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thecaffeinebookwarrior · 4 years ago

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Monster of the Week: A Writer’s Guide to Vampires!

The Basics: Vampires From Around the World

Almost every culture has its vampires, and they go way beyond Dracula and Nosferatu.

There are obviously too many to include in one post, so here are a few especially unique vamps to get you inspired and interested in learning more!

The Penanggalan, Malaysia - Literally meaning ‘to detach,’ the Penanggalan is an exclusively (apparently) female creature.

By day, she masquerades as a normal woman (and let’s be real, don’t we all.) But by night, her head detaches from her body and floats around, entrails hanging like tentacles -- which they nightmarishly use to entangle their victims -- and preys on pregnant woman and babies. Lovely.

Creepily, the Penanggalan gravitates towards day jobs such as midwifery, so she can get closer to her prospective prey.

The Manananggal, Philippines - Much like the Penanggalan, the Manananggal has an unfortunate habit of detaching parts of her body to fly around. Described as an “ugly, hideous woman” (mood), the Manananggal can detatch her whole-ass torso to fly around like a bat.

Like the Penanggalan, she preys on pregnant woman and unborn babies, with, creepily, her incredibly long tongue. Some, however, prefer to seduce and prey on men -- preferable, to be honest -- in which case they appear young and beautiful.

The Upir, Eastern Europe - Ukrainian, Belarusian, Russian, Romanian, and Czech cultures all have mythos around this abnormally bloodthirsty vampire. Not only do upirs drink the blood of their victims, but they bath and sleep in it. They eat the flesh of their victims as well, and are especially partial to the heart. In a uniquely sadistic detail, the Upir is thought to consume the children of a family and then the parents.

The Alukah, Judaism - Literally meaning “horse-leach,” the Alukah is one of the earliest vampires, originating in the Bible.

A fixture of Jewish folklore, and sometimes described as a demon or witch, the Alukah is unique in the fact that she is not undead but a living, shapeshifting being (according to the description in Sefer Hasidim.)

She can fly by unfurling her long hair.

The Brahmaparusha, India - This nightmarishly extra vampire will drink the drained blood of its victims from a skull (which it carries around at all times), before noshing on their brains and wearing their intestines as necklaces and crowns. Worst of all, this vampire has an unusually ravenous appetite, and consumes several victims per night.

The Callicantzaros, Greece - In Greece, children born between Christmas and Twelfth Night were thought to be bad luck (?) and susceptible to vampirism. The Callicantzaros was considered to be egregiously unpleasant, equipped with devilish talons with which to tear victims to shreds. Their first victims, post-transformation, were supposed to be their own siblings.

Unfortunately, this led to a degree of mistreatment and hostility towards children born during this period, as parents watched for signs of their progeny’s prospective vampirism. In order to ensure that they didn’t become Callicantzaros, the children’s feet were dangled above a fire, like a reverse Achilles.

Vampire weaknesses:

Garlic - This one’s not just particular to Western mythos. Southeast and far Eastern vamps like the Manananggal are also vulnerable to garlic.

Salt - The Manananggal is vulnerable to salt, as are vampires from most cultures in which salt is considered holy or purifying.

Silver - A holy metal. The origin of the “vampires can’t see themselves in mirrors” myth is because it used to be a component in mirror-making.

Vinegar - Again with the Manananggal.

Daggers/stakes/sharp objects - Especially through the vampire’s heart. In many cultures, burning the heart is also advisable. Be careful, though: sometimes, staking an upir will only bring them back to life stronger.

Dismemberment and fire - Most vamps are susceptible to this, including the Penanggalan. The only sure way to kill an upir is to decapitate them and burn the remains.

Counting - Much like the Count of Sesame Street, vamps can’t resist counting things. If you scatter some small, countable objects on the ground, the vampire will have to stop and count each one.

The tails of stingrays - in the case of the Manananggal.

Sunlight - Obviously. Though not universal, this pops up in vampire mythology around the world, including the Manananggal.

Detachment - when the Penanggalan and Manananggal detach their heads and torsos, their discarded torsos and lower bodies are vulnerable. In the case of the Manananggal, sprinkling the discarded legs with garlic and salt. The Mananggal will not be able to return to its lower body, and will perish with the rising sun.

Starvation - The Alukah can be starved if she’s prevented from eating for long enough.

Stupidity - In the case of the Penanggalan. If you turn the Penanggalan’s body upside down, she’ll re-attach backwards. I’m not sure what the purpose of this is, except the exhilaration of punking a vampire and making them walk around on their hands all day like a jackass.

Protection:

Thorns around windows - Thorns will keep the Penanggalan from harassing you or your unborn children.

Strings of garlic - Just make sure SOME IDIOT doesn’t take them down (RIP Lucy from Dracula.)

Pots of uncooked rice, ash, or salt - Repellent to the Manananggal.

Running away and hiding - Basically the only method of recourse against the Brahmaparasha.

Eating bread infused with an upir’s blood - Sounds kinky, to be honest.

Stay on sacred ground - I.e. graveyards and churches. Just be sure you’re not trying to avoid the kind of vampire that dwells in graveyards if you go for the latter.

Holy water, crucifixes, silver, et cetera - Anything sacred or holy. Varies based on culture.

Imbibing the ash of a supposed vampire’s burnt heart - I’m not even going to joke about this one, since people actually did this during the vampire scare of New England (my homeland.) I learned about it from a book about local vampire encounters at the Newport Public Library at age twelve, and it scarred me.

Dangle your baby above a fire - Actually, no, PLEASE don’t do that. But that’s what seventeenth century Greeks did to prevent their kids from turning into Callicantzaros.

Age of consent laws - Specifically for Edward from Twilight.

Don’t get a welcoming mat - Counts as inviting them in. Duh.

Ways to Become A Vampire:*

*Ask your doctor if becoming a vampire is right for you.

Biting - Obviously. Though if you read Dracula and early accounts of vampirism, it was more of a slowly progressing illness than a sudden transformation.

Reject Christianity - In the case of upirs. More specifically, the church buried non-believers outside of graveyards, leading them to rise as servants of the Devil. Honestly, I feel like the church kind of brought that on themselves.

Be born between Christmas and Twelfth Night - At least if you’re in seventeenth century Greece.

Be influenced by the Devil while dying - Another version of the Upir origin.

Be a demon possessing a corpse - One prospective explanation for the Brahmaparusha.

Making a pact to obtain eternal youth and beauty that involves not eating meat for 40 days and then breaking it like some kind of an IDIOT - One version of the Penanggalan origin myth. I shouldn’t judge, my self-control isn’t great either.

Get startled by a man while meditating in a bath and jerk your head so hard that it flies off and at the interloper in fury - Another prospective version of the Pennangalan origin. Relatable, honestly.

Be so bitter and jealous of couples that you go on an insane killing spree of pregnant woman and get publicly executed by being ripped in two - The Pennangalan, again. She makes the Kardashians look tame.

Chanting an incantation, anointing yourself with oil, and purchasing a black chick - In the case of the Manananggal. The black chick reportedly lives inside the Manananggal, eating its innards while also acting as its life source. Honestly, after all the drama of the Penanggalan’s origins, this seems reasonable.

Other Sources

Video Essays:

The Power of the Vampire Myth - A superb sociological dive into the cultural significance of vampires. From the post WWI antisemitism of Nosferatu to their ability to subvert the Hays Code, vampires tend to reflect the shadows of every society.

Dracula: A Brief History of Eternity

CREEPIEST Vampire Legends from Around the World

Vampires: Folklore, Fantasy, and Fact

How did Dracula become the world’s most famous vampire?

Vlad the Impaler: The Real Life Dracula

Influential Vampire Fiction:*

*That I’ve read/seen so far.

Dracula - Duh. The greatest adaptation of which is, obviously, Dracula: Dead and Loving it.

Nosferatu - It’s good to be aware of its antisemetic overtones, but it’s still revolutionary at evoking dread.

Varney the Vampire - A penny dreadful series that helped popularize vampires in Victorian England. It gets bonus points for sounding like a children’s show.

Camilla - The ORIGINAL lesbian vampire, predating Dracula by decades. Became an adorable webseries and movie, which I recommend even more than the original novel.

‘Salem’s Lot - Serves as a study of what makes vampires scary in the modern era.

Underworld - Aside from serving as a badass alternative in the Twilight era, it merits inclusion exclusively for causing my Sapphic awakening at age twelve.

What We Do In the Shadows - Has a unique understanding of the cultural significance of vampires, and why they appeal to societal misfits. Also has vampire “children” who eat p*dophiles.

Vampires in the Lemon Grove - The titular story is one of the most unique interpretations of vampires that I’ve seen in the modern era. Beautiful language that evokes a powerful emotional response.

Twilight - Exclusively because it gave us Rosemary clocking shop in a wedding gown. And the baseball scene.

Nonfiction:

The Encyclopedia of Vampires, Werewolves, and Other Monsters

From Demons to Dracula: The Creation of the Modern Vampire Myth

Vampires and Vampirism: Legends from Around the World

New Orleans Vampires: History and Legend

Mummies, Cannibals, and Vampires: The History of Corpse Medicine

A History of Vampires in New England

Happy Halloween, and happy writing, everybody!

#creature feature #halloween #halloween 2020 #vampires #mythology #writing resources #writing advice #legends #folklore #gifs for ts

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thetidemice · 3 years ago

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since i havent put this on tumblr yet, i propose the nichest crossover i have ever made:

paper girls and bbc ghosts. if u dont know the premise for ghosts, basically erin moves into a big old house the same way as alison did blah blah mysterious family death inheritance etc. possibly with missy, because it's fun to have someone in the house who cant see ghosts (sorry mike). so they're just trying to fix the fucked up old falling apart house, there are builders round, etc, until one day, oh no! she gets shot in the stomach in a mugging or an accident or something (except she doesnt get healed by bugs this time it's just the hospital). she spends some time in hospital while the ghosts continue to try and hopelessly scare missy out of the house. in the accident, erin dies for a moment - but the doctors manage to bring her back to life before she's actually gone, and she heals up pretty well. on the car ride home, she notices some oddly dressed people.

when she gets inside, honestly wanting to lie down (except there are builders everywhere trying to do something about the ceiling beams or whatever), there's a young woman, possibly a trainee, who should be wearing a hard hat. she tells her to put one on, and goes on with her day.

oh fuck, oh no, it was a ghost. that ghost just reported back to the other ghosts that she saw me she spoke to me!! and now the others are here and oh my god that one just walked through a wall and that ones got blood all down their shirt and oh my god i'm going insane.

anyway etc etc, the first 2 episodes of ghosts except its paper girls. there are 9 ghosts in the show, and obviously i'm going to have mac, tiff, and kj, but i could put in characters like wari and qanta to make it more interesting? the 3 main ghost girls all died when they were about teenagers just to keep it less confusing (i know that's sad)

mac is a paperboy from the 40s or 50s. she dresses as a boy so she could get the job, with short ginger hair and a jacket. she has an irish accent in this, mostly because that's cool, and also because her family moved from ireland to wherever the house is, probably america?? but i also want it to be england bc i know pg isnt set there but i know more about english history #sorry. it could just be ambiguous but england has some funky ghost ideas. ANYWAY still deciding if she dies from cancer or not i think probably but that makes it difficult for her to have died in a massive house like that (bc you stay wherever you die)?? bc she'd have probably died in her own home?? idk im thinking

tiffany is a lineworker (for telephone poles and stuff) from the 1890s who got electrocuted on the job (@/goatgeminipearl on twitter had the electrocution idea). she's wearing her uniform, jumpsuit and hat with lots of hooks and tools and harnesses and stuff attached to her belt, and big old safety gloves. her hair is tied back and she looks a little charred. i have some ideas for her ghostly powers! when erin arrives and installs a tv, she has no idea what the monitor does but sees the plugs like oh! i know what these cables do! and suddenly finds out she can appear through the wires in the tv screen, horror-movie style. kj screams. she could jumpscare people if she wanted. you feel that lightning storm sensation whenever she's near, and you feel static shocks if you accidentally pass through her

kj i'm not quite settled on. em on twitter had that one idea about a victorian au where kj is an aristocrat who hates being an aristocrat and she plans to run away with mac and it's cute as fuck, so that's an option. i really cannot decide on her death. she has the vibes of a really shakespearean death, like a poisoning or stabbing out of revenge. maybe she didnt want to marry some guy, or got assassinated just because of beef between families. i think she died in her room, and appears in her victorian pjs or something, being able to be seen in mirrors. or, to flip it completely, she was trying to kill someone else, like how she killed one of the three men in the comic, except maybe his friends got back at her this time. i like to think she was getting justice, or doing it to protect someone. maybe she had a secret gay thing going on like captain did, and when someone hurt the girl she loved, she sought revenge

anyway holy shit i wrote a lot sorry to anyone who went through the trouble of reading it all i love you. please please if you have any more ideas let me know!! i'm way too excited about this mwah

#paper girls #image comics #mackenzie coyle #kj brandman #erin tieng #tiffany quilkin #mac coyle #bbc ghosts #papergirls au

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simonfarnabyslegs · 3 years ago

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please tell us about your ghosts ocs!!

!!!!! so i have a uquiz i made a few weeks back that includes some of them, but the summaries at the end aren't completely detailed. i may update it to include the others.

i thought i had ten, but i actually only have 9 in all. they are:

marcus

period: roman

age: 40s

occupation: military guard

cause of death: stabbed by an intruder

summary: he's basically an ancient roman himbo. he's not very smart and was way too nice for his job. at button house, he spends most of his time outside or on one of the lower floors, but sometimes ventures upstairs to spend time with the other ghosts. the captain may or may not have a crush on him, kitty definitely has a crush on him, and mary Does Not Understand why, and makes sure to voice this opinion often.

outfit/appearance: dressed in a roman soldier's uniform with a stab wound at his neck near his collarbone.

face claim: either simon or jim. i keep flipflopping back and forth for various comedic reasons.

ingrid

period: viking age

age: 30s

occupation: farmer, previously a warrior

cause of death: poisoned by a neighbour over a land dispute

summary: ingrid is fairly intimidating as a result of her tall stature and slightly grumpy personality. her husband arne haunted button house alongside her for a while but moved on sometime during kitty's childhood. since then, she has been somewhat reclusive, keeping to herself and only leaving her room to venture out into the woods near the house on certain nights (mary suspects it's for some witchy ritual or other, but really she's just going to visit the places where she and her husband and children were buried). despite her reclusiveness, she is good friends with humphrey and she likes to play games and sing songs with jemima sometimes. julian once tried to flirt with her and she gave him such a look that he's still terrified of her to this day.

outfit/appearance: ingrid wears a long, brown dress with a golden yellow pattern embroidered down the front and at the hem of her sleeves. she wears black eye makeup and her hair is long and hangs loose, with a few small braids throughout, tied off at the ends with little glass and metal beads. she wears several bracelets and rings. she shows no outward signs of her death except for a bloody splatter on the inside of her left elbow.

face claim: ragga ragnars

arne

period: viking age

age: 30s

occupation: farmer

cause of death: poisoned by a neighbour over a land dispute

summary: ingrid's husband who died at the same time as her and who haunted button house for a few hundred years before moving on some time during kitty's childhood. none of the later ghosts know much about him other than that robin thought he was funny and his moving on is what caused ingrid to separate herself from the rest of the ghosts.

appearance: i haven't really decided yet since in the stuff i'm writing, he's only ever mentioned briefly by robin and mary and has never actually made an appearance. maybe some blood in his beard or on his shirt, like with ingrid.

face claim: again, haven't decided.

virginia, or "ginny"

period: early stuart

age: 40s

occupation: noblewoman

cause of death: smothered in her sleep with a pillow

summary: ginny is humphrey's niece who inherited the house after his death. she never knew him in life and thought poorly of him because of the supposed circumstances of his death. when she met him shortly after her death, she still didn't like him, but eventually decided he wasn't as bad as she thought he would be and is friends with him now. she likes listening to his stories while they sit or go for walks in the garden. fanny suspects ginny's husband was the one who killed her, but robin, who was downstairs when it happened, says he saw one of the maids going upstairs after everyone else had gone to bed and then coming back down a short while later.

appearance: she died while she was asleep, so she wears a long, white smock or nightgown and her hair hangs loose and is not styled.

face claim: alice lowe

peter

period: late victorian

age: 40s

occupation: groom and horse trainer

cause of death: dragged and trampled by a spooked horse

summary: peter worked at the house during george's youth and the early years of his marriage to fanny. he was killed sometime in the 1890s when one of the stable boys purposefully spooked a horse he was exercising. he and fanny knew each other distantly in life as they had several years in common at the house, but they were never really close in life as she was the wife of his employer. peter is irish and working class, so he and fanny don't really have very much in common at all, but they do get along fairly well as ghosts (though not as well as fanny and the captain).

appearance/outfit: a white button-down with the sleeves rolled up, a black waistcoat, and black-and-grey plaid pants, dirty from being dragged through the horses' exercise track.

