#my great aunts immigrated in the 80s

[boysborntodie]

Tried making a Desi OC in the Outsiders and immediately gave up because what the fuck are they doing in Tulsa anyways??

[hazardworld]

A note on Italian Steve (/any Italian American hcs in the 40s thru 80s)

So my IA mom was born in ‘73, right? She’s told me a lot of stories abt growing up in a super-Italian town in Wisconsin.

For example, there’s literally an Italian American club there. My non-IA, also ‘73-born dad grew up in the same town and he also is super culturally aware of it. It’s a whole thing.

Anyway, she’s told me stories of my grandfather and what it was like growing up as the kid of two Italian immigrants being born in 1942 (the same year as Joyce and Hopper were born).

My family is southern Italian, which is considered the “poor” part of Italy. My grandfather’s immediate family (of 11) was also quite poor, like most other IA families in their hometown.

Another thing my mom EMPHASIZED was the idea of assimilation. It was HUGE once they moved to completely assimilate to American culture. If you look at the names of my great aunts and uncles, you can tell which ones were born in Italy and which ones were born in America simply because of which ones are Italian and which ones are English.

Italian was NEVER spoken. Not outside, not in the house, absolutely never. If this is confusing, think about what Italy was doing and who was in power in the early 40s. No one wanted to be known as an enemy or anti-American.

Essentially: No one in my family speaks Italian anymore unless they take classes in school.

Don’t get me wrong, Steve’s family could DEF be the exception to the rule cause headcanons are cool like that, but these are some of the reasons why I see the Hendersons being Italian more than the Harringtons.

(That being said, the Henderson house looks eerily similar to my mom’s childhood home, and I feel it’s super on-brand for Steve to secretly know the language of love ;) ;) ;). )

Edit: I've read thru this and realized a possible error I made when typing. My grandpa had the double immigrant parents, not my mom, lol.

[abstractkind]

Your tags on your boomer post reblog struck me square in the chest: https://www.tumblr.com/abstractkind/723326609719984128?source=share

My Nan is 80, and never really unpacked that her father was an abusive alcoholic from whom her older brothers protected her; older brothers who joined the ww2 effort asap to get away from him and left her and her mother and sister in law behind

I had success in talking about divorce increase as "even if it did 'go too far' whatever that means, as the response of my father's generation to what was done to people like my Nan his mum." It's a selfish argument but one that eases by acknowledging trauma, and encouraging the understanding that they weren't the only ones who were going through it, and that the help might be too late but it is intended as help

I'm saddened others can relate, but it's affirming to know I'm not the only one who's seen it.

I'm just old enough to have boomer parents as well, largely in part because they had me rather late in their life, and my grandparents were much the same. We've found countless ration tickets from the Great Depression in handling estates, and only know part of our family back home because my grandfather reconnected with them while he was drafted in Europe. I never met my grandfather, and I'm rather glad I didn't. He sounds much like your Nan's dad.

Once I was deemed old enough to not be carefully sheltered from reality, I was always aghast at how casually my grandmother, aunts, and uncles all spoke about the alcoholism and abuse like it was the most commonplace thing. And it gave me context for a lot of the things I saw from each of them in their own relationships with their spouses and children, including my own parents– even if I didn't forgive them for some of the shit they did. And it was commonplace. Of course, I can only talk from the perspective of the people I grew up around, but "poor immigrant or residential school families devastated by the wars and a system built to try and keep them out" was the common denominator, and most people I knew had similar stories. Me and my cousins were regularly told to marry within our cultural group because our husbands "might beat us, but at least they'd put food on the table". And that was just... accepted. My grandmother left and returned to my grandfather twice, because there just wasn't support for a single mother with kids at the time, and she plainly couldn't get by in the world alone.

My aunts and uncles (blood and otherwise) all seem to reflect this. I hear a lot of the same from that age group: that they would never do what their parents did. But a lot of them seem to consider that the bottom line, the one standard of parenthood to maintain and all that really mattered. They didn't terrorize us the same way as their parents, so they were good parents, end of. They still refuse to look critically at any other behaviors because they seem to feel like comparatively, we have it easy. And in some ways we do! I'm grateful for what is available to me now, and that if I ever faced what my grandmother did, my neighbours wouldn't shrug and call it my husband's right. But it didn't excuse their own failings, or the ignorance they still seem to cling to now when my cousins' kids try to explain what they're going through. Or how my union-pensioned uncle keeps railing about entitled kids on strikes.

But man, it hangs heavy on some of them still. Generational trauma as a concept felt like a gut punch when I learned about it, because that was absolutely the face of the people who raised me. Understanding that has absolutely helped me with conversations with them.

[commajade]

my great aunt was the first person in my family to immigrate here (with my great uncle) and the second syllable in her name is Kook so she's had the english name Cookie since the 80s i think that's so cute of her

[hist101interview97]

𝑻𝒊𝒂 𝑴𝒂𝒈𝒅𝒂𝒍𝒆𝒏𝒂 | Stephanie's great aunt from Mexico

When I asked my mother about her journey immigrating to the US from the familiar comfort of her Ranchito and the bustle of the city of Guadalajara, she would always mention her madrina Magdalena Becerra. Her godmother and aunt - my great aunt - the woman who had housed my mother when she first arrived in Southern California in her Downey home. Born in July 1950, my Tia Magdalena, unlike my mother or myself, spent her childhood wholly in a small Ranch named San Antonio, Municipio de Atenguillo, in the Mexican state of Jalisco. Her childhood was humble, yet content, spending her days making tortillas by hand in her adobe house that consisted of one bedroom, a kitchen, and a hallway. But as she began to leave her childhood of maize dolls and ceramic piñatas, she realized that there were not many jobs or economic opportunities for her in the small municipality. She wanted to progress. So in 1970, at the age of 19, she made the decision to immigrate from Jalisco to Southern California “sin papeles” - without legal papers. 

Her first years in Southern California, she spent in the Los Angeles area. She had come with an aunt of hers who “knew people.” Working with a community of Jews, she worked a cleaning job earning $40 a week - about $310 today. Just as the mother in Thanksgiving in a Moonsoonless Land was described, “she had [rooted] herself into an unfamiliar land” (pg. 326) and in the labors of cleaning she had “given [her] hands to this land” (pg. 330). Always working, she missed the liberty she had back in Mexico; after immigrating, she was now fearful of “la migra” - immigration enforcement - who were known to persecute anyone who “looked Latino.” Nonetheless, three years later in 1973, she married at age 22, got her green card, and had her first son. Against her conservative catholic upbringing, she divorced in 1975 and remarried five years later. In 1980, she had her second child, and finally her American citizenship. 

As she grew accustomed to her life and family, my Tia still felt like a minority in SoCal, but she felt accepted. She preserved her Mexican culture, despite it sometimes being difficult. She mentioned how there were only channels in English on TV and it was not until the 80s that a few Hispanic-centered channels finally arrived on television. Her life as a US citizen surprised her as she originally only intended to work for a few years and then return back to Mexico. She did not necessarily miss Mexico as a whole, but she did miss her family; she had gone 10 years without seeing her mother. Citizenship brought her new opportunities: she learned to drive, got a car, and even bought the house she still currently lives in. As she described it, she was very “agusto” - comfortable. 

The people around her, despite her minority status, respected her. Her employers treated her well: she recounted the time one of her bosses took her to a salon for her birthday, something she had never experienced before. Despite this, she explained how she noticed that all other minorities were also discriminated against, especially Black Americans. She described the US administration at the time as “nicer”, with healthcare being more accessible and immigration itself being less complicated. (I asked her if she remembers which presidencies she felt were especially “nice” and she said the first Bush and Clinton presidencies.) 

As she grew alongside her children, my Tia made her home and life her own. Her hobbies included gardening - she currently has many a rosebush and fruit trees - cooking, and dancing. She once worked with an Italian who taught her to cook a variety of dishes. Her favorite thing to do, however, is participate in the American art of consumerism: shopping. She would always keep up with trends, and loved wearing heels back when her knees allowed her to. She now finds joy in decorating for and celebrating holidays - namely Christmas -  traditions she says she never really experienced back in el rancho and that she came to know here in the US. One thing that has not changed in 60 years is her love of Ranchera music, especially artist Chelo Silva. Now a grandmother of many, my Tia Magdelena still enjoys shopping and concerts, but she also spends her time praying at home. When I asked her at the end of the interview if she felt she had incorporated American culture into her life, she said yes. And as discussed in Culture is Ordinary, cultures are “made by living,” (pg. 96) and my Tia had certainly lived and created her own culture. So after the interview, when I went into her bathroom to see American medicines alongside French perfumes and Mexican lotions, I came to the conclusion that she had incorporated mainstream America in her own way, while still always preserving the parts of her Mexican heritage closest and softest to her. 

[ridor3]

Chapter 9 Fieldwork-Rihelia Dorival

Kinship

My family tree when looked at could be confusing because of missing parts on one side. My family from the side I know originated from Haiti in the late 70-80s. They came to America for better opportunities and to grow their family. They started in Florida until eventually settling down in New Jersey. The last two generations of my family have been born and raised in the United States. However due to deceased family members and my family members inability to speak about said family members I am left at a loss. I know similarly to my Haitian side my dad's side immigrated from the Dominican Republic around the same time for the same reasons. And My grandmother's parents never left Haiti. In America my mom met my dad in highschool and had me and my siblings. My Great Aunts and Uncles all found love here in America as well and as far as I know focused on growing their businesses. My uncle remains unmarried because of how young he is and my aunt went to Haiti for a church retreat where she met my uncle and had my cousins. As a whole my family can be found in Florida, California and New Jersey (with the exception of me because I'm in Maryland for College). Every person in my family is tight knit as thats what our family values are and how we were raised.

[katiethxrne]

13. Anything that you'd like to write but feel like you're unable to (doesn’t have to be RP-related)?

What I really want to do is to take dictation from all my Aunts (my Mom's sisters) about growing up in Los Angeles during the 1950s, '60s, and into the '70s and '80s. I have always grown up listening to their stories and all the types of women they've been, the people they've met, their lives, but never as a whole collective.

I just think their lives are amazing - six sisters, the daughters of immigrants growing up during such tumultuous times with all distinct personalities and different lives despite being under one roof. My Mom is the youngest of the six, and one has passed, so I kinda feel this really strong pull to start writing down their stories. I know quite a bit of their lives, how they've seen Los Angeles and the country change and yet stay so stagnant. Every new piece of information replays over and over in my mind. Even more importantly I want to hear the stories of my grandparents and write that down.

I'm very close to my Mother's side of the family, and they are open to talking about their lives, the beauty of growing up in that immigrant community in Boyle Heights, their experiences, their triumphs, the traditions. I want to know everything, and see how it's reflected back in my cousins and now my cousin's children. The great-grandchildren of Jaime and Cypriana and how we came to be this successful American story.

We're so Americanized, so very few of us speak Spanish and so I just think it's important that we memorialize what we know of our mothers, their stories because it's really the cornerstone of the family. We aren't connected to Mexico or the remaining family that lives there, we are rooted in memories of bird cages, pool tables, and the peeling red concrete porch of our grandparent's home. We're tied by our Moms, by our quiet attempts to stick together. It's more important to me now than ever to start searching for these stories because my Tia Tina passed last year so it's on my mind how old my Tia's and Mom are, how little time I could have left with them.

I want to start doing this, but I'm having trouble where to start or how they'll react to my idea. I'm pulled towards moving down to Los Angeles and just make a project out of it, take the time to write and immortalize what we know for the next generation of the Ramirez Clan. Especially since all of us cousins are older and need to work hard to remember and tell the story of how we came here. How our Aunts formed us, how Boyle Heights formed us, how it's our job to keep that knowledge and the lore of the Ramirez Clan alive.

I think it's my job to do this for us - otherwise, what is my damn Creative Writing degree going to be for? I'm here and it's not my story to tell but I think it's my job to write it down.

