing up the rest of Jun Wu’s collection. Jun Wu laughed; a warm, delighted sound.

“Xian Le is so knowledgeable! But so hard to impress.”

He was clearly amused, but Xie Lian would hardly deny the sentiment. He was Xian Le’s crown prince, after all – he’d seen the best, thought he could do it better, and then proceeded to do so. It was simply the natural way of things.

Xie Lian had already stacked more discarded legendary swords into Feng Xin’s arms like so much firewood. (Feng Xin’s soul had long since left his body at the sight of Xie Lian’s shameless behavior in the Heavenly Emperor’s own household, and he simply stood there like a statue, numbly accepting whatever Xie Lian handed to him.) Xie Lian squinted at the blade he currently had unsheathed, frowning slightly.

“This is…a fortune-telling blade?” Xie Lian inquired aloud.

“Ah, yes, that old stick,” Jun Wu said dismissively. “I don’t put much stock in that sort of thing. Lovely craftsmanship, though.”

“Mm,” Xie Lian agreed, re-sheathing the sword and handing it off to Feng Xin. He, too, cared very little for fortune-telling; much to the chagrin of his teacher. But the fact that Jun Wu shared his opinion made his heart buoyant with pride. “Neither do I. I wish you’d been around to get me out of all those dull divination lectures, before I ascended…”

Even so, seeing that blade in front of him, he found himself trying to recall those lessons…though he could now confidently proclaim that fortune-telling was a frivolous pursuit, he was admittedly a little curious to what that reflection was trying to indicate. Butterflies, dancing on that gleaming surface…

Jun Wu made a sympathetic noise, and reached out to pat Xie Lian’s back. “Dreadfully dull indeed – and wholly unsuitable for Xian Le. What a waste, to have you cooped up indoors staring at star charts instead of cultivating your swordplay! It truly speaks to Xian Le’s innate talents that he was able to ascend so soon despite these obstacles.”

Xie Lian bubbled with happiness at Jun Wu’s words; at his agreement and praise. Even that touch to his back didn’t feel as overly-familiar as it should – he supposed if anyone was permitted to pat Xian Le’s crown prince like a child, it would only be the Heavenly Emperor himself.

“In any event, Xian Le doesn’t have to worry about any of that silliness anymore. And if that Head Priest of yours still tries to lecture you for falling behind in your lessons, just call on me.” Jun Wu leaned in, his expression comically grave. “I’ll give him a lecture he won’t see coming.”

Xie Lian laughed at the very thought of Jun Wu scolding Head Priest. Perhaps he’d have him write lines, just as Head Priest had assigned Xie Lian when he outsmarted those silly riddles of his!

He reached for another sword.

“At this rate you’ll have gone through my whole collection before the sun rises!” With a flick of Jun Wu’s sleeves, the swords in Feng Xin’s arms rose up and re-arranged themselves on the walls. “I’ll have to work hard at adding new pieces, so Xian Le always has something to see when he visits…”

At long last, Xie Lian had found a sword that piqued his interest. He went through a few practice poses with it as Jun Wu spoke; testing its balance, testing its reach. His skillful feet, his step as light and spritely as a deer’s, barely made a sound on the polished floors. His robes billowed and swirled with his graceful movements, blooming about him like the petals of a heavenly flower. The blade sang like a bell as Xie Lian sliced at the air.

Jun Wu circled him, evaluating his form. He reached out and gripped Xie Lian’s elbow, tilting it up just a bit to straighten up the point of the blade. The adjustment was slight, so slight that even a trained eye could hardly see it. But it resulted in a form so perfect, so divine, that it looked like a statue formed at the hands of a heavenly architect.

“I should fetch you a flowering tree branch,” Jun Wu said. “Then you’d be fit to for mortals to paint. Though I don’t think your shrines can hold any more icons of you…”

Xie Lian puffed out an annoyed breath. “They can just use my other statues and murals for reference. I have more than enough, and they can make do. Even when I was small I loathed sitting for portraiture.”

It was such a waste of time, standing still for hours while a royal painter squinted and sketched. A true artist would only have to see him once!

“They truly don’t understand you, Xian Le,” Jun Wu murmured. “Don’t worry. Now that you’re here, you don’t have to concern yourself with any of that, anymore. You’re beyond what they could ever comprehend.”

Jun Wu’s hand came up to pat his head, to stroke his hair.

“Shall we retire to my study? You must be in need of some refreshments.”

“No, thank you,” Xie Lian said, and it was the truth – he never was a big eater, and it was something of a relief that the worship he received now was nourishment enough. “I should go back to my temples and address prayers. The Mid-Autumn Festival is coming soon, and I wish to give a strong showing.”

Gods did have duties, of course, and Xie Lian did have so very many prayers to answer. All the same, there were few among gods, ghosts, and mortals who had such confidence that they could rebuff an invitation from the Heavenly Emperor himself.

But Xie Lian was the one and only crown prince of Xian Le.

Jun Wu laughed again. “Xian Le is truly hard to impress, indeed. I wish him luck. But please, don’t hesitate to come calling whenever you wish. I promise to show Xian Le many more splendid things.”

 --

 Eight hundred years ago, there was a kingdom known as Xian Le.

The kingdom had four curses: idleness, corruption, excess, and its foolish prince.

 “I must say that I didn’t expect Xian Le to drink down the wine during our game so readily. And that play – the human realm is so full of wild ideas!”

Xie Lian tittered a nervous laugh at the mention of the play. “Y-yes, um. That play was…truly something.”

After the Mid-Autumn Banquet concluded, he’d been unexpectedly invited to the Great Martial Palace for after-dinner tea. The sky was still ablaze with lanterns, and Xie Lian was still too dazzled and dazed by the sight of them, and the thoughts of the person who’d sent them heavensward, to give much thought to refusing the summons. And so here he was, having tea and sweets with Jun Wu in his personal study.

It brought back old memories – of himself as a foolish seventeen-year-old, rattling off the history of every weapon mounted on Jun Wu’s walls, as if the Emperor wasn’t aware of their properties and lineage! Such arrogance he’d shown, back then. Lecturing for hours, talking his ear off. But Jun Wu had stood and listened to him go on and on, a fond smile crinkling his eyes and mouth. Truly, the Emperor had always been so kind to him.

“Do you know that it’s a tradition for the runner-up of the Lantern Battle to host dinner for the winner?”

Xie Lian blinked and tilted his head curiously. “No? That seems unfair, though. Like salt in the wound.”

Jun Wu chuckled fondly, as if he’d expected such a response. “Yes, well. Being that I usually win, most of the other gods leap at the chance to host me at their palaces. It’ll be me doing the leaping this year…and my leaping muscles are so out of practice! Xian Le has given me a splendid chance to exercise them. It will be an event you won’t soon forget.”

Xie Lian was suddenly exceedingly thankful that Hua Cheng had sent up so many lanterns. Even if it was just on a whim, a second-place finish would have had him hosting the Emperor of Heaven at his Puji Shrine! He could not have borne up under such shame.

It was as though Jun Wu could read the thoughts flitting through his mind. “Shall I pay a visit sometime? To this shrine of yours that I’ve heard so much talk about.”

“Ah—”

How to respond? His little shrine was much too humble to receive the Emperor himself, no matter how well Xie Lian swept its dirt floors! He knew he shouldn’t have put off fixing the roof for this long. And he’d been meaning to mend the curtains he’d salvaged, but with his sewing skills, they would likely look better if they stayed torn…

“It—it may not be to your lordship’s liking. It’s quite cramped, you see; I’ve been hosting – many visitors lately—”

“Surely proof that Xian Le is a gracious host, and all the more reason for me to come calling.”

Xie Lian shifted uncomfortably. He had no face to lose, honestly. Less than a year ago, he had been sleeping on the streets; having even a leaking roof over his head was an improvement. But to allow Jun Wu to see the state in which he lived – his tiny, tattered little home, with bare cupboards and junk piled in every corner – filled him with an acute sense of shame. The Emperor had always been so kind to him, thought so highly of him. And his pathetic state was all that came of that trust. The shackles on his skin prickled uncomfortably, like marching, biting insects.

Jun Wu smiled magnanimously. “Well. I hope you’ll receive me, one day. Perhaps in the home I built for you here.”

To his further embarrassment, Xie Lian often forgot the Palace of Xian Le even existed. He could only nod, further shamed by his own careless, ungracious behavior.

“I suspect that it is not to your liking.” Jun Wu leaned his head on his hand, and regarded Xie Lian with an air of gentle concern. “You seem to prefer a shabby little hut in the human realm to the comforts I’ve provided. I personally designed it. I personally funded it. I sent word to you when it was finished; I would have liked to spend an evening in your company, to catch up on all these years. I waited for days for you to finish whatever business kept you in the human realm. Days into weeks. And now, here we are at the height of autumn, and you still haven’t spent a single night there. You must understand my confusion.”

Xie Lian’s cheeks flushed hot. “I’m…it’s—”

“The pantry is always full of the finest produce from Heaven’s trees and fields.”

“I—”

“I’ve filled your wardrobe with many fine ensembles. Windmaster, too, has sent over piles of clothing that he must think suits you. He seems so terribly fond of you.”

“That’s—”

“Is it perhaps that your neighbors have been discourteous and unwelcoming? Excepting Windmaster, of course. Understand that the stars in the night sky must not concern themselves with the jealous sputtering of an innkeeper’s candles.”

“It’s…it’s just—”

“If Xian Le would prefer, I could make whatever arrangements necessary to make him feel more at home. He need only ask.”

The generous grace being shown to him was so utterly undeserved that Xie Lian could never dream of accepting it. He was not the spoiled little prince that Jun Wu remembered – so full of promise and potential, so desperately foolish. He preferred to live as he was now – busking on street corners, gathering scraps, washing the same two pairs of robes in the nearby stream. Chopping wood for the fire, chatting and laughing as Hua Cheng helped cut and gather and carry. Cooking the vegetables he’d been offered as thanks for helping in the fields, and eating with Hua Cheng by his side as the fire crackled into embers.

(It went without saying that Hua Cheng would not be a welcome guest in the land of the gods. This, too, was something that could not be overlooked.)

A life holed up in the Heavens, in a sumptuous palace, far away from the troubles of the other two realms. Perhaps it suited the other gods, gods that were greater than him. But it did not suit Xie Lian. Not anymore.

He was at a loss on how to explain his feelings.

“I…I can’t stay tonight,” Xie Lian said. “I’ve been looking after two human children. And dealing with my cousin.”

Jun Wu gave a sympathetic wince at the mention of Qi Rong, and the sight of such a silly, human expression on the Emperor’s face made Xie Lian give a brief titter of nervous laughter. “Ah. Xian Le has always leapt headlong into trouble. He needn’t worry tonight about moving house, but one hopes that he’ll consider sometime in the future, once his various errands have concluded. I look forward to being your guest.”

With that, Jun Wu lifted his head from his hand and saluted Xie Lian, allowing Xie Lian to return the salute and beat a hasty retreat to his humble home.

