#reasoning with church is that i wanted to make him a lizard that can drop its tail/scales when in distress

[doubleodonut]

the list

bluez

church: geckolepis megalepis (director: green iguana, blue morph)

tucker: guanlong

caboose: zuul

washington: zhenyuanopterus

kaikaina: common raccoon

tex: asian water monitor, black dragon morph (allison: black saddlebags)

redz

sarge: "razorback"/feral hog

simmons: least weasel

grif: south american coati

donut: grey wolf

lopez: black rhinoceros (stole this one from reconnoiterish.)

carolina: azure damselfly

and doc is a duck-billed platypus.

[jq37]

The Case File – Mice and Murder Ep 1

The Case of the The Pernicious Party  

Hello, hello, hello! It’s been a hot second but your resident D20 recapper is back to tackle the newest season: Mice and Murder! Y’all had to know I wasn’t gonna sit out the murder mystery, are you kidding me???

I might be playing around with the format a bit in the coming weeks to make sure I have the best possible system for keeping track of possible clues, suspects, and theories as we untangle whatever web Brennan weaves for us this season so don’t be surprised if things change a little. 

Anyway, without further ado, onto our mystery!

Summary

In case you missed it, this season takes place in an alternate, Zootopia/Wind in the Willows-esque universe where all the characters are animals but history seems to have happened in more or less the same way--for example there was still a King Charles but he was a King Charles Spaniel (cute Brennan). Our story specifically takes place in the English village of Tufting Meadows.  

We start with Katie’s character--Gangie Green (Weasel/Thief Rogue) in the graveyard of the Anglican Chapel (Our Lady of Prayerful Paws). Gangie, we learn, is an orphan who was kicked out of the orphanage at some point for thievery. Obviously, he’s not reformed of the habit because he is here to do some graverobbing. On a nat 20 (that Katie hilariously doesn’t notice even though her total is like a 29) Gangie can see through the window of the rectory that there is a weeping window inside--Catherine McCabbage who is being (dubiously) tended to by Raph’s character, Vicar Ian Prescott (Owl/Bard, College of Eloquence). 

Ian comes from a line of men of the cloth but he’s not exactly the best speaker despite his subclass. He’s doing his best though! The widow’s husband (Conor McCabbage) died at the local mill in what has been declared an accident but she suspects foul play. She’s been hearing his voice on the wind and wants Ian’s professional opinion on whether this could be a sign from God or if her husband might be speaking to her from beyond the grave or something like that. Ian gives a very muddled and not very comforting answer but seems pretty sure that something sketchy did in fact happen. Then, he sees a crack of lightning outside which illuminates the graveyard where he gets a glimpse of Gangie. 

He goes to check it out (and Gangie fully has an elderly goat he’s dug up slung over his shoulder) but “gravedigger” is his legit job so Ian decides to assume whatever’s going on is legit and not ask too many questions. He goes back to the widow (who, before she leaves, says that maybe sometimes people need to work on God’s behalf) while Gangie takes the body Loam Hall (a massive manor, built into a hill).

We cut to the next day and our next two characters! 

At 22B Hamsted Street in a pretty well appointed home are Ally and Grant’s characters. First up, we have Lars Vandenchomp (Huge ass Doberman/Battlemaster Fighter) who is so tough looking but also so Swedish sounding--it’s A Lot (so, incredibly on brand for Ally). Lars is security for Grant’s character Sylvester Cross (Fox/Inquisitive Rogue) who is a kinda (to use Grant’s word) “foppish” Sherlock Holmes type. He was hired by Squire William Thornwall Brockhollow to figure out what happened with Conor McCabbage (and clear him of negligence in running the mill) but he couldn’t find any evidence of any funny business, making this the only case he’s never cracked. He’s not as young or popular as he once was so this is, understandably, bumming him out. He’s even more bummed out when he realizes that William has invited him to his 60th birthday party that’s happening that night (as kind of a prop to show that he did his part in trying to solve the mystery) and Lars has already RSVP’d yes. He grudgingly agrees to go as it’s one of those asks that’s really more of a veiled demand but decides to pull the money he was paid from the bank first so he can return it and really stick it to the guy.

Finally, we cut to our last set of PCs who are on their way to Tufting Meadows via a very luxurious train. Inside are Sam and Rekha’s characters! Sam is Buckster $ Boyd (Peccary which is like a small boar/Mastermind Rouge) a Texan Oil Tycoon who acts exactly how you’d expect a Texan Oil Pig to act. Yes, you pronounce the dollar sign as “dollar sign” (even though as we find out later his middle name is Cassius so it’s like Cash which I think is super cool). With him is Rekha’s character, Daisy D'umpstaire (Raccoon/Assassin (???) Rogue another American (from South Carolina) though it seems she’s My Fair Lady’d herself into an upper class socialite (her last name was previously Dumpster). They’re traveling with their accountant, an Armadillo named Armond who seems kinda skittish and concerned about their travel expenses but Buck tells him that to make money you gotta spend money and they’re gonna make a *ton* of money on this trip. They’re also so so mean to him for absolutely no reason. 

When the train stops, they’re greeted by Templeton Padhop (a frog, natch) who is the chauffeur of Loan Hall, sent to fetch them. A wheel on his car is broken so he joins in on the Armond abuse immediately and has Armond roll into an Armadillo ball and replace it. Poor guy. When they show up they're greeted by a footman--a pug in a bowler hat named Milo Snout.

Meanwhile, Lars and Sly (Oh, Sly fox, I see what you did there Grant) are similarly greeted by another footman--a lizard named Basil Baskins. On a 23 perception check, Lars sees that Jeremy “Jez” Brockhollow is inside (the son of William who is a badger btw) and also clocks Gangie (who they know as a career criminal who disappeared like a year ago). Gangie doesn’t notice Lars though. 

Ian, who is also invited, shows up at about the same time as Sly but very quickly, the conversation is taken over by Lucretia “Lucy” Brockhollow, William’s older, eccentric sister who immediately gets into it with Lars about astrology and the occult (she thinks bad stuff is happening because of a curse let loose when Sly’s old rival--a rabbit named Fletcher Cottonbottom who is the son of his former employer--opened an Egyptian tomb). They’re thick as thieves right away because Ally is a nonsense magnet. And not like a regular magnet, one of those big electromagnets. 

Daisy and Buck spot William’s kids--the aforementioned Jez and his older sister Constance--along with their husbands Dr. Corbin Magpie (Constance’s and obv a magpie and a doctor) and Osmond Sheffield (Jez’s who is a Ram and a lawyer). Daisy is too stuck in her conversation with a truly unhinged squirrel (Lady Eugenia Bristlebrush who clearly does not know she’s in a murder mystery because she just keeps talking about how much she hates and wants to kill everyone) to hear what’s going on but she indicates the conversation to Buck who is able to eavesdrop and hear that they’re lamenting that Catherine--the widow--RSVP’d no which is gonna look really bad, like they didn’t invite her (bad PR). 

Buck, introducing himself as a business partner of William, eases into a conversation with the husbands which their respective spouses also join into and we learn that Buck's dad was British and a friend of Willian’s. Buck bonds with Jez (who is a bit of a dilettante) really quickly since Buck is ready to go drinks-wise immediately (and there’s a stellar pun about the “American [Drinking] Constitution''). Through the window, Buck notices Gangie outside getting his attention. 

At the same time, Ian is going from party guest to party guest, giving out the penances he forgot to earlier at church (as one does). We see him talking to the Lord and Lady Bramble (a cow and hedgehog, respectively) and while she wants to pray her way out of situations without doing any legwork, he wants to buy his way out and gives Ian 250 pounds. A frustrating but financially lucrative conversation.  

Buck goes outside to talk to Gangie who has a list of names of the bodies he’s been collecting. We’re not told what Buck is doing but it seems that this list is extremely valuable to him in some way. Gangie (who Buck keeps calling Gangly, to his annoyance) pays him handsomely (like, with a 50% tip) for the list (and Gangie gives him the real list, despite Brennan saying he didn’t have to). We also learn that Gangie has allegedly been getting the orders from someone in Loa Hall and they flow from William himself.

Matilda Molesly (a mole and the head maid) invites Gangie to come in from the rain--she’s the only person who’s been consistently nice to him and he agrees to come in for tea and scones. 

Everyone is ushered together by the butler (because of course there’s a butler--he’s quite literally a fancy rat named Thomas Gilfoyle) and William gives a speech where he wishes Conor well and kinda highlights that he did hire Sly to solve the case in a “Hey, I did my bit don’t blame me” kind of way. He also makes a 150k pound donation to the church (and Ian thought 250 was good) and tells his daughter not to read the praise he got for it from the cardinal when she mentions it (I wonder if that was choreographed). Sly interrupts the speech to “magnanimously” give his money back, to William’s annoyance. Buck notices that Lawrence Longfoot (a nouveau rich, rabbit photographer) takes a pic of the scene but with Sly in the foreground and William in the background. 

Then, a few things happen at once (in a very cinematic way):

As the camera flashes, Mrs. Molesly drops her tray, eyes hurt by the light. Lady Calliope Fawnbrooke (Deer, Matron of the Arts) helps her up.

In the moment of dark, after the flash goes away, the butler disappears. 

Buck thinks he sees a shape through the window, out in the rain. 

A cheer goes up for Sly for returning the money but all Sly can focus on is one figure he recognizes in the back of the room. Daisy, who is downing her drink and not cheering for him. He downs his as well, and looks at her until she breaks the stare and leaves the room. 

And this episode doesn’t end with a dead body like I thought, but with a flashback to a younger Sylvester, 12 years ago when he first met Daisy.

PC INTERPERSONAL DRAMA Y’ALL!!! Get HYPED! 

Case Notes

Here is a compilation of all the characters (PCs and NPCs introduced in this episode). 

Sly mentions that Ignatius Cottonbottom faked his own death as a part of some scheme which seems like a backstory point that might come back later--we now know that there exists a way to convincingly fake your own death in this world. 

Sly walks with a walking stick because of some “mysterious accident” but we’re jumping into a flashback next week so it looks like we might find out about it pretty soon. 

Sly also mentions he used to be the personal physician to the elder Cottonbottom so those are skills he has. I wonder if that’ll be useful to this healer-less party. I wonder if cleric was even an option in this world which seems to be low to no magic. It would explain by Ian is a bad and not a cleric. 

Lars has a military background which I wanted to mention in case it becomes relevant later. 

And Dr. Magpie grew up poor and still acts it a bit even though he married a very rich woman. Brennan uses the very good line, “He forces his body into the shape of an apology”

This might be a really deep cut reference but did anyone else here was the old Britcom “Keeping Up Appearances”? Cause I was getting serious Bouquet/Bucket energy from Daisy. 

This is an all College Humor season and it shows. The energy of 6 (7 if you count Brennan) top notch comedians sparking off of each other, trying to one up each other is off the charts. Some of the best bits this episode:

“When God closes every door but one, you go through the door that is open.” followed by “I’m an owl by the way.”

“Time is money, here’s both” from Buck re his inscribed gold pocket watch--everyone at the table loved that so much and they’re right. 

Armond going from being a third to a fourth wheel. 

And the names--I already shouted out a ton on the main recap but also a rat butler (like Rhett Butler) and naming the mouse Cat(therine). Can’t forget Gangie Green/gangrene from Katie. Also points to Ally for the data stealing Eel Musk which broke Brennan a little. 

I know we just went through this with Crown of Candy but what are these animals eating? Like, in Zootopia there were only mammals so we can assume the carnivores are eating like birds and fish but there are sentient birds here. I know this isn’t important. I’m not trying to do a CinemaSins gotcha. I just wonder, you know?

Y’all were waiting for all the lights to go out during that speech and then come back on and there’d be a body too, right?

If Brennan makes the bad guy a chicken or a duck or something so he can make a “fowl play” joke, he is cordially invited to catch these hands. 

I have been waiting for Raph and Katie to do D20 forever. Their specific brand of nonsense on Rank Room was always amazing. 

I love love love that Grant and Rekha are the PCs that have ~a past~ because they are so funny together. If you haven’t seen their episode of Game Changers, you absolutely must (it’s also a murder mystery actually!). 

[scribeofmorpheus]

Chasing Tornadoes {5/6}

Pairing: Stephen Strange x Reader

Series Warnings: poorly  written medical procedural, mild delving into spirituality, language,  overbearing egos, graphic descriptions of medical procedures. more warnings to be added. 18+ Generally, like my blog.

A/N: swearing...sexual tension?

Series Masterlist | Masterlist | AO3

Taglist is open -comment or send an ask!  

<< Previously ○ Next >>

You woke up with a hell of a hangover and a parched throat that tasted sour, like bad vodka.

“Ugh,” you rolled onto your back and looked at the alarm clock. “Shit, I’m late for work.”

You fumbled out of bed and began pulling on your work clothes with a toothbrush tucked under one cheek and a facecloth soaking through your bra strap on your shoulder. Spike watched you duck in and out of the bathroom from the living-room, his hungry growl greeting your stinging ears.

Then, suddenly, you remembered.

“Oh, you’re right, boy,” you plopped next to Spike on the couch. “I don’t have work today.” You slipped out of your work trousers and lounged about for a hot, undecided minute in nothing but the oversized festival t-shirt you wore to bed and your koala print underwear.

Spike growled again, his long tail knocking over a small flower pot. You rolled your eyes, “Right, breakfast, you utter flower fiend.”

Your cellphone rang. Caller ID registered it was the hospital. You turned to Spike, “Maybe they need me back after all.”

You cleared your throat twice before answering, “Hel—”

“Child,” Jan’s chipper tone came racing through your phone’s speaker. She had that whisper-shout octave that told you she was using the receptionist phone for personal reasons. “What have you done to this poor man?”

“Who?” You leaned onto the couch, Spike clawed his way off the couch arms and stomped all over your stomach, reminding you of the alcohol nausea. “Oof, Spike, ow.”

“Stephen, who else?” Jan continued. “He’s been walking about with a permanent scowl all morning. Never seen him look so…constipated. Is it true you two went to Gloria’s last night?”

“How on earth do you know everything that goes on in this town?” You let out an impressed huff.

“Tiny told me,” Jan said. “Well, actually, Tiny told his sister Tina. And Tina’s church buddies with my niece Francis, and she told the group chat. Did you know Tiny’s had the biggest crush on you since the New Year’s party last year? Poor guy. Think he’s seeing someone over a dating app or something. Can’t keep up.”

“There’s a group chat?” You scoffed. “Why am I not part of it?”

“Because you don’t like my cornbread,” Jan retorted. “Anyway, the real reason I called was because my neighbour—Ed—would like to set a date.”

“A date?” Your eyes went wide. Then you felt guilty for not calling Teddy back. Why is dating so hard?

“So you can talk about his Prius?”

“Oh, shit, yes. That kinda date….” You stood up to look at your day planner on the kitchen table. “Umm, next week Thurs—hang on, what am I saying, I don’t have work. I’m free all week.”

“I’ll let him know,” before she hung up, Jan added. “Oh and wear anything with bees on it. He’s into honey farming and bee conservation. May bump down the price if you schmooze him a little.”

“Thanks, Jan. I owe you.”

“Big time.”

The line went dead and you sighed. Spike stepped on your toes, another growl for attention coming from his mouth.

As you sliced up a banana into Spike’s bowl, your doorbell went off. You looked at the wall clock in your kitchen, chewing the inside of your cheek in thought. Everyone you knew was probably at work.

“Who could that be?” You set Spike’s bowl down and the lizard chewed like a baby with no teeth. Without thinking to get decent, you opened the door to a very flustered looking Stephen Strange. He held up the tray of take-out coffee up to his eye-line, but his lips quirked into a secret smirk.

“Stephen—What?—Why?—You should be at the hospital,” you blurted in surprise.

“I—uh—felt like we’d need to…discuss certain—uh…” He cleared his throat. “Would you mind putting pants on?”

“Pants? What…” you looked down at your exposed thighs and blushed. “Pants! Right, yeah, come in. Sit anywhere you like…Errr, just don’t try and pet Spike, he bites strangers.”

“Your son bites people? Can’t say I’m entirely surprised…” Stephen raised a brow as he shrugged his coat off and placed the coffee tray on a table. “Isn’t it a school day?”

“Spike’s not that kind of son,” you shouted out from your bedroom.

“Ouch,” Stephen took a sharp inhale, waving his hand about as if he’d been burned. You went rushing into the kitchen.

“Spike get back here and apologise,” you said to the Iguana. Spike waddled away before you could scold him as blood dropped from Stephen’s finger.

Stephen glared at you with a look of disbelief, “Your son is a fat lizard?”

You bit back a laugh as you placed Stephen’s hand under running water in the sink. “Don’t worry, he’s rabies-free. But if you develop a sudden, unexplained dislike of water, let me know.” You quipped.

