#maybe he's like a guy trapped in a zombie- watching everything his body does without his control

[jaydendoodlesart]

wanted to make a creepy thing

[canary3d-obsessed]

Restless Rewatch: The Untamed Episode 09 first part

(Masterpost) (More Canary Funsies)

Warning: Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!

This episode features so many eternal minutes of zombie shambling that I thought I could fit everything into a single post. HA HA HA HA nope. 

Zombie Temple

The trio do their best to fend off the not-zombies in the temple. Lan Wangji tells Wei Wuxian that he can’t go carving them up because they’re not actually dead, and drops a callback to their very first meeting at the gate of Cloud Recesses, when Wei Wuxian caught his attention with his pillowy lips comment on the not-dead cultivator. 

Lan Wangji: You said it in that golden moment that will be seared into my memory for eternity, where I heard your voice and laid eyes on your angelic face and lost my heart forever, remember? Come on, babe, it was our very first zombie! How baked were you?

Wei Wuxian: I jerk off to the sword-fighting memory, not the zombie memory, you weirdo.

Nie Huaisang’s fear of the definitely not undead has apparently gotten him the rest of the way over his fear of Lan Wangji, because he’s now yelling “Lan-Xiong!” right along with “Wei-Xiong!” as he struggles. Note that although he later mentions that his fan is made of some fancy metal, we don’t see any evidence that he wants to fight with a fan any more than he does with a blade. I don’t hate anyone’s fan-fighting NHS headcanon, but my take is that he just isn’t a physical fighter, and that’s ok. 

This is a good time to remember that our entire experience of the Nie clan so far in this story is 1. Clever but hopelessly combat-unready tiny artiste Nie Huaisang 2. Quietly helpful, absurdly pretty sidekick Meng Yao. 

We don’t know yet that Nie Huasang’s gege and Meng Yao’s sugar daddy is literally the toughest motherfucker in the entire cultivation world. But his friends do! Which makes me love these dynamics even more, because not one of them criticizes Nie Huaisang for being the person he is. 

(more after the cut!)

Never Let Me Go

This scene is where Wei Wuxian gives his tacit consent to being used as the eventual agent of Nie Huaisang’s vengeance....ok not really.

But he does make it clear what Nie Huaisang should do when he’s in a pickle. And NHS doesn’t forget things.

Priorities 

Meanwhile, Lan Wangji isn’t nearly as patient as Wei Wuxian, and he drops a silence spell on Nie Huaisang basically out of annoyance. It’s not like they’re trying to be sneaky. 

Lan Wangji: How about you have an exquisitely crafted ceramic cup of shut the fuck up?

Flute Girl

Wen Qing comes to the rescue by summoning all of the not-zombies, who happen to be her extended family, to come toast some marshmallows. 

She’s another person who unwisely demonstrates, where Wei Wuxian can hear her, the power of flutes over zombies. 

This move doesn’t seem to do anything important but it looks cool. 

Brother Dynamic: Bad. Really Bad. 

Jiang Cheng shows up in the temple and trolls everyone, because this is a great time for childish antics. Wei Wuxian is super happy to see him and runs over to hug him, which earns him a shoulder slam. 

This is a regular part of their body language with each other. Wei Wuxian covers his hurt reaction very, very quickly, with a smile that doesn’t involve very much of his face. 

Ow

Wei Wuxian is so good at pretending his feelings aren’t hurt, he probably convinces himself. 

Then he gives a too-honest answer when Jiang Cheng accuses him of...daring to enjoy himself, basically.

That’s more truth than Jiang Cheng was looking for, and he raises a hand to Wei Wuxian, who hides behind Nie Huaisang. This move is interesting because on one level it’s just clowning; obviously Nie Huaisang can’t protect WWX from anything, and WWX doesn’t need protection from Jiang Cheng. 

WWX can easily beat JC in a fight, as he’s let us know before. On another level, this retreat signals WWX’s harmlessness, his childlike-ness, in a semiotic dance that has been playing out for over a decade between the brothers.  NHS is taking on Jiang Yanli’s role in the choreography, this time.   

All of this troubling hostility doesn’t make Jiang Cheng a bad person. He’s young and he’s still under his parents’ control and subject to their abuse at home. It takes time to develop mindfulness about this stuff and learn to treat people beneath you differently than the way you are treated. 

Jiang Cheng isn’t ready for that yet, any more than he is ready to say out loud that he cares about his brother. 

Leave My Boyfriend Out of It

This interaction is noteworthy for Wei Wuxian defending Lan Wangji to his brother, before Jiang Cheng even has a chance to blame Lan Wangji. 

Wei Wuxian says that following Lan Wangji was his own idea, and then gives LWJ the sweetest, warmest smile.

Lan Wangji also gets a pair of totally unearned, delighted smiles of thanks from his two besties when he lifts the silence spell on Nie Huaisang. 

Being mildly dickish all the time works out fine, I guess, if you only make friends with people whose brothers are legendary grouches.

Grilling Wen Qing

Wei Wuxian finally decides he’s had enough of Wen Qing’s crap, and gets slightly aggressive in questioning her.

He’s not actually roughing her up but he is approaching her as a near-enemy for the first time, rather than as someone who wants to be her friend. Once Wen Qing tells him what’s up and agrees to a sort of temporary alliance, he goes back to being his normal slightly awkward self with her. 

I don’t romance-ship WQ and WWX, except maybe as corpse-mountain era FWB, but I do like their chemistry. And their friendship is really refreshing and interesting, based on sharing goals and working together, not on emotional intimacy. It’s nice to see people with a lot of barriers around their hearts, building a strong, trusting bond without having to actually open up very much.

The idea of perfect sharing between people is a nice one, but it’s pretty alien to many of us who are recovering from trauma, or people who just aren’t wired that way, and it’s good to see other models of friendship and love. 

Wei Wuxian, at Lan Wangji’s direction, parts the Red Sea drops a cage on the other 3 cultivators before going to hunt the dire birdy.  

Jiang Chang is, predictably, pissed off about it, in spite of Wei Wuxian’s “you’re good at this” parting words, and says, according to the subtitles, “you bastard!”

“Bastard” is a pretty specific epithet, in English. In the current century, it’s generally used to mean “asshole,” more or less. But it still does carry the meaning “of illegitimate birth,” and since The Untamed is often concerned with legitimacy it seems pretty strong for JC to use with someone who is rumored to be his own Dad’s by-blow. 

Let’s have a look and see what he really is calling him... 你混蛋 =  Nǐ húndàn = “you bastard” per Google translate. Wow, Jiang Cheng, you really went there, huh. 

Wen Granny

Wen Qing and the others in the golden cage watch as the not-zombies try half-heartedly to get to them. Wen Qing is super sad about it, as opposed to the two guys who are just annoyed (Jiang Cheng) or scared (Nie Huaisang).

The first time I saw this, it was just - oh, Wen Qing sympathizes with this poor random woman, she feels bad about what's happening, this is to show us she has a heart.

Now though --  that's HER granny. Maybe not her bio-grandma but clearly a granny of her clan, who she knows well, who later cares for A-Yuan when he's a child, so may very well have cared for A-Qing and A-Ning when they were small, too. Owie.

Dire Bird Hunting

Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian run off to hunt the smoke bird together. They are quickly trapped in cool-looking fog. Kudos to the Director of Photography.

They spend some time being confused and also being peak Wangxian 1.0 as they help each other out. 

Lost in the fog and unable to summon talismans, Wei Wuxian is mainly about checking on Lan Wangji, making sure he’s ok, making sure he’s near.  He doesn’t spare any worry for himself.

(We get a rare instance of seeing an actually glowing sword here, instead of just having a character say “I saw the beams of swords!” to save money on VFX.)

Lan Wangji, meanwhile, understands the mental attack they are under, explains it to Wei Wuxian with only a little snark about Wei Wuxian’s overly busy mind, and teaches him how to handle it.

Lan Wangji is super disciplined in mind, body, and sword - his fight moves don’t change, really, throughout his life, but he gets better and better at execution. Wei Wuxian isn’t exactly undisciplined, but he’s super creative and busts out a new skill in nearly every encounter. Lan Wangji sees this and is learning to make use of it.

After Lan Wangji helps Wei Wuxian overcome the confusion that is blocking his talisman use, he tells him which talisman to use. 

This isn’t a talisman that LWJ uses himself, it’s just that he’s paying very close attention to WWX’s battle moves, and has a great memory, so he knows which ones will work. In a pretty short timespan he’s moved from thinking like a solo swordsman to thinking as part of a team with a broad range of battle skills. Very soon, he’ll be starting to use Wei Wuxian’s talismans himself. 

WWX takes a hit from the flying death chain, but uses it to his advantage, as in so many encounters. He’s not just self-sacrificing--he is definitely that--but he’s also a chess player, knowing how to use a sacrifice or an injury to his advantage. Cue Lan Wangji being worried for the entire rest of his life.

Part Two is here!

[legionofpotatoes]

we decided to watch all story cutscenes from the new resident evil village videogame on a whim, since it’s not really our cup of tea gameplay-wise but seems to be this massive zeitgeist moment that made us morbidly curious. And I know how much everyone cares about my thoughts on things I know very little about, so. let’s get into it huh gamers. and yeah spoilers?

for context, I’ve only played resident evil 4 and a small portion of 5. I also read the wikipedia entry for 7’s plot recently. all this to say I was only vaguely aware of how tonally wacky the series was going in

I also completely gave up following the plot of the mutagens’ soap opera, so that paid off in spades here as you might imagine

anyway so that baby in the intro. that baby’s head is just massive. humongous toddlerdome. when ethan finds the baby’s head in a jar later on. there is no way that head would fit into that jar. bad game design. no not even game design. basic stuff. one hundred years in prison for jar modeler

if I see a single functional hetero marriage in video games I will cry tears of joy. I understand their misery is kind of The Point irt them badly working through the hillbilly romp trauma but like. sheesh. at least set that up as an emotional story goal the plot will help resolve. but nope they start off miserable and it goes nowhere

I know I know the mia thing has a huge wrinkle in it but like. not really in terms of dramatic function?? set up a happy end to the re7 nightmare (miranda can keep up appearances for all she cares) and then take that all away from angry griffin mcelroy for manpain. it will still absolutely work to set up the dramatic forward momentum. why throw in this cliche Hollywood Tension in their marriage if you’re not going to address it oh maybe because it’s normalized as automatically interesting because nuclear families are a self-propagating pit of a very narrow chance at emotional happiness relying on social stigma to preserve their empty function oops my baggage slipped in yikes abort mission

I called him griffin mcelroy because I saw his face on twitter and. yeah. I will continue to do this occasionally. my house my rules

... fuck the reason I’m hung up on this is specifically because the rest of the game is so tonally dexterous (which is a shining point to me! more on that later!), and yet they felt weirdly compelled to create the aesthetic trapping of a family-at-odds trope without following it through too well. a sign of both the good and the bad stuff to come

but listen the real reason why I wanted to talk about any of this is to nitpick the fascinating backwards-engineered nucleus of the entire thing; in that this game essentially creates a melting pot of just SO many disparate horror tropes and then makes a no-holds-barred unhinged effort at weaving thick lore to piece them all together. it is truly a sight to behold. like straight up you got your backwoods fright night situation, your gothic castle vampires, your rural-industrial werewolves, and don’t forget your bloated swamp monsters over there, with then a hard left turn into robotic body horror, and the entire ass subgenre of Creepy Doll writ large, and the bloodborne tentacle monsters, and a hellboy angel bossfight, which rides on the coattails of a mech-on-mech pacific rim bonanza, and just jesus henry christ slow down

almost all of these are textural hijack jobs that don’t really get into the metaphor plain of any of those settings but the game sort-of makes an argument that the texture IS the point and revels in it. It is kind of admirable almost. The same reason why the intro felt boxed in and unmotivated is also why the rest of the game just blasts off of its hinges to the point of complete and self-indulgent tonal abandon. I kinda loved that about it. lady dimitrescu made sure to hold her hat down as she bent forward in mahogany doorways and then suddenly she’s a giant gore dragon and you settle in your temp role as dark souls man with Gun to take her ass down. Excellent??

this rhino rampage impulse to gobble up every horror aesthetic known to man comes to head when the game wrestles with its FPS trappings in what is the most hilarious solution in creating visceral player damage moments. Since most cinematics and the entire game is in first person, that leaves precious little real estate for the devs to work with if they really want to sell griffin’s physical crucible. To wit. This dude’s forearms. Specifically just the forearms. They are MASSACRED throughout the story. The poor man lives out the silent hill dimension of a hand model. by the end cutscene he looks like a neatly dressed desk clerk who had decided to stick both his grabbers into garbage disposal grinders just a few hours prior. like in addition to everything else it manages to rope in that tinge of slapstick violence into its general grievous genre collection except this time it IS for a lack of trying! truly incredible

but wait his miracle clawbacks from everything his poor paws go through are retroactively explained away, yes, but far too vaguely and far too late to console me as I sat and watched everyone’s favorite baby brother reattach an entirely severed hand to his wrist stump by just. placing it on there. and giving it a lil twist ‘n pop terminator-style. and then willing his fingers back into motion right in front of my bulging eyes. this game just does not care. it does not give a shit. and boy howdy will it work to make that into one of its strongest suits

cause generally speaking resident evil was THE premiere vanilla zombie content destinaysh for like a decade, right? and as the rest of the world and mainstream media started encroaching and bloodying its blue ocean it went and just exploded in every single conceivable horror trope direction like a smilodon on catnip. truly, genuinely fascinating franchise moves

yeah the big vampire milf is hot. other news; grass... green. although I do love the implication that her closet is just identical white dresses on a rack. cartoon network-level queen shit

apropos of nothing I’ve said there’s also this hobo dante-devimaycry-magneto man, and I can’t believe this sentence makes sense. anyway he made that “boulder-punching asshole” joke referring to chris redfield and it was probably the only easter egg that really landed for me and boy did it land hard. I have not seen him punch the boulder in re5, mind. I had only heard about how funny it is from friends. and here this dude was, probably in the same exact mindset as me, trying to grapple with that insane mental image. with you on that ian mckellen, loud and clear

I advocate vehemently against the shallow pursuit of hyper photorealism in art direction but I gotta admit it works really in favor of immersive horror like this. the european village shacks especially gave me super unchill flashbacks to my rural countryside retreat in western georgia. I could smell the linoleum dude. not cool

faces are weird in this game. can’t place it. nice textures, good animation, but the modeling template is... uuh strange? and the hair. it has that clustered-flat-clumpy look that harkens to something very specific and unpleasant but I just don’t know what. sue me

griffin’s mental aptitude to take all this shit in stride and end every seemingly traumatizing bossfight involving some fucking eldritch being yet unseen through mortal eyes by essentially throwing out an MCU quip is just. What the fuck dude? I mean that was funny how you casually yelled the f-word at a god damn werewolf that you considered a fairy tale an hour ago but are you like, all right?? it was swinging a sledgehammer the size of a bus at you, ethan

oh oh the vampires are afraid of cold and your last name is winters. I get it haha

Pro Gamer Nitpick: boss fights seemed a bit unnecessarily long?? idk why the youtuber we picked decided the ENTIRE propeller man fight counted towards the vital story scenes he was stitching together, but man mr big daddy lite there really had some get up and go huh??

why are they saying dimitrescu.. like that. is it really how you say that word or is the english language relapsing into its fetish for ending every single word with a consonant at all costs

I’m not saying it’s a dramatic miss of a twist in context of all that’s going on, but the “you died in the last game actually and have been DC’s clayface ever since” revelation is low-key. it’s. it’s just funny to me, I dont know what to say. century-old god-witch fails her evil plan after she mistakenly removes heart from what was definitely NOT just some white guy with eight fingers after all

chris realizing he’s about to become the player character and immediately swapping out his tsundere trenchcoat for the muscletight sex haver sweater

the little bluetooth speaker-sized pipe bomb he taped to his knife was nuclear?? really??? I must have missed something because that is just too good. I buy it though I totally buy it. chris just got them fun-sized nukes in his car trunk for, you guessed it, Situations

anyway this is all for now just wanted to briefly touch on how unexpectedly funny and tonally irreverent this seemingly serious game turned out to be. did not articulate any cathartic story beats whatsoever but my god it had fun connecting those plot points. he just fucking put his severed hand back on his stump and it Just Worked todd howard get in here

[scandalousfemale]

Ch. 4 Hit Me With Your Best Shot

Chinese!OC x Kelce

This wasn’t supposed to happen. Zombies were meant for apocalyptic movies and TV shows where one could binge watch for a day and return to their mundane life. But something happened, a lab test went wrong and suddenly the outbreak started. This story takes place exactly three weeks after zombies slowly started to take over the planet.

Series Masterlist

WC: 5,320

Warnings: Violence, a whole lot of violence. Violence involving knives and guns. It’s a zombie fic, this chapter have zombies in it! I tried my best not to get too gory but at the same time, it does kind of go there. Main character deals with PTSD. I think that’s all the warnings right now. Like I’ve mentioned before, violence. Please, do not read if you’re not comfortable with that topic.

A/N: This was a harder chapter to write because of the fighting scenes and trying to get Kaili to spend them with characters so that you as a reader can also experience these characters in this universe. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it! I know that the support I get from this fic is amazing and keeps me going, thank you so much for taking time out of your day to read this. Also... how do you think Kelce will feel about the end of this chapter?? 

“Fuck,” Kaili cursed. The air escaped her lungs as her body hit the ground for the second time in a minute. Rafe had dragged her out of her room at first light, telling her that for her to have breakfast, she’d have to fight her way back in. At first, she thought he was joking, surely the boy couldn’t have been serious. But the minute she laughed, her eyes still half shut from sleep, he stepped in front of her with his arms folded across of his chest.

All sleep escaped her when he pushed at her shoulders to try and knock her off her feet, which wouldn’t have been that hard to do, considering he was a whole foot taller than her and probably a hundred pounds heavier. At that point, she wiped at her face and told him that he'd lost his mind, trying to evade his grasp as she stepped sideways from him. As big and bulky as Rafe looked though, he was fast. And he was able to push her back again, causing her to fall this time. They went on like this for maybe half an hour. Until Kaili started fighting back, throwing a punch that he blocked twice. The third punch landed solidly on his cheek but it was almost like it didn’t faze him, he continued instigating her.