It would not be the first time he’d disappointed someone who had faith in him, and it surely wouldn’t be the last.

 --

 Two thousand years ago, there was a kingdom known as □□□□□.

The kingdom had four treasures: beautiful women, music, riches, and its crown prince.

 “I waited for you, after the Mid-Autumn Banquet. I would have known the moment you set foot in this palace that you’d come. But you never did.”

“…”

“I built this palace especially for you, Xian Le. Do you think I do that for every god that comes through the heavenly gates?”

“I never asked you to,” Xie Lian spat.

“I wonder who taught you to be such a scornful child,” Jun Wu sighed. “All those years in the mortal realm have taken their toll on your manners. Or perhaps it was the company you’ve kept, recently. I think some time for reflection in your quarters is in order.”

Jun Wu stopped at the door to the Palace of Xian Le, and waited for Xie Lian to trudge up before he continued speaking.

“Not that I was asked to, but I’ve taken the liberty of making some adjustments to make you feel more at home. I want this to be a place you’re comfortable in. A place you can while away many happy years, a place where I can always come calling and see a smile on Xian Le’s sweet face.”

Jun Wu briefly stroked a hand over the fall of Xie Lian’s hair, down his back. The old, sick memory of White No-Face’s tender embrace flared in Xie Lian’s mind, and he whirled away; nearly falling down the stairs in the process.

“Careful,” Jun Wu chided. “Clumsy.”

Xie Lian choked as he was pulled out of his freefall by Jun Wu’s grip on the shackle about his neck. He clawed at his throat, gasping for air. Jun Wu opened the door of the palace, and dragged Xie Lian inside; dumping him unceremoniously on the floor at his feet.

“Welcome home,” Jun Wu said gently, warmly.

“Welcome home!”

“Welcome home!”

“Your highness!”

“Your highness!”

The palace of Xian Le was the palace of Xian Le.

“Lianlian,” his mother said, approaching him with the warmth and carefree joy he remembered from his earlier years. “I made us dinner – your favorite! You must be so hungry from training all day!”

The fine porcelain bowls lined up on the table were filled with discolored, rot-smelling sludge. This was, in itself, not cause for special concern, or something particular to this nightmare that Jun Wu had thrown him into. While it was not Xie Lian’s “favorite”, he could recognize it on sight (and scent). Taste, too, most likely. It had tasted the same going down as it had coming back up on that morning when he’d dined next to his parents, while they dangled from the ceiling by their necks.

His father – hale and healthy – chuckled. “Don’t worry, son,” he said in a stage whisper, winking as he did. Xie Lian could not remember the last time he saw the king act so jovial, so warm to him. “There’s plenty of fresh meat buns from the cooks in the kitchen.”

“Your highness!” Feng Xin and Mu Qing said in unison, then startled theatrically at that fact. They harrumphed dramatically, and crossed their arms, determinedly not looking at each other.

“I’ll get you a change of clothes—”

“He needs to have a bath first, idiot!”

“He can change his clothes and then have a bath! Then change his clothes again!”

The palace of Xian Le was the palace of Xian Le and the palace of Xian Le was filled with the people that Xie Lian remembered so well even after so many years. They should have been dead. They should have been dead or should have drifted so far away that Xie Lian could hardly recognize them anymore. But here they were, as they had been. Exactly as they had been, save for one fact: every familiar face was grotesquely twisted into a half-smile-half-frown. There was not the courtesy of masks, just flesh and sinew rearranged into an impossible expression of despairing bliss. Heart in paradise.

Xie Lian began to tremble.

Jun Wu leaned down to whisper into Xie Lian’s ear. “There’s a swingset in the back garden,” he said. “Your mother told me how much you loved to swing when you were a little one.”

“She didn’t tell you anything.” Xie Lian’s voice was tremulous with fear and fury. “She’s been dead for eight hundred years. Because of—”

Jun Wu cocked an eyebrow. “Because of me?”

“Because of me,” Xie Lian snapped. “Don’t interrupt.”

Jun Wu’s eyes went soft. He knelt and helped Xie Lian to his feet; his touch and voice filled with compassion. “It’s not your fault. Oh, it’s not your fault, Xian Le.”

He pulled Xie Lian into his warm, unrelenting embrace. His heart beat under Xie Lian’s cheek, steady and strong. Thump thump, thump thump.

“The frailty of others is not your responsibility,” Jun Wu said. “Xian Le should not blame himself for others’ shortcomings. For others’ failures. The burden is not his to bear up under. This is a lesson that I’ve tried so hard to impart to you, and save you further pain.”

Xie Lian wished he could flay off his own skin, and grow a suit of new pink flesh that wouldn’t bear the memory of this touch. He felt a nudge to the back of his knees, and a head pressing itself to the underside of his palm; like a dog begging to be petted. He looked down, slowly, dreading what awaited him.

The sight of Qi Rong gazing up at him adoringly struck Xie Lian with a nostalgic vertigo that threatened to make him vomit even more than the smell of his mother’s stew had managed. He wore the face of the innocent child he once was, before grief and loneliness and madness had warped his mind. The smile-frown on his face was present, but his mouth was sewn shut with dark thread. Qi Rong could only make small, animal noises from the back of his throat as he continued to bump against Xie Lian’s palm; finally taking his hand and pressing it firmly to his head.

“I thought it would be best for everyone if I took care of that vile mouth of his,” Jun Wu explained. “Less noise. Less spitting. Better diet regulation. He’s much more manageable now, don’t you agree?”

Qi Rong nodded in agreement, and continued to pet himself with Xie Lian’s hand. Xie Lian yanked his hand away, finally, and stumbled out of reach. Qi Rong made an awful squealing noise at the loss, like a starved pig denied a bucket of scraps. He toddled after him in hot pursuit. Xie Lian could hardly hold himself back from kicking him clear across the room.

“That’s quite enough,” Jun Wu scolded. He brought his boot down on Qi Rong’s back with a sickening-sounding crack. The pig-squealing doubled in volume. “Ugh. Well, if he was completely manageable, I suppose this home of yours wouldn’t quite feel as it should. Still, I’ll have him taken away and trained a bit more.”

Obeying this implied order, the shadows on the floors shivered, and dozens of rats scurried forth to collect Qi Rong and drag him away to parts unknown. Xie Lian immediately recognized them as the rats of the ruined city at Mount Tonglu and heard their whispers as they went. your highness your highness your highness your highness your highness as your highness commands

“It’s late,” Jun Wu stated. Feng Xin and Mu Qing both stepped forward in unison, and stood at Xie Lian’s sides, ready to escort him to his chambers. “But I hope you’ll find your new home comfortable. I’ve made sure to stock and staff it with everything I remember you adoring.”

But there was a notable face absent.

“Your memory must be going, then,” Xie Lian said. “Someone’s missing.”

Jun Wu’s eyes narrowed. “Do tell. Who could I have forgotten? I know Xian Le very well. Who could Xian Le possibly care for so much that I don’t know about?”

Jun Wu stepped forward. Xie Lian stepped back, but did not break eye contact. Feng Xin and Mu Qing obediently kept step with Xie Lian, strolling backward with his every move.

“Is it perhaps the former Windmaster? No, Xian Le did not even care enough to search for him. Perhaps if he did, then he would have retained the use of his limbs. The two little children he cared for in his earthly hovel? No, hardly a thought spared for them when it wasn’t convenient. Sealed that snake priestess into a pickle jar and set her on his shelf to forget about...even though Xian Le seems to like children so much, he does not seem to be especially good at caring for them.”

Xie Lian’s back hit the wall. Jun Wu stepped into his space, leaning in close, until they were nearly nose to nose.

“I wonder what happened to that filthy urchin you stopped my parade to save?” he quietly asked.

He reached up to tug aside the collar of Xie Lian’s robes, to expose the silver chain there, and –

“I meant Head Priest, you old bat,” Xie Lian snapped.

And he did, in fact, mean to refer to his old teacher. He tugged the collar of his robe back into place, and tried to will his heart from hammering its way out of his ribcage.

Jun Wu smiled, and gave Xie Lian back a modicum of personal space.

“Ah,” Jun Wu said. “Xian Le is correct, how silly of me. I’ve been having some…difficulties with your teacher. He doesn’t seem to want to join us in this happy home of ours quite yet. But he’ll be convinced soon, just be patient.”

Convinced? Xie Lian was certain that he was surrounded by illusions; mindless shells painted to look like the people he remembered. They were merely empty vessels for Jun Wu to puppet as he pleased. They did not need to be convinced of anything. They were not who they looked to be. They were not his long-dead parents, they were not two long-lost friends, they were not a child long-lost. Xie Lian was certain of this. He was certain.

Jun Wu gave the order for Feng Xin and Mu Qing to take him away to his chambers and get him ready for bed, and gave the order for his parents to remain at the dinner table to keep the food and company ready for Xian Le when he was ready for it. The king and queen simply bowed their heads at the order, and sat dutifully in their seats, idly stirring the foulness in their bowls.

“We’ll be waiting right here, Lianlian,” his mother said. “I’ll leave a midnight snack out for you.”

 --

 Eight hundredHUNDREDfourHUNDRED years ago, THERE WAS a kinngdom knnownn as □□□□□.

The kinngdom had four TREASURES: □□□□□, □□□□□, □□□□□, and its crownn prinnce crownn prinnce crownn prinnce CROWNN PRINNCE.

 Xie Lian walked on his own, flanked by Feng Xin and Mu Qing, and was led into a bathing chamber to be scrubbed down. The bath was pleasantly warm, scented with fragrant herbs, and big enough to swim in. Ruoye shifted on his person, clearly wanting to swim around and wash up, but unwilling to leave the safety of his master. Xie Lian patted him gently, bidding him to stay put. The reflection of heavenly light on the crystal-clear surface of the water hurt Xie Lian’s eyes; he would not be able to keep track of the white silk under these conditions. Thankfully, he was still so filthy from the volcanic ash at Tonglu that the bathwater turned black in short order.

He knew he’d had a long day, but…it made Xie Lian flush a bit. Hua Cheng was so generous to have allowed Xie Lian to embrace him when he looked like this! And not just embrace, but…Xie Lian flushed harder and brought a hand to his mouth, huffing into it to check how his breath smelled.

“If his highness would tip his head back,” Feng Xin said.

Xie Lian tilted his head and allowed his hair to be rinsed clean. He eyed Mu Qing from this position. Mu Qing was folding and re-folding every piece of fabric that he saw, making unintelligible noises of displeasure as he worked. Indeed, a quite perfect likeness of the Mu Qing he knew. What was quite unlike the Mu Qing he knew was this…complacency. It would take more than threats from a mad god-emperor to make Mu Qing placidly march in lockstep alongside Feng Xin. Likewise, to make Feng Xin sit and wash hair like a docile housewife while Mu Qing sighed and complained in his vicinity.

An idea came to Xie Lian’s mind.

“Feng Xin, Mu Qing,” Xie Lian said. “I have a joke for you both.”

“Yes, your highness,” they said in unison.