Stephen rolled his eyes at you. It didn’t escape your notice that he wasn’t as rigid around you as before. Even with his hand in yours under the rushing faucet.

“So what are you doing here?” You asked. “On a workday no less.”

“It’s a small town, managed to finish my rounds early. Turns out there aren’t that many brain injury cases to deal with,” he chuckled lowly. Your heart picked up its pace. “Besides, I wasn’t getting much done. Too distracted thinking about the…”

You turned to look at him, “The what?”

Stephen’s eyes lingered on your lips for a fraction of a second before he pulled away, “Thinking about your total lack of professionalism yesterday.”

You scoffed, “Yeah, well you deserved it.” You reached up for a cabinet overhead and pulled some emergency plasters from a hiking first aid kit you’d forgotten to put away.

“Here,” you handed him the plaster. He took it sheepishly, making it a point so his fingers never came in contact with yours.

“Listen,” he began peeling off the waxy plastic of the plaster. “Last night, I don’t know what you were thinking—Probably weren’t thinking with all those vodka-lime’s you downed—but I’m not here to be anybody’s, Dr Grey—”

You laughed, “Dr Grey?”

“Yes, from that medical drama series that you and Christine used to watch in college,” Stephen looked up at you as if you grew a third eye.

“You mean Derek Shepard? Because—and no offence—I don’t really think you have the…spunk to be Meredith.”

“Does it matter if the analogy sticks?”

“What’s this analogy implying?”

Stephen took a step closer, his voice going deadly sharp, “That I’m not here to get tangled up in any romantic…drivel.”

“Good,” you smirked and Stephen cocked his head to the side. “Because I never took you for the romantic type.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, you know exactly what I mean,” you riffled through the bread tin and asked over your shoulder: “Bagel?”

“What?” Stephen’s vein by his temple was beginning to throb, hands akimbo.

You took out the cream cheese from the fridge and smeared some over the ready sliced bagel, “You brought coffee, I’m asking if you want a bagel to go with it…on your way out of my apartment?”

“Think I’ll just have the coffee, thanks,” there was heat beneath his words, no sincerity as he strode over to the tray of coffee.

“You know where the door is. Unless you’re so far up your own ass you need someone to guide you out,” you bit back, feeling petty.

Stephen turned on his heel, finger pointing at you, “You think you’re so high and mighty. Looking down on me because I actually have aspirations I want to chase. So what if I’m ambitious? It’s miles better than being some doe-eyed fellow who passed on their chance at a residency because they’re too scared of the big, bad city.”

You gasped, eyes going wide. How did he know that?

“Yeah, I ran into Arlene during my rounds. She’s quite the talker when not fumbling with paperwork like a little mouse,” Stephen huffed, dropping his coffee cup on the table. Some of it spilled and burned his hand, but he kept a good poker face. “So don’t go acting as if you being here is because you’re some sort of bleeding-heart when you and I both know you’re just scared. Ever since I came into town, I’ve just been a constant reminder of the future you’re too scared to want to want!”

“You really are a piece of work aren’t you?” You folded your arms over your chest to hide the fact they were shaking. “And you wonder why no one sticks around, what with your terrible bedside manner and arrogant as fuck personality—waltzing about like you own every hospital and know all there is to know about how the world works.” You poked his chest several times. “Well, fuck you, your obnoxious brain and that high horse you rode on.”

“Fuck me?” Stephen raked a rough hand through his hair, cheeks going red. “Fuck you!”

“Fuck me?” You craned your head back. “No, fuck you!”

You poked him even harder and Stephen grabbed your hand to stop your index finger from bombarding his sore chest. He tugged and you were pulled in.

Breath hot against each other’s cheeks. Lips mere centimetres away. A flush set on both your cheeks.

Then, without warning, he kissed you and there was nothing delicate or chaste about it. It wasn’t like the innocent little make-out session you’d shared on your doorstep. This was different, full of pent up tension and the heat of the argument. It was rough and fast and demanding. Soon, you were clawing at each other’s clothes as you led Stephen into your bedroom.

[jasperwhitcock]

equinox | chapter 06 –– “open book”

here is chapter chapter six of my bella as a vampire and edward as a human fanfic inspired by an au that @bellasredchevy​ posted. you can read the new chapter on AO3 or here. i post updates on AO3 or on tumblr using the #equinoxjw tag. but sometimes it doesn’t work. so. um.

the last time i wrote for this, it was BEFORE midnight sun came out. and now, midnight sun has been out for two weeks (oops...now FOUR weeks), i’ve finished it, i am miserable as a result, and finally, SHOOK. here’s why: in the last chapter, i mentioned esme’s aversion to having her floors ruined by rain. in midnight sun, edward mentioned that multiple times. MY MIND.

everyone reading this is thinking like, yeah, sure “your mind” OR you’re dumb and should not be finding any humor that your lizard brain came up with the same basic idea as smeyer, known racist. maybe esme was just written with hardly any personality so it wasn’t that difficult to end up concocting the same idea. and… okay, you’re right. but in those moments, let me tell you, i was really feeling something. smeyer, you reading this?

to catch up since i’ve been busy, i reread my other chapters. and i really need to go back and edit them. so thank u for being here & bearing with me. hehe

also… the beige… that’s for y’all.

just a lil baby warning: there are conversations revolving around religion in this chapter. i wanted to mention that as a warning for the sake of anyone who has had negative experiences with church/religion (like me!) whom this topic makes uncomfortable. the local doctor and his children are VAMPIRES. you have been warned. 

It was entirely unrealistic –– the possibility of running out of time –– but still, I expedited through the forest, the greenery blurring by me in long unfocused streaks. Although if I paid attention, I knew I’d still be able to see every microscopic detail. The fluffy moss growing along the trunks of the ground, the iridescent droplets of rain dotting the ferny leaves, the patterns in the wood of the trees. But I cared little to as I barreled forward, hurtling over uprooted trees and bounding over large pools of rainwater nestled in the muddy forest floor.

I lost a shoe leaping over the last fifty yard stretch of river, so I kicked the other off carelessly in midair. The shoe fell into the water with a powerful splash from the height. Alice could bite me later. I was in too great of a hurry to deal with her chastisement now. If she really cared for this pair of shoes, she could dive for it. Alice! The thought of my sister made me realize a reason I could actually be late. I needed a change of clothes.

As I fell back to the earth, reaching a hand forward to grasp onto a convenient branch, I focused, envisioning my arrival at the house, the flight of the stairs, and the knock on the door of her room. I pictured asking her my request, and though I had no intention of actually following through with these steps, I hoped the thought was enough for Alice to see what I wanted. It should be, because if it wasn’t, I’d have to go into the house anyways, but I really didn’t want to waste time.

I swung lightly onto the bough of another spruce, and nimbly travelled this way from branch to branch, juggling the journal all the while by throwing it into the air between trees and catching it again. I could run fast and delicately enough to avoid muddying my feet, but with how unfocused I was in my hurry, I didn’t want to risk needing to stop to wash off.

If they hadn’t been concerned already, now would really be the time that my family genuinely considered my descent into insanity, seeing me wildly and maniacally swing through the trees towards the house like Tarzan after having only melodramatically left hours prior.

I knew it wouldn’t last, but I felt somehow liberated by the realizations that I’d come to in my wintry jungle. After hours of considering the right way forward navigating my now complicated future, I’d decided to face it head on. To stubbornly confront the problem. I was tired of feeling unlike myself and feeling distanced from my family, though my new resolution might encourage the rift I’d only just mended with Rosalie. Even with my grievances, I still enjoyed this life, the strength I’d found in it. The sense of rightness and belonging that contrasted how I’d felt so weak and out of step as a human. I wanted to bask in that again. I wanted to take action.

I decided the best way to reattain that freedom was rather than leave the boy alone, I’d challenge the vision. Seek him out this morning. Return the journal to him. Sit beside him. And in my ability to do so, I’d then prove his irrelevance to me, his powerlessness over my self control.

And although it was still a ridiculous thought to entertain, if I did find in me some concern or care for him, then that’d be even better. It’d certainly be strange, but it’d also strengthen my resolve to leave him be with his own life rather than make any choices he couldn’t even be knowledgeable enough about to consent to. Then, once I’d done so, I could truly leave him alone for good. I’d toyed with completely ignoring him from the beginning as I said I would, but then I decided that outcome wouldn’t develop from inaction. I was far too headstrong to leave this alone without trying to face it.

I will admit that a part of me was curious about Alice’s vision, curious about a friend or even a partner in this life… But the thought of Edward as that partner made me recoil. He was too irritating –– not the ideal candidate to spend an eternity with.

He was smart, though. And kind too, I noted, thinking of the way he’d cheered up the girl in the hospital… But definitely irritating. I’d have endless time to decode what had made him so relentless and smart-mouthed, but once I’d made the discovery, what then?

I had spent hours turning the little brown journal in my hands over and over, studying the worn leather, the folds and creases, tempted to open it and uncover his secrets. During an hour where I’d been resolved to go forth with pretending he didn’t exist, I’d even considered sneaking back to his house and finding my way in to leave the journal by his side so that I wouldn’t have to give it back to him myself in person. But that –– and also privily reading it without his permission –– seemed indefensibly invasive.

I didn’t mind being a vampire if that’s what I was. But that didn’t mean I had any desire to fulfill some of the creepier of the tropes.

Once I reached the tree closest to the garage, I tightroped onto a thin branch. Then, cautious as to not break it, I gently pushed down and sprung off, diving like a swimmer seventy feet down, the journal clasped between my outstretched hands. The distance was very short, and I landed softly, focusing greatly on doing so in a cautiously tactile way that wouldn’t cannonball me through the building and barreling into the ground. I rolled like a bowling ball to a stop on the vegetative, vine-covered roof in a cluster of silky honeysuckle and tickling lavender wisteria.

Even now all these years later, I felt kind of giddy at the impossible physics of my body’s capability for control, so I couldn’t help but laugh a little. I even laughed a little more thinking again of how my family might see my behavior –– me laughing here in the flowers –– as lunacy in how drastically it differed from the darkness of the personal rain cloud I’d been carrying over me.

From the house, I heard a deep chuckle and the sound of a scoff, confirming that I did have an audience. It must be Emmett mocking the impressiveness of my nosedive. I smiled, feeling very much like myself again.

I hopped off the roof to the ground and entered the garage. Sure enough, Alice had laid out a small pile of clothes for me for the upcoming school day. I stripped, unceremoniously dropping the garments I was wearing into a pile on the floor and reached for the clothing. Then, I groaned.

“Alice!” I hissed her name like an expletive. I thought we’d moved past my sister’s insistence on using me as her personal doll, but it seemed this was her attempt for a revival. Maybe she was determined to punish me for the way I’d destroyed my shoes. Rather than a sensible sweater and jeans, Alice had taken advantage of my hurried need and elected to pick out a cropped turtleneck sweater and a mini skirt, both black. The sweater wasn’t awful in that the crop wouldn’t be exposing with the high waist of the skirt, but the bodycon fit of the skirt, the crocodile print of the polyurethane, and the ludicrous split up the side… Alice was deranged. This had to have come from her own closet.

She had the good sense to include sheer black tights to hide some of the disconcerting flawlessness and freaky whiteness of my skin –– not that that would matter much in how off-putting and contrasting I’d look in all black anyways –– but I’d have preferred converse over the matching black boots. At least the heel of the boot was more reasonable than I’d expect from her. Not more reasonable than converse, though.

I imagined showing up to Edward’s house. Hey, Edward! Here I am to drive you to school, pale and ridiculous. Also, I’m a vampire. Here’s your journal.

I considered the short run to my room in the house, but again, I was already running late…

I tugged the clothes on and hopped into the pearly white car, throwing the journal into the passenger seat. As I reversed out of the garage, I felt thankful for the engine upgrades Rosalie worked on that allowed for the instant rapidity of the acceleration.

I spun sharply, letting the car spin out with an obnoxiously loud screech until I was facing the long drive away from the house. In the rearview mirror, I watched as Rosalie entered the garage, her golden eyes shocked and her mouth open as I sped away.

My reckless driving only warranted a few irritated honks on my way to Edward’s house through the morning traffic –– one dark green Honda specifically gave me a long piece of their mind when I cut them off –– before I was whipping around the corner onto his street.

Just as I pulled in front of the lonely house, I watched as Edward casually jogged down the steps of his porch, his sleek backpack hanging carelessly off one shoulder and an apple in his hand.

His tangle of bronze hair was like a low burning flame against the muted monochromatism of the grey house and the grey sky and the grey pavement. Today, he wore a light tan turtleneck that clung tightly to his chest, slim beige trousers, and a long black coat that ended above the knees. His fancy belt, his long socks, and his suede boots were all black too. I didn’t particularly consider him to be someone who cared much about what others thought about him, but he seemed pretty meticulously dressed. I wondered if he dressed to impress others or dressed for himself. Neither decision particularly mattered, but it’d been so long since I thought about something so human –– the thought process of selecting what to wear and considering how you wanted to present yourself.

The clothes I wore ceased to matter long ago. I never particularly had an interest in fashion, so it was easy to allow Alice to select my wardrobe. And for the most part, she got it right. Only when I found her selections to be impractical, such as today, did I really care. But it was a rarity that she tried to push me too far out of my comfort zone anymore. She’d given up on me, or maybe she had just become more clever about finding the right opportunities to dress me in something absurd… I liked things that I could easily move around in.

Alice would approve of his outfit, I thought. Maybe if he liked fashion, they really would get along. But that didn’t matter because I had no intentions of involving Alice and her freaky little visions in my experiment.

Seeing me parked there, he froze for a moment, before his lips curved into a huge smile. Edward laughed, throwing his apple up in the air and catching it again. He half-jogged forward to meet me. I took a deep, clean breath full of the leather scents of the car’s interior and rolled down the window, leaning forward towards him.

Edward bent over so that his head could duck down to see my face through the window, and he shook his head again, chuckling.

“To what do I owe this pleasure?”

“Hello, Edward,” I smiled pleasantly, trying to play nice.

He eyed me suspiciously, but the glint in his pretty green eyes was teasing, the grin that lit them up never fading.

“I’ve come to bring you this, fresh from the scene of the crime––“ I grasped hold of the leather bound book in my hand, raising it up to wave it before setting it back down, “––and to offer you a ride to school. I’m sure it’d be a humbling experience for you to walk, but I felt bad about your pretty car being flattened like a pancake.”

“You’re not irritated with me?” Edward asked, slightly cocking his head to the side.

“Are you irritated with me?” I countered.

“Never,” he beamed.

“Well, then we can call a truce,” I half smiled. “You’re not curious as to why I’m forcing you to carpool, making your getting to school my business?”

“The wasting of finite resources is everyone’s business. But of course, I am curious.”  

��As usual,” I mumbled under my breath. Hesitantly, I breathed in. It was like pulling the chord on a hot-air ballon with the way his scent ripped my throat into flames. I was grateful for the distraction of someone grumbling to themself as they turned onto the street, because instead of spiraling, I was able to instead laugh as I realized who I had cut off a few traffic lights ago. I looked in the rearview mirror and sure enough recognized Sara, the sandy blonde, driving the ugly green Honda.

“Hmm… Well, I wouldn’t want to upset your girlfriend––” I bit my lip momentarily to keep myself from laughing, “––so I wouldn’t be offended if you said no.”

“Who?” Edward asked, but his smile had faded as his eyes watched my lips intently.

He looked back into my eyes after a second, blinking as he realized I was staring at him staring at me, then up at the car awkwardly pulling in behind me.

“Oh,” he chuckled as he realized who I meant. “I’ll be just a moment.”

I watched in my side-view mirror as Edward approached Sara on the drivers’ side.

“Hey, Sara,” he said as she cranked her window down.

“Hey, Ed,” she grumbled, kind of irritated. I should have felt guilty for disrupting her plan, but her irritation with Edward instead provoked my nerves. Also, the fact that she called him Ed bothered me too. “I guess you made it out alive. I’d have been here sooner, but Cullen cut me off. I got suck at a red light.”

“Did she?” Edward laughed. “Well, I’m really sorry, Sara. This is so nice of you, but Bella offered to drive me to school today. I’d cancel now that you’re here, but after she saved my life, I’d feel terrible doing so. Is it alright if I see you at school?”

“Yeah, that’s fine,” she snapped, trying to seem unbothered despite the tightness of her jaw and the edge in her voice.

“I’m sorry again, Sara. I really appreciate that you came here,” Edward smiled a dazzling smile.

“No big deal. I’ll see you at school,” she lifted the corners of her lips once before turning away, her mouth in a tight line.

