#its 1 am and I can’t think of any more sick little Victorian children

[resident-gay-bitch]

sick little victorian boy energy>>>

reg>>>

sirius>>>

which other sick little victorian boys can you think of?

(im totally making sense rn)

No no I get this. I call this the timothee chalamet effect. Literally any character he’s played has that energy, and even him in real life.

May I also bring to the table young Gru from Despicable Me (I’ve not seen the minions movies with his backstory I’m only taking from the flashback scenes in Despicable Me)

[askullinajar]

A Little Help From Your Friends (Part 4)

T/W: Suicide Mention. Also mentions of near sexual assault. Nothing graphic, just some sleazy guys getting handsy, but I thought I’d warn just in case.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6

Fic Info: Takes place around 2 years before the events of A Merry Little Christmas. Rating: Mature. Pairings: Lucy/Lockwood, Holly/Rani, others if you squint. Ao3 link: here

Stuck in a jar, longing to get out, longing to live again, the skull never thought there’d be a future where he wished he had just stayed dead.

But maybe all he needed was a helping hand from the people who somehow, against their better judgement, cared. A helping hand from each of them. In turn.

Part 4: The Stranger

The nighttime breeze was cool against Skully’s face as he strolled leisurely through the park. He wasn’t supposed to be alone, he knew, but he couldn’t take much longer of being cooped up in his flat, so he’d snuck out while Holly – his babysitter for the day – had been busy making a bunch of dinners to freeze so he didn’t have to bother cooking. She was too nice sometimes, it was sickening.

He sucked in a deep breath of air. There was something about going for a walk after dark that seemed to make the world just melt away. The air smelled different, fresher. Stars twinkled in the sky. There was barely anyone around so no pressure to keep acting human. You could just let everything go for a moment.

He walked this way during lunch break at work, on occasion. He could see the hospital from here, the lights still shining through the windows. He still wasn’t allowed back at work for a while, but, god, he missed it. Not necessarily the people so much – he didn’t get along so well with them – but the routine. The feeling of actually being useful.

He watched shadows move past the lit windows. There was supposed to be a new employee joining the forensics department some time, he remembered. He hoped they weren’t as mind-numbingly boring as his other colleagues. You’d think a field in studying crime scenes would attract some interesting people sometimes, but no! At least Rani and A.J. popped in from time to time, or he’d literally go insane.

How long had he been out now? He had sort of zoned out for a while there. He didn’t want Holly panicking and calling the others. He should probably head back.

Then he heard a scream.

A female scream. Skully knew these streets; full of back alleys and pubs and nightclubs. It was just about the time of night that drunken men would be let loose.

The screaming continued. He bolted towards the sound.

A young girl, no older than eighteen, stood cornered in an alleyway, surrounded by men who were getting a little too handsy.

“P-please. No. Just let me go. Please.”

“Come on,” a man was saying as his comrades laughed, “a little dress like that, you can’t expect not to get some attention now…”

Skully didn’t really think before he barrelled straight into him, shoving him away from the girl.

“Run,” he told her. “Straight to the police station.”

She didn’t need telling twice.

The lead man picked himself off the ground and glared at Skully. “Think you can get in the way of me getting some?”

Skully gave him a loose smile. “I think I just did.”

Skully had met people like this before. Victorian London had been swarming with them. Once upon a time, he’d have made short work of them; a quick slice to all the major arteries before having Bickerstaff’s burlier men drag the bodies to the basement. They usually wound up in the Thames after that. But now, London’s officers were a little more competent, and Skully couldn’t be bothered with the fuss at that moment. Anyway, he didn’t have his knives… And Lucy would probably get mad at him.

Of course, he had ghostly talents at his disposal, but that was to remain a secret. He didn’t want these men blurting out about a man with supernatural powers.

So, when the first man gave a roar and charged towards him, he side-stepped and let him run straight into the wall, where he crumpled on the ground, out cold.

While the other men stood dazed at how fast their friend had fallen, Skully took the opportunity to weigh them up.