“A horse walks into a teahouse, and says to the owner, ‘I’ll have a pot of tea and a plate of candied almonds.’ The owner says back, ‘By the gods! A talking horse!’”

Xie Lian finished speaking, and waited for a reaction. Feng Xin and Mu Qing both laughed in delight, laughed with their distorted mouths.

“Your highness’ sense of humor cannot be beat,” Mu Qing said.

“Yes, his highness is as talented in words as he is in the blade,” said Feng Xin.

The last time Xie Lian had told them that joke, Feng Xin shattered a rib from laughing too hard, and Mu Qing was so incensed at the noise of his horrible bleating that he broke a chair over his head. It went without saying that Mu Qing did not find the joke funny at all.

Convinced. Jun Wu only phrased it like that to rattle him. These were simply soulless magical constructs, of that Xie Lian was sure – quite sure. But this did not answer the question of why Jun Wu had not simply made a construct of Head Priest to round out this vile little stage play. It was not a matter of power – the Emperor of Heaven himself had more than enough of that, enough to create walking, talking copies of two heavenly officials. Creating a copy of a cultivator – no matter how ageless and immortal – would have been child’s play in comparison. It didn’t make sense.

Xie Lian was old enough to know when to lay low, when to wait for an opportunity. He allowed the puppets of his friends to finish washing and dressing him, to turn down his bedsheets and stoke the brazier beneath the bed. He allowed them to close the curtains, put out the lamps, close his door. He was not locked in. This was, of course, his new home. He had no thoughts of escaping; if there was a way to escape this realm of Jun Wu’s own making, Xie Lian had yet to think of it. And so, he lay in bed, to think.

Tap, tap.

Tap.

Tap, tap.

Xie Lian wearily turned his head towards the tapping noise. A full-length mirror was set into a large wooden vanity, and in the mirror, he saw his room reflected. The high ceilings, the carved jade pillars, the swooping silk canopy of his bed. He saw himself, sitting bundled in the sheets. He saw a hunched figure, standing just behind the glass, peering around the side of the mirror as if they were a prowler peeping at an inn window. The figure was wearing a half-smiling-half-frowning white mask.

Xie Lian rolled his eyes and sighed. Honestly, hadn’t Jun Wu had enough of trying to scare him today? He was trying to sleep. He made a big show of yawning and rolling over, hoping he’d get the message.

Tap, tap.

Tap.

…But, just in case he didn’t…

“Fuck off, old man,” Xie Lian shouted over his shoulder. “Go get eaten by those rats of yours.”

The tapping stopped briefly as the figure behind the glass pondered these words.

BANG. BANG. BANG.

Xie Lian flew up, worried that the glass would shatter and he’d have to fight in his nightwear. Ruoye roiled around his limbs, distressed at the noise but ready to fight for his master’s sake. The figure stopped pounding at the glass with their fist, satisfied that they finally had Xie Lian’s attention.

With a bit of spiritual energy, they frosted the window glass in a thin sheen of ice, and began to write to him with their fingertip.

The characters were mirrored, of course; backwards and tricky to parse. But Xie Lian knew that elegant handwriting well.

“Head Priest,” Xie Lian said.

Mei Nian Qing quickly brought one finger to the mouth of the mask he was wearing, and Xie Lian immediately fell silent. This message was easy enough to translate: be silent and wary of eavesdroppers. Xie Lian nodded, and waited for him to finish writing.

Heavenly Capital locked down. No way in or out. You are well?

Xie Lian wrote back with his own finger.

Been through worse. Where are you? Why is Head Priest wearing that unsightly mask?

Mei Nian Qing was still for a long moment, then turned his head to the side to show Xie Lian the truth of it. Xie Lian choked back the panic that threatened to tear a scream from his lungs.

A line of black stitching attached the mask to his face. The stitching itself told the story far more succinctly than a finger on iced glass: at his chin, forced and sloppy, with torn skin and fingerprint bruising. Evening out as it proceeded, ending with a stitch so fine that a god of embroidery would praise it. The skin there was unbloodied and worked so finely that it was as though the needle used was spun from a fairy’s whisper. It was clear that Mei Nian Qing had stopped struggling, towards the end, and Jun Wu had rewarded him with tenderness. Or what passed for it.

Mei Nian Qing wrote a simple phrase in the ice:

I’m sorry.

He let the characters hang there, frozen in frost and glass, and stared down at his lap. Xie Lian was not about to let this conversation end like this. They were alone here, and they would band together, and flee together. He wrote phrase after phrase, insistently, even as Mei Nian Qing continued to sit there motionlessly.

Where are you?

Are you alone?

Is someone watching you?

He’s made copies of my mother and father.

Mei Nian Qing’s attention appeared to be drawn to the last phrase. He stared at it, the mask hiding whatever expression it had stirred. After a few moments, he began to tremble. He crumpled in on himself, clutching his head and tangling his hair in his hands. A sob tore from his throat, causing Xie Lian to startle as the sound shattered the silence.

“I knew it’d made him angry,” Mei Nian Qing sobbed. “I knew he’d thought me pathetic. But I was alone for so long, you have to understand. I needed – I needed them – I needed them to play cards with— I didn’t mean it as an offense. Your highness. Your highness, please, you have to understand, I’m so sorry…”

“Head Priest! Teacher!” Xie Lian whispered frantically. “It’s fine, I understand! None of this is your fault! Just tell me how to get to you, I’ll come find you and cut that ugly thing off your face!”

His pleas fell on deaf ears. Mei Nian Qing continued to sob, babbling to himself in increasing hysteria about solitude and cards and your highness, your highness, your highness. Xie Lian leapt to his feet, his martial god brain taking over. A person trapped behind glass: the simple solution was obvious, and that simple solution was to smash the mirror with his fists.

“Hold on! I’ll be right there!”

Not even needing a command, Ruoye wrapped around his hands and wrists to protect him from the soon-to-be-shattered glass. He flexed his fingers, readying himself to strike.

your highness

Xie Lian’s fist stopped mid-swing.

your highness your highness your highness

bad ungrateful awful I’m telling

Xie Lian recognized that raspy sound. He whirled just in time to see a rat scurry off; out the door and into the halls. Whatever that rat wanted to “tell” Jun Wu, it couldn’t be good. There was little time for Xie Lian to make assurances to Mei Nian Qing that he’d be right back, or to stay put or hide himself or just try to stay alive. The most he could do was close the door of the wooden vanity, hiding the mirror from view, and race after the rat down the hall.

The rat was smaller than the others he’d seen at Tonglu; suitable for reconnaissance, and fast enough that even Xie Lian’s fleet feet had trouble keeping pace. It also made a small enough target that Ruoye couldn’t strike true. He lashed out over and over, like a lunging snake, and each time was thwarted. All the while, the rat chittered in its awful voice:

your highness your highness yourhighnessyourhighnessYOURHIGHNESSSSSSSSSSS AWFUL AWFUL AWFUL THEY CALLED YOUR BEAUTIFUL MASKS UGLY—

The rat’s tattling cut off with a garbled shriek.

Xie Lian finally caught up, and found that the rat had met its end at the claws of a sleek black cat. The cat stood poised over its kill like a beckoning statue, washing its ears and purring so loudly that Xie Lian could hear it from ten paces away.

Briefly pausing its bath, the cat looked at Xie Lian. It winked its single eye at him slowly, continuing to purr. A red ribbon was tied around its neck.

“San Lang.” Though he was tearful with relief, the words felt punched out of Xie Lian’s heaving lungs. He collapsed to his knees, trying to catch his breath. “Th…thank you…”

The rat’s corpse dissipated with just a flick of Hua Cheng’s tail. Hua Cheng trotted over immediately, and before he even could think about hesitating, Xie Lian scooped him up and bundled him close to his chest.

“Gege,” Hua Cheng said, low and soft. The sound of it alone was enough to soothe Xie Lian’s frayed psyche. “You’re unharmed?”

Xie Lian nodded. Hua Cheng’s fur in this form was so silky soft, so pleasant to bury his face in. So much so that Xie Lian almost forgot to question the why of it.

“…you’re a cat,” Xie Lian finally noted aloud.

“Yes indeed,” Hua Cheng agreed.

Oh, Xie Lian could almost see that bratty little smirk on his face. Hua Cheng patted his paw against the pout of Xie Lian’s mouth, playfully.

“If gege wishes for me to explain myself: I came here in disguise and found myself…temporarily locked into this form, for the time being. Nonetheless, as a cat, I enjoy many benefits in a situation that calls for stealth. It becomes all the more simple for me to slip into places unnoticed, unseen, unheard. Such as into this palace, or into gege’s sleeves with his Ruoye, to fly out with claws bared at a moment’s notice.”

Ruoye swirled around Xie Lian’s arms, clearly miffed at Hua Cheng for inviting himself in to Xie Lian’s sleeves without consulting their current resident. It wouldn’t do for them to be cooped up in there together – how could Hua Cheng do any clawing, or Ruoye any whirling, when they would have to jostle around each other? There was only one solution.

Hua Cheng let out a startled mrrp! as Xie Lian stuffed him into the breast of his robes to be carried there. It wasn’t an ideal solution – he was in his nightclothes, and the lack of layers made hiding him difficult. Though Hua Cheng was small in this form, he was still large enough that there was a noticeable bulge. Xie Lian arranged him this way and that, until he was mostly hidden in the wrap of his sash around his waist. Hua Cheng’s soft fur tickled his bare skin.

“I’m sorry. Please bear with it for now,” Xie Lian said apologetically. “Once I’m dressed, we can find another way.”

Hua Cheng was silent for a long moment.

“…of course,” he finally managed.

Eavesdroppers everywhere, Xie Lian belatedly remembered. The bedroom was hardly better than an open hallway, but at least there was the illusion of privacy in the former. He and Hua Cheng could discuss what to do next, there…how to free Head Priest, how to escape from this place, then came the matter of how to escape from the Heavens themselves next, then…Jun Wu surely wouldn’t take any of that lying down, so, then…

Then…

The thought of taking the head of the man that had done so much to him, done so much to so many others, should have filled him with glee, or at least some sort of righteous thrill of justice. But there was nothing but a cold sense of duty, tempered by a pathetic little whimpering at the corner of his mind. The Emperor was always so kind to me. The Emperor always believed in me. The Emperor has always showed me heavenly grace and compassion even when I’ve done nothing for eight hundred years but disappoint him.

And? So what?

What’s your point?

Eight hundred years had given Xie Lian plenty of time to disappoint a lot of people and none of them had reacted half as badly as this.

“Gege is being very quiet,” Hua Cheng said. He squirmed a bit, and Xie Lian suppressed a giggle as his whiskers tickled his skin. “One hopes that he’ll tell this San Lang his thoughts.”

“It’s nothing,” Xie Lian said.

“Forgive my insolence, but I sense that’s not the truth.”

Eight hundred years of humiliation and regret and shame. Xie Lian thought he was used to it, by now. It was painful enough to disappoint someone he once considered an idol, a father figure, a beneficent authority. Xie Lian once thought that if he could live through that, he could survive anything the world threw at him.