He sighed watching as she drove past me and away before a crooked smile reappeared on his face as he walked back to my car. I didn’t have time to wonder if he would have preferred to ride with her. It didn’t seem likely.

“…Ed?” I asked as he crossed back to the passenger side.

“You heard that?” Edward chuckled. He slid his backpack off his back, opened the door, and dipped his tall frame into the car. He picked up the journal before settling into the passenger’s side, adjusting the seat to make room for his legs and backpack. “I’m not particularly fond of that nickname. Or any, for that matter. My mother called me Teddy sometimes. I prefer Edward.”

“I do too,” I agreed, breathing in the potency of his fragrance. I clutched the steering wheel tightly and swallowed dryly.

“So,” he began once he was comfortable. “Are you feeling more open today?”

“No,” I answered as I began to drive towards the school.

Edward sighed, but he shook his head, amused. Clearly, he’d decided to play nice too. “Do you ever get tired of ambiguity, Bella?”

Yes.

“No,” I teased, rolling my eyes. “I enjoy being mysterious far too much.”

“Mysterious enough to keep me up at night,” he egged on.

“I’m sure you slept just fine.”

“How’d you sleep?” Edward asked. I looked over at him, ignoring the tingling of my tongue in anticipation of the taste of his sweet blood. I should have thought of a response, but I was too busy fighting off my instincts to think of a lie. His pretty eyes narrowed in thought as he analyzed my face and the dark circles beneath my golden eyes.

Suddenly, I froze, my muscles locking down as he reached forward, his hand gently touching my hair. I didn’t dare breathe as the heat of his skin enveloped me in warmth. His hand lingered for a moment before it pulled back, holding up a broken piece of fern.

“You had a leaf in your hair. How’d that get there?” Edward almost whispered, his lips curved into a half-smile.

A strange electricity throbbed through my body, and the sensation was so odd. Like my heartbeat should be thrumming loudly in my ears. Deafening. But my heart was frozen and dead, so I only heard the beat of Edward’s. We sat in silence for a moment as my mind spun in the dizziness.

“Maybe I should have accepted Sara’s offer,” he joked after a moment, laughing, but I wondered what he made of the affliction I was trying to hide on my face. Around him, no matter my attempts at subterfuge, it felt as though my face was an open book in which he could read all my secrets. I refocused my eyes on the road, too distracted by the warmth of his pale face and the prettiness of his green eyes as the forest flew by in the window behind him.

“Maybe,” I agreed, smiling softly, smiling sadly. Maybe this was a bad idea. Maybe you should jump out of the car and run before I accidentally kill you.

“But,” he mused gently, trying to keep the mood light and playful. “She probably doesn’t have heated seats.”

His effort to comfort the conflict raging within me that he didn’t even understand worked. I snorted.

I continued driving, thinking of ways to bring up the journal.

“You look lovely today, by the way,” he smiled, appraising me. “Which is not to say that you don’t on any other day, but you do look very pretty.”

I felt oddly incomplete as I waited for reactions my body was no longer capable of. Reactions I’d forgotten. There was another strange sensation in my cheeks as if they should be very warm.

My head whipped towards him in surprise, my eyebrows pulling up.

“What?” He immediately asked in shock, his heart beat picking up. My reaction didn’t totally alarm him though, because his lips were still pulled up at the corners. Edward seemed to always be smiling. Or maybe smirking was the better word. “Do you not get compliments often? I find that rather hard to believe.”

“No, it’s not that,” I relaxed my face. “I was just caught off guard. Lovely…That wasn’t particularly something I’d expect a seventeen year old boy to say.”

“Oh,” he relaxed, easily grinning again.

“Are you even seventeen?” I found myself smiling in return.

“Are you?” He countered.

My mood darkened as my lips dropped immediately, but I fixed the smile back onto my face so he couldn’t see how exposed I felt.

“You know, my mom used to say that I was born thirty five years old, and that I get more middle-aged every year.”

“Hmm…” Edward nodded, his eyes narrowed again as he scrutinized me. I wondered if this clarified some assumption he’d made about me.

I turned into the school parking lot. I saw the gleaming cherry redness of Rosalie’s ostentatious car and desperately hoped she was already inside one of the brick buildings.

“So,” he prompted, his tone mysteriously patronizing. “Did you read this?”

I glanced over to see the accusation in his eyes as he held up the journal, but he didn’t seem angry whatsoever. They were still light. Still playful.

“What? No, of course not,” I defended myself. But my voice was unpersuasive, the pitch coming out a little too high to give my words any credibility.

I parked beside Rosalie. The car was luckily empty, so I relaxed my grip on the steering wheel. Ha! As if my sister would have confronted me here, and I’d have driven away, effectively kidnapping Edward… I scoffed at myself. I clenched the hand Edward couldn’t see into a tight fist, concentrating all of my strength in my fight against temptation into the way my fingers dug into my palm.

I turned my face to look at Edward, whose face was condescending, his thick eyebrows pulled up in disbelief.

“I’m serious! Maybe I look guilty because I considered it, but I didn’t actually follow through.”

His face relaxed into a crooked smile. “Okay, I believe you. I’d have forgiven you anyways.”

“Does that mean if I ask you about the contents, you’ll share?” I asked eagerly. I’d read so many books in my life that this new mystery novel easily became just like another book I was dying to read.

“Absolutely not,” he shook his head, chuckling. Edward reached for his bag, winking at me, and opened his door, ducking his head to get out. I swiftly undid my seatbelt and was out beside him probably much too fast, my backpack slung onto my shoulder. For a moment, I wondered if my siblings needed their useless backpacks too since we typically drove this car to school, but I figured Alice must have rescued them from the trunk after seeing my plans for this morning.

He blinked, looking down at where I suddenly appeared.

“Why?” I inhaled through my mouth, grateful for the influx of fresh rainwater and firs that helped dilute Edward’s scent.

His heart thrummed in his chest, and being so close to him, the sound was like thunder surrounding me as I listened, becoming attuned to it. The splash of puddles as tires hightailed through the parking lot, the slam of locker doors as students got their books, and the chatter of kids as they entered the school all seemed like irrelevant ambiance now.

“Because,” Edward breathed. His breath was shaky, but his face remained cool. The sweetness of the smell washed over my face, and I clenched my fist again. “That wouldn’t be fair whatsoever.”

“And why not?” I demanded.

“You expect me to entrust you with all of my secrets when you won’t trust me with just one of yours?”

He wasn’t wrong. But I couldn’t exactly divulge anything about the accident. I was already breaking too many rules. My own rules. My own promises I’d made to my family.

“How about…” I considered, though my thoughts were headed in a dangerous direction. “If you happen to have any theories, you can share one, and I’ll either confirm or deny it.”

“Just one?”

“Yes.”

“How is that worth the very much intimate documentation of my entire mind, Bella? That’s hardly sufficient.”

“Fine, I don’t care about your stinking journal,” I snapped, stubbornly poking my chin in the air a fraction.

He surprised me by actually throwing his head back to laugh.

“Are you done?” I asked.

“You’ve got a bit of a temper, don’t you?” he considered this for a moment, beaming. “Okay, I’ll accept these conditions. But later.”

“Later?” I demanded, feeling a sense of injustice as I froze in place. He continued forward and took a bite of his apple. The juice spilled out sweetly into the air, but the fragrance was unappetizing and certainly not as sweet as Edward’s blood.

“Thank you for the ride, Bella. I’ll see you in biology.” Again, he winked, walking backwards. He saluted me, waving once with the journal in his other hand and then turned around, clearly enjoying having the upper hand as he and temptation disappeared into the crowd of students.

I stood there, my mouth propped open. The sensation of being watched started to creep up on me and sure enough, I turned to find Rosalie ten yards away outside of the building to her first period. Her eyes were dark, cold, and fierce with betrayal. Guiltily, I looked away and headed off towards my first class.

Throughout my morning classes, I tried not to think about my family’s –– or rather, Rosalie’s –– opinions on my decision this morning. At this, I failed miserably. As I imagined explaining how really if I didn’t stay away from the boy, it would prove that I actually could leave him alone and exercise control against Alice’s visions, I started to find my logic extremely flawed and unbelievable. Maybe I was making a mistake. Maybe I was just too pigheaded. I tried not to think about this too.

Instead, I thought again about the secrets of his journal. Wasn’t this essentially the symbol of everything I’d been obsessing over? All of my wonderings and curiosities as for why he was so annoying and his eyes so perceptive could all be unraveled in that little book. I wondered if I’d be disappointed once the mystery was unveiled. Maybe the journal –– and by extension, Edward himself –– was not as interesting as I thought. I may have just been fixating on this because it was something different. But I told myself it’d be better for me to be disappointed. The sooner I could move on with my life.

Throughout the day, a couple of the braver students asked for details about the accident but became disappointed when I didn’t offer up the dramatics they were hoping for. I felt too shameful to discredit Edward’s accounts, so I irresponsibly dismissed the opportunities to ensure the accident yesterday hadn’t exposed anything unusual about me or my family. Eventually, as my monotonous account of the events spread through the tiny school, kids stopped asking.

I was impatient to get to biology, but before then, I’d have to face my siblings at lunch. When the bell rang after fifth period, I walked much too quickly to the cafeteria, dreading arriving but very much eager to get it over with. As I weaseled my way through the hallway –– which wasn’t difficult because even in the familiarity of the school, we were typically provided a wide berth –– I overheard the conversation of two other juniors. I froze in place as my plans shifted for the day. They discussed the difficulty of today’s biology pop exam, and I realized I wouldn’t have the hour of the day the school allotted to speak with Edward, the excuse I could provide my family in my defense. A freshman nearly rammed into me from behind, not expecting my sudden stop. Whoever it was recoiled immediately. 

Well, I wasn’t going to miss out on whatever explanation he planned to provide because of some trivial pop exam. I rearranged my lunch plans, appreciating the excuse to postpone another family confrontation. We could battle it out at the long oval table later if necessary.

I entered the cafeteria and was second in the lunch line, only selecting a glass lemonade bottle so that the emptiness in front of me wouldn’t be unnerving for Edward. I figured it’d be more disconcerting to leave a tray of food in front of me untouched. I headed to a round table in the corner that was typically empty. This wouldn’t surprise my family when they entered. Alice would warn them.

I sat waiting as students filed in, either joining the growing line or meeting at their usual tables with their friends. I avoided Rosalie’s eyes when she entered the room, but I could still feel the iciness of her stare. I listened for Edward’s deep and soft voice to indicate his arrival, then when I couldn’t find it, instead listened for Sara’s to see if she may be with him. Sara was a loud, babbling talker, so it was easy to find her voice in the crowd of the hallway. She seemed to have gotten over her irritation from this morning as she animatedly spoke about some research she’d done the night prior into some potential colleges she might apply to.

I found that although I may feel some irrational resentment of her ability to be so close to Edward, I liked Sara. Maybe we would have even been friends if I was a human. And if her proximity to him didn’t bother me. She was prattling on about her dream of becoming a veterinarian, and her goals seemed so sincere that I almost felt guilty finding any enjoyment in having stolen Edward from her this morning.

But that didn’t mean I didn’t have intentions to do so again.

As I suspected, when Sara walked through the double doors, Edward was by her side. He was actively listening to her words –– always so polite to anyone who wasn’t me –– but once inside the lunch room, his eyes immediately flashed to the table in which my siblings were settling into. His thick eyebrows pulled together in confusion –– and maybe even disappointment? –– at the realization he didn’t find me there.

I was impatient as he purchased his lunch. Once he’d left the line, he still hadn’t noticed me sitting here. Maybe he was less perceptive than I gave him credit for. I felt a moment of awkwardness as I thought about having to get up, walk across the cafeteria, and ask him to join me in front of my family. I would still have done so, but I was immensely relieved when Sara noticed me.

“Are you eating lunch with Bella too?” The sandy blonde asked, her tone suddenly indignant. This time, I felt no pleasure in my thievery. Sara was right to want to reserve Edward to her human world, but I was too entranced with the mystery of his journal and the mystery of his mind to care.

Edward looked up, searching. His sage eyes were bright and animated once he found me here at the table. He held his tray in one large hand while combing the other through his untidy bronze hair. The arrogant confidence in his face made me smirk, and I rolled my eyes, lifting my hand to beckon him forward twice with my finger as if I was reluctantly pacifying a child.

“I guess so,” he laughed a little as he sauntered forward towards the table, leaving Sara behind gawking. I braced myself for the onslaught, inhaling one last fresh breath of air. How habitual this was becoming.

“I’m being gifted your presence outside of our biology class twice in one day? What did I do to deserve this?” He teased once he’d arrived, standing behind the seat across from me.

“Nearly die. I guess that’s a fair enough price to pay for my company,” I played along. If only he knew how true that still was. He grinned, his perfect teeth white and shiny. “Oh, don’t look so smug. I’m only here to uncover a mystery.”

“As am I,” he reminded me. I winced.

“Are you going to sit down?” I asked. He still stood behind the seat, tall and lean, a giant like my brothers. Not quite as towering and much slimmer, but still, I felt small in my seat looking up at him.

Edward leaned down to carefully place his tray on the laminate before comfortably settling into his seat as if we’d done this before. I glanced at his tray, curious as to his selection. A bottle of water, a grilled chicken salad, and a bag of dried fruit. I stared at the food for a moment as if this would provide me any clues about his mind.

“So,” he began. I looked up to meet his eyes and though I knew he’d be looking at me, I felt a jolt pulse through me. He caught something about my reaction, and a crooked smile appeared on his face.

“So,” I continued. “You were going to tell me about your journal.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “But I believe we agreed on a condition, did we not?”

“We did,” I admitted. “Go ahead.”

“Hmm… I’m not sure I’m actually ready to, Bella,” he pondered, and I felt odd again hearing him say my name.

“Why not?” I demanded, restless. Of course I was interested in the book, but I was also definitely interested in his theories. I couldn’t believe it had only been yesterday that the accident occurred. It felt like a lifetime ago. The same way that first day in biology did.

“I’ve only been given about twenty four hours to come up with any explanations.”

“And have you?”

“Maybe, but I have a feeling you’ll be very firm on only allowing one theory, so I want to hold out for the theory I’m most confident on.”

I frowned, and Edward laughed.

“Don’t worry though. I’ll tell you about my journal anyways. As long as you promise–– no, that’d be letting you off too easily. As long as you swear to me that you won’t forget your end of the deal.”

“I swear,” I promised, smiling at the silliness of his command. I took this moment to breath in his powerful scent, to wrestle with my desire.

“Hmm… I wonder if it’ll upset you,” his forehead crumped in thought. My patience was wearing so thin that the inexorable cloud of lust for his blood had little impact in comparison to the sudden aggravation at his procrastination.

“Oh, Edward!” I groaned, exasperated. “Would you just tell me? What could possibly upset me?”

For whatever reason, Edward burst into laughter at my outburst and couldn’t seem to stop.

I glared at him, and he tried to choke back his humor unsuccessfully. The irritation in my eyes didn’t deter him or instill any sense of fear in him. Briefly, I wondered if he was mentally sound.

“Okay, well, you can just go eat lunch with your little friends, and I’ll stay here and talk to myself.”

“Don’t be mad,” he pleaded as another laugh escaped. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t help myself. You’re just so impatient. And for what? My uninteresting little journal?”

“You’re annoying, did you know that?”

“Maybe, but you’ve chosen to sit here with me, so you must like me for some reason,” he pointed out. For some reason indeed. Once again, he was right on target. My mouth gaped open.

“Okay, I’m getting up––”

“No, please, Bella. I’ll behave myself now. I’ll tell you about my journal. I’ll tell you anything you want to know.” His smile was dazzling, and his eyes were fierce, sweet, and sincere. I was mesmerized, stuck in the seat across from him.

“Okay,” I said stupidly.

“My journal,” he began seriously, “is sort of a Bible.”

I waited for him to laugh again.

“No, really,” Edward did laugh but not as though he’d told a joke. “I know that’s kind of strange.”

Religion had never been a major facet of my life. A dozen memories flickered through my mind of the times as a human where my mother Renée had gone through impassioned phases where she attended church, trying on multiple denominations and religions for size. But just like the rest of her sudden and fleeting interests, her spiritual high wore off, and we never spoke about God or church again. Only when I became immortal did religion take a more permanent place in my thoughts. But it was only the proximity to Carlisle that made me consider spiritual beliefs, and even then, it was simply another topic to devote thought to in all the endless space in my head and all the endless time in which to fill it.

I didn’t know particularly what I believed nor if I cared much, but I did know that if Edward was religious enough to tote around a bible at school, he’d definitely not be pleased to know he sat across from an actual vampire.

“You carry around a bible?”

“Well, don’t make any judgments yet, alright? It’s not exactly a bible. It’s kind of difficult to explain.”