Of course, he wasn’t quite doing this out of pleasure, even though Kaili would beg to differ. The group of kids had promised each other that they’d train the other in what they were good at. Seeing as the situation is only going to get worse from here on out. So, training began. Kelce promised her shooting lessons, Kiara had offered her cooking lessons, Rafe offered up his fighting skills (which, when she had asked where he learned, the younger kids in the group seemed to have a couple of things to say), JJ offered lessons on how to make weapons out of practically anything. And of course, Pope had offered her a lesson on pretty much anything boy scouts related; such as how to tell which direction she was going in and how to start a fire.

She didn’t expect anyone to go easy on her, she didn’t need them to, but Rafe seemed to be the type to give tough love more than he praises. Every time she learned one step or studied his movements, like learning when to move back when he showed signs of moving forward, he’d tell her to do better. He’d always find another flaw. His reasoning was a valid one, of course. He was punishing her for almost getting JJ killed.

Rafe was adamant that if she was insistent on running into the face of danger then she should be able to hold her own. In which she reminded him, in the nicest way possible, that she did, as she pointed to her knives. But he did make a point, on the off chance that she didn’t have her blades, she’d lose. And so she found herself, in the crack of dawn, on the ground panting and hoping that she could knock Rafe off his feet just once.

“Get up,” Rafe had said harshly as he wiped the sweat off his face with the back of his hand. His height more intimidating now as she laid on the ground, trying to catch her breath. 

“No,” she breathed out, her hand coming up over her face as she blocked the rising sun from her eyes. Suddenly in the shade, she knew he had taken a new spot over her. 

“What did you say?” Rafe grit through his teeth and she wondered if this man had ever relaxed in his life. 

“We’ve been going at this all morning!” She groaned as he gripped her forearms and yanked her up to her feet. 

“The next guy to come at you is not going to give you time to take a breather,” he reminded her.

Kaili didn’t say anything back, only narrowed her eyes at him because he was right. Again, Kaili had taken a deep breath in and quickly reached out for his arm, intending to twist it behind his back but she must’ve gotten the grip wrong because, in just two moves, he had her against his chest with her hands trapped against her chest and his arm. The scene was far too similar to the one the guy at the camp had set her up in. Without realizing it, Kaili had tensed up completely, clenching her eyes shut as she tried to block out the feeling of the man violating her.

She felt sudden darkness come over her vision, her ears ringing, and all she could think about was that she needed to get out of his hold. Suddenly, she was kicking her heel to his shin, thrashing in his arms as she threw her elbows back. Maybe she was even screaming because when she came to, Rafe had her on the floor again, one hand over her mouth as his legs pinned her arms down. She blinked the cold and dark night away, the image of that man’s blood spilling out to the floor as her blade was stuck in him. Slowly her vision was returning to Rafe’s wild eyes and his moving mouth. She couldn’t grasp what he was saying but the panic of not being able to move her arms freely was bubbling back up inside of her.

She closed her eyes again, trying to calm down before she had a complete meltdown at the immobility of her arms. That’s when she finally could focus on what Rafe was saying, he was telling her to stop. All he kept repeating was the word, “stop”. As she laid there, unmoving, she felt her wet cheeks underneath Rafe’s hands. Slowly, he moved his weight, lifting his body from her arms. She let out a sob then as she hugged her arms to her chest before quickly going up to his hands on her mouth, trying to peel him off her. 

“If you scream again, the zombies will hear you and come our way. If they haven’t already fucking heard you. Promise you’re not going to scream again,” Rafe’s tone was much less aggressive than it was throughout the whole morning.

Kaili only nodded, quickly backing away from him when he finally removed his hands. Still sitting on the ground, she had hugged her arms around herself. Embarrassed and confused at what had just happened, why she reacted that way, and why that man is living in her memories when she wanted to forget him.

“I’m sorry,” Rafe knelt in front of her, his tone apologetic and sincere. His hands carefully placed beside her so that she saw them in her line of sight but not close enough to touch. “I didn’t know— didn’t think you’d have PTSD from… whatever that happened to you,” he threaded carefully and Kaili reminded herself that he wasn’t there to see it happen. He didn’t know. “I also didn’t think you’d go fucking batshit but now I know, I won’t touch you like that again.”

Kaili just shook her head at him as she used her shirt to wipe the tears and the sweat away. Wanting to laugh at his comment and hit him in the mouth at the same time, she just leveled her eyes with him, “that guy I killed at the camp, he had me in that hold,” she explained soberly. She could tell the second that her words clicked with Rafe because apologetic and slightly annoyed turned into realization, which quickly turned into anger. He glanced at her wrists, the purple bruises that decorated it, and then back at her face. His lips pressed into a thin line before he wiped a stray tear from her face and sat down across from her if only to watch her back, as his long legs stretched out on either side of her. 

The silence between them wasn’t awkward, nor was it truly comfortable. Rafe glared at the spot between them and then released a long exhale. “I didn’t think about how that could’ve affected you before I dragged you out of bed today,” he began, still not making eye contact with her. “I was just so angry at the situation you’ve put yourself in. The one you put us in. That I made it a mission in my head that you wouldn’t put anyone in danger again by worrying about you if you just knew how to fight. I didn’t think that was how the bruises were caused.”

“It’s fine,” Kaili assured him but her voice was distant, “I didn’t even know I’d react that way. I’m sorry.”

Rafe’s hand was immediately on her knee, as his eyes met hers, “don’t apologize for how your brain deals with trauma. Trust me, I’d know. It’s not something you can control,” and it’s almost like he said it was a snarl but he was trying to be nice. Or at least Kaili believed he was. 

“How old was your cousin?” He inquired, seemingly lost in the thought that had upset him.

“She’d just turned sixteen,” the girl replied, noticing how his grip tightened for a second on her.

“Not so much older than Wheezie then.”

She swallowed the lump in her throat as she shook her head, “had her whole life ahead of her, you know. All it takes is one little mistake. A lapse in judgment. A second. Then it’s all over.”

“I think that’s why I’m so angry all the time,” his voice barely audible as the morning sun rose and the noises around them started to stir. She never noticed how loud everything truly sounded when she’d gotten used to the silence and company of just one other. “It’s not fair to her. She had her whole life to live and now she’s trapped in this nightmare. I’d go through it alone a hundred times if it meant she didn’t have to,” he kept his voice low, his furrowed eyebrows and angry eyes scanning behind her as he noticed the noises of the neighbors and their housemates, himself. 

“Trust me, I know the feeling,” Kaili put her hand over his, trying to comfort him but it doesn’t seem like her words or actions can get past the boy’s anger. “I’m sorry…for your sisters.”

“Yeah,” he said as he took a look at her, “and me for you.”

“Me?”

“Yeah. I didn’t know your cousin. It sucks but I can’t say I care much about her death. But I do care about you and how it’s affected you. How it still affects you and for that, I’m sorry.”

It took a bit for Kaili to digest his words. She had to rearrange his sentence and fill in the empty areas herself as she tried not to be offended that he had just said that he didn’t care that her cousin died but also, he was right. He didn’t know her cousin. He couldn’t have known how incredible she was and how much the world was missing without her. “You’re right. You’re shit at this comforting thing.” Kaili settled on a response.

She didn’t expect to make the boy laugh, the hardness in his eyes softened if only for a moment before returning. Shaking his head as if to get a thought out, he was suddenly serious again. “You know if it ever came down to it. I’d rather die than turn into one of them.”

“Well, technically you’d already be dead.”

“No, for real, before I turned — before anyone of you even turned. I’d pull the trigger for you. I hope someone will do it for me.”

Kaili processed the request and then nodded, “I think if the time comes, which I hope it won’t, you’d have a whole group of people here that would do anything for you.”

Rafe shook his head as if he didn’t quite believe that but he didn’t comment more on it. Moving his hand from underneath hers, he stood up, pulling her up with him. “Come on,” he said as they both started towards the house again, “wouldn’t want Kelce to think we’ve fallen in love and ran away together.” He teased, as her cheeks flushed, trying not to think about what Wheezie had also said the night before about Kelce.

——-

Four days have passed since the group arrived at the house. Kaili truly only kept track of time through how much food was left in their inventory...which on the fourth day, was almost out. Even when she and a couple of others were skipping their portions to make sure that John B could eat because he was healing and Wheezie could eat because honestly, they didn’t want to hear her talk about how hungry she was.

A trip to the store was starting to feel inevitable, even though no one was volunteering to be the one who went. JJ offered the idea to raid the houses next to them but Kiara pointed out that there might still be families holed up in their houses, too afraid to leave, and it would be unfair to strip them of their hoard. Yet even when she inserted her input, she wasn’t keen on being the one to get the food herself either.

Kaili, out of necessity and annoyance, had stalked up the stairs into what is now her room and had gotten back into her first day outfit. The one that they had found her in; the black long-sleeved shirt, tucked into her black jeans, that were tucked into her combat boots. The weapons belt neatly secured around her thighs and her hips but now she had a newly added gun to her waist. Kelce has been teaching her how to shoot while she had been giving a masterclass on first aid and knives.

Once Kaili had arrived down the stairs again, Kelce was already meeting her, wrapping tape around the cloth wrap he’d put around his arms to prevent anything from biting through. Kaili would’ve said that his thought process was sexy and the fact that he ripped the tape with his teeth was even sexier but he’d been avoiding her ever since the first time she fought with Rafe.

Okay, maybe avoiding isn’t the right word because it’s not like he left the room when she walked in but what he did was worse. He didn’t meet her eyes. She’d try to talk to him and all he’d do was hummed in response or reply to her question and shut down again. She was getting irritated since nothing that she had done had brought this on but she also didn’t want to confront him because he must’ve had a lot on his mind and maybe he wasn’t doing it purposefully. So, she allowed it to slide. 

“Where are you going?” She couldn’t help but be snippy at him when he attached the long automatic gun onto a sling and put the strap across his body.

Looking at her as if she had asked the most obvious question that he couldn’t believe he’d have to answer to, he replied slowly, “with you.”

“Uh, I’d rather go with someone who’d communicate with me out there,” she said, forgetting that she was going to let his silence slide, as she leaned against the kitchen counter with her arms crossed. “At this rate, you’d probably let a zombie kill me just to avoid looking at me.”

In a blink of an eye, Kelce had her boxed in with his arms on either side of her, gripping onto the counter as his eyes met hers. Something about the intensity in his gaze made her want to just push him onto the floor and have her way with him but she didn’t. Instead, she just rolled her eyes at his actions, looking irritated at their current position. 

His eyes searched hers as if he was trying to come up with the right words to say but couldn’t settle on one. “Have I been avoiding your eyes? No, look at me because it seems like you have something to say. Have I ever once ignored the hundreds of glances you’ve thrown my way and thought I hadn’t noticed?” 

“Yes,” she breathes the word almost immediately. She wasn’t prepared for where this conversation was headed nor was she prepared for his confession that he made seem so unimportant.

“I’ve got a lot on my mind,” he explained. Which didn’t make Kaili feel any better and in any other situation, with any other person, she’d feel claustrophobic between his arms — though he hadn’t touched her once. 

“All the more reason for you to stay,” her tone trying to sound indifferent as she stared at his necklace that was dangling between them. 

He chuckled humorlessly, “staying isn’t going to change anything for me. Besides, I’m not going to stay here while you’re out there.”

And maybe Kaili was imagining it but it felt like he had gotten closer to her as if his mouth could have grazed hers but he had walked off before she could even make sense of it. As the boy met up with Rafe in the living room. Kaili shook her head at the interaction, now was not the time for a distraction.

Rafe had decided to come along with Kelce and though others might’ve used him as a buffer for the situation that had just happened, Kaili had decided that the best route was acting like it never happened. It was simple enough. JJ had secured them a compact car that they could use and as they passed the fourth hoard of zombies when they had gotten into town, she was starting to become very thankful for him. Kaili hated the sight of them. Their greenish and gray bodies jerking about as some lacked their body parts. One of them, she could’ve sworn, looked right at her. The zombie’s one eye trained on hers as they drove by. The other eye dangling from its socket like some cheap Halloween costume. Kaili wondered if her cousin was now one of them if she could handle seeing her like that.

Her heart thumping in her chest as they pulled up to the grocery store, a couple of people running in and out of the store. Even as she saw the scene, she didn’t trust them. Humans were just as bad as zombies, if not worse. She wiped the sweat off the palm of her hands onto her jeans. As the car pulled into a stop. Rafe looked back at her from the driver’s seat, as if to ask her if she was ready. She wasn’t but she nodded regardless of her emotions. As she exits out of the car, she noticed that the atmosphere around them was a chaotic silence. People with shifting eyes, wiping their heads back and forth as they whisper to their company instead of trust their voice to be low enough not to get attention from the flesh-eaters. 

“I’ll take care of the water, you go for the first aid and some nonperishables,” Rafe whispered to her, and then to Kelce he had instructed him to find any type of meat they could cook if there were any left. If not, then canned foods were never a bad idea.

Kaili walked into the grocery store and dug her nails into her palm as images of Wei popped into her mind. No, she had a task and she was going to complete it. She didn’t have time to get lost in her self pity, not when there were other people’s lives at risk. Looking up at the signs above her head, she started walking to the correct aisle, sticking any food she deemed useful in her currently empty backpack. Not five minutes have gone by until she heard this blood-curdling scream from outside of the store. In the wake of her panic, she had zipped up her bag and clutched it in her hands before peeking through the end cap, towards the entrance. 

Her knees locking themselves in place as more people started screaming and running, she couldn’t tell if they were running in or out of the store. Hell, her fight or flight didn’t even kick in until she spotted a little girl in the middle of the entrance just crying. Now, the smarter option would’ve been to keep hidden, go out through the back as all the flesh-eating creatures ripped through the victims who were waiting there for them but she couldn’t. Kaili pulled the backpack straps on her back as she ran towards the girl, sliding on her knees as she scooped her up and began for the other side of the store.

“Where’re your parents?” She asked the girl as people ran by her and blood splattered onto their shirts. She couldn't get the girl to calm down as the shelves began being toppled over in an attempt to crush the creatures but all it did was create more noise.

“What are you doing?” A female voice was shrill as she ran down an aisle, “that’s my daughter!” The woman said as she picked up the little girl and cling onto her. 

“Then don’t leave her alone,” Kaili snapped at the woman, pulling the gun out of her waistband and firing two shots right behind the lady and her child, as the zombie was getting too close to them.

The woman had run off with her child, with no sign of even a simple thank you. Kaili didn’t think too much about it though, her main concern being that she needed to get out of here alive. Fuck, she needed to find the boys. Putting the safety back on the gun, she decided that it would probably be best to keep her bullets and use the machete instead and so she did.

Hearing a growl behind her, she quickly turned around, only to be knocked down by a drooling zombie who’s missing a jaw. It crawled on her with the jerking movement and she could hear its bones popping with every single move. She had moved her blade up between them and tried to move the creature off her with that, so she would get better leverage in the fight but it didn’t budge. Its tongue moved around in her line of sight, the top row of teeth mimicking the motion of snapping the jaws together if he were to have a lower one. Pulling her knees up, she was able to kick off the zombie, not thinking that her shoes had just touched the exposed ribs. Scrambling to get herself up quickly, she jumped onto the zombie with her blade in its forehead. She had cleared off some zombie necks as she made her way through the aisle, suddenly realizing how many dead people were around her, soon to be undead.

The urgency to find her friends has kicked in. In the midst of it all, she had sliced her hand on a sharp corner of a shelf. Finding a woman screaming for help, she was able to push the zombie away from her and jump on the creature to stab him in between his eyes. Before she even pulled the blade back from the oozing brain in front of her, she was met with a snapping noise near her ear. Instinct had pulled her back but that was before she noticed that the snapping monster wasn’t advancing towards her, that it couldn’t. With the overwhelming smell of human flesh from the creature spitting at her as it tried to bite into the air next to her, she recoiled back away from it. There was a hook around its neck and at the end of the handle, Rafe was holding on tight to it and flinging it off to the side. The thing was too brainless to get up by itself anyway. He had pulled her up quickly and grabbed her hand as he led her towards the entrance of the store, not stopping once to help the rest of the people who were still fighting the zombies. 

Kaili wanted to pull back but she willed herself not to look around, knowing that she wasn’t alone and it was about priorities. She wasn’t going to kill Rafe because she wanted to help someone she didn’t know. She concentrated on not tripping over the bodies and obstacles in her way that Rafe barely even saw as a hardship. Dragging her out of the doorway, as if he’d been in and out a hundred times before, he swung a bat that she hadn’t even noticed was in his other hand to clear a pathway. Kaili, seeing that they were heavily outnumbered, even if there were other people in the parking lot fighting these zombies as well, began swinging her blade next to him. Before she could even get the words out that she was looking for Kelce, a car had turned a corner and screeched as it zoomed towards them. Rafe pulled her steady to his side as the zombies were knocked over like bowling pins, the sounds of bodies hitting the floor forever etched into her mind.

Seeing Kelce through the driver’s window, they had quickly loaded themselves into the car and drove away. Neither of them said anything at first or even acknowledged what had happened until Kelce fixed the rear view mirror so that he could see her from the front seat as he drove, “are you okay?” 

It was a dumb question, of course. She wasn’t okay. Who could be okay after that? 

“Yeah,” she replied, hissing when she tried to grab onto her wrist to ease the pain of her palm bleeding but then accidentally gripping her bruise.

“Were you bit?” Rafe turned suddenly from the passenger seat, staring at her intensely as if he’d be able to make her crack if she was lying.

“I wouldn’t have gotten into the car if I was,” she spat at him, irritated that he had even asked that question. As if she’d put all of them in danger because she was too scared to face her death. No, that’s the thing about it, she wasn’t afraid of dying. She was more afraid of watching the people she loved die. Though at this point, she felt like she was getting used to it. “I cut myself.”

“You should’ve been more careful,” Kelce inputs his opinion into the conversation, definitely not reading the room that the girl in the backseat didn’t want to hear what she should and shouldn’t have done.

“Gee, you’re right. Next time I’ll make sure I don’t accidentally hurt myself...on purpose.”

“Okay,” Rafe raised his voice, sounding annoyed at the exchange as he tore his shirt off over his head and wrapped it around the gushing wound, the way that Kaili had shown him how to. Honestly, she didn’t think he was even listening when she was showing the group how to do it and now she couldn’t help but feel a little impressed. He knew the look on her face immediately and flashed her a smile, his eyes still dead as ever.