But…then he’d met Hua Cheng. Hua Cheng, who was always so kind and generous, who believed in him no matter what and smiled at him like he hung the moon and stars.

I’ll just wind up disappointing him, too.

He’d survived so much. But he couldn’t bear the thought of the sadness and pity in Hua Cheng’s eyes when he eventually found out the whole of the crown prince he’d carved in a thousand perfect images.

Xie Lian set his hand on the bedroom door, and quietly replied:

“It’s not. I’m sorry.”

Maybe one day he’d be brave enough to tell Hua Cheng the full truth of himself. He doubted it.

He opened the door and saw Jun Wu sitting on the edge of his bed. Jun Wu smiled at him.

“Xian Le is up past his bedtime. He won’t be at his best if he doesn’t get a full night’s sleep.”

“If anyone needs beauty rest, it’s you,” Xie Lian snapped. “Aren’t you sleeping for four?”

Jun Wu’s expression darkened. “That was very rude.”

“Is that the group consensus?” Xie Lian was pushing his luck, but he could feel Hua Cheng purring against his skin, encouraging him. He gestured to the door. “Get out if you want me to sleep so bad. Go bother someone else.”

Jun Wu rose off the bed. Hands resting behind his back, he strode over to where Xie Lian stood at the door. He was so much taller than him. Even now, bolstered by fury and Hua Cheng’s closeness, Xie Lian could not help but feel small.

Jun Wu wore a tired, sad expression.

“Does Xian Le always treat the ones that love him with such cruelty?” he asked. “I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me. Whether his noble parents or the lowliest of ghosts, he awards devotion with the heel of his boot.”

Xie Lian went pale. Jun Wu stroked his hair, moving his hand down to cup Xie Lian’s cheek and tilt his face up to look at him.

“But I still have faith that he can be made to see sense, to be a grateful and dutiful child. Eight hundred years I spent refining you, so you could direct that boot of yours where it belongs – onto the backs of those who caused you so much misery, those common folk you wanted to save so desperately.”

“Go bother someone else,” Xie Lian hissed, again. “Just leave us be.”

Jun Wu’s eyes went dark, like those of a predator who’d scented blood. “‘Us’? Who could Xian Le be referring to?”

“Don’t play dumb,” Xie Lian stepped back, trying to reclaim some breathing room. “You know what you did.”

Jun Wu’s eyebrow raised. “In this instance, Xian Le really has to be more specific.”

Incensed, Xie Lian stormed over to the wooden vanity.

“Sewing one of those ugly masks of yours to Head Priest’s face and throwing him into this mirror, how’s that for specifics—”

Xie Lian nearly tore off the door of the vanity when he opened it to reveal…

…a completely normal mirror.

Xie Lian barely had a moment to process when he found himself roughly shoved to the side by Jun Wu. He couldn’t find his footing quickly enough, and fell to the floor hard. He only just managed to avoid landing all his weight on where Hua Cheng still wrapped around his middle; instead feeling the impact spark pain up his hip and spine. Jun Wu paid him no mind; instead, he clutched the sides of the mirror, white-knuckled. He wore the expression of a madman – wild-eyed and furious.

Without a single word, he pulled his fist back and brought it down upon the glass. A single flick of the pinkie from the Martial Emperor was enough to topple fortress walls. But the mirror did not crack.

Jun Wu’s jaw tightened enough that Xie Lian could hear his teeth grinding, like two swords against each other. The skin of his face was rippling and shivering like a disturbed pond, and – suddenly, horribly – the flesh of his cheek opened into a mouth; bursting forth with tongue and teeth.

“MURDERER! BLACK-HEARTED SINNER!”

Xie Lian had seen the Human Face Disease progress to the point where the lesions could shriek, to where they could babble nonsense. This, however, was the most erudite subject he’d ever encountered.

Jun Wu turned away from the mirror, and reached his fingers up to his cheek. He felt about blindly for the thrashing tongue, then grasped hold of it; only narrowly avoiding getting bitten in the process. He then pulled. The wet sound of tearing meat filled the room, punctuated by the sound of garbled shrieking from the bloody, toothy carbuncle on Jun Wu’s cheek. Jun Wu himself made no sound. He worked his jaw a few times, as if checking to make sure he hadn’t ripped out a tendon in the process, and tossed the tongue to the side. It splatted against the floor, still twitching.

Jun Wu composed himself. Spiritual energy crackled around him, healing his wound and re-applying the glamour that hid the curse and kept him pristine.

“Don’t let me see you out of bed again tonight,” Jun Wu said. “We’ll talk about your behavior in the morning.”

With that, he strode out of the room. The bedroom door did not slam, but clicked shut quietly. The rats scurried out of the shadows and greedily grabbed up the tongue, darting back out of sight.

“Gege. Look at me. Gege!”

Xie Lian blinked. How long had Hua Cheng been perched on his chest, staring at him and papping his nose with his paw?

“Sorry,” Xie Lian said. He picked himself up a bit, wincing as the motion sent more pain through his bruised hip. He settled Hua Cheng in his lap. “I…I shouldn’t have said anything about Head Priest…”

“Dianxia is not the guilty one in this situation,” Hua Cheng said in a deliberately measured tone. The fur along his back was raised, and his tail thrashed slowly but furiously. “This one should have not hid himself like a coward. If he lays hands on you again then his life is forfeit.”

“San Lang doesn’t need to fight this battle on my behalf,” Xie Lian said. “I wouldn’t have wanted you to pop out then, anyway. We still need to lay low and find a way to get Head Priest, and make a break for it…”

“Can dianxia please explain the situation with his teacher?” Hua Cheng asked. He tucked his tail under his paws, unable to keep it under control. “I’m afraid I was not present.”

Oh. Xie Lian felt a little foolish. He’d gotten so used to Hua Cheng being by his side all the time, that he…forgot that he sometimes wasn’t. So Xie Lian explained; or explained what he knew, which wasn’t terribly much. But Hua Cheng sat and listened, curled on Xie Lian’s lap, allowed him to smooth down his fur.

“…so, not a prison, but a hiding spot,” Hua Cheng observed. “There’s no way you could’ve known.”

Xie Lian smiled wryly. “That excuse only goes so far. I have no choice but to get Head Priest out of here, no matter what.”

“As his highness commands,” Hua Cheng replied. “I will follow you no matter what.”

Xie Lian did not doubt his sincerity. But he wondered if he’d still say that, knowing the whole of him.

He thought of his various failures as a son; how he drove his parents to humiliation and poverty, how he couldn’t spare them any kindness the night when they finally took their own lives. He thought of how Mu Qing and Feng Xin suffered and suffered until they could take no more and left and were immediately better for it. He thought of all he didn’t do for Qi Rong, and what he’d become.

He thought of the devotion of a masked ghost, and how he’d met it with nothing but coldness and disdain. He thought of how he’d forced him to sacrifice his very being to pay for his own sins. He thought of the white flowers he’d ground under his heel.

He was often staggered by his own capacity for cruelty. In this, Jun Wu spoke true.

 --

 Six hundred years ago, there was a kingdom known as Long An.

The kingdom had four treasures: brave heroes, epic tales, splendid banquets, and a mysterious ancient coral pearl.

 Dressed, ready, and with Hua Cheng re-stuffed down the breast of his robes, Xie Lian was ready to march out his bedroom door and start knocking on every mirror in the household to track down Head Priest. But the moment he flung open the door, he found himself facing not a long, dark hallway, but a quiet night garden.

“I should’ve known it wouldn’t be this easy,” Xie Lian sighed.

Hua Cheng arranged himself so he could peer out from the collar of Xie Lian’s robes, and eyed their surroundings critically.

“We’re not alone,” he said.

Indeed, they were not. The false Qi Rong – the one wearing the face of his child self, mouth stitched shut – stared at them from behind a tree with an expression that could only be deemed as hungry. Xie Lian stared back, debating on whether it would be best to simply run away and do his level best to find an exit that would lead them back into the palace. Before he could make a break for it, false-Qi Rong pointed to the swing hanging from the tree.

Xie Lian’s heart twisted, despite himself. This wasn’t real. This was nothing but a puppet.

“…I’m sorry, I can’t right now,” Xie Lian said. “I need to go back to the palace.”

False-Qi Rong pointed at the swing again, insistently. Xie Lian steeled himself and began to walk away, but was stopped in place by a sharp squealing cry. He whirled around and saw false-Qi Rong tearing at the stitching around his mouth; his efforts doing nothing to break the thread, but succeeding immensely in bloodying his skin.

“Stop! Stop it!” Xie Lian rushed over and pulled his hands away. “San Lang, can you cut that stitching with your claws?”

Hua Cheng stretched out a paw from over Xie Lian’s collar, and extended his nails. “As gege commands. Bring him close and keep him from squirming.”

Hua Cheng’s claws were sharp, and made short work of the thread. False-Qi Rong patted his face with his hands for a few moments, not daring to speak just yet. Then, that half-smile-half-frown twisted in glee.

“…he told me to stay out here in case cousin crown prince wanted to swing,” false-Qi Rong said. “I stayed awake all night in case cousin crown prince wanted to swing.”

“I can’t right now,” Xie Lian said. “I need to get back to the palace.”

False-Qi Rong positioned himself behind the swing, waiting not-patiently. He tugged insistently at the braided silk ropes.

“Cousin crown prince said that I could always push him,” false-Qi Rong said.

“Another time,” Xie Lian said, before he rose to his feet.

“I’ll scream if cousin crown prince doesn’t get on the swing!” False-Qi Rong had already spiraled into hysterics, which was very much in line with the real Qi Rong. “I’ll scream and then he’ll come out and see that you’re out of bed!”

There was no question about who “he” was. Perhaps earlier, Xie Lian would have steamed on ahead; heedless of the threat. But right now Jun Wu’s temper was…unpredictable. And with Hua Cheng here to be protected, he could not take any chances.

Xie Lian stiffly sat down on the swing, and allowed false-Qi Rong to push him. False-Qi Rong, just like his true self back then, was not very good at pushing. Instead of giving measured pushes with his arms, keeping him on a steady straight path upward, he simply rammed his entire body into Xie Lian’s back, sending Xie Lian swinging in random directions. Occasionally, he’d fling his arms around Xie Lian’s middle with a joyful cry of “cousin, cousin!” and be dragged along the ground behind him as the swing whirled from the momentum.

How could eight-hundred-year-old memories still be so painful?

It didn’t take long for the false-Qi Rong to tire himself out. He dangled limply from Xie Lian’s waist, his arms locked there tight. Xie Lian twisted in place, looking down to see those massive dark eyes and eerie, twisted smile staring straight back at him.

Out of all the puppets, Jun Wu seemed to have the least control over this one. Moreover, Jun Wu himself seemed…like he might be otherwise occupied right now.

“Thank you for pushing me,” Xie Lian said. “Have you seen Head Priest around?”

The false Qi Rong smiled even wider.

“Pat my head. Pat my head and I’ll tell cousin crown prince what happened to that moldy old man.”