[irrelevantrevolutionary]

Today is yom hashoah. If your wondering what that is, it is Holocaust Remembrance Day for the Jews. It is to represent the kids, teenagers, adults, elders, and babies who all perished because they were Jewish. That number is estimated to be around 6 million people. The reason I say estimate is because the Germans were not the only ones killing. You must factor in the ones who died undocumented escaping persecution, you must factor in the ones who died in testing. You must factor in the ones who died forgotten and record less during death marches and on the trains. You must factor In undocumented ghetto deaths as well. And one of the biggest thing you must factor in is the 200,000-500,000 Jewish people the Soviets killed in their Siberian labor camps. You have probably never heard of those before, so I will tell you. The Soviet Union and Russia in general have never been kind to the Jews. If you have watched Movies like Fiddler on the Roof you may know about the Pogroms. Of course those are more theatrical but I needed and example many people would get. These Jews were from Poland, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and other countries that would come to form the Eastern Block. These were immigrants coming down to USSR and begging for their life. They were sent to these labor camps, not death camps. They worked 14 hour days in Siberia. They weren’t Gulags per say, but if you need an example of what they would have looked like, that’s your best one. Another example could be the German Ghettos. These were like Ghettos as in 2 families or more would be crammed into a small apartment. Women would give birth in these Ghetto like buildings and unlike the Germans the Soviet’s wouldn’t do anything to the child. Sadly this was the better alternative. They worked in fields in rain, shine, snow. They worked and worked and worked. The conditions here were horrible and most importantly insanitary. Many people died of Typhus and dysentery. Many deaths went unrecorded. My most immediate family were in these camps. My Grandmother, Great Grandmother, GGrandfather, GUncle, and GAunt all thank god made it out alive. But sadly my GAunt died of Typhus at age five and my Great Great Grandparents both died early on. My Grandma told us stories from there, never bad stuff until much later. Her brother was bar mitzvahed there at 2:00 am so not to be seen by guards. I’ll come back to them in a minute My other family I had, Aunts and Uncles of my Grandma, were sent to Treblinka, a famous death camp. They sadly did not make it out alive. But I’ve heard worse. My Grandmother refused to speak about it for years. The horrors she saw. Why? Because someone always had it worse. She wasn’t orphaned. She had 2/3 of her siblings. She had her parents and even a few friends. But she was afraid of being told that she hadn’t suffered enough. Which is something I’ve heard before. That because she wasn’t taken captive by the Nazis, she didn’t suffer enough. They all, every victim, every victim dead and alive, suffered enough for 10 lifetimes. My Grandmother was not liberated. It wasn’t glorifying and hopeful. No. She was released. Like she served her time in hell. No US army rode up on Tanks and No paratroopers came to her rescue. Why? Because Jews in Russia were illegal. No one cares, because they were technically prisoners. Another reason is because USSR was our ally. Why would our ally do this? Because they didn’t tell anyone. Plain and simple. They were sent to a DP camp where they stayed for 3 years. There were 2 of them. The first one was the most memorable. This one was controlled by the US army. And not just the US army, these were the men of the 101st Airborne. And she said that it wasn’t special because of that. It wasn’t glorious. Before anyone asks I do not think it was Easy Company who was the guards of it. But I could be wrong. I’ve seen all the pictures and could never pull out a face. I’ve seen people who look like them, specifically Joe Liebgott and Dick Winters, but I don’t think it was them. The next one was where they decided who could come to the US. My Grandmothers family was chosen. There were a few problems in this but not major. My Grandmother thankfully made it to the US alive. My GUncle was in the 10th armored and my GGrandfather was in the 101st (D). They saw Landsberg. Through the eyes of Jews. Which was even more horrifying they think. I never used ages. You probably think my Grandmother is in her late 80s. My Grandmother is 78. This is just to show you that this was only 80 years ago. That these big camps in Russia and Poland and Germany were only founded 80 years ago. These liberations were only 75 years ago. We perceive the horrors of the war as a hundred or so years ago when in reality they were only at most 75 years ago. I don’t ask you all very much. But I ask you today if you could all take 6 minutes of your time and stay silent. 1 Minute for 1 Million Jews killed. That’s the minimum. Please. Because in reality if you held a minute of silence for everyone, you would be silent for 11 and a half years. So I ask you all. 6 minutes. 6 minutes for every women, man, child, teen, elder and baby who perished at the hands of the Germans, Russians and in the Holocaust. Please.

[longitudinalwaveme]

Where Are The Ghostbusters When You Need Them?

Hi! Thanks for checking out my story!

Despite the title, the story actually does not feature the Ghostbusters, but it does feature the Flash Rogues. That's almost as good, right?

The story can't really fit anywhere canonically since Evan and Sam are alive simultaneously, among other things, but hopefully it'll be an enjoyable story anyhow. 

Mirror Master I: You ever seen one of those creepy houses? You know, the ones with broken windows and crumbling spires and ivy growing all over them? The ones that used to belong to super rich people and are now allegedly owned by some mysterious “third cousin once removed” that no one’s ever actually seen? The ones that stupid teenagers dare each other to spend the night in? Well, Central City has one of those creepy houses. Or, more accurately, Central City’s Pine Woods suburb has one of those creepy houses. It’s commonly known as the old Jackson place. It's a three-story mansion, with broken windows, crumbling stone, a creepy staircase, massive spires....the works. It was even used as a set for a horror movie back in the 80s. Even though it technically isn’t in the city proper, it’s close enough that everyone knows about the house-and the stories surrounding it. Allegedly, the old Jackson place was built by Adolphus Jackson in 1792, after he immigrated from somewhere in Ireland with his family. They were Central City’s first settlers (the Rathaways were second). He and his wife, Betty, had sixteen kids (although only ten survived to adulthood). All the dead kids were buried in the backyard of the house, so things are already getting creepy. (Some people say that you can hear crying when you go by the house, and other people have claimed to see ghostly children.) His oldest son, Jared, inherited the house when old man Jackson died in 1846. (He was buried behind the house, and yep, people have claimed to see him, too.) Jared worked alongside Martin Garrick (yes, he IS related to Jay Garrick) and my great-great-great-great-grandfather, Shawn Scudder, in Central City’s Underground Railroad. (Am I shaming my heritage? Yeah, probably. Moving on.) People have claimed to see the ghosts of slaves and such around the old Jackson place, and they’ve also claimed to see the ghosts of Harold and Rufus Jackson, an uncle and nephew who fought on opposite sides of the Civil War. In 1877, Jared died, and his second son, Arnold, inherited the house. (His oldest son was Harold, who died at the Battle of Chancellorsville.) Arnold got married to his second cousin, which is several levels of weird, and he added onto the house, making it a lot bigger and more impressive looking. He died in 1885, after adding to the family’s sizable fortune, and his son, Bernard, inherited the house and made it even fancier. Bernard is also where the really messed up stories about the Jackson place begin, as his oldest son, Robert, fell in love with a girl his father hated (partially because he had planned for his son to marry Lydia Rathaway, Piper’s great-great-great aunt). Their arguments over it got really nasty, and so eventually Robert ran away with his chick and got married to her, only for his father to threaten to cut him off. Sonny boy decided that he wanted the money more than his wife, and he abandoned her and was remarried to Piper’s great-great-great aunt. There was only one snag: his old wife had gotten pregnant and drowned herself in the pond (now dried up) on the back of the property to get revenge a few days after her baby was born. (People claim to see her ghost quite frequently.) Her parents, the Desmonds (and the Rathaways, who were mad that Bernard had had his son marry their daughter when he already had a wife) sued the pants off the Jacksons and the family was reduced to semi-poverty. Robert hung himself a few weeks after the lawsuit was settled (he allegedly haunts the house, too) and Bernard started drinking. A lot. He died in 1910 (probably from alcohol poisoning) and the estate was inherited by his only surviving offspring, a 19-year-old daughter named Alicia, who became a librarian and never married. (Alicia didn’t live in the house after the age of 21, probably because of all the bad memories, but people still see her ghost there.) She died in 1971, and the house, which had sat unused for over three decades, had already gained a reputation as being massively haunted, a reputation that only increased when some stupid 17-year-old broke into the house on a dare, fell down the old stairs in the dark, and broke his neck in 1995. (Since then, people have claimed to see HIS ghost as well.) So you get the point: the old Jackson place is massively haunted, massively creepy, and massively empty, so, of course, Captain Cold decided that we needed to break into the place on Halloween. Now, to be fair, we do something to get our adrenaline up every year on Halloween, but there’s a difference between going to a commercial haunted house, where nothing is real, and going to an old house that might actually be haunted, especially when said old house is falling apart and everyone is wearing ridiculous costumes (as we do every year). Earlier in the month, we had decided to dress up as classic movie monsters. Or at least I thought we had. As it turned out, some people had badly missed the memo….

Mirror Master II: Okay, so maybe the scarecrow costume I had wasnae all that scary, but it wasnae my fault! How was I supposed to ken that all the scary scarecrow costumes would be sold out by October 24? I wasnae PLANNING to be the Scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz! But I’m off topic. All of us had agreed to meet on the front lawn before we broke into the haunted house, so at 7:00 PM on Halloween night, I got into me costume and went to the lawn. Golden Glider (dressed as a vampire), Scudder (dressed as a zombie), the Trickster (dressed as a bedsheet ghost), Captain Boomerang (dressed as Frankenstein’s monster), and the Pied Piper (dressed as the Phantom of the Opera) were already there, and, of course, as soon as he saw me costume, Scudder started laughing.  “They were sold out of the scary costumes, ye eejit,” I said. “Then why didn’t you alter it or something? You don’t look scary at all!” Scudder asked. “Hey, at least I look scarier than the Trickster. And besides, not all of us be seamstresses, Scudder,” I replied. (He’d made his own costume and thought that nobody knew. Eejit.) Scudder flushed and suddenly became very interested in the bushes. At this point, Captain Cold showed up in cat ears. That was his whole costume. Otherwise, he jus’ looked like a hockey fan (which he be). His sister-a bonnie lassie, she-wasnae pleased with that. “Lenny, you were supposed to dress up as something scary!” “I did. I’m a werecat.” I’m nae sure why he thought that would be convincing. “Oh, come on! You didn’t even try!”“I never try. Why are you acting like this is something new?” The Glider threw up her hands. “Because you promised me you would try this year!” “I have a tail. Does that make it better?” The Glider rolled her eyes.“I give up.” She tossed her golden hair over her shoulder-I tell ye, she is a bonnie lass-and went to talk with the Piper. The Weather Wizard showed up a few seconds later, and I saw soomthing I never wanted to see: him in a dress. “What are ye supposed tae be, me gran?” The Wizard scowled.“I’m a witch!” I looked at him oddly. “Ye could have been a werewolf, and ye decided tae be a witch?”“It’s thematic! You know: wizards are magic; witches are magic….” I laughed. “Look, if ye want to dress up like a lassie, ye kin. Just donae expect me tae understand why.” The Wizard stormed off, and the Top arrived on the lawn, dressed as a gigantic top. Scudder laughed so hard that he had tae sit down, and I laughed pretty heartily myself. “What is so amusing?” the Top asked. Naebody bothered to explain that it was because he wasnae cooperating with the theme, because we all knew he wouldnae listen. “They’re just being stupid, sweetie pie. You look amazing,” the Glider said. (I’m nae sure if she meant it or if she was just trying to calm him doon.) Luckily for the Top, Heat Wave decided to show up at this point, and his costume made Captain Boomerang laugh so hard he wet himself and made me laugh so hard that I had to join Scudder on the ground, so everyone forgot about him. “Why are you wearing a tutu?” Captain Cold asked (as soon as he was capable of speech again.)“Well, I was gonna be Frankenstein, but Digger stole my idea, and I didn’t have any other ideas, so I decided that me in a tutu was scarier than any monster,” Heat Wave replied. I looked him over again and immediately wished I had nae doon it. He was right; the sight of a 6’6”, 250 pound man in a frilly pink tutu is more terrifying than any monster. His logic seemed to work on everyone else, too, because Captain Cold quickly changed the subject. “Okay, are we ready?” Scudder raised an eyebrow. “To break into the creepy ghost house? No, but I know I’m doing it anyway,” he replied. (At the time, I thought that he was being a wet blanket, but as it turned out, he was right to be a tad worried.) “As long as we’re bringing flashlights, I suppose so,” the Piper said. (He had been against going to the haunted house, tae, but he had been opposed to it because of some kid who had died there back in the 90s because the house didnae have lights, not because of Scudder’s ghosties, which he didnae believe in. Because of that, he had changed his tune after Cold promised him that he could bring a flashlight if he wanted tae.)“Then let’s go,” Captain Cold ordered.  With that, Scudder and I transported everyone to the house via Mirror Realm. Having only lived in Central City for a year, I had never seen it before, and I was a tad freaked out by what I saw. The house itself wasnae too bad, but the creepy dead grass and trees, and the graveyard in the back of the house, were spooky, especially under the huge moon.“‘Abandon all hope, ye who enter here?’ Really?” Golden Glider said scornfully, pointing at a sign in the yard. Her brother shrugged. “Probably some kid’s idea of a prank.” Piper, meanwhile, was looking nervously at a different sign. “Cold, this sign is from the government. It says the building is condemned. Are you sure we’ll be safe to go in there?” he asked. “Since when do we care what the government thinks?” Captain Cold replied. “When a building might collapse on our heads!” Piper exclaimed. “And when it’s haunted!” Scudder added, sounding happy to have an excuse tae go home. Captain Cold sighed and rolled his eyes. “Piper, if the house seems like it’s gonna collapse on us, we’ll just have Scudder and the Scotsman transport us out. We’ll be fine,” he said. Piper seemed to relax.“Good point,” he said. Sam  didn’t look as calm. “But what about the ghosts?” he asked. “Sam, ghosts don’t exist. They’re a product of overactive imagination and too many horror stories,” the Piper replied, only for Captain Boomerang to join the conversation.“They are too real! My second cousin’s ex-girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend’s dad’s third cousin’s aunt saw one!” he exclaimed, sounding offended. Piper didnae look convinced. “That’s hardly conclusive proof of-” he began, only tae be cut off by Captain Cold. “Enough about ghosts! Let’s go inside already!” he exclaimed. With that, Trickster picked the lock on the door. He pushed it open, producing a loud CREAK, and then we went inside. 

Weather Wizard: I’m going to tell you a secret: the witch costume was an accident. I swear, I thought I ordered the Dark Wizard costume, but when I opened up the package a week before Halloween, I found a witch costume instead, and because I didn’t have another two weeks to wait (or any more money) I was stuck with it and just decided to pretend it had been my plan the whole time to save face. (At least it matched the theme, unlike cats, tops, and ballerinas.) But I digress. So, after the Trickster picked the lock, we went inside and Piper and Cold turned on their flashlights. The hallway contained cobwebs and a moth-eaten carpet, but nothing else.

“We'll cover more ground if we divide and conquer, so let’s split up into groups and search this place for valuables. Lisa, you’re with me. Scudder, you’re with McCulloch. Mardon, you’re with Rory. Rathaway, you’re with Jesse. Dillon, you’re with Harkness,” Cold barked.

“WE’RE SPLITTING UP? That’s like the #1 way to die in a haunted house!” Scudder whined. (As it turned out, he was right to be worried, but at the time, I thought he was overreacting.) Hartley sighed.

“Sam, ghosts do not exist,” he said. (He was wrong.) Then he turned to Cold and asked,

“How will the Mirror Masters be able to transport us to safety if we’re not in the same part of the house?” Cold rolled his eyes.

“Piper, unless there’s an earthquake, the Mirror Masters will be able to get to all of us before the house falls. They basically have access to a teleportation system. We’ll be fine,’” Cold replied. Piper didn’t look entirely convinced, but he didn’t keep arguing.