“I think I can keep up,” I said simply, feeling slightly awkward but still curious. I glanced down at his untouched food. “But you should probably eat.”

“And what about you?” He asked, eyeing my full lemonade bottle.

I unscrewed the tin cap for his benefit. Following my lead, he opened the plastic container of his salad. I waited impatiently as he slowly ate his food.

I watched him as he ate, but when his eyes flickered curiously up to me, I fixated my attention on the lemonade bottle, tracing the mouth of it with my pinky finger.

After a few moments, Edward spoke up. “What are you thinking?”

I looked up to meet his light green gaze and felt stuck there again, compelled to reveal everything.

“I’m trying to figure out what you think I am,” I admitted only one of my concerns, though even this was much too honest. I thought of the inspiration he could draw from his religious text. The second beast. The Nephilim. Cherubim. Demons. Even though I didn’t have a true understanding of the contents of the book, some of Carlisle’s paintings had provided me with enough of an idea.

“I’m not having much luck with that yet,” he answered.

I laughed, relieved. “Well, you have only been given twenty four hours.”

“What else are you thinking?” he asked again, sensing there was more.

I sighed, feeling uncomfortable under his analyzation. The weight of his watchful eyes was too penetrative.

“That a boy who carries around a bible probably wouldn’t like me very much.”

“Why? Are you a sinner?” He smiled teasingly, but his eyes were soft as he tried to pull me again from the gloominess that seemed to steal me away.

“Something like that.”

“Well, aren’t we all?”

“Not all dogs go to heaven,” I answered. He chuckled at how I butchered the expression.

“Hmm… I’m not sure if I absolutely believe in a heaven, but if I do, I think the prerequisites to make it in are much broader than the Christian faith teaches.”

“You carry around a bible but don’t believe in heaven?”

“I said I’m unsure. And I said it was difficult to explain, didn’t I?”

“I don’t understand what you mean.”

“I hardly understand what you mean the majority of the time either.”

We both laughed, and the synchronicity of the moment made me forget my intentions with bothering him in the first place. It made me realize that in a way, I actually did feel fondly of Edward.

“Here, I’ll explain. I’m done eating anyways.” He used a napkin to dab at the corners of his mouth, then pushed it away on top of his lunch tray.

“My mother was very religious,” Edward began. “She wasn’t pious or bigoted or forceful about her beliefs. She was kind… devout. She believed in goodness. Her entire life had been dedicated to caring for other people. She wasn’t someone whose true intentions were to condemn others with the hope to save them from hell. Rather, she seemed more focused on saving someone from unhappiness. A lot of other believers have been known to connect with someone only for the end goal of forcing them to change the way they live for the sake of feeling as though they saved them. She had always been offended by this insistence to control another’s lifestyle, believing that any Child of God should truly only be concerned with loving others.

“I have pages of verses ripped out from her bible stuck throughout my journal. It may seem sacrilegious to destroy a bible in that way, but she’d read through it so many times that it had completely fallen apart. I tried to save it when she died, but there was no hope to. It was too dilapidated and tattered. So in my own journal, I have all these notes I’ve written on the notes she wrote in her bible. All these confusing erratic writings, these scribbles, I’ve been trying to sort out, just trying to figure out how to be a good person.”

At the end of his speech, my mouth dropped open. Quickly, I closed it again.

“So, do you believe in a god?” I asked after a few moments of silence.

“I’m not sure what I believe. If you don’t believe that all this world could have just happened on its own, which is hard for me to accept myself, then a god seems to be just as reasonable an answer as anything else. But I do believe in science as well. And once again, I don’t believe that any higher being who created the entire universe would be so particular and unyielding on such frivolous, harmless human matters as to what you do…or who you love… I’m hesitant to speak about god publicly, not because I fear any kind of persecution for my complicated beliefs, but because I know that the church has caused a lot of damage to a lot of people. And I don’t want anyone to think I support any of that harm. But for innocent believers, I see nothing wrong with wanting a reason to hold onto hope if that’s what religion is for them.”

“Neither do I,” I agreed, thinking of Carlisle.

“I think at the core of any religion –– and I definitely am interested in studying other religions as well –– is the same message. To do good by others and yourself. Of course, historically, religion has been weaponized as a means to take control over innocent people, but in considering people like my mother… I sincerely hope that there is a god. For her sake.”

I didn’t know what to say.

“Don’t worry.” Edward smiled his crooked smile. “I’m not about to try and sell you some religious propaganda. At no point will I sit you down and ask, ‘do you mind if I take a moment to speak about our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ?’ That’s never been my mission. I’m not entirely certain whether or not I even consider myself religious.”

“So what is your mission then with the journal?”

“Perhaps this will sound a little pretentious, but it’s not so much that I’m curious about the chicken or the egg scenario… Evolution versus creation… I don’t care very much as to how we got here. I guess because my mother believed so profusely, and I consider her to be such a great person, I’m curious as to whether our morality is innate as people, or if all goodness is because we have some kind of spirit within us leading us to want to do right by other people. I think overall, it is innate. An atheistic individual can do wonderful things for the world just as someone who claims to love Jesus can do terrible things. I don’t think anyone who doesn’t believe chooses to do good for God, but I wonder if that innate sense of morality, sense of compassion is ingrained into us because of the fact we do have souls. So the question I’ve been trying to answer all these years is… do we? Does my mother die, fade to nothing, with her body? Or did she live on because she had a soul?”

“Those are big questions for a seventeen year old.”

“Those are big questions for anybody, no matter their age. And questions humankind has been trying to answer for thousands of years,” Edward chuckled, shaking his head. “I don’t expect to be the one to stumble upon the answers. More so, I’m really trying to find some purpose in my mother’s life. I do want to honor her, and maybe if I can understand all the things she wrote about people and about God, then I can.”

“So what do you write?”

“I write my thoughts on what she journaled about. And I write about all the good things I see someone do. About the reasons why I think they did them… I study people a lot.”

“Do you ever feel creepy?” I asked.

“Sometimes,” he laughed. “I mean, it’s not that I’d be the type to watch someone while they sleep. But if someone comforts a friend, picks up a stray piece of trash off the ground, smiles at a stranger… I try to take notice. I want to notice people.”

Edward sighed. “I know this must sound arrogant, but I really do believe I’m very sensitive to the thoughts of other people. At least, I try to be. For example, I know Sara must not be very happy that I chose to ride with you this morning, or that I am sitting with you now. I’m not oblivious to her feelings for me. But it’d be very ungentlemanly of me to accuse her of those feelings if she prefers to keep them secretive, so I’ll define a boundary if needed to protect her feelings whenever she chooses to come forth about them. I’d like to retain our friendship, but I still make my own choices.”

“So…” I began, ignoring his point about Sara. “Let’s say we all did have souls. Could someone lose that soul by any chance?”

“Hmm…” he thought, his eyes intent, piercing into mine as though he were trying to read my mind. “Now, that’s a big question for a seventeen year old.”

I laughed along with him.

“Well, I’m not sure whether or not you can lose your soul –– if we have them, of course. Perhaps you could damage the integrity of it or compromise it somehow. Could it be lost in death? If there is something of a heaven, does that automatically imply the existence of a hell? What purpose does hell serve in torturing one’s soul for eternity? Justice? Do some people perhaps deserve that fate? I want to say no, but then you think of awful, malicious people who have done awful, malicious things. Murder. Genocide. Rape. Isn’t the losing of your soul in death, fading into nonexistence too easy of a punishment? Do those people warrant a judge, jury, and executioner? I would hope that there are consequences to evil actions, but I don’t understand the idea that if such a place exists for the most vile of humanity, nonbelievers and sinners would go to the same place as well according to the Christian faith. I would say on that front, the Bible must be profoundly off. That aspect has to be invented by man for a means of control. What creator would wish such a fate on someone so innocent as to simply be uncertain about a god? So does a nonbeliever or sinner simply cease to exist, therefore losing their soul? Or is there some kind of alternative? Like a purgatory in the Catholic faith. That too seems a cruel fate from what should be a loving God.”

I felt slightly uneasy, wondering what he would think of my non-life, if he would consider this to be the alternative for innocent sinners. I wondered if he would believe I had a soul.

Edward softened his expression at my discomfort. His eyes were gentle and kind.

“But I don’t think I believe that. Like I said, I think the division between good and bad, right and wrong, is less black and white than most religious people believe. I think it’s gray, and I think any higher power would realize that too. So if you’re making that face because you’ve sinned a little here and there or murdered somebody, maybe you can make a comeback.”

Edward winked, and I forced myself to laugh. 

“So would yesterday earn me some points?”

“Oh, definitely. You’ve practically merited an angel status.”

This time I did genuinely laugh at the thought of me as an angel.

“But again, as for what’s considered sin… I don’t subscribe to the majority of what’s considered biblical canon.”

“You don’t have to continue with the disclaimers. I believe that you’re not judging my sinful ways.”

“Correction, I don’t believe that God themself is judging you for your sinful ways. I never said anything about my judgment of you.”

I bit my bottom lip to keep from smiling at the smirk on his face. “I’m not at all surprised that you have a god complex. That seems about right –– you do come off like the type to be very judgmental.”

“I’m notoriously difficult to impress,” Edward half-smiled. “Are we continuing this conversation in Biology, or are you growing tired of the dark and the heavy?”

“Not yet,” I answered. “But I overheard that we have a pop quiz, so you’ll have to save your pretty boy disciple thoughts for later.”

He chuckled as I stood up from the table, reaching to grab my untouched lemonade bottle and cap to throw away, then stopped me.

“I’ve got it,” Edward placed the bottle on his tray to dump into the garbage. I watched curiously as he pocketed the bottle cap.

“I’d say thank you, but I know you’re only trying to win points in the eyes of God.”

“Anything to get into heaven,” he laughed.

* * *

y’all know i had to make edward a lil christian boy. u know edward is the i wanna church girl who go to church… and reaaaad her biiiible vine. i do want to clarify again… unlike stephenie mormon, i have no agenda in speaking about religion in this fanfic. i’m not particularly fond of labels, but i am more agnostic than anything so… i’m not tryna convert anybody to anything. it just seemed very “classically edward” as rosalie would say.

i hope u enjoyed! i also wanted to say i really, really appreciate the comments! i haven't replied bc... i'm shy but i read them & truly feel very flattered. ♡

[anotherhystericalqueen]

As Easy as Breathing III

Modern!AU Brian May x OC

Word Count: 3.1k

Warnings: None

A/N: Part III is here! Please let me know what you guys think, any and all feedback is appreciated. Also a big thanks to @spacedustmazzello​ for being awesome and a huge help with my writing💕

Part I  Part II

Josie woke up early to her alarm going off the next morning. She grabbed her phone and hit the snooze, but that didn’t last long when she saw the text messages and social media notifications flooding her screen. 

Brian: Hey, is everything okay?

Brian: You ran off pretty fast last night, is everything alright?

Brain: Josie? I’m getting worried. Please text me back 

Roggie: Hey, we didn’t get back until super late so I’m coming in later in the morning. Can we talk later? I promise it isn’t about you and Brian.

John: Want to hang out later? I’ll be at the shop all day with Rog or Freddie if you want to do something. 

Brian: I’m stopping by Rag Trade later to drop off my stuff from last night. Are you working today?

Instagram- you were tagged in a post by @Queenmusicofficial

Josie responded to John first. “Yea I’m opening today so I’ll be at the shop until 3-ish so come by the shop whenever. I’m working on a project for Freddie so we can do something afterwards.”

She didn’t check to see if he responded or look at any of the other texts before crawling out of bed and shrugging on her bathrobe. She snuck into the shared bathroom between her and Roger’s bedrooms and fell right into her morning routine. 

After a quick but warm shower, some light makeup, and spending 20 minutes trying to find an outfit that met her standards, Josie grabbed her phone and shoulder bag from the end of her bed. The bag was a lot heavier than it usually was as she threw it over her shoulder, and it moved a lot more than a bag should have. Josie flipped open the bag to reveal an orange and white kitten curled up inside, his big green eyes staring up at his owner. 

“Chippey,” Josie sighed and picked him up with one hand. “What are you doing in there? You know I can’t take you with me to work.” 

The kitten meowed back at her as she placed him back on the floor. He began weaving in between her legs as she walked out to the kitchen area. Chip continued to persistently meow as she pulled up his food bowl along with Delilah and Miko’s and fished through the cabinet below for the cat food. All three cats meowed loudly and rubbed themselves up against her until their food bowls were full and their water was refreshed. 

Josie poured herself a bowl of cereal for breakfast so she at least had something to eat before her shift and scrolled through her Instagram, checking the post she was tagged in.

It was a set of photos of the band performing onstage and hanging out backstage before the show. The front one was of the band and Josie in the backstage dressing room before the show, posing for the camera with bright smiles on their faces. She began to think back on what happened after that picture was taken, but was soon pulled out of her thoughts to see Roger standing in the kitchen, digging the kettle out from the top cupboard and filling it with water. 

“Morning.” Josie piped up. “Sorry if I was too loud, I didn't mean to wake you.” 

The drummer shrugged, grabbing a mug and a bag of his favorite tea. “No worries, I was already awake so you don’t have to apologize. If anything, I guess I am the one that owes you an apology.” He trailed off.

“Rog, it’s fine.” Josie replied. “You don’t have to apologize for something you weren’t aware of.” 

“I know, but I wish you had said anything before trying to snog my best friend.” 

Josie dropped her phone and glared at her roommate. “It was not my intention to kiss Brian, and you know I didn’t kiss him because you were there. And you didn’t have to run off afterwards if you had a problem.” 

“And you didn’t have to run after me.” Roger remarked. “I don’t have a problem with who you can and can’t like, but all I am saying is that it would have been nice to know beforehand.” 

“It isn’t your business to know who I do or do not like, even if it was Brian and I am not obligated to tell you anything.” Josie shot up from her seat so fast that both Miko and Chip jumped in surprise. She grabbed her now empty bowl of cereal, rinsed it out, and placed it in the dishwasher. 

“I’ll see you at the shop.” She picked up her bag and threw it over her shoulder, not even making eye contact with Roger before heading out the door.” 

~~~~~~~~~

The Rag Trade had very slow foot traffic in the morning, which gave Josie time to hang back at the counter and work on finishing Freddie’s jacket before he came in later. John and Roger joined her in the shop two hours later, Roger taking Josie's place behind the counter and John set himself in the back of the store with Josie’s workspace. 

“What’d you think of the show last night?’ John asked. “I didn’t get the chance to see you after the show, looked like you were in a bit of a rush when I saw you.” 

“It was fun,” The seamstress answered, not breaking concentration from the jacket’s meticulous detail work. “Sorry I couldn’t stay later. Had to get up early to open the shop, can’t make rent if we aren’t open, and also I promised Freddie that his jacket would be done today so I have to finish all this stoning or else I’m gonna get way behind on my schedule. What about you? Have some fun after I left?” 

The bassist shook his head, “I guess. None of us were really in much of a partying mood last night.” 

Josie looked up from her work, “How come?”

“I don’t know. The show went great but I just felt drained afterwards. And it felt like there was something going on between Brian and Roger after you left.” He explained. 

Josie felt her stomach drop to her feet. Brian and Roger were mad at each other, and it was all her fault because she almost kissed Brian and Roger saw it happen. She remembered her and Roger’s conversation that morning. Josie barely knew what was happening between her and the guitarist and for sure wasn’t ready to explain it to Roger. “What do you mean by something going on? Like did they look mad at each other or something else was going on?”

John noticed Josie’s sudden interest in Brian and Roger. “They weren’t mad at each other from what I saw, it was more like they had to talk about something but didn’t want to bring it up in front of me and Freddie.” He shrugged, “My guess is that it was about the setlist, they were arguing about wanting to play some old Smile songs. Brian wanted to add them but Rog was against it and wanted to play more Queen songs.” 

The sinking feeling in Josie’s stomach lightened just a bit. Maybe they weren’t mad at each other over her, it was about the setlist and she was just overthinking this whole thing. Josie turned her attention back to finishing Freddie’s jacket, adding plastic rhinestones to the jacket collar. She was over halfway finished and Freddie wasn’t coming in for another two hours, so she would have the heavy work done before Freddie would have a chance to see it for himself. 

Josie and John worked in silence for the next two hours, Josie finishing her project and John focusing on his online classes he was taking for the summer. Josie occasionally broke the silence to ask for John’s opinion on her work to see if there was anything that looked out of place or that Freddie wouldn’t like. She would reciprocate with John as another set of ears to listen to him work out a problem. 

~~~~~~~~~~~

“It looks like something an angry lizard would wear.” Roger laughed as Josie put it on her canvas mannequin to check the fit and any final touches before Freddie came in. 