Xie Lian lowered his hand and began to stroke the puppet’s hair. The false-Qi Rong made a blissful noise, and pressed his head up desperately into Xie Lian’s half-hearted pats.

“Gege,” Hua Cheng said quietly. “I understand your motives. But tread cautiously.”

“Of course,” Xie Lian said. “I’ll keep you safe.”

“Gege, you know full well that’s not what I meant.”

“It’s what I meant,” Xie Lian countered.

After a few more strokes, false-Qi Rong finally spoke, no louder than a whisper.

“He got mad at that sad look. Your old teacher wouldn’t stop with his sad faces. He got so, so mad. He sewed a mask on him so none of us would have to see.”

“…and then?”

“Then your stupid teacher ran away and hid. He got even madder. Then he went to go see cousin crown prince. Now he’s even more mad.”

The false Qi Rong shivered. Xie Lian felt a twinge in his heart. This was nothing but a puppet, enchanted into existence by a man hellbent on breaking his mind. All the same, Xie Lian couldn’t help but feel compassion for it. A puppet in the shape of a child he once knew, a child who Xie Lian once felt responsible for, once upon a time. Brutalized, terrorized, forced into the garden at night like an unloved dog.

Slowly, Xie Lian bent down, and wrapped his arms around the false Qi Rong. He felt him stop shivering. He felt him go completely still. He felt his small hands creep up to his sleeves and fist there.

“I love you, cousin crown prince,” the false Qi Rong whispered. “Can’t you stay here with us? I’ll stay out here and I’ll push you whenever you want.”

“I’m so sorry,” Xie Lian said. “I can’t.”

“Then I’ll leave with you. It’s so scary here.”

Xie Lian closed his eyes. A single thought from Jun Wu would cause the enchantment to dissipate and these puppets to dissolve into dust. He had no spiritual energy of his own, certainly not enough to support a being like this.

But he couldn’t live with himself for the next eight hundred years if he didn’t try.

Xie Lian moved from the swing to kneel on the ground, putting himself at eye level with the false Qi Rong. The false Qi Rong wiped his damp face and nose with his sleeve. Still had those awful habits of his.

“Do you know how to get out of here?” Xie Lian asked.

False-Qi Rong gave a shaky sigh and nodded, but was otherwise silent.

“You can’t tell me, can you,” Xie Lian observed. “He won’t let you.”

Another nod.

“Well,” Xie Lian said. “You can meet us there, then. Go wait by the way out. I need to find teacher first, then I’ll come find you. I’ll find my way there and we’ll all leave together.”

The false Qi Rong gave a loud snorting sniffle, then wiped at his face again. “I can leave with cousin crown prince?”

“We can try,” Xie Lian said. “You might not…be able to last long on the outside.”

“I know,” the false Qi Rong said. “Some of the other mes and the other others before us tried to run away. I’ve seen what happens. But they didn’t have cousin crown prince with them.”

Xie Lian was silent. Finally, the false Qi Rong disengaged his grip on his sleeves, and hesitantly moved a few steps back.

“Cousin crown prince is the best,” the false Qi Rong said. “I’m really happy that I could meet him.”

With that, the false Qi Rong bolted into the bushes like a fleeing animal. Xie Lian called for him, and heard no response.

The palace loomed over the garden’s tree-line.

“San Lang,” Xie Lian said. “Is it possible that…those puppets are truly acting on their own?”

Or is it just another one of his head-games, was the unspoken but obvious addition to that inquiry. Luckily, as always, Hua Cheng understood him.

“Puppet magic seems to be quite popular with those of his generation,” Hua Cheng noted. “But there’s such a thing as being too skilled. Perfectly imbuing them with all the memories and mannerisms of a person, then hooking them up to a spiritual energy source of that magnitude…it’s not surprising that they’ve started acting out.

“In addition, there’s the matter of the personality they’ve been assigned. A construct modeled after your cousin should be expected to be especially disruptive and unmanageable.” Hua Cheng gave a heavy sigh. “Ah, but gege must never let his real cousin know that I ever implied any compliment.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Xie Lian assured him. “He wouldn’t believe us even if we told him.”

 --

 Fifteen hundred years ago, a new and glorious Heavenly Kingdom was founded.

The kingdom had four curses: idleness, corruption, excess, and its two-faced emperor.

 Leaving the garden was so simple: simply opening the elegant doors back into the palace brought him back to where they left off. They found themselves in a hallway, meticulously decorated with all manner of things that Jun Wu was so certainly convinced would suit Xie Lian’s tastes. That being: swords. Swords, swords, swords. Vases of flowers with arrangements of colorful spring blooms; none of which included the tiny white flowers Xie Lian adored the most. Then more swords.

“It’s like he thinks I never matured,” Xie Lian griped. “Even when I was seventeen I had other interests!”

Hua Cheng was on guard again; tense and ready to pounce. He eyed every sword warily as they passed, as if they’d spring off the wall at any moment.

“…San Lang’s home is much more tastefully decorated,” Xie Lian said, hoping to soothe some of the tension.

Hua Cheng did give a brief huff of laughter at that; or a chuffling noise that passed for laughter.

“I can assure dianxia that ‘taste’ never factors into the equation when it comes to my approach to home décor.”

They did not have a chance to continue the discussion. They both fell silent as their ears caught the sound of Jun Wu having a furious one-sided argument, just a hallway away. Xie Lian looked around for a good hiding spot, and, in a split-second decision, he settled upon one of the vases with the garish blooming arrangements. He wriggled his way into the tall vase, and stoppered it back up with the flowers to complete the ruse.

“Gege does manage to find creative solutions.” Hua Cheng seemed to be holding himself back from laughing, despite their situation.

“If San Lang was bigger, I would have needed to be even more creative,” Xie Lian whispered back.

The vase allowed them to hide, and also allowed them to eavesdrop. Xie Lian strained his ears, trying to determine who Jun Wu was arguing with, to determine who had made him so furious.

“…you think you can just stay in there forever, don’t you. It’s all you know how to do. Run and hide. Thought you could just run and hide forever and that I’d forget. That I’d just forget! As if I didn’t recognize you the instant you came to tutor my Xian Le. Did you think I’d let you hurt him the way you all hurt me? And you did. You did! His world fell apart and you just judged and lectured and ran away again! Imagine how much kinder the world would have seemed, if his beloved teacher had stayed by his side in his time of need. I should have struck you down the moment you set foot on those temple steps. But my Xian Le needed a good education, needed the best. He needed to cultivate and ascend. There was no other way; by my side, I could protect him from the world. From you.”

It sounded like Jun Wu smashed one of the floral vases. His heavy breathing was so loud that it seemed to echo through the halls. After a long moment, he continued in a carefully measured tone.

“What bliss it must be, to be able to consider the time we spent side-by-side nothing but ancient history…to play the role of wandering cultivator, to make little dolls of our brotherhood and play with them all day. It must be so much more pleasant, without me to intrude on the four of you. You want me to just forget! It’s so easy for you to just forget! Do you think it’s that simple for me, or Xian Le!? He still freezes up like a frightened little bunny at the very thought of my creation, even after eight hundred years. And after two thousand years, the hatred you all have for me is still carved upon my face.”

It seemed like an eternity before they heard Jun Wu’s steps trudge down the hall; crunching on the shattered vase pieces before disappearing out of earshot. Xie Lian waited a few more minutes before moving to peek out of their hiding spot, and then, carefully climb out, supporting Hua Cheng with one hand the whole way.

“Are you alright?” Hua Cheng asked quietly.

“He’s getting senile in his old age if that’s how he remembers things,” Xie Lian said. “‘Freezes like a bunny’. I kicked him into a tree! And I’d like to understand how he thinks a bunny could control a statue the size of a mountain—”

“Gege! Stop joking around!”

Hua Cheng’s tone was so frustrated, so serious, that Xie Lian was taken off-guard. Hesitantly, he looked down to meet Hua Cheng’s gaze.

“If you’re hurt, if you’re scared, if you’re sad, if you’re angry, please, tell me properly,” he said. “You saw the cave, and you now understand my feelings towards you fully: I love you, no matter what. I am truly a simple man when it comes to this.”

Xie Lian was silent.

“Do you believe me?” Hua Cheng asked.

“…I believe San Lang loves what he knows of me,” Xie Lian finally said.

He loved the dazzling prince that saved him as he fell, he loved the steadfast warrior that descended in a futile attempt to save his country, even if it ended the way it did. He loved him so much that it built the foundation of his continued existence in the world. This, Xie Lian believed.

He did not know of the fallen wretch that became the White-Clothed Calamity. He did not know the cruelty he was capable of. If he ever found this out, Xie Lian knew the consequences: Hua Cheng’s love for him would evaporate, and with it, that foundation…and then…

“I love the whole of you,” Hua Cheng said. “There is nothing, nothing, that could change this.”

“Thank you,” said Xie Lian, for he couldn’t think of anything else to say. “I feel the same,” he said, because it was the truth.

They came across a spot in the hall strewn with broken porcelain and crushed flowers. A mirror hung on the wall. Clearly, they’d happened upon the spot from where Jun Wu had just departed. Hesitantly, Xie Lian peeped into the mirror.

“…Head Priest?” he whispered.

There came no answer, and there was no sign of him in the glass. There were, however, several fist marks in the glass, and spindling cracks like spiderwebs. An entirely ordinary mirror, holding no Head Priest, and wholly vulnerable to the misplaced fury of a ranting madman.

“Lianlian?”

Xie Lian felt his blood go cold at the sound of his mother’s voice calling for him.

“Lianlian? Are you out there? I heard you. Your mother’s here with your supper still.”

Slowly, Xie Lian walked toward the source of the voice. He peered into the room from where it had called him, from where she was still calling. Lianlian, Lianlian, it’s getting cold.

It was the room he’d seen when he first entered the palace; the grand receiving room, where his false parents had sat with their twisted smiles and empty black eyes. They still sat, exactly where he’d left them. The bowls of rotten-smelling sludge still sat, exactly where he’d left them. His false mother tittered in excitement at the sight of him.

“Darling! Darling, wake up. Lianlian’s here again.”

His false father was sleeping, face-down in his bowl. His snores blew bubbles in the sludge, sending more foul smells airborne as they popped. His false mother giggled; one voluminous sleeve over her mouth, as befitting a refined lady.

“Oh, your father’s always so hard to wake up. But he’ll be so excited to hear that you came to visit!”

Xie Lian took one step forward, then another, making his way to sit at the table with his parents. He stroked Hua Cheng’s furry head, silently pleading with him to trust him. Hua Cheng silently understood.

His false mother happily pushed over “his” bowl, and, with a proud flourish, plucked a flower from the table centerpiece and placed it atop the mountain of sludge.

“Presentation is important,” she said. “It’s called ‘The Reflective Pond That Allows One a Glimpse of the Heavens’.”

The flower was dissolved by the sludge in a matter of seconds, sending up green smoke and a burning smell. Xie Lian idly wondered what his false father’s face would look like right now, if he were to wake up.

“Thank you,” Xie Lian said. “How long has he kept you here?”