Once, a good few years ago, Lucy has asked him if he still saw people the way he did as a ghost – their spirits rather than their bodies. He had told her no, but that wasn’t strictly true. He saw their physical form as anyone else would, yes. But also, just beyond that, their souls. Clearer after dark, like with death-glows. How bright they were. And how rotten. That was another thing; he was sick of seeing all the rot.

These men, they were all rotten. Their souls black and festering, distorting their features. They were hideous to look at.

Skully couldn’t see his own soul in the mirror, but he often wondered, what with all he’d done and his questionable moral compass, whether his soul looked like that. And if it did, whether it could be reversed.

The men came to their senses. The big, burly one took a swing at Skully. He dodged and jabbed his elbow into the back of the man’s neck. The man gave a shout as he stumbled, and his wiry friend aimed a kick towards Skully, who dodged and knocked his other leg out from under him, making him collapse to the ground.

Too preoccupied with the two men, Skully failed to dodge as the final man swung at him. He was an average looking guy, but damn, he could pack a punch, and Skully sprawled to the ground, his right cheek throbbing.

As he was trying to push himself up, the burly man kicked at his ribs, and Skully fell back down, gasping, winded.

Oh, how tempting it was to unleash his powers. But he couldn’t; the truth coming out could lead to the public getting ideas, which could lead to another Problem, the lives of children be damned. People were horrible that way.

Another kick forced Skully to roll over. That one had definitely cracked a rib.

The alleyway was dark, the souls of the men darker. Maybe he’d just let them beat him. At least the girl had gotten away.

Then: light. Almost blinding in its brightness. A person, Skully realised, with a soul brighter than he’d ever seen, who had run over and now stood between him and the three men.

The wiry man laughed. Such a disgusting, nasally sound. “Look at this! A little girl’s come to your rescue. And we thought you’d chased away our only plaything.”

“I’m not little,” said the person, “and I’m not a girl.” And they punched the wiry man straight in the face.

He swayed on the spot for a moment, then fell flat on his face, joining his former leader.

Skully pushed himself into a sitting position, too shocked and in awe to do anything else.

The remaining two men blinked in surprise, then they seemed to come to their senses.

“Kind of small for a boy,” the burly one growled, swinging a punch at the person.

“I’m not a boy either,” they said, spinning out of the way, their long bronze hair flying out behind them, and jabbing the man in his torso three times in quick succession.

The man’s arm seemed to just… collapse.

“What the…?” he started, staggering. That was when the bronze-haired person round-house kicked him in the head, and he fell to ground too.

But now they were facing away from that damn final man, who pulled his arm back ready to punch. Skully didn’t even think before he thrust his hands forwards and sent a blast of psychic wind that threw the man into the wall so hard the brick cracked.

The person turned their head and looked down at the unconscious man, then to the other three bodies, then finally to Skully.

“How did you…?” they both said in unison, then the sound of sirens came into earshot.

The person’s sky-blue eyes grew wide.

“The police are coming? I can’t… I won’t be able to talk to them. I–” They began flapping their arms frantically at their sides.

“Hey,” said Skully, pushing himself to his feet. He made to reach towards them and steady their arms, but they jerked out of the way, so he kept his hands raised, close but not touching. “It’s okay, just run. I’ll handle this.”

They turned their wide-eyed gaze on him. “But… what about you?”

“Listen,” he said. “I’ve already been arrested three times this year and its only March. And, yet, I’ve never been charged with anything.”

They frowned.  “How…?”

The sirens grew closer.

“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “But trust me, I can handle this. Just go. And thanks for stepping in, by the way.”

They managed to give him a small smile before they ran off and disappeared down the alley, just in time for a police car to arrive and two officers to step out.

“Jim Walker,” said the senior officer. “Why am I not surprised? What’s the story this time?”

Skully grinned at him. “Oh, you know me, Dave. Just in the wrong place at the wrong time, is all.”

Dave eyed the unconscious forms over his shoulder, then looked Skully up and down. “And how did you get that cut on your cheek?”

“I tripped,” said Skully. “I’m such a clutz!”

Dave hummed. “You must be, the number of times you’ve just ‘tripped’.”

He put his radio to his mouth. “Need an ambulance and backup, ASAP.”