When they had reached their temporary home again, Wheezie had rushed out of the house to greet them but quickly ran back into the house when she saw the state of the car. The blood that covered it and the random torn arm that was stuck underneath the car, Kaili figured it must’ve been a grizzly sight for someone her age. Someone who’s never been face to face with a zombie.

Once they were all showered and bandaged up, they were sitting in the living room, Rafe had taken over as the speaker of what had happened earlier that day. Though he had embellished some parts, including the part of the story where he saved her from the zombie that was trying to eat her face off. Kelce didn’t like that part of the story much and Kaili didn’t attempt to correct Rafe that it wasn’t entirely like that. It was the only time that she saw his eyes shine in excitement so she let him tell it how he remembered. She did joke with him about it though, serves him right if he was painting her out to be the damsel in distress.

“All in all, I’d rate the rescue a six out of ten,” she said casually as she shrugged her shoulders, a smirk playing along her lips.

��I saved your life,” Rafe reminded her, his eyes about to pop out of their socket.

“Yes, but you also told us to split up in the first place. Honestly, Rafe, that’s a rookie mistake, to begin with,” and with that, the whole group had started talking over each other. As they finished their dinner. The first real one in a while.

____

After Kaili had cleaned up everything and made sure her bleeding stopped, she made it known to the group of people that were still chattering that she was headed to bed. She wasn’t at all that tired but she needed space to decompress. It was hard for her always being around people but even though she was grateful that she was with them and not alone, she needed to clear her head from the day that had just passed.

She closed the bedroom door and made her way to the window, overlooking the neighborhood, the lights in some houses were on while some people chose to patrol the streets with their big guns for a show as if that would scare off the looters but everyone knows that those desperate enough to loot already have nothing else to lose.

Finally curling up in bed, Kaili wrapped the blanket around her body and drifted off to sleep. Her slumber only lasted about an hour before she was awakened by someone shaking her. She jolted awake, knocking the intruder on the floor and jumping on top of him.

“Are you planning on fighting me with your eyes closed?” a familiar voice whispered and she tried shaking the sleep off of her, rubbing at her eyes to see JJ below her.

“I’m sorry, what happened? What’s wrong?” She said hurriedly as she got off him and made her way towards the door but JJ pulled her back and pushed her back towards the bed.

“Nothing’s wrong, relax,” he whispered at her and then paused, “well, something wrong happened in my room and in my bed but that’s why I need to stay here tonight. It was either you, Topper, or Kelce, and you are the nicest of the three.”

Kaili eyed him, now more curious, “listen, if you’re a bed wetter, you gotta tell me now.”

“No!” JJ denied almost a little too loud, which made Kaili purse her lips to the side and crawled back underneath the covers with suspicious eyes. “Pope and Kiara are like...fucking next to me. Typically I wouldn’t care if someone did that but it was in the same bed and they wouldn’t even let me join.”

At that, Kaili couldn’t help with how hard she laughed. Knowing him, he was probably serious. So, she patted the space next to her, “jump in Romeo,” she instructed as she yawned and turned to her side.

“Thank you,” he said the words so fast, they sounded like one. He jumped into bed next to her and spread out on his side of the bed, she guessed that must be more comfortable than sharing a bed with three people. Especially if those two were a couple.

“People need to get their priorities straight around here,” JJ mumbled, sleep taking over his voice as his eyes drifted close.

“Tell me about it,” Kaili couldn’t have agreed more.

Tags: @rafej-cambanks​ @downbytheouterbanks​ @anxietyandtacos​ @bedazzledbanks​ @millyelliot​ @stargazingstarkey​ @stfukie​ @jellyfishbeansontoast​ @rafecameron​ @queenk00k​ @kindahavefeelingskindaheartless​ @thegreatestofheck​ @starlightstarkey​ @spideymyluv​ @tomfreakinghollandneedsaoscar​ @pogue-writings​ @pankowrudeth​ @deathcompass​ @butgilinsky​ @cutiecolbsss​ @bricksatanakinswindow​ @outerbankslut​ @jiaraendgame​

[ziracona]

The tendency in fandom to take every white girl with short hair, regardless of the status of their canonical interest or lack of interest in women and explicit interest and/or sexual history with everything but, proclaim them a lesbian queen, and then ignore or absolve them of every single horrific act they take in fiction because of this. Is not doing feminism. Women. Lesbians. Or anyone. Any favors. It’s just bad.

Somehow. Some people really do apparently need to hear that...being any specific sexuality...is not a personality trait.

And also. Women aren’t inherantly less vile than men (or anyone non-binary, agender, fluid, etc, else), and whatever bad deeds they do should be judged based on just that—on the deeds, and their context. Not their sexuality, imagined sexuality, or their gender. Becuase none of those things effect whether committing murder is bad. At all. Not even a little. And none of them. Is even a personality trait. Affecting the character’s value as a person.

It’s cool, and good, to see characters with minority identities. And it’s real nice. When it’s whatever you are. But them being whatever. Is not a personality trait. Just a fact. And sometimes. People of any type. Are not good. Pretending any minority status—gender, sexuality, race, disability, neurotype, etc—is a get out of jail free card? Is not. Doing them. Or anyone. Any favors. Personality disorder. Doesn’t make you bad. Also doesn’t make you good. Your actions do. Acting like Amy from Gone Girl did nothing wrong when she date rapes her boyfriend & then frames him for doing that to her & ruins his life, then blackmails her husband who is terrified of being murdered by her into staying with her for the sake of the child she made at a fertility clinic with his sperm without his consent, bc she’s a woman. Isn’t good. Men aren’t more deserving of violence than women. Neither is anyone else. Jane. Left an infant child in an unheated car in subzero weather in a snow storm with zombies around that easily would hear it cry and go eat it. So she could lie and say she already let zombies eat it to bait a man with easily triggerable PTSD who had just lost his family to zombies for the second time into starting a fight. Because he was injured, unarmed, weak, down an eye, and 50, while she was fit, mid 20s, healthy, and armed with a hunting knife. Because she wanted an excuse to kill him without looking bad, because she wanted the 11 year old girl she was co-parenting with him, all to herself. And her immediately responding to the dude throwing a punch by stabbing him in the stomach to escalate the fight from brawl to life or death, then losing her knife, and instead of telling him the baby was alive & she’d made it up to start a fight which could have at any point ended the fight, begging the 11 year old child to gun down her oldest surviving friend with her own hands in cold blood so that she’d get what she wanted? Is evil. As is crying on the 11 year old and using pity as a weapon to get her to stay with her if she gets mad and wants to leave when she realizes Jane staged the whole thing for an excuse to murder, and so is after realizing like a month later that she is pregnant, committing suicide, and leaving the 11 year old that she just manipulated into killing her oldest surviving friend/completely isolated on purpose so she could have her to herself, totally alone in the apocalypse to care for an infant. Jennifer’s Body? Is a fantastic film. And Jennifer didn’t deserve any of what happened to her. But not one single boy she kills during the course of that film deserved it—and explicitly so. Even the guy who could easily have been a meathead jock bully is outside alone crying becuase his best friend just died and he loved him before she decides to lure him off and eat him alive. And acting like it’s totally fine & Needy should have just let her keep eating boys instead of killing her? Is fucked up. None of them deserved to die. And no one deserves death innately more because they are or are not something that is just a factual designator of their makeup as a human. The exchange student was scared and alone and nice, the catholic kid was sweet and Needy’s friend, Chip is a bad boyfriend but he meant well and being stupid doesn’t mean you deserve to die. And this girl ate them alive. That’s not funny. Or cool. Or fine becuase they were dudes. Gertrude Robinson? Chose again and again to betray people who loved her, or trusted her—sold out victims of awful trauma to their worst nightmares. Killed friends in the worst possible ways, like it was nothing. Michael loved her, and trusted her, and tried to care for her, and she without faltering fed him to his worst nightmare and forced him to become it. There is nothing excusable about that action.

Jude Perry? Has 0 redeeming features. Didn’t even stay faithful to her poor gf & was creepy obsessed w Agnes. Literally murdered her co-worker friend just because he was happy, and she wanted to destroy things: that’s it. She didn’t even dislike him. Murdered him because he had a wife and kid and house and it seemed fun, then burned down his house, took his wife’s money, and now checks in on his kid every so often in case he ever recovers from the trauma she inflicted enough to be fun to kill. There is literally nothing good about this woman. Yes. I mean that. Because being a lesbian? Is just a thing. There is no g/b tag, there is no tag at all. Amanda Young? Got kidnapped and tortured and forced to choose between killing a man who couldn’t resist but was conscious to watch her, and letting herself die, and she killed him. Then, instead of responding to that trauma with guilt or responsibility or anger at her captor, joined up with him and started helping him kidnap people just like her. She was not forced, she was not lied to. It does not matter if John was manipulative; she is a grown ass woman and like all grown ass adults, responsible for her own actions and choices. She did not get manipulated pitifully into this—she did not go unwillingly. She volunteered, with a happy vengeance, became obsessed with John and in love with him, despite his complete lack of interest. And she did not even just do what he did. She decided on her own that no one deserved redemption, & she killed them for fun in traps that wouldn’t let them go even if they did whatever awful thing the trap demanded as a price for life, just for the fun and power trip of watching them die helpless & in agony. That was all her, & her alone. She sat in a house full of people slowly dying from organ decomposition over the course of a few hours, for no crime worse than drug addiction—the thing she of all people should have been most sympathetic to—knowing full well at any time she could have saved them and stopped the game, and did nothing. She held a woman in her arms and stroked her head lovingly while she let her die in one of the most inhumane ways possible for the crime of having not been able to break an addition. She got saved by a 16 year old child multiple times, who had done nothing more than shoplift, and stood by while he had to watch a man get his brains blown out, another burn to death in an oven. As his organs slowly dissolved too. Watched the kid kill another human being & massively traumatize himself to save her life. And responded to that by attacking & knocking him out, tying him up, locking him up for days in a tiny safe bound and gagged with an oxygen supply to keep him alive, to be a piece in another game. Left his father, who had shown up to try & save him, to starve to death in chains in a horrible abandoned rotting room, & never even told him his son was alive. Let every other addict die horribly, let that kid sustain permanent damage to his organs that will kill him young, antidote taken or not, took his dad from him, & went back to torturing without a second thought. Kidnapped a woman whose worst crime was being a doctor & dating someone while maybe separated instead of divorced from her husband, put her in a trap that would take her head off with shotgun blasts, threatened her for fun, & then killed her even after she did everything she was asked, because it was more important to her that the old man she was obsessed with think she was special and great, than for the other woman to get to stay alive another day & go home to her daughter. There is nothing sympathetic about Amanda. She’s just not only evil, but too spineless to take responsibility for her own choices & actions, & tries to hide behind a “UwU I am sad & lonely & damaged & having trauma means I can literally torture people to death to feel special & it’s really tragic and sympathetic about me, not evil. Uhm. Some people??? Commit torture-murders?? To cope??” And acting like she’s somehow a victim in this becuase she is a pretty white girl with short hair? Is fucked. Up.

But every. God damn. Time. I see this. Please. It needs. To stop. People go: “UwU pretty girl short hair want” & I go “Ok. I see where u. Come from. Indeed.” But then. They go. “Girl pretty I like. So she was blameless. For this atrocity.” Those words...

Every day. I wake up. Thinking of Janic saying. Iconically. “At least me and Regina George know we’re mean,” and I weep inside. Because I cannot fathom. Or stomach. The lack of responsibility. I will kill. Characters who cannot admit they are bad. Myself. But somehow. They become. Flames. To moths. Of the “UwU pretty white girl short hair. We stan. Victim. Queen. Love her. Never done wrong.” Boy. We all done wrong. Even all my faves. At least once. I think. ...not if we count dogs probably, but people, yes. Ok. Anyway. All this is to say. Characters. Should be judged. Based on what they did. And why. And the aftermath. Not a grouping tag. I don’t mean any of these. Make bad characters. At all. Amy is a great character. So is Jennifer. So are most of them. I have quite affection even. For Jeneffer specifically. But you can like. Character. Without proclaiming. Them perfect humans. Who never did a thing wrong. Or their acts somehow. Justifiable. And ok. And you better stop saying. Ok. Because done. To men. Men do not. Deserve violence. Any more. Than anyone else. No one deserves violence defacto for factors. Outside their control. Wtf. Really people. It’s ok too. For character. To do much bad stuff. And still like character. Villains. And often just complex characters. Sometimes just characters. Do stuff. That is bad. It’s not supposed to be not their fault. Or ok. Also. Women are not a sisterhood. Of flawless beings. Who never hurt anyone or do any bad stuff. They can. And are. Often purpotrators. Of awful acts. And when they are. It is still. Very bad. Still. An awful act. Same level. Even. Of awful. Wild.

In conclusion.

Having short hair. While a girl. Doesn’t make her a butch queen. Who is absolved of all responsibility for that murder she committed. It just makes her a girl with short hair. That did a murder. I’m gonna. Kill someone. Too. And if I chop my hair off. I guess I can get away with it.

[sarah1281-takethree]

Velma just up and takes a spatula land just...peels all the paint away. Everyone’s like “what the hell Velma” and she’s just like “Whoops, guess I got carried away, no fucks given.” Like seriously rude. And expensive. If they weren’t evil was anyone going to reimburse that? 

Fred thinks a lot of holographic technology in 1998. A lot more than he should. 

Daphne doesn’t realize her show about exposing fake hauntings is going to be a mega-hit. 

It’s so weird to see Scooby hate cats. Is that a thing? 

He’s not talking about it but I can just FEEL how hard Fred is thinking about traps right now. 

And I love how secure Fred and Daphne are in their love for each other that Fred feels free to point out when another woman is attractive and Daphne’s just like “that has nothing to do with our ghost.” 

Also maybe Lena should have asked them if they had a dog or anything. Mentioned the cats, it would have been pretty natural. 

Southern Mark Hamill just attacked Scooby and Shaggy with a giant pig. Cool stuff. 

Every single Scooby Movie has real life supernatural stuff. I love it. 

I think the gardener wasn’t just undercover but legit hates all these people. He was grumbling “gardener” was Lena said he was the gardener so could do it. Someone tell him that’s not some kind of slur, it was literally his job. Ethically what does he do with the pay? 

Why don’t the ghosts and zombies be more specific about warning people? I mean, they outright wrote “get out beware”? Preferably when the cat people aren’t around. 

“Are you sure it was a zombie?” Fred asks. Like forget “I know a zombie when I see one” because at this point there’s probably been plenty of zombies in movies that don’t quite fit into canon. But like. What else wasit supposed to have been? Hallucinations or zombies or people pretending to be zombies. No, Fred, hologram technology isn’t there yet! 

Velma suspicious that the gardener was outside. 

Shaggy attempting to trim his beard hair but he took a pair of safety scissors and opened and shut them real fast a few times without actually touching the hair part. 

Now there’s the ghost again all “Get away! Get away!” Not to judge but say something like “They’re going to kill you.” And how exactly are they supposed to go with no ferry? And also how are there not stories about how people keep coming there and no one ever comes back? Or maybe there are but the gang didn’t hear about it before they went. I mean, there’s certainly lots of bodies around suggesting murder no one ever dug up. 

Fred tried on then rejected his lucky ascot. Everything that happens from here on out is on him. 

Having a visceral negative reaction to Velma’s glasses getting dirty and her not having anything to clean them with so Scooby breathes on them then wipes it off with his tail. I have tried to clean sunglasses. That would make it so much worse. She could at least try her shirt or sleeve like everyone else. 

Also I’m concerned Scooby does not know that he is a dog. And why would Simone want Scooby to go eat in the kitchen with the cats? 

I knew it. Gardener straight-up pretended to be a zombie because he’s a dick and hates them. 

God, Velma’s voice in particular is SO OFF. 

Lena: Fred, do be careful. Everyone else can choke for all she cares. 

Fred, upon spotting the gardener just out walking with a lantern much like they are doing: You must be the bad guy! 

Okay, sure, not being around when ghosts and zombies appear might be suspicious if they hadn’t only seen him like three minutes total and also not believing in the supernatural you’re pretending to be and trying to convince people of isn’t very good. 

I hate to say it but I think Velma is villain-profiling again and this time she’s dragging Fred down with her. 

Gardener: Why do you keep treating me like a suspect?  Velma: Well there’s literally only four other people we’ve ever seen on the island and we haven’t seen Jacques since we were dropped off so there’s a good chance he’s dead already. Also stop whining we think you’re suspicious when you won’t stop being a dick.  Gardener: *feels villain profiled* Then heaves giant rock over his head just to fuck with Velma before unnecessary using it to demonstrate quicksand he knew was there. Like, what, she won’t believe him and will walk into it? 

Daphne single-handedly captured a zombie. Then Shaggy. Could have captured Scooby, too, if he hadn’t wandered in all on his own. Daphne, please wash your hands very thoroughly after pulling all over that corpse face and getting your hands in its mouth. 

“You’re not a skeptic, Fred, you’re in denial!” Very nice, Daphne, now go tell that to Velma instead. 

Wow this chase music is just so painfully 1998 lol

Velma, really not happy Daphne told you everything that happened but you needed Fred to say it did before you believed it. Believe women!  “Jinkies, sorry!” Velma says after she took the opportunity to just punch the gardener because Fred and Daphne were being voodooed into hitting things. 

“You say the zombies DRAGGED Simone away?” Velma asked, physically pained they’re not even trying as she pokes the perfectly calm and very obvious footsteps heading away from them. 

Fred awkwardly had his hand on Lena’s shoulder when Velma started accusing her and it very quickly found its way off of it lol

Not for nothing but I can’t believe they didn’t bother making voodoo dolls of Scooby. The dog. With all the cats. And all the trouble he’s caused. And also that Scooby and Shaggy didn’t take the dolls with them when they found them!

You know, when I first watched this years ago I just assumed like the pirate guy was super evil (but not SO super evil to commit an acts other than murder) but now I just bet that the reason that pirate guy killed everyone was because it was the late 1700s and they were worshipping cat gods. Religious tolerance whom? 

And if Lena and Simone were equals how come Simone gets to be the fancy mistress and Lena has to be the maid/servant/cook/whatever? 