face claim: andrew scott

lizzie

period: 1920s

age: 20s

occupation: maid

cause of death: tripped going down the stairs to the basement

summary: lizzie was a maid who worked at the house in the 1920s. one evening, near the end of her shift, she was going down to the basement to retrieve some clean sheets from the laundry room when she tripped and fell, hitting her head. the plague ghosts were the first to welcome her, and while she was frightened at first and they backed off, a couple of them decided to stay with her and try to help her understand what had happened. she still didn't believe it, even when another maid came downstairs and discovered her body and she watched as it was taken away. she only ventured upstairs a few times over the next couple of decades while the people she knew and worked with were still in the house because it made her sad to see them, but eventually made her way upstairs to stay. she was friends with mary and annie (until annie got sucked off).

appearance/outfit: medium height, straight reddish hair tied back in a bun, black maid's dress.

face claim: saoirse ronan

ron

period: 1930s

age: 30s

occupation: musician

cause of death: electrocution

summary: ron was the cousin of the wife of the lord who owned the house. he was also a musician and was invited to provide entertainment at a party hosted at the house. however, he was electrocuted while helping set up some of the sound equipment (which may or may not be robin's fault). thomas does not like him and views him as a threat, but ron couldn't care less because most of thomas's concerns are unwarranted. ron still writes songs sometimes and tries to teach them to alison for her to write down for him and/or sell them to make money for the house, and he's very good, but due to her lack of musical ability and understanding, it never seems to work. alison downloaded some music composing software onto her laptop for julian to work with him on it, but julian is even worse at music, and because julian can only work slowly, it takes ages and they end up arguing a lot.

appearance/oufit: tall and thin with dark hair that was once neatly combed but now, due to his electrocution, has a habit of standing up no matter how much he tries to smooth it down. he wears a maroon sweater vest over a white button down and black slacks.

face claim: dev patel

johnny

period: late 1960s

age: 50s

occupation: unemployed writer and amateur musician

cause of death: drugged and beaten by some men at a party

summary: johnny is very friendly and laid-back. his main fault is that he is much too trusting and hardly ever suspects anyone of doing anything wrong, which he comes to realise is what probably got him killed. the other ghosts don't always keep him in the loop about what's going on in the house, so he often gets left out of activities and spends a lot of time alone or with humphrey (if he can manage to stumble upon him). he's scared of the plague ghosts because they were the first thing he saw when he "woke up," and much like alison, he thought they were zombies or a drug-induced hallucination. sometimes gets up to Shenanigans(tm) with robin and/or julian.

appearance/outfit: he is a shorter, heavy-set man with dark greying hair. he wears a multicolour striped cardigan over a white shirt and jeans, and his clothes are somewhat dirty from the altercation which led to his death.

face claim: michael sheen

jessica

period: 2000s

age: 17

occupation: none

cause of death: undetermined

summary: jessica is a teenager who died in 2004 at a sleepover. she loves music and dancing, so of course she and kitty are great friends. she has a small crush on thomas. i haven't really thought much about her cause of death; i just think it would be interesting to see a ghost from the 2000s because you never really hear about that sort of thing.

appearance/outfit: bright pink pajamas with purple polka dots, blue fuzzy slippers, and messy looking bun pigtails.

face claim: saoirse-monica jackson

#asks #anons #my ocs #ghosts ocs #bbc ghosts

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missnoirr · 4 years ago

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I want the low down on your Tasmanian beef

Maybe you sent this and thought I’d go “haha they suck babe.” Maybe you don't know me very well. Maybe I wrote an essay length dissertation on why I hate them. That's how it goes sometimes, babe!

Australia is the land of “sunburnt country,” “it’s beauty rich and rare,” where you can find “a home among the gumtrees” as it is, after all “a place that I adore.” However, Tasmania was most famously described as a land of “dregs, bogans and third-generation morons” by Leo Schofield - and you can take his word for it, because Schofield lived in Tasmania for a decade.

You may think “Tiana, if he lived there for ten years surely he actually liked it” Nope! When asked what it was like to live there and Schofield said “I think I came very close to either a nervous breakdown or suicide.”

That’s right, Tasmania = so shit it literally almost killed a man

Of course, its understandable why its so fucking shit! While the rest of Australia moved on from the whole “sending convicts to die” thing pretty quickly and instead saw the growth of towns like Melbourne (sexy bitch) and Sydney (boo we hate your pussy), Tasmania was established later (1803 compared to 1788) and just never fucking developed. Other cities banned penal transportation in the mid 1800s but Tazzie just... didn't. Which means that 40% of ALL convicts sent to Australia were - you guessed it - sent to Tasmania.

Please remember that Tazzie is the SMALLEST state in Australia by a long fucking shot. The only thing that comes close to how small Tasmania is would be the ACT, which is not a state (it’s a territory we’re real weird about the difference it’s a whole thing) and was literally only invented because Sydney (bitch) and Melbourne (bitch <3) almost started a civil war over who got to be the capital of Australia. 40% is an absolutely insane number for it to be.

Penal transportation wasn’t abolished until 1853 and even then it was almost entirely due to Victorians complaining about reoffenders from Tazzie coming in and drinking their espresso martinis.

Tasmania is also widely mocked for being inbred bigots.

Where did this joke come from? Maybe from a story of Tasmanian soldiers requesting two pillows for their bunks instead of one during WW1. Possibly because of a lack of iodine in Tazzie in the 1800s which led to goitre - which induced large mumps like deformities on the neck and sprouted jokes about “the two headed Tasmanian’s,” which are pretty funny actually. Maybe just because the gene pool in Tasmania is weirdly small - 60% of Tasmanians can trace their roots back to the first 10,000 families to live in Tazzie.

And the bigotry thing? Tazzie refused to decriminalise homosexuality up until 1997, making it the last Australian jurisdiction to do so. The impetus for decriminalisation? The United Nations told them they had to. and the High Court basically said “bro you’ve gotta.” All of which came after the world's news media quite literally referred to them as “bigots island,” which was also my pet name for them! Love that.

They had the highest rate of imprisonment for gay sex for 100 years (one has to imagine that it at least somewhat backfired on them) and were the last British colony to repeal the death penalty for sodomy.

In the 80s Tasmania’s premier stated on the record that homosexuals were “unwelcome” (no one wants to come to your shitty island anyway, Robin) and in the 90s a local politician said they should be “tracked down and wiped out "which they achieved by having the police tag number plates seen at gay events and arresting 120 people at a gay market.

(I’m not a total asshole so I will give them the credit that the criminal records of those who were arrested for homosexuality have been expunged and something like 60% of Tasmanians voted in favour of gay marriage during the 2017 plebiscite. Fair game, full credit. Go fuck yourselves tho)

also: its cold as shit. they killed all the tigers but not the tasmanian devils which, yes, are real and yes, are awful. when i was two my mum accidentally pushed dropped me in the ocean in tasmania. my least favourite uncle lives there. the spirit of tasmania is just a boat. like its literally just a boat. grow up. it isn't even attached. what, are we gonna claim new zealand next? no. throw them back to the sea and let them fend for themselves. my brother split his head open on a pier in tasmania when he was a kid and we didn't get to have ice cream bc they took him to the hospital. did i mention that its cold. like its really cold.

And to close, my favourite quote of all time

“I sensed that here was a society haunted by ghosts from the past... I sensed then some contradiction between that gaiety in the very air, and some darkness in men’s minds.” - Manning Clark on Tasmania

#WA was the last place to end penal transportation #but tazzie had it for an Insanely long time and this isnt about WA we could talk about that another #time #also OBVIOUSLY there is an awful AWFUL history of mistreatment of aboriginal australians #in tasmania which is in places even worse than the already despicable treatment across australia #but i think that deserves its own much more sensitive discussion and i hate tazzie for much more casual reasons than that.#asks #history lessons you didnt want with tiana

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kaaramel · 5 years ago

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As a request, can you please explain the history of Town, or at least Fortitude?. I'm afraid that I might not be understanding something, and I really like how you explain things about Chuubo's, so if you could that would be a great help.

it would absolutely be my pleasure! under cut for Length

The original inhabitants of Town are the Jotun, fox-people, swan-people, assorted youkai, and so on. They lived on the shores of an inland lake with no sun, just a perpetual twilight. They prayed to a pair of deities, the gods of dream and nightmare; it's ambiguous how large a role of direction, protection, etc. dream and nightmare actually played in their lives, because most information about them has been lost in the modern day.

Humans began colonizing Town... (shuffles papers around) I don't think we have a solid Gregorian-calendar date for this. The earliest settlers were Russian and Japanese sailors; the site of the original settlement is now the Fortitude region. Many of the first residents, Jotun in particular, attempted to drive humans back out. The human-youkai war ended when the human Elizaveta sewed a pair of pants that caught the attention and favor of a swan-person, who declared Elizaveta "worthy" and by extension the whole human species. The story is related in more detail in a couple of places; the tie-in novel Fable of the Swan goes into it the most heavily.

Things settled into sort of uneasy cohabitation; humans were still a small presence without much social/legal power. The vampire Alexandrel Celdinar arrived in Town (a note in By the Docks of Big Lake estimates his emergence at roughly the 1800s) and saw an opportunity; recall that at this point the sun, a pretty fatal weakness to basically all but the strongest vampires in the setting, still never rises in Town.

Celdinar brought in more vampires and more humans (as a ruling class and as workers, respectively) and founded Night London, which he attempted to modernize in a slightly wacky zeppelins-and-steampunk way. The Celdinar Mayorality lasted... (paper shuffling again) "for a while," long enough to erect buildings and factories and so on... and, according to legend, the gods of dream and nightmare turned against him. A major earthquake wrecked a central district of Night London; the region that received the most damage is now Old Molder (which has been reclaimed by greenery at such an unnatural rate that only the upper floors are really inhabited), and the remainder has been resettled as Horizon, the gloomy Victorian Gothic-flavored region.

Mayor Celdinar might still have rallied and rebuilt, except, soon after that, the sun rose for the first time, marking the angel Jade Irinka's arrival in Town. At some point temple to Jade was built on Little Island. The sun is, variously, her chariot, her mansion, or her face; also it sets vampires on fire. The youkai lost power during Celdinar's rule, and have also been gradually interbreeding and assimilating with the human population. Humans become, and remain to the modern day, Town's most prominent and numerous residents.

The official timelines I'm looking at kind of gloss over the next period of Town's history; I assume there are some kind of events in Jenna's back pocket but they weren't considered relevant to the Glassmaker's Dragon campaign. There is, purportedly, a 'golden age,' but basically I've got nothing from here until the time when campaign-relevant events start happening. From here on out a lot of what I describe are going to include explicitly flexpoint which are heavily customizable (wrt people’s motives as well as exact chronological placement) for the needs and tastes of a given group.

Lord Entropy the First built Horizon's School... mm, again, a date isn't given but I'm actually going to assert it likely hasn't been in operation for more than 30-40 years. (Specifically I'm extrapolating from "No sooner did [School's SEED program] begin to bear fruit than he did," in CMWGE core, referring to Entropy's 22-year-old child.) In 1997, Entropy I died under mysterious circumstances, almost certainly expedited by Entropy II, who inherited his position as Principal of School and incidentally the King of Evil. Fable of the Swan implies that the Bleak Academy, an institution on the far side of unreality which trains Excrucian Riders to kill the world, was founded in opposition to Entropy's School. I am not sure to what extent this is poetic license and also time is less meaningful in the void.

Jade Irinka fell in love with the Headmaster of the Bleak Academy; the union bore at least one child, possibly two depending on how you count Arikel; after something like 3-8 years (flexpoints again) the Headmaster shoots Jade out of the sky with a black arrow, and the sun is temporarily extinguished, seen from Earth as a solar eclipse on March 7, 1997. A new sun appears in the sky, tied to Jade's daughter Jasper Irinka, and life carries on. Jade falls out of reality and fundamentally alters the cosmology.

This is a whoooole complicated event that is too much to get into on an already-too-long post, but to try and summarize the effects: there is no longer a clear division between real things and not-real things, there is just a dissolute fog of things-you-increasingly-don't-know-or-understand, referred to as the Outside. Town is possibly the last piece of reality unpolluted by the Outside but it's equally possible that this is a thing that varies with your point of view. Also, the change ripples over the timeline in such a way that this is effectively how it's always been, or at least families in Town have now been passing down techniques for mitigating Outside pollution for several generations. It's a massive headache and I'm sorry.

I think I will actually stop there instead of continuing to get more granular but I am more than happy to clarify and expand points if you have more specific questions!

#cmwge #cmwge ref #darchon5

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samwellwinchesterthebrave · 4 years ago

Note

valentines asks: all the evens, please!! (for 44/fmk: sam/dean/cas-- their characters, not their actors)

Yay, thank you for questions ��💜

2. Favorite candy? Snickers

4. What was your first kiss like? It was sweet and soft. Granted, I panicked and ran away after (first kiss was with a girl as I was slowly coming to realize I was not straight)

6. Sexual/romantic orientation? I am bisexual and biromantic (i suppose? Biromantic is a thing, right?)

8. Favorite fanfic trope? My fav to write is angst with a happy ending. My fav to read is mutual pining

10. Favorite milkshake flavor? Strawberry banana

12. Favorite flowers? A tie between snapdragons and orchids

14. Favorite candle scent? I tend to be sensitive to scents so no scent or something light like clean linen

16. Favorite love story? Hmm. My favorite romance novel is The Villa by Nora Roberts. Though if we're talking any media, it's the romance between Anders and Hawke in Dragon Age 2 (love that sweet sweet mutual pining)

18. Chocolate, vanilla, or red velvet? Red velvet cake with chocolate fudge frosting :)

20. Sweetest romantic memory? Hmm, let me think. Okay, this is kind of a type of memory but it works. While my ex was courting me, she would offer me back massages. I was thrilled because a) I was touch-starved and I love physical affection and b) my back was like a titanium board (her words). So it was this lovely collection of times where I felt affection and tenderness and care while allowing myself to be vulnerable with someone else (something i tended to avoid at all costs because bullying)

22. Fictional crushes? Hoo boy, I have many because they are safe. But, the top ones are probably Anders from Dragon Age, Caleb Widogast from Critical Role, and Claire from the Resident Evil movies

24. What makes you blush? Um, anyone flirting with me (that I pick up on), sometimes innuendos, and people complimenting me

26. Do you believe in soulmates? Yes, I do, though I don't believe in a single romantic soulmate ever. I believe there can be platonic soulmates and multiple romantic ones. Souls aren't static and unchanging so what our soulmate is can change too

28. What's your sign? I'm an aquarius (with a birthday on saturday hehe)

30. Do I prefer to charm or be charmed? Considering that I have no romantic wiles and couldn't flirt to save my life, I think me trying to be charming would be an utter failure. I would like to be charmed and react back to the person charming me.

32. Favorite romcom or romantic movie? Fav romcom is Ten Inch Hero and fav romantic movie is Before We Go (some of the lines and themes in that movie speak to my soul)

34. Valentine's decorations yay or nay? Yay because I'm a sucker for cheesy romantic tropes and decorations

36. Cloud gazing or star gazing? Both? Both. But if I can pick only one, star gazing. I am enraptured by the cosmos

38. What's your otp? I have many but the top is Destiel. No question

40. Coffee, hot chocolate, or tea? While I like and drink all three, tea is my favorite

42. Gazing wistfully out the window or lying dramatically on the sofa? The window. Lying dramatically feels like it would be the center of attention and in everyone's way and I tend to not want to be seen (again, bullying)

44. Fmk sam/dean/cas? Okay, fuck Dean because wow he looks like he's good at it, marry Sam because I love him, and kiss (i refuse to kill because I do not want dean after me) Cas

46. Favorite liquor? Huh. I don't drink much because I don't digest alcohol properly but probably Arbor Mist wine. I'm a cheap date *shrug*

48. A walk in the park or a walk on the beach? I love the ocean so the beach. Hands down.

50. What's your dream house? Well, no hoa first off. But I love the old Victorian homes. I also love homes with unique lines. No boxes for me. Something with three or four bedrooms so I have room for a guest room and a library/craft room, a nice size kitchen, and maybe a small movie theater (I've been swayed to this because of watching house tours in la on youtube). I'd also like a large enough property I can have a little garden, maybe a pool, and a nice space for grilling and parties. I don't want anything huge but there are some luxuries I'd really like.

Thanks and feel free to ask more if you're curious 👍🙂

#ask games #sam rambles #homosociallyyours

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these-are-the-first-steps · 5 years ago

Text

TATFS’s strategies for surviving illness with no health insurance- a long post

DISCLAIMER: I am NOT a doctor, nor do I have any medical background. I’m just someone who spent a chunk of their time being too poor to see a doctor and scared to death and managed to figure out some basic things that worked, so consume and apply the following text using your own discretion.

So as someone who has spent a scary enough chunk of their adult life uninsured, I’d like to share with you fine folks my own personal general strategy for effectively fighting off nasty illness and avoiding a doctor as much as is reasonable. I’ve sucked out the beginnings of full-on upper respiratory infections with OTC meds before with my own combos and also some tips from pharmacists who took pity on me back in the day. The bare basics are as follows- 1) dry up what’s starting up in there

2) flush it out and keep flushing so it can’t take up residence again.