“It’s been eight hundred years since then, Lianlian. You should know that, silly thing.”

“That’s not what I asked.” Xie Lian kept his voice deliberately even, calm. “How long has he kept you here?”

His false mother’s smile faltered, if only for a second.

“I don’t know what you mean,” his false mother said. “Eat your supper, Lianlian. It’s getting cold.”

“You’ve been here longer than the others,” Xie Lian observed. “Long enough to know things. Long enough to know that playing along was your only option.”

His mother was always the picture of courtly grace. She knew how to entertain guests, how to comfort her husband, how to pamper her son. She knew how to read a situation, how to be spared as a target by the backstabbing Xian Le court. She knew how to play dumb.

It did not surprise Xie Lian in the least that she was the longest-lived of the puppets here.

“It’s getting cold, Lianlian,” she said.

“Do you know where Head Priest has hidden himself?” Xie Lian asked. “Once I find him, I’m going to get us all out of here.”

“It’s getting cold, Lianlian,” she said.

“I’ve already told…my cousin to meet us at the exit,” Xie Lian said, not quite ready to call the false Qi Rong by that name, not yet. “You’re welcome to join us. My father, Feng Xin, Mu Qing; they’re all welcome. I…I can’t guarantee that any of you will survive out there, not for long, but it’ll be better than living like this…”

“It’s getting cold, Lianlian!” his mother nearly shrieked, grabbing onto his hand and shoving his spoon into it. “Eat it before it’s cold!!”

Baffled by this outburst, Xie Lian stared at the spoon, then his bowl. The sludge looked…odd; odder than normal, anyway. It looked like someone had buried something underneath it.

Xie Lian dug away a little pit in the center of the bowl; moving the gelatinous goo around until he saw a reflective, shiny surface. A hand mirror. And clearly one that was enchanted heavily enough to keep it pristine against the onslaught of the stew that hid it.

Xie Lian carefully pulled the mirror out, and wiped it down with his napkin.

“—your highness!” wheezed Mei Nian Qing. He gasped for breath behind the glass. “Thank goodness. I don’t know how much longer I would have lasted…”

“Good to see you well, Head Priest sir,” Hua Cheng greeted him warmly. “I will be happy to remove that unsightly mask for you, if you’d take a moment to come out of that mirror.”

Although his expression was obscured by the mask still sewn to his face, Mei Nian Qing’s confusion was clear in the tilt of his head.

“Lianlian never said anything about wanting pets,” his false mother said at the sight of Hua Cheng poking his head out of Xie Lian’s robes. “Does Lianlian remember his fourth birthday? He’d been given a pure white pony of the finest pedigree, with a golden saddle and bridle, and little bells to jingle when it pranced. The moment we put Lianlian in the saddle, he cried and cried…”

These puppets having the memories of their true selves was essential to breaking free of Jun Wu’s control, but perhaps there were some drawbacks. Oh, how he hoped Hua Cheng would forget about that little anecdote. But he knew he wouldn’t. Xie Lian felt his ears burn.

“This…isn’t a pet,” Xie Lian finally said. “Head Priest, this is San Lang; he transformed to sneak inside, and then got stuck…”

Xie Lian caught Mei Nian Qing up on all that had happened in the past few hours, told him of Jun Wu’s increasingly erratic behavior, told him of his plans. When he finished, Mei Nian Qing remained silent.

“…they won’t survive outside of this home,” Mei Nian Qing said quietly. “Please trust in my experience on the subject of puppets. Even if your…gentleman ghost friend…were to support them with all of his considerable spiritual power, it would not be compatible. They would fall apart like clay.”

Xie Lian’s fingers stopped brushing through Hua Cheng’s fur.

“…I thought that might be the case,” Xie Lian replied. “But…”

“If we escape, he is certain to destroy every last one of them in his rage,” Mei Nian Qing said. “Whether they colluded with us or not. Die inside, die outside. Unless we consent to be jailed here for the rest of eternity, their fate will be the same.”

A heavy weight pulled on Xie Lian’s heart. More deaths. More deaths for people who committed the crime of having been associated with him, once upon a time.

“Your cat. Is he handsome, when he is in the form of a man?”

Xie Lian stared at his false mother, trying to parse her question. She gazed at him evenly. Even with those black empty eyes and twisted smile, she seemed tender and sincerely curious.

“…yes,” said Xie Lian, finally. “He is.”

“Gege flatters me,” Hua Cheng said. “I am nothing in comparison to his beauty, I assure you, my lady queen.”

“Does he take care of you?” his false mother asked, voice soft and urgent. “Does he speak to you gently, and support you no matter what?”

Xie Lian clutched Hua Cheng closer and closer with every phrase.

“Yes,” he said.

“And I will continue to do so,” Hua Cheng said. “For eight hundred years and many more.”

His false mother nodded.

“I…know I’m not your true mother,” she said. “But I have her memories, and I love you as she did. And I think…for her, it would be enough to see you one more time, and to know that you have someone who loves you so completely. Knowing that, I could…I could…ccccc…ccccccccc…”

His false mother’s jaw suddenly went slack. It went slack, then drooped, and drooped; until it dropped from her face and fell into her supper bowl. She stared at it for a moment as it dissolved there, then turned to look once more at Xie Lian with black, black eyes. They could still shed tears.

“…uvvvvv…annnnn….”

She began to melt like clay, like mud. Xie Lian wailed in dismay, lunging forward to try and hold her together with nothing but his embrace. It was over in seconds. His false mother was gone. His false father, melted into his soup. The false Qi Rong…the false Qi Rong…

“I told Xian Le that he wasn’t allowed to leave his room again. What a mess he’s made. I think I stepped in his cousin on the way here.”

Xie Lian’s fists clenched at the sound of Jun Wu’s voice. Jun Wu strolled into the room, tsking his tongue in disappointment.

“I made them so you’d have someone to love you, even when I was away,” he said. “And all you can think about is how to best kill them. I can’t imagine what they thought of you, hearing you talk like that about them.”

“Fuck you fucking gutter pig,” Xie Lian spat.

Jun Wu frowned. “I was going to make you some fresh ones, but if you’re going to curse at me, then maybe you need some time alone for a few months.”

Jun Wu moved to grab Xie Lian’s arm. Xie Lian wasn’t fast enough to take a swing at him before Hua Cheng lunged out of his hiding spot in the breast of his robes.

Jun Wu stumbled back with a shout. As if part of a coordinated sneak attack, Ruoye whipped out of Xie Lian’s sleeves without being directed, and wrapped himself around Jun Wu’s wrists to bind them behind his back; allowing Hua Cheng to flay apart Jun Wu’s face and eyes with abandon. Xie Lian leapt to his feet, joining the fray with a windup kick to the gut. Ostensibly the goal was to aim for his meridians to block his spiritual energy, but there were few things more satisfying than knocking the wind out of someone you really, truly disliked.

Even as a spiritual weapon, Ruoye had limits. Xie Lian felt him begin to tear. If he tore, there was no one to repair him, and – and Hua Cheng – he had to think fast.

“San Lang, get away! Ruoye, return!”

Coordinated enough to sneak attack, but not coordinated enough. Perhaps Ruoye was too swift in his retreat, perhaps Hua Cheng was too slow in his. Regardless of the cause, the result was Jun Wu seizing Hua Cheng by the scruff, and hurling him across the room hard enough that he crashed into the jaded ornamentation on the wall. Hua Cheng slumped to the ground, unmoving.

“San Lang!” Xie Lian cried.

“Inviting friends over without asking me first,” Jun Wu snarled. His face resembled bloodied, butchered meat; both his eyes were utterly mangled and sightless. “Horrible little Xian Le. What does he think of you now, seeing all you’ve done tonight?”

It was hard to tell, amidst the damage already done, but three more mouths had appeared on Jun Wu’s face. Mouths and eyes and tiny arms and legs; sprouting from his wounds like little flailing worms.

“MURDERER!”

“BLACK HEART!”

“SINNER! LIAR!”

The mouths screamed and cursed and screamed.

“WHAT WILL HE THINK OF YOU, XIAN LE? SEEING YOU AT YOUR WORST?” Jun Wu shouted, trying to make himself heard above the chorus. “Your dear teacher saw me at my worst and fled, fled for twelve hundred years, acted like we’d never known each other! Acted like we never meant a thing to each other! That’s our fate, Xian Le, that’s what happens to us! Abandoned and forgotten, until we force them to remember!”

Xie Lian cradled Hua Cheng’s tiny, bloodied body, fully ready to defend him with his very life.

“You’re a monster who ruins lives,” Xie Lian spat. “Of course no one would want to stay with you.”

Jun Wu laughed, and laughed, getting louder and louder by the second.

“I’m the monster? I’m the monster that ruins lives?” he asked. “Have you told your sweet Crimson Rain about your tenure as a Supreme-to-be?”

With a wave of his hand, Jun Wu conjured another puppet:

A puppet of a young man, clad in black, with a smiling white mask.

Xie Lian froze in place. He could barely hear anything over the hammering of his heart.

“Go ahead, Xian Le,” Jun Wu said. “Treat him as you did. Call him worthless, call him useless, crush his offerings under your heel. Offer him your hand to kiss and then use it to strike him across the cheek. Order him to sacrifice himself to atone for your own sins. This is the great god you worship, Crimson Rain.”

Here he was, standing before him. The reminder that he was a failure in all things: a failure as a god, a failure as a demon, a failure as a decent human being. Here he was, standing before him, the truth of what he really was; laid plain before Hua Cheng.

The jig was up. It was finally over, and it was just as painful as Xie Lian feared.

Perhaps Hua Cheng would hate him less if he was forthcoming with an explanation. It was worth a shot. Xie Lian squeezed his eyes shut, took a shaky breath, and began to explain.

“San Lang…back then, after Xian Le fell, I…I was so hateful and bent on revenge, and I made a pact with a ghost—”

“I was…taller…than that…”

Hua Cheng’s voice was more resonant, now; richer. Xie Lian looked down. Hua Cheng, human and handsome as could be, smiled up at him. Smiled like…

Smiled like…

With effort, Hua Cheng slid off Xie Lian’s lap and slowly made his way over to where the puppet of that nameless ghost stood; silent and motionless. Hua Cheng looked it over, critically, and plucked the mask from its face. There was nothing beneath it but blank blackness – of course Jun Wu did not know his face, for the ghost had never removed his mask, even for Xie Lian. Hua Cheng put the mask on his own face, and turned to show himself.

“I love you, no matter what,” Hua Cheng said. “Do you believe me?”

“San Lang,” Xie Lian said, wretchedly.

“I’m here,” he said.

“I’m so sorry for everything, back then. I didn’t deserve your love.”

“I love you, no matter what. God or demon, prince or pauper. Enshrined in the heavens, cast down into the dirt. ‘Deserving’ or not. The point of it is that it’s you.”

Hua Cheng went to his knees in front of Xie Lian, hand to his heart.

“I’ll say it as much as you need to hear it,” Hua Cheng said. “And then more, for my own pleasure. I love you, no matter what. Life into death and far beyond.”