“Why am I with Harkness? He’s an uncultured boor,” Dillon demanded.

“Well, I ain’t too fond of you, either, you wowser!” Harkness yelled.

“Why can’t I be with Roscoe, Lenny?” Lisa asked. Cold sighed wearily.

“Fine. Dillon, you’re with Lisa. Harkness, you’re with me. Sam, stop whining. Now let’s go!” Cold exclaimed. McCulloch saluted, dragged Scudder into a mirror, and vanished, and the rest of us fanned out to search the house. After walking through some more cobwebby hallways, Mick and I reached what I assumed was the living room. The room was filled with decaying furniture and mysterious old knicknacks, everything was covered in cobwebs, and part of the roof had fallen in. Seeing this, I had to wonder if the Piper had been right about the dangers of the building.

“How long do you think it’s been since someone touched any of this?” Mick asked me.

“If I had to guess, I’d say at least forty years,” I replied. I glanced out the window and noticed that a cloud had covered part of the moon and that the rest of it had turned red, and I shuddered. “Mick, there’s a blood moon.” I said quietly.

“So? They talked about that on the news,” Mick replied as he started pawing through the knicknacks laying on the floor.

“Never mind,” I said quickly as I joined him. I didn’t want him to think I was scared or anything. Several minutes later, we were still sorting through things and had found nothing but a broken teacup, a broken porcelain doll, and a dusty beaded shawl.

“I hope the whole house ain’t like this. If it is, Captain Cold’ll be mad,” Mick said. I shrugged.

“That’s his problem, not mine.” I heard a rumble of thunder in the distance, and, a few seconds later, the sobs of a child. Mick looked up from the floor in shock.

“Did you hear that?” he asked me.

“The thunder, or the kid crying?”

“The kid crying!” I nodded.

“Yeah, I heard it too. Why?”

“Because we need to go help that kid!” he replied. I rolled my eyes.

“Mick, we’re here to get rich, not help some kid.” Mick ignored me and pulled me in the direction of the crying sound, despite my attempts to break free from his grasp. We had gotten halfway across the living room when we saw a little girl. Her hair was in...uh, ringlets, I think they’re called?-and her dress came down to the floor. She was crying (of course) and Mick went over to her.

“Hey, there, little one. Are you lost?” he asked gently. I thought about leaving Mick with the girl and continuing to search for loot, but there was something about the little girl that made it impossible for me to pull away, and NOT in a “she’s so small and helpless” way. Mick reached out to put his hand on the girl’s shoulder-and his hand went straight through her! My knees went weak under me, and then the world went black. When I came to, I found myself on a dusty couch. I looked around the room and saw Mick waving good-bye to the vanishing ghost.

“Oh, hey, Mark. Glad to see you up-although there wasn’t really a reason for you to faint like that. Georgia was just worried that we were gonna hurt her doll. When I told her we weren’t, she cheered right up and went away,” he said cheerfully.

“The ghost has a name? And is friendly?” I asked. Mick nodded.

“I don’t even think she knew she was dead. Poor little thing,” he said, and I sighed in relief.

“In that case, let’s get back to work. If she’s the only ghost here, we’ve got nothing to worry about,” I said. (Famous last words.) With that, the two of us continued our search of the living room.

Trickster: The Piper and I- James Jesse, con artist extraordinaire-decided to investigate the attic. I’m a horror movie junkie, so if I’m breaking into a haunted house, what better place to get that adrenaline rush than the attic? Piper and I climbed three sets of narrow, creaky, cracked, cobwebby stairs to the attic (although Piper got winded halfway up the second flight and I had to drag him up the last one). Then I opened the door to see lots of cobwebs, a shattered mirror, a broken window, an old, rusted bedframe, some old-fashioned cabinets, a sword, an old rocking horse (sadly, it was too small for me), and a bunch of other old stuff. The roof was low, and it was really dark. My heart pounded, but in a good way.

“This is so much better than the fake haunted houses! We should go here every year!” I exclaimed. Piper swept his flashlight from left to right, and then started examining the boring knick knacks that were lying around. I pulled out a yo-yo and some bubble gum and waited eagerly for the walls to start dripping blood. After about two minutes, Piper pulled a stack of old papers out of one of the cabinet drawers.

“James, these are from the Civil War!” he exclaimed excitedly. I yawned.

“So?” I asked. Piper looked shocked.

“James, these are valuable historical documents! If they’re really as old as they look, they could provide priceless information about the role of Central City in the Civil War!”

“Can they summon a ghost?” Piper sighed.

“No. They cannot.” I blew a particularly large bubble.

“Then I’m not interested. Let’s find something that CAN summon a ghost!” Piper rolled his eyes.

“James, you’re not going to find something that can summon a ghost, because ghosts-” Suddenly, the windows rattled and we heard a loud moan.

“Don’t exist?” Piper squeaked. Five seconds later, a transparent man with a noose around his neck appeared and floated towards us. Piper screamed and bolted down the stairs, and I whooped with joy and followed him, narrowly missing the ghost’s clammy hands.

“Catch me if you can, you stupid ghost!” I yelled. I followed the Piper to the second floor and into a spooky old bathroom, complete with dusty mirror, a big tub with clawed feet, a broken toilet, and a sink. Mold was growing in the sink and on the walls, and I grinned. This day just kept getting better and better! Piper slammed the door and locked it behind us.His chest was heaving and he looked exhausted. (Rich kids don’t have much reason to be athletic.)

“You were saying?” I asked ‘sweetly’. Piper gave me a death glare.

“NOT the time!” Piper said. I laughed.

“Do you really think a locked door will keep out a ghost? It can’t even keep us out!” I asked him. Piper’s face went white, and he ran over to the dirty mirror.

“Sam! McCulloch! Get us home now!” he yelled. There was no response.

“Piper, you know the Mirror Realm doesn’t work that way. You can only talk to them through it if they want you to, and if they haven’t had the good luck to run into a ghost, they won’t be able to guess that you might want them to pick us up.” I said as I played with my yo-yo. Piper whimpered and buried his head in his hands, then started muttering incomprehensibly as I whistled merrily.

“How can you be so happy?” Piper demanded after a few minutes.I grinned.

“Kid, we’re being chased by a real, honest-to-goodness ghost! It doesn’t get more awesome than that!” Just then, the ghost drifted through the door, and I pulled out my camera and started snapping pictures as Piper screamed.

“We’regoingtodiewe’regoingtodiewe’regoingto die !” He darted to the door, fumbled with the lock, and opened it just as the ghost brushed his clammy fingers against his back. He screamed louder and ran down the hall. I snapped a few more photos, stuck my tongue out at the ghost,and followed Piper. The ghost roared angrily and flew after me. I caught up with Piper after about a minute and lead him into a dumbwaiter, then slammed the door behind us.

“James, how is this closet preferable to hiding in the bathroom? The ghost can still walk through walls!” Piper demanded.

“Piper, YOU’RE the one who had all the servants. Shouldn’t you know what a dumbwaiter is?”

“I know what a dumbwaiter is,I have just never seen one before. I was not allowed to spend time with the servants.You can hardly blame me for mistaking it for a closet. Besides, my point still stands: why would hiding in here keep us safe from the ghost?” I laughed.

“Piper, that ghost is Robert Jackson, who hung himself because he wasn’t rich anymore and gave up the love of his life for money! Entering the dumbwaiter that the servants used would be beneath him. As long as we’re in here, we’re safe. For a guy who’s college educated, you sure are stupid,” I explained. Piper frowned.

“You were taking selfies with the ghost, and I’M stupid?” he yelled. I smiled “innocently”.

“I never said I wasn’t stupid...but I’m not a graduate from Harvard, either. But I knew how to save us from the ghost, and you didn’t,” I replied. Hartley sighed wearily.

“Whatever you say, James...but how did you know what a dumbwaiter is? You thought that the American Civil War started in 1961 until last month, so you cannot have known about them from history, and you were not wealthy, so you cannot have had servants who used one,” he asked.

“My Nonna Gianna was a maid for a wealthy family in Italy when she was a girl, and she used a dumbwaiter when she worked for them,” I explained.

“Wait...you’re Italian?” Hartley asked.

“Sí. Well, Italian-American, anyhow.My paternal grandparents immigrated from Italy in 1935 after Mussolini took over and invaded Ethiopia. When they got to America, they joined the Big Circus because my Nonno Antonio had been an acrobat in Italy. They had a whole lot of kids, and my dad was the youngest. He was born in 1955, and he married my mother, who was a second-generation Italian immigrant herself, in 1980. I was born eight years later,” I explained.

“But your name is James Jesse! That doesn’t sound remotely Italian!” Hartley protested.

“Hel-lo! My nonni were Italian immigrants performing for the American public at the height of World War II! They took stage names: Jesse for the last name, and Rosie and Jared for their first names. By the end of the war, they’d gotten so famous under the Jesse name that they couldn’t really change it back to their real one, so they just kept the stage name. My dad’s real name was Alessandro, but he called himself Jacob. My mother’s name really was Helen, though, because her parents had given her an American name. My real name’s actually Giovanni Giuseppe. How’s that for a mouthful?” I exclaimed.

“Sai parlare italiano?” Piper asked.

“Nonni, nonna, nonno, pizza, spaghetti, Venice, Rome, sí, il Dulche, Mamma Mia, madre, padre,  nipote, figlia, figlio,Ti amo, caro, Coinvolgimi, bella noche, Dov'è la birra? That’s all the Italian I know. Well, that and a lot of swear words,” I replied.

“En d’autres termes, tu sais autant d’italien comme vous le français?” Piper asked. I looked at him oddly.

“English?”

“So, in other words, you know as much Italian as you do French?” he replied.

“Yeah, pretty much. Not everyone can afford tutors for twenty languages,” I said.

“I only speak six languages-Spanish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, and Mandarin Chinese, and I can only write in the first four. I’m passable in Arabic and Russian, too, but I’d hardly say I can speak twenty languages.” I grinned evilly.

“Let’s go find some more ghosts!” I exclaimed.

“No! I’m staying right here, where it’s safe,” Piper yelled.

“Spoilsport,” I said. I started using my yo-yo again.

Captain Cold: So, as I guess you already know, I ended up partnered with Captain Koala, because he and Roscoe insisted on being stubborn morons. I wanted to look for the safe, but Digger insisted that we go to the kitchen because he was hungry, and, since Digger seems to have an immunity to food poisoning, I figured it would probably be safe to let him eat 85-year-old food, and feeding him would get him to shut his big mouth besides. Digger, who practically has an internal homing device for food, found the kitchen in about a minute flat. The kitchen was dusty, covered in cobwebs, and filled with a lot of rusted-out junk, and it was so dark that, without my flashlight, I don't think I would've been able to see two feet in front of me. It was a little creepy, I’m not gonna lie. But I don’t scare easy, so I started pawing around for valuables while Digger found the world’s oldest box of crackers and started digging in. I found a bunch of silver spoons and shoved them into my bag…and then something weird happened. A really attractive lady appeared out of basically nowhere and walked right through me like she couldn’t even see me. It felt like when I accidentally shot myself with my cold gun, and I frowned. Ghosts weren’t supposed to exist. However, I had business to do, so I ignored the ghost lady and went back to my work. Digger, on the other hand, didn’t take the ghost so well. He let out a string of Australian swear words, yelled something about a “ghost sheila” (knowing him, it was probably the exact opposite of polite), grabbed his crackers, and started to run. I grabbed him by his scarf before he could exit the room.

“Let me go, you bloody loon! You’ve got kangaroos loose in your top paddock if you want to stay here with a ghost, Cold!” Digger yelled.

“Stop freaking out, Digger. She doesn’t have any weapons, she’s not dripping blood, and she’s not bad to look at besides. Just ignore her. We have work to do.” Digger looked closer at the ghost and grinned.

“Bloody oath! She is a beautiful Sheila, ain’t she?”

“Yeah, she’s pretty. I just said that. Now get to work.” I said. Digger ignored me and walked over to the ghost.

“G’day, Sheila. I’m Captain George Harkness of the Australian Secret Service. Who are you?” he asked. (He tells every girl he takes a fancy to that he worked/works for the Australian Secret Service. It’d be a great pick up line if it wasn’t a total lie.) I rolled my eyes as I helped myself to some fine china plates. Was Digger seriously hitting on a ghost?

“Is Australia a northern state, Master Harkness?” the ghost asked. She sounded terrified, and had an accent I couldn’t quite place. Digger laughed.

“Oz? In the North? Sheila, it’s called the Land Down Under for a reason,” he replied. The ghost looked terrified and started to cry. I tried valiantly to ignore the sound and shoved the remainder of the china into my bag.

“What’re you crying for, Sheila?” Digger asked, sounding annoyed.

“B-b-because if you a Southern soldier, you gonna take me and my baby back to slavery!” I noticed that she was, indeed, carrying a baby and grimaced. I did NOT have time for dealing with this crud. Digger walked back over to me.

“I didn’t notice she had an anklebiter. She’s a lovely sheila, but not enough for me to want to be a daddy. And why’s she wailing about slavery?” he asked.

“How should I know? I dropped out of high school at 14, and I don’t have many dealings with ghosts,” I replied in annoyance as the ghost’s wailings got louder. She moved rapidly toward Digger and fell on her knees.

“Please, don’t take my baby, Master Harkness. Let him be free, please, please!” she begged. Digger shot me a pleading look, and I sighed wearily. How did Digger get himself-and me- into these situations?

“Look, lady, we don’t want you or your baby. Now go on, shoo. You and the kid are free, and “Master Harkness” and I have business to do,” I said. The ghost stared.

“Ain’t you Confederate soldiers?” she asked, obviously confused.. Digger and I looked at each other in equal confusion.

“What’s a Confederate?” Digger asked the ghost.

“They’s the soldiers who be fighting to make their own country,” she replied.

“What’s she talking about?” Digger asked me. I shrugged.