3) stop fevers that either get too high or refuse to break on their own (fevers are your body trying to kill the bad stuff, and I’ve experimented with letting low grade ones run their course, but if they get too high or don’t seem to ever break, you gotta stop ‘em.)

You can do this with three main things-

1) some sort of decongestant/antihistamine (used to use sudafed (pseudoephedrine) but now use 24h claritin (Loratadine) dissolve tabs- bonus in that it should still be on the shelves. no one’s panic buying allergy meds!). This will start to dry it up. (If you are in a risk group for glaucoma/have eye pressure concerns, cut yourself off after 7 days max for claritin. There’s nothing on the box to suggest it, but I did two weeks once, started getting suspicious, went to the eye doc, and I was on the line. 7 days is a safe cut off, though, and you should be good by then anyway.) 2) guaifenesin (aka mucinex)- super cheap stuff, has no known interactions with anything to my knowledge, and it’s probably the most harmless drug ever created. This is gonna break up all the bad shit and flush it all out so long as you keep up lots of liquids. 3) take TYLENOL (acetaminophen) for fever and/or pain from sinus pressure. And only tylenol. NSAIDs aren’t going to help you and may actually make things worse, especially with corona according to an article headline I saw. whatever, they don’t touch that shit anyway. Tylenol breaks fevers and that’s all you need to know. Deceptively simple, but it’s legit. Once you’re on this stuff, you have three main responsibilities- 1) DRINK LIQUIDS. I like buying 32floz or 1000 ml bottles of water or some mellow tasting sports drink (stay away from stuff with heavy dyes, it’s just bad for your guts. gatorade has plenty of light colored transparent drink flavors. Pocari Sweat saved me from a hospital trip once) because then I know that if I finish the bottle, I drank plenty of liquids that day. Yes you’re gonna piss yourself- that’s the point. Your nose will probably run a bit more, too- that’s the point. Time to flush the gunk out! 2) EAT THREE MEALS A DAY. Guess what’s worth investing in? Your health. Eat breakfast. Eat a bowl of soup with crackers for lunch. Eat something solid that’ll stick to you for dinner. You’re sitting around but your body is burning extra fuel to fight off illness, so feed it!! You’ll notice pretty quickly how much better you feel almost magically after having eaten a good soup for lunch. Throw caution to the wind and feed yourself. 3) STAY STILL. Most of us are stuck indoors anyway what with lockdowns and all that bullshit, but just stay still. Camp out in your room or your couch or something for a change of scenery. Doing work that makes you move a lot or heavy chores will run your body down when it’s trying to fix you up. You’ll get better faster if you just sit still, watch a little tv, and play video games/knit/crochet/something to occupy your hands. Even when you start to feel a lot better, give it a few days- you’re still fighting it, so don’t mess up the progress. Just chill, and relax.

Here are some bonus tips:

1) ECHINACEA TEA. Drinking echinacea tea is actually something the last doctor I saw recommended to me. Maybe do a cup once a day while you’re feeling badly. I wouldn’t do it as a once a day for the rest of your life sort of thing, but once a week is probably fine when you’re healthy. It helps boost your immune system.

2) Dissolvable zinc tablets. Now these were sold out last time I went to the store, but I think they’re great. They’re white tablets that come in a few flavors and you’re to let them dissolve completely. No chewing. Zinc has been shown in peer-reviewed scientific studies to hinder virus replication in the body, which is great. For this reason, it’s best to start the tablets the moment you get the feeling you might be getting sick to head things off and lessen the effects of the future illness, but do what you can. They take about 15mins to dissolve in your mouth. If you follow the directions to the T on the back of the box, you’ll notice by about day three that your tastebuds have sort of taken a vacation and food tastes a bit bland, but that’s just zinc for you and it all goes back to normal after a couple days of not taking them. Remember that the tablets work for viruses, not bacterial illnesses (although zinc can also be good for sore throats in general).

3) Multivitamins can’t hurt, and you can also easily cut half a lemon, squeeze it in a mug, dump a bunch of honey in there, and pour boiling water over it for a tasty, vitamin C-rich drink. HOWEVER, if you have serious, serious heavy gunk in your lungs, please stick to ice chips and avoid hot drinks. Ice chips were a miracle idea some desperate victorians figured out that actually started saving their kids from dying from dyptheria. I’m not saying give up warm drinks entirely, but ice chips can help significantly.

With all this said: Listen to your intuition and your gut and if you feel like nothing is getting better, have had unnerving scares with phlegm, etc. just suck it up and go see a doctor!! No matter what, you living is the most important thing on earth, so if things start to feel like they’re out of your control, don’t think about it, just go.

Luckily as far as corona is concerned, the majority of folks below the age of 40 will have mild to no symptoms at all, which...in and of itself is rather creepy, but take what you can get. As it’s something that also seems to like to cause upper respiratory infections, these above tips and experiences, developed when I myself had the beginnings of an upper respiratory infection, are hopefully useful, especially to folks who don’t have insurance during this spooky time.

JUST TO REITERATE: I am not a doctor and the above is just to share what I do personally during times of severe to moderate illness with no health insurance. It’s up to you to decide what’s the best strategy for you.

Take care of yourselves out there, guys. We’ll be alright and this’ll blow over soon. <3

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wintersxsoul · 6 years ago

Text

The Night We Danced

Summary: Two dorks in love that have to wait to get drunk to confess their feelings.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Female!Reader

Word Count: 4k

Warnings: Maybe some language, drunk people and I think mentions of sex??

A/N: This is my entry for my dearest @writingsoftheloser 1k historical writing challenge! I got the Victorian Era, so I came up with this longass nonsense. I hope you enjoy and as always, feedback and reblogs are free and make me really happy and motivated <3

Bucky Barnes was a dancer.

He sometimes had flashes of his old life in the late 30’s and 40’s, long summer nights dancing with beautiful dames, little Stevie by his side laughing and stepping in the ladies’ shoes. Everything was much more simpler, happier, but war happened and the dances turned into battles, the warm hands that he was used to hold became rifles and glocks. The jazzy tunes turned into gunfire, dates turned into risky missions and the thought of a long happy life turned into dust when he fell off that train.

Bucky Barnes stopped being a dancer to be a soldier, a spy, a deadly assassin.

They had taken all he was away, all his memories, his hopes and dreams. Everything was wiped but not his motor skills or knowledge. They turned him into the most efficient soldier, cold and calculating, his only motive in life was completing his missions. He had killed mercilessly, not questioning even once who was in front of the gun, he just knew he had to pull the trigger.

Everything changed the moment Steve Rogers, his best friend since childhood, found him 70 years after being used and tortured. Steve saved him from the claws of Hydra and gave him the opportunity to gain back his own self, to finally give his life meaning again.

His life changed drastically when he joined the Avengers, he could use his unrequired skills to help people, to save lives. He had his closest friends, Steve of course, Sam, Nat and then he met you. Once he was able to recover almost all his memories, he had a long heartfelt conversation with Natasha since she had suffered in similar ways. The brainwashing, the body killing training, the horrors of the Cold War and the cruelty of the Red Room.

You and Nat were inseparable, both becoming SHIELD agents the same year. You were a freelance hitwoman, both of your missions were to kill the same target. But before you could kill each other, SHIELD stepped in and rescued both of you, seeing your potential and the ability to do the missions other agents weren’t able to. When Bucky first came to the compound, you were away because your last mission went badly and it almost killed you, so Fury and Steve decided it was better for you to lay low for a while. Months went by and Bucky’s curiosity only grew, he really wanted to meet you, since everyone talked about you like you were an angel. When the time came to finally meet you, everything he ever heard about you was not nearly accurate to him. You were as much of a mystery as Nat, but unlike her, you opened up to him fastly, trusting him blindly. You both held each other on your worst nights and were also there for the other when you needed a good laugh.

You could have never imagined that the infamous Winter Soldier could be such an absolute dork with such a pure heart and soul. At first he was a bit sulky and moody, he was like a ghost around the compound, but months of therapy and help from his friends turned him into the man he was today, the man you loved deeply, even though you lied to yourself trying to make it seem like a platonic feeling. For years you remained as best friends, until the masquerade ball Tony organized for Natasha’s birthday.

“So, what are your plans for the party?” You asked Bucky nonchalantly while you looked for costume designers online. He looked up from his book and shrugged, he really didn’t know what you meant but he knew you would elaborate. You closed your laptop and placed it on your nightstand, all your attention on your friend now. You laid across the bed, resting your head on his lap. You were staring at the ceiling so you totally missed Bucky’s adoring gaze.

“Well, apart from getting hammered with Thor’s Asgardian alcohol, I don’t really know.” You rolled your eyes internally at his comment. You laid on your stomach so you could face him, your chin resting on your hands on top of his chest.

“Obviously you are doing that, but it’s not what I meant.” Bucky chuckled and you rolled your eyes. You weren’t sure about asking him to be your partner, maybe he was planning on going with someone else, maybe he wanted to go on his own. You cleared your throat while reaching out to fiddle with the laces of his hoodie nervously.

“Are you going with someone?” He frowned, realizing that you didn’t assume (like he did) that you were going together. Maybe you were planning to go with a date? He knew it had been more than a year since you had dated someone so maybe you wanted to use the party as an excuse to do so?

“What you mean with someone? I d-”

“You should ask Sarah from Forensics, I’ve heard she has a huge crush on you. She’s sooo soft and pretty. I have her number if you wa-”

“Okay, Y/n stop right there. I am not going with Sarah or with anyone else but you.” His eyes widened at his own boldness but he quickly found a logical explanation.

“I mean, we always go together to this kind of shitty parties we both dread. But if you are going with someone else is fine.”

“Yeah, yeah I just thought that maybe you wanted to go with an actual date and not your best friend.” He tousled your hair and you whined jokingly. He mumbled “dork” and you stuck your tongue out.

“My best friend is pretty cool and when she gets drunk the party starts, so I am not missing that for Sarah from Forensics.”

“Oh god James, and I am the dork? You absolute dumbass.” You shook your head in amusement and sat on the bed, putting your disheveled hair in a low ponytail. You slapped him lightly on the right shoulder and got down of the bed, gathering your stuff.

“I can’t stand to see that beautiful stupid face right now, I have to look for a fucking dress. You better wear something in dark red cause, you know it-”

“it’s my color” he mocked you using a high pitched tone of voice and laughed at the face of disgust you jokingly pulled off.

��Fuck you.”

“Why don’t you f-” His sentence was cut off by the bang of his door closing but you already knew what he said. You rolled your eyes and made your way to Nat’s room since you needed to organize shopping days and all that stuff.

Bucky Barnes was a dancer and fortunately he still had some moves, but waltzing was out of his league. He knew what a masquerade was of course, so the fact that he had to learn how to dance a completely different style was...frightening to say the least. He talked about it with Steve so they both were headed now to a masterclass while their dates were out shopping. Nat had asked Steve as her date because she wanted to go with his best friend. Their friendship was the most platonic you’ve ever seen and watching them flirt and banter was the highlight of your days. Nat was a fantastic dancer of course, she used to be a fucking ballerina, so she offered to teach you some moves. She was the only one who actually knew your feelings towards Bucky because you had confessed them one night you had drank your weight in vodka and when you saw Bucky’s text asking you to please be careful, you laughed and told her. You didn’t remember that conversation and when Natasha tried to ask you, she realized she shouldn’t bring up the topic until you were ready to believe it yourself.

“Ooof Nat, should I really buy this expensive dress?” You asked her while checking yourself out in the mirror. The dress was absolutely stunning, made of a dark red taffeta or a similar material, short sleeved and a beautiful v-neck, not very revealing but enough to make your babies pop. The bodice hugged your curves and the skirt was puffy.

“Listen, Stark is paying for everything, that includes our dresses. So yes, you are going to buy it.” She stood up and lead you back to the changing room so she could purchase both of your dresses.

Steve sighed heavily at Bucky’s complaints. They’d been dancing for four hours straight and they weren’t getting any better, or at least that’s what they thought. Bucky really couldn’t believe he had been dragged into this mess just because he loved getting drunk with you under any circumstances.

“Come on Buck, don’t worry. You two will probably be too drunk to even stand, why bother so much in learning this shit?” Bucky rolled his eyes and nudged his friend on the shoulder.

“Listen pal, I wanna do this right. You know how much I love dancing so this is just an excuse to learn something new.” He could almost believe his own lie, but Steve knew better. He knew Bucky better than himself, so he obviously knew the unspoken thing that was going on between two of his best friends.

“Okay buddy, whatever you say. I just hope Y/n appreciates all this instead of laughing at you like Sam and Nat are probably going to do.” He muttered something to himself and left the room without saying a word.

“Fucking idiots, I hope they fuck soon.” Steve said to himself before turning around and smiling at the dance teacher.

“Let’s do this Janet, I have a very dangerous woman to impress tonight.”

“I really, really, really, really regret the day I gave you access to come into my room whenever you want to.” You told Bucky, who was laying on your bed on his stomach, his face buried in the pillows. You slumped next to him and buried your face in the pillows as well. You really thought you looked like idiots but you couldn’t care less.

“Can we stay here? We can watch one of those victorian romantic movies you love and get wasted on our own.”

“You know I would love to, but Nat would kill us. Besides, you hate those movies.”

“I was just trying to persuade you Barnes, you don’t need to be so rude.” You stood up and opened your first drawer, pulling out the two masks you had bought throwing Bucky’s to his head and he responded with a fake “ouch”. He sat on the bed and looked at you amused, the small mask in his hands.

“And you have the nerve to call me rude. I already have my mask and I won’t show it to you until tonight.”

“Wow, sorry for thinking about you and your shitty memory, old man.”

“You know what Y/n? I’ll see you tonight before I throw myself out of that balcony.” You giggled at his fake tantrum. You really loved your friendship with Bucky, because even though you were always joking around each other, you had your backs. He was always there and so were you.

“You want me to walk you to your room?” He frowned at you but his eyes widened when he realized what you were about to say, but you said it before he could cut you off. “In case you don’t remember where your room is at.”

“That was one time Y/n, please let it go.”

“Never.” And with that said, he left. You giggled remembering the first night you two got drunk together. It was the first time Bucky had tried Thor’s alcohol so he was excited to finally get drunk after all those decades. He drank by himself almost three flasks and encouraged you to drink a bottle of vodka on your own, so at 6 am, you were stumbling through your room floor because Bucky had forgotten where his own room was, so he wanted to sleep at yours.

You took a last look at yourself in your mirror and placed the mask in its place. It was a shame that Bucky had decided not to wear the mask you’d bought for him, but his taste was pretty great so you knew it was going to be amazing.

When you reached the party the place was already full of people. Everyone was dancing to the slow melodies or drinking at the bar. You noticed that Tony had removed all the furniture from the room so it looked like a grand dance hall, the usual modern lamps he owned were replaced by huge golden crystal chandeliers, the windows were covered by thick curtains that looked like the ones European palaces had. The cream and golden tones of all the decoration gave a really regal look to the party, the soft glow of the candles in the bar and the sound of champagne glasses relaxed your senses.

You fixed your long silk gloves and sighed, moving through the crowd towards the bar, where Nat stood chatting with who you assumed it was Steve, Sam was behind the counter pouring alcohol to his half empty glass.

“You mind filling this lady’s glass?” Sam smirked and you winked at him. He raised his eyebrow under his cream and red mask and he took out a tall glass.

“What would the lady like to drink?” He rested both of his palms in the counter, looking at you with an amused look in his eyes.

“Vodka on the rocks, s'il vous plait.” You heard Nat choke on her drink and Steve turned to look at you while Sam just poured your drink, a smile playing on his lips.

“Aren’t we starting a bit early, Y/n? Your date is not even here.” You shrugged at Sam’s comment and took the glass when he handed it.

“Since you all seemed so surprised with my drinking choices, I’m going. I need an unjudging friend right now.” You waved your hand gracefully and moved towards the centre, trying to find Bucky. After five minutes and an empty glass, you saw his bulking figure talking to some woman. You needed a moment to gather your thoughts because he looked absolutely sinful with the outfit he was wearing. The black pants marked all his muscles, specially his thighs, those fucking thighs that drove you insane and his ass...you shook your head trying to stop your mind. You needed another drink.

“Wow look who’s back and empty handed!” Steve said to the small group. You nudged him in the ribs and asked Sam for another glass of alcohol.

“Why are you this flustered Y/n?” Nat asked you when she noticed your flushed cheeks. You fixed your mask trying to hide your nervousness and failing miserably.

“I really don’t know what you’re talking about.” Your three friends shared a knowing look and you rolled your eyes, finishing your drink in two sips and encouraged by the burning liquid, you went to where Bucky was. You could now see his whole outfit perfectly and your heart swelled. He was wearing a black ruffled shirt with a black and dark red embroidered vest and a black tail coat. His face was covered by a simple half Venetian mask, decorated with the same colors as the outfit’s. He was chatting with some agent you couldn’t recognize and you felt a pang of jealousy at how he was looking at her, smiling and touching her. At that moment you realized the alcohol was kicking in and that’s why you were having those stupid thoughts. You approached your friend and placed your gloved hand to his shoulder, indicating him that you were besides him and waiting for him to pay attention to you. You catched a part of the conversation and they were talking about one of the last missions the undercover agents did, so after a court nod from Bucky and a brief goodbye from her, his eyes were on you.