Xie Lian flung his arms around Hua Cheng, dragging him in for a kiss.

Jun Wu was not the type to allow these interludes.

“Isn’t Xian Le lucky, to have such a faithful believer?”

Xie Lian drew back from Hua Cheng’s mouth, glared hatefully at the monster still lurking in their midst.

“Xian Le is so…dreadfully…horribly…lucky…” Jun Wu hissed, stumbling blindly forward. His face was still a jumbled mess of flesh; sporting eyes and mouths that were not his, arms that tore fresh wounds and tore at his eyes just as quickly as Jun Wu tried to heal himself. “Do you think…if I had a believer half as faithful, for all those lonely years…that things would have turned out like this?”

Xie Lian couldn’t answer. Jun Wu laughed quietly at the silence.

“Ah, but you wouldn’t be able to relate. I suppose we aren’t quite as similar as I once thought.”

Jun Wu stumbled into the dining table, adding bruised shins to his list of injuries. He toppled to the ground, and lay there, still; allowing the wretched carbuncles to tear at his face.

There was a great and terrible silence.

“I’m so tired, Xian Le…it’s been a very long night. Your host needs to rest a while. Can I trouble you to adjourn to your Puji Shrine?”

It almost seemed too good to be true. Xie Lian cautiously rose to his feet, helping Hua Cheng up in the process. Jun Wu twitched his fingers against the floor, and a door appeared; inlaid into a previously-blank stretch of wall. The door opened to show the streets of the heavenly capital; being cleared of Jun Wu’s supporters by an army of sentient farm produce in war armor. They saw the Rainmaster pass, atop her ox, with Ling Wen hogtied behind her.

Xie Lian turned to look briefly back at Jun Wu. Once his idol, once a mentor, once someone who cared.

“I won’t be coming back,” Xie Lian said.

“I wouldn’t expect you to,” Jun Wu said. “I don’t think I was a very gracious host today. Farewell, Xian Le.”

Before he turned to leave, Xie Lian gestured at the silent figure standing over Jun Wu’s prone body.

Head Priest? he mouthed silently at him. Come on. I don’t think he knows you’re here.

Mei Nian Qing smiled faintly. The mask was off his face, now; set carefully on the dining table. The remnants of the stitching were still visible on his skin.

He saluted Xie Lian.

Farewell, he mouthed back.  

“Your highness,” murmured Hua Cheng.

Xie Lian nodded, and returned his teacher’s salute. With that, he walked out the door with Hua Cheng in tow. The moment they set foot outside, the palace door clicked shut with an air of finality.

When they looked back, it was gone – gone, as if it had never existed at all.

 --

 Two thousand years ago, there was a kingdom known as Wuyong.

The kingdom had four treasures: beautiful women, music, riches, and its crown prince.

 “Your highness. I hope this teaches you to use puppet magic more cautiously. It’s very exhausting to one’s spiritual energy reserves, even for one like you.”

Mei Nian Qing touched his arm, just lightly enough to let him know where he was.

“…Nian Qing,” Jun Wu said. “I can’t see, so you’ll need to tell me. Crimson Rain was that ghost?”

“It seems so.”

Jun Wu snorted a brief laugh. “He was that street urchin, he was that soldier, he was that ghost fire, he was that ghost general…honestly, you’d need to be a fortune teller to predict such a thing.”

“Mmm.”

“And I haven’t had one of those by my side for years.”

“If you’d ever listened to my lectures, you would’ve been able to do it yourself.”

“Oh, for the clarity of hindsight.”

Heedless of the blood, the flailing limbs and spitting mouths, Mei Nian Qing reached to touch Jun Wu’s chin.

“Your highness,” Mei Nian Qing quietly said. “I think it’s time for us to rest. Both of us.”

Jun Wu covered Mei Nian Qing’s hand with his own, and tilted his head towards the warmth he felt, radiating from Mei Nian Qing’s thigh. He heaved a heavy sigh, and was then silent.

 --

 Four hundred years ago, there emerged a dazzling city in the realm of the ghosts.

The city had four treasures: freedom, riches, gourmet soup, and its beloved king.

 “San Lang,” Xie Lian said flatly.

“Her name is Porkbun,” Hua Cheng said, referring to the white pony that he had allowed onto their bed. “Does gege like his anniversary present?”

For the first time in their new life together, Xie Lian considered divorce.

[rhysnrivers]

Odyssey to becoming a Published Author

(Note: with Odyssey being in the title, this is quite a long post.  The link to the facebook page that leads to where my novel can be bought from can be found at the bottom of the post, as can some of the initial artwork done)

So, despite never been a ‘blogger’ per se before, I’ve decided to write this article about my journey from having dreamed about writing and having my own works published, through to actually writing my ideas up and publishing them myself, as I’m sure that there are many an indie author and authoress out there who can relate and have been through the very same journey I have.

First thing’s first.  Rhys N Rivers is not my real name.  It’s a pen name.  There’s something in being anonymous when it comes to writing, almost like a sense of freedom.  This day and age of social media means that almost everything we do is recorded somewhere on the internet, and an opinion or action from ten years ago can be drudged back up to be ridiculed by the Facebook jury and/or the Karens of the internet, in line with the fashionable opinions of the day.  A pen name grants anonymity and to some degree, security.  The only people who know my identity are my immediate family and a few close, trusted friends.

When people embark on a new venture; be it a new hobby, learning a new language, travelling the world, changing jobs etc, the journey actually begins long before said venture starts.  Quite often, the journey always begins in the classroom, at home, in bed, in daydreams.  It begins as a state of ambition.  A plan that one day, will be put into action.

My authoring journey was no different.  Mine actually began around the age of eleven.  I was of the Harry Potter generation where I was the same age as the main characters in the early years when a new film came out each year.  J.K. Rowling got me into reading beyond in school, and I - being one of the cool kids, clearly - read a lot throughout my early and mid teenage years.  It was admittedly predominantly fantasy based, (Tolkien, Pratchett, Philip Pullman, Garth Nix) or Bernard Cornwall’s historical works before I branched out into people like Wilbur Smith and others.  When I was around 14 or 15, Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code took the world by storm and I also ended up reading all of his works. School provided a sophisticated reading list, which included Dickens and Golding, and so growing I had read through a rich and broad variety of fiction.

Where actually writing was concerned, I think it was about the age of eleven or twelve that I realised that I wanted to write properly.  I think it was actually after reading William Nicholson’s Wind Singer when I decided, and I set to task in writing coming up with a fantasy novel.  I didn’t start writing the plot straight away; I actually started coming up with characters and places, even drawing out a world map.  That was really fun to do.  It had a sense of total control to it.  What I decided was what things were.  Where a kid may not feel in control of things in other parts of life (insecurities of school, friends, growing up, relationships etc), this was something totally different.  The ability to create your own fictional world, in whatever genre you go for, is a form of escape and release in which you can develop your talents and ideas.  

There were lots of elements to what I was planning out - which included ideas from Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, The Legend of Zelda, The Wind on Fire among others.  To be honest, I’m actually glad that ‘project’ didn’t get very far.  Poor Christopher Paolini, the author of the Inheritance Cycle quadrilogy of books, was slated by certain groups and reviewers for his alleged lack of originality and using of ideas from other stories.  In Paolini’s defence, he was only fifteen when his first book was published, which is something that most fifteen year olds don’t achieve!  But I think that had I completed mine, it might have faced the same criticisms - not necessarily from reviewers or publishers, but perhaps friends and family reading through it first.

School, in particular, provided me with a lot of enthusiasm and inspiration to write (clearly, I was one of the cool kids).  My GCSE English teacher was a great bloke (probably still is) and gave great, honest and constructive feedback to the entire class’ work.  Our first piece of English Literature coursework was a piece on creative writing and I elected to do a piece on the topic of an opening chapter/opening chapters to a novel.  Having just read Dan Brown I did my piece in his sort of style: bloke copping it at the start, trying to prevent some conspiracy from going ahead, then the reluctant hero of the story gets dragged in to solving it.  My piece didn’t revolve around religious groups or secret societies, but around a historical artefact.

Out of 54 marks, this scored 52.  I was more than happy with that.  I had no idea where the story was going to go but I was determined that I would one day finish the story.  To this day, I still have no idea where the story is going, but I am certain that it will be the last novel of a set of three, dragging the main character, a desperately-can’t-wait-to-retire detective, through painstaking research, learning about history that he wouldn’t usually be arsed about and running away from people, of whom he’s becoming more and more of an embuggerance (word-invention credited to Terry Pratchett) to.

For some reason, I really can’t remember why, but about a year later the option was given to my English class to rewrite that piece of coursework (we were about four out of five coursework pieces done by that time).  I was of course happy with my score but I saw this as an opportunity to try something new and see what ideas could again come spewing from my mind.

This time, again sticking with the opening chapter(s) option, I wrote about a start of a medieval conspiracy, beginning around the Battle of Crécy and going…err…I still have no idea where!  But this piece resonated better than the previous piece, earning full marks from my English teacher, along with the comments “…should come with an 18 rated certificate.”  Again, I vowed that I would complete this story one day and see it published.  This one I think I will try to make into a three-book story.

The summer after completing my GCSE exams I did the normal stuff: went on holiday with family, chilled out with friends, even attended the World Scout Jamboree that year.  But I also by then had a set of ideas in my head that I wanted to turn into novels, and wrote that list onto a computer, and saved it to my USB memory stick.  I have no idea where I last saw that USB stick…

After I left school I joined the British Armed Forces.  I’m not going to write too much about what I did, where I went etc (not because I was part of some uber-top-secret unit, but more-so that it just doesn’t contribute to this post) but my priorities changed.  I read a lot less and writing properly in the near term future just was not a possibility, or something that I wanted to concentrate on at that time.

In early 2017 I was considering a career change, and during that time I joined fanstory.com, under my real name.  The purpose of doing this was to put myself into an environment with other amateur writers, gain inspiration from other budding authors (and hopefully give some inspiration back), and be in a place where my works could be read among ‘peers’, giving me a good steer on things.

It was on this website where my first novel, Payment, was conceived.  There was a competition going for short stories up to 7000 words long in the horror genre (“Put your readers on edge or terrorize them”) and so I thought this was a good place to test out to see what people think and to  develop my writing style.

It took me a couple of weeks to put Payment together and submit it.  I had never considered writing horror before but this, again, was an ample opportunity to try something new and see what I could come up with.  I decided to go with a 19th Century narrative; much like Mary Shelley and Bram Stoker.  I prefer to think or the horror genre as the old neo-gothic styles of writing - the old ghost stories.  Horror, in recent years, both in writing and film-making, has taken more of a gore and shock factor turn.  Personally, I think that will turn horror more into the thriller genre.  To me, horror should be about ghosts, vampires, witches - the occult and the supernatural.  And that’s that I have tried to achieve with Payment. 