Skully smiled. The number of times Dave had arrested him, at least he knew by now that these men were no nice guys and backup would be needed.

Dave glanced over his shoulder at the other cop and huffed. “What’re you waiting for, McGuire? Cuff the boy!”

“Oh!” McGuire blurted, fumbling with the handcuffs at his belt. “Yes, sir!”

Skully eyed the other cop. He was younger, perhaps fresh out of the academy, and Skully hadn’t seen him around before. He smiled. Fresh meat.

“Don’t have any padded ones, do you?” said Skully, holding up his bandaged arms. “Only my wrists are a little sore.” He tilted his head to one side and gave the young cop a lazy smile. “Or do you prefer them rough?”

McGuire’s face turned bright red and he began spluttering, dropping the handcuffs in his embarrassment. Skully’s smile grew wider.

Dave let out a sigh. “Walker, I’ve told you before and I’ll tell you again: Stop trying to seduce my officers.”

Skully adopted a looking of mock innocence. “Trying to?”

Dave just gave him a dead-pan stare, a look he was famous for. “Forget the cuffs, just get in the car.”

Skully happily obliged, and watched through the window as ambulances and more police cars showed up, officers hand-cuffing the men to their stretchers.

He wondered where the bronze-haired person was now, and if he’d ever see a soul so bright again.

Previous Next

[mundaneapocalypse]

Erik Olafson Interview #1

           There is a TON of misinformation about werewolves going around, especially because Humans are not used to werewolves, get their information from word-of-mouth, and then expand it in fiction. So here are werewolf questions answered by a werewolf, Erik, which he answered in English. We added subtitles because the Roanoke accent can be too thick for some people to understand easily, and sometimes we use words that can be translated more clearly.

[Camera shows Erik outside the VW in wer- form. He is wearing a tan shirt, brown tie, and rust red and brown striped pilabeg, and snug brown dress boots with elastic panels.]

Lucy: This is Erik, and he is a little shy, so be nice. He is twenty-seven-years-old, from Roanoke, and is an adult werewolf of Vinland-Roanoke descent, and as you can see, he is the size of an average American man, and he is also the size of an average Eurasian wolf, but you will see that later.

Lucy: I’m getting the gross questions out of the way first. You were tested for sight, hearing, and smell range in training, right?

Erik: Yes. And I have the answers here.

[Erik gets a folded piece of paper from his vest pocket.]

Lucy: How’s your sense of smell?

Erik: Probably average. All of them are probably average.

Lucy: But compared to a Human’s.

Erik: Ho, smell is far better.

[Lucy waves her hand to get him to keep talking, and he unfolds the paper to read it. The paper is rattling a little from his hands shaking.]

Erik [reading]: I can smell smells a sethera away in bad conditions. It is dick in good conditions.

[One Roanoke mile is about 1.24 American miles, or 2 kilometers, the mile is in a base-13 calculation, and Erik said “sixth” and “dick” referring to Roanoke miles, so I don’t know the number.]

Lucy: What about hearing?

Erik: I can hear more sounds like a wolf.

Lucy: Like the frequency of the sound?

Erik: No, the pitch.

[Subtitle: he means the frequency.]

Erik: And I can hear things further away.

Lucy: How much further?

Erik [reading]: About a mile away indoors.

Lucy: What about in a forest?

Erik [reading]: Two miles and a dovera.

[Subtitle: 2 and a tenth Roanoke miles]

Lucy: What if you are in the open, like in the air or on a prairie?

Erik: I was tested for an open ground. It was four and a peddera. And air was five.

[Subtitle: 4 and and a fourth Roanoke miles]

Lucy: Were you tested under water?

Erik [reading]: It was not very good.

Lucy: If it’s embarrassing, you don’t have to answer.

Erik: No, the notes say it was average. Sethera.

[Subtitle: a sixth of a Roanoke mile]

Lucy: So that was scent and hearing, so sight is next. How is your sight?

Erik: Ho, my eyes are not always good. I can see small motions easily.

Lucy: Why aren’t your eyes good?