“The Civil War…..I think,” I said, drawing desperately from my memories of 8th grade history.

“You mean the war you Yanks had between each other? What’s that gotta do with this sheila?” I racked my brains for any connection between the two and wished that I hadn’t chosen 8th grade history as the class to sleep through.

“Um...she was talking about slavery…I think the South had slaves...probably….and that was maybe why the war started? Possibly? And-and since you said you were from the South, and she’s probably about as well-educated as we are, she didn’t realize that you meant you were from another continent entirely, and so she thought that you were gonna want to make her a slave again,” I said, feeling pretty proud of myself for figuring all that out.

“Didja hear that, Sheila? I’m not a Confederate, whatever that means! Australia’s an island. It ain’t part of America. Now, it’s London to the brick that I’m dangerous, so you probably wanna steer clear of me, but I’m not gonna be taking you to slavery, neither. And, hey, if you got any single friends without anklebiters,, tell ‘em t’ look up Captain Harkness, will ya?” Digger told her cheerfully.

“I..I’m free?” she asked quietly.

“As a bird. Now get outta here. You’re safe in this city,” I told her flatly.

“Thank you, sir! Thank you!” she said. She kissed her baby, and they passed through the kitchen wall and vanished into thin air. As soon as she was gone, I glared at Digger.

“Okay, now that you’re done hitting on a ghost, can we get back to work, please?” I asked.

“If you want to, that’s fair dinkum. I’m gonna go back to my chips,” Digger said. He tried to walk back to the table, but I grabbed him by the scarf before he could and forced him to clear out the rest of the valuables while I took a smoke break. He swore colorfully in Australian the entire time, but I ignored him. He was just packing the last of the chinaware away when another ghost, this one holding a gun, showed up. One look at him told me that we were in trouble, and so I ran out of the room, Digger hot on my heels.

Golden Glider: So, while Mick and Marky-Mark were in the living room, James and Hartley were running around like lunatics, and Lenny and Digger were running away from history as much as they were running away from ghosts, Roscoe and I had decided to investigate the backyard. It contained a rotting porch and a small cemetery, one which was surrounded by a wrought iron fence. It was quite dark, because there were no porch lights, but that just made it all the more romantic. As soon as we left the house, I snuggled up close against Roscoe and we both sat down on the one intact porch step. “Isn’t the darkness so romantic?” I asked him. He looked puzzled, and it was adorable. “I believe that the darkness is the absence of light, my darling,” he said. I tittered. “You’re so funny, Roscoe,” I cooed. He smiled. “I am glad I have pleased you, sweetums,” he said. A cloud moved and revealed the moon, big and red and lovely. I pointed at it in excitement. “Roscoe, look at the moon! Isn’t it beautiful? Doesn’t it remind you of us?” I asked. Roscoe looked concerned. “My darling, the moon is a celestial body that revolves around the Earth. I do not see how it can remind you of us. Did no one teach you about the nature of the moon? It is not a human being,” he said. I sighed; having forgotten how literal Roscoe can be. “Roscoe, dear, I was speaking figuratively. I said it was like us because it’s beautiful, just like we are,” I explained. Roscoe’s eyes lit up in understanding. “I see. Forgive my confusion, my darling,” he said. I kissed him on the cheek. “Of course, honey,” I replied. He kissed me on my cheek, and then I kissed him full on the lips. We were still embracing five minutes later, when a young girl in a white dress appeared. She was completely transparent, and stared at us in silence for a few seconds. “Are you lovers?” she asked quietly. “We are indeed, and my Lisa is a goddess among women,” Roscoe replied. Her face fell, and then twisted into fury. “How dare you flaunt your happiness in front of the grave of a poor rejected woman? Is it not enough that I was rejected by my Robert? Is it not enough that I killed myself of despair? Must I be mocked by your love as well? For your impudence, I will make you suffer as I have suffered!” she screamed. She moved over to Roscoe, kissed him on the lips (please don’t ask me HOW) and then disappeared. Roscoe shoved me off his lap violently and stood up. “Get off of me, you wretch!” he spat. The words felt like a blow. “R-R-Roscoe, what….what’s wrong?” Roscoe had never talked to me like that before, and in that moment I saw Lewis-my “father”-in his face. “You are what is wrong! I am a gentleman, and you-you are common trash. Why I was mad enough to kiss you I’ll never understand!” Roscoe said coldly. “What are you saying?” I asked. “I am saying that I have had enough of dating a welfare queen,” Roscoe replied. Normally, I would have struck back, but I was so bewildered by his behavior that I just stared at him. After a few seconds, he scowled. “What are you staying for, you pathetic wretch? Leave me!” he ordered, and I found my tongue. “No, Roscoe. I am staying right here with you. You may not think you love me anymore, but you will not drive me away. I won’t give you the pleasure of ordering me around like a dog,” I said. “Why not? You are a dog,” Roscoe spat. I moved to slap him, but before I could, we were interrupted by another ghost, this one wielding a old-timey gun, who charged at us. I kicked at the ghost on impulse, but, of course, it went straight through him. While I was distracted, Roscoe abandoned me, but after I regained my balance, I rushed after him and we went into the dining room. “Stop chasing me, you hussy!” he yelled. “I’m not chasing you, I’m running away from the ghost,” I said. As if on cue, the ghost lifted a table and threw it at Roscoe’s head. I pushed him out of the way and narrowly avoided being hit myself. “Why did you save me? It will not make me love a woman like you,” he demanded harshly. This time, I did slap him. “You’re welcome,” I spat. Roscoe frowned. “You dare lay a hand on a gentleman?” he demanded. Before he could continue, however, the ghost levitated all six chairs in the room, and so I grabbed him and pulled him into the hallway. A series of loud crashes followed almost immediately. “I notice that you don’t complain when I touch you in order to save your life,” I said pointedly. Roscoe sniffed haughtily and didn’t reply. Under normal circumstances, I would have led us to the door and left the house, but with Roscoe acting so strangely, I couldn’t. I didn’t want to leave only for Roscoe to keep treating me like dirt, so I decided to stay and take charge of the situation. “All right, so where do we go from here?” I asked. Roscoe scowled. “‘We’ are not going anywhere. Have I not made my disdain for you utterly clear? I am going to one of the bedrooms to go to sleep, and you-I care not where you go, so long as you stay away from me,” he said. I shook my head firmly. “No, we’re staying together. Even if you really do hate me, from a logical standpoint you’re obviously safer with me around,” I replied. Roscoe pondered this for a few seconds, then nodded. “Very well. We will stick together. However, let me make one thing clear: I do not love you. Our current predicament does not change that,” he said, and I felt my heart break. I slapped him again and said, “Fine! See if I care!” With that, I pulled Roscoe up the stairs to the second floor and into one of the bedrooms, which contained an canopy bed, a broken window, an old armorie, and a painting of a handsome young man. The plaque beneath it read "Robert Jackson, beloved son". It was a picture of the man who had spurned his lover. How appropriate. Roscoe laid down on the bed and fell asleep almost immediately (he is definitely not a night owl) and I started crying. How had this perfectly romantic night gone so badly awry?

Mirror Master II: After a quick trip through the Mirror Realm, Scudder and I arrived in the basement. It was awfy dark doon there, I’m nae gonna lie, but the way Scudder was reacting, you’d have thought it was a torture chamber. He was jumping at every little sound and keeping so close tae me that I was practically tripping over him. After aboot a minute of that, I got fed up with him and decided tae tell him tae grow a spine.

“Stop acting like a wean, will ye? It’s hard eno to move doon here without having tae avoid you,” I told him. He moved about an inch further away.

“If we run into a ghost, I’m feeding you to it,” he muttered. I laughed and started looking for trinkets, while he stayed right next tae the stairs. After a few minutes,  I uncovered an emerald ring.

“This is worth something, int it no?” I asked happily. Scudder shrugged.

“Great, you’ve found your prize. Now let’s get out of here!” he said.

“Not yet! I need a bigger haul than this!” I replied. Scudder frowned.

“Look here, you second-rate Mirror Master. I am not about to have my brain turned into soup by a ghost just so that you can sell two rings instead of one. We’re going upstairs now,” he said.

“Who are ye calling a second-rate Mirror Master? I use the Mirror Realm better than ye ever could, ye minger!” I yelled.

“You don’t even know how it works. You just swiped my equipment, you Glaswegian thug!” Scudder replied. Then I punched him, and he punched me, and we got into a fist fight. He was trying tae get oot of my stranglehold when soomthing weird happened: a ghostie showed up. You ken those drawings of fat rich people? It looked like that. I was so surprised that I let Scudder go, and he screamed like a lassie and dove intae the Mirror Realm. Me? I just froze. I didnae have a clue how to fight a ghostie, so I did soomthing pure stupid: I waved at it!  The ghostie levitated a lamp and threw it at me head, only narrowly missing me. I dove intae the mirror after Scudder. He was panicking.

“I don’t wanna die I don’t wanna die I don’t wanna die; please don’t let me die please please please don’t let me die!”

“Calmy doony, Scudder. The ghostie canae come intae the Mirror Realm,” I said. Ten seconds later, the ghostie came intae the Mirror Realm.

“You just had to say it!” Scudder wailed.

“Dinae just stand there, run!” I yelled. Both of us took off running, and only stopped when the ghostie vanished. I grinned.

“We did it! We escaped the ghostie!” I yelled. Scudder smiled slightly, but then he looked around and his smile vanished.

“Oh, no. This is bad, this is bad, this is really bad,” he said.

“What do ye mean? We escaped from the ghostie!” I replied.

“Look around you! Do you recognize any of this?” I looked around, and realized that we were in big  trouble: I didnae recognize anything around me, and I ken most of  the Mirror Realm like the back of my hand.

“We’re lost,” I said.

“No duh, really? I had no idea,” Scudder replied sarcastically.  I tried tae punch him for that, but he dodged me swing.

“I don’t see why you’re punching at me. I was against coming to the creepy ghost house from the start, and if we had stayed home and watched A Nightmare on Elm Street like I suggested, we wouldn’t be in this mess! But did you-or anyone-listen to me? Oh, no! “Ghosts don’t exist, Sam.” “Stop being such a wimp, Scudder.” “We’ll be fine.”  “Stop being such an idiot, Scudder.” Well, WHO’S THE IDIOT NOW?” he yelled hysterically, and I wished that Captain Cold hadnae put me with him, because he looked downright loony.

“Ah am, all right? Now help me find a way oot of here!” Sam laughed weakly.

“Find a way out of the Mirror Realm? You might as well tell me to beat Superman in a fist fight. It’s impossible. There’s a reason that I never go out of sight of the mirror portals: the Mirror Realm is so vast that if you get lost, you’ll probably never find your way back to them-and they’re our only way out of the Mirror Realm. I can’t get us out without the portals, and, thanks to you, Len, and that ghost, I have no idea where they are. Heck, I don’t even know where WE are!” he exclaimed.

“The Land  of Abstract Art, mebbe?” I suggested. We were surrounded by swirls of colors and strange shapes, ye ken? Scudder didnae seem to find that as funny as I’d thought it was.

“Really? We’re lost in a never-ending mirror maze, and you’re cracking jokes?” I shrugged.

“Aye. Beats whining aboot it, ye jerrie.” To tell the truth, I was just as freaked out as Scudder was, but I wasnae about to let him know it.

“You’re a lunatic,” he spat.

“Ah am’nae!” I yelled back. I punched  him, he punched me, and we ended up in another fistfight that only ended when both of us collapsed from exhaustion. Apparently, all the running had taken a lot oot of us. Scudder basically ended up falling asleep on my lap, and I was too tired to move him. After aboot a minute of embarrassment, I fell asleep tae.

Heat Wave: Hi, there. I’m Mick Rory, but you can call me Heat Wave. Everyone does. So, uh, while everyone else was running away from angry ghosts, Weather Wizard and I were still searching for valuables, and not finding any. After about an hour of searching, I got bored, pulled out my flamethrower, and lit the sofa on fire. It was beautiful and pretty and warm, and I decided to touch it. Bad idea, because I was still wearing the tutu, and..well...tutus are really flammable. The fire didn’t exactly hurt me (the prison doc tells me my skin’s so badly burned by this point that it doesn’t feel pain anymore), but it did freak out Weather Wizard, who doused me (and the sofa) with what felt like a gallon of water.

“Hey! You put out my beautiful sofa fire!” I complained. The Wiz scowled.

“In case you didn’t notice, YOU were on fire, too!” he said angrily.

“And now I’m sopping wet AND don’t have my precious fire. I don’t see how that’s an improvement,” I replied. In response, the Wiz beaned me over the head with his wand. (He doesn’t have a good swing, so it  didn’t really hurt.)

“Being wet doesn’t kill you, you big oaf! You know what does? BEING ON FIRE!” His face was red and his eyes were crackling with electricity, so I knew he was pretty upset. Because he can create tornadoes, I decided to apologize.

“You’re right, Mark, and I’m sorry. Thanks for saving me,” I said. His eyes stopped crackling.

“Just don’t do it again,” he said. I nodded and sat down on what was left of the sofa, and Wiz went over to the window and gazed out of it.

“A storm’s brewing,” he said. I don’t think he was trying to sound spooky, but with his tone of voice and his witch costume, he did. A few seconds later, lightning flashed and thunder boomed. Wiz opened the window and leaned out. The wind whipped his (impossibly spiky) hair, and he stared at something in silence. After a few seconds, it got creepy, and so I went over to him and dragged him away from the window. I closed it as soon as he wasn’t in the way.

“Come on, Mark, let’s go to another room. Captain Cold’ll be mad if we don’t find something valuable,” I said. When he didn’t move, I picked him up, threw him over my shoulder, and took him up the stairs and into a bedroom which looked like it might have belonged to a little kid at some point, since there were a bunch of old toys in it. One of the windows was broken, and everything, including the toys, a rocking chair, and a crib, was covered in dust and cobwebs. It was very spooky, although it was in better shape overall than the living room had been. I started looking for something valuable, and the Wiz made a beeline for the window.