“Well, look at you!” He smiled at you warmly and you felt something flip inside you. “How did you recognize me?”

“Oh boy, you can mask that face all you want but you can’t mask those thighs.” You smirked and he started laughing at your comment, making you feel proud of your wittiness.

“How drunk are you already?” You brought your hand up between your bodies and pressed your thumb and index together whispering “a little” so only he could hear it.

“Lucky for you, I drank almost a flask, so that makes us dangerous already. Wanna dance?” He extended his hand and you took it accepting his invitation. You suddenly felt really nervous since it was the first time you were going to slow dance with him but unbeknown to you, Bucky Barnes felt sick due to his nerves. He wanted this to work, he wanted to show you and the world that he was still capable of being a soft person, not this cold calculative soldier with a dark past.

The feeling of his hand on your waist and your other hands intertwined was intoxicating you, your bodies pressed together, the only thing between you two were your clothes. You spinned around the room for what felt like eternity, time for you had stopped and everyone had disappeared.

You burst the small bubble you were both in saying you needed a drink, Bucky stopped swaying you and with your hands still intertwined, went to the empty bar.

“I’ve always loved the Victorian Era, you know?” He said while giving you a glass full of vodka, and took a sip of his flask. “The clothes, the courting, the chivalry and all that fuss.” He smiled sadly at you thinking that you wouldn’t notice.

“If you could, would you go back in time and stay?”

He took another sip, now longer, and shook his head. “Of course not, you wouldn’t be there.” He blurted out without thinking and you just giggled at the comment.

“Oh Barnes, don’t be so dramatic. I’m sure you would make good friends there as well.” You gave him a sincere smile and he shook his head again, taking another sip of the flask, this time a long one. You looked down at your glass and twirled the straw, looking at how the ice cubes collided with each other.

“I love you.” You jerked your head up and maybe it was the alcohol clouding your mind or the denial of your own feelings, but you didn’t notice his intense gaze, filled with love and adoration.

“And I love you too, you idiot. As my best friend, you should know that already.” You placed your lips around the straw and finished the whole drink, Bucky still looking at you shocked that you rejected his feelings without you noticing.

“No, Y/n, what I mean is that I’m-”

“You are what, Barnes?” Nat cut Bucky off and you threw yourself into her arms, kissing her face and wishing her a happy birthday. “I missed you, Nat. Where were you?” You started talking to her totally ignoring your friend, who got that as his cue to leave the party. He would never blame you for not feeling the same or not even noticing his feelings, that was totally on him, but he didn’t feel well enough to stay in the party. He knew you wanted him there, to get drunk together and then both of you ending up throwing up in the sink and the toilet, but tonight he needed to breathe, he needed to get out of the crowd.

“Hey, where is going Bucky?” Asked Steve while he approached Nat and you. You frowned and looked at the entrance, catching a glimpse of Bucky’s broad shoulders and hair leaving the party. “I’ll be back in a sec.” You said and stumbled down the bar stool, heading towards the entrance half running.

“We both know they are not coming back, right?” Steve said to Nat, a strong nod and a sigh answered his comment.

You ran as fast as your drunken state let you but before you could notice you slipped with the dress and fell.

“FUCK” You screamed to the empty hall and took off your heels and gloves, standing up trying not to fall again on your ass. Bucky was nowhere to be seen so you headed to his room, your head spinning due to the alcohol.

“What are you doing here?” Bucky startled you, making you lose balance but he caught you before you could fall again.

“I was just checking that you got to your room safely, since you know, you get lost and all that.” You laughed at his fake hurt expression and straightened your clothes. You noticed that he had taken off his mask and that you were still wearing yours. “Why did you leave?”

“I’m feeling a bit sick, I think I drank too mu-”

“James, if you don’t tell me what the fuck is wrong I’ll torture you until you do. The drinking excuse is the worst you could’ve used with me.”

Bucky sighed defeated, he knew he had to get it off his chest, after three years carrying this on his own, he needed to let the words out, he needed you to know. He reached for the laces of your mask and took it off, placing a strand of hair behind your ear and cupping your cheek.

“I love you, Y/n.” You rolled your eyes in fake annoyance just to mess up with him.

“Baby, we already established that I lov-”

“Y/n, you are not listening. I am in love with you. I want to be your best friend, your lover, your partner in crime and your drunk buddy.”

You stared at him wide eyed, not knowing what to answer or to do. He caressed your cheek with his thumb and you gasped at the feeling, making Bucky think that you were rejecting the act. You stopped him from moving his hand and he leaned in, his lips brushing yours lightly.

“Either you kiss me or I faint, so make a m-” And just like that, his lips crashed against yours with a passion and hunger you’ve never felt in your entire life. He pressed you against the door, the stupid huge dress stopping you from feeling anything. Your brain finally woke up and you realized what was going on. Bucky Barnes loved you, he was in love with you. And you were in love with him. You pulled away and stopped him, making him step backwards scared that he did something you didn’t want to.

“You love me?” You really asked him, thinking that maybe your brain was betraying you. He nodded and looked away, not wanting to see the rejection in your eyes.

“Hey coward, look at me.” You held his chin and forced him to look at you. “I love you too, always have. I was just too damn scared to admit it to even myself.” He smiled and kissed you again, this time slower, pouring every ounce of love he had for you in the kiss.

“What now?” He asked you once he pulled away to breathe. He had his hand on the back of your neck, caressing your skin with his thumb.

“As much as I’d love you to fuck me against every surface on that room, I am drunk and tired and I need to process everything.” He nodded and waited for you to come up with what you wanted to do next. “So you are going to take this dress off me carefully cause I can’t do it on my own and it’s expensive as fuck, you are going to give me one for your shirts and we are sleeping, together.” He nodded again and smiled, leaning in again to give your lips a small peck.

“Consider it done, asshole.”

#vi1khistoricalchallenge #Bucky Barnes #james barnes #james bucky barnes #bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #bucky fanfic #bucky barnes fluff #the winter soldier #mutual pining #friends to lovers #best friends to lovers #avengers #the avengers #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes x y/n

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fenrislorsrai · 5 years ago

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How do you lose artifacts you stole?

Back in my college days, my BF at time and roommate became very convinced Something Hostile was living in the condemned Victorian building in the middle of campus. Which resulted in BF walking around one evening spitting salt on the doorways to contain it, which apparently Annoyed It.

Good job.

Roommate meanwhile takes me along to go do historical research on what could possibly be living in creepy Victorian building. Time to consult books on campus history.... which are pretty well all missing from the library. Not checked out, just missing. Librarian has no idea where they are either. Not where they’re supposed to be!

We do finally manage to track down one book mostly by accident. Which has some very vague history of building. There had been a tannery there before. At some point someone had got into an altercation with someone near the river that cut through campus and shoved them into a locust tree and spines on that pierced their temple and killed them!?! So they dumped the body in the tanning pit? and then they built a college and this building on it!

There’s still a stand of locusts there too! big and old enough, potentially descendant of Murder Tree. This is what a locust looks like:

MURDER TREE.

Also in this book is that the building used to hold the college’s cabinet of curiosities and listed off many of the highlights. Almost all the weird freaky taxidermy was still over in the tiny zoology museum. Also listed in this bragging about contents was fifty marble Indian idols “collected from a temple”. Stolen, you mean.

I’m in the Anthropology department and have seen the tiny display case they have. Which had nothing like that int. Inquires at department indicate they have no record of these. Religion and history department don’t either. But, the archives might have stuff! Off to the archives, which also have no record of these, but they DO have a section of “unidentified stuff of unknown provenance and significance”.

Surprise, there’s some marble sculptures in there. Less than ten. The only one I remember offhand was Ganesh. Which had a bullet slug embedded in the back. Archives person is excited as they finally can put a tag on these as we have info from book, but where the hell are the other 40+?

Memo gets sent out to departments to please return these items. Stop using them as bookends of doorstops or whatever the hell you are doing with them and return them to the archive.

If any building had a right to be haunted, it was clearly that one. Murder scene, then a cabinet of curiosities with mutant animals and stolen religious idols, and it finished out its life as an experimental psych lab!

The only reason this doesn’t set up an actual horror movie is because I’m firmly in the “but what if we DIDN’T annoy things that have indicated we should leave” camp. Be polite and respectful and leave that shit alone, so help me. Let’s just leave it at maybe finding who the hell hid all the library’s history books, maybe?

#a true story #college #dealing with the supernatural #ohio was weird in a bad way

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shu-draws-and-stuff · 5 years ago

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Little Doll Chapter One

I didn’t realize till two days later

it was the mirror who took his breath away.

The monstrous old Victorian mirror

with the ornate gilt frame

—Paul Muldoon, "The Mirror"

Ejiri Chiasa is the daughter of the All-Seeing Hero— now known as Tragic Hero— Third Eye, who had lost his life during a villain incident when she was little. Fueled by her wish to become the better hero, Chiasa enrolls to Yuuei, the very same academy where her father graduated. She'll have face enemies she's never met before, meet unlikely allies, and swallow the cold hard truth about her father's death along the way. But, hey, a hero's journey is never easy.

Chapter One: It's All Fun And Games Until Someone Breaks the Damn Mirror

I spat out a choked gasp and sit up on my bed, clutching the bedsheets like a lifeline and panting like I just ran 20 miles. My hand flew to where my right eye is, safely tucked away behind my hair. Just seconds earlier, I thought I felt the familiar texture of blood flowing down the right side of my face. I thought I smelled the thick scent of smoke and ash. I thought I saw the building shattering into a million shards of glass.

Slowly, my breathing slowed down and my muscles unstiffened. My heartrate began to go back to normal and I just sat there, staring hard at my hands. The feeling of blood and its rusty red hue was still there and at the same time, it wasn't. I heaved a sigh and clench my eye shut.

"Shit."

My name is Ejiri Chiasa.

"Ms. Ejiri?"

I am fifteen years old.

"You... wish to study in Yuuei?"

And I always felt like I lived in a mirror.

The scratching sounds my pencil made abruptly stopped and I blinked a few times before looking up from my notes to stare at my homeroom teacher. He was an older man, around 40 or 50, with graying hair and evident wrinkles. He wore those square glasses almost every teacher had and he had the most uncomfortable expression plastered onto his features.

Apparently, he makes it a habit to stick his nose in other people's business.

All the quiet murmurs stopped at once, my classmates' heads doing 180° turns towards my direction. My eye hardens. "Yes? Is there a problem, sir?" I ask, fists clenching under the table.

I hated my middle school. I hated Nabu.

My homeroom teacher flinches. "Well, there is no problem, however..."

One of my classmates piped in before the old man can finish his thought. "Aren't you at least a little bit... uncomfortable?" Me? Uncomfortable? I don't even recall this bastard's name.

"Why would I be?"

"Don't you hate heroes?" What's-his-face stated it as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

My eye widened a fraction and I look back at my desk. Hate was such a vague word. I didn't hate them, mind you. They're just idiots. All of them heroes are idiots. Cowards and idiots. Just as much as the people surrounding me are.

I sucked in a shaky breath.

"Please, just don't go anywhere. I promise I'll come back for you."

"I passed the mock exams." I managed to calmly say, my knuckles white under the wooden surface. I lift a hand to slightly fix the hair covering the right side of my face, watching as some of my classmates flinch.

"Papa! Papa's in there! Why can't you go in there and get my papa?!"

"I might as well try." I lifted my face in time to see their expressions turn grim. "Besides, is it any of your business?"

"Did you tell your mom yet?"

I perk up as Shinsou sat in front of me. Lunchtime came around and after my episode earlier, my classmates aren't that eager to sit next to me. As if they'd ever sit next to me. Pretentious assholes, the lot of them. Shinsou Hitoshi was the only bitch I've ever respected in this shithole.

After I transferred to Nabu, I was assigned to sit next to him. At first, we didn't talk to each other. He didn't comment about my father, I didn't take notice of his quirk. We mutually respected each other, I guess? Before I knew it, we'd grown to be friends after a few months. The guy had it rough, rougher than me. Having a quirk like his made people feel entitled to group him with villains. Villains, of all things. I never liked that.

"Tell her what?"

"The mock exams? Yuuei?"

"Bold of you to assume I'd tell her right away."

He squints his exhausted eyes at me. "You gotta tell her someday."

I hum and take a bite out of the omurice. "That ain't today, though. She'd go crazy if she found out." I rest my head on the palm of my hand, chewing slower than earlier. "I'll tell her after entrance exams. That way, she won't be able to stop me."

"She would still be able to stop you, though."

"Shut up."

"Maybe even disown you on the spot."

"I said shut up already."

"You know," Shinsou sighed, "if I were you, I'd tell your mother about it. Exam's in ten months, Ejiri, you can't train in secret with Inukai-san any longer." I cough and look away, avoiding the fact that he was, in fact, right.

"Yes, I can. Watch me." I scoff.

"Fine, it's your decision whether you follow my advice or not." He waved a hand around, vaguely gesturing to everything all the while leaning further into his seat. "To hell with your advice, Shinsou." I snort. I see him playfully roll his eyes at me and I snickered.

"By the way," Shinsou piped, "did you hear about the Sludge Villain incident yesterday?" I perk up at this; I caught a snippet of info about this on the TV last night but I didn't get the chance to hear the whole story. Something about a 'Bakuro Kazumi' or something. I can't remember. "I've heard the news here and there. What about it?" I reply.

"Apparently, two students our age were involved. One was actually held captive by the thief, while the other blindly rushed in and almost got himself killed." The purple-haired boy said. "Pretty dumb if you ask me." I snicker at his remark. The kid who rushed in probably got frustrated with the heroes' hesitation. Kudos to him. "Oh, and All Might was there." I stiffen a little at that.

"Oh really?" I goad.

"Yeah, he was tracking that guy the whole day. Thank God he managed to get him before anyone else got hurt." Shinsou continued and I clench my fists. "Yeah, thank God." I say, sarcasm dripping in my voice. "And that kid rushed in even when All Might was there? Weird."

"Alright, what is your deal with All Might?" Shinsou asked. "What do you mean?" I coyly asked. "You always act like this whenever someone mentions him in class. Do you not like him?" He asked.

Shamelessly, I replied, "Actually, yeah, I don't." He gave me another questioning look. "I just think people give him too much credit for what he does; it pisses me off. They glorify his 'many' accomplishments but choose to ignore the additional damage he did; or could do, even. I bet he got careless and lost that Sludge Villain in the first place!" Shinsou just sighs and scratches the back of his neck.

"Be thankful that I'm not one of his crazy fans or you'd be dead right now—" I cry out indignantly, "—and! I think you should try to see the guy in a different light."

"Eh?"

"I don't think All Might's that bad; you're just choosing to see him like that because you have this warped expectation of heroes." He replies. I sputter like an idiot.

"I do not—" "Yes, you do."

"Fine! I'm just saying; just because he's No. 1 doesn't mean he's all that great. Look at Endeavor, for Christ's sake." I blurt out. Shinsou just shakes his head at me. I continue my rant anyway. "The man's No. 2 but have you seen the way he acts? I thought we aren't allowed to burn trash anymore!"

"Whatever floats your boat. Come on, we gotta get to class." He pushed the chair back and stood up, as I did the same, cleaning up my bento box. "Time always passes you by in a flash, huh?" He murmured. We made our way to the corridors and halfway to the classroom, I noticed droplets of water splatter themselves across the window, decorating it in a symphony of small lights.

The soft pitter-patters of rain reached my ears and I caught a glimpse of lightning before hearing the thunder.

"Yeah," I mutter, though I'm sure Shinsou barely heard me, "time is an ass like that."

School was over in a blink of an eye and I found myself in front of my house under the rain with only the protection of my umbrella. My bag was slung over my shoulders. The plastic bag of groceries hung from my fingers. My shoes were wet. And I can feel my stomach dropping.

I push myself towards the front door and shake my umbrella, watching the droplets fall and splatter on the cement floor. In instinct, I thrust my hand into my bag to look for my keys. Hearing the familiar jingle, I bring them out and placed one in the keyhole. But, to my surprise, the door was already open. Immediately, my nerves start to tingle.

My mother shouldn't be home at this time.

I quickly place my keys in my bag and tighten my grip on the handle of my umbrella. Sucking in a breath, I turn the metal knob and crack open the door. The lights in the kitchen were on. My knuckles are white around the handle.

I quietly enter my home, the wooden planks barely making a sound under my weight. I make it past the living room and through the hallway, edging closer and closer to the kitchen. Once I got to the doorway, I suck in another breath. There might be a stranger in my home. There might be a criminal in my home. Best case scenario, it's just Inukai-san or my mother. I don't want to think about the worst case scenario.

"AAH—" I charge in with my umbrella high up in the air, ready to hit a man—

"Oh, you're home."

—and I find my mother, Ejiri Kaoru, sitting on a stool by the island, calmly sipping her tea. I freeze in place. How in what dimension is my mother home at 7:06 pm? "I thought you had a shift at the hospital tonight?" I ask, lowering the umbrella.