Erik: Seeing with my left eye isn’t as easy as seeing with my right eye. The edges of near things are softer and less distinct. When I was young, my eyes didn’t look at the same place, but now they do more.

Lucy: So you can see pretty much everything that happens, but your eyes don’t always recognize it or respond to it the way they should?

Erik: Aye. I have glasses for it, too, but I don’t like them.

Lucy: What about taste and touch?

Erik: I don’t know. Probably average?

Lucy: When can you shapeshift?

Erik: I willfully shapeshift

[Subtitle: shapeshift at will]

Erik: and I must shapeshift twice a month. It is to -wolf at the full moon and wer- at the new moon. I become very furry or very bare for the couple days before the moon’s phase and become very wolf-like or very man-like.

Lucy: How very wolf-like and very man-like?

Erik: I become -wolf without making myself from the dark hour two days before the full moon, but preventing it is impossible. I learned to completely control those there transformations in ferrymen training. At the full moon, I grow fur and lose my fingers and toes, because my hands and feet become paws. My hide fuses onto my skin and I grow into it. At the new moon, I look very manly

[Subtitle: like a man]

Erik: and I can’t smell as strongly.

Lucy: Do you just look different or is your body actually different?

Erik: Bones and muscles move slowly back and forth over the weeks, but shifting doesn’t require them to move very far. My shoulders, elbows, wrists, hips, knees, and ankles must change position when I shift from -wolf to wer-, and I like to let everything change. It hurts less.

Lucy: How much does it hurt? Like does it hurt like they show it in movies?

Erik: It feels like popping the’ knuckles and it feels better after tha’ do it. Through the transformation, I feel like I am stuck and bound still, and sometimes my muscles feel tugged upon. Sometimes it hurts plenty, like if I am stiff, sore, or shifting too much. Wearing my hide helps, too.

Lucy: Why?

Erik: I can use the hide as my body instead of using my body. Thus, I don’t snap bones and twist muscles to shift, but sit inside the hide to use its arms, legs, tail, ears, and things. But regularly

[Subtitle: according to regulations]

Erik: I mayn’t do that on duty.

Lucy: How powerful and fast are you?

Erik: To be a ferryman, I must run two miles in ten minutes and we have some seeing, hearing, smelling, and physical requirements. A healthy werewolf can hunt in a pack all night, until we catch an animal. We are as fast as wolves and as strong as men.

[Subtitle: Erik has to run 2.48 miles an hour to be a ferryman.]

Lucy: When you transform, do you become a raging, terrifying monster that slaughters everybody alive and then eat the dead?

Erik [completely disgusted]: No! Neither do any werewolves I know.

Lucy: How much willpower does it take not to?

Erik: Never any. The werewolves like those are murderers and selfeaters

[Subtitle: cannibals]

Erik: I’ve heard of them, but I have never met one. I hope I don’t.

Lucy: Does a silver bullet to the heart kill you?

Erik: Ho, any bullet to my heart will kill me, because the heart lets me live.

Lucy: When you shapeshift, what happens to your clothes?

Erik: I undress? Why?

Lucy: Humans have weird perceptions of werewolves, so I’m asking everything. When you transform, do you have to have your clothes with you?

Erik: No…Humans believe that?

Lucy: I’m pretty sure the Victorian Humans invented it, but, yeah, in Human tradition, werewolves can only transform at the full moon, and they can’t turn back into Human form unless their clothes are nearby.

Erik: Wearing clothes in -wolf is very uncomfortable and we can split seams and tear fabric if we shift. We wear the loose, belted and pinned clothes like this so we can shift and waggle out of them. We spell our clothes so they come on and off independently whilst we shift.

Lucy: How do your proportions change?

Erik: They change so I look like a wolf or a man. My neck shortens and my tail grows out. My fingers and toes become longer and my thumb comes down my arm.

Lucy: What can you eat?

Erik: More food than you let me eat.

Lucy: I know. That’s why I asked because you’ll talk about it, and it isn’t a problem for most Humans.

Erik: Ho, I don’t remember English words for some of them.

Lucy: That’s ok. I’ll translate.

