#she does this intentionally as a gag waiting for someone to notice then plays it off as if it's normal and why aren't they doing it fjdhs

[percywinchester27]

La Petite Mort

Word count: 2.1K

Pairing: Dean X Reader AU

Warnings: None, just fluff, humour and implied sex ;)

Series Summary: The reader has just shifted to a new flat and boy, someone on the floor has a really banging sex life! The passionate moans have been keeping her up for several nights in row and enough is enough! Reader has her suspicions, but is it really the green-eyed hottie from room no. 307?  

A/N: It’s a neighbours!AU. I’m finally writing one. So excited to share it with you guys. Hope y’all like it! <3

Beta: The best babe, @deanssweetheart23​​​​​

Everything was fine till the banging started. Pun very much intended.

The shift had been smooth, the job was going great and life was finally on track. You had slid under the covers with the most satisfied smile in years only to be woken up to a lady very, very, very happy with her life.

Oh yeah… oh yeah… ahhh right there… oh fuck yeah…

You sat up right in your bed, eyes wide, face hot.

Third night in a row. Third fucking night. Literally.

What in the good heavens? The landlady might have mentioned this while renting out the flat!

Shoving the pillow over your ears, you fell back onto the mattress, closing your eyes shut very tightly. Eventually sleep overtook you and you lapsed into lousy dreams of trying to catch the taxi which kept evading you. Not a metaphor for your sex life at all. Nope.

The disturbed sleep didn’t help your mood the following day. Everyone at the office thought of you as a happy-go lucky person. Lately, they were seeing this whole new dark side of you. Sleep was essential to your functioning. 

In the evening, on your way back, you stopped by the coffee shop downstairs to pick up a brownie. It was a little place; busy yet quaint. The barista, Charlie, made two hearts in your coffee instead of one. That put the biggest smile on your face. 

At least, the day was ending on a high note.

Your newly rented flat was on the third floor of a very complicated building. One staircase did not directly lead into another. An entire hallway had to be crossed to get to it. The design probably broke a hundred different by laws and someone was definitely paid off in the city civil office to get a construction permit. You did not want to imagine how the people would fare in case of a fire emergency. Learning the escape plan was like memorising the map of a treasure hunt. You escape, you win. You lose… whoops! Better luck in next life. But the rent was cheap and you were already living all the clichés of a struggling writer- one incomplete book, a job at a publishing house and addiction to coffee. So, yes, you would brave fire when it came to being able to afford a living.

Struggling with the brownie package and the coffee in your hand you jammed the key into the door. It didn’t go in. 

What the hell?

You tried again, and once more the key got jammed. On a closer look, you realised that the lock didn’t resemble yours at all. Stepping back, you peered at the door. 307. Not 306- which was yours.

The floor design was insane and instead of the flats being lined up next to each other, they were all fronting one another in a haphazard fashion. Shaking your head, you took a step back and jammed the key into the lock of your own flat.

Jesus! You’re losing it, Y/N.

Shirking off the mild irritation, you cooked yourself a hot cup of instant noodles, put on your favourite TV show and slinked into your couch. Tonight’s episode was going to reveal who the murderer was and you had been dying for the suspense to finally end. 

Just when the protagonist was about to point a gun at the killer in the shadows…

Oh my God... you’re incredible… aahhhh… ahhhh… ahhh…

You completely abandoned the TV and jumped up from the sofa. The fire hazard might still be worth it, but the thin walls so weren’t.

On tiptoes, you made your way to the east side wall, putting your ear against it. The noise wasn’t coming from upstairs. That was the only sure thing. But it was impossible to pinpoint the direction. The moans were reverberating through the walls. So loudly that there was no escaping it. Not in the bedroom, the kitchen or the living room sofa. 

Of all of them, the east wall seemed like the culprit. 

Right there… yeah…

307. Whoever it was in that room needed to calm the FUCK down. You grabbed your blanket and dragged it to the end of the living room, fuming. What ticked you off was how much this was ticking you off.

It’s sleep you told yourself. The lack of sleep was the only thing making you mad. The sex noises couldn’t be it. Because there were other noises- a dog barked somewhere occasionally, one of the rooms had a very loud stereo and someone was too much into baking- the beater was ceaseless. No, it had to be the timing and your wrecked sleep schedule.

Just like the nights before, you covered your ears and started reciting the story of the manuscript you had been reading at work. Eventually, sleep overtook you again.

The next morning you woke up in a crappier mood. If that was even possible.

Breathing down on anything and everything, you locked the door on your way out for work. Turning into the corridor, you ran into a wall of solid flesh. 

In your groggy, sleep deprived state, the first thing you noticed was the way he smelled- leather and whiskey and something headier than that. It was divine. Next, you looked up into those eyes- stunning green, like sparkling water running over jade.

“Easy there, sweetheart!” The guy smirked. 

You straightened yourself and took a step back. In front of you stood the most handsome guy you had ever seen. He was tall, with dirty blond hair, almost brown, and those stunning eyes. 

“I’m so sorry,” you muttered, trying to collect your scattered thoughts. You had one of those dumb faces that gave away every damn thought crossing through your brain, so obviously you tried your best not to meet his gaze. Which was a shame really. That face demanded to be ogled at. Let alone the body that followed.

“No, no… I didn’t mind at all.” 

You saw him reach out to the door of 307.

“You’re the one who lives there?” You asked through gritted teeth. 

He raised an eyebrow. “Sure. You want a tour?”

Uhgg the best looking guy and he has to be such a douche!

Slipping past him, you stomped off towards the stairs. This too-good-looking-for-the-world asshat had been ruining your nights and in turn your life. 

You knew it was wrong to be mad at him without, at least, talking about the issue first. A polite conversation explaining your situation wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world now, would it? But how does one start a conversation pertaining to that? After all, he wasn’t exactly the one making the noise. What would you say?

So, hey would you mind pleasuring your girlfriend a little less? 

Or better. Ever heard of a ball gag?

Mere thought of it made you shudder.

The work day was spent trying to shove your neighbour's stupidly handsome face out of your mind. It didn’t help that your mother kept calling, repeatedly. You knew what she had to say. How you should have taken that bigger job at Royal’s publishing. How the writing career might never take off. How you really should get a boyfriend now, or you’ll be the only unmarried cousin in the family.

Usually you could entertain your mother with well-timed hmms and ahhs. Today wasn’t that day.

Bone-tired and absentminded, you jammed the key in the keyhole in the evening, only for it to get stuck again. You looked up at the door. 307.

Well, shit!

Putting both your hands into it, you yanked the key with all your might, just as the door opened. There he stood, with his crooked smirk, dimples digging in, wearing nothing but a thin cotton t-shirt and sweatpants that hung all too low on those hips.

“You don’t need to break into my house. I already offered a tour.” Of course, god gave him an irresistible voice. Cause at this point, why not?

“Sorry,” you muttered, looking anywhere but at him. “I keep getting the wrong door. This one’s mine.”

“Oh, so you’re the one in 306!” You could feel his smirk more than see it. “Looks like you’re having a good ol’ time in there.”