"I had the morning shift."

"Oh,"—I uncomfortably shuffle my feet in place—"I-I see."

"Why were you out so late?" Mother eyed me from behind the rim of her cup. I met her eyes and lifted the plastic bag filled with vegetables and meat. "I went grocery shopping; I thought you weren't here so I thought I'd make dinner myself tonight."

She lifted an eyebrow. "Is that all?"

I nod. She hums.

We stayed there in silence, mother finishing her tea and me standing aimlessly by the doorway. The groceries and the umbrella in my hands began to feel heavier as I began to feel my stomach dropping further. I know mother acted distant ever since papa... passed but she was acting even more... distant now. To alleviate the awkwardness that stunk the air, I cough and slightly shake the plastic bag. "I'm gonna go change. I'll make dinner right after, alright?" I announce. Mother nodded.

"If that's the case, I'm just going to step outside for a moment." She said in return. "Wait, it's raini—" I shout and before I could protest further, she was already out the backdoor. I know I saw the pack of cigarettes in her hand.

I sighed and went back into the hallway and up the stairs. After papa was gone, mother and I became... let's just say, distant. She became an emotional wreck and I was drowning in my own grief and hatred. It didn't take long for us to separate emotionally and neither of us even attempted to connect again. A part of me regrets that. Another really wishes that the world would just burn already.

I changed to my normal clothes— a t shirt and shorts— and run downstairs to prepare dinner. By the hallway, I catch picture frames hanging on the wall. Some of them were of us with papa. Some were of me and Inukai-san. I smile.

I got to work in the kitchen.

Dinner was quiet as usual. Mother was slowly chewing the tamagoyaki I prepared. I was anxiously watching her eat the homemade meal over the rim of my bowl of rice. An unfamiliar sense of dread had made itself comfortable in the depths of my stomach. I didn't know what made me this way. Mother's silence wasn't out of the ordinary. I would say that it was the norm whenever Mother ignores me. But her distant eyes, the tense shoulders— I know there's something wrong. And I was almost too scared to find out.

"You make decent tamagoyaki." She suddenly piped up and I jumped in my seat. "Huh? Uh, thanks, I had to— you know— learn, since you had the shifts and—" I stammer and wince. Was it really the wisest decision to bring up her absence in my life? Mother just watched me run my mouth. In the corner of my eye, I see her face darken. It could just be my imagination.

"How's school?" She asked and I shut my mouth in surprise. This was unexpected. Taking another bite out of the tamagoyaki, Mother stared at me with dull eyes. I blink. "Uh, fine, I guess." I answer.

"You're still hanging around that Shinsou kid?" She asked. I nod slowly, not really understanding what's happening. I stand up and take the now empty plates to the sink, a million thoughts running through my head. Why would mother suddenly ask me about school?

"So I heard you passed the mock exams."

"They were fairly easy." I respond in instinct.

She had something else in her mind, I know it.

"So you'll be taking the entrance exam next?"

"Yeah, in ten mont—" I freeze in place, realizing the error I had made. She knows. She knows about Yuuei. And she managed to pry it out of my mouth in 5 seconds.

None of us moved an inch. I couldn't breathe. Her burning glare bore itself into the back of my head. I knew she was angry. I knew she was thinking of ways to drag me to my room and chain me to the bed. Because in this house, heroes are taboo. Mother didn't want anything to do with them.

"You had no intention of telling me, did you?" She glowered.

"T-that's not—"

"Tell me."

I stammered. I knew she would act like this. "I..." I choked out but I found myself faltering. Her gaze felt like acid corroding ny skin. God, how is it possible for anybody to have a gaze this intense?

"I didn't." I murmured, sure that my mother wouldn't hear me. Unfortunately, as if all gods from different religions seemed to find my misery amusing, she did. "Did your father's death teach you nothing?!" I heard her scream, the chair's legs screeching and a loud crash sounding right after. I didn't need to look behind me to know that the chair fell over.

"You stubborn girl, I told you! Do you want to end up just like your father?"

"No."

"Chiasa, look at me."

I can't. I can't meet her eyes.

"Look at me."

I slowly turned to her, my body stiff and shoulders as tense as a cord holding onto a 100-ton weight. My mother's face was red. Her breathing was ragged. She was fuming.

"I forbid you from going to Yuuei."

I saw this coming. I should've been prepared. But actually hearing the words, actually realizing that even my own mother doesn't want me to be a hero; it devastated me. It made me shake. It made me angry.

"No." I said.

"What?" She whispered.

"I'm going to Yuuei whether you like it or not!" I added fuel to the fire.

"You stubborn— Chiasa, listen to me—"

"I'm going to graduate from Yuuei!" The fuel bled into each word. Tears brimmed at the corners of my eyes.

"I'm going to be the number one hero!" The gasoline keeps pouring out into each letter that escapes my mouth.

"Why do you want to be a hero so badly?!"

This is it.

"I..."

The fire has been lit.

"I want to be better than them."

It felt like everything was shifting. Like everything was changing. My mother, my house, myself. I knew that after today, after I get into Yuuei, everything's going to change.

"I want to be better than those heroes who failed me and my father all those years ago!"

I hear the mirror shattering.

END OF CHAPTER ONE

(I wanted to try my hand at making a fanfic ahaha. Anyway, here is the official first chapter for Little Doll! Are you happy now, @daemooons? Shoutout to @daemooons and @sanii13 for proofreading and listening to my idea rants lol. Y'all the best and I love you.)

(You can also read Little Doll on my Quotev account here.)

#bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha fanfic #bnha oc #fanfiction #Lu writes for once #mha #my hero academia

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midnightbluefox · 6 years ago

Photo

Our Reylo Discord server, The Reylo Writing Den @thereylowritingden, held its second fic gift exchange, in which over 40 people participated! The amount of talent in all of these writers, and the effort that they put into their fics, is absolutely stunning. Please enjoy all of the quality new Reylo content and support some really skilled and giving authors.

+ fic is mature/explicit

* fic is a WIP/ currently incomplete

________________________

+ The One in Which She Takes His Hand by @saturninefeline for @filthyreylo : "I’ll be your slaughterhouse, your killing floor, your morgue and final resting, walking around with this bullet inside me like the bullet was already there, like it’s been waiting inside me the whole time." - "Wishbone", Richard Siken

Floricorpse by @nite0wl29 for AmberDread : Never ask what could go wrong on Halloween in Transfiguration class. Ben and Rey are about to find out first hand.

+* The Curse of the Forgotten Tomb by @spiegatrixlestrange for @gopherbroke : Rey falls, not so accidentally, into an ancient, untouched burial chamber during an archeology project in Egypt. All the hints lead to the fact that the owner of the chamber had been cursed. It might be the most important discovery in Rey's career, but the consequence of disturbing a dead man's slumber will haunt her for a pretty long time.

+ Spine Tingling by @reysexualkylo for @sand-its-everywhere : Haunted house worker and the person who gets scared and punched them in the face au

+* A Love Sent From Hell by @minkel23 to @kylotrashforever : At night while he sleeps, Professor Ben Solo is visited by a woman. A woman who appears out of nowhere. A woman who disappears into nothing. A woman who makes him want to weep with both fear and desire. The woman of his dreams, though she comes wrapped in a nightmare.

When he discovers an old book, full of ancient spells, he suddenly realises he can bring his dream woman to life.

But all dreams come at a price, and all spells are followed by demons. But is the demon one Ben really wants to face?

+* From R to Kylo by @sand-its-everywhere to @quixoticlux : Ben and Rey are archaeologists who absolutely cannot stand each other. They also happen to be pen pals, but they don't know who the other is, until one night they get trapped together at a creepy excavation site, and suddenly their hatred begins to unravel.

+ Unfinished Business by @kylotrashforever by @lilia-ula : All her life Rey has seen things she shouldn’t. She’s spent the greater part of the last decade helping errant spirits move on from this life, helping them to find the closure they seek and cross over. When a request comes in seeking her help to rid an architectural firm of a particularly grumpy haunt, she doesn’t hesitate to answer the call. Kylo Ren may be the most handsome haunt she’s ever faced, but that won’t stop her from helping him settle his unfinished business... even if she doesn’t realize he’s not actually dead

A silly ghost story with a ghostly mixup and a not so ghostly Kylo Ren.

+ you’re my boo by @filthyreylo for @reyloner : Rey's neighbor Ben Solo is the only one who ever shows Halloween spirit around here. When she discovers he's moving out, she's only hurt because that means she won't have anymore competition... right?

So she sets out on a plan to make him stay.

+* Of Yoga and Werewolves by @inmyownidiom for @aknightofwren : Rey isn't obsessed with Ben. Not at all. She just really enjoys staring at his ass as it moves beneath yoga pants. When she starts seeing him outside of the yoga studio, Rey slowly realizes that Ben has been keeping something from her: something dark, something awful, and something that doesn't have anything to do with yoga pants.

Their relationship is about to seriously transform.

+* Unmasked by @wewantreylo for @attackofthedarkcurses : When Rey meets a masked guy at Maz's annual Halloween party, she is instantly smitten. Her mystery man is perfect -- compassionate, protective and a dedicated Star Wars fan, just like her. It's like he was made for her. There's only one problem.

She doesn't know Kylo Ren is actually her asshole coworker, Ben Solo.

+ The Mystery of Pumpkin Spice by @intp-slytherin97 for @brwrites2187 : Someone in the apartment likes pumpkin spice (spoiler alert: it's Ben)...and Rey decides to make all a little more complicated.

***

Pumpkin pie, pumpkin spice yogurt, pumpkin spice cream cheese, pumpkin spice cottage cheese, pumpkin spice potato chips—

Who the fuck eats pumpkin spice potato chips? Dear god, not even he would.

However, Ben brilliantly remained neutral every time someone brought up the sudden appearance of these pumpkin spice inspired and flavored items. Claiming at every moment he did not know who bought them.

Because he honestly had no idea who was fucking with him.

Someone in the apartment clearly knew of his little…pumpkin spice addiction. And decided to use to garner his attention—well two can play at that game.

I’m Not Freaking Out by @reyofdarkness for @reyloandotherfandoms : Intrepid ghost-hunters Ben and Rey are used to crawling in, around, and under abandoned places to get their share of spooks and scares (all fake, of course; they know ghosts aren't real). But when they come across an old schoolhouse with a haunted history, the TV magic might take a dive into the actually supernatural.

*You Bury Me by @attackofthedarkcurses for @reylocalligraphy : Rey visits her grandfather, who resides in the bed next to Padme Amidala, at the nursing home daily. Padme has the month of October left to live. What happens when Ben, who hasn’t talked to his grandmother in decades, decides to start visiting the nursing home every day?

+* Honey, I’m Home by @reyloner for @inmyownidiom : When Rey confesses her opinion on Halloween, or lack thereof more like, Ben Solo takes up the challenge in changing her mind; to make her see that October 31st is a day worth celebrating. And what better way to show her the spooky spirit than paying a visit to the grand Victorian house (rumoured to be haunted) that once belonged to his grandparents?

However, unbeknownst to Ben, the house has a whole mind of its own. And much like him, the spirits within also have a goal to complete:

To resolve the heady tension that circulates between the pair and force out the real confessions that need to be heard.

+* Hallowed Heat by @gopherbroke for @twinkitten : As the steady babysitter, Rey is accompanying Mr. Solo and his son, Grey, to the city's big Halloween Fest. It is a little too late when she realizes that she had broken Mr. Solo's rigid contract and had forgotten her suppressants. She flees, hiding in the portapotty as she starts to go into heat.

While Mr. Solo paces, impatient and bossy, on the other side of the thin plastic door, Rey looks back on her relationship with her boss and how he has changed from hostile employer to friend... to Alpha?

But would he ever be her Alpha?

And how long will that flimsy door hold back Alpha like Mr. Solo from an Omega that smells as sweet as Rey?

... Grey had always said how much his father had a sweet tooth.

+ As We Collide by @aknightofwren for @hellomelusine : “Damn it Rey! How do you accidentally summon a dead Witch of Dathomir?!” yelled Ben as he dodged a plate sailing through the air towards him.

Unknotting Unknots by @reylocalligraphy for @moonshotsandarchimedeslevers : Rey doesn’t know who moves first. Maybe they both do, his lips crashing down and her body leaning forward. Their lips meet in a tender, careful clash. He has such gentle lips, so easy to melt into, but too soon, he breaks the kiss.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers instantly. His eyes are wide with fear, the oh my god I just kissed an Alpha without her permission look. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

***

Rey’s world is turned upside down when she meets Ben Solo—an Omega unlike any she’s ever met before.

+ Southern Shadows and Howling Horrors by @twinkittenfor @kill-these-lights : Rey and her friends are just looking for a quiet place to go on their college break, and settle on the small southern town of Endor for a bit of camping and hiking. Ben Solo is a sheriff trying to bring his sleepy southern town out of the dark ages and keep everyone happy and safe. No one is safe when a monster decides to stalk the campers; Ben and Rey are caught in a whirlwind of romance and horror as they both fight the idea that something supernatural lives in the woods.

With a Swoop of the Pen by @armltagehux for @awshuxhux : Ben Solo, bestselling thriller author, is struggling to write the final book of his trilogy. His agent, Hux, sends him to Salem, Massachusetts in October in an attempt to get him into the "spooky" mindset. An impulse buy in a kitchy Halloween shop lands Ben with a calligraphy set that supposedly has enchanted properties which manifest whatever he writes into reality. He puts it to the test in a nearby coffee shop where he works on his novel almost daily, much to the entertainment of the cute barista, Rose.

+ To Be Brave by @mizuphoenix for @kpopandstarwarswhynot : Rey Niima finds herself going through a haunted house with her not friend, and secret crush, Ben Solo. Why she thought that was a good idea in the first place she had no idea. It was Halloween so she might as well try to be brave.

She had many fears, but she was going to have to face the one fear she held above even that of clowns.

+* Love is a misunderstanding between two fools by @greyforceuser for @thecalrissianchronicals : Ben Solo has been too afraid to ask out the girl he's been in love with for years, Rey. He tries to impress her by going as Kylo Ren to the Halloween costume party. Rey shows up in the sexiest costume he's ever seen. Could she possibly have worn it for him? The only thing he is sure about is that she must be trying to kill him.

+* The Lioness by @lilia-ula for @bunilicious : Rey had long ago dismissed many of the more fanciful beliefs of her people, including that of the Ghost Moon. As far as she was concerned, the dead most definitely weren’t interested in rising from their graves to hunt the living on the eve of her birthday.

There was one ghost, however, of whose presence she was certain, as evinced year after year on the eventide of autumn.

It was said that he took the form of a man, but possessed the great wings of a bat. That he was enchanting to behold, with hair black as a starless sky and skin like rare alabaster, but that his mouth was a rictus of daggers stained with the blood of his victims.

*Anything to Win by @happilyeveraftereveryday for @intp-slytherin97 : Rey hates losing.

She hates losing almost more than she loves winning.

Which is why she's in the ridiculous position of asking Kylo Ren, the very person who keeps beating her at the singles costume contest, to team up with her to dominate the couples contest and trounce Phasma and Hux once and for all.

Working with Kylo is a necessary evil, but really, she'd do anything to win. Anything!

Unless... it's falling in love.

* The Rule of Three by @reyloandotherfandoms for @happilyeveraftereveryday : Sometimes you have to meet the love of your life more than once.

+*Little Red by @j-dryless for @wewantreylo : For as long as she’s known, something inside her has always been there.

Mostly it’s been asleep.

But now it’s awake.

And she’s afraid.

From circumstances she can’t control, Rey gets a new job, a new home, and a new neighbor—the Big Bad Wolf.

Decades to Fall by @rrwilson66 for @armltagehux : He's not sure when it happened or if he's always felt it.

Maybe it was when they were children? Pretending to be brave ghost hunters, racing down the halls of the Hux residence.

Or it could have been when she dragged him to that stupid Halloween party in that ridiculous costume?

Or when they attended the local fall fair? Which he still counts as their first date.

He's not sure when it occurred, he doesn't really care because he knows one thing.

Armitage Hux is utterly in love with Rey Kantana!

What may come by @mrsmancuspia for @nite0wl29 : A little ficlet that got longer than expected.

+* Sinful by @kpopandstarwarswhynot for @mrsmancuspia : Who would have thought that a pair of pretty eyes could lead to the path of eternal damnation? +* The Dinner Party by @bunilicious for @monsterleadmehome : The boy she once knew was now a man. Now, inexplicably, the innocence and vivacity of a young girl’s first love seemed to blossom, growing into that of a woman on the cusp of something tremendous – the awareness of her sensuality. A new yearning bloomed inside her with each passing second – and the innocent butterflies, which had fluttered in her stomach at the thought of the boy she cherished, were engulfed in scorching flames. It was a fire that now rendered her breathless and desiring of something that only the man she loved could provide. As Ben took her hand in his to escort her to dinner, Rey became overwhelmed by a tingling sensation for which she had no name – a slick moisture which gathered at the apex of her thighs, a swollen nub which demanded to be touched and nurtured… like a small bud blossoming in a garden that refused to remain dormant.