“Hey, knock that off! Just ‘cause you’re the Weather Wizard doesn’t mean that you get to look at the weather and not help me!” I said. Wiz turned around and locked eyes with me.

“The storm...it’s an ill wind that blows no good,” he muttered. It was almost like he was in a trance or something. And then it happened: a ghost appeared. Now, it wasn’t super gory-really, it just looked like a transparent teenager-but let me tell you: it was scarier than anything I’ve ever seen in a horror movie. At almost the same time, it started to rain heavily. The Wiz passed out again, and the ghost advanced on me. I decided that discretion was the better part of valor (what? I saw Shakespeare on TV one time), threw the Wiz over my shoulder, and ran downstairs and out of the house with him. (Question: Why is it that he was WAY heavier when he was unconscious than when he was conscious?) I wanted to make Captain Cold happy, but I wasn’t gonna fight a ghost just for some loot. As soon as we got out the door, the ghost stopped following us, so I dumped the Wiz on the ground and began what proved to be a LONG wait for the Mirror Masters to come pick us up. Wiz woke up about five minutes after we got out of the house and cleared up the rain (thank goodness), then took a look at me and smiled.

“You should see yourself. Your tutu’s unrecognizable and I can see your underwear,” he said. I felt my cheeks heat up. Man, that was embarrassing.

“Yeah, well, you fainted twice, so I think we’re even,” I replied. The Wiz flushed, and looked at the ground. A few seconds later, he yawned, then produced a wind that dried up the ground.

“I’m gonna take a nap. Wake me up when Scudder shows up,” he said. With that, he curled up on the ground and dozed off. After a couple seconds, I sat down next to him, and, after a few minutes of trying and failing to come up with an excuse for not finding any loot, I dozed off too. (One of the benefits of being….less than legally employed is that you learn to fall asleep anywhere.) I woke up about twenty minutes later when the Wiz poked me in the side with his wand.

“Huh?” I asked drowsily.

“Where are the Mirror Masters at? Surely they’ve gotta be finished by now,” he whined. I shrugged.

“Maybe they’re still looking for stuff. Or maybe they hit the jackpot and are still gathering up all the stuff they found,” I suggested.

“Well, they better hurry up. I’m bored and tired and I want to get back to my nice soft bed,” the Wiz replied.

“I’m sure they’ll be here soon,” I said. Then I fell back to sleep and was dead to the world for another forty minutes.

Pied Piper: After being trapped in the dumbwaiter for about ten minutes, I turned off my hearing aids. Not being able to hear is never a pleasant experience, but it was highly preferable to listening to a bored Trickster sing “This Is the Song That Never Ends” again and again and again. This solution worked reasonably well until I realized that I very much needed to use the powder room and needed advice as to how to do so without attracting the nightmare creature that wanted to devour my internal organs. Therefore, I had to turn my hearing aids back on, because none of the other Rogues have ever bothered to learn sign language and I had no desire to play charades. As soon as my hearing turned back on, I was greeted with what must have been the fortieth rendition of “This is the Song That Never Ends”.

“James. James. JAMES! I, um, need to use the powder room. Do you have any idea as to how I can do that without meeting the ghost?”

“Depends. What’s a powder room?” He batted his eyes and smiled in the most irritating manner imaginable.

“You know full well what a powder room is!” I exclaimed. James’ smile grew wider as he shook his head.

“I can’t help you if I don’t know what you need, Piper,” he said. I sighed and gave in.

“It’s a restroom,” I said, blushing terribly. James laughed and did a particularly impressive trick with his yo-yo.

“Oh, so you need to pee! Why didn’t you say so?” he asked.

“Because my parents did not allow me to discuss bodily functions in public. Ever,” I replied.

“Did your parents allow you to breathe without their say-so?” I frowned. My parents had indeed controlled my days down to the second before they disowned me, but I didn’t want to admit it, so I said,

“Never mind that. Just tell me how to use the powder room without getting killed!”

“Oh, that’s easy. I’ll close my eyes, and you can do your business in here,” James replied. As I did not have access to a mirror, I cannot be sure about this, but I believe that I blushed even harder.

“No!”

“Why not? You can even blindfold me if you want. Believe me, I do NOT want to watch that,” James replied. I scowled.

“Because that is disgusting, James.”

“I don’t see why. It’s what we did in the circus,” he said, sounding genuinely confused.

“This is not the circus!”

“Well, it isn’t exactly Rathaway manor, either. I’m not saying that it isn’t gross, but this place is in bad condition already. You can’t make it much worse,” James replied.

“I think I would rather face the ghost,” I said. James laughed.

“I can’t believe that you’re more scared of breaking your parents’ rules of being “proper” and pretending that you don’t have bodily functions than you are of a literal ghost,” he said.

“This has nothing to do with my parents!”

“Somebody’s in de-ni-al!” James singsonged.

“I’m not in denial. Just because I do not want to be Digger does not mean that this has anything to do with my parents,” I insisted.

“Yep, definitely in denial,” James said. I ignored him and pulled out the mirror that I had brought with me in order to contact the Mirror Masters.

“Sam! McCulloch! If you can hear me, I need you to get me-and James-out of this house!” Nothing happened, and I sighed wearily. There went that idea. About three minutes later, I decided that I couldn’t wait any longer. I opened the doors nervously and, not seeing anything, bolted down the hall to the powder room, used it, and was on my way back when the ghost reappeared. I screamed like a little girl (which is quite humiliating in hindsight) and just froze up in terror. If I had been alone, I don’t want to know what would have happened next, but, luckily for me, James showed up at exactly this point and yelled,

“Hey, Casper! Over here, you preposterous poltergeist!” The ghost howled and started chasing him, and he whooped with glee and ran down the hall in the direction of the staircase. Thirty seconds later, I heard a loud cry of pain from James. I bolted to the top of the stairs and saw that one of the steps had given way under James, and that he had clearly broken his ankle. Worse, the ghost was floating over top of him, and, for the first time, he looked scared. I stared at the scene for a few seconds, unsure of what to do, and then pulled out my flute and started playing it in the desperate hope that its hypnotic powers would work on a ghost. I tried to ignore the fact that my knees were shaking under me as I played, and, after a few seconds, the ghost stopped howling and floated away from James. I carefully went down the stairs to my partner, still playing, then knelt down beside him and put the flute away.

“Do NOT do that again! You scared the daylights out of me!” I snapped. James smiled.

“Aww, you do care,” he said. All his fear seemed to be forgotten and I shook my head in amazement. He had almost been killed (possessed?) by a ghost, and he was already making jokes.

“I did owe you. After all, if you had not attracted the ghost’s attention, I might have been killed. How’s your ankle?” I asked.

“It hurts like the dickens,” he replied.

“Can you walk?” James stood up shakily, winced, and quickly sat back down, then smiled and said,

“I can walk on my hands!” He proceeded to demonstrate. In spite of myself, I laughed a little.

“Can you keep that up long enough to get to the front door?” I asked him after I stopped laughing.

“Probably. Why?”

“Because we are leaving. I don’t know how long my hypnosis will last, but it will wear off eventually, and I do not want to be here when it does,” I explained.

“Aww, but I wanted to see some more ghosts!”

“Can you run on your hands?” I asked. James grinned slightly.

“Maybe?” he asked. I shook my head.

“Let’s go. We can watch The Shining when we get home if you want,” I said. (It’s James’ favorite horror movie, and very useful as a bribe.) James’ grin widened.

“You know me well, Piper. Let’s go home,” he said. With that, we left the house-only to find Mick and Mark asleep on the lawn; Mick in little more than his underwear.

“There’s something you don’t see every day,” James said.

“What, Mick and Mark sleeping on the lawn or Mick in his underwear?” I asked.

“Both, but mainly Mick in his underwear. That’s an image I’ll never get out of my mind,” he replied.

“Me, neither,” I agreed. After a few seconds, James sat down on the ground and pulled out a pack of bubble gum.

“I swallowed my gum when that step broke under me. Want some gum?” he asked.

“I suppose,” I replied. James handed me a stick of gum and then took out one for himself as well. I sat down next to him, unwrapped the stick of gum, and started chewing it. James blew a huge bubble.

“How do you do that?” I asked.

“Blow bubbles? Haven’t you ever had bubble gum before?” he asked. I shook my head.

“My parents said that gum was for plebeians,” I replied.

“Well, if they really did cut you off, you are one now, so that shouldn’t be a concern anymore,” he said. I smiled.

“You have a point. So, carnie, how about teaching this ex-patrician how to properly blow bubbles with bubble gum?” I asked.

“You’re on!” James exclaimed.

Captain Boomerang: I hate all the bloody ghosts in that bloody ghost house! (I also hate Cold for making me go into the ghost house, but that’s beside the point.) After Cold and I ran out of the kitchen, the ghost chased us through several rooms and to the basement stairs. We exchanged a brief look and ran down the stairs into the basement.  

“If that bloody ghost follows us, I’m gonna be as mad as a cut snake,” I said. I was tired of all the running, tired of risking my life, and even more tired of not getting to eat my chips.

“I think he’s stopped chasing us,” Cold said as he looked around. Then he gasped.

“What is it?” I demanded. Cripes, I need a coolie , I thought.

“The Mirror Masters...at least one of them left their Mirror Gun here. It’s their only way back into our dimension. They’d never leave it here.”

“Well, if they’ve carked it, there’s nothin’ we can do. Let’s take our loot and leave this spooky place before another ghost shows up!” I said. I thought that I’d made a good point, but Cold disagreed and punched me in the face.

“We don’t  have any proof that they’re dead, so we’re goin’ in after them. They’re too valuable to lose, and besides, the Rogues don’t abandon their own,” he said. Cold activated the portal to the Mirror Realm and dragged me inside by the scarf. As soon as I got inside, I had a sickie and vomited all over the floor.  

“Scudder? McCulloch? It’s Cold. Where are you?” Cold yelled. No answer.  I stopped vomiting and looked around, then noticed something shiny. I went over to it and discovered that it was an emerald ring.

“Cold, have a Captain Cook at this! We’re rich!” I exclaimed. Cold looked at it...and went pale.

“Oh, no….one of the Mirror Masters must have been spooked by something and dropped it-and if they ran that way and were so panicked that they didn’t notice that they dropped a valuable thing like that, then they’re lost in the Mirror Realm,”  he said.

“Okay. They’ve carked it. Oh, well. Let’s go home,”  I replied. Cold shook his head.

“No. We’re gonna find them,” he said.

“Cold, you just said that they were lost in the Mirror Realm. If THEY got lost, we’ll get lost, too,” I protested. Cold didn’t listen.

“We ain’t gonna get lost, because we’re going to make a trail to follow,” he said. He drew one the spoons out of the bag and placed it on the ground next to his feet. Then he moved about ten feet forward and did the same thing, and did it again about seven feet after that. He’s got kangaroos loose in his top paddock for sure, I thought.

“What are you doin’, Cold?”  I demanded.

“I’m making a trail,” he said.

“Outta  spoons ?” I asked.

“Didn’t you ever hear the story of Hansel and Gretel?”

“I don’t read fairy tales. They’re for wusses,” I said.  Cold scowled.

“Look, I have  a little sister, okay? Anyway, Hansel and Gretel didn’t want to get lost in the woods, so they used bread crumbs to mark where they’d been. That way, when they turned around, they’d know which way would take them back to their starting point. This is the same idea, only our markers can’t be eaten by anything,” he said. With that, he started dragging me by my scarf towards the direction he thought the Mirror Masters had taken.

“You know, I can walk on my own,” I said.

“ Maybe so, but if I let you go, you’ll probably  be walking towards the exit, so I’m keeping ahold of you to be on the safe side,” Cold replied. I stuck my tongue out at him, but he ignored it.  After about twenty minutes of walking, we entered the weirdest place I’d ever seen. There were all these bloody weird shapes and colors, and I couldn't tell which way was up. It freaked me out, but for some reason, it didn’t seem to bother Cold at all.

“Cold, this is really freaky. Can we go back now? We’ll never find the Mirror Masters in this crazy place,” I said.

“Shut up, Digger. We are going to find them, and we are not going to stop walking until we either do or run out of silverware,” Cold replied.

“Ace!” I muttered sarcastically.

“What was that?”

“Nothin’,” I lied.

“That’s what I thought.” He dragged me along for about ten more minutes before I opened my big mouth again. (I think that must be some kind of record.)

“Can we stop now ?”  My legs were killing me (not to mention my neck)!

“No. Stop acting like a six-year-old,” Cold replied.  I really need a coolie, i thought.  

“I wouldn’t be actin’ like an anklebiter if you weren’t actin’ like a dictator,” I snapped. Cold punched me in the side and continued to drag me along like a bloody kelpie. After about four more minutes, i decided that I’d had enough of being dragged around and stabbed Cold in the arm with one of my razor-sharp boomerangs. He swore in pain and let me go, and I grabbed the mirror gun and ran towards the exit. Sadly for me, Cold managed to bean me over the head with a plate and knocked me out. When I came to, I awoke to see a pair of unconscious Mirror Masters. Normally, I would’ve been crosser than a frog in a sock that Cold had knocked me out, but at the moment I was too glad that Cold wouldn’t be dragging me through the Mirror Realm anymore to really care.

“You little Ripper! You found them!” I exclaimed happily.

“No thanks to you,” Cold muttered. He shook McCulloch awake.

“Cold? How did ye get in here?” he asked.

“Either you or Sam dropped your Mirror Gun outside of the mirror in the basement, and I used it to get in here,” Cold explained.

“But how did ye find us?”

“Stubbornness, mainly,” Cold replied. I laughed.

“That’d be right!”  I exclaimed. Cold looked at McCulloch oddly.

“Why is Sam sleeping in your lap?” Cold asked.