What surprised me the most during the writing of this were my decisions to use the first-person narrative - something I used to despise growing up, and the use of a one-word title.  For some reason it used to bug me no end that it was becoming more and more common that artistic projects, be they novels, films, dance, visual art etc, would use one-worded titles.  I used to think that was a cop-out.  But here I am with Payment - a novel told in first-person narrative…

I have always thought that my writing style was/is closest to Terry Pratchett’s.  I’ve never tried to emulate him but his style of using irony, dry humour and satire, whilst also plummeting to some very deep philosophical ideas.  But I couldn’t do that whilst writing Payment.  The thing is with writing horror, is that you have to be able to maintain that macabre atmosphere all the through.  That actually isn’t easy.  I found there always has to be a sense of the character’s isolation, a sense of doom and gloom, and a sense of something about to happen.  

I didn’t win the completion that I entered.  I don’t think it even made the top three.  The votes are cast by the other entries’ writers and maybe a few other people.  I can’t remember if you could vote for your own project but I think you could.  The entries placed above mine, although I thought their storylines familiar with ideas already done, were admittedly much easier to read than my entry.  A 19th century style of writing will always lose to simplicity when people have a number of works to read.

But that didn’t deter me.  I’d created a fictional work and was determined to show it to the world.  I didn’t go ahead with the career change at that point but decided to fully review Payment, at get it out there as a completed project.

Fanstory is a good platform, it really is.  I’m not sure why, but after only a couple of months and having written a few competition entries, I came to stop writing on it.  My old job was getting in the way and to be honest, I was getting impatient with writing on it.  I had the mentality that I wanted to be published right now sort of thing.

A couple of years later, I did go ahead in a change of direction career-wise.  This provided the opportunity to fully revise Payment and make it into a ‘novelette’, more than 7000/7500 words but fewer than 17,500.  I would then prepare it for editing, get the artwork sorted and then publish it online for maybe a couple of quid.

I was actually in Tanzania at the time when I thought that Payment had been expanded enough to put out as a novelette.  Once I’d finished writing, I showed it to a couple of the volunteers I was working with and they both enjoyed it.  Although I was pleased about that, I still wasn’t satisfied with it.  I had touched on quite a few themes in the work but I don’t feel like I had explored them all as much as I could have.  Although complete, it felt very much incomplete.  At the same time I wanted to expand the work into a full novel and also I didn’t - mainly because of the challenge of maintaining that horror atmosphere.

I decided that, in order to put more meat onto the bones and develop this short story/novelette into a full length novel, I needed a goal to work towards; something that has an end achievement that will make me work to expand on what I had already done.  And so I set about looking for horror writing groups and/or competitions on the internet. 

In not much time at all I came across the Horror Writers Association (HWA).  They are a group that cater for all things horror and occult in fiction.  There, you can advertise your works, read or recommend other people’s works and learn about events - namely the StokerCon.

But what attracted me to them the most was their sponsorship of the Bram Stoker Awards (“for Superior Achievement”).  These are awards that are given out to authors and authoresses who have had their works judged in certain categories.  The one that has caught my eye is the ‘First Novel’ category.  A quick reading of the rules informed me of the minimal word limit:  40,00 words.  Perfect.  There’s something to work towards, with a chance at winning what is described as ‘the Oscars of horror writing’.  When I returned from Africa I set about the task of bolstering a 17,000-ish novelette into a 40,000 word minimum horror novel!

I have read Edgar Allan Poe in the past, and even bits of Mary Shelley.  For more inspiration in keeping that spooky, Neo-Gothic atmosphere, I read some parts of Bram Stoker and H.P. Lovecraft.  Despite all of that, I initially found it difficult to write again on the same piece of work that I started almost three years previously.  It was only after reading Susan Hill’s The Woman in Black, where I became inspired by her power of description to turn chapters, paragraphs and sentences that belong in quick short stories to ones suitable for a long read.

In January, this  year, I had finally finished.  I expanded heavily on the ideas that I was before concerned that I was rushing through and before I knew it, my word count was well over the 40,000 words I wanted to achieve!  I read it all again myself, edited out any spelling or grammar mistakes that I had seen, and sent it out to beta testers (readers) for opinions and editing.

Following the last edit - of which there wasn’t relatively much to do - my debut novel stands at a word count of 53,850 words!  That isn’t considered very long by today’s standards.  To give a point of reference, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone is estimated to be around 77,000 words long (depending on who is doing the word count).  But my novel is longer than The Woman in Black as well as other novels such as The Great Gatsby and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and considering it came from a short story of 7,000 words I am still happy with it.

Concurrently with writing the novel came the task of finding an artist/illustrator for the cover.  That was a more difficult task than I expected.

Not only did I want to find someone who could create a suitable cover, I also wanted that someone to be able to do ‘scene art’; by which I mean a picture at the start of certain chapters.  The reason for this is that I see a completed novel itself as a form of art, and scene pictures add to that completed projected.  In fact, I actually wanted a sort of teamwork between the writing/art found in the Edge Chronicles books by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell.  

I combed Facebook for a very long time, joining all sorts of groups and pages for amateur artists to show off their works, hoping to find someone who I thought was suitable for my work.  To my dismay, there was very little, I thought, that I could go off.

Around October time I put an advert on a freelancing work website, just for an idea of who else is out there and possibly able to take this up.  I did receive a fair few responses but, again, there wasn’t really anyone whose work suited what I was after.  A couple of them, one of them being an art company based in Central Asia, actually got quite nasty about it.  They were expectant 

It was when I was on a course in Spain that it was suggested to me to look on Reddit, as Reddit “literally has everything on it.”  I had never actually been a proper Reddit user before; I’d clicked the odd link from Facebook but had never really interacted with it before. 

The guy who suggested Reddit to me was right - Reddit has literally everything on it.  There’s so much information to be found on so many topics it seemed unlikely that I wouldn’t find what I was looking for on it, and so I combed through a few sub-reddits dedicated to (freelance) artists and checked some of them out.

So I once again posted out an advert looking for artists and this time the response were much more positive, and enthusiastic!  It really was quite uplifting to see and hear from so many people who were interested in taking up the project and I received so many messages.  Everyone who commented on the post and/or messaged me with links to their portfolios, I checked out their work.  I honestly don’t think there was a single person whose works of art that I wasn’t impressed by.  There is so much that can be found at deviantart.com and artstation.com and so much talent to be viewed and be in awe at!  Everyone who directly messaged me got a return thanking them.

One of the people I got talking to was a young lad from Sweden called Daniel Percy, whose artwork I also checked out.  My preferences came down to him and another guy from Germany, and after speaking with Daniel he agreed to take on the work.

Daniel does a lot of freelance art work, predominately doing concept art work for electronics companies (I want to say video games but don’t take that as gospel), but he still found the time to do this properly, compiling several drafts of the cover and inside sketches.  We collaborated quite often on what to change, ideas to put in etc.

The finished artwork is incredible!  I’m showing some of the initial first-sketch ideas here along with the final book cover, along with a couple of since-altered scene pictures, just for an idea of his talent.  You’ll have to buy the book to see all of the finished sketches ;)

And the final thing to think/worry/mull over until stupid o’ clock in the morning, was the publishing aspect.  Luckily, ever since I’ve thought about writing (as an adult), it has become increasingly easier to get your works out there.  The rise of the internet and social media age has made self publishing so much more accessible, and that is the route I have gone down.

At first, I wanted to go down the traditional printing route.  I - again showing cool I was as a kid - always liked the idea of a fresh and printed book in my hands.  But, there are two reasons why I haven’t done this:

The first one is environmental.  Even before the climate change debate became a fashionable thing to signal your virtues about, I was uncomfortable about the idea of trees being cut down for my creation, unless I could be 100% certain that exact same area would be immediately replanted.  It’s true, there are forested areas specifically for this kind of thing but the amount of bureaucracy involved, along with the middle-men, wouldn’t make it an immediate thing.

The second reason is that the majority of writers who send their works in get rejected by so many publishers.  Yes, people refer to J.K. Rowling’s story of being rejected twelve times (and again later by one of the same publishers when she first wrote as Robert Galbraith) before Harry Potter became a hit, but as the option of the internet is there, it makes sense to negate that possible rejection.  In the event that my works do get noticed and attract the attention of publishers, then great!  But if they don’t, at least by online publishing, I’ve still achieved putting my novel out to the world.

Finally, today, Friday the 13th (intentionally - it is a horror novel after all ;p ) of March 2020, I officially became a published author.  It is a fantastic, monumental feeling.  My story, my novel, my creation, is out there for people to buy, read and hopefully, enjoy.

If there’s any advice that I can give for anyone aspiring to be an (indie) author, it is this: just write your ideas down.  Sounds simple, if not downright obvious, but it really is incredible that so many people don’t achieve their dreams or aspirations simply because they don’t do them.  The world of authoring and indie writing is so much more accessible now than it was even fifteen years ago, that is takes a great lot of effort not to find at least one platform to get your works out onto.

It is also incredibly easy to find every excuse in the book to not write at all.  School, work, family etc, being the big ones, and they are legitimate reasons.  But they are only obstacles themselves to an extent, before you yourself make them obstacles.  Start small.  Set yourself half an hour on an evening.  No more, no less.  Half an hour to start getting your ideas onto paper and then after a week, you’ve spent three and a half hours writing.  You’d be surprised at how much you’ve achieved after three and a half hours of concentrated effort.

If you need motivation, there are plenty of people out there, particularly on the internet, who give great examples of motivation that apply to all disciplines.  Joe Rogan, for just one example, has plenty of people on his podcasts who talk and give advice on self-betterment, and it can apply to anybody.  If you want to write, you will find the time and means to do it.  It doesn’t matter how long it takes; everybody finds their ways at different times. 

As to my next works, what am I going to be writing next?  Well, shortly after writing Payment as a short story I thought of another idea to write about, and use that particular project to actually develop my writing style.  This next one, of which the first ‘act’ as such does already have a skeleton outline to it, is a light hearted yet philosophical at times medieval adventure, combining humour and seriousness together.  I’m not going to divulge ay more information the storyline because, although it’s a simple idea, I believe it’s one that no-one’s done before and some smart-arse with more time on their hands than I can easily bash something together using my idea!

The school coursework pieces?  They are still on my ideas list and will no doubt be developed into their own proper projects and they hopefully will also be published just as Payment is!  The fantasy that I started aged eleven?  Absolutely no idea.  Whilst I would certainly like to do fantasy, going for originality is going to be difficult, as the standard format (young hero finds out he’s the ‘chosen one’ and goes on a long quest) has been done to death, as have a lot of fantasy ideas already.  George R R Martin had the idea of using the idea of old English houses warring against other in the past, and that was used to great effect even before he threw in the ice zombies!  So that one is going to be a case of properly allocating some time to sit down, think and decide how I’m going to go about, but make no mistake, I will go about it!

Thank you all for taking the time to read through this!  I hope its provided at least some entertainment or light (ha!) reading, and I hope you’ll feel interested to buy my debut novel!

My Facebook page can be found at:  

https://m.facebook.com/Rhys-N-Rivers-Writing-101015961412385/?ref=bookmarks

All the places where Payment can be bought from can be found there.  I thought it better to post one central link than the individual ones.