A REYLO VICTORIAN AU

+* Tryptophan and Serotonin by @monsterleadmehome for @j-dryless : Ben Solo hates Thanksgiving at his family's house. However, this year, his mother has invited a special guest - Rey Abrams, the girl he's been crushing on at work. When Ben consumes too much turkey, he falls asleep on the couch and has a rather vivid dream about Rey. Will he be able to hold his composure and finally ask her out?

+* Sunflower and Pumpkins by @i-live-in-the-reylo-moon for @delia-pavorum : Professor Ben Solo hates Halloween but thanks to his pushy colleagues Proffesors Hux and Phasma he is persuaded to attend the annual Halloween party Poe Dameron is throwing in the hope of seeing the beautiful young woman he passes on campus each morning. When he finds her he is instantly smitten. But does that mean he'll start to love All Hallows' Eve?

The Halloween Heist by @rebelrebelreylo for @midnightbluefox and @loveofescapism : Clyde Logan was done with “cauliflower” schemes. But, unlike Jimmy, Sadie still had sway over him. That was why he’d slipped away from her elementary school party and was sneaking into her teacher’s classroom — all to steal her sacred Halloween hoard back.

+* This Is Us Colliding by @moonshotsandarchimedeslevers for @minkel23 : Desperate to save her bakery from going out of business, Rey decides to steal apples from Varykino Orchards. Things go awry when Ben catches her in the act. But instead of turning her in, Ben makes an interesting proposal...

An apple-picking twist on Beauty and the Beast/Snow White. Dedicated to the lovely and talented minkel23 who came up with the brilliant prompt. +* We Shall Be Monsters by @kill-these-lights for @avidvampirehunter : “The things you see there are not exactly real.”

Rey's just trying to follow Master Luke's latest cryptic lesson. She didn't expect for Kylo Ren to land on the same strange world in a remote corner of the galaxy. However, on this planet, nothing is what it appears to be, and the two must band together to overcome the visions surrounding them, if they can bear to face the Darkness within...

+ Fall by AmberDread for @aniskym : Autumn, the leaves are changing, soon to fall, when Kylo takes Rey away for a long weekend to the country - he knows she'll love his grandmother's cabin in the woods.

Unfortunately for him, his long-estranged twin brother Ben arrives a few hours after them. Ben was looking forward to chilling out somewhere quiet after being away on tour for two years in Iraq, he isn't especially pleased to find the cabin isn't empty, but he tries to make the most of it, and can't help enjoying every time he makes Kylo's girlfriend smile.

+ all of life’s problems by @delia-pavorum for @greyforceuser : “Anyway, Ben.” Poe was already inching in the direction of the kitchen, where a group of people all dressed like the clown from IT - with varying degrees of success - were loudly chanting the word “shots” over and over again. “I’m going to let you get comfortable, grab a drink, and get settled in. And, hey--” He paused, which made Ben turn to look at him. “--Try and have some fun for once, yeah?”

With a wink, he threw his arm over Finn’s shoulder and they both took their leave. “Take care of my boy, Rey!” he called over his shoulder just as he disappeared into the kitchen.

Ben quickly looked over at Rey, who was staring at him once more over the rim of her cup, her eyes twinkling.“I don’t need babysitting,” he muttered, tone surly.“Oh, shut it,” she responded good-humoredly. “Let’s get you a drink.”

When Ben Solo reluctantly attends a Halloween Party being thrown by his former roommate from med school, he gets more than he bargained for once he encounters the only other person there without a costume.

* Mischief Night by @brwrites2187 for @i-live-in-the-reylo-moon : Rey and Ben Solo, newlyweds, are all dressed up in costume for a night of Halloween parties, hosted by Poe Dameron and the Hux family. But, when Finn ends up in the hospital for an emergency surgery, Rose recruits the Solos to take her and Finn's daughters trick-or-treating. They help out the Ticos, and that Halloween night will definitely be one no one forgets.

+ The Tengu of Takodana by @avidvampirehunter for @thewayofthetrashcompactor : The forest of Takodana has been cursed by a Tengu, a demon of nature and war. Rey, a young warrior, is summoned to defeat the beast, reclaim the Seed, and restore the forest to its rightful state.

But not all seeds come in pods.

+* Frightful Nights by @hellomelusine for @reyofdarkness : Rey had met Ben six weeks ago at this fireside ghost story event a friend of a friend of a friend was running. Ridiculously named Frightful Nights, but they promised free s’mores and hot chocolate, so really, Rey owed it to herself to attend. Ben was there looking more than a little forlorn in his own, and well, Rey’s true motivator for going over and striking up conversation was because the dude was hot. And now, he had promised to stop by her place of work. Rey didn't care how tough he thought he was. She was going to scare him.

+* measured out my life (with caf spoons) by @mnemehoshiko for @saturninefeline : All Ben Solo wants is a cup of plain caf. The universe feels otherwise.

+ Paint It Black by @quixoticlux for @mizuphoenix : “Look, I don’t have any candy.” He smirked, leaning against the doorjamb and crossing his massive arms. Rey tried not to stare at his bicep muscles pulled taut. “Unless you’re looking for something else sweet…”

Rey somehow managed to tear her gaze away from his bare skin, forcing herself to focus on his eyes. Which she realized belatedly was just as dangerous. “Unless that ‘something sweet’ happens to be a new painting…”

Rey's an Artist Liaison for Resistance Gallery in Manhattan. Kylo Ren is a mysterious artist she's been after for months. What happens when she loses a bet and has to show up on his doorstep on Halloween, in costume?

* harvest moon and autumn sun by @thewayofthetrashcompactor for @spiegatrixlestrange : After years on her own, Rey's found a job at Resistance Tattoos. It's not a bad gig. She has friends who understand that magic isn't as fictional as most people believe and who put up with her after the full moon. They've got a pretty good thing going on, but she's not sure the flower shop moving in across the street fits into that. Especially with how strange the new owner smells. And what kind of gardener is so pale? Rey decides she's going to find out. +* Probably gonna die here by @thecalrissianchronicals for @reysexualkylo : So yeah Rey was a bit scared of being alone in a corn maze, at night, in the middle of nowhere, probably about to be murdered.

She absolutely blamed Ben Solo for it.

#reylo #reylo fanfiction #reylo moodboard #reyloween #reylo discord server #rey #ben solo #kylo ren #star wars #reylo modern au #reylo coffeeshop #reylo harry potter #reylo abo #reylo fall

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estelofimladris · 6 years ago

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Queerness and Death in The Magicians by SE Fleenor (The Removed Syfy Article)

[ NOTE: This article is being reposted in its entirety because it was removed by the Syfy website where it was originally posted. I (estelofimladris) did not write it, but still had it open after its removal. Please read and enjoy - send the writer, S.E. Fleenor, some love if you can. ]

by S.E. Fleenor

SPOILERS FOR THE MAGICIANS SEASON 4 FINALE!

By now you already know that The Magicians’ Quentin Coldwater died in the Season 4 finale. Yes, D-E-D, dead. There’s no resurrection in the works and no trick of astral projection or Niffin state of higher being can bring sweet, depressed, narcissistic Quentin back.

The decision to kill off a major character — the major character, if the Lev Grossman novels still mean anything (they don’t) — is almost always controversial. But we live in the day and age of Game of Thronesand The Walking Dead and Thanos snapping half of the Avengers (and the universe) into nothingness. Any character could die at any moment (and sometimes all of the characters could die at any moment) and that’s the brave, new, kill-happy world our media is made in.

So, why does it matter that Quentin is dead?

Well, my friends, let’s revisit a little trope we like to call Bury Your Gays. Throughout media representations of queer folks, reaching back to 19th-century Victorian novels, the formula has been about the same: An LGBTQ+ character is introduced, they reveal their sexuality or an attraction to a specific person, and then they die, die, die, often horrifically. This trope is also called Dead Lesbian Syndrome due to the overwhelming number of queer women who have been slaughtered onscreen — not exactly the representation queer women have been begging for.

Back when archaic censorship laws ruled the page and the screen, writing about queer characters was taboo and the only way queer writers, or folks who wanted to create queer characters, could include LGBTQ+ characters was by portraying them unfavorably. Queer characters could exist, but only as a warning of what a “perverted” life would bring you. So, in order to get some kind of representation, LGBTQ+ characters had to suffer.

Sounds a little rough, huh? Like who would really bury their gays? Oh, just Buffy the Vampire Slayer, True Blood, The 100, The Walking Dead, The Expanse, Jessica Jones, Xena, Smallville, Battlestar Galactica, Hex, Torchwood, Hemlock Grove, Teen Wolf, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Dracula, The Vampire Diaries, Arrow, Salem, American Horror Story, Ascension, Lost Girl, Scream, The Shannara Chronicles, The Exorcist, Van Helsing, Doctor Who, Gotham, The Handmaid’s Tale, The Purge, and last but not least (and not for the first time): The Magicians.

Let it be noted that I have only included science fiction, fantasy, and horror TV shows on this list and only those that I know about. The list is much, much longer when you include non-genre TV shows and film. (Autostraddle has a very complete list of queer women on TV who have been killed off, for those of you who feel like being sad.)

Oh, did you recognize a bunch of queer-friendly shows in that list? Does that somehow feel like a violation of the promise made when a series goes out of its damn way to present itself as queer and feminist?

EXACTLY. And, that, my sweet babies, is why people are pissed about the death of Quentin Coldwater, generally speaking. We’re sick of seeing queer characters die over and over again. But, what specifically about the death of Quentin is so frustrating? I’m so glad you asked.

Full disclosure: I'm not going to get into the creators' rationale for killing off Quentin. I've read all the interviews with the creators and with Jason Ralph, who plays Quentin, and they all read like a whole lot of familiar BS. (At least Hale Appelman, who plays Eliot, gets it.)

In the first season of The Magicians, Quentin, Eliot, and Margot have a threesome. It’s the first time Quentin has sex with a man, as far as we know, and it’s the first time we see him start to confront his queerness. In Season 3’s “A Life in the Day,” Quentin and Eliot end up in a different Fillory, from before they were born, where they must solve an unsolvable puzzle. As they spend a lifetime working on the mosaic, they fall in love, raise a child, and make their queer family work. Upon returning to the main timeline, barely a word is spoken about their encounter, and queer folks everywhere braced ourselves for that experience to be treated as an anomaly from another timeline. (Another weird queer trope where characters get to be LGBTQ+, but only elsewhere or else when or, or, or…)

Season 4 brought unexpected twists and turns, such as Eliot being trapped inside his own mind by the Monster. With that, many a fan prepared to let Queliot rest. And, then “Escape from the Happy Place,” took us into Eliot’s mind and — after exploring a lot of deep trauma that has a particularly queer flavor to it — back to the day Eliot and Quentin came back from their lifetime in Fillory. As they sit on the steps of the throne room, Memory Quentin and Memory Eliot talk about what happened between them. Memory Quentin asks Memory Eliot why they shouldn’t try to be together, saying “Who gets proof of concept like that?”

Eliot kisses Memory Quentin hard on the mouth and then walks through the door that will allow him to take control of his body for a moment. In the real world, face to face with Quentin, Eliot gets a signal out that he’s still alive. He looks at Quentin and repeats the question Quentin had asked him, following it with, “Peaches and plums, motherf*cker.” When he realizes who he’s looking at, Quentin hesitates, a look of surprise and longing washing over his face.

This deeply emotional and compelling storyline appeared at the same time that Quentin finally officially rebuffed Alice’s advances, telling her he no longer wanted to be together, that he could never see her the same way again.

Then, after all that work, after all the maturation the characters undergo, the series undoes everything, shoehorning in a last-minute declaration of love between Quentin and Alice and killing off Quentin when he uses magic in the Mirror Realm, without ever seeing Eliot again. Quentin then goes to the Underworld branch of the library and meets with Penny 40 while reminiscing over his life and pondering over whether or not he died by suicide. (The treatment of suicide in the episode is problematic and deeply offensive.)

There are probably as many critiques of this ending as there are people who watched it, but I’m going to focus on the main issues that stood out to me.

The series has gone out of its way to confirm Quentin as queer and tease the possibility of a queer love story.

Queer viewers are used to surviving off subtext and tend to be fairly generous in what we’ll accept. Seriously, many a queer considers Thor: Ragnarok to be part of the queer canon when it’s not even implied onscreen that anyone is queer, and have you seen people shipping Carol and Maria in Captain Marvel? Maybe it’s because we’re used to being served scraps that the Bury Your Gays trope feels so pointed. Oh, you’re not happy with the almosts and the could-haves and the alternate timelines of queerness? Well, then we’ll make your characters queer and just murder ‘em right up.

After Season 3, The Magicians could have never acknowledged the relationship between Quentin and Eliot that takes place in another timeline or they could have shrugged and been like, “Must have been the opium in the air!” They’d already done as much with the threesome in Season 1 and all but ignoring Quentin's queerness in the episodes that follow. The series didn’t have to confirm that Quentin wanted to follow his attraction to Eliot and give being together a try. But, The Magiciansdid. The series took the time onscreen to show Eliot and Quentin kissing again, to show Eliot declaring his love for Quentin in their own code, and to show Quentin dedicate his time to helping Eliot get free.

Furthermore, how messed up is it that the series spends a significant amount of time dredging up the trauma of Eliot’s queer youth only to make him realize his biggest regret is how he treated Quentin, just for Quentin to be forced back into the closet? An episode that was deeply evocative and affirming of queerness smacks of voyeurism when taken in the context of the finale.

At the last minute, after confirming his queerness, the series forces a relationship between Quentin and Alice.

It’s hard not to see the last ditch shoving of Quentin and Alice together as an attempt to shove Quentin himself back in the closet. Season 4 shows Quentin rejecting and wanting to be apart from Alice, only for him to decide that he loves her and wants to give their relationship another try because? Honestly, I’m not sure what rationale he uses because it MAKES NO SENSE. And, what the hell does he think of imprisoned-in-his-own-body Eliot while making this decision? To judge from the series, not a whole hell of a lot.

It’s totally cool if queer or bisexual characters date people of different genders — that’s not the issue. The issue is that without a moment of hesitation, Quentin whiplashes from his lover who he knows is trapped by the Monster and cannot see, hear, or reach him to his ex-girlfriend who he has distanced himself from due to her selfish behavior.

In the context of his death, I like to call this particularly messed up turn of events “Bury Your Gays and Stomp On Their Graves” because all the work that had been done to show Quentin’s coming to terms with his own sexuality is undone shortly before he dies.

There are other ways to write a character off a series.

A lot of people fall back on bad faith arguments like: what is a show supposed to do when an actor no longer wishes to appear in the series?

The answer, of course, is: ANYTHING ELSE. They could have done literally anything else to write Quentin out of the show and release Jason Ralph from his commitment. The Magicians takes place in a world WHERE MAGIC EXISTS, where characters leave the main story to go on their own adventures, and where average human beings can become gods. There’s no excuse for falling into lazy storytelling and reifying a trope that has been well-documented and mourned for a long time.

In the novels, Quentin gets kicked out of Fillory and decides to use his discipline, minor mendings, to build a new world for himself and Alice. He essentially walks through a door and never comes back. THAT WOULD HAVE WORKED and it wouldn’t do the work of retraumatizing queer audiences.

It comes down to this: To ignore the wider implications of making a character specifically queer, having him return to his prior unhealthy relationship with a woman, and then killing him off is a disservice to queer people everywhere. It is, at once, a declaration of the meaninglessness of the queer experience and an unforgivable reminder of the expendability of queer lives.

Series like The Magicians (and before it, Buffy the Vampire Slayer) trade on their reputations as queer and feminist shows. We watch them for their powerful women and their kickass queer characters and their storylines that affirm the power of survival. And what do they give us in return? They bury their gays.

Does that mean that all LGBTQ+ characters should be immortal? The rational response would be: of course not. Up until today I may have agreed with that argument, but right now I’m feeling a little less generous. It’s 20-f*cking-19 and there is no excuse for Bury Your Gays to pop up in a progressive TV show. Maybe until series and creators who make their money off queer characters and queer fandom take responsibility for how they use the lives and bodies of queer people, maybe until then, all LGBTQ+ characters should be immortal.

I’m pretty damn sick of watching every character who loves like me, who looks like me, who explores the bounds of their sexuality like me, die. I’m sick of watching characters bust down the doors of the closets that held them back only to have their queerness erased or elided through their deaths. I’m sick of watching relationships between men and women blossom onscreen only to see queer relationships torn apart by death.

Queer people deserve happy endings. We deserve them in real life and we deserve to see them onscreen and we deserve them now.

Until that’s the norm, you better damn well consider any queer character you create immortal. Because if you don’t, we queers will f*cking haunt your basic ass.

#quentin coldwater #the magicians #the magicians spoilers #peoplelikeme #quentin coldwater deserved better #syfy #se fleenor #i own nothing

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fizzingwizard · 6 years ago

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I reread the Sherlock Holmes stories at least once a year. Every time, I’m impressed with something new. I’ve really got to start a Holmesian side blog.

For now, enjoy what is basically me live-tweeting “The Problem of Thor Bridge,” although I actually read it a few days ago. Holmes is in his late 40s.