You know, if Lena and Simone didn’t suck then they would have just accepted death after getting revenge and not gone out luring people in. Like, fine, if invaders come and try and attack you you get a pass but those were the most touristy of tourists in Hawaiian fucking shirts. How do they not see their the bad guys here now?

So do zombies like regularly dog-pile the cat creatures in order to try and save this year’s victims or is that a new thing they’re trying this year? 

And sure, Simone, insult Daphne for being a television reporter like you really understand what that even is. 

Not for nothing but if their faces were melting because the wax was melting how does their face, like, unmelt if the wax is moved from the fire? 

There was too much fear and too little “EW DEAD BODIES” when the zombies were around. 

Also how long has Jacques been in this? Decades? A few years? 

Why do they still worship the cat god who they view as having cursed them? Why don’t the creepy cats disappear too? They are clearly possessed at the end. 

Poor Mark Hamill. Just showed up long enough to be a dick. 

Honestly, I think Beau is a suspect to Velma until he pulls out his badge and doesn’t turn into a cat monster lol Speaking of, did he carry that with him everywhere while undercover? Seems pretty risky. And he’s going to ruin his reputation talking about cat monsters on Daphne’s show. 

Now it looks like Velma has a crush on him which is ridiculous because I’m pretty sure she’s 15. And I kind of ship her with Shaggy in some circumstances but other than that I’m pretty sure she’s a lesbian. 

Velma, stop fawning over the cop. It’s embarrassing. 

[alarawriting]

Inktober #2: Mindless

The patient was sitting on the table, dressed in a hospital gown, looking deeply irritated. “I don’t even know why I’m here. I wanted to go to Five Guys,” he said. “Why didn’t you take me to Five Guys?”

The woman with him – close to the same age, late 20’s or early 30’s – sighed. She sounded exasperated. “Greg, we have talked about this. You’re here because—”

“You know, there’s a great sale on fishing gear at Walmart. I could be at Walmart right now buying fishing gear.”

“You don’t even fish!”

“Hello,” I said. “I’m Dr. Park. What brings you here today?”

“Nothing!” Greg Landers, my patient, said. He was a white guy with brown hair and stubble on his face, medium build, and looked overall reasonably healthy. “I’m fine! I just want to go to Five Guys. Or you know, Charles Schwab is a great place to open up your 401K. They’ve got a satisfaction guarantee. You won’t see that at every investment firm!”

“He’s been like this for days,” the woman with him said. “He won’t go to work, he won’t do chores around the house… he eats, but he spends the whole time complaining that it’s not some restaurant he wants to go to. Mostly Five Guys. Greg doesn’t even like burgers that much.”

“I don’t think we’ve been introduced, Ms.--?”

“Oh, I’m Nicole Landers. I’m Greg’s wife.” I’d figured it was something like that.

“So tell me about Greg’s online activities. Do you know what he’s been doing lately?”

“Playing Hell War!” Greg said eagerly. “It doesn’t cost any money to play! I want to know if I have what it takes to beat the Lords of Hell!”

Nicole sighed again. “Two weeks ago you were telling me that Hell War was a cheap cash grab and that it’s impossible to win without spending your entire paycheck on in-app purchases. Also you’ve never liked mobile games.”

“Has he played any VR games recently?”

“Are we done here? I am really jonesing for some Five Guys. And then we can go over to Walmart!”

“Oh, yeah,” Nicole said. “We both play Fimbulwinter – that’s a survival game about a post-apocalyptic world plunged into eternal winter – and La Vie en Verte, that’s virtual gardening. He also plays Beyond the Blue Event Horizon, that’s a space game, but I’m not into that so much.”

Time to be politic. “Do you think he might ever have played a… well, a porn sim? Or been on a site for pirating games?”

“You know, I think I want my next car to be a Hyundai Annunciator. Those cars are slick. And they handle like anything, even in bad weather! And the mileage before recharge, wow. Amazing batteries on those guys!”

To my surprise, Nicole laughed. “Oh, yeah, Greg does porn sims. He’s bi and genderfluid, so he likes to go online in a female avatar and have sex with dudes. Not really my thing, but he lets me watch if I want.” My shock must have shown on my face. “What? It’s the 21st century, you think I’m one of those women who clutches pearls and has the vapors if my husband plays porn games? I can’t be a man for him and I’m too straight to want him when he’s wearing femmy clothes, but the porn sim can give him those things without him exposing himself to diseases or other risks by going with real people.”

While Nicole was explaining this, Greg told us what upcoming movies he thought were going to be “really awesome”, repeated his request for Five Guys, tried to explain the plot of Hell War in five-word sentences that were plainly marketing material, and talked about the lawnmower he wanted. Nicole rolled her eyes as he finished. “Greg, we live in an apartment. We don’t even have a lawn!”

“We could go to Century 21 and shop for a house! I know their agents will put us first.”

“And why would we want to do that?”

“So we can have a lawn! The Home Depot sells the best grass seed—”

He went on like this, but I stopped listening. “I don’t need to check anything else, Nicole. I’m sorry. Your husband’s become a zombie.”

“A what?” Nicole looked horrified. Belatedly I realized that just because she played VR games and was open-minded about her husband’s porn habit didn’t mean she was IT-savvy enough to know what I was talking about.

“Sorry, that’s not the medical term for them. He’s still alive, and physically he’s fine. But mentally, his consciousness isn’t operating his body. His brain’s been hijacked by an information virus.”

“An information virus? And what’s that got to do with zombies?”

“An information virus is like a computer virus for people. And we call people infected with this type ‘zombies’ because they’re not actually conscious.”

Nicole looked at Greg, who was animatedly explaining why TGIFriday was the best sit-down restaurant, ever, but Five Guys was in a league of its own. “He looks pretty conscious to me.”

“Ask yourself, Nicole, when Greg is normally conscious, does he spend his entire time sounding like a series of poorly mastered YouTube commercials?”

“No, that’s why I brought him here!”

“Right. The human brain can do an amazing lot of stuff without being conscious of it. You ever set out to drive a certain way, but part of it goes the way you usually do to a different destination, and you find that without paying attention you’ve somehow managed to drive halfway to the place you usually go rather than the place you’re trying to get to?”

“I hardly ever drive. We have self-driving cars.”

I controlled the impulse to sigh. That one was the best explanation. “Ok, well, if you think about how you type on a keyboard – when you start, you’re awkward and you’re hunting and pecking. But it gets to the level of muscle memory and you can just do it, without having to consciously think about it. Or mastering the controls for a new game.”

“Yeah, I guess…”

“I wanna go home and watch CSI: Racial Justice Unit! That is the best show on television today. You know it won an Emmy last year, right?”

“Greg’s brain has been hijacked by an information virus that compels him to advertise for maybe up to 40 different brands that he’s aware of. He probably caught the virus on a porn site; that or an illegal pirated game site, those are usually the biggest vectors. Some of those brands might be aware that the advertisers they’re working with are engaged in really shady practices like this, but most think they’re paying for ‘brand ambassadors’ who’ve voluntarily chosen to talk up the brand to their family and friends. The virus lets him do anything you can do without being conscious, and it turns out, that’s a lot more than people think it is. But right now he has no sense of rational judgement, his normal levels of compassion and empathy are almost entirely turned off, and he has no awareness that everything he says is an advertisement.”

“So – what can we do? Is it curable? Is he suffering? Oh, God, is he trapped inside his own mind while his body is running around spouting ads?”

“No. The real Greg, his actual consciousness, isn’t awake – that’s kind of what happens when people aren’t conscious. And yes, it’s very curable. I’m going to have him sit in this booth with a VR headset on and watch a detoxification protocol, and that should do the trick.”

“It won’t hurt him, will it?”

“No, not at all. It just nullifies the virus and wakes him up.”

“Ok. Let’s do that then.”

“Mr. Landers!” I interrupted his monologue about the Hyundai Annunciator. “Can you sit in this chair and put on this headset, please?”

“But I’m really hungry. I want Five Guys.”

“I think Nicole would be happy to take you to Five Guys after you watch this short VRdeo. Isn’t that right, Nicole?”

“Uh, yeah. Yeah, sure.” From her expression I could tell she would rather swallow a live earthworm, but anything to get him to sit down and watch.

“Well, okay. Long as I can have Five Guys after.” Greg sat down in the chair, I put the headset on him, and for ten minutes, that was that. I talked to Nicole about the importance of strong antivirals on the VR headset, not just relying on your network firewall, and maybe running a quick one-minute detox scan after ending a game.

The timer beeped, and I removed Greg’s headset. “How do you feel, Greg?” I asked.

“Okay, I guess, but I still want to go get Five Guys. Hey, Nickie, you promised, can we leave now?”

My eyebrows went up. “That’s… unusual.”

“It didn’t work?” Nicole was clearly on the verge of a panic attack.

“It didn’t, but calm down. This just means I have to go to the next level and do a manual treatment. That’s going to take a while, but I’m really curious as to how this particular bug survived the detox, so I tell you what; if you can wait, I have, I think, three more patients on the schedule for today, and then we can do Greg’s treatment.” Normally I’d ask them to make a second appointment for a thing like this, but my detox VRdeo was brand new, just updated yesterday. I wanted to see what kind of bug could get through a brand new scan, and I didn’t want to wait until next week or whenever my calendar was clear enough for a half hour session.

“I… guess we can wait…”

“Well, if we’re not doing anything, then how about we go to Five Guys?”

“Just take him,” I said. “It might shut him up for a little while, and it’s not likely to do him any harm.”

“But Greg doesn’t even like burgers.”

“Greg Landers the human man with a unique intelligence and personality doesn’t like burgers. Greg the Zombie, the cookie-cutter advertising goon, does. Unless he’s got allergies or sensitivities and can’t eat burgers—”

“No, he just doesn’t like them.” Nicole looked at her feet. “I… guess I could take him. When do we have to be back?”

I gave her my best estimate of how long it was going to take to get through the last three patients, and then as I walked them to the door I let the receptionist know to expect them back.

***

Once they were back, I sat Greg down with an interactive VRdeo that I’d be running with him, and then sat down and put on my own headset.

The information viruses work by directly injecting “code” from the brain’s “operating system” through either the optic or auditory channels, or both, but you don’t perceive them as code. You perceive them as something else. I don’t know what Greg saw – for everyone it’s different – but for me, it was very brief flashes of something I could barely see, something dark and full of wrongness, accompanied by a very brief flash of panic and horror. My brain knows when something’s trying to invade it from the outside. But my headset had the newest antivirals on it and the best, most sophisticated dedicated firewall, so for me the code injection attempts were just that, attempts.

The VRdeo that was running was highly interactive, keyed to produce full sensorium response – a perfect breeding ground for a zombie virus. Greg’s viruses couldn’t resist the opportunity to replicate and invade someone else. But that was not happening today. As the viruses struck out at me, my security grappled with them, analyzed them, and fed me images that in turn I could feed back to Greg that would neutralize that particular virus.

When we were finished, I once again asked him, “How do you feel, Greg?”

He was looking around in bewilderment. “This… is a doctor’s office? How the hell did I even get here? Did I pass out or something, Nickie?”

“Oh, thank God!” Nicole said.

“Looks like that did the trick,” I said. “Make sure you run antivirals, like I said. Good ones, don’t skimp on the cost. If you’ve got the money to game, you’ve got the money to protect yourself while gaming.”

“Thank you, Doctor, you’re a wonder—”

“What the hell is going on? What was wrong with me?”

I let Nicole explain to her husband as they walked out the door, and I locked up for the night. It’d been a long day, and I was hungry. I could really go for some Five Guys.

[sueboohscorner]

AHS: 1984 S9:E02 RECAP #AHS1984

What an episode! Let’s get right into it. Okay, so in the opening scene, Karen is coming to warn Margaret that Mr. Jingles has escaped and she needs to shut down the camp. Margaret refuses and says that she would gladly kill him if he attempted to come back to the camp. After refusing to shut down the camp, Karen leaves, and on her way back, and gets a flat tire. Convenient, right? It’s the middle of the night, no one around, and then a tow truck appears out of nowhere. I wonder who it could be?  Possibly Mr. Jingles? It’s soon revealed that it was a trap set for her. He pulls her out of her car after breaking the window, and kills her -again, taking one of his victim’s ears.  

After we go to the counselors to see what they’re up to, they are all watching the news about a murder supposedly committed by the Night Stalker. Brooke (as per usual) is freaking out, while nobody is taking her seriously – in 80s horror flick fashion. Montana tries to talk her down when Brooke tells her about her previous engagement to a man named Joseph, who was a jealous S.O.B. He suspected that his friend/best man slept with Brooke the night before because he had come over to her house, and saw him walking in. They both swore they did nothing, but he didn’t believe her, so he shot his best man, her father, and then shot himself. Talk about a shotgun wedding -

Then, Montana ends up kissing her. WHAT? I don’t know about you, but I did not see that coming. Soon, it comes out that Xavier turns out to be a gay-for-pay porn actor. (A gay-for-pay actor is a straight male/female or who have sex with other men/women on film for the money) His former employer follows him to Camp Redwood, and throws everything in a tizzy…but soon after dies while peeping through a peephole at all the boys while they’re showering.  

[Now, I don’t know about you guys, but I’ve read the articles about Gus Kenworthy playing a “straight” actor in this series – but I DEFINITELY saw him eyeing around the showers, trying to catch a glimpse of the other guys – so maybe he isn’t as “straight” as we thought.]

Also, it seems that the two killers are at Camp Redwood. Mr. Jingles arrives, and shortly after, the Night Stalker is there as well. The Night Stalker again attacks Brooke, but she evades him after hitting him with a boat paddle. While running through the woods, he runs into a counselor from back when Margaret was a kid and attended the camp. He kills him. After a few seconds, the body disappears. He runs into him again….and kills him again. This guy won’t stay dead – he’s like Jason and/or Michael Myers. 

Now, I’m wondering very much what they’re playing at here. I don’t know if this guy is a zombie, or stuck in some type of time warp, or what – because he hasn’t aged a day.  

Back at camp, the Night Stalker is sitting in Margaret’s cabin, claiming he’s the antichrist. So – maybe this tied to Apocalypse in a way? Anyway, he surprisingly does not kill Margaret. He asks her about the camp counselor that won’t die. Then, they kind of build a kinship. She begins talking about Jesus as per usual, and he’s actually listening, and then it seems like she tries to have him take out Mr. Jingles, without harming anyone else at camp. He seemingly accepts this task and goes back out into the night. Soon after, the camp counselor that won’t die meets up with Margaret, and she lets him know that he’s dead, which is hard for one to believe. He doesn’t take it well.  

Wanna find out what happens next week? Stop in, and take a read!

New episodes of American Horror Story: 1984 premiere on FX Wednesdays at 10/9c

[ghostflowerdreams]

Review: Netflix’s Black Summer

Black Summer is an American web television zombie apocalypse drama series, created by Karl Schaefer and John Hyams. The first season, consisting of 8 episodes, was released on Netflix on April 11, 2019.

Set in the dark, early days of a zombie apocalypse, Rose is separated from her daughter and embarks upon a harrowing journey to find her. Thrust alongside a small group of American refugees, these complete strangers must find the strength they need to fight their way back to loved ones. But in order for Rose and the others to brave this hostile new world, they will need to make brutal decisions to contend with zombies – and each other. 

Oh, boy! Anything with zombies automatically peaks my interest so of course when Netflix announced Black Summer I kept an eye out for it. First things first, this post will have some SPOILERS. I want to explain what I didn’t like, what they could’ve done better and I can’t do that without revealing a little bit of it.

What I did like...

The cast was diverse, which was fantastic to see. We get a black man, three Mexicans, a deaf Syrian refugee, a Korean woman and two white characters. They weren’t just throw in to fill a quota, but they actually felt believable in their roles. 

Kyungson (goes with the name “Sun” instead because everyone was struggling to say her name) is desperate to find her mother. She only speaks Korean, but she does an excellent job in emoting emphatically to get her points across. However, that’s not to say she doesn’t know any English at all. She actually understands it well enough and knows a few words, even knows how to sing in it. 

I didn’t have any English subtitles on, which made it feel immersive and realistic for me. I felt like I was a part of the group, not knowing what she was talking about but having a good idea of what she might be saying. We also experience this in a similar-but-different manner with Ryan, a deaf character.

Now, the type of zombies we get in this isn’t the slow and stupid variety. They’re actually fast-running and tenacious in their pursuit. They’re also smart enough to climb and duck under opened garage doors in search of survivors. However, they don’t seem to be smart enough to know how to opened doors (but I suppose they can figured it out if given the time to do so). As always, the virus is spread by being in contact with an infected fluids via bite or blood. And if a person dies (for whatever reason), they come back as a zombie instantaneously.

Headshots are instant kills, but for some reason it’s not done that often. I don’t understand why the characters are all so surprised and panic when they realize that body shots do nothing to stop them. It just seems like a lot of waste of bullets. This makes me wonder if the universe this take place in not have zombie fiction? 

I get that not all survivors will be skilled with guns. As it’s very difficult to get headshots on moving targets, but how can you miss when they’re a few feet away and heading straight for you? Or why hasn’t anyone attempted to slow them down by shooting out the legs and than the head? I know I can be nitpicky, but I excused this aspect because it was only the beginning of the apocalypse. The characters haven’t had enough time or experience to become harden survivors yet. 

And then there’s Lance. He’s stupidly lucky. Everything about him makes me go nuts and want to scream at the screen like...WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! OMG, HOW? WHY ARE YOU STILL ALIVE? He’s basically the kind of guy who somehow manages to survive despite the dumb decisions he makes. Which, now that I think about it, is kinda funny because he’s what most people typically think of to be the first ones to go in the apocalypse. 

Maybe I’m nickpicking again, but what I didn’t like was in episode 5, titled “Diner” because I found all the characters to be acting very stupid. William and Sun were trapped in an abandoned diner with three other survivors from the truck (the same one that was tailing them in order to steal their gas, and eventually ran them off the road). Their first plan was to get someone to stay inside to keep the TWO zombies distracted while the others go out to kill them. However, that plan failed as they underestimated how difficult it would be to take them down. Did they not aim for the head? Or was it because their weapons were useless in causing any damage? I’m not sure...

Then Phil (one of the survivors from the truck) came up with the idea to sacrificed someone in the group to feed the zombies. While the zombies would be busy eating them, the rest would run away. He picked Sun purely because she couldn’t speak English, showing his racism. William is against the idea and Sun notices that the leader of the pack has a cut on his arm. She lets William know and he wonders out loud if Phil is infected. The group starts acting hysterically. The other two truck survivors make their decision by rounding on their leader and they all throw him outside.