“ WHAT? ” McCulloch yelled. He quickly moved Sam off his lap and stood up. This woke Sam up, for obvious reasons. Once he realized what had happened, he noticed Cold, gave him a huge hug, and then punched him in the face.

“I’m...getting some mixed messages here,” Cold said.

“I’m happy you found us, because I thought we were going to die here, but I’m about equally angry at you, because you wouldn’t have had to rescue us if you hadn’t decided to take us to the creepy ghost house in the first place,” Sam explained. I laughed. It’s always good to see Cold get taken down a peg, the arrogant knocker.

“I do nae see why you  being here is a good thing. We do nae ken  how to get back to the Mirror Portals from here, we’ll all die here,”  McCulloch said.

“Actually, we won’t. I marked the path we took from the portals with our loot, so we’ll able to get back fine,” Cold replied.  McCulloch grinned, and my stomach growled.

“Can we go home now? I’m hungry,” I asked.

“Ye and me both, Digger,” McCulloch said. Cold nodded.

“Let’s get back to our reality,” he said. With that, we started the long walkabout back to the Mirror Portals.

Top: My nap lasted precisely twenty-five minutes and fifteen seconds. Then I awoke to see Lisa crying quietly. Normally, I would have felt  horrible upon seeing such a sight, but  at the time, I simply felt disgusted.

"Stop sniveling, you piece of gutter trash. I will  not be moved by your feminine wiles,”  I spat. (I have since apologized profusely for this comment, and for all others made under the influence of the ghost, but my darling Lisa is still distrustful of me, and her brother would have beat me to within an inch of my life for them  had she not stopped him.)

“All right. I WILL stop crying. I should have known better than to show weakness in front of a man who’s just like my father,” she replied angrily. If I had been myself, I would have been horrified by this accusation, but as I was, I merely sniffed dismissively.

“I am nothing like your father. He was an alcoholic boor who lived off of welfare for most of his life, and I am a gentleman,”  I said haughtily.

“And yet you’re calling me names just like he did,” Lisa replied. (In hindsight, her self-confidence was quite admirable, but at the time, I found it irritating.)

“Shut your mouth!” I snapped, unable to refute her argument.

“And let you walk all over me? I don’t think so,” Lisa said. Furious, I raised my hand to slap her, but thankfully, the Civil War-era ghost interrupted us before I could. Lisa grabbed me and pulled me out of the room before the ghost began to levitate anything, thereby saving my life for the third time that night.

“I told you not to touch me!” I said icily. In response, Lisa kissed me on the cheek and I pulled away sharply in utter disgust. (I believe that she was trying to make me uncomfortable in an attempt to snap me back to my senses.)

“I just saved your life again , and you want to complain about me touching you? AGAIN?” she yelled.

“I was aware that we were in danger. There was no need for you to touch me,” I replied coldly. The ghost drifted out of the bedroom we had  been in, and  the two of us ran to the stairs-only to find that one of the steps had collapsed. Lisa sighed and slid  down the banister to the bottom of the stairs, and I reluctantly followed her when the ghost appeared behind me and it became apparent that there was no other means of escape. (We were able to keep our balance because my darling Lisa was a figure skater and I am very resistant to vertigo.) We ran back through the dining room and back into the backyard, and were greeted by a most unusual sight. The ghost who had kissed me was holding hands with another ghost, this one with a noose around his neck.

“Oh, darling, you’re back!” she cooed. The other ghost kissed her.

“Yes, and I’ll never leave you again. I’m so sorry that I abandoned you all those years ago. My father was wrong: you were more important than our money ever could have been,”  he said.

‘I forgive you, Robert,”  she replied. Lisa started to cry again.

“Oh, shut up, you sniveling hussy! You are too far beneath me to deserve my sympathy,” I said harshly. Lisa frowned  and dried her tears rather angrily, then elbowed me in the side.

“Where have you been, Robert?”  the  female ghost asked.

“I don’t know. All I remember before seeing you tonight was a lot of anger at something,” the other ghost replied. The female ghost embraced him.

“Oh, well, you’re here now. That’s all that matters,”  she said. They kissed again, and then the female ghost noticed us and frowned.

“Are you the lovers?”  she asked.

“Formerly. I thank you profusely for showing me my folly,”  I said. Lisa nodded sadly.

“Why do you want to know? You can’t possibly make me any more miserable,” she said. The ghost smiled.  

“Because I am going to show you both mercy. Since my happiness has been restored, I will restore your happiness,” she said. She kissed me once again, and all my love for Lisa came flowing back-as did a crushing sense of guilt.

“My darling, I am so sorry for what I said. I don’t know what came over me, but I swear to you that  I do not care how rich you are. You are a goddess, and I adore you. Please, please forgive me,” I pleaded. I felt like an utter cad. Lisa frowned.

“R-Roscoe?” she asked nervously.

“Yes, sweetums,”  I said. I tried to kiss her, but she pulled away.

“Don’t , Roscoe. After what you said to me tonight, I just don’t trust you. How can I be sure that you aren’t saying you don’t care that I’m “gutter trash” only because of your hormones? What if two or three years down the line, you don’t find me attractive anymore? Will you still love me, or will I suddenly become a “welfare queen” again? I still love you, but I can’t trust you anymore,” she asked

“You...you are breaking up with me?”  I was heartbroken and rather tempted to attack the ghost (if that was even possible), but I could not really blame her.

“I’m not sure. Let’s call it a vacation,”  she replied quietly. There was an awkward pause, and then I said,

“In that case, since our date is off, perhaps we should go to the front lawn and wait for the Mirror Masters to take us back to our hideout.”  Lisa nodded, and we left the backyard, walked quickly through the house, and made it to the front lawn of the house without issue. Upon arriving, we saw Mark curled up on the lawn, fast asleep, Mick napping in little more than his underwear ( a sight that will haunt me until my dying day), and James and Piper blowing bubble gum. James waved at us.

“Hi there, lovebirds! How was your date?’ If there is one thing that James is the master of, it is saying things at the most inopportune times.

“Badly,”  Lisa replied. With that, she left my side and sat down next to Mick. James looked at me quizzically.

“It is a very long story that is frankly none of your business,”  I told him. I walked a few feet away from him, sat down, and buried my head in my hands, ashamed of what I had done to the one person in my life I ever cared for. Apparently, I dozed off at some point, because the next thing I remember was the two Mirror Masters arriving alongside Digger and Leonard.

“Look alive, everyone! We’re moving out!” he barked. Five minutes later, we were all back in our hideout (thanks to the Mirror Masters). Lisa immediately ran over to her brother and started sobbing. My stomach twisted with guilt and I looked away.

“Shhh..shh...shhh..Sis, what happened?”  In response, Lisa told him the whole story through hiccups and sobs. When she was finished, Leonard marched over to me.

“ Is this true, Dillon?” he demanded.

“Sadly, yes,”  I replied awkwardly. In response, Cold punched me so hard he knocked me to the ground.

“Then you’re gonna wish you’d never been born. NO ONE hurts my baby sister,”  he snarled. He moved to hit me again, but before he could, Lisa ran over to him and grabbed his arm.

“Lenny, don’ t!  He was under the influence of a ghost!  It wasn’t all his fault,” she said. Cold scowled, but he walked away anyway as Lisa helped me back to my feet.  

“Are you alright?” she asked.

“Better than I should be after treating you so terribly,”  I replied.

“It’s good to to have you back, Roscoe,” she said.

“Does this mean that  we’re back on?” I asked eagerly.

“No, Roscoe, I’m afraid not. It’ll  probably be awhile before I feel comfortable around you again,” she said. She left me and went upstairs, and I was left to mentally berate myself for my idiocy.

Mirror Master I: And...that was basically it. We managed to get home alive from the creepy ghost house, everyone changed out of their costumes, and most of us, exhausted, went to bed (except James and Piper, who decided to watch The Shining for some reason.) The next morning, Trickster went to the hospital to get his broken ankle treated, and the rest of us decided to never, ever go to any house that was supposed to be haunted again. A week later, the Flash caught Len trying to fence his loot, so he’s in prison again. Lisa still hasn’t forgiven Roscoe, and James’s ankle is still very broken, but otherwise, things are pretty much back to normal for us Rogues. So, with that in mind-we would like to wish you all a Happy Halloween!- What James said.

FIN

[ladyluck678]

I’m just going to throw this out there. There’s a lot of negativity about Thanksgiving being a holiday. Rightfully so.

 The indigenous people that the American colonists came in contact with were destroyed. They were murdered and forced to give up their culture, forced to give up their beliefs. They were introduced to smallpox, and that pretty much wiped everyone out.

 IT ISN’T RIGHT. That was genocide. I refuse to put it delicately. That’s what it was and still is. You can’t sugarcoat that.

I’m sorry that happened. I can’t even begin to imagine how Native Americans feel about the situation (and I will not pretend to either.) I don’t know how to fix this except to spread the truth about what actually happened when the colonists, the puritans, came and settled on the east coast of what is now America. And to keep petitioning the US Government for reparations to the indigenous peoples of America.

It feels lame typing that out. I always feel like I can do more...

I will say that in my family, it’s never been about celebrating America. Or the founding of America. It’s always been about being thankful for what we have. My family wasn’t present in the United States until the mid-1920s. Everyone immigrated from Italy and Sicily. They were running from everyone’s favorite Mediterranean fascist Benito Mussolini.

My great grandfather had the foresight to see the situation wasn’t going to end well and picked up my grandparents and my great aunts and uncles and moved away. And they ended up in the US. My family still has all the documents from Ellis Island, New York. Which is crazy to think about. That was almost 100 years ago.

It wasn’t easy for them either. They were treated pretty badly. Not as badly as the Native Americans or African Americans. But the situation was still pretty bad. The stories my great aunts and uncles used to tell me were... pretty brutal. 

The racial slurs, the back-breaking, blue-collar work my great grandfather and grandfather had to do to make ends meet.

My great grandfather, I can vaguely remember him. He lived far into his 80s. He was missing three of his fingers on his left hand. One day, I asked him in broken, shaky Italian: “Cosa è successo alle tue dita?” (What happened to your fingers? I think that’s how you say it? It’s been a very long time...)

He explained to me, in broken English: “Henry Ford owns them! I lost them, making the cars for him!”

(And he had a few other choice words about Henry Ford, grandma whisked me away to the other room. If you look it up, he was quite the piece of shit. He wasn’t particularly fond of the Jewish community.)

After migrating, my family settled in Detroit. The auto industry was always looking for cheap labor back then. The working conditions were poor, and there was a multitude of industrial accidents that usually involved losing a limb. If you were really unlucky, your life.

Medical care was hard to come by, and well, my great grandfather was turned away when he asked for emergency medical care. Why? Immigrant, barely spoke any English and was dirt poor. He ended up doing odd jobs after that because he had a disadvantage, and the Great Depression was just starting up.

My grandfather had to pick up some of that slack at 8 years of age. He was apprenticed to a shoe cobbler and worked 10 hour days.

So, what’s the point of this tale, you may ask? Well, whenever Thanksgiving came around, my family always celebrated what we had. It was a day where we didn’t have to go to our menial jobs. We could get together and make a bunch of food and catch up with each other. And we were thankful that we were a family, and we had a roof over our head, and we had food. And we were thankful that we had each other.

We didn’t necessarily celebrate America, but the opportunities to live better lives or carve out a better life for future generations. We certainly didn’t celebrate the Pilgrims because fuck those hypocrites. They even turned on each other after a while. (See Salem Witch Trials.)

This post isn’t meant to invalidate how the indigenous peoples of America feel about the subject. They have a right to feel that way, 100% justified.

And Thanksgiving? The day off? It came at a terrible price. If removing the holiday would fix things? I’d give it up in a second, no questions asked. I just wanted to give a slightly different perspective on the subject. I think some other people too, are just using the day to be thankful for what they have.

Stay safe everyone!

[lavendette]

This might be kinda long, so I’ll put a keep reading, but there have been some major coincidences popping up in regards to my family history the past few months and I just want to get it all down somewhere.

We know quite a bit about the history on my dad’s side of the family. My paternal grandmother’s family fled Russia, walked through China (where they had my grandmother), and lived in a camp in the Philippines until they immegrated to San Fran when my grandmother was 14. My grandmother’s aunt wrote out the story of their survival in a book that was originally in Russian, but translated to English, and given to each member of the family. I have an English copy on my bedside table. Also on my bedside table is a book written by my fathers paternal uncle, my great uncle, which is filled with the diary entries of my uncle Jim growing up in Montana. It includes so many stories of their life, pictures of family and friends, and a family tree that goes back a few generations. Unlike the book from my grandmother’s side; which is a collection of photocopied typewriter pages, coil bound, with a clear plastic front and back protector/cover; my uncle Jim went full out and had the copies he sent out leather bound with the title “Montana Memories” in gold font across the cover and the spine of the book. I treasure both of these books dearly, hence why they are permanently on my nightstand, and have always known a fair bit about where we come from on my dad’s side because of these books.

On my mothers side however, we’ve never really known much. While my fathers parents families both saw the importance of keeping family records, my mothers family didn’t seem interested in the practice. My maternal grandparents had both passed quite sudently while I was young. When I would ask about my mothers heritage, I was told that she didn’t know much, and certainly not as much as we know about my fathers side. My maternal grandfather was always described as “White? English and maybe Scottish? I don’t know he’s just Canadian”, while my maternal grandmother’s heritage was abit trickier due to her being adopted. In the past year or so, my mother has been getting more and more interested in learning about her heritage and family, and that’s where the first coincidences start to take place.