Josie glared at her roommate as she added the final touches. She had transformed the beat up white leather jacket Freddie had modeled for them two weeks ago into a brand new garment. She kept with the white leather and re-stitched the collar to flare out all the way around and added fake rhinestones to the collar and cuffs of the jacket to add a level of sparkle that only Freddie would deem fashionable. 

“As long as Freddie likes it, that’s all that matters.” She defended her creation. 

“What’d you use to make it?” Roger wondered. 

Josie shrugged. “Some scraps I had from old clothes and fake rhinestones I bought from a previous commission. The jacket itself was easily salvageable but I wanted to make it even better and something that only Freddie would wear.” 

“And you did just that!” A voice exclaimed behind them. All three whipped around to see Freddie and Brian standing at the entrance of the shop. Freddie ran up to the jacket and pulled it off the mannequin before putting it on and modeling in the mirror four the others to see. Josie’s face lit up seeing how much Freddie liked it. “Darling this is absolutely stunning!” 

“Jo, do you think you can make me one to wear to Sunday church?” Deaky joked, watching Freddie marvel in the mirror at his new garment. 

Josie snorted out of laughter. “If you can find me another jacket like that I’ll be more than willing to make you one.”

“I think it looks great Jo.” Brian spoke up. “And like you said, as long as Freddie likes it that’s what really matters.” 

Josie blushed at the compliment. “Thanks Bri, I should have yours done soon too.”

Brian waived her off. “No worries, take however much time you need.”

She laughed. “Thanks, I do have the embroidery we talked about sketched out already if you want to come in back and take a look.” She secretly hoped Brian would accept her offer so she would have a reason to talk to him in private about Roger and the after show events from the previous night.

Brian accepted her offer and followed her to the backroom of the shop that Josie claimed as her workspace for client projects and her work she was doing for Queen on the side. Brian’s jacket was spread out on her worktable, the sleeves now significantly lengthened with found denim and a galaxy print that Josie found at a secondhand fabrics store a few shops down from the Rag Trade. She even used the extra fabric to line the inside of the jacket to add some extra warmth to it. Brian couldn’t see the inner lining though because the jacket was flipped over to show the backside, which was stenciled with different planets and constellations that Josie had researched. 

“So this is just a sketch of what I have in mind right now, but I can change it if there’s anything you want different.” She handed him the jacket so he could look more closely at the design. “What do you think?”

“It looks great Josie.” Brian marveled at her work. “I love it, and the fabric is a great touch.”

Josie blushed and rocked back on her heels, a nervous habit she had developed in school. “Yeah, I was hoping you would like it. The design is the hard part, so as long as you approve of it the embroidery should only take a couple days for me to do. I already have my threads so I just have to fill everything in.”

“I love it.” Brian grinned, handing the jacket back to her. “I can’t wait to see the end product.” 

Josie took it back and played with the collar. “I can’t wait for you to see it either. I can text you when it is done if you want.” 

“Yea, I’d like that.” Brian looked at her. “Also, I know we didn’t get to talk last night…...about what happened at the van.” 

The sinking feeling returned to Josie. “Yea….”

“Are you mad at me?” Brian asked. “I swear I wasn’t trying to force myself on you, it-”

“Brian I’m not mad at you.” She cut him off. “We both didn’t plan on it happening but it happened. I just don’t know what it means or how to feel about it.” 

Brian leaned against Josie’s worktable and ran a hand through his curls, trying to collect his thoughts. “It doesn’t have to mean anything right now if you don’t want it to.”

“I don’t know if I want to call it anything.” She sighed, taking a spot next to Brian. “Roger was upset at me this morning because I didn’t tell him there was anything going on with us. I told him it was none of his business and now I don’t know what to do.” 

There was a long pause hanging in the air. Neither of them knew what to say next without it leading to a longer conversation they weren’t ready to have yet. Josie wanted to play it off as a one time thing and it wouldn’t happen again

“You’re right.” Brian spoke up. “This is none of Roger’s business. You don’t have to say anything if you aren’t ready.”

“I’m not. I don’t want to call this anything right now if that’s okay with you.” She replied. 

“Fine with me.” Brian smiled. “I’m not going to push you into anything you don't want. And don’t worry about Roger, that’ll sort itself out. Promise.” 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Freddie took over managing the shop with Josie while John and Brian wandered off to grab lunch for the four of them. Roger made his way out onto the shop floor to try and pick up some business while Josie stepped back to where she kept all the clothes that were saved for Queen shows.

“Okay Jo, spill it.” Freddie said the minute Brian was out of earshot. “What is going on between you two?”

“What do you mean? There’s nothing going on between us.” She answered, turning her attention back to leafing through the rack of stage clothes in front of her. 

Freddie rolled his eyes as he sat down on the couch. “Yea right, of course there’s nothing between you two just like there’s nothing between me and Jim.” 

“Well then what’s going on with you and Jim then?” She shot back, continuing to focus on the garments in front of her. “You just met him yesterday. Also, what do you think of this?” She pulled out a black flowy button down shirt.

“Give it to Deaky, he liked the last one you gave him so see if he wants it for the next show. And you’re forgetting that Jim and I already have a date planned.” The singer added on. “That’s more than what you and Brian have going on.”

“We don’t have anything going on Freddie.” She rolled her eyes. “I guess we just vibe well together. I’m not looking to date anyone anyway, especially not one of your bandmates.” 

Freddie cocked his head to the side at her response. “What do you mean by that? I have no problem if you dated someone in the band and I’m sure Roger or Deaky wouldn’t mind either.”

Josie placed the shirt with the rest of John’s stagewear. “Are you sure about that? I’m not too sure if Roger wouldn’t mind me dating a band member.” 

“Now why would you say that?” Freddie asked. 

There was a long pause between the two of them. Josie fiddled with a sleeve from another one of John’s shirts and Freddie drummed his fingers on his knee. 

Josie took a deep breath. “Okay, if I tell you, you have to promise me that you won’t tell anyone. Not Jim, not Deaky, not anyone.” Freddie raised an eyebrow at her request, but he promised not to tell anyone.

“Brian and I almost kissed last night.” She confessed. “After the show in the back of the van. Roger caught us as it was happening and I don’t know for sure what he saw. John said that he and Brian were acting weird after I left and I don’t want to cause drama in the band when you guys are about to take off. I can’t do that to you guys.” 

“Why do you think we would disapprove of you and Brian?” Freddie asked. “If anything, I am all for you two getting together, and from what I’ve seen he likes you back.”

Josie laughed. “Of course you would say that, you’re going to need someone to be your double date with you and Jim.” 

Freddie jokingly clutched his chest in pretend shock. “How dare you believe I would set you up for my own gain. I would never do such a thing!”

The pair burst into laughter. Freddie always knew how to lighten her mood, and after this morning’s conversation with Roger she definitely needed it. There weren't ever a lot of fights between them but this was different. The thought of what happened deflated her mood and Freddie could see it on her face. 

“I heard what happened this morning with you and Roger. He told me last night what happened with you and Brian on our way home.” Freddie confessed. “He isn’t upset at you or Brian.”

Josie scoffed. “It didn’t sound like that this morning. He kept saying that I should have told him, and I have no idea what’s going on myself so why would I tell him in the first place?” 

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Just tell him that you needed some time to figure it out yourself before you wanted to tell anyone.” 

Josie sighed and sunk into the couch next to Freddie. “You’re right. Brian and I don’t know what we want to call whatever happened last night and I don’t want to call it anything right now.” 

“Then that’s what you do.” Freddie replied. “It doesn’t have to be anything if neither of you want it to be anything.” 

That advice stuck with Josie. She liked Brian but didn’t want it to be anything at this point in time and that was okay. 

“Thanks Fred.” She pulled herself off the couch. “How long are you here today?” 

“I’m closing up the shop today, so Jim is picking me up at 7.” He replied. 

“Well have fun tonight.” She grinned. “I really hope it goes well, Jim seems like a pretty cool guy and I am really happy for you Fred.” 

For the first time that Josie could see, Freddie blushed at the compliment. It was a rare sight but Josie knew this was a good sign. Everything was going to be okay.

[loudjune]

a post about sexuality! which devolves into relationships and sadness.

AKA, poor June, she didn't know she was not straight.

And that's like all I can say, right? I'm not just straight. Idk if I like either binary gender but I do know that I wanted to kiss girls when I was stuck with a bedroom full of them during Navy induction (yes, military! scary!!! didn't do it no worries guys). Or that I wanted to make out with my study partner in college. Nerdy ass bros would literally wall me on the way to my car (legit happened, I was cute as fuck once!), and yet I felt no connection with them. Honestly, men were more tools to destress too (sorry bros), and while they were fun I can only name one that I would have dropped my entire world for, you know? And that's because he was fuckin vulnerable. Idk. I haven't dated a girl tho! How the fuck do I fuCKIN KNOW WHAT SEXUALITY I AM?!

And reader, you're probably like why don't you just go to bed with one?? But reader, my sexuality is that of catharsis, I only partake when my life is in fuckin shambles and my lizard brain is like ah the sex felt good right??? yeah do that!!!

And I've never felt like doing that with a girl. Basically using them. My first partner was a close friend and I was fuckin curious and while yes, it was good, felt good, it was more that I trusted him than that he was male and had the right parts??? Idk. And my second partner was someone I had a crush on as a teen and I was fuckin sad after another guy I liked crushed my self worth. He didn't mind being used because that's all he does to women anyway so, worked out. Sex wasn't great, the only highlight is when he went to choke me? Like lightly and then he was like oops shit bad sorry. Yeah. He is... Honestly a toxic person without being toxic masculinity toxic. He's just toxic. Poor guy.

Anyway.

Is it just that I'm over men? Is it that I maybe like both but due to repeated offenses really don't want to be with men anymore because damn, damn I mean all genders be fucked up but the cismen got an edge on them ya know?

[I removed an unclear portion from here, but it basically said I follow a guy on FB that goes by Morningstar and he's a sweetie.] I'm from a Christian background and lemme tell you, there are a fuckin tonne more people that are satanists that are honestly good ass people than those that are Christians. Nearly every satanist I've met is generally a good fuckin person. I was literally (dry) molested at age 13 by a 16 year old at church. The only way others stepped in is to make him stop talking to me and leave me out to dry; being shunned by the entire group. (Related; one of many reasons I generally say fuck the idea of the Christian God, by like one of the smallest reasons ok? How my mom remains a Christian surpasses my ability to comprehend.)

So what the fuck am I? I don't know, and I don't really get to find out because my mother isn't comfortable with it. Sure, she acts like she supports people, but honestly she's got a lot of biases to overcome. Again, she was raised in a Christian coded household, and being gay is wrong? (Where does it say in the Bible? Like maybe one spot and honestly if you look up the history of weaponized sexual conquering in those times it makes sense why it was in there. No I don't feel like going over that because a) I barely recall the whole context and b) not what this post is about.)

So I'm stuck. Yeah. And it sucks! I don't know what I am, have no real way of finding out what I am because I don't particularly find anyone attractive beyond "zomg ur purdy :3 lemme pet ur hair" and unless I'm stressed I don't think about sex. I was programmed at such a young age by my peers that I was there for pleasuring others that now the thought of it just makes me angry af.

Like it still bothers me that one of my friends from an old RP, who commended me on my individuality and strength, asked me to marry him OUT OF THE FUCKIN BLUE [and some years later!] but had stipulations like I couldn't work, I couldn't have my own bank account, whatnot and I'm like bro??? Bro don't you know me?? You valued me as a friend because I fuckin fought for myself and didn't let anyone tie me up with others and their actions???

Some day I'm gonna look back at this post and go "woman could you not form a coherent thought" and honestly no I can't. This is a stream of consciousness nonsense post no one will ever fuckin read anyway.

What this all boils down to is that I'm isolated as fuck from so much of society. I'm not coded for the neurodivergent community. I'm not coded for the neurotypical community. I'm not coded for heteronormative partnership. I don't know what the fuck I am, where I am going, other than I just have to make it through the next day, week, and maybe month. I don't want to be alone when my parents die, but that's kinda how it looks. I mean my friends will go "uwu we are there for you!!" But for how long? It's never long.

I'm honestly coded to be alone. And that's really fuckin lame.

[wheremytwinwatches]

[Where My Twin Watches]: Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood Episode 44

Last time: Doctor Marcoh broke the Hippocratic Oath, Envy chose the worst possible host, and a Central Officer showed Armstrong the Great his collection of action figures. Onwards!

Episode 44 - “Revving at Full Throttle” Oh heck yeah, we’re starting at the family reunion in Liore! Camera shows the radio fixed by the Elric Brothers way back when. [Beard]: “It’s been a long time, huh Al?” [Al]: “Yeah.” *awkwardness intensifies* [Beard]: “So, uh… I saw Pinako recently.” *Rose is standing off to the side, probably wondering about this ‘Pinako’ character her new boyfriend is talking about* [Beard]: “She told me about your body.” *awkwardness intensifies* *awkwardness intensifies* *awkwardness intensifies* [Villagers]: “Hey Mister Ho, could you-” [Beard]: “Oh sweet Leto yes get me out of this family drama. Absentee Anime Father, away!” Wow, really? Al are you just gonna let him walk away from this conversation? You haven’t seen him for a large portion, if not most of your life! Demand some friggin answers! Well at least the cook is trying to cheer Al up, thanking him for fixing up the radio. Al apologizes for the riot being caused by them exposing Cornello, but Cookie insists on looking at the good stuff that happened.

Sure people reacted “badly” at first, but now everyone’s all happily working together to rebuild from the ashes of their home! Can’t fault the man’s optimism. Inspired!Al goes running off to help build, seeing their General getting his hands dirty Toad and Boar (still wearing their winter clothes?) tag along, dragging a protesting Yoki with them. The Villagers are realizing Oh Crap We Interrupted Family Reunion, but Beard’s brushing it off. He left when Al was super young, he probably doesn’t even think of Beard as his father anymore. And have you seen the guy try to smalltalk? He doesn’t know what to say- [Al, clanking towards the group]: “Hey pops! Imma help with the building, cool? Cool. Hey NPCs, gimme that heavy stuff to cart around.” Aw, Beard gets to see that Al being trapped in a cold, unfeeling suit of armor hasn’t kept him from being a decent person. Whoa okay bath time for Winry, apologies for interrupting. Winry’s happy to finally get a good bath after traveling for so long. Rose is chatting with her while laying out clothes, admiring Winry for being a independent Automail Engineer at her age. And she was the one who literally got Ed back on his feet, which would mean later he would help Rose get back on hers. *Goes back to Ep 3 Recap*. That’s right, he told her to Keep Moving Forward, that she needed to use her two good legs to make her own path. Rose tells Winry about her misplaced belief in Cornello, when Winry gripes about Ed’s Tough Love routine Rose says that’s just his way of being nice. [Rose]: “But you already know that, don’t you?” [Winry]: *Stammers, blushes, and tries to hide her face in her tea.* So yeah, Ed exposed the truth behind Cornello’s miracles, and now Liore is learning to stand on its own. “All thanks to Ed and Al.”... yeah, calling it now. We’ll come back to this place in a decade or two, and the old Church of Leto will have been replaced with one to The Armor and the Alchemist. Hey, it’s Lizard dude! Bido, according to Bag of Magic Food. He’s going through a tunnel, griping that it was a bad idea to follow those MPs aw crap he’s wandering into Uncle’s sanctum, isn’t he? Turn around dude! But he’s still looking for Mister Greed, squeezes through some pipes to crap it’s the Golem Room. And are the Officer and Armstrong the Great still there? Quick, pull an Igor!