The entire time I was watching that episode I was like WTF! Can’t you guys use your brain??? Why even resort to throwing another person out there? They would’ve been another potential zombie to deal with. Plus, who in their right mind even trust a dude who’s quick to make a plan that involves sacrificing another person? I was surprise to see that his companions didn’t even pause to think about it. If Sun wasn’t there, it could’ve easily been one of them instead.

What especially annoyed me about the episode was that they didn’t even try to use their brains. To me it was obvious of what they could’ve done next, but they just gave up after their first plan failed. They were dealing with TWO zombies and they could’ve easily out smart the damn zombies by baiting them inside the restaurant and trapping them in it. They just need to make sure to get all the food and water first. Once they did, lure the zombies to the front entrance and trap them in the little entrance way. Then go out the back way and you’re free. 

Or they can try to kill them again, but this time do it in a different way. Sure, it’ll be a bit more work and tricky to do, but it wouldn’t be impossible. They would need someone to distract the other zombie and lure the other one to the front. Then unitize the entrance way of the diner to get one inside and carefully secure and hold the door open. Just enough for the zombie to stick their head in and stab them with the big kitchen knife or another sharp object. Then repeat the process or keep the other trapped instead. 

This episode could’ve been done better by being less annoying stupid. The other episodes didn’t bothered me as much as this one did (especially if you ignored Lance, because his character is suppose to represent that kind of people). Sometimes the other characters are a bit dumb too (like why didn’t you check if you’re really alone in the house or why didn’t you freaking close and lock the damn doors behind you), but that’s normal as not everyone is such a zombie or survivalist nerd as I am.

Black Summer isn’t THAT great compare to other zombie shows, but there were some moments that stood out. Such as showing how dangerous and messed up humans can be. I remember a particular scene in which the characters were traveling by foot. They saw a car parked with a mother and her young daughter inside it. Rose was going to approach them to see if they needed help, but the mother lifted up her gun in a silent warning to leave them alone. The group understood and moved on.

Later on, in another episode they were in a different location but noticed the same car from earlier. They couldn’t see inside of it, but they needed to pass it in order to leave the area. So they cautiously walked closer, but the car starts up and as it slowly drives off they were able to see inside of it. 

It’s occupants were three burly man and a young girl. Rose turns paled, wondering out loud where is the mother, as the young girl was the same one from before. That scene was executed very well. It was terribly sad and horrible. It basically implied that the mother was killed either for her car (because finding one with gas was extremely valuable) or that they knew she wouldn’t let them abuse her daughter as long as she was alive.

In the end, would I recommend this? Hmmm, I guess? It’s not exactly that good, but it’s not that terrible either. It’s definitely something you can watch to kill boredom for a short while. Or just watch it for the characters like Christine Lee’s Kyungsun. I wouldn’t be surprise if she becomes a fan favorite. She’s certainly my favorite out of the entire bunch. 

Honestly, other shows do a much better job at this. Go watch Netflix’s KINGDOM. It’s a South Korean historical period drama with zombies. It’s very GOOD.

[mst3kproject]

Dawn of the Mummy

Like Horrors of Spider Island, this is a movie predicated on putting a bunch of attractive women in a dangerous situation so that we can watch them run around and scream, and like Devil Fish, they’re all Italian but we’re not supposed to notice.  The director, Frank Agrama, is best known for the Robotech movies, and most of the actors were never in anything else (one of them did play a victim in Bloodsucking Freaks), so it can fairly be said to star nobody and feature nothing.  Boy, it sucks.

Long ago, the evil Pharaoh Sefreman rode around Egypt being an utter bastard because he was a god incarnate and he could do that. He wanted to continue doing it after his death, too, so a priestess puts a curse on his tomb – if his treasure is ever stolen, Sefreman and his armies will rise and kill!

Thousands of years later, a bunch of robbers blast the tomb open despite the dire warnings of the wicked queen from Snow White.  It’s not them who end up angering the mummy, however, it’s a bunch of models and their photographer, who decide that an undiscovered tomb is the perfect place to hold an impromptu photoshoot.  After way too much pointless dithering, Sefreman makes with the rising and killing, culminating in a full-on zombie feeding frenzy.

The leader of the three robbers is a guy named Rick.  It’s been a while since we had a Rick.  The actor playing him, Barry Sattles, overacts so hard in every scene that you’ll be looking for tooth marks in the rocks.  The guy who dubbed his voice is even worse.

And that’s just one tasty morsel of the delicious cheese platter that is this movie.  The ancient Egyptians dress in taffeta and gold lame.  The dubbing is atrocious.  Sefreman’s ‘treasure’ is a bunch of cheap souvenirs with a layer of gold spray paint.  People running through wide open desert can’t seem to keep ahead of slowly shuffling zombies. The music is intrusive and both it and the accents are obnoxious stereotypes – the end credits in particular are set to a cartoonified ‘Egyptiany’ piece that reminds me of the theme from Killer Klowns from Outer Space.  If I had to pick a stinger I don’t think I could do it.  I mean, there’s the wicked queen popping into shot screaming, there’s the guy getting attacked by a rat, there’s the lady wandering through the tomb wailing about how lost she is, there’s Rick screaming Sefreman’s name over and over… it’s hilarious.

There’s not much of a plot through the middle part of the film – just Sefreman and his minions wandering around eating people and horses.  Occasionally there are hints of story, like one of the models falling in love with Rick (why!?) or the photographer’s desire to be famous, but these never really amount to anything.  The climax is a total free-for-all, as zombies invade the streets of the town and crash Omar the Hookah Guy’s wedding! This is plenty amusing, but would be more so if we had a better idea what the hell was going on.

Sefreman is finally defeated by two of the models and a couple of guys from the town, who lure him into a shed full of dynamite and blow him up.  This actually isn’t a bad ending.  I’m pleased that they didn’t decide to try to turn Rick into the hero, and that the women didn’t need personality transplants in order to save the day.  After the shack blows, they squeal and jump up and down and hug each other – which is exactly what we would expect from the characters we’ve been following this entire movie.  Omar’s wedding is a fun choice of climax, since we get to see some Egyptian culture, and there’s even a sort of subplot in which it’s rather heavily implied that he’s got to marry this girl in a hurry because she’s already pregnant.

I do have many questions about the old woman I’ve been referring to as the wicked queen.  How does she know where Sefreman’s tomb is when supposedly everybody who did know was killed?  She’s played by the same actress as the high priestess who sealed him up – is she supposed to be a descendant?  Maybe even the same person, immortal for some reason?  Why does Sefreman kill her when she immediately swears her devotion to him? Why does she talk about Sefreman ‘reclaiming his kingdom’ when that was never mentioned in the curse?  All the curse was supposed to do was keep his treasure safe.  The best I can say about her is that she’s slightly more explicable and relevant than the pet shop hobo from Hellraiser… but that’s a low bar.

So what is this movie about, besides the obvious ‘mummy killing women’ level?  I don’t think it’s really meant to be about anything.  Dawn of the Mummy is just a monster movie, but it carries with it a certain amount of baggage from its genre. Mummy movies in general are about the West’s unease with archaeology.

Archaeologists dig up all kinds of things, of course, but tombs are a major subset, because the dead bodies of our ancestors are a wealth of information about how they lived.  Modern science can tell where people grew up, what their diet was like, what diseases they suffered from, the colour of their hair and eyes, and all kinds of other things… but there’s still the fact that you have to dig up somebody’s dead body to get there.  Some people are okay with the idea that their mortal remains might be a subject of study in centuries to come.  Other people are not.

The Egyptians would almost certainly have been horrified by what has become of their dead.  Mummies were meant to remain in their tombs for all eternity so that the souls of the departed would have a home, with their grave goods to take care of them.  A mummy in a museum, separated from its context, means a soul that is alone and penniless in a foreign place.  If they could have put curses and booby-traps in their tombs to prevent this, they would have.  What does that mean for archaeologists?  Do we have the right to disrespect these people’s wishes, just because they’ve been dead for a really long time?

Archaeologists will frequently lament the fact that their profession is also basically destructive – once you’ve dug something up and taken it apart, it will never be pristine again.  Modern archaeology takes great care to preserve as much as possible so that people in the future, who will presumably have better techniques, can still learn something, too.  Dawn of the Mummy sort of deals with this, as we see two groups of people who have no interest in preserving what they’ve found. Rick and his friends blow holes in it looking for a treasure chamber, and the models are in their own way nearly as destructive.

Dawn of the Mummy devotes significant attention to the fact that light is damaging to artefacts.  Mummies on display in museums are always under dim light, because bright light will degrade the wrappings and tissues that have spent millennia in darkness. But the first thing the photographers do is set up a bunch of bright lights, and we see shots of icky blue fluid bubbling out of the mummy’s wrappings where this hits it.  I wondered if this is supposed to be what activates the curse – since the title is Dawn of the Mummy, maybe the magic mistakes it for sunlight falling on him?  If so, the writing should have taken care of that I wouldn’t have to sit and figure it out.

The models also touch everything they come across, leaning on walls and statues covered with thousand-year-old paint, getting makeup all over everything and probably sweat, too, as they constantly complain about how hot it is in there. The movie never entertains the possibility of actual archaeologists finding Sefreman’s tomb, but any who did would find it hopelessly compromised.

Mummy movies are also about imperialism, which is inextricably tied to archaeology.  Modern Egyptology in particular began when Napoleon’s troops raided the country for stuff they thought was pretty, and as I discussed in my review of The Pumaman, a lot of this is still kicking around in museums, private collections, and garage sales, with no provenance or context.  Archaeology derives from treasure-hunting, embodied in Rick – he’s not here for knowledge, he’s here for wealth.  The models are not really any different.  They want images of this exotic place that will please their audience, without much caring about the context behind them.

The mummy, with his magical powers and undead army, is a punishment for this greed, and represents the west’s constant fear that conquered peoples will fight back.  You see this in those facebook graphs talking about how white people will become a minority in America unless we make abortion illegal.  Why should that be a problem?  Because we’re afraid we will be treated as we have treated others. Sefreman’s magic is completely unknown to the Americans and they have no defense against it.

Of course, none of this is actually relevant in Dawn of the Mummy.  These themes are inherent in the premise, but they’re not part of the story this particular movie is telling.  The result, with its Styrofoam tomb art and ostentatious overacting, is great to make fun of but impossible to take seriously – perfect material for some do-it yourself MST3K.

[spnsimpleman]

The Unknowns: Thirty Five

This is a continuation for The Unknowns.  A one-shot turned into a long ass Prologue.  One   Two   Three   Four   Five Six   Seven   Eight Nine   Ten Eleven   Twelve   Thirteen   Fourteen Fifteen   Sixteen   Seventeen  Eighteen   Nineteen   Twenty   Twenty one   Twenty Two   Twenty Three   Twenty Four   Twenty Five  Twenty Six  Twenty Seven   Twenty Eight   Twenty Nine  Thirty Thirty One   Thirty Two   Thirty Three   Thirty Four

Dean x Psychic!reader

Teaser/Summary: An AU sparked from a songfic challenge, The Unknowns is based on Season One Episode Nine, Dean met reader in Lawrence as a child and they created an unbreakable bond. At the end of The Unknowns, reader decided to stick with her boys because she felt something coming but she holds secrets; one she holds close to her heart and a few that she doesn’t even really know yet.

Word count: 4373

Lines from “All hell breaks loose- Part One” in bold.

The dream started as it always did but this time I noticed the scent of the trees and fragrant mud was missing. Then Lily was stumbling and racing through the trees. She streak in front of me from left to right like a dark blur with blonde hair.

I reached out for her instantly recalling when the ground crumbled away under her, but I could reach her this time, I would save her this time. I was so close but when I grabbed her arm, she spun toward me suddenly rigid and her skin melted off her face before the rope appeared around her neck. I clawed at it, trying to get it off despite the slick liquid and gunk continuing to cover the worn, tightly woven fibers. It cinched tight, ripping skin from my fingers. It ripped her out of my arms straight up to the windmill spinning wildly above.

I failed. Again.

My scream was drowned out by the shushing trees and children’s laughter cackling at the sight above me. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, couldn’t do a damn thing but watch her move higher as the rope wrapped around the windmill wheel. Her body dangling for the birds and bats that shrieked and swarmed.

I closed my eyes. Maybe I couldn’t do anything but I wouldn’t watch.

“Protection, Princess. You get through this and you’ve got it.”

His voice slithered over the skin of my arms and down my spine. I grit my teeth and shivered. Silence dropped over me so quickly, I flinched and opened my eyes. The windmill was empty, the main drag of the old town dead once again. The yellow-eyed demon stood in front of me, his hands tucked in his jean pockets.

“Get through what?”

“Everyone else thinks there can be only one at the end of this ride,” he nodded, “yes, everyone here. Well,” he glanced up at the windmill, “everyone left standing, but you. You’re special.”

“Yeah, yeah. King and Queen, yada yada.”

“Not quite, but I need the best to lead my army. If you want Sammy to survive, you need to come out on top.” I growled and lunged for him. A single blink and he was gone.

“Sammy was my favorite,” he taunted behind me, I spun around, “my natural, but then I saw you and you, my girl, bring a little more to the table even without my something extra. I’ve pushed all the pieces into place but it’s up to you two to pull it out. I can’t do everything for you. You’ve got to prove yourself and if you fail, you’ve still given me ideas for the other generations. The one that almost got away.”

His grin made my stomach churn and the image of little Rosie playing in her front yard burst into my mind. I couldn’t tell if he put it there but the thought alone made me cringe.

“I will get away.” It was pathetic but he was giving information. I couldn’t process it all let alone figure out what could be close to the truth right away. I needed to play along for so long as I could.

“But Sam can’t. I can track him anywhere.” He smiled and his eyes held too much. “That little something extra.” He cocked his head, “I’ll let you in on a little secret,” he strode toward me and I rooted my feet into the ground so I wouldn’t budge. “He has my blood rushing through his veins.”

Before I could argue, everything around me changed and I was back in Sam’s nursery. Only something was very different. A tall, dark shadow stood in front of Sammy’s crib, the demon dominated the cheerful room. Suffocating it.

I moved closer, then around to the side and watched the blood drip from the demon’s wrist landing on Sammy’s tiny lips. I lunged forward and went right through the demon.

“Can’t do anything about it now.”

The room in the old house flickered back. Andy was still sleeping on the table, Jake standing guard at the doorway, and I slept on leaning against Sam. I looked into Sam’s face, even in sleep he seemed tortured. “It means nothing.”

“Oh, but it does. You’re not even his blood and yet you’d protect him until your very last breath.”

“He wouldn’t protect you.”

“You’d be surprised what someone would do when they’re shown the truth.”

My blood boiled at what he could’ve told Sam, what he could possibly be saying to him that caused that face. “I know the truth. You are a plague and you think you’re special because you think big, but you’re just like the rest.”

He flashed his wrist and the blood flowed down his arm like a snake. Hot, wet liquid splashed against my lips and I gagged. “I said you could keep both of them, Sammy and Dean.”

I snarled, “you don’t get to call him that.” The hot liquid splashed my tongue and I gagged again.

He raised his hands, “there can be two leaders but only a king AND a queen. Call me old-fashioned but thems the breaks. You’d be able to protect everyone your heart desires.”

“Right and all my dreams will come true when the glass slipper fits.”

“I have no preference for fashion, but like everything that is worth anything in this world, you have to fight for it. If you two are the last standing, I’ll let you both live.”

“So, this is a kill camp.” He smirked. I pictured bashing his teeth in with a shovel. “You’re still hiding something.”

“Clever girl, I keep my cards close. That’s how I’ve survived this long.”

I jerked awake to someone saying Ava was gone. I grabbed Sam’s arm as he stood, “wait. Trap.” I was still stumbling to catch up with the rapid flip. The demon’s words echoing in my head, my blood heated, and my arms itching to swing that shovel.

“We need to find her.”

I crossed my arms and stared at Sam desperately trying to get my bearings, but it was Jake who forged ahead, “so you get to pick who should be protected and who shouldn’t?”

“She didn’t say that.” Andy came to my defense and Sam gave me a look. This was a powder keg situation and I could be playing right into the demon’s hands.

“We stay in groups.” I looked at Jake, my stomach turning as the words spilled out, “you two stay together, watch each other’s backs.”

Jake’s brow furrowed, “you really think Ava could what? Hurt us?”

“She thinks she could be possessed and we can’t rule it out,” Sam gave him a stern look and I shivered.

“The last time someone went off by themselves, we found her dead.” Jake looked at me.

I glared right back, “I found her in the woods and yes, she was with me when she fell and disappeared. You have your strength, Andy can put things in people’s heads, Ava has visions and so does Sam. I can feel people and what I feel from her is different from the rest of us. She’s not scared here like we are. That’s not a good thing in this situation. So be careful.”

His eyes softened along with the rest of his body. Maybe not knowing what I could do had put him more on edge around me.

“We’ll check around outside, you guys stay here in case she comes back. Maybe she just went to the bathroom.” Sam looked out the window. I didn’t like that we were splitting up again. I understood it, but I didn’t have to like it.

Sam and Jake moved together out of the room, “Sam!” He turned around just past the doorway and met my gaze, “its blood isn’t stronger than us. It doesn’t mean anything.” His eyes flared along with guilt, fear, and concern. Too much. So the demon did say something to him. But Sam knew what he had done to me in my dreams, that I understood. He gave me a tight smile and a nod before following Jake.

I turned to Andy, “did the yellow-eyed demon come to you in a dream?” He nodded. “Son of a bitch is playing us against each other. You were right about the hunger games.”

“This is bad.”

“Yup.”

He glanced down at my hand, “you got any more of those Sage bats?”

I chuckled and squeezed the bat in reassurance. I hadn’t even realized I had grabbed it upon waking, “you get that iron poker and we watch each other’s backs. Okay?”

He looked around, “you know I used to think it’d be cool to fight in a zombie apocalypse when I was a teenager. I was an idiot.”

“I wanted to be a G.I. Joe when I was a kid.”

Andy grinned, “why am I not surprised?” He shook his head, “I think it’s in the other room.”