The story in short: A woman has been killed, and the family’s governess is accused, because the woman’s jackass husband is totally into her.

It was a wild morning in October, and I observed as I was dressing how the last remaining leaves were being whirled from the solitary plane tree which graces the yard behind our house. I descended to breakfast prepared to find my companion in depressed spirits, for, like all great artists, he was easily impressed by his surroundings.

We start off with an image of the moody, artistic, disconsolate Holmes, and a depiction of Watson, the guy who knows everything about him.

On the contrary, I found that... his mood was particularly bright and joyous, with that somewhat sinister cheerfulness which was characteristic of his lighter moments.

"You have a case, Holmes?" I remarked.

"The faculty of deduction is certainly contagious, Watson," he answered.

Every. Little. Thing.

Also, please note, sinister cheerfulness.

Watson: Holmes, you’re... happy. Good Lord, who’s been murdered!?

"... We may discuss it when you have consumed the two hard-boiled eggs with which our new cook has favoured us. Their condition may not be unconnected with the copy of the Family Herald which I observed yesterday upon the hall-table. Even so trivial a matter as cooking an egg demands an attention which is conscious of the passage of time and incompatible with the love romance in that excellent periodical."

Ooh. Victorian burn!

"I am getting into your involved habit, Watson, of telling a story backward."

Holmes’s pastime - casually insulting Watson.

Watson’s probable reaction:

By the way, let’s keep track of Holmes burns, shall we? So far he’s roasted both Watson and the poor cook at Baker Street.

"... A revolver with one discharged chamber and a calibre which corresponded with the bullet was found on the floor of her wardrobe." His eyes fixed and he repeated in broken words, "On—the—floor—of—her—wardrobe." Then he sank into silence.

Sherlock Holmes abruptly cutting off, repeating himself in staccato, then getting lost in thought and forgetting he was talking to someone. Just a day in the life of Dr. Watson.

When this sort of thing happens for a prolonged time, Watson has a habit of... falling asleep. Lol. Not that I blame him

Enter Bates, who is a manager for today’s client, Gibson, a gold mining magnate. Bates does not like Gibson.

"Those public charities are a screen to cover his private iniquities."

A breakdown of big business if I ever saw one.

Holmes doesn’t like Gibson either.

"What the devil do you mean by this, Mr. Holmes? Do you dismiss my case?"

"Well, Mr. Gibson, at least I dismiss you."

Holmes Burn Count: 3.

I sprang to my feet, for the expression upon the millionaire's face was fiendish in its intensity, and he had raised his great knotted fist.

Gasp! Someone makes a threatening gesture at Sherlock Holmes, something that surely happens with regularity!

Watson:

We learn Gibson has a crush on his governess, who is accused of killing his wife.

"I could not live under the same roof with such a woman and in daily contact with her without feeling a passionate regard for her. Do you blame me, Mr. Holmes?"

"I do not blame you for feeling it. I should blame you if you expressed it, since this young lady was in a sense under your protection."

Holy cheese whiz, Batman! Don’t hit on your employees! See! Even in a world without bills against sexual harassment in the workplace, this was understood!

"I've been a man that reached out his hand for what he wanted, and I never wanted anything more than the love and possession of that woman. I told her so."

"Oh, you did, did you?"

Holmes could look very formidable when he was moved.

Sherlock Holmes:

"I said that money was no object and that all I could do to make her happy and comfortable would be done."

"Very generous, I am sure," said Holmes with a sneer.

Holmes Burn Count: 4

On a side note, more Holmes actors should sneer.

"Some of you rich men have to be taught that all the world cannot be bribed into condoning your offences."

PREACH IT BROTHER.

"And women lead an inward life and may do things beyond the judgement of a man."

I love how this is just accepted in this time period. Gibson is speaking, and Holmes and Watson are gentlemen, but no one’s going to contradict this statement.

Man: does something completely against his character. Everyone else: How strange! There must be some reason. Meanwhile, Woman: does something completely against her character. Everyone: Well, she’s an illogical woman, what do you expect?

I mean dude. They talk this way in the original Star Trek, which had female character working in high-level positions (albeit not starship captain). And the “illogical woman” line appeared pretty much every time a plot involved a woman. It’s crazy how persistent a stereotype this was. At least “female hysteria” was still considered a Thing in Holmes’s time - by Star Trek’s time it had been dropped since the 1950s.

Anyway, I can’t understand a thing men do.

"[My wife] was crazy with hatred and the heat of the Amazon was always in her blood."

Whenever a character isn’t English, they are assigned some ethnic trait that usually makes them more passionate and unreasonable than English people. The English don’t escape critique, but foreigners definitely feel the burn the greatest. If an excuse can be found to blame something on a character being “tropical” or “fiery” because they’re from the Mediterranean or overseas, it will be used. And it’s usually a female character. (Though probably the one who gets it the worst is the poor Andaman Islander in The Sign of Four, who is a man, but barely even afforded humanity by the text.)

Holmes and Watson travel out to investigate. They meet the local police, who’s grateful to work with Holmes.

"And your friend, Dr. Watson, can be trusted, I know."

This is just how you react when Holmes shows up with Watson, since Holmes’s modus operandi is “Anything you say to me will eventually get back to Watson anyway.”

"Well now, Watson, suppose for a moment that we visualise you in the character of a woman who, in a cold, premeditated fashion, is about to get rid of a rival..."

So there’s an episode of House MD where House asks Wilson to envision himself as his patient, who is a middle-aged Chinese woman. Wilson is like “ok” and House says “Say it.” So Wilson says “I’m a middle-aged Chinese woman.” And House is like, “good.” And clearly it’s from “Thor Bridge” bwahahahaha.

"Your best friends would hardly call you a schemer, Watson, and yet I could not picture you doing anything so crude as that."

Watson Cannot Lie. It Is Known. At least, he cannot lie convincingly for more than a few minutes. Also, he is a Good Guy, Whom Holmes Trusts Implicitly.

(The Casebook has quite a few Watson-validating moments.)

"I can see now that I was wrong. Nothing could justify me in remaining where I was a cause of unhappiness, and yet it is certain that the unhappiness would have remained even if I had left the house."

^This is the governess, Ms Dunbar, teaching us all that a good deed never goes unpunished. I disagree with calling Ms Dunbar the “cause” of unhappiness, as the cause is clearly the husband. Ms Dunbar’s one bad decision was in not putting some form of distance between herself and Gibson. She seems to have thought they were safe as long as they were not being physically intimate, but other forms of intimacy were okay. And, to be frank, it seems not unlikely by the end that for all Gibson’s lack of morals, and in spite of her own, Ms Dunbar loves him back.

At the same time, she’s also right that no matter what choice she made, Gibson and his wife were not going to be happy together. It’s completely Gibson’s fault though. And the fault of a society where leaving a marriage left a black mark.

"How do you know [the murder weapon wasn’t already planted in your room]?"

"Because I tidied out the wardrobe."

"That is final."

Who is she, Marie Kondo?

Holmes did not answer. His pale, eager face had suddenly assumed that tense, far-away expression which I had learned to associate with the supreme manifestations of his genius. So evident was the crisis in his mind that none of us dared to speak, and we sat, barrister, prisoner, and myself, watching him in a concentrated and absorbed silence.

More of Silent, Pensive Holmes and his Rapt Audience. Watson won’t fall asleep when others are around, so instead they all stare at Holmes. Literally. That’s what it says. No one dares speak and they all just stare at him.

Suddenly, as we neared our destination he seated himself opposite to me—we had a first-class carriage to ourselves—

I like that Watson feels compelled to explain this to us this.

and laying a hand upon each of my knees he looked into my eyes with the peculiarly mischievous gaze which was characteristic of his more imp-like moods.

The body language in this passage. Holmes getting all silly and excited. Watson still just staring. This scene is probably the most Guy Ritchie-like it gets.

Also, please note imp-like.

Watson: Get your hands off my knees Sherlock Holmes you adorable fucker.

"Watson," said he, "I have some recollection that you go armed upon these excursions of ours."

It was as well for him that I did so, for he took little care for his own safety when his mind was once absorbed by a problem so that more than once my revolver had been a good friend in need. I reminded him of the fact.

"Yes, yes, I am a little absent-minded in such matters."

Holmes: Hey Watson, are you packing heat?

Watson: Well YEAH, you careless bastard. Someone’s got to prevent your death, since you won’t.

Holmes: YOLO

(Although, it’s more like YOLT, in this specific case.)

"See, Watson, your revolver has solved the problem!"

^After using Watson’s revolver in an experiment which results in the gun falling off the bridge into the depths of the river.

Watson: Thank you, Holmes. I liked that revolver.

Holmes: Psh, quit your bitching, we’ll drag the river for it.

In the end, it turns out the wife concocted a plan for her own suicide that would make it look like the governess murdered her. Although this story would definitely have been better without the racism and sexism, one thing that I can’t help but appreciate is that Gibson, a Generally Bad Guy, is not The Bad Guy, and gets to continue living his rich and ruthless life. On top of that, he’s even rid of his wife who wasn’t beautiful anymore, and potentially going to marry the beautiful younger woman. So he gets no consequences for treating his wife terribly, putting the moves on his employee, or just for being a jackass. Instead, he gets even More. It’s hyper realism. ACD ain’t pulling his punches with this one. /cynicism

And that’s it for “Thor Bridge!” This was very fun for me to do though I doubt anyone will read it! But I’ll almost definitely make more so I can continue to share the running inner monologue that goes on in my head whenever I read Holmes stories. I enjoy snickering to myself with or without an audience.

Our Holmes Burn Count was only 4, though I could have included a few more barbs he threw at Gibson.

This probably doesn’t need mentioning, but all the Sherlock Holmes stories are in public domain so y’all should go read them.

#sherlock holmes #john watson #fizz spams sherlock holmes #the problem of thor bridge

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lost-in-the-end-of-time · 7 years ago

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New interview with Don Airey!

Jeb: I have major respect for you as an artist. I am excited to hear you have a new album coming in May of this year. It is called One of a Kind. And Don…you’re one of a kind. How did that name come about?

Don: It was from a jam in a local rehearsal studio with Carl Sentance and Simon McBride – listening back to my recording afterwards I heard Carl sing “One of a Kind” over the chorus section. I think he was referring though to a glamorous young lady rather than a crusty old keyboard player.

Jeb: Your last album in 2014 was called All Keyed Up. That one rocked and was not at all what I expected out of a keyboardist. Will this one be similar?

Don: Its very much in the nature of a band album and it’s not so “prog” as the preceeding albums have been. Eleven songs, lots of soloing, melodies, riffs, something for everyone hopefully.

Jeb: Tell me about how writing differs when writing One of a Kind and writing Deep Purple music.

Don: The main difference is the time factor – you have a couple of days to get things together rather than a couple of months. Same with the recording sessions. I just take all the ideas that come tumbling out of the jams and try to turn them into songs.

Jeb: You’ve played with some of the best hard rock guitarist on the planet…how does Simon McBride hold up against them?

Don: Its very hard to compare one with another. I met Simon six years ago. We became friends after he played at my biannual fund raiser in the village where I live. I got him in to play on “Keyed Up” and then into doing some of the gigs. He’s one of the nicest people I have ever worked with a fund of ideas. He has a fluidity in his playing I haven’t encountered since working with Gary Moore. Incidentally, Simon is from Belfast, almost from the same district as Gary. But he is nevertheless very much his own man, and just hope I can hang on to him for one more project before he hits the stratosphere with his own.

Jeb: All are the 11 new songs….new compositions? Or have some been lying around?

Don: They are all brand new. Carl and myself are fairly dutiful about getting together for writing sessions and having Simon involved added a welcome new dimension and immediacy to our output.

Jeb: This is slated to come out May 25, 2018 on earMUSIC as 2CD release. The bonus disc is live from a live concert you did. They are classic Deep Purple, Rainbow and Gary Moore tunes. Which of these was the most fun to look back at and play live?

Don: Without a doubt “Still got the Blues.” Simon just nails it and I don’t know of anybody else that has, or could. And of course, on a personal level, it honors the memory of perhaps the greatest musician I ever knew.

Jeb: Here is a hard one…there is no real music business like there was back in the day you came to prominence. Why bother doing this type of stuff? Isn’t it easier to just play the hits and collect the checks?

Don: Stuck in my ways, I guess. My publisher and good friend Stuart Taylor used to say “If you want to be in the music biz, you have to make music. What you got?” Collecting checks in the music biz is a good trick if you can do it though.

Jeb: You like the Hammond. I’ve heard you even play at your church in your local village. Is that true?

Don: Yes, I am officially deputy organist at the local church, the only proper job I have ever had. If I am around and needed it’s a privilege to play there, but not the easiest of gigs, I have to say. The organ dates back to Victorian times, and is a splendid instrument, and of course you have really to be on your toes…keeping up with the choir…and not missing the many service cues…and remembering the important part dynamics and phrasing play in hymns, anthems and psalms.

Jeb: Get specific on what I am going to hear in May with these songs. What can your fans expect?

Don: Well, a large helping of English classic rock – perhaps more Rainbow-ish than DP.

Jeb: Are there any you think the fan base will find particularly exciting?

Don: Yes, its quite “heavy” in parts

Jeb: I want to do an in-depth follow-up interview when this album drops. But…I also want to end this sucker with a few self-indulgent questions as I am a huge fan of your work. Let’s start with a biggie…is Deep Purple close to retiring?

Don: With DP the watchword always is “Expect the Unexpected” but, obviously things are winding down though ever so slowly.

Jeb: How big of an influence was Jon Lord on you? Do you remember hearing his playing for the first time?

Don: First heard Jon on “Hush.” I had actually seen him play a couple of years prior to that with the Flowerpot Men at Nottingham University. I thought his playing was astounding; he was loud, driving, technically adept, and made it all look so easy. A good friend over the years to so many of us as well.

Jeb: Where I grew up we were not aware of Colosseum II. You were on their album in 1976. Tell me what that was like and what I missed?

Don: It was one of the many fusion bands that emerged in the wake of the Mahavishnu Orchestra’s success, lead by one of the greatest pros I have ever known drummer Jon Hiseman, and featuring the youthful genius of Gary Moore. We never quite captured it on record, but live the band was absolutely explosive, maniacal even.

Jeb: You were on Never Say Die by Sabbath? I heard that band was a drug infested mess at that time. What was that like?

Don: I remember walking into the session meeting Tony and Ozzy and them offering me a cup of tea. The control room was as though we were in a family’s front room. The two days of sessions were cool, calm and collected. Bill Ward did say to me at the end that he was getting a bit worried about Ozzy though. They couldn’t have been nicer to me, or more professional. I love that album.

Jeb: How did you meet Cozy Powell? I think you played on a solo album of his before you joined Rainbow.

Don: I was in Cozy’s band Hammer that had three hit singles in 1974. A lifelong friendship ensued. He was an amazing musician, especially in a recording studio. He was multi-talented as well and could have made a career as a racing driver, or at show jumping – an incredible horseman apparently. We recorded Over the Top his first solo venture, in London, immediately after finishing recording Down to Earth with Rainbow in France. Great days ay!

Jeb: Michael Schenker is a great guitarist…but another strong personality.

Don: Michael was one of the first people I knew in the biz to give up drinking – astonishing in 1975 – partaking only of sparkling mineral water. Trouble was, the gas turned to acid in his stomach over the months and put him in hospital with a severe bout of peritonitis.

Jeb: I want the untold story of writing the intro to “Mr. Crowley.”

Don: It was recorded in half an hour on a Minimoog and a Yamaha CS80—one of the first polyphonic synths—two hours into the Blizzard sessions. I thought little of it at the time.

Jeb: We all know the story that you flew in that plane only moments before Randy did. He was a friend to you. I think I saw where you played at a tribute to him recently.

Don: I just played at the “Remembering Randy Rhoads” event in Anaheim in January. It was a wonderful evening commemorating the man’s playing and composing. They even very graciously gave me an award. There is not a day goes by that I don’t think of Randy. He truly was one of a kind.

Jeb: That tour with Brad Gillis stepping into being Ozzy’s guitarist had to be emotionally hard…yet you guys killed it musically.

Don: Brad gave his all on his first real professional engagement and kept Ozzy afloat. Not very sure that Brad enjoyed his time in the band though. When I bumped into him recently in Nashville he couldn’t have been less pleased to see me.

Jeb: Gary Moore was another one…I’ve heard you were very important to getting Gary to start recording blues. Is that true?

Don: I mentioned to Gary that I had done a gig with a band called The Hawks in my local pub, featuring the twin guitar work of Mick Grabham and Ray Minhinnet. I said how impressed I was not only with their playing, but the whole measured blues feel of the band. Gary must have got hold of their album, because several of the same songs figured on Still Got the Blues. He also got hold of their rhythm section, bass player Andy Pyle and drummer Graham Walker. It definitely is the album where he found himself.

Jeb: Gary was a fast living guitarist. There has to be a couple tales of Gary and Don sucking down suds on the road…

Don: There are quite a few, but I can’t tell you them!