When I was 17, I started university. I decided to go to university far away from home, and chose one that was a 7 hour drive from my childhood home. It was at university that I met my now husband, who grew up around 30-40mins from the university, in a town I’ll call C. For a year or so, we lived in his hometown, before finally graduating and moving on. This past October, after 7 years of dating, we got married. I’ve talked abit about it before, but we had a small ceremony with our immediate family in my husbands grandparents backyard, which is in another small town, which I’ll call A, located outside of C. My mother had found out that her father had been born in town A, and had relatives buried near by. After our wedding, we went out and looked for their headstones. The cemetery that my relatives were buried in was slightly outside of town A, in a beautiful area, with a big wrought iron gate and an old brick church, and was one that my husband and I had driven past too many times to count. This was a cemetery that I would ask to drive past when we went on country drives. This was a cemetery that I loved, that was 7 hours away from my family, that we were now finding out contained my family. This was such a strange and amazing coincidence, but it continued. We found my mothers paternal grandmother, her “Old Nana”, and then continued to find other relatives. While walking the cemetery, we stopped along the church to look at the oldest headstones in the yard, those belonging to the founders of the town, and the first settlers of the area. Low and behold there is that same last name. We leave the cemetery feeling so high - how unlikely is it that the town that my husband and I were married in the day before, where his grandparents reside, 7 hours away from my family home, could be settled - in part - by my direct ancestors? We continue on with our day, but I get the feeling that we need to look into it more. While driving to our next destination, I look up the name of the man from the headstone. A complete biography pops up, which includes the name of my mothers paternal grandmother as a decendent. This confirms that our wild conclusions are true, how amazing is that? And then I continue to read, and it goes even deeper. The biography includes the piece of land that this man and his family lived on and settled when the town was just beginning. It is on the exact same road that my husband and I were married on. The spot where my relatives lived after immigrating from Scotland to aide the start up of the textile industry in town A, was a few lots away from where my husbands paternal grandparents would move when they immegrated from England in the 80’s. After returning home, my mother also went on to find that her paternal grandparents had also been married in town A, and then had been sworn in in town C, where my husband grew up.

The most recent coincidence that has been uncovered is in regards to my mothers maternal side. My grandmother had been adopted at a young age, and had waited to learn about her biological family until after her adopted parents died. She was able to connect with a brother and a sister before she passed, and found out the name of her mother, but that was about it. For Christmas this year, my brother and sister paid for my mother to get a subscription to Ancestry.com, which she was very excited about. Today she finally found the papers with my grandmother’s biological mothers name, and decided to dive into some research. She found out that my grandmother was one of around 10 children. She found out that my grandmother’s mother had been married at least once. She found out the names of my grandmother’s maternal grandparents. And most interestingly, she found out the those maternal grandparents were wed in my childhood town, where my parents still live today. This is a town of maybe 200 people tops, a blip on the radar, a single flashing light town, a town that my parents chose to live in because it was half way between my fathers work and my mothers work 30+ years ago, and apparently a town in which my mothers biological greatgrandparents were wed. Another unbelievable coincidence.

How many stars had to align to create these coincidences? Were we subconsciously drawn to these places because of our ancestors? It all feels like a big cosmic joke, or a nod from the universe as if to say “See what I did there?”.

[in-tua-deep]

I have seen some fics of Five going to high school (and often falling in love with a 13 y/o oc girl which icks me tf out bc that’s an old man, guys) to socialize which gave me the idea of Five befriending old people who are also physically old. For example, Hannah, the German lady in her 80s who poisoned nazis when she was a child. Then there’s Joan who spent his life fighting to achieve his goals despite having to deal with near-constant racism. Just. Five getting along with all these old ppl

you’re RIGHT and consider: Klaus decides it’s a good idea to take Five along to his weekly ladies over fifty stitch ‘n bitch and is surprised and delighted to find that Five actually genuinely gets along with all of them

there is, of course, Hannah who poisoned Nazis and her and five trade poisoning methods the way other people might trade coveted family recipes. Hannah declares Five to be a “nice young man” and the fact that she is in her 80s or 90s means that she is absolutely allowed to get away with it

Fiona is a 60something butch lesbian who proudly displays her mugshots along the walls of her house for everyone to gaze upon in awe when it’s her turn to host. Her wife, Mandy, always makes snickerdoodle cookies and fondly talks about the time her and “Fee” got arrested because Fee kicked a cop in the balls or something. 

Doris was an army nurse during her youth and can curse well enough to make a sailor blush and has the bawdiest sense of humor to match. She spends most of her time knitting baby socks and hats to donate and volunteers at a community center where she sneaks food to any hungry teens who have all adopted her as their odd aunt.

Nada immigrated in her teens with her parents and has had to deal with Islamophobia her entire life. She wears a khimār that she knitted herself and laughs when Five genuinely offers to kill any assholes who harass her. Instead, she starts teaching him Arabic since her own grandchildren unfortunately do not speak it

Edith was trans before anybody even knew what that meant and she teaches Five patterns for interesting dresses and fancy sweaters since Five expresses some interest in diversifying his wardrobe (Five personally stands by the fact that skirts and dresses are the best because!! if you lift up front you have INSTANT POCKET/BAG which was very useful in the apocalypse!! of course now his family protest about him flashing underwear or whatever. Edith just introduces him to wearing leggings under and calls it a day)

Kathy killed her first husband and everyone knows it even if she was never convicted. She spends her days volunteering at centers for domestic violence and working with abused women and children. She tells Klaus and Five quite plainly that if Reginald were still alive she would kill him, and they laugh but they absolutely believe her. Five sincerely tells her he would kill her husband if he were still alive as well, and Kathy grins and winks and says she beat him to that one

and all the others. Sally who worked customer service her whole life and lived to tell the tale. Ruby who was widowed young and raised four kids by herself. Alice who is deaf and signs slowly because her parents thought she needed speech therapy to appear normal more than she needed an actual way to communicate. Becca was a teen during the civil rights movement and witnessed schools being desegregated, and is quick to remind everyone that it wasn’t as long ago as they think - she remembers the white kids jeering and the protests like it was yesterday. Susan’s husband died in the Vietnam war and she is very quiet when she finds out that he was in Klaus’s unit. 

A rotating cast of women with vibrant and brilliant and unique lives who parade through. Some are fixtures, some come when they’re able which isn’t often, some only pop in on the rare occasion when the planets align.

“Go get the salsa dip, Five.” Kathy orders.

“Why do I always have to fetch everything.” Five complains, even as he stands up.

“Because you can teleport.” Kathy says with a shrug, “If I could teleport then it would be me going to get the salsa, wouldn’t it?”

Five goes and gets the damn salsa.

One time a new woman is very confused and asks about Klaus and Five’s presence at the Women’s 50 and over knitting club (“It’s the stitch ‘n bitch,” Klaus mutters under his breath and is ignored) and everyone just kind of shrugs. 

“Women and nonbinary old person support and knitting group?” Edith suggests but everyone agrees that that’s a bit of a mouthful.

“But they’re too young?” The new woman asks again, helplessly.

“Actually Klaus fought with my husband in the Vietnam war.” Susan interjects cheerfully before Klaus can start his theatrics, passing the oatmeal raisin cookies to Hannah who is cackling delightedly, “And Five assassinated President Kennedy, I think.”

“Allegedly assassinated President Kennedy.” Five corrects with a flourish of his knitting needles as Kathy nods in approval. 

“Oh.” The new woman says, faintly. “Oh, I think I need to sit down.”

“Don’t worry, dear.” Sally comforts, “It’s only that family which doesn’t make sense. You can probably count on the rest of the world to be at least a little bit sensible.”

“I find it offensive that no one here thinks I’m not too young to be here.” Becca interjects and that sets everyone off laughing and falling over themselves to assure her that she’s as pretty as a picture and fresh as a daisy

i’m having a lot of fun with this as you might be able to tell. Just. Five and Klaus joining in old people things because Five IS old and Klaus fought in the vietnam war so you bet your ass he is demanding the senior citizen discount at restaurants

i feel like Agnes should join the group after her romantic tour of bird sanctuaries with Hazel. Hazel himself is not sure how to feel about Klaus and Five being in the same knitting club as his girlfriend but Agnes is clearly having fun and she makes homemade doughnuts for meetings which means the club isn’t letting go of her voluntarily anyway

AND THEN YEAH i always loved the concept of Klaus meeting up with some of the guys from his old unit and all of them just being kind of like “ah klaus you fucker i never actually took you seriously about the time travel shit i just thought you were on some serious drugs” and immediately just adopt klaus back into the fold

and i mean five is also a soldier in a low of ways so i feel like he would also really fit in with their gallows humor and serious knowledge of weapons. Of course, both Klaus and Five also look young enough to be their grandchildren so they also highkey just straight up adopt them and are fully willing to loom ominously at anyone who bothers them

the hargreeves go to pride and Klaus is like “oh I’m meeting up with some friends as well :)” and the others assume they’re like. party friends he made or ex boyfriends or something and then this big gang of old war vets materialize from the crowd decked out in rainbows bc they do this every year - originally in honor of Klaus and Dave but now klaus is again so Time To Party B)

Five “volunteers” in a nursing home and all the staff think he’s adorable and precocious but actually he complains about technology and reminisces about the great depression and beats the occupants at checkers as he and his opponent trade stories about which joint and bones they can feel storms coming in

just AGE APPROPRIATE FRIENDS

[humboldtfog]

Years of depression has prepared me very well for the current state of affairs which is weird but whatever here’s a list of my faves on netflix, if I’m missing something let me know cause now’s the time, right?

I'm kinda embarrassed by how long this list is but also kinda like fuck that, there have been very long periods of time where it was either sit and watch shows all day or lie down and stare at the wall in silence all day so I chose the former and it adds up and there's nothing wrong with that.

Glow (Badass ladies learn to wrestle, great 80s aesthetics and grrrrl power.)

Our Planet (Netflix version of Planet Earth, beautiful, cute, terrifying that we aren’t doing more to save us all.)

Bojack Horseman (Hilarious and “deep” critique of LA and celebrity culture for people who don’t care about LA or celebrity culture. Also very funny visual jokes about how if animals were also kinda humans, and lots of great jokes about cliches and tropes, puns, and weirdly rhyming and alliteration? I don’t know how to explain it just watch it.)

Father Brown (BBC, based on mystery novels about a priest who always meddles in police business and solves murders in his small English countryside town.)

Pose (The Ball scene in NY in the 80s, poc queer and trans writers and actors bringing their people’s stories to life. So much joy, so much beauty, but also NYC in the 80s so you will cry.)

Paris is Burning (Documentary made during the Ball scene Pose is based on.)

Sex Education (Such empowering representations of all walks of gender and sexuality, and actually very educational, like I would straight up show this in schools because everyone would be very entertained and would learn a lot more than they teach in a lot of schools.)

What Happened Miss Simone (Documentary about Nina Simone’s life, music and the activism the establishment/ government worked to suppress and used to blacklist her.)

Night on Earth (Low light camera technology has gotten hella good and they’re starting to learn stuff about animals’ behaviors at night that they’ve never been able to study before.)

Call the Midwife (Follows stories from the midwives that worked in the East End of London after the war, based on memoirs. Interesting look at the kind of life of poverty people led before there were many large hospitals or birth control, right as the British were implementing their universal healthcare program.)

The Great British Baking Show (Everyone’s so nice and everything looks so good!)

Atypical (Dramady about a high schooler with autism and his family, very funny and great representations of autism and how to be a good dude.)

Parks and Recreation (Just very funny and everyone knows it. Amazing ensemble cast, and they still keeps in touch through a group chat awww doesn’t that say something!)

Kim’s Convenience (Canadian comedy about family of first and second gen Korean immigrants that’s just a really solid funny modern day sitcom.)

Queer Eye (I feel like if everyone in this world could get a life makeover from these guys we just wouldn’t be here right now.)

Obvious Child (Jenny Slate accidentally gets pregnant and gets an abortion. It’s funny and it’s realistic, we’re not all Juno.)

Maria Bamford: the Special Special Special (Rad lady comedian not afraid to talk about her mental health and lack thereof and very vocal about the stigma surrounding mental health problems and I very much relate to. My favorite standup probably ever. I could make a list just for standup so message me if you’d like more suggestions.)

Monty Python (Flying Circus, movies, doc, ect. “The Beatles of comedy” is the cliche but it's true.)

Easy (Very unconventional non-narrative structure and editing, following random people in Chicago in a very real life feeling way. Different story each episode, but sometimes characters show up briefly in each other’s lives or return for a second episode.)

Everything Sucks! (High school nerds and lesbians and theater geeks in the 90s! I’m so sad this only got one season I rewatched it recently and it’s just so solid.)

She’s Gotta Have It (Revival of Spike Lee’s first movie, black girl magic, art world, gentrified New York, lots of sex.)

The Office (Classic, holds up very well, totally solid throughout, worth a rewatch. Also if you're a fan Jenna Ficher and Angela Davis are doing a rewatch podcast jsyk.)

Billy on the Street (Mindless game show for laughs, amazing gay comedian runs around New York yelling questions at them. I watch this with my dad and he can’t help but snort even when it’s “inappropriate” or “juvenile” so you know it’s good.)

Good Girls (Some lower middle class family ladies that are all about to be broke decide to rob the grocery store one of them works at, but they accidentally cross a gang that stored their cash there, so they gotta pay it back, and of course can’t help but get deeper and deeper into it. Very suspenseful like your heart rate will go up and stay up. )

Arrested Development (It’s just funny, as you've probably heard, but I'm telling you it just really is.)

The Laundromat (Tells the stories of a few of the people involved in the panama papers in different ways, explains in an entertaining way how money laundering works in a way that made it mostly make sense even to me. The rich get richer, and Meryl Streep is here to tell them to fuck off and pay their taxes.)

Russian Doll (She keeps dying and coming back to the same moment over and over and can’t figure out how to stop the cycle or why so kinda sci fi, very suspenseful, big cliff hanger ending, or rather no ending, and just found out season two filming is delayed because virus which is very annoying!!)

Dear White People (Show picking up where the movie left off, after a frat hosts a black face party and the ivy league college is forced to deal with racism.)