We both turned at the laughter outside the window to our right. I moved toward it and checked the salt on the sill. Unbroken. I searched outside and saw Sam walking one way down the road and Jake the other. “So much for staying together.” I should probably feel ashamed at how much relief that brought me, but I didn’t.

I watched Sam walk a few buildings down and look around. An icy prickle tingled on the back of my neck. “What room was that poker in?” I turned when he didn’t answer and found myself alone. “Andy?”

I moved to the doorway and tightened my grip on the cedar branch. I looked both ways down the hallway but there was no one. A creak in the board above my head was followed by another and another. I tried to recall the layout of the house as I stepped into the hall and remembered a stairway leading upstairs at the back of the house. I moved quickly with quiet steps down the hall and made it halfway up the stairs before the prickle sunk its teeth into the base of my skull viciously. I winced and took the rest of the stairs two at a time.

I gripped the banister at the top, “Andy!” The chill spread through my veins at the hard thud downstairs then Andy’s scream pierced through me with a pain I had to work hard to block out. “No. No, no!”

I forced my legs to move back down but they were wooden. By the time I reached the bottom, I was crying and Ava’s scream was echoing in my ears. I pushed myself through the hall and the front door banged open.

Sam met my gaze and Ava screamed again. He followed the scream, rushing into the front room.

“Sam! I just found him like this!”

“What happened?”

“I don’t know.”

The lie practically seared through me and I couldn’t hear any more. Rage boiled the ice out of my veins and I strode into the room glaring at her. “You lying bitch!” Still no fear, no real emotion that would explain the tears streaming down her face, not even the anger that caused my own.

Her eyes narrowed when she looked at me, “you’re just jealous.”

I pressed my fists into my thighs, “yup, that must be it.”

“Who did this?” Sam was by the window pointing at the broken line of salt then moved back toward me watching Ava.

“I don’t know, maybe Andy…”

“Andy wouldn’t do that!” Sam and I spoke at the same time. I met his gaze trying to get him to read my mind. She was a part of all this.

Sam looked back at Ava, “what happened to you?”

She glanced at me then wiped her eyes and focused on Sam. “Had you going though, didn’t I? Five months you said, right? Children like us just keep showing up.”

I glared at her, my fists digging into my thighs. I couldn’t speak through the rage and the small amount of disbelief at how casually she spoke about killing people. Sam wanted to believe that they could all be saved but he forgot that in this life, in this world, not everyone wanted to be saved.

If Dean had been killed, would I?

“How could you?”

I flinched at Sam’s words even though they were directed at Ava.

“I had no choice. It’s me or them.”

“You always have a choice, you just refused to see it!” I seethed. Sam’s gaze was on me, concerned and worried. I told Lily we’d be safer together, she started to feel safe around me before... Andy had felt safe around Sam, I wanted to keep him safe. He was supposed to be safe with me.

“No, I refused to stop fighting what I am, who we are, Sam.” She still stared at him like he was the only one in the room or maybe the one she needed to convince.

King and Queen.

Maybe I wasn’t the only one he was selling that too. “It’s not who you are, it’s just something you can do. That’s the only reason the demon wants you.”

She continued her rant like I didn’t even exist. I saw red.

I wanted to reach for Sam, to pull him behind me because she wouldn’t get him to agree with her and then she’d kill him. She would try to kill us both. I gripped the branch in my hand and looked at the window. If she continued proving her point to Sam, I could fix the break and she wouldn’t have her handy killing machine within reach. I moved toward the window.

“Sorry, Sam, but it’s over.”

I jumped for it as the black smoke poured in. I brushed the salt over the break trying to fill the hole but froze at the sickening crack behind me. I spun around raising the bat to strike but froze. Jake dropped Ava to the ground. Sam was staring at Jake but had moved over a step in front of me. We were all stuck in a tableau, waiting for someone to snap, to show their true colors. I was waiting for Jake to try to attack one of us.

Sam snapped out of whatever held him and grabbed my hand, “let’s go.” He was moving with me before I could argue, not that I would, but Jake was different. I couldn’t read him and I didn’t want him behind us. A sob stuck in my throat when we moved around Andy. I couldn’t look down, I couldn’t see another person the demon ruined today.

Sam practically dragged me out of the house while I kept Jake in sight.

“What about the acheri demon?” Jake came up alongside Sam.

I tensed, squeezing the life out of Sam’s hand as he continued his long-legged stride.

“No, Ava was controlling it…” I dug my nails into his skin and he hissed, “we gotta go.”

“Not we, Sam.”

Sam finally stopped and looked at Jake who was staring at our combined hands. I knew where this was going. My stomach dropped at Jake’s mention of the yellow-eyed demon but my muscles were already gearing up to run as Sam tried to talk some sense into someone who already found his own truth. I tugged Sam’s hand, trying to force him away from Jake, but he wouldn’t budge.

“How do I know you won’t turn on me?”

“I won’t.” Sam was resolute but there was no change in Jake.

“I don’t know that.”

“Okay, look.” Sam pulled out his knife and held it up.

My insides screamed as I stared at the metal. Sam bent to place it on the ground and I squeezed his hand again. No, SAM! PLEASE NO! He gave me a small smile, confident that he could get Jake to see his way. I couldn’t pinpoint what was locking my jaw shut.

“Come with us, Jake. Don’t play into what it wants.”

Jake watched him and then placed his own weapon on the ground, but I didn’t sense any change. He wasn’t on board, his resolve had only strengthened. He was just playing the hand Sam dealt.

As Sam dropped his guard, Jake’s intent surged forward slamming into me. I dropped Sam’s hand and shoved him away, “NO!”

Twin bursts of agony ripped through my shoulders and I was airborne. I crashed into something too solid and the crack echoed inside my skull. I struggled to get air into my lungs, struggled to make sense of too many body parts screaming at the same time. I lifted my head despite the sirens wailing inside it and a broken chunk of wood dug into my arm at the movement.

Through blurry, red-streaked vision, I watched Sam stand up in a field. Jake strode toward him. He was going to kill Sam, his intent pulsed throughout his entire body. He was going to kill my baby brother.

My vision faltered, the scene wavered and changed. Images flickered to life, streaming so fast. The boy who always wanted to measure up, the boy who always wanted to be a contributing part of his family, who wanted to be just like his big brother no matter how many times we told him he was so much more. The boy who wanted to soothe all those who suffered. The teenager who had dreams that soared into the sky, who worked his ass off only to have them snatched away and burned to the ground by the very same demon who whispered devious things in his ear as well as the man who would kill him.

The sob burst through the images and the two men were trading blows beyond the fence. That goddamn fence. My body hurt everywhere but I forced my arms to lift me against what remained of the stairs.

There had been too much taken away by that demon who thought he could control everything, but this was one plan that wouldn’t come to light, wouldn’t come to pass. If I had anything to do with it, there would be no more death tonight.

The pain licking up my spine and the agony bouncing around inside my skull started to dull. An icy hand caressed my chest. It… was slowly leeching away the pain.

I’m not ready to say goodbye! I pushed to my knees, the lack of pain like a hand at my back helping me up.

The depth of that hole I had almost succumbed to, the pain that Dean had survived, the anguish Sam had to go through… too many times.

An icy dread pierced my head. Rage boiled my blood. Close but not… mine.

“Dean.” He was close but not close enough. Something irreversible was barreling toward us. Or maybe it was just me.

I looked at my baby brother facing away from the man lying prone on the ground. Did he feel Dean?

Jake will kill Sam. The voice whispered in my ear, in my head. My voice.

Sam was completely unaware of the danger at his back. “Sam.” My voice was too small, too hoarse.

The soldier, the marksmen, and the witness. Was I the witness? Relegated to watch as everything played out, as my brother died and the other sacrificed himself?

Sacrifice. Dean would do anything for him.

I said you could keep both of them, Sammy and Dean. He knew. He knew Dean would give anything… he would sacrifice his own life for his brother.

I could already see it playing out. We’d fight about it, over it, and both of us would try to give ourselves for him because he always deserved better. Jess might try too.

Sacrifice. What if… not Witness… the other translation that so very often was called witness…

Language changes. Pamela’s tired voice rang in my head.

In a few old texts, a witness oftentimes meant and/or became a martyr.

A warrior’s sacrifice will prove fruitful...

Dying wasn’t easy, but it didn’t hold a candle to those that were left behind, those forced to continue on. I tried to thrust the thought aside, I wasn’t going to die. I wasn’t ready.

What if it was the only way to stop it? I didn't want to say goodbye, I didn’t want to do this to them but I would do anything to save them.

Too many warriors had already sacrificed for this. Lily, Andy, countless others. Generations of them gave their lives for a cause not their own while so many didn’t even know.

That hole yawned wide in front of me, the pain radiated through every pore of Dean, through Sam.

Sam deserved so much more than he’d been through. I had been blessed, although it wasn’t easy, I had a charmed life. I had them. I had Pamela and my mother. I had Bobby and Jess and Sam. I had so many years with Dean.

Panic ripped through me but it wasn’t mine. Dean was so close and yet so far. He wouldn’t be able to stop any of it.

My vision blurred as I pushed back up to my knees. I couldn’t remember falling down. Didn't matter.

I swallowed the cry as the remaining pain in my head screamed in protest at every small movement.

‘And you, my father on that dad height,’ My father’s voice so animated in my head, in the air before me, ‘curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gently into that good night.’

Maybe I hit my head harder than I thought. I reached out to the other end of my tether, Dean, make sure he gets to experience what we did. Make sure he lives.

How anyone could choke on words in their head was completely beyond me but it happened as I tried to let him know one last time. I love you. Forever and ever.

“NO!” Dean roared from somewhere in the woods. So, so close.

I was already on my feet. My numb legs, becoming swift, carried me toward Sam as Jake got to his feet so much closer, the blade shining in his hands.

Jake thought I was already dead and maybe I was, but I still had one thing left to do.

My father’s voice rallied as I pushed every last bit of energy into my legs and stretched out my hands toward Sam who faced me with confusion twisting his features, ‘rage, rage against the dying of the light.’

“MOVE!” The energy lit every nerve in my arms ablaze and just before Jake and I reached our target, Sam flew out of the way and I collided with Jake.

He stared down at me, his eyes screaming shock and pain that I, by some small mercy, couldn't feel. Electric sparks popped between my fingers and smoke rose from Jake’s jacket where my hands were pressed against his chest. I hissed, “fuck you.”

His body trembled and he shoved me away.

I saw the dark sky. The stars so bright out here, shining down on unholy ground. The world shuddered. I wished I could see Sam just one last time. See Dean. I’m so sorry.

“NO!” Sam’s voice was warm and neat just like it should be. “What were you thinking?!” His dirt-streaked face suddenly filled my vision blocking the stars, but I was grateful.

“Sammy.” I wanted to wash it all away. Clean the dirt and muck like I used to when he was little before he wouldn’t let me clean him anymore. When he no longer came to me for help with the nightmares.

“I'm right here. I’ve got you.” His voice cracked but it was still whole. He was still whole. “What did you do?”

What I had to, Pumpkin.

He sucked in a breath, eyes wide. Darkness consumed me, not even the stars pricked through that deep blanket.

“Talk to me, hey, please open your eyes, sweetheart.” Dean, he was right here when I needed him. Just like always.

“I’ve got a pulse but it's thready. Can you feel her?”

Help him, Sammy. He’ll need you.

“NO!”

“Wha... did you hear... is that?”

“Come on, hang in there. We’ve got you. Keep the pressure here. You got anything? We’re right here, sweetheart. Please… please don't. Don't leave me.”

My dad sat beside me with the book open on his lap. “Daddy, what does he mean? How can you rage against the dying of the light? Does he mean night time? I hate bedtime too.”

His soft chuckle rolled along my skin and vibrated so nicely in my chest, “no, honey bee, he’s talking about death. He’s telling the people to fight with everything in them against it.”

“But death is natural. Everybody dies.”

“Very wise, but sometimes it feels sudden because we don't know when…”

“Like Miss Mary.”

“Yes, like miss Mary and what if miss Mary were able to fight against the dying of the light just for a few more moments to tell you she loved you, to tell Sam and Dean and John, do you think it would be worth it?”

I thought it over. Would Mary want to tell me that and if she could, would it make her feel better? Would I feel better if I got the chance to tell her what she meant to me? The answer resounded in me with such force, I nodded, my head bouncing like it was on Susie’s trampoline. “Yes, definitely.”

He smiled, his warmth flooding me, “then you will certainly not go gently into that good night.”

“Y/n! Please… please stay with me.”

The smallest hint of Dean’s pain finally echoed inside my chest and I sucked in a breath at his broken plea. Y/n, please say something, please be there.

I summoned the last scrap of energy I had left and reached for him. I followed the thread that led to him and pushed all the love I could his way, and ever.

I wrapped myself around him and held on hoping against hope that he could feel it. That he could feel me and know that I would never let him go if I had the choice.

Thirty Six

@duchessofwinchester , @jodyri , @jencharlan , @deanssweetheart23  @torn-and-frayed , @chrisatplay , @mogaruke, @captainemwinchester, @ashrod98 , @mrswhozeewhatsis , @caitsymichelle13  , @escabell , @thealyana , @michellethetvaddict , @ashch , @rashinyx2002 , @tamtamlov

[animationnut]

Piece By Piece: Chapter 10

Fandom: Red vs. Blue Rating: T (to be safe) Summary: Platonic Soulmate AU. Grif spent most of his life without soulmarks. He tried to convince himself that he didn’t care. He had his sister. She was more than enough. After all, what were the odds he would find his soulmates in the army? 

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The training room was quiet, save for Washington’s breathing and the rhythmic thumps as his fists collided with the faded green punching bag. Sweat dripped down his face and stung his eyes, but he didn’t deter from his punching pattern. His motions were mechanical as his mind wandered, focussed on their unideal situation.

Sleep didn’t come naturally to him, not anymore. Though the nightmares weren’t nearly as bad, they still occurred. Being trapped on a planet currently under siege by the deadliest mercs in the galaxy didn’t help matters. He couldn’t stop seeing Tucker bleeding from Felix’s stab wound. He couldn’t stop replaying the gut-wrenching moment they had been separated in the canyon, Felix scuttling Grif, Tucker, Caboose and Simmons away. Seeing Sarge on the ground, motionless. Lopez’s head being blown off. Donut knocked unconscious.

The panic tightening around his throat was irrational. They were all alive and safe in Armonia. They found Doc. They were together again. He was going to do everything he had to to keep it that way. He couldn’t lose them, any of them. He wasn’t losing another family.

His movements became more erratic as his emotions overtook him. He abruptly stopped, breathing hard, watching the bag swing in front of him. His fists ached and he shook out the joints. He focussed on keeping his emotions from leaking into his soul-links. He didn’t want to disturb the others, who deserved a good night’s sleep.

“Dude. What the hell are you doing?”

Jerking in surprise, Washington whirled around to see Grif standing in the entry. A bag of cashews was in his hand and he regarded the ex-Freelancer in bemusement. Realizing that he was waiting for an answer, Washington said, “Training. And what did I tell you about midnight snacks? We need to maintain our rations.”

“Technically it’s two in the morning, so it’s not midnight,” countered Grif, munching loudly. “Also,” he said through the food, “there are like a thousand bags of these things.”

“That’s not an excuse,” said Washington sharply. “There are set meal times for a reason. You can’t break into the kitchen whenever you want.”

“Then they shouldn’t make it so easy,” said Grif with a snicker.

Crossing his arms over his chest, Washington’s eyes narrowed. “We need to kick this little habit of yours.”

“It’s food, Wash. It’s a need, not a habit.”

“Not at two in the morning!”

“I couldn’t sleep!” snapped Grif. “Sue me, I eat when I’m stressed, when I’m tired, when I’m happy. I’m an eater, okay?”

“Then maybe we need something that’ll help you sleep.”

Missing the ominous tone in Washington’s voice, Grif asked obliviously, “What, like warm milk? That doesn’t work. It just makes me want cookies.”

“You’ve skipped quite a bit of training since we’ve all gathered here. I think now is the perfect time to make it up.”

Grif’s eyes widened in horror. “You know what, I’m feeling tired already.”

“Get your ass over here.”

Flinching at the hard, commanding tone, Grif silently cursed himself. He shoved the remainder of the cashews into his mouth before tossing the bag into the trash can by the door. He shuffled over to Wash and asked warily, “What do you want? Laps? Squats? Push-ups? How about none of them?”

“None of them does sound good,” said Washington. “We are going to spar.”

Grif’s jaw dropped. “Seriously? You just spent who-knows-how-long beating up a punching bag!”

“I’ll go easy on you,” said Wash, giving his hand a dismissive wave. “Relax. Just follow your instincts.”

Stomach jumping with nerves, Grif got into a fighting stance. He kept his eyes locked on Wash, waiting for him to act first. After a moment of being still Wash suddenly moved in for a right hook. Grif dodged the punch, ducking to the side.

Wash regarded him, features impressed. “Nice move.”

“Thanks.”

To Washington’s surprise, Grif was hard to hit. He didn’t attempt to strike back. He understood that the chances of him landing a strike against Wash were slim to none. But he knew where his strength lied. He was steady on his feet and dodged the punches thrown at him. Five minutes passed and Grif started to pant from the brief exertion. As he reared back to avoid a straight punch to his face, he stumbled backwards. Seizing this opportunity Washington stepped forwards, slamming his fist into Grif’s stomach.

The wind was knocked out of him, but what caused Grif to properly lose his breath for a moment was the severe exhaustion that suddenly surged through him. Fear and determination twisted together, weighing heavy in his soul. He could smell pumpkin pie and cinnamon. Grif reached out and pressed his palm against Washington’s chest.

Washington’s fist unfurled until it was pressing flat against Grif’s stomach. He trembled from the strength of Grif’s happiness and affection that charged through him. He tried to focus on the warmth, but his worries consumed him. Grif could feel his internal struggle, the desperate desire to keep everyone together safe and protected. Grif was important, the others were important, Washington couldn’t lose them.

‘You won’t,’ soothed Grif.

‘How do you know?’ demanded Wash.

‘Because somehow we always pull through. It’s not just up to you to protect us, Wash. We’re in this together.’

Grif’s love flowed through Washington and he closed his eyes, letting it smooth over him. The power of it caused his muscles to sag, joy to well within him. He didn’t think it was an emotion he’d ever be able to feel again, let alone have someone feel it for him.