Erik: Some foods make me sick because I’m a werewolf and they make other canines sick, too. The wer- lets me eat more kinds of food than wolves or dogs can. I have a strong stomach, too, and can eat anything Lucy does.

Lucy: Why do you have a strong stomach?

Erik: My family does, but not very when the women are having children or when we are little children. Too much will make me sick, still.

Lucy: What happens?

Erik: Sometimes I can be nauseous, vomiting, or having diarrhea, difficulty breathing, be having funny muscles.

Lucy: Funny how?

Erik: They can be tweaking or weak. Our organs can fail, too, but needs must you eat plenty for that.

Lucy: What are some things you shouldn’t eat?

Erik: The ones I like are chocolate, grapes, nutmeg, hop beer, onions, garlic, and tomatoes. Many recipes contain onions and tomatoes, but we have our own without them.

Lucy: What do you use instead of those ingredients?

Erik [shrugs]: I don’t cook. When thee, Lucy, cooks or your mother cooks, you exclude the unhealthy foods or cook me something else.

Lucy: But then you raid the kitchen for ketchup and onion powder and then your stomach is upset.

Erik: But it is my stomach! I think my mother and cunwife cook different recipes than wights and Humans cook.

Lucy: What do werewolves have to eat to be healthy?

Erik: We eat meatleans

[Subtitle: protein]

Erik: from cheeses and flesh, and bread, corn, beans, and potatoes because we need starches. And we eat vegetables and fat.

Lucy: What kinds of jobs do werewolves have?

Erik: I know plenty werewolf lawmen, and we are also frequently hunters and trappers.

Lucy: What are werewolf families like?

Erik: Ho, I have a matching sister, four younger brothers, one older sister, and two younger sisters. I had more, but not anymore.

Lucy: How many more?

Erik: Including half-sisters, half-brothers, step-sisters, and step brothers, I have nineteen brothers and sisters, and have had thirty-one. I don’t want to explain it. But we are happy and comfortable. Some of my brothers and I don’t live at home, but my unwed sisters do, or live where they work.

Lucy: Where do they work?

Erik: With other families or in respectable households, and Hilda is our new cunwife.

Lucy: Because you are marrying the old one?

Erik: Yes, and naturally, she is a werewolf, too.

Lucy: What happens if a werewolf doesn’t like werewolves?

Erik: They would be outcasts and under good reason. It isn’t right.

Lucy: Why?

Erik: Something is wrong with those who feel an attraction other than friendship or kin to those who aren’t of their ilk.

Lucy: So something is wrong if a god and a Human are attracted?

Erik: Yes, or a werewolf and an elf, or a dwarf and a vampire.

Lucy: What about something within the ilks, like a werewolf and a wertan?

[Subtitle: transliterated, wertan means manjackel, with the tan being from Arabic tannim “wolf” and meaning “jackal”]

Erik: It is unusual, but I don’t believe it is wrong, anymore than I believe it is wrong for you and Mark to marry.

Lucy: What are some werewolf traditions?

Erik: We worship the moon with singing. All the nighttime

[Subtitle: nocturnal]

Erik: animals worship her because she rules them and lets them see. And we hunt bears and catamounts

[Subtitle: bobcats, mountain lions, cougars]

Erik: in the autumn. But I have kept Marmalade away from those catamount stories because she is a feline.

Lucy: Thanks. Why do you hunt bears and bobcats?

Erik: We eat them through the winter, and need their furs. The first bear a boy kills makes him a old enough to be with the adults.

Lucy: What about the bobcats?

Erik: It is the same for girls and bobcats. But we live in town and most of my family haven’t taken part in the tradition.

Lucy: Then how do you know if you are an adult or not?

Erik: When we marry or could be, we are adults. Our parents decide when we are.

Lucy: How do you worship the moon?

Erik: A prost holds rites for the waxings and wanings. We have small temples or places in temples.

Lucy: Do you go in wer- or -wolf form?

Erik: -Wolf is traditional, but I like either.

Lucy: Can you transform so Humans see what it is like?

Erik: Aye.

[Erik transforms from wer- to -wolf and back. The video ends.]