Ok, so it looks like he got there just before the Officer did his “Look at my cool toys” reveal, he’s hiding behind the pipes again. Officer’s explaining that the Golems are empty dummies that they can bond souls to. Oh, so they’re like Advanced Soul Armors, then? Tell me, have you gotten around the problem that Al’s having of the body rejecting the soul? Anyways, the Golems are immortal and apparently any bonded souls will be completely obedient. Alright Armstrong the Great, here’s the kicker; where do the souls to activate the Golems come from? Officer says that they’ll come from rival nations, “through the course of war”. Hoo boy. This was what I was afraid of way back when the concept of Philosopher Stones was introduced to Armstrong the Great. She is fiercely loyal to her troops and those she chooses to protect, it was the threat against her own forces and the reveal that the Goths were going to harvest the entire country that allied her with our main characters. But an army fueled by the conquest of Others? A chance to not just defeat her hated Drachman enemies, but fully convert them to her cause? Weapons that only grow stronger the more she uses them? I mean, with all the pushing around by Central and bullying of her troops I’m giving her 80% odds to still reject the Golems. But that remaining 20… We don’t get to hear any more as Bido freaks the fuck out and bolts back down the tunnels, screaming his head off. [Bido]: “This place is evil! Pure evil! Why did I ever come here?! Mister Greed would never be in an awful place like this-” Oh hey, it’s Ling! How’s Greed going to react to seeing an old “possession”: happy to see something of old that he gets to claim again, or annoyed that one of his old crew fled rather than try to help him? We’ll get back to that, we’re back in Liore where Al is warning Beard about the giant tunnel running under Liore. Beard tells him to stop talking about the Super Secret Goth Plot To Harvest A Country in the middle of the town square, waits until they’re in the ruins of the Church to discuss the story. He’s letting Al explain everything, does he want to keep his own involvement secret for- well never mind, Al’s brought up his Identical Brother chilling in Central. Beard turns away still acting all Mysterious wait what [Menacing!Beard]: “Did it ever cross your mind that I might be on their side?” But you’re not, unless… NOW HOLD UP. If you’re telling me that we’re looking at a Triplet situation, that Uncle made another copy to Oh ok I get it now. Beard is just emphasizing how trusting Al is, at least with him. But seriously dude, now that I’m thinking about it spilling your entire plan to a guy because you think he’s your father is a terrible idea. Maybe ask him to repeat a childhood memory, or somesuch? So after Al gets his non-corporeal heart to calm down from that scare, Beard says that he wants to tell his Backstory to both brothers in order to save time. Right, about that… Back up in the land of snow, at… “Bank’s Bank”? Really? That’s like a restaurant owned by Mister Burger or a law office run by Johnny Litigator. Whatever. Registers are ringing and checks are being cashed when huh. Sorry, just distracted by the banker’s appearance, she’s a lady with blonde hair but brown eyes and Ishvalan skin. What’s her story, is she an Amestrian/Ishvalan child like Sideburns? Moving on, a giant of a man is making a withdrawal oh hey it’s Monkey, he’s drawing from Ed’s account. Uh, are you that badly strapped for cash? You know that a withdrawal from the Protagonist’s account, by an unknown party no less, is going to raise all kinds of flags in Central. Yup, Monkey got the cash from Ed’s research account, but another banker’s already making a call. Ah, so it was for the medical bill. How much was this doctor charging? Oh jeez, the guy’s chuckling and saying he could charge them even more, Monkey complains that he’s already ripping them off but the doc’s likewise squinty-eyed wife says it’s only “reasonable” considering the risks involved.

Well, as long as they keep their mouths shut well never mind, looks like the cops are already on to them. I don’t suppose they can get a refund? The cops show up and push past the doctor, Lion’s getting bandaged by Mrs. Doctor. Oh great way to sell out the resting patient, our guys had better get a refund if he’s going to cave this quickly. No wait it’s just Monkey scowling from under some covers wait is he trying to hide Ed under the sheets? The cop asks if Monkey was at the bank earlier, and pulls a gun… Outside a guard hears someone walking, another white coat? Doctor #2? Cop #1 is ordering for Monkey to put his hands up oh hey the white coat outside is Ed with some groceries! Outfit change? I suppose his red coat was pretty distinctive. While Monkey’s at gunpoint Lion readies his own pistol and Monkey starts drawing his own gun, things might get loud pretty soon. Wait, is Ed’s hair loose? What happened to the ponytail?

Ok yeah, that was pretty distinctive like his coat. Outside guard is listing off the red coat, blond hair worn in a braid… uh oh. Here it comes. [Guard]: “... and short.” [Ed]: *bites through wooden skewer in annoyance* Nice knowing you, guard. The cops in the apartment hear a thud, and #1 tells another to check out the noise. Outside Guard is out cold, Cop #2 tries waking him up before there’s another thud, #1’s left yelling at the other two for answers when

Wait hold on, is Ed grabbing this guy around the neck? Is he standing on a box or something? Unless… no. No! Is it finally happening? Is my little boy finally getting a growth spurt?! … Wait, but if he’s growing taller, but has an artificial leg whoops better find Winry quick to upgrade, fighting might be a bit difficult if you’re all lopsided. Monkey snarks that Ed just had to take out three MPs on his own, when he hasn’t fully recovered yet. [Ed]: “Don’t treat me like an invalid. My injuries are fully healed, and I’m revving at full throttle!” Title drop! And damn but Ed’s rocking the new look. White coat, loose hair, and a growth spurt? Leg imbalance aside, I am totally down for this. Wait, is this because he “used his own life force” to patch himself up earlier? His body aged up from the energy expenditure? Cool! Mid-ep pictures of Bath!Winry and Older!Ed. So is carrying a wooden skewer in your mouth just a thing now, Ed? The doc’s telling Ed and the Chimeras to shove off, doesn’t look like that refund’s coming after all. Ed snags the Guard’s note in passing, thinking about how they’re just looking for the red coat and braid (pointedly ignoring the “short” comment), guess the outfit change is staying around for a while. Whoops! Took too long, some other MPs have shown up and are demanding they freeze. Wait, “move it kid”? Oh yeah, they’re just telling the guys with visible weapons to stand down, they think that the kid chowing down on bread is a bystander. Who just got grabbed by Monkey and threatened with a weapon! Monkey uses the MPs shock at the hostage-taking to tuck Ed under his arm and run for it, outside some more MPs spot them but Lion shoots some snow down on them. Run for it! One hotwired car later, Ed tells ‘Gorilla’ (“Don’t call me that!”) to step on it, but their stolen car isn’t fast enough to outrun vehicles from Northern Command. Dodge a truck so the MPs crash into it? That they… can’t do, actually. The MPs are catching up when Ed says to turn a corner and park. Plan? Transmutation sounds as they round the corner, the MPs follow but… it’s gone? Wait there’s another car in the road, but… … Ow. Ow ow ow. OW! Sweet Leto, but that hurts the eyes. Really, Ed? I can only assume that the MPs brains have shut off from the sheer garishness of that thing, they drive past the parked car looking for something a little more sensible. The Chimeras immediately ask for the car to be turned back to normal. [Ed]: “And why’s that? I think this car looks cool as hell!” [Monkey]: “Just change it back. Please, we’re begging you!” [Ed]: “You guys got a problem with my sense of style?!” [Monkey/Lion]: “You don’t have any!” Outside of town, Monkey’s answering the call of nature while they all discuss being drifters again. Ed’s wait buddy you’ve got your hair back in a ponytail, it’s not a full-on braid but it’s still close enough that any guards are going to give you a second look. Go back to the loose hair disguise! Ed’s thinking about how he let his guard down around Kimblee, and hoping that Al’s ok. For now, the Chimeras are asking their new boss where to go, Ed says that they need to find Al who’s probably with Marcoh now. [Lion]: “You do know how to find them, right?” [Ed]: “Right, about that…” In Liore, Al’s trying to wrap his head around Beard’s Backstory. Beard understands if Al doesn’t believe him, it’s a pretty crazy story. Then we remember that Beard’s talking to a soul bound to a suit of armor, so the idea that Beard is a Philosopher’s Stone isn’t that far fetched. They chat about being immortal, and thankfully Beard acknowledges the advantages of his form before settling on the fact that seeing everyone he knows and loves wither and perish sucks. Hey yeah, if you have a Philosopher's Stone body, did that affect Ed and Al’s development? Apparently not, Beard says he still has a human body. Unlike Uncle, who’s likened to “a leather bag”. He built a human body around himself and his gathered souls, so if they can destroy the body… Speaking of, the Nationwide TC! Beard looks over the TC and reverse-TC while Al says they can destroy the tunnel below Liore, but Beard shuts down the idea. Pride’s watching over the tunnel. But can they still try before nope we know the tunnel’s finished, and Beard is rather relaxed about the idea it’s complete. “Because it’s not yet time”? How do you know? [Beard]: “Look up, son. You’re too busy looking down when you need to look up.” Oh! I get it, it’s a constellation thing! That explains why the Xerxes King was talking about carving all the Crests before it was too late, the Nationwide TC needs the right positioning of the stars. Can’t do it until then.

Yes please follow along Al, look up to the sky, to… LETO! Bwahaha, Al thinks that Beard’s talking about Sun-God Leto. There we go, turns out Beard has converted to Letoism and plans on praying the Goths away. Or the Man in Central could indeed be waiting for the right star positions, that works too I guess. Oh hey, back to Bido in the pipes. Running? Oh shoot, looks like it was “Annoyed his possession abandoned him” Greed after all. Greed laughs about the chance to kill his boredom, Bido’s shocked to see the Ultimate Shield and hear the voice, yells at Greed for imitating Mister Greed. Wait, does Greed not recognize Bido? Greed boasts about wanting everything, Bido finishes his spiel about demanding the finer things in life. Greed asks who Bido is wait static? Ok, so Greed really doesn’t remember his past iteration? He lost his memories when Uncle reconsumed him? Bido’s struggling to reconcile the Mister Greed he knew with this new guy, while Greed demands Bido answer his questions. [Bido]: “It’s me! I’m your friend, Bido! You haven’t been gone from Dublith long enough to forget!” [Greed]: “Oh, you’re from Dublith! Ooohoho, now it makes sense!” [Bido]: “You remember m SHIT Greed just stabbed Bido! [Greed]: “Afraid not. You must have been buddies with the previous Greed.” Well this sucks, Bido’s trembling in pain and grief while Greed says they’ve never even met wait the static’s back and his arm is trembling and the static is becoming visions of Greed’s old crew. Is his memory returning? Hoo boy Ling’s calling Greed out for killing his old friend. Greed protests that Bido wasn’t his friend, that those memories belonged to the previous Greed. [Ling]: “Then why are you in so much pain?!” Ling’s threatening that if Greed doesn’t pull himself together that he’ll take control of the body again. Greeds gritting out that his old memories were purged by Uncle, that they aren’t part of him anymore- [Ling]: “No, you’re wrong Greed! It’s not that easy! They’ll always be a part of you! You can’t just erase them from your soul! They were the only part of you that you chose! Look at them! Can you not hear their souls crying out? You abandoned them, your real family! You threw them away like trash! Fool, you turned your back on something you wanted. You don’t deserve to call yourself Greed!” Clutching the still form of Bido, Greed screams. End Credits. Post-credit scene in Central at the Bradley Manor, Mama Bradley is suggesting a book to Selim. About an adventurer who travels the world- Bradley’s looked up and Mama Bradley grabbed Selim at the sound of rustling and footsteps. It’s Greed. And he’s not happy.

[a-collection-of-villainous-aus]

Coffee Au pt 2

PART 3 OF THREE

It was the end of the day, Acylius and Demencia wanted to do nothing more than just sink into one of the comfy seats and doze off but work still had to be done.

 As Flug was cleaning away mugs and other items he could still taste Black Hat on his tongue, lingering in its flavor the apple of Eden, he wanted to bite again, savor him anew but the demon was not exactly famous for being sweet so no doubt the next would be bitter…right?

 “Boy what a day, am I right or am I right tree man!”

 Acylius was silent as he looked over at Black Hat’s empty seat, he’d seen him leave, some work emergency no doubt, money had been left on the table but he’d found himself disappointed that the demon wasn’t still there demanding to be served after hours, crazy as the day had been it had actually been surprisingly fun to have him around.

 “It is strange... “

 “What that he digs you and not me? “

 Demencia teased gently nudging him.

 “Please be serious for one moment, you will not believe this, but I do feel as if I know him from some other life...there were things today that felt... so familiar.”

 Exasperation filling his voice as he walked off to pick up a latte glass that was half full, grumbling they should not order the large if they were not going to drink it all.

 “Oh, like what?”

 “Well, when we kissed after you suggested he could help...”

 Touching his lips as he looked over at the kitchen, whispering

 “It did not feel like the first time.”

 “Pffft seems I was right he wanted to lip lock and suck your soul right out of your-”

 “Demencia, that is enough!” Flug dropped the glass he was holding, it shattered across the floor spilling its cold contents, liquid started seeping through the floorboards, oh dear she realised perhaps she’d pushed a little too far as his eyes lit up and she was dragged forward Darth Vader style only without the throttling . His hand engulfed in cerulean flame, claws extended forward and with a flick she was off her feet hovering, snarling “I am trying to run a coffee shop, not a brothel while we are friends  I do not need you interfering with my love life.”

 In all her years she’d known Acylius, the lizard girl had never seen such a fire as this burning within him, damn Black Hat must have more of an effect than he was willing to admit, rolling her eyes she responded “You think you could put me down, also you old fart what love life, you’re like fifty and have boned like what …once and that was with someone who was for hire to play as Black Hat, I mean I’ve offered cause who doesn’t wanna climb that tree and sit on your branch, but you were as flustered as a sinner in church.”

(Remember demon so not like human 50 XD )

 “Woman…argh!” Acylius tried to keep a straight face, but honestly he could never stay mad at her, a chuckle left him as the demon shook his head and set her down

“You are hopeless.” “Yeah, yeah I know I’m a lost cause, but why is it so hard for you to believe he likes you?” She returned while straightening out her uniform. “Please, I do not think he would find a suitable partner in a barista who tortures people for information on the black market… holy…” Acylius went quiet and blinked looking at Demencia “Is that why the Black market is called that! My alternative profile is in that world...I need a drink ...am I working for him and not…know what no this is too much too soon, I am going downstairs, I am going to drink and torture that man until he is a bloody pile.” Demencia gave him a deadpanned expression in response “One: it is not for you to decide who he wants to bone and two: you seriously only just figured that out, you’re smart but sometimes really dumb.”

 Acylius sighed and just walked off hearing her call out after him saying “And what about this!” It was easy to imagine her gesturing towards the spilt coffee “You clean it up, ASSBUTT!” Demencia huffed; she should never have let him watch Supernatural, mocking his sentence in a whiny voice before getting to work and only smiling as she swore she could hear the muffled voice of him saying “I heard that!” Pffft of course he had, demon senses and all, it was no surprise and yes it probably wasn’t wise to try and interfere with her friends love life, especially when it left her to clean up duty instead of getting to play just how long  can we make our victim scream.

 Picking up the pieces of broken glass she paused looking out the window, wondering up on that high hill where Hat Manor sat, what the old demon was doing now, heh maybe he was even day dreaming of Acylius, that’d be pretty adorable.

 Hat manor stood silhouetted, painted on a sea of blue and purple, diamonds scattered over its surface, there was no moon tonight, though this is not what we are here to do though, while the night sky held its beauty the home held its secrets deep under the foundations. Down winding stair cases of stone, walls lined with torches that came alight as Black Hat passed them with bright emerald flames leading to a room, large extravagant, doors locked with spells reacting to his presence, opening out to show the pristine display with a red carpet. Glass cases that remained in a constant polished state appeared liquid with candle light reflecting off their surfaces, to many people these items would be considered odd in the sense they to anyone else held absolutely no value…but to Black Hat they were treasures and when each one was touched he could remember a small moment attached to each and every one of these things… Recalling how his Acylius had taught him to use a barbers blade for shaving, he himself did not grow stubble or the such unless he wanted to and he had suspected the same of his Doctor, who liked to do human things as simple as that.

It was not that he’d allowed Black Hat to shave his face that had made the memory but that he’d trusted him so close to his throat with a blade, it may not have killed him even if he’d wanted it to slit it.

Though that was the thing with anyone else he would have hacked them to pieces and laughed, in that moment he’d slowly brushed the razors edge along his flesh, intently focused on the task at hand, leaving him mesmerized at just how intimate a simple act could be and how it felt to be trusted by him.

The demon had not been down here in some time, that did not mean what was here had lost any meaning, no on the contrary  at times being here caused so much pain he could hardly bare it.

 Walking slowly through this world of past wonders, there were mannequins in neat rows wearing suits, everyday clothing to swim wear and pyjamas, some clothing items pressed into picture frames, stopping in front of one case in particular a small quirked at the corner of his lips, on a cushion sat an old tattered Bear, blue after some chemical accident when Acylius had been a child or so the doctor had told him. This was kept for more than one reason, one Acylius had loved it dearly and two even as a grown demon he’d found him sometimes napping with the damn thing tucked under his arm, apparently you could never be too old to enjoy a favored gift from the past, claws making soft tapping sounds on the glass.

“What an odd name for a child’s toy…Five o Five…then again there is that silly old bear named Winnie the Pooh…”

 He said to himself in passing thought.

Just being here already felt as if a hand had reached in around the void that passed for his heart and was slowly crushing it, glancing over at the beautiful cello he and Flug had played together, the intimacy of creating music on the same instrument so passionately had near rivaled their passion within the sheets…before you wonder yes Black Hat even had their four poster royal Georgian bed perfectly made as the doctor would have wanted it.

 Lab equipment that museums would beg to have, first edition books that could very well be the only remaining copies of the texts within some of them…yes he’d saved practically everything, did it perhaps make him obsessed…incapable of letting go, you might think so and yes it probably was the case.