Once their souls finished connecting Grif released Washington, collapsing to the floor with an exhausted sigh. Washington sank beside him, running his fingers through his blonde hair. “Sorry,” he said sheepishly. “Probably not the best way to get a soulmark.”

“You kidding? I got Donut’s after waking up from organ transplant surgery,” said Grif with a laugh.

Washington stared at him with wide eyes. “Oh. Wait. Is that how Simmons…?”

“Became a cyborg? Yup.” Gaining a more serious tone, he said, “I’m sorry about North and York.”

Wash managed a weak smile. The purple and gold handprints on his body were charred, the colours just barely peeking through the black. “I wish I could have saved them.”

“I know. But it wasn’t your fault.”

“I did a lot of terrible things,” muttered Wash, eyes darkening. “I was blind.”

“I don’t think you were the only one,” said Grif lightly. “You were told lies and you didn’t have any reason to think they were anything other than the truth. Is it why you can’t sleep?”

“Partly,” said Wash, scrubbing a hand down his face.

Grif got to his feet, pulling Wash up with him. “Living in the past isn’t going to help you. You did some screwed up things. But we forgive you. You’re a good guy, Wash.”

“Thank you,” said Wash sincerely. He didn’t quite believe it, not yet, but he knew one day he would. Their love would be more than enough to help him heal. “So,” he continued with a mischievous smirk, “ready to continue sparring?”

“Hell no,” said Grif, grabbing Wash by the wrist. “I’m tired. You’re practically dead on your feet. Don’t know how you manage not to look like a zombie when you feel like one.”

“Years of practice,” quipped Wash.

He let Grif drag him out of the training room. Though he doubted he would sleep it wouldn’t hurt to at least lie down. Maybe he would get some semblance of rest.

They arrived in the barracks and stopped in front of the room Wash shared with Tucker and Caboose. Wash opened his mouth, ready to say goodbye to Grif, but the Red solider slid open the door and walked in.

“What are you doing?” whispered Wash in bewilderment.

Grif ignored him. He approached Caboose’s sleeping form and jabbed him several times. “Caboose, wake up,” he demanded.

Caboose’s snoring abruptly cut out as his eyes fluttered open. “Did I miss breakfast?” he asked groggily.

“No. Wash can’t sleep. It’s Cuddle Time.”

It took everything Grif had not to flinch as he uttered the words aloud. Ever since their soulmarks started to appear, Caboose insisted on having what he called Cuddle Time. It was basically an activity they all did together, be it movie night or poker, and the amount of cuddling that occurred Grif preferred not to say. Caboose was forbidden to speak of Cuddle Time to the general public and Grif hated the name. He did have a reputation to uphold.

It was as if he spoke the magic words. Caboose sat up, his dark curls falling over his forehead as he blinked rapidly. “But Cuddle Time is not until Thursday,” he said in confusion. “Wait. Is it Thursday?”

“No.” Grif rolled his eyes. “Wash needs extra Cuddle Time.”

“I’m fine—” began Wash, still not entirely comfortable with the open affectionate expressed by the Reds and Blues when they were alone. But Grif moved to shove him towards Caboose, who locked him into a hug like a steel trap.

“Cuddle Time always makes me sleepy,” said Caboose happily.

Wash tried to protest, but Caboose set his hand over his soulmark and he felt himself ease into the cot. Grif snickered at how quickly Wash relaxed, leaning back into Caboose’s snuggle. “Man, I wish I had a camera. No one would believe the big bad freelancer likes to cuddle.”

“Screw you,” said Wash tiredly, already feeling his eyes sag shut as Caboose’s warmth and affection washed over him.

“What the hell are you morons doing?” asked Tucker, peeking over the side of his bunk groggily.

“It’s Cuddle Time,” said Grif.

“It’s Game Night,” said Tucker sharply, his fatigue not enough to halt the automatic response.

“No, it’s Cuddle Time,” said Caboose firmly. “Because we cuddle.”

Wash laughed softly as Tucker grumbled choice words under his breath. Jerking his chin, Grif said, “Wash can’t sleep.”

“What’s your other newsflash?” asked Tucker sarcastically. “Water is wet?”

But he dropped down from the top bunk and made his way over to Caboose and Washington. Caboose let out a happy hum, shifting over slightly to let Tucker lay behind him.

Satisfied, Grif started to leave, but was prevented by Caboose grabbing his arm. He let out a quiet yelp as Caboose yanked him beside Wash. Grif grunted as his head collided with the metal wall, his legs hanging awkwardly over the edge of the bed.

“What was that for?” he complained.

“You can’t sleep either,” said Caboose, feeling Grif’s stress curl through him.

“I’m fine.”

Wash looped an arm over to rest his hand against his soulmark on Grif’s stomach. “Shut up,” he said with a yawn.

Soul-bounds with more than two people were strange, in that even though Grif didn’t have his hand on his soulmark on Caboose or Tucker, he could still feel their emotions, as they flowed through Washington and to him. It was emotionally draining and Grif could already feel himself sink into the pillow. He rolled over slightly, settling his palm over his soulmark on Washington’s chest.

His energy rapidly depleting, Grif resorted to communicating through the soul-realm. ‘This is going to give someone the wrong picture if they walk in.’

‘They will see we are Best Friends,’ answered Caboose sleepily.

‘I guarantee that they won’t,’ returned Tucker.

It was difficult to speak when soul-bonding with several people at once, given the intensity of their emotions. But despite this Wash managed to say, “Thank you,” his forehead falling to rest against Grif’s shoulder as he finally fell asleep.

Grif smiled at the surge of gratitude and love that flowed through him. ‘You’re welcome, dork.’

[nightcoremoon]

I love horror, I just have impossibly high standards

anyway some of my favorite is the kind that is totally normal from the start, there's nothing off kilter or weird, everything is fine. it's mundane. but then maybe something strange happens and it's less mundane, maybe it's more colorful or lively. but it's not like it's scary or anything. maybe it's a little left of center but it's still fine. life goes on as normal.

but then suddenly it's not fine.

and it recontextualizes everything up until now and you realize oh my god it wasnt mundane at all, it was just pillars of foreshadowing and you realize this is the most terrifying thing you've ever encountered.

maybe it goes on with the weird scary shit and things resolve themselves later, but that gives you time to breathe and get accustomed to the horror.

maybe it just ends. maybe it's just suddenly "surprise, shit is fucked!" and then ~fin

that would be ideal. like, in the sixth sense, you find out Bruce Willis was dead the whole time, you see him making peace with his death, and then the movie ends. except without all of the overreliance on shock horror and the visually disturbing (for the 90s) shots of the entire rest of the everything.

but if the twist happens at the halfway point and things stay absolutely horrible for a while that's also good, like coraline. started off pretty normal, got a little weird, and then suddenly boom ITS HORRIFYING OUT OF NOWHERE.

a perfect example of the last line twist would be the girl with the green ribbon on her neck. aww the boy likes the mysterious girl and they fall in love and get married, really normal the entire way. and then oh surprise HER HEAD COMES OFF. simple yet effective.

I don't mind if it starts out the gate with being seven levels of fucked. dead space 2 opens up with nicole, narratively speaking just moments after she end jumpscares you in the first game, so we're already off-put. then 60 seconds in we see isaac in a straitjacket being questioned and in the background there's flashes of being on the ishimura and nicole's ghost walks up to you and slavsquats and her eyes light up and she whispers, then SUDDEN WHITE oh cool it's ok look it's franco from dead space ignition that's cool aww he's saving Isaac oh wow it's a really creepy atmosphere OH MY GOD IS HEAD IS GETTING STABBED AND HIS FACE TURNS INTO A GODDAMN ZOMBIE HOLY SHIT THEYRE EVERYWHERE RUN BITCH RUN CHAOS LOUD MUSIC BLOOD GUTS FEAR QUICK MASH THE A BUTTON OR DIE!!! oh everything is quiet now. good job you survived, now walk down the corridor to the next intense scary part. lather rinse repeat.

I like horror when it's well executed or creative and not schlocky and relying solely on savini's gore or unnecessary carnage.

friday the 13th is like, oh wow that person just got an axe in their forehead, I sure am quaking in my boots. oh wow the tall stuntman picked up a sleeping bag and slammed it into a tree, this sure is realistic. oh the scantily clad teen girl is running slowly through the forest while cain hodder slowly walks towards her, and he somehow catches up and stabs her with the machete. wow the effects sure look like foam core and wax got cut in half and is squirting ketchup everywhere. the music is sonically engineered to force my pulse to increase and I guess this is horror? oh look someone else got murdered. oh look another murder. I'm sure glad we spent the first 45 minutes of this movie getting to know the shallow garbage characters before they all get merced. wow crispin glover sure does know how to shake his head when a prosthetic attached with fake blood is on his head. oh look a dead body with arrows in it, the scream queen is piercing my eardrums, I guess this means I should be scared too. yawn. it's so fucking boring just watching people die over and over again. at least the later installments were either hilarious or batshit crazy. punching a dude's head clean off was the funniest thing I've ever seen in a movie given the context, and JASON GOES TO SPACE is the dumbest shit in any film but that's what makes it awesome. it had a stupid fucking robot fight. yet everyone hated it, so they rebooted it and surprising literally nobody it was the same shit but with more cgi so it looked even less real (not that it did in the first place). yet this franchise made hundreds of millions of dollars in ticket sales alone. nowadays there are people who see hockey on tv and ask "why the fuck is that guy dressed up like jason voorhees".

tell me why a free swedish gold source mod with blocky graphics and muddy textures and the worst lighting engine in 20 years and some bad questionable design choices in an almost direct ripoff homage to silent hill 2 and resident evil 2, crammed with bugs and bad collision and hard crashes if you die in a specific level while holding a flare which you literally need to always have lit because that's the mechanic the entire level was built around, by a team of like 6 people (half of whom were the voice actors and navmesh modelers), is still one of the best and well-crafted pieces of horror media I've ever consumed, while trash like the fucking craven-less elm street remake gets its dick sucked by everyone else because OH WOW ITS SO SUBVERSIVE AND EDGY AND GORY WOW COOL THIS IS REAL TRUE HORROR!

of course I'm approaching this from a purely american lens. japan's horror is phenomenal. mainly because it's not built around buckets of blood and literal pig carcasses and abusing actresses and actual rape scenes (although it's funny that people are totally okay with all of the graphic murders because killing people is okay and indulging in torture porn is fine but oh, god forbid a film shows something skin-crawlingly uncomfortable for the sake of making you feel disgusted and wanting a cold shower, no, the line is drawn there, you can stab a naked girl with a power drill or drop a chainsaw on her body and that's fine but if a snowman slams her body into a wall while his carrot nose is inside her hoohah that's when it's going too far? seriously? whatever I've beaten this dead horse). but eurocanadamerica's obsession with gore porn in horror and blumhouse's shitty jumpscare factories have reduced it to just... loud noise, stabbing, loud noise, stabbing, lather rinse repeat. this is horror now I guess.

nobody takes coraline seriously as horror. nobody takes the green ribbon seriously as horror.

the monster chasing you isn't horror. it's terror. horror is when you step on a bear trap while the monster is chasing you. the monster chase without the bear trap has no impact, it's just "watch this person fear for their life and die". yeah, if I wanted to watch a snuff film I'd look outside of mainstream markets. "oh but if it's just a movie it's not real" so says the people who suicide bait cyber bully and harass teens who ship a 17 year old with a 19 year old, or two people who work with batman, all over fictional alleged pedophilia and incest. because it's all bad unless it's violence. only sex is bad but not violence.

the violence cannot stand on its own. it needs to have narrative purpose. resident evil, all of the zombies and monsters were bioweapons being manufactured by a corporation. silent hill and cry of fear, all of the monsters are just the embodiments of the protag's inner demons. dead space, the batshit crazy religious cult wants to turn everyone into the undead since that's their idea of heaven, and you have to fight them and stay alive so you can prevent the universe from getting omnomnommed by the blood moons. f.e.a.r., a little girl with some psychic powers is studied, tortured, abused, and :/ raped (at least you don't see it) and she naturally responds by lashing out at the ones who hurt her and trying to reunite with her baby, who is... you! (spoilers).

what is the plot of friday the 13th? dumbass kids get drunk and have sex and let a little kid go missing and his mom has a psychotic break and starts killing them all, then they kill her and the kid kills more people and then he kills more people and then he dies and comes back and kills more people and then he dies so someone else starts killing people and then jason comes back again and kills more people again and he gets arrested and they try to execute him but he won't die so they cryogenically freeze him until he kills people in the future, and in a different timeline he kills people and fights freddy krueger. it's pointless. popcorn. drivel. there is no narrative purpose, it's just murder for murder's sake. and that's scary???

like I said. impossibly high standards.

I love horror. but holy shit is a lot of horror bad.

[ninjakitty15]

Chapter 13: Monster Madness (Loki x OFC Pairing)

"How the mighty have fallen," a voice woke me up some time later.

I opened my eyes to see another familiar face and grinned wickedly. "Finally, a reason to rip you apart after all this time."

The woman on the other side of the glass smirked at me and crossed her hands over her chest in defiance. "I'd like to see you try."

"Then I'll save the plucking of your eyes for last just so you can," I sneered.

She looked me once over and shook her head. "You still don't look a day over expired last month. I don't know what the man behind me sees in you."

"That's the best you got? What are you? Fifteen? You think I care about how I look at this stage in my life? I can understand why you do though, you still age, how's that going for you? The crow's feet, the weak bones, the sagging boobs, sometimes it's good to be dead than to be you."

The dark haired, skinny bitch of a woman in front of me glared furiously at my deflection of her insults. "They should've put the muzzle back on you instead of him."

I glanced past her at Loki who still had the muzzle and cuffs on but looked slightly better than before, the lights weren't as bright as when I last saw him and I inwardly relaxed, as long as he was still kicking so would I. "Tough titties, toots. How else will your new friends get answers out of me? Or did you forget to use your head on this like you always do? That's why you can't raise an army, zombies only want someone with brains."

She made a move to lunge at the cell but was stopped by Feist clearing his throat from the deck above the cells. "No attacking the guest of honor, Alicia."

"Especially when she can snap you in half like the twig you are," I added. "Of the two of us, which do you think they'll show mercy to in the end? The one that follows or the one that betrays?"

She scoffed at my warning. "They won't do a damned thing, they don't trouble themselves in our affairs."

"Of course not, but tell me something, how do you think I got where I am and none of y'all can ever top me? How do you think I got my immortality exactly?" I stood up and walked toward her slowly with whitened eyes and pressed myself against the glass.  Power surged through me, causing any machinery near me to go berserk, sparking and malfunctioning as alarms went off and my arm shot through the glass holding me in and reached for her soul and a bloodcurdling scream ripped from her throat simply by me holding onto it while her body went rigid from the pain. "Look at me now and tell me I'm on the short end of the stick here." I let go of her however when I could hear a thump from behind her despite her loud and earpiercing screams and saw Loki on his knees in his cell, hands pressed against the glass in an effort to stay up. I took one step back despite the fact the glass cell I was in was pretty much useless now, Alicia dropping to the floor hard but unfortunately still alive. As soon as she could grasp her surroundings however, she no longer held any confidence or smugness, only fear when she looked at me.

"What are you?" she gasped.

"I'm the boogeyman of monsters and the nightmare of gods and you'll just be another soul to eat when this is over. You want to send in another lackey for me to play with, that's on you for thinking she'd ever play nice, you didn't do your research on that one," I stated the last bit to the leader of the base that was still watching. "Or maybe you are and just wanted to see what I can do when provoked but don't want me thinking I can get away with it even when it's what you want. That's it, isn't it? You think you're so clever hiding us away and making someone that matters to me suffer but you mad scientists are all the same, you're just another scared little mortal in a labcoat." I stepped over the broken glass and out of my cell. I looked down at the broken woman that still couldn't stand on her feet after I reached into her. "Walk it off, sweetheart, you ain't special here."

"She is still needed for her abilities as are you, Noelle. I would suggest you stay where you are or your beloved Frost Giant will have a meltdown," the lab rat threatened.

I raised my hands in mock surrender before dropping one hand on wiring to his cell, death magic following it to the lights that exploded in a shower of golden sparks but ultimately no longer emitting heat that was slowly killing Loki. "I warned your top ranking soldier this would happen if you endanger him like this, this is still on you for not listening." I looked back at Loki who was starting to get to his feet, already looking better with the lights off. "Go ahead, make my millennium."

"She was one of the few here that didn't fear you till now, what did you do that broke her or scared the others?"

"Come closer and I'll show you," I hissed. "Or better yet, send another traitorous necromancer in for me to play with. Two bodies with one stone."

"You're in no position to be making demands here."

I cackled. "The commander said something similar to that, see you're all alike, when you have something original come find me."

"We have you, don't we?"

"I'm here because I let you take me here, don't think for one second this was entirely by your hand, I pretty much just proved you can't contain me, not this time."

At that point, the commander and his team invaded the room Loki and I were held in, all holding rods that could electrocute on contact. They wanted me alive after all, even though guns didn't do shit, they used them to kill with and didn't want me dead.

"I'm not really a fan of shock therapy."

"The others told me you're just as dead as your army and electricity does marvelous things to the dead, some would say it can wake them with the right voltage," Feist was saying.

"Did you get that from Mary Shelley? Because you totally missed the whole point of the story then, it's not the giant corpse that's the monster but the graverobbing mad scientist that wanted to play God. You're all the same whether its fiction or fact, you all want more than you can possibly hold onto and aren't meant to obtain and in doing so you destroy everything you touch, all in the name of science." I lunged for the commander as he was closest, dodging the lightning rod and snatching a small remote control hanging from his ammo belt and crushing it in one hand. Loki's electro disc thing on his neck fell off as well as his muzzle then while I grabbed another guy's rod from him and gave em a taste of their own medicine, zapping a few before wrapping an arm around one dude's neck and holding him in front of me like a shield.

"You got nowhere to go from here, Noelle. You're completely surrounded, the majority of the people in this building are either HYDRA or your people on our side, you don't even know where we took you, where you are right now. Just give up now and save us all the trouble," Feist called down to me.

"Is that right? You really think that, do you?" I asked incredulously. Death magic gathering in my limbs for my next move. "There's so many things wrong with what you just said, I'm going to start saying Hydra whenever something else is wrong with someone's statement." Machinery all around started glitching as I pushed my power into the electrical lines of the building, my magic couldn't outright kill people but it did kill inanimate things not made of blood and flesh like machinery and things run by electricity. Natural magic as death magic was clashed with manmade things like that.