Jeb: Who am I missing? Oh…Glenn Tipton…Baptism of Fire. I think you played on the title track. Sad news about his health…

Don: I have worked on six projects with Glenn including three Priest albums. He is a gentleman and a scholar, and the real godfather of English heavy metal. Yes, very sorry to hear his news.

Jeb: Andrew Lloyd Webber…wow! Tell me about working with him.

Don: It was with Colosseum II. We were on the same record company. He’d heard War Danceand asked us to participate in the making of Variations. The recording lasted a week. Andrew was very charming, full of ideas, and before we knew it we were number 2 in the album charts. Still get the checks from his office 40 years on.

Jeb: Last one…what is up the rest of 2018 and next year? Will there be solo shows? More DP? What’s next?

Don: Just finished a three-week club tour of Europe with the band that plays on One of a Kind. Getting ready to do a four-month summer run of festivals with DP starting in Mexico in May, with perhaps a UK tour in November with my own band following up on the release of One of a Kind.

Jeb: Okay…really last one…you play with great guitarists…Are you really a frustrated guitarist?

Don: No, I’m really a frustrated keyboard player.

#don airey #new interview

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thoseofgreatambition · 7 years ago

Text

guardian to be

genre: supernatural, fantasy, thriller

pairings: none

wordcount: 3.5K

warnings: swearing, mentions of violence and spirits, vomit

a/n: remember that short story i’ve been talking about all semester, this is it! it’s based off of an idea for a novel i had a few years ago, and I”m so proud of the finished product! i’ve tagged my permanent tag babes, so i hope y’all like it! if you’d like to be added to the permanent tag, please let me know!

November 11, 2017

“Aren’t you supposed to be good at this?” Lee scowled at the woman opposite from him, as she frantically formed a line of salt around the room. “Didn’t I hire you so I didn’t end up holed up in some murder cabin being chased by demons?”

Ada’s hands shook so hard she couldn’t keep the salt into a line. Her hands felt numb, and for the first time in two centuries she was remembering what true fear felt like. Sure, she couldn’t die, but that didn’t mean those spirits wouldn’t kill her companion. “They’re not demons, they’re spirits. They’re hurting and confused, that’s why they came after us.”

She shot a look over her shoulder to see Lee standing in the middle of the room looking more and more agitated as things went on. His lower lip wobbled as his brow furrowed, and Ada watched as his eyes began to shine. Her maternal side took over, as it was prone to do.

“I’m sorry, Lee.”

Just like that, the floodgates opened. The 19 year old broke into sobs, his fists clenched so hard it hurt as he desperately tried to wipe away each tear as it came. His shoulders shook as he fought the urge to wail. Lee had always prided himself as being put together and mature, after all, being raised by a single mother would do that, but this was too much, even for him.

He wasn’t even done with his first year of college yet. Life wasn’t supposed to be like this. He should have been worrying about what his grade in Algebra II was, not whether or not some demons or spirits or whatever the hell you wanted to call them were going to kill him.

This wasn’t fair! This wasn’t even his fault.

It was his father’s fault, and why should he be blamed for what a serial killer did before he was even born?

One Month Prior: October 11, 2017

Lee stood in front of a rather shabby looking house, with a skeptical look on his face. He’d confided to a friend that he’d felt like he’d been followed lately, and that he could have sworn he’d seen things crawling outside of his windows at night. That friend had spoken to one of their friends, who had spoken to a friend of a friend’s friend who eventually got back to Lee with an address and a name of someone who could protect him.

The college freshman had scrawled it on the back of a dining hall receipt and now he wondered if this was all some sort of prank. The name Adelaide Lewis didn’t exactly seem like it would strike fear into anyone’s heart.

Regardless, he’d spent 40 minutes trying to find the damn place, and his morbid sense of curiosity wouldn’t let him leave without at least finding out what this was all about.

The pastel blue door flew open after the second knock, revealing a woman who hardly looked older than he did. A glance inside showed what seemed to be one of the ugliest home interiors Lee had ever seen. The furniture was a mix of stuffy Victorian china cabinets, beaded curtains from the 60’s, and what appeared to be shag carpeting with several Disney movie posters framed on the walls.

The girl seemed unassuming at best. She wasn’t the type of person that stood out when you passed them. Her features were kind but plain, with wide brown eyes and dark hair in braided pigtails. For a moment Lee wondered if she was either insane for decorating a house like this, or was living with whoever he was supposed to see. “I’m here to see an Adelaide Lewis?”

“Oh please, call me Ada. Come on in. Are you Lee?”

Reluctantly he shed his coat, and hung it on a rather antique looking coat rack. “I am, yes.”

Lee considered himself to be good at reading people, and while he got no strange vibes from Ada, it was hard to feel comfortable. His shoes sunk into the shag carpeting, and while the floor looked clean, he was reluctant to take them off. Still, Lee did as his mother taught him to do and removed the trainers, only feeling mildly abashed by his Legend of Zelda socks. “Is this your parent’s home?” The false note of Texas politeness seemed far too obvious and inwardly he cringed.

Either Ada was too polite to comment or she didn’t notice. Either way, she shook her head. “No, it’s mine. I’ve lived here for about… ah, sixty years? Seventy maybe…” she looked back at him and laugh, “It’s so easy to lose track of time after a while, isn’t it? Would you like something to drink? I’ve got coffee, tea, water, sweet tea… I went to H.E.B the other day, I have some of that powdered lemonade stuff that everyone seems so fond of. “

It was almost as if Lee’s brain had stopped working for a moment. “Se-seventy years? You’ve lived here for seventy years?”

“Yes.”

“You’re my age.”

Ada laughed once more, a melodic sound that filled up the room they were in. “Oh, is that why you’re confused? I should have explained. I’m not a human. Well, I used to be one, but I’m not anymore. I died you see, a long time ago in the 1800’s. I’m really 200 years old. I turned into a guardian angel, and now I work for hire protecting humans from immediate danger.”

Again, Lee froze. He only jerked into motion when a theretofore unknown cuckoo clock made itself known to him by shooting out a wooden bird next to his left ear. “Shit!” at her disapproving cluck of her tongue, he looked abashed. “Sorry. I just—A guardian angel?”

“Yes.”

“I thought you weren’t… I thought those weren’t real.”

Ada shrugged, “Everyone does. But you got recommended me by a friend right? Do you trust them?”

“More of an acquaintance really.” Or an acquaintance of an acquaintance… of an acquaintance. Lee was silent for a moment, wondering about her question. He didn’t really know, though he supposed he trusted his friend who put him in contact with the one who recommended Ada to him. “I suppose so, though.”

“So what’s the harm? I’ll take whatever you can pay me.”

“You don’t even know what my problem is.”

“You’re a kid. You came to some sketchy house and listened to some ‘crazy lady’ tell her story just because something was really bothering you.” She gestured to his shoes that had holes near the plastic soles and the weathered hem of his jeans. “You obviously don’t have a lot of money to blow on this sort of thing, I’m not going to rob you of the next semester’s rent check. So what would you like to drink, and what’s the problem?”

There was a long period of silence as Lee’s brain worked in overdrive, trying to understand what in the world was going on. His tan hand fiddled with his sleeve cuff, and his brown eyebrows knit themselves together as he thought. It was like he’d stepped into some sort of strange, fantasy or sci-fi novel. Sure—he enjoyed reading those things, but to actually be in a situation like that was quite unnerving.

Suddenly he found himself wondering if he was having some sort of fever dream or had gone insane without noticing. Especially when what she was saying sounded good enough that he was willing to go along with it.

“I’d like some sweet tea, please.” Lee situated himself in an overstuffed armchair, and looked at Ada with a worried expression, wondering how to explain about his problem. “Something is following me. Or some things. There are these creatures following me around. I keep seeing the shadows out of the corner of my eyes.I hear people talking to me when I’m all alone—There were people outside of my window last night, and I live on the fifth floor!” his voice cracked as his anxiety rose and Lee massaged his throat. “I don’t know what to do.”

Ada handed him a glass of sweet tea and sat down across from him, taking a sip of her own glass. “Tell me about you.”

He was silent, wondering what that had to do with anything. Eventually though due to Ada’s silent probing he finally got around to speaking. “I’m a sophomore in college. I’m nineteen, I’ll be twenty in June… I’m studying English History.” His voice trailed off, “Honestly I’m not sure what you want from me.”

She pointed a long finger towards a window covered with a lacy curtain, and spoke very calmly, “Is that one of the things following you?”

Lee spun around and saw a dark silhouette outside of the window. It looked like a human, a woman, perhaps? He could almost make out her face, and her pained expression. For a short moment Lee felt sorry for her until she let out an ungodly wail of anger and began to beat on the window.

He jerked up from his seat, not sure what to do in his panic, and accidentally knocked over his glass of sweet tea onto the red shag carpeting. Ada was quicker to spring into action, she opened a small chest of drawers next to her chair, pulled out a white bladed knife and very calmly walked over to the window. The rest happened so quickly that Lee didn’t know what to say happened. Ada yanked open the window, grabbed the attacker by what seemed to be ethereal strands of hair and shoved the dagger into her back. Immediately the wailing stopped and the being, whatever it was seemed to disintegrate into nothing.

Ada looked towards him and Lee noted that there was no blood on the knife. She quirked her head and took in the sight of him, “You’ve got spirits following you. And it appears that something in you has made them rather angry.”

October 18, 2017

Lee was retching in the corner, and Ada sighed just a bit as she watched him. The poor thing. This was not how someone should find out about this sort of family history. It did explain a lot about why those spirits were following him though.

They were standing in a rather dark corner of the Texas Lutheran University library, with quite a few old newspaper articles pulled up onto the computer. Ada stared at the screen, and felt a chill roll down her spine at the image before her.

A man who looked just like Lee, stood in a courtroom in an orange jumpsuit. The caption ‘Serial killer sentenced to death’ was in italics underneath and described a rather horrible series of crimes. A confirmed victim count of ten, with quite a few more suspected from the man. A woman sat in the front row behind him, visibly pregnant and crying. As Ada read the article she let out a sigh. This did explain a lot.

As he dry heaved into a waste basket, Lee desperately tried to catch his breath. This couldn’t be happening. This was not what his mother told him. She said that his father was an old boyfriend who moved away to Germany after college. Lee hadn’t tried to pester her for more information. Why should he? He was happy with his life as it was. His mother had given him more love than he bet two parents could have given him.

“That article’s wrong!”

“Lee, it identifies your mother by name.” she scrolled through to another article, titled “Arthur ‘Artie’ Scott executed via electric chair”. “The date of his execution was almost exactly 19 years ago, Lee. It’s why they’re going after you. They’re upset and they didn’t get any closure.”

“But why are they going after me now!?” Lee’s voice roared out throughout the quiet space, and bounced around the walls. “I didn’t do anything!”

That was a fair question, but it only took a little while to find the answer. “Your father was 19 when he was executed, Lee.”

“Don’t call him my father!”

Ada ignored his outburst and continued, “They think you’re him. You’re his age, you look alike…” with a long sigh she stared at the angry young man in front of her. His world had been turned completely upside down—thankfully all of her time spent on earth had given her enough patience to handle a bit of misplaced anger. “Now we know where to start though. This won’t be too bad, I think.”

“Oh you don’t think it’ll be ‘that bad’? We just found out my—“ he sputtered, as he tried and failed to make the word ‘dad’ leave his mouth. “He’s a serial killer. How is that ‘not bad’ Ada? In what world does that mean ‘not bad’!?”

“We just have to wait for a little while longer, let some more time pass so they realize you aren’t him. We’ll find someplace safe, and hide out.”

When Lee seemed to falter, as if she was saying something that couldn’t be achieved, Ada frowned, “What is it?”

“I can’t leave.”

“Why?”

“Midterms.”

November 11, 2017

Now here they were.

Trapped, with no way out.

“I can’t believe I let you take me here!” Lee’s voice cracked with rage. Perhaps this was misplaced anger, but dammit, if he was about to die then he didn’t think it should matter. “This was supposed to be a safe place! We should have stayed near everyone else!”

“That wouldn’t have worked, Lee. We’d have put everyone else in danger and they’d have found us even sooner.” She looked at him with a frown, and watched as he shook and trembled while trying to hold back his emotions. “Lee I’m sorry. I need you to stay calm.”

“I thought you could protect me! What the hell kind of guardian angel can’t protect someone?”

Ada flinched as Lee’s words hit fairly close to home, “Lee.”

“No really! A guardian angel for hire? What in the hell was I thinking? You’re just some crazy chick aren’t you?”

“No!” Ada raised her voice for the first time that Lee knew her, breaking the calm and motherly demeanor he’d come to know. “I was a guardian angel! I was!”

The silence that fell between them was heavy, as Lee processed her words. “Was?” when she blanched and set down the salt, Lee continued to stare at her, “You were a guardian angel? Past tense? As in, you’re not a guardian angel anymore?”

“I lost my wings.”

He shook his head a bit in confusion, “What does that mean?”

“You become a guardian angel by dying protecting someone else. I died protecting my son and became his… but when he passed away naturally, a long time later I was assigned to new people.” She hesitated, and only continued to speak when Lee looked at her imploringly. “I wasn’t good with them. I did what I did with my son and encouraged them to follow their dreams and what they wanted to do, but—“

“But what?”

“That didn’t work out well. They kept making bad choices. They got hurt. They wound up dying. Eventually I got in trouble and was sent down like this, on probation. I’ve got to save one hundred people to become a guardian angel again. You’re my hundredth.”

It took a little while, but Lee felt his surprise turn to anger once more, as he shouted at Ada, “Why didn’t you tell me that?!”

“I knew it would scare you off. I can handle this though! I’ve handled trackings like this before—it’s textbook!”

“You screwed up so bad that you got fired as a guardian angel! You really think you’re good enough to keep me safe?” Lee gestured to the cabin walls, where they could hear the echoes of the damned outside. “This is your fault! This is your fault! I’m going to die because of you!”

Ada flinched just a bit, wondering how exactly to recover from this. There was only one real way to recover from this. “You’re not going to die.”

It was impossible to kill an angel, even one on probation, but not for those who were also ethereal beings.

“Oh really, I’m not going to die? How are you going to save me Ada? You going to do the same sort of job that you did with all your other clients?”

She took a deep breath, he was young and angry. Rightfully so. It wasn’t right to lash out back at him. “I’m going to distract them while you grab the car and get out of here. Take my knife, and my bag it’s got lots of things in there to protect you. Holy water, loads of salt to ward off spirits. Go and hide somewhere safe, and wait it out for as long as you can. They’re already decreasing in numbers as they realize you aren’t your dad. I give it another week.”

She grabbed a shotgun off of the wall and loaded several odd looking bullets in them. For a moment, Lee was distracted enough to forget his anger. “How are you going to distract them?” Lee had never been a hunter, nor had he ever really seen a gun up close, but those didn’t appear to be normal bullets. “What are you putting in there?”

The real answer was blessed silver buckshot, something that would cover a large range and inflict lots of damage. However, it wouldn’t kill them. At least not all of them. “They’re special bullets that can kill the spirits.”

“You’ve got enough in there for them?”

She did not, but one of the few things Ada had learned on this earth during her short time as a mother was that at times, it was best to lie for the comfort of others.

“Of course. Hide out, I’ll come and find you, and if I can’t find you in a week then go back to normal. It’ll be over by then alright?”

Something felt wrong to Lee. He couldn’t put his finger on it but something about all of this felt off. It was enough to completely wash away his anger. “You’ll be alright then? You’ll come and find me?” Even if he’d been angry at Ada, it was hard to go through a month of this with someone and not become their friend. “You won’t get hurt?”

Without hesitation, Ada smiled and lied to his face. “Of course I’ll be alright. Don’t worry.”

There wasn’t enough buckshot, and she was sending him off with everything else in her arsenal.

It was impossible to explain to Lee why she’d failed so many times, an impossible thing to explain to anyone who hadn’t been a mother. But Ada had followed everyone before she’d gone on probation from birth to death, and they’d all become her children in her eyes. Perhaps this made her a bad mother, but as the world around them quickly changed she’d had trouble keeping up with what was safe for them and what was dangerous.

All she’d ever done was try to guide them to make the right decisions, and she’d seemed to fail at that.

Things had gone better since she’d gone on probation, but right now Lee was a scared kid, someone who needed comfort and to be protected. Just like her son had been two centuries ago.

“Now go on Lee to the garage and get in the car. Open the door, the salt line that’s down will still keep them out until you drive over it. When you hear me shoot, drive out and get as far away as you can, okay? Just keep driving.”

“Ada…”

“Go, now.” Her voice sounded a great deal like Lee’s mother when she’d decided on something and Lee no longer had a choice in the matter. He stared at her for a moment before nodding and walking to the garage.

Ada waited until she heard the car start up and the garage door open. She felt cold. Her hands were trembling. However, she’d died before, and while this time there was no promise of an afterlife, Ada allowed an overwhelming sense of peace to wash over her. She had failed plenty of times in her many years. This time though, she would succeed.

With that thought in mind, Ada swung open the door to the cabin, kicked a hole in the line of salt and fired a shot straight into the chest of one of the spirits in front of her.

Before the mob descended she could see Lee drive off into the distance.

Yes, she’d done her job this time.

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