He himself could not forget the way the barista had kissed him, it was a perfect match to the way his Acylius performed such affectionate acts, the same passion a memory so real and tactile rising to the surface and layering perfectly to match the movements of want. Thinking back on this afternoon as he’d sat there sipping his hot chocolate, listening at times to the inane conversation of others and hearing the name of the Café he’d failed to read the name of upon entry in favor of warmth than the cold weather. He stared at one dark oak closet a mannequin stood in there locked away, blood stained clothes, the salt of tears within the collar, even a beast could weep when its heart was broken, shoulders tensing just at the minor scent of iron and acid he adverted his gaze. Could that Barista really be Acylius Flug reborn, the man who’d lay dying in his arms , promising him he’d find him amongst the stars…rambling about artists who place their soul upon the canvas, full of hope and pain, madness full of splendid wonder and final words being of love until  there were none. Kisses upon lips that no longer held their warmth as a mournful cry left him whimpering like a child lost in the wilderness of the vast world.

 Acylius’s body no more than a limp doll that had lost its light and as with all demonic forms he turned to smoke and ash washed away with a tender breeze littered with embers while all he could do was watch.

 Even though he had barely understood what his lovers last message had been, for years he’d sought out painters who favoured the night skies, though none matched the pure emotion of which Flug had spoken until one Starry Night in France just outside the Ravoux Inn he came across such an artist. A rough looking creature really with a missing ear, in fact he’d nearly passed him until this man had grabbed his arm and Black Hat had at first thought him mad until he spoke of a spirit tall and pale, scars and ears not human and eyes so blue no matter the blend of colours he’d tried to use the ever changing hue had been impossible to match.

 Up the stairs of that humble place the artist called home he entered, moonlight pouring through an open window, curtains swaying ever so delicately behind the easel sat a canvas not long since painted on, just as promised in thick oil paints of swirling night time wonders, blacks, blues bright shining yellows in a myriad of hues there stood Acylius eyes closed within the heavens.

 “I have dreamt about this man yet I do not know what sins I have committed to bring devils and spirits at my door!” Black Hat given him a look before replying “Even Angels it would seem have mercy on a fallen devil.” He’d without second thought left a fortune upon the old bed in the artists room and taken what was rightfully his, news of his death had been reported not but a few days afterwards which even in the demons opinion was a great tragedy.

 Now on the wall here it hung still years later, framed in gold with a bench for him to rest upon, other pieces at either side by Flugs hand were portraits and sketches of Black Hat…but this one in the center had been a gift from the beyond , a promise that he was coming back.

That barista had to be him, had to be his Flug; the café was named after a painting no one but he and the painter knew about. Could it be, he’d finally truly found him amongst the stars.

(this is a poor version of the Artists work I was inspired by, especially if you figure out who I was talking about...but as my own work I like it XD)

[ayearofpike]

The Last Vampire 6: Creatures of Forever

Pocket Books, 1996 181 pages, 17 chapters + epilogue ISBN 0-671-55052-7 LOC: PZ7.P626 Lav 1996 OCLC: 35300865 Released September 1, 1996 (per B&N)

Sita, the last vampire, is tired of killing and not hungry anymore, but she still feels a sense of duty to stop those who would harm others. In her service, though, she encounters a larger set of monsters than she had ever imagined. These monsters, she learns, are here to convert humanity to a predominantly negative energy, and their power in our realm stems from their having some of her blood. The only way Sita can stop them is to go back in time and prevent the monsters from getting her blood in the first place.

Holy shit, did I just write that? But yeah, it’s totally what happens in this story. It’s half sci-fi, half period action drama, all frustrating. Not even because of the St. Elsewhere ending — I can deal with that. It’s more about having to craft my own pieces to complete Pike’s puzzle. I’ve said it before, and it’s still true: I don’t get mad at a story that makes me do some of the legwork in figuring out how it gets from start to finish. But I do resent when I’m expected to read the author’s mind and pull in hints that he’s dropped in other places besides the story I’m reading in order to understand what he meant.

I also don’t really appreciate a series that makes a sudden turn right at the end and forces me to mentally retcon practically every activity that has occurred to this point. Here? Aliens. Pike takes all the metaphysical and spiritual elements and jams ‘em in outer space. I know, Sita’s been dreaming about talking to Krishna before getting on a big purple spaceship for the whole series, but it could at least still be understood as a metaphor. And yeah, we got the spectral lizard spaceship in TLV5, but that’s couched in the understanding that the Setians figured out how to spread out rather than that they actually  CAME from elsewhere. Not here. You’ll see.

We open up with Sita and Seymour in a bar. Remember how she turned him into a vampire last time? It’s still true, and as he figures out his powers she’s coaching him through how to use them ethically. Like, he’s picking up this fly skimmie but Sita won’t let him hypnotize her, nor will she let him both drink from her AND fuck her. Man, save one Jeebus Baby and accept the blood of one Hindu goddess to save your own life and all of a sudden you’ve got a complicated moral code. 

Sita’s more worried about the murderer in the corner. Yes, she knows he’s a murderer. It’s a new consequence of having drunk Kalika’s blood, that she can read minds rather than simply being aware of emotions and mental states. So she goes and picks the dude up, and he takes her to a creepy warehouse so they can get busy. Only the weapon he pulls out of his pocket is not a gun or a knife ... it’s a box with buttons on it. Obviously he’s been warned about Sita. She disarms him and asks who told him about her, and right at that moment who should show up but Seymour and his skimmie. She’s got an identical box pointed at his head and tells Sita to drop the weapon. Sita grabs the murderer and tries to negotiate, but Skimmie isn’t having it. She disintegrates Murderer without even blinking.

Of course Sita immediately hides, and Skimmie makes it clear that she better come out without any weapons if she wants Seymour to have, you know, particles. So Sita stashes her knife, with the point aimed at Skimmie, and insists she release Seymour before they continue talking. Skimmie is only too happy to do so — but then she says that Sita must join her side and the first step in the initiation is to kill Seymour. Nuh-uh, Sita says, and uses her other new power: telekinesis. She makes the knife fly from its hiding spot and stab Skimmie in the neck, and while she’s surprised Sita leaps across the warehouse, kicks the box out of her hand, and rips her fucking head off and throws it into a corner. 

Sita and Seymour have to run, and the safest place to be is Jeebus Baby’s house on Lake Tahoe. It turns out that his mom has started to remember some things from her previous life as Sita’s old teacher the seer/healer. She listens to Sita’s story and understands what it means: that a change in the lives of humanity is coming, but that there’s an evil that is trying to steer people away from the light side and into darkness. This evil wants us to focus on powering ourselves for its own sake, rather than spreading the power around to everyone. It wants us to be more invested in ourselves than others, to value strength over love, to value ourselves over others. I swear I am not getting political — okay, maybe a little bit, but this is eerily prescient from a book that was written twenty-two years ago.

Then again, maybe not.

Anyway, Sita knows she needs to do something about these evil beings for the good of humanity. She tracks down the skimmie’s address and finds an indifferent boyfriend drinking beer and watching baseball, who tells Sita that she was supposed to be at a UFO convention in Phoenix. So she flies there (which, like, I know LA is a hub, but how does Sita get flights right when she wants to go?) and sits through a whole bunch of talks until she gets to the last one of the day, where the professor up front describes exactly the dilemma Sita understands (as she and some random lady she befriended snark at him under their breath). She wants to talk to him afterward, but he fuckin’ books it away into the desert. 

Of course she follows him, to a hill only thirty minutes from the Holiday Inn, which shows that Pike has never been to Phoenix (it takes at least 45 minutes to get ANYWHERE in that monstrosity). The professor says the same thing the skimmie did — that they’re going to win anyway and Sita should just join them. Plus! They already have some of her blood, dating back to a ninth-century occultist she wrangled with, thus making them more powerful than ever. And now they have her surrounded: out of nowhere three dudes with ray guns show up, and they try to take her prisoner. Luckily Sita still has her hypnotic powers, and she makes one of the guards break just enough that the other two aim at him and take him down. This gives her time to jump toward one, steal his phaser, and vaporize everybody.

The random friend is waiting for her where the desert road meets the highway. This is unexpected enough that Sita is suspicious, but the woman identifies herself as a genuine friend — and certainly Sita feels deep down that this is true. She listens as the friend talks about the coming change: it’s an increase in density or dimensionality or some such shit. This is one of the places where Pike makes us fill in the gaps, but I was too bored to do it. But anyway, our move forward has to be a choice, a conscious step into the next ... whateverthefuck, and it’ll be predicated on whether we’re positive or negative. And the phaser aliens want us to be negative for ... some reason, and they’re going to get more negativity because of that incident all those centuries ago where they got some of Sita’s blood.

There’s a way to undo this! Sita can mentally travel back in time to her body as it was when she met this evil occultist, who also so happens to be a dimension-shifting alien (I don’t remember if this is where we learn this, but who fuckin’ cares at this point). To do this she has to get on a spaceship with her new random friend and get up to hyperspeed, at which time she just has to focus on where she was and she’ll join consciousness with herself at that time. 

The moment she remembers is when she met the castrated leper who showed her the way to the dude’s castle. I’m totally serious. There’s three people torturing him, and Sita kills them all and saves his life, then talks to him about the evil dude and how to find him. It turns out the castrated leper used to be one of his servants and knows exactly where to find him, but obviously he’s afraid because of how he specifically watched the dude turn evil and get cast out by the pope and invoke demons that gave him his disease. (The missing balls were just to preserve his sweet, sweet singing voice.) Still, she persuades him to take her to the castle, and as they walk there he tells the tale of Perseus and Medusa, and the importance of the power of being able to freeze someone. This will come back later.

Near the castle, she tells the castrated leper to turn back and continues on alone. She happens on a cage on a cart full of naked women, no doubt for sacrifice to this evil monster, and she kills the guards and frees the women, and continues on without so much as a disguise or a costume change or even really a cover story. Like, she’s a four-thousand-year-old immortal vampire and doesn’t give a shit about Satanists. It’s important to note that she’s having trouble remembering the future thoughts she brought back with her, so maybe she doesn’t fully grasp the importance of what she’s doing here now. But anyway, she gets to the castle and meets the lady of the house, who insists she should have dinner with them that night.

At the dinner table, the evil lord seems ... kinda nice, actually. He claims that his falling out with the Church is over how to handle the invading Moslems from across the sea, and that they tried to keep the castrated leper safe and warm but that he ran away in fear of who he was. (I should mention: there’s a kinda gross thread throughout this book that equates the Moors with the Satanic rituals and practices we’ll see in a little bit. I’m going to mostly skip it because it’s not really about Sita, but I sure didn’t like reading it in 2018.) On the wall there’s a spear that the lord claims is the actual spearhead used to kill Christ on the cross and end his suffering, and that the owner is in charge of destiny the way the initial wielder was. There is a nail wired to it ... maybe one of the nails that held him to the cross? It makes Sita think about a baby Jesus ... or is it a baby Jeebus? She’s confused.

She gets back to her room and feels tired. Not just tired ... lethargic and slack. Obviously her food was drugged. She makes herself throw up, and then bursts the door open to find a housemaid waiting to hear her collapse and drag her down to the black rites. Sita demands to be taken there without being seen, and so they use a secret passageway that takes them far underground and into a passage with grates on the floor from which they can observe hundreds of acolytes in red robes gathered around a pentagram watching the lord (who is an evil occultist after all) sacrifice one of the girls Sita thought she’d saved. Suddenly there’s a knife in her back. Literally — the servant stabs her, and obviously has been told there’s power in Sita’s blood, because she starts licking it. They lose their balance and fall through the grate, where the servant dies instantly and Sita blacks out from the knife being shoved all the way through her body.

When she comes to, she is hanging from a wall in a dungeon cell. It’s this pain of being in a crucifixion position that finally makes her memories of the future clear — specifically, she remembers watching a Wagner production in Germany in the 1920s that retold the story of this evil douche, through the veil of being related to a devil preventing King Arthur’s knights from ever finding the holy grail. Pike has obviously done his research here: it’s a real opera that tells how the forces of good are obstructed by an evil wizard with a magic spear. I wonder if he saw a production at some point and thought it would make a cool villain for his eternal vampire to fight, and this was the best way to fit it in.

Anyway, the occult lord shows up with the castrated leper, who he hangs up on the wall next to her with the taunt that he’ll be the object of torture if she doesn’t capitulate. Sure enough, he burns the leper’s wounds until she begs him to stop, and then leaves them alone to stew on their stubbornness of love and the next step. Luckily, they don’t take the leper’s wooden leg brace, which has a wire cross concealed in it. Through much finagling, Sita manages to bend the cross into a hook that she then uses to pick the locks on her shackles. The leper knows of a secret way out of the castle on the other side of the cell wall, but it’ll require them to go through hallways and risk being seen. Unless Sita can just kick through the brick wall itself and make an opening for them to get out. Once there, she tells the leper to get up out and away, while she goes back for the monster to stop him forever.

She finds him on the beach, inside a pentagram, with his wife dead next to another of the girls Sita thought she’d saved. She goes after him, but there’s an invisible force field all the way around the pentagram, and he tells her the only way she’s going to get in after him is to kill the girl. He’s holding his wife’s heart in his hand, and it suddenly starts beating, pounding inside Sita’s head, until she’s driven to madness and rips out the other girl’s heart and jumps in after the monster. But! Now she can only stand on the points of the pentagram. The open space in the circle is fire, and the center has some kind of invisible ravenous beast that will devour her if she goes in there. Her only option is to give up, open up her veins so that the Dark Lord can have her blood. She asks to do it with the nail that is on his spear, and he throws it to her, and sure enough she’s able to use her future powers to make it fly straight into his head, which stuns him long enough that she steals the spear and stabs him in the heart. This makes him stumble into the center of the pentagram, where all his flesh is flayed off before his body is sucked down into nothingness.

And again, this is a perfectly good supernatural occult story. Why is Pike fucking it up with aliens? But Sita wonders why she hasn’t been picked up yet. And she has blood on her hand from the girl’s heart, which won’t wash off. Maybe she has to go see her leper and heal his wounds with her blood like she did the last time she escaped from this castle. So they meet at a pond, and she wants to wash him in it, only he won’t get close to the water. This is weird. Sita has enough doubts, with her memory of the Wagner play and the story he told about Medusa, and so as a test instead of her blood she rubs on blood from a lizard she finds nearby. And sure enough, she notices that the leper’s expression is one of poorly disguised triumph and trickery. She forces him close to the water before he can react —

And his reflection is Medusa. Or maybe the evil occultist. Pike never properly spells it out. But Sita knows right away that she was right: that her buddy with no balls and no left limbs is actually the one in control, that he was the evil lord’s secret puppet master and used the position of power to get what he needed. He’s made her go through the first two steps of the initiation: begging for forgiveness, killing an innocent. But now the third step — willingly giving up some of her blood, despite a warning veiled in a story — has been thwarted.

And before Evil Gorgon Castrated Leper Lord can react, Sita turns to light again, thanks to the stars and the aliens and the completion of her task. And I’m not satisfied with THIS part either. Pike started talking about the light of the stars elevating Sita like four books ago, and we just have to invent so much of the rationale for how it works and why it works and whether these aliens have been assisting her all along in order to get any kind of fulfillment out of this part of the story. It very much smacks of something that just seemed cool back when being haphazardly flushed out in an attempt to build a new (and mostly unnecessary) story element that I just don’t like or believe.

It doesn’t really matter, because Sita goes ahead and undoes the whole series here rather than going back to the ship. She takes advantage of the hyper-light-whatever stage and goes back to when she was seven years old in ancient India and murders the original vampire in the womb, the way her father offered her the opportunity back then. I kinda get this — like, ugh, I just met time-traveling aliens and am going to have to go fix all kinds of ancient wrongs, lemme just get out of it the fastest way possible — but then, didn’t this whole process just make suffering through the evil Satanist for a second time totally worthless?

And if Sita no longer existed in her lengthy state, how did we get the stories? Seymour answers that for us: it seems he’s written the whole thing while feverish with his terminal AIDS, in a six-month marathon of typing that has been handed down to him from the ether. Which, to be fair, Pike said this is how he felt when he wrote these stories too. And it sort of makes sense that in order to end the series (which he said at the time he knew he had to, otherwise he’d only be writing about Sita for the rest of his life) (*cough*Thirst*cough*) he should kill the author.

But that’s The Last Vampire 6: Creatures of Forever. The title is more of a threat than Pike probably realized, but I appreciated him giving this a rest, at least until Stephenie Meyer made it feasible for him to make money again. As for us, we get a break for at least two months before we have to get back to Sita again. Maybe I’ll be ready to plunge in again when she comes back. For now? Get me out of here, star light aliens.