"Then enlighten me, tell me what's wrong with what I said."

"I'm not trapped in here with y'all...you're all trapped in here with me." A surge of power went through me into the building, causing the lights to either explode like it did in Loki's container or just shut off, computer systems malfunctioned, including the one linked to Loki's cell, sparks flying everywhere, alarms going off. I threw the guy I was using for a shield into the other team members of the commander as a distraction and darted away into the darkness.

"Spread out, she can't have gone far!" the commander shouted above the chaos. "She wouldn't leave Loki behind like that."

He was right, I wasn't leaving without Loki , especially since he had the whole teleportation thing going and I wanted out asap. I waited in the darkness for an agent to get close enough before grabbing him from behind and tearing him apart, his screams and gun going off as he tried to defend himself before going out in a spray of blood. Of course two more team members went to where his body was left but I had moved on to another loan team member. One by one, they went down with blood and bullets everywhere until it was just the commander left.

"Come out and face me, you coward," growled the commander, gun in one hand, hunting knife in the other.

"I'm the coward? Who here needed a team of 6 to try and take down one dead girl? Only cowards use quantity over quality."

He shot where he thought I was according to where he heard my voice but lucky for me, metal and glass make echoes. He kept shooting at where he thought I was till he was right where I wanted him to be.

"Guess again," I hissed in his ear from behind him. He spun around with his knife this time but I had dropped to my knees so his knife went above my head completely and with a knife I snatched from another agent, slashed him deep in the stomach several times, going right through his bulletproof vest and into flesh and guts. He dropped his knife to try and hold in his innards  before dropping to his knees and falling to his side right after. I stepped over him to Loki's cage and easily pulled the malfunctioning sliding door open for him, grabbing hold of his cuffs as he stepped toward me that released him instantly from my touch.

"You're covered in blood," he noted once he got a good look at me in the darkness.

"You're welcome," I replied dryly. "Can you get us out of here before the backup generators kick in?"

"Where do you have in mind?"

"Hawthorne Hotel, might be a bit obvious for the Avengers but it's all I can think of."

"Done." He took my hand in his and right as more agents and the first necromancer I saw coming in here came running in to surround us, green magic swirled around Loki and me and we were suddenly where I belonged.

[abandonedsince2021]

the fact that this isn’t even all of it.. someone plz take my wifi away after 12am

stella: so what’s the relationship between you two?

sydney: she’s my best friend. like if i killed someone she’s the person i would call for help to get rid of the body

jackie: we actually have done that before, it’s buried in the woods

stella: creative

marianne: what are those dead bodies doing there?

stella: honestly? not much

kim: what are those dead bodies doing there?

alistair: honestly? not much

stella: allow me to serenade you

marnie: okay, but first, let me put in earplugs

alice: aaron c’mon

frank: she won’t even notice you’re gone

aaron: no, i told her i wouldn’t

frank: she won’t notice you’re gone! what happened to bros before…

alice: …

aaron: …

frank: … my sister

(decorating a christmas tree)

joanne: and… we’re done!

marnie: we just need one final touch

joanne: what?

marianne: please don’t do it, marnie

marnie:

marianne: don’t… please-

marnie, lifting stella: star. goes. on. TOP.

stella: i don’t do relationships anymore

marnie walks in

stella: shit.

saskia: hey alice have you seen-

saskia: SHIT ALICE ARE YOU BURNING OUR MARRIAGE CERTIFICATE??

alice: GOOD LUCK TRYING TO RETURN ME WITHOUT THE RECEIPT HAHAHA

saskia: i have only said “i love you” to two people in my entire life

saskia: alice,

saskia: and alice wearing my shirt

marianne loses stella in a hoard of zombies

marianne: finally

stella: babe (derogatory)

marnie: babe (derogatory)

baby: what does derogatory even mean?

marianne: i’ve learned not to question them

kim: where’s the candy stash gone?

baby: i haven’t had any since last week

stella and alistair, riding one skateboard between them: KIDS where’d you get those TWIZZLERS we want MORE

marianne: kids that’s a wolf it will kill you if you keep trying to pet it

kim & baby: d o g g y

marianne: you’re losing blood fast, what’s your type

stella: uhh, tall and scary, green eyes, huge badass

marianne: i meant your blood type

stella, looking down: red :(

baby: can i have a soda?

stella: i dunno, what did your mum say?

baby: she said no

stella: then why are you asking me?

baby: because she isn’t the boss of you

stella: this is a trap this is a trap th-

alice: what do i do if our relationship just doesn’t work out?

brady: just talk it out!

lena: burn her

bette: stab her

kenny: shoot her

cara: this is why i don’t trust yall.

trixie: oh come on sydney doesn’t know any words worse than crap

jackie: i think she’s been having a masterclass with stella

sydney in the distance: SHIT THE BATH

stella watching from afar: you’re doing great sweetie

sydney: can i have some cake?

stella: what’s the rule?

sydney, sighing: no cake after dinner

stella: no, that’s jackies rule. my rule is that you have to bring me a slice too :)

tyler: we literally haven’t caused trouble in weeks!

marianne: what about the flamethrower incident?

stella: we don’t talk about the flamethrower incident!

alice: alright, but-

saskia: holy shit

alice: are you sure you love me? because maybe you just misunderstood your feelings for me

saskia: oh my god alice it’s 3 in the morning

alice: ..and?

saskia: we’re married..

alice: uhum

saskia: for three years..

alice: i still don’t see your point and you haven’t answered me yet

mickey, as zombies are coming: don’t worry

alice: about a thing

mickey: cause every little thing

alice, killing zombies: is gonna be alright

aaron: i can’t believe you married her

saskia: i can’t believe you’re going to marry her

hanna: trixie, while i’m gone, you’re in charge

trixie: okay :)

hanna, whispering: sydney, you’re secretly in charge

sydney: obviously :)

kim: We need to distract these guys

baby: Leave it to me

baby: Centaurs have six limbs and are therefore insects. Discuss.

*Stella, marianne and charlotte Immediately begin arguing*

kim, watching in horror: Oh this. I don’t like this. I don't like this at all.

marianne, walking into her house: Hello, people who do not live here.

stella: Hey.

charlotte: Hi.

hazel: Hello.

johnny: Hey!

marianne: I gave you the key to my place for emergencies only!

stella: We were out of Doritos.

stella: Who the fuck added me to a fucking group chat?

charlotte: >:O language

baby: Yeah watch your fucking language

charlotte: OKAY WHO TAUGHT BABY THE FUCK WORD?

johnny: 'The fuck word'.

hazel: Are you stupid? You guys use the f word all the time

charlotte: Oh my god she censored it

johnny: Say fuck, hazel.

stella: Do it, hazel. Say fuck.

callum: Would you guys be there for me if I was going through something?

marianne: Nope, absolutely not.

hazel: I hope it sucks, whatever you're going through.

johnny: I hope it emotionally scars you for the rest of your life.

charlotte I hope you reach out to me so I can ignore you.

stella: I can't wait to go to your funeral, knowing I could've changed that outcome.

stella: Time for plan G.

marianne: Don’t you mean plan B?

stella: No, we tried plan B a long time ago. I had to skip over plan C due to technical difficulties.

charlotte: What about plan D?

stella: Plan D was that desperate disguise attempt half an hour ago.

baby: What about plan E?

stella: I’m hoping not to use it. alistair dies in plan E.

kim: I like plan E.

alistair: Where's stella, charlotte, and baby?

marianne: They're playing hide and seek.

alistair: Where?

marianne: I don't think you get how this game works.

stella: Bye marnie! Bye charlotte! Bye baby! Bye alistair! Bye marnie!

marianne: You said ‘bye marianne’ twice.

stella: I like marnie :)

Charlotte: You really put aside everything and came all this way for me? How did you even get here so fast?

hazel: Several traffic violations.

marianne: Three counts of resisting arrest.

johnny: Roughly thirteen cans of energy drinks.

stella: Also, that’s not our car.

stella: I’ve done a lot of dumb stuff.

hazel: I witnessed the dumb stuff.

charlotte: I recorded the dumb stuff.

johnny: I joined in on the dumb stuff.

marianne: I TRIED TO STOP YOU FROM DOING THE DUMB STUFF!!!

jacob: We’ve been conducting an ongoing study to see what russell will and will not eat.

louise: Grass? Yes!

jacob: Moss? Yes!!

louise Leaves? Ohh, yes!

jacob: Shoelaces? Strange but true!

louise: Worms? Sometimes!

jacob: Rocks? Usually nah.

louise: Twigs? Usually!

jacob: louise's cooking? Inconclusive!

Belle: How did you… test this?

louise: You just hand him stuff and say ‘eat this’ and if he eats it, he eats it.

belle: ... I don’t know how to feel about this.

nikola: IS THAT WHERE ALL MY SPARE SHOELACES WENT?

Marianne: stella isn’t answering her phone

marnie: I’ll call

marianne: charlotte and I have both tried six times each, what makes you thi-

stella: Hello?

marianne, banging on the door: stella! open up!

stella: Well, it all started when I was a kid...

charlotte: No, she meant-

baby: Let them finish.

stella: You lying, cheating, piece of shit!

marianne: Oh yeah? You’re the idiot who thinks you can get away with everything you do. WELCOME TO THE REAL WORLD

stella: I’m leaving you, and I’M TAKING CHARLOTTE WITH ME

baby, picking up the monopoly board: I think we’re gonna stop playing now.

stella: I just ended a four year relationship.

charlotte: Oh, I’m so sorry. Are you okay?

stella: Hm? Oh yeah, I’m fine. It wasn’t my relationship.

*marianne and patrick fighting from across the room*

baby: Yo is stella sleeping or dead?

marianne: Hopefully dead, I hated her guts.

charlotte: Yeah, so did I.

stella: Okay first of all, fuck you-

Marianne: I currently have 7 empty notebooks and I have no clue what to put in them. Suggestions?

stella: Put spaghetti in it.

marianne: I'm currently taking suggestions from literally anyone but you.

johnny: Put spaghetti in it.

marianne: I'm currently taking suggestions from anyone but you two.

charlotte: Put spaghetti in it.

marianne: I'm no longer taking suggestions.

stella: I told marianne her ears flush when she lies.

charlotte: Why?

stella: Look.

stella: Hey marianne! Do you love us?

marianne, covering her ears: No.

Charlotte:

charlotte: Why are you on the floor?

stella: I'm depressed.

stella: Also I was stabbed, can you get marianne, please?

*stella and charlotte sitting in jail together*

charlotte: So who should we call?

stella: I’d call marianne, but I feel safer in jail

jackie: WHY. why did you give sydney a KNIFE?!

Stella: I’m sorry. she said she felt unsafe.

jackie: Now I feel unsafe!

stella: I’m sorry.

stella: ... would you like a knife?

stella: Who thinks I can fit 15 marshmallows in my mouth?

marianne: You’re a hazard to society

charlotte: And a coward. DO TWENTY.

[mdwatchestv]

Dirk Gently 2x02: Everything is Connected Blah, Blah, Blah

Episode two, we are here, we are doing it, it is happening. I feel like we have  experienced a veritable season's worth of content this past episode and frankly my dear, I am exhausted. Both figuratively in the sense that my mind and spirit have absorbed so much exposition they are wearied, and physically in the sense that I feel like my body is going to turn to dust any moment. And yes there were still many bright spots, I smiled, I lolled, I felt holistic universal joy. But I also feel adrift in a plot ocean, gasping for breath in an endless sea of names and relationships. Okay that's enough couching and complaining, let's submerge fully together and try to shed some light into the murky depths.

Once again this episode begins in the whimsical land of Wendimoor, where the moon becomes increasingly terrifying to me the longer I stare at it. Like is this just a waned Majora's Mask moon? Does the season end with it killing everyone? Help. In this first scene  Silas, boyfriend of Pink Hair, and that big guy he was with, return to their castle where they have some 'splainin to do to their queen (right?). Queen lady lays out the reason for their kingdoms feud with Pink Hair’s family, although to be frank with you all I got up during this scene to get a ginger ale because I was super hungover so my understanding of what was said is limited. But I think the gist is that the Queen's family stole the land/is mining the land/built that weird castle on the land, that rightfully belongs to Pink Hair’s family. Queen believes Pink Hair to be a rogue and wants him killt. In this world/dimension/dream-space Dirk Gently is a legend/fairytale that Silas believes in, to the chagrin of the queen. That's right, right? If there was more going on in this scene, I honestly don't want to know about it.

Back in the real world, there is even more happening. Amanda Walsh (Suzie) discovers her witch-powers in an enjoyable montage that, as a fellow witch, really spoke to my heart. Suzie goes for the classic witchy glam-makeover, lookin' good, feelin' good. But despite these gains, Suzie still has her miserable family of sucky dudes to deal with. Her super-mean husband delivers a surprisingly articulate and character-illuminating speech though before Suzie turns him into her zombie slave. Apparently Suzie suffered some sort of earlier accident (perhaps the origin of her limp and cane) and hasn't been able to move past it. What could it be! I know we are supposed to see Suzie as a potential bad guy because she *literally* kicks the dog, but any lady who uses questionable witchcraft for personal gain is a-okay in my book.

Meanwhile back at the Blackwing center, Friedkin is spinning out over Dirk's escape. Is he invisible, can he teleport? Friedkin doesn't know, because honestly he doesn't know a whole lot. We the audience, who know quite a bit more, know that Mona transported him with a glass of water. Ya duh. Freidkin decides to poll the audience and asks Ken (still trapped in the taxi with Rapunzel) and the captured members of the Rowdy 3 (on ice and more vampirey than ever) if they have any Dirk intel. They do not. Skipping right past 50/50, Friedkin phones a friend to come in and clean up his mess - and it's Alan Tudyk as the likely meaningfully named Mr. Priest! Thankfully Mr. Priest seems to be the real baddest bad, because I am still not feeling Freidkin. Also I just LOVE bad guy Alan Tudyk, and he is going wild and out with an accent, and weird chuckling. I'm here for it. Chew it up baby, chew it up.

Speaking of the Rowdy 3, Vogle and Amanda are still on the run trying to triangulate their missing compatriots via Amanda's visions. I am so digging Amanda's look this season, I am also digging her disregard for personal safety. This show likes to stick in little clues and clever foreshadowing (which I love), so let's take a little looksy at Amanda's vision and see what we can pull out- There’s the abandoned mansion, what looks to be Suzie’s zombie husband as well as the motor park where he works, Sherlock getting shot, Montana and Alan Tudyk as well as a child (the boy?) drawing what could be either Pink Hair or Dirk on a wall. She also sees things we know to identify with Wendimoor such as the scary moon and scissors. In all the visions we’ve seen so far this season there has also been a recurring menacing face with super scary eyes. Who dat? 

Finally back to that car in a tree and our main story heroes. Surprise Dirk is in the trunk! I thought surprise Dirk in the trunk was a little easy, but I'm not mad about expediting his reunion with Todd. Their friendship is the beating heart of the show and their repartee was sorely missed in the first episode. After our heroes reunion, our trio is arrested by Sheriff Sherlock (in his first ever arrest). While Sherlock is a little rusty on police protocol it turns out he is SUPER DOWN with holistic detectiving and may be Dirk's spiritual soulmate. That development was unexpected, but welcome and I am hoping for some jealousy on Todd's part about no longer being Dirk's go-to-guy (he was recently downgraded to assistant after all). Sherlock seems to get what's going down and takes his new prisoners out on the road to investigate the old mansion and wet circle wall. We have now arrived at our second exposition dump.

I stayed on the couch raptly watching this part, ginger ale in hand. So here we go. The car that fell out of the tree was 50 years old, although brand new (with only 42 miles...wink) and also contained the body of Marina Cardenas who has been missing for the same amount of time. The disappearance of Marina and her husband Hector are a local mystery. Bergsberg has many a local mystery including  an electrical burnout that fried the town's power and caused a mass exodus of residents, and the random boat in the field that we saw last episode. Although Sherlock assures Farrah these things are not connected, I can't help feeling like they probably are. A wild guess, I know.

But wait there's more! Farrah and Sherlock follow muddy footprints (left by John Hannah at the end of last episode) into the abandoned house (previously lived in by the missing Marina and Hector). Inside they find more mystery footprints, a single red phone (Chekov's phone), height markers, and a disconcertingly ghost-like John Hannah himself. Clues people. Clues. Out in the back they make an even more startling discovery- Hector Cardenas entombed in a tree. A tree that they find because Todd and Deputy Tattoo Face are practicing a sonic gun out on it. Exhausting, truly. Anyway, we have found the missing couple! Although their corpses are definitely suspish. Both tree-related, and both suggesting time-travel tomfoolery. I'm sure there will be more on this. But there is even MORE Cardenas mystery to be had! As Farrah astutely wonders "Where's the kid?" As she has deduced from the height markings in the house they must have had a child. Perhaps a boy! Oh wait where have we heard this before? Dirk assumes this is the boy, THE boy, the FIND the boy, boy. There is a LOT going on, but connections are starting to be made. This is positive.

Finally Pink Hair pops out in the middle of a road, he's not in Wendimoor anymore. How did he get to our world? What is the means of that transport? Did Bart swap places with him? More questions, always more questions. Honestly this episode made ME feel like I was hit with a car. While there was a welcome return to the team dynamics that worked in season 1, and continue to shine (team Farrah/Dirk/Todd) as well as some intriguing new characters (Amanda Walsh/Alan Tudyk), this episode was over-laden with plot. It's not that I need anything watered-down, in fact one of the aspects of the writing I enjoy is the fact that it assumes the audience can keep up with its clever tricks and clues. Season one was a rare season of television storytelling that had both organic twists and surprises and a commendably tight plot that contained time-travel and body-swapping. Season two seems to be attempting to top the first seasons tale with an even more outrageous case and an even wider reaching world. This is fine and expected but if the first season was a perfect clear chime, this season is more of a...thump. Not unpleasant, thumps can be satisfying too, and there is still much about these episodes that has been genuinely delightful. I am still a believer, and maybe like last season this is the info dump that will then provide a foundation for the rest of the season to be picked through and expanded. What I fear is additional piling on without the reprieve of investigation and character development. Time will tell.

CORGI WATCH:

NO CHANGE.

XO MD