Dolly Parton’s Heartstrings (Stories based on Dolly songs. Very Hallmark channel, you will cry.)

Episodes (Show about two British writers making a version of their BBC show for American tv. Kind of meta, very funny, Matt LaBlanc plays himself and it's great.)

Dumplin’ (Fat girl grows up with a beauty pageant winning mom and enters one herself with the help of her late aunt’s Dolly Parton drag queen friends.)

Lunatics (Chris Lilley is the best character actor ever, all his shows are just him playing different parts and you seriously forget it’s all one actor, even when he’s playing teenage girls.)

Jane the Virgin (Prime time soap opera about a girl who is engaged and waiting until marrige and is accidentally inseminated with the only sperm sample of a man who’s had cancer so decides to keep the baby, very heavy on the soap opera cliches in a meta way but also that’s what it is. So good at first but after the first three or so seasons it gets too much tbh though.)

Zumbo’s Just Desserts (Australian Bake show but with just sweet stuff and pressure to be avant garde.)

Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee (Jerry Sienfeld goes out with funny people to coffee and lunch in fancy cars and they have funny conversations.)

One Day at a Time (Very very cheesy laugh track sitcom, like the kind of thing my grandma would watch, but it makes me so happy it’s doing a great job eplaining really woke concepts like queer pronouns and ptsd and addiction and white privilege to people like my grandma!)

Orange is the New Black (Good stories about very diverse characters, I’d say by starting it off about a upper middle class white girl it tricks privileged white people into watching and then encountering the more realistic stories of women who go to prison and how the system treats prisoners. Ending of season two is super solid and you can stop it there, season three is a really great critique of the privatization of prisons. I admit it goes on and on to the point that it’s stressful and after watching it spread out over years I can’t remember/ keep up with all the different story lines, though they’re all good stories to tell.)

Space Jam (Just saw while scrolling for more ideas this was added! One of the greatest sports movies of all time obviously.)

Bonus amazon prime shows, I try to avoid Amazon in general but these are just too good if you know a prime member who you can't convince not to give their money to amazon so they might as well give you their login (like yer dad).

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (A 1950s New York upper class Jewish house wife gets dumped and starts doing stand up, so funny, great actors, and they seriously transform NY back into another era.)

Good Omens (Mini series based off Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman’s satirical novel about the biblical apocalypse, very funny, very smart, very British, does the book pretty solid justice.)

There are other decent things that aren’t included, I’d say these are solid recs for a general list of genres all over the map without letting it get to a ridiculously unhelpful length. I feel like I’d be good at the “if you like this then you’ll also like…” so let me know if some of these are your favorites too and want personal recs for what to watch next based on a brain instead of an algorithm.

If you want to have a remote date and watch things together on video chat or one of those watch party sites or just tell me what to watch next here’s some stuff on my list I’ve been curious about or not sure about or don’t want to watch alone or have been putting off, and now’s the time right?: Strangers Things, I Am Not Okay With This, Black Panther, The Betty White doc, John Mulaney Snack Lunch Bunch, Dead to Me, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, A Wrinkle in Time, The Little Prince, Maniac, Wet Hot American Summer reboots, and a bunch of different standup specials from comedians I like.

[crtter]

An historical fact about Brazil is that, after slavery was fully abolished in the 19th century, the government did its best to encourage immigration, especially of poor folks, for the cheap labor. From 1877 to 1903, we had almost 80 000 people arriving in Brazil per year. These numbers wouldn’t get considerably smaller until after 1930.

I myself am a direct product of this immigration policy! I’m 100% descended from people who arrived in Brazil for labor from both sides of my family. A fun fact about me is that my mom was the youngest child of three with a big gap between the second child and her (my aunts are respectively 15 and 12 years older than her) so it just so happens that my great grandmother was literally one of the Italian immigrants who arrived here in the 19th century by boat. She was born in the late 1800s!

[howardschatzphotography]

On Seeing, A Journal. #279 Above and Beyond: Indra Nooyi, CEO, Pepsico November 6th, 2018

Indra Nooyi is consistently ranked among the world’s 100 most powerful women. She served as chairman of PepsiCo, the global food and beverage giant, and for 12 years, between 2006 an 2018, was that company’s CEO.  When I was looking for exceptional people for my “Above and Beyond” project, she was an obvious choice.

Nooyi is an immigrant from India who received bachelor’s degrees in Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics from the University of Madras in 1974, and a graduate degree from Indian Institute of Management in Calcutta in 1976. In 1978 she was admitted to the Yale School of Management, where she earned a master's degree in public and private management in 1980.

After joining PepsiCo in 1994 she was named CFO in 2001, and then president and CEO in 2006. She left these positions in August of this year.

HS: You're an immigrant. You brought to this country treasures, the treasures of your intellect, your skill, your ability to work hard. You’ve had a meaningful effect on the lives of tens of thousands of people. I wonder how you feel about our current issues with immigration.

IN: I came into the country in 1978, and I came in legally. I was a skilled immigrant and I followed the rules. I enjoyed all the benefits that this country gave me in terms of welcoming immigrants, celebrating them, the meritocracy that the country was. So I'm an immigrant, a product of a well-established system. I think today we have both kinds of immigrants. We have those skilled immigrants, then we have people fleeing persecution.

HS: If you were the President of the United States what would you do about immigration?

IN: I would have to sit down and have a bipartisan group talking about what should be an immigration framework going forward and not have any sort of hard opinions right now. I’d really want to debate the best way to handle people fleeing persecution. People just coming into the country because it’s the land of opportunity, versus the need for certain skilled people because we need to have a country that’s encouraging of innovation, welcomes people who can advance the agenda of the country.

HS: You’ve made a comment, "Companies don’t run on spreadsheets." Can you explain?

That’s not the way you look at a company. It's not looking at a certain index or a certain relative number and then saying this is what your numbers should be. It's really understanding what the company is trying to do. As sales go up, for example, let's say our sales went up from $35 billion to $60 billion over eight or ten years; R&D as a percentage of sales might actually come down, even though the dollar amount goes up significantly.

So I think behind every number there's a story, and very often people look at it as a two dimensional model when there's really three and four dimensions to understand the complexity of a corporation and all the levels that have to be tweaked. The spreadsheet is a starting point, but it is not the end of the story, and that’s my biggest concern with the way companies are analyzed today.

HS: Business decisions are, in a way, educated gambles. I look at courage as not the absence of fear, but the capacity to act despite our fears. You have to make decisions based on your ability to predict the future as accurately as you possibly can, but nobody can predict the future.

There are CEOs who have made informed decisions that have ruined companies. How do you make big decisions knowing that there are negative consequences that can occur that you hadn't counted on?

IN: As a CEO, you're making decisions multiple times a day, or ratifying somebody’s decision. And you’re always betting the company's dollars when you make a decision. Typically, you do your data analysis, get all the data, look at it and make a decision. I actually think looking at the data is just one part of decision making.

Decision making is part data, part walking around and getting a gut feel for the market, for the consumer. Then it's instinct; sometimes the data says one thing, but your instincts scream something different, and how you tumble all these three, along with the company’s ability to implement. You put the four together, you then make a decision, and you do that so many times you sort of develop a sixth sense.

Now, will you make mistakes? Absolutely. What you hope for is that your hit rate improves over time.  That’s the best you can do. You know, as a new CEO your hit rate may be a little bit better than 50. As you become a seasoned CEO, the hope is that you’ve been through the tough processes multiple times, and your hit rate starts to go up to 70 or 80. If your hit rate is always 100, then you’re really not taking chances. You’ve got to give yourself some room for error and failure.

HS: Do you have to develop a hard edge for the decisions that don’t work out? Do you have to have  a thicker skin?

IN: Externally, yes. You know, when you’re in front of everybody else you do have to have a thick skin, and you’ve got to make the decisions that may not work out. But when you shut the door and sit in your office, I think most CEOs have a thin skin. I do. I shut the door and then I agonize over decisions that didn't pan out, because nobody wants to bet the company’s money on something that didn't work out. But externally you say, okay, guys, we gave it a good shot, it didn’t work, let’s move on.

HS: You seem to have a genius for not having emotions that affect the result of your instinct, that your instinct seems to be rather crystal clear.

IN: I wish I could feel that way.  Instinct is not something that is just touchy feely. Instinct is also something that you should be able to rationalize, because when you feel something, you can't just say I feel this, therefore, let me go do it.

You marry your instincts  with data and observation. You’re rolling the dice on a lot of dollars, so the instinct that you have is based on past experiences, reliving past failures, all of that together creates a gut and a fear inside you that you want to tap into as a positive force, rather than a negative force that holds you back.

What happens is every time I have to use my instinct to make a decision, I have to justify it to a lot of people, because sometimes people come to me and say, Here's the data, this is what it shows, we've got to do this. And I say, you know what, it doesn’t feel right, let me tell you why it doesn't feel right. Then I have to talk about disparate experiences and observations, and why together they create a fear in the pit of my stomach, and why I think we ought not to go that way.

HS: You’ve been the CEO of PepsiCo for 12 years.

How have you changed?

IN: I’ve matured in so many dimensions. I have a bigger experience base when it comes to assessing people.

I’ve now got a wider-angle lens on the world, on different companies, on different industries. And over time I just have more data and more data points that I can draw from and I can connect. There are more people I can call. There are more failures I can draw from, more successes I can draw from. I think, really, what’s happened is over time I find myself drawing on a lot of those experiences a lot more.

Now, the worst thing I can do is to say we tried this ten years ago, so we’re not going to try it. That’s the worst thing anybody can do, so I’m trying my best not to do that. If somebody comes to me with an idea that we tried ten years ago and it didn’t work, but they want to try it again, I say, good, let’s give it a shot. Let’s talk through why it didn’t work then, why we think it’s going to work now. You know, what’s changed in the world? What’s changed in consumer taste?

HS: I've heard a few times that CEOs are “powerless."

IN: Interestingly people think CEOs are all powerful, they just have to make a decision and go for it and the whole organization follows. Not true. You’ve got to make a decision. You’ve got to declare the decision, then you've got to work the organization, top to bottom, to sell it.

HS: Another quote that I love very much, "Business cannot exist independent from society."

IN: Very true. That’s something that I feel very strongly about. You know, businesses are large entities that employ people and change societies in many ways.

Every company operates within a country, a community and employs a lot of people who are mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles. We have to recognize that we have to be a positive force in every society.

We have to make sure that all the employees that come to work for us in the company feel great about coming to work, so that they bring their whole self to work. And the only way they’ll do it is because they can go home and say, I work for a company that’s doing something good for society.

HS: Do you think being a woman is behind that idea? Because women tend to be caregivers, and you're caring about society and how your company affects it and is affected in it?

IN: I don’t know if it's a female/male issue alone or it's because I was born in an emerging market where I saw both the benefits and the negatives of big companies on society. And informed by my travels around the world, where I watched how people interacted with products. I think I was more informed by an incredible world view, perhaps tempered with some emotion. I think the people side might have been more tempered with my emotion, which may have been driven by the fact that I'm a woman, I don’t know. I don’t know what it's like to be a man, so from my perspective, this is all I know.

HS: You gave a talk at UCLA and you learned about the school’s great basketball coach John Wooden, who spoke about "leading a better life." How do you lead a better life?

IN: My first responsibility is to my family. My daughters, 33 and 35. My husband, my mother, who is alive, my extended family, my first responsibility is to them because I'm the only mum they have, I'm the only wife my husband has. We've been married 38 years. I try to be a better mum and a better wife and a better daughter all the time. I’m not sure I’m successful, but I try my best. But my CEO job is an awesome responsibility and it consumes you. Even though I say my family comes first, the CEO job absolutely consumes you.

HS: What is your future?

IN: I don’t know. I know I want to do something different. I want to advance this whole discussion about how do we create a society where we allow people to have a life and make a living. What kind of protections do we need to give them? What does society have to do for them? What do governments have to do? What do companies have to do? I'd like to develop a framework and talk about it in a sensible way, not just talk about the problem, but talk about sensible solutions.

[deanhobbyinfo]

When filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich (Paper Moon, The Last Picture Show) died two days ago it was strange to see the local press claim him as a “Kingston native.” A little skeptical and blessed with a snow day, I slid around town investigating PB’s connection to our city.

Bogdanovich lived in Kingston… for the first year of his life. His parents Borislav Bogdanovich (Serbian) and Herma Robinson Bogdanovich (Austrian) fled the former Yugoslavia in 1939. That same year, Peter was born in Kingston. The family lived with Herma’s father, mother, and three siblings at 314 Main Street. The first three pictures show the house in the 1950s, late 80s, and today. The 1940 census lists baby Peter at the address along with his Austrian relatives. A Freeman article confirms they all arrived in America the same year and other sources suggest Borislav helped his wife’s Jewish family flee. But why would they land in a Kingston duplex? In November 1939, Peter’s young aunts and uncle got some press. The Freeman profiled six recent European immigrants now attending city schools. The Robinson sisters enrolled at Kingston High and 11-year-old John attended School No. 7 on Crown Street. The article mentions their father’s brother Conrad lives in town. It turns out great-uncle Conrad’s the reason Peter Bogdanovich boarded this mortal coil in Kingston.

Conrad immigrated two decades before his brother. He’s listed as a jeweler at 47 N Front Street on his 1917 draft card. By the late 1920s he’d moved to the Uptown pocket off Mountainview Ave and ventured into filling stations and heating oil. Conrad’s 1976 obituary notes he was “instrumental in bringing many refugees to safety” during World War II. At City Hall (where I got the first two photos), Kathy from the Assessor’s Office found an old deed showing Conrad owned the Main Street house, definitively explaining why Herma Bogdanovich’s whole family temporarily stayed at the address. Conrad and his wife Helen are buried at Montrepose Cemetery. Obviously, I tramped through the snow to Temple Emanuel’s plots and paid my respects to the man responsible for making Kingston Peter Bogdanovich’s hometown.