[heliumrelish1-blog]

What to eat when things aren’t going so well

I. On a Sunday afternoon

I am making three lasagnas, one for a family member who was just diagnosed with lymphoma, one for a friend with a brand new baby, and one for my sister.

The baby and the cancer happened so quickly, seemingly days apart. Events like these make me broody about mortality and humans and life. In darker moments, it feels relentless, this onslaught of new babies and people I love falling sick, as if I will never possess arms open enough or heart big enough to welcome them and give them the tenderness they deserve, the protection they need. Three lasagnas: the puniest of offerings.

I bring the lasagna to family dinner, and everyone has seconds. Everyone is quiet while they chew. It is not okay. And yet.

II. On a Tuesday night, oh wait, now early Wednesday morning, oh god

I am not one to wallow, really. I think things can be really, really bad, but not apocalyptic. Modernity is simultaneously more fragile and more resilient than we think. I believe in work. Which is probably why it was a very bad idea to take off a week of work during the election.

We are having talks about normalization in our household and in popular media, and I have opinions about it. What I want everyone to know is that it’s human to normalize things, so you shouldn’t feel guilty when you do. Should you fight it? Yes. Set yourself a calendar reminder every morning at 8 am to write to your senator about Aleppo or Bannon or campaign finance reform or immigration. Automate your donations. Use behavioral psychology to help your poor lizard brain keep its focus on important issues of which it will tire. And it will tire. You will want, soon enough, to post a photo of the yuppie naturally leavened bread that you baked.

When bad things happen, there’s a bizarre insistence from other conscientious folks that we stop talking about flip things like what’s for dinner, but the fact is that we all still eat, and that the bad things are there, every single day. Similarly, the work never, ever ends. Timeliness of our response is important. Consistency, though, and settling in for the long haul, is paramount. We have to be able to, every single day, keep our brains and hearts open enough to fight injustice where you see it and drive yourself to work and take care of your babies or your health or your girlfriend and sometimes to eat dinner. These things are not of equal importance. But there they are, all contained in the span of the same 24 hours.

I’m stirring a pot of soup while calling my senator (How is he doing? I ask the answering machine. Must be weird to be that-guy-who-was-almost-vice-president). Some people’s day jobs are writing about food. Some people’s day jobs are working at a bank. Some people’s day jobs are being Senator-Almost-Vice-President. My day job is working on health systems in poor countries, but for some reason I’ve also been writing a silly blog about food (sort of) for six years. I want us all to keep our day jobs and our silly blogs and keep cooking dinner and keep fighting. These things are not mutually exclusive. I want us to work to keep them not mutually exclusive, not just for ourselves, but for everyone else. Wouldn’t it be nice if everyone else could cram fighting and working and also enjoying a meal into their days?

This is what I am committed to, the victory of the ordinary-that-is-not-ordinary. It is popular to act like sitting down to a reasonable dinner at the end of the day is a small, humble act. What a joke. It is a big, hard act, and it is a privilege.

I have a nurse practitioner friend who says that everyone medicates in some way or another. I drink more wine than I should.

III. Early Wednesday morning

We have a small copse of woods on our property, around 4 scrubby acres. It’s not much, but it’s a veritable nature preserve for the surrounding area, as the developments close in around us. Coyotes, white-tailed deer, pileated woodpeckers. The deer are a plague. We signed up for a service that links small landowners with hunters, with the aim of letting some bow hunters into the woods this season. (Yes, this is basically AirBnb for hunting. What a world.)

At first, I wasn’t sure how I felt about having strangers out killing animals in our woods. But I’ve been surprised how nice it feels to share our small sanctuary with people, and grateful for their respect and kindness. One is a wine importer, and brings gifts of ground venison alongside bottles of Brut cava. Another, an older gentleman who has retired to the aforementioned dreaded developments, is so enthusiastic it’s catching. “This is God’s country!” he shouts as he walks back in, cheeks cold and shiny red. He’s convinced there’s an eight-point buck out there. They drive in before dawn.

One day as I headed out, Tom, the wine importer, huffed and puffed through the yard, dragging a doe behind him. “Did you just get her?” I asked. “No,” he said, “I got her at first light, clean. She dropped where she stood. But then I sat and watched the morning.” He promises to bring the backstrap – the choicest cut – for us, and I promise to share with him the best venison chili recipe. He drives home, and I drive into DC.

IV. Yesterday I have been writing an essay about Dairy Queen for about six months now. I got it into my head the last time I visited my grandparents’ farm in Indiana that I was going to write this piece about Dairy Queen and taking refuge and hockey-puck-shaped Dilly Bars. I planned to take a grand writer road trip to confirm that, per this outdated website, the original Dairy Queen in Joliet, Illinois became a church and then an auto insurance office. Sometimes I overshare and tell people all about this fabulous essay that I’m sort of in the middle of writing, and I have a lot of it done, like a lot, like 10,000 words a lot, which actually is definitely too many words to write about your personal feelings about Dairy Queen.

In any event, I consider it something of a creative failure to have only been able to write part of a long, bad essay about Dairy Queen for six months. I don’t need to tell you the kind of paralyzing, sneaky, hate spiral this can send someone into, one where one doesn’t do anything at all because of the aforementioned clear creative failure.

But I do want to write more, and yesterday, at a very low moment, decided that even if it’s just a LiveJournal rant about feelings, thinly-veiled politics, soup, and dead deer, that I would do so, today. So here I am. Ben is at a conference (farmers have conferences in the winter). I am eating cold leftover Kung Pao tofu. I am writing.

Tomorrow I’ll call Tim Kaine’s answering machine again.

***

I. This lasagna – the creme fraiche is a true stroke of genius. It’s almost annoying how fabulous all of Julia Turshen’s recipes are.

II. This soup: Kenji for president

III. Best ever venison chili: Molasses! Coffee! Many chiles!

IV. Get your wok out, I made Kung Pao tofu that’s a mash-up of this (without the deep frying, sorry President Kenji), this, and this recipe. It is a process, but good. Chinkiang vinegar if you can get your hands on it; 1 tbsp red wine + 1 tbsp balsamic if you can’t.

V. Places to send your ducats, if ya got ’em: – Southern Poverty Law Center – Planned Parenthood – NAACP – Council on Islamic-American Relations – Consider supporting your local or regional or national news outlets! We need strong free press more than ever.

Source: http://casayellow.com/2016/12/06/what-to-eat-when-things-arent-going-so-well/

[worldoftheskeptic]

Verses

Note: I’m going to add something called Universe Alternates to slightly modified verses, where a verse is the same except for one thing. Say it’s my main verse, but set in the current year. That would be tagged, v: the firehouse, ua: modern. A verse modified for DC comics would be tagged, ua: dcu

Main Timeline Verses

v: the firehouse

The main verse. This takes place at any time during Peter’s career as a Ghostbuster. Mid/post movie verse.

v: he turned out to be a lizard

A between movies verse. Peter hosts World of the Psychic and suppresses his skepticism against his better judgement.

v: smells like college

A pre-movie verse. Venkman ends up roommates with Egon and/or Ray, etc. in college. Hijinks ensue.

v: new girls

Default verse for interacting with muses from Ghostbusters 2016. If you’d rather not interact in this verse, please specify.

Main future verse. Post 2016 movie. Buckle up, kids, it’s lengthy exposition time.

The Ghostbusters kept doing their thing for years after dealing with Gozer (and Tiamat). Until all hell broke loose. A mysterious lab accident that released all of the busted ghosts from their holding chamber ended up getting Egon killed in the process.

Ray and Winston (and others) were out on an assignment, and Peter had finally gotten a date with Dana, so when the ghosts were released, Egon was alone to deal with them all, and with broken technology everywhere, it wasn’t an easy battle to fight. Egon was able to contact the other Ghostbusters, but since Peter was in the easiest situation to get out of, he ended up getting there first. With Peter’s help, Egon was able to get the ECU functional again, but the surge of electricity required to do so ended up killing him.

The rest of the Ghostbusters arrived on the scene to find Dana panicked outside of the firehouse. They went inside to find Peter attempting to revive Egon. Ray immediately rushed to help, dismantling one of their packs to use like a defibrillator. When he attempted to jump start Egon’s heart again, his soul manifested itself as a ghost and took over Dana.

The Ghostbusters were able to say their last goodbyes to their friend before he left Dana’s body, but something strange happened in the process. Part of Egon’s soul stayed inside of Dana. She started to remember things she’d never experienced, and retained much of Egon’s knowledge of the Ghostbusters’ equipment.

Egon’s death lead to the end of the Ghostbusters, and each member parted ways. Ray became a taxi driver, Winston bought a funeral home, and Peter took on an alias and began debunking ghost stories, determined to never let what happened to Egon happen to anyone else.

With Dana’s newfound obsession with Ghost busting technology, she and Peter got into repeated arguments until they were forced to go their separate ways as well. Later Dana took on an apprentice, Jillian Holtzmann.

Peter continued debunking ghost sightings until Ghostbusters was practically erased from history. But New York remembered. When he learned that a new team had cropped up, he made it his mission to tear them down, but at the same time, he was curious. He wanted to know if they’d really achieved what he and the others had done thirty years before. He prompted them to release their captured ghost, and nearly died from the resulting fall from their second story window. When he got out of the hospital, he didn’t press charges. Instead, he decided to keep watching the New Ghostbusters. Perhaps one day his expertise could be needed.

Events in this verse subject to revision depending on what is agreed to by both partners.

v: a game changer (Martin Heiss Verse)

Martin grew up in the 50s and 60s, afraid to come out as gay, but inspired by the civil rights movements and changing culture which surrounded him.

He was naturally soft spoken, and even reclusive, but what was mistaken for a shy nature didn’t keep him from speaking his mind as he grew into a young man.

He studied sociology and psychology in college, with a particular fascination for myths and legends of different cultures, but he never believed them. A combination of a religious upbringing, the disappearance of his grandfather, and the fear of being kicked out on the street by his parents made him skeptical of things that couldn’t be proven by empirical evidence.

From his middle age onward, Heiss became a well known sociologist, and eventually earned his keep as a paranormal debunker. This allowed him his seat on the Council For Logic and Data, from which he worked his way up to chairman. By then he was known to be openly gay, and even better known for his odd sense of fashion. And then he met the Ghostbusters.

Alternate Timeline Verses

v: incorporated

The Ghostbusters are looking to expand their company, and in addition to adding a Chicago branch, they’ve hired four new trainees with a lot to offer. Who knows, maybe they’ll be the New York branch someday, if the boys ever retire.

v: let’s do the time warp (again)

Ghostbusters 101 verse. Will update with the comics.

Unfortunately, a mishap with the interdinensional portal has caused the Ghostbusters’ universe to merge with well, the other Ghostbusters’ universe. They’ll get it sorted out eventually, but for now, the teams founded in 1984 and 2016 have come together to kick some ghost.

v: time slips

Another Ghostbusters 2016 verse, but with a younger Venkman. Venkman and the rest of the Ghostbusters stayed in limbo longer than they had thought. It’s thirty years later and a new team of Ghostbusters has cropped up in New York. Based on the events in Volume 5 of IDW Ghostbusters.

v: seven sermons to the dead

Peter Venkman and the rest of the Ghostbusters have been committed to the psychiatric ward, but this time the mayor’s aid won’t come clean. Trapped, and with no one to believe them, (no one with a key anyway) the Ghostbusters are separated with the hope that their delusions will subside with less exposure to the others.

Vigo’s plan to possess Oscar succeeds, but it will be several years before he is able to carry out his plan for world domination while Janosz raises him as his son. Will the Ghostbusters escape in time to stop him?

Historical

v: ESP expert

Surprisingly enough, aging paranormal expert Peter Venkman is employed by the US military during World War II to investigate unnatural phenomenon in battle ravaged Germany. (Can apply to other wars/places as well, WWII is default. Based on the movie Monuments Men.)

v: won’t be missed

A young medic finds more than he bargained for overseas when he finds he’s capable of communicating with the dead. (MASH/Another historical verse)

v: a preacher and a con-man

Set between the 1930s and 1960s, Peter Venkman is a lapsed Catholic priest still trying to make a living at preaching after a quiet excommunication from the Catholic church because an “exorcism” he performed was discovered to be a fake. He’s still famous for the exorcism and makes good money giving advice for supernatural ailments and leaving town before anyone can discover he’s a liar (and an atheist).

Ghost Verses

v: college buddies

Peter was killed in college when a car hit him on a walk back to his dorm. Ever since, he’s haunted his roommate, Egon Spengler. Years later, he caused the “accidental” meeting of Ray Stantz and Egon when he tripped the latter, causing him to drop his books and skin his knee in front of Ray. Venkman later appeared to them in ghost form, remarking that he “knew they would get along.”

v: through the window

Martin Heiss definitely died from that fall from the second story of the Chinese takeout place. The thing is, now he’s a class IV, full torso apparition, and he’s a bit focused, that meaning that for some reason, he’s now stuck in the firehouse he inhabited in life. These days, he enjoys his retirement from life by messing up the Ghostbusters’ smartphones and startling Erin out of her wits.

v: a full life

Peter Venkman has died a natural death after many years of being a pain in everyone’s ass. He thought he’d escaped this plane of existence for good, but for some reason, he’s come back. There’s some unfinished business to take care of. But what?

Alternate Universes

v: no ghost

A catch all for any verse where Peter isn’t a Ghostbuster or ghosts don’t exist. Peter probably works as a psychologist in either research or patient care. Will probably be accompanied with v: tbd until I figure out specifics for the interaction. Then I will switch to a specific verse.

v: realish

The Real Ghostbusters verse. All TRG canon applies.

v: more precious than gold

Peter is a single father to his daughter Aurelia. He has sole custody after a messy divorce.

v: goddamneded

A Blues Brothers verse. Peter works as their publicist, or their “hype man” as he calls it.

v: unfortunate souls

Think Disney villains. Martin Heiss has never been good a day in his life. An aging professional criminal posing as a debunker with a certain dramatic flair, he seeks to release ghosts onto New York and gain power over the city. This is definitely going to backfire.

v: fear and loathing (in Gillikin)

Wicked verse. Mostly musical based, some book influences. Martin Heiss is a Gillikinese man with a short temper and a sharp tongue.

v: we’re ready to believe you

A Men In Black verse. It turns out Melanie Ortiz works for more than one government agency. The Ghostbusters actually do run into alien ghosts in Area 51, as well as the MIB. Apparently the world is ready for ghosts, but not quite ready for aliens. At least Egon gets to play with some new toys, if he doesn’t get neuralized first.

v: not quite psychic

Superhero verse. The Ghostbusters are a team of mercenaries for hire who specifically target supervillains (they have to work within the law, after all). Usually they are under government employ, but occasionally work for private companies if they have the cash. Their name comes from their powers, which all have to do with ghosts or the supernatural.

Peter is an empath and a limited clairvoyant, with the ability to read emotions and auras, influence others with his own emotions, and read future and past events by touching objects and people associated with them. His visions are often unclear and focus more on the emotions tied to the events than the events themselves.

Peter’s emotional influence can be quite powerful, working other people or animals into a rage, and then using his natural manipulative abilities to sic them on other people. He can be somewhat of a psychic vampire, attracted to people specifically because of their emotional energy. Ray is optimistic and positive, a trait Peter draws on when he needs to. Egon, being non-emotional, Peter uses to help balance himself out. Peter is not capable of real mind control, but many of his detractors believe he is, and controls the other Ghostbusters with that.

v: BPRD

Peter is a BPRD agent and psychic with expertise in psychology and parapsychology. He’s usually employed in diplomatic ventures with faeries, ghosts, or other beings capable of “reasonable” communication. His seances are known to be much less formal than usual.

v: certified psychologist

Peter is a psychologist employed by Arkham Asylum battling a mental illness of his own. He’s been able to keep it under wraps before, so why would now be any different?

v: walkman on the moon

verse established with chariotsofthegodsman. Peter is the captain of Ecto-1, a trade ship that travels the cosmos. He co-owns the trading company with Ray, Egon, and Winston. Venkman hired William Palmer as an engineer when several of them didn’t show up for the job, and he’s quickly earned his place as Peter’s unofficial translator and guide.

v: cute deflections

House M.D. AU. Peter Venkman is employed as a clinical psychologist at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital after being fired from his job as a research psychologist at Columbia University. Though he enjoys patient care more than research, he is still wary of working with severely traumatized patients due to his own insecurities. He prefers the humanistic approach to psychology, however, he often favors cognitive-behavioral tactics with patients and is not above keeping a bowl of candy on his desk to encourage positive association with patients.

v: thin gray line

Apocalypse AU. Gozer and his sister Tiamat have taken over this dimension. It now serves as a boxing ring for their never ending rivalry and the Ghostbusters are caught in the middle of it. Takes place in the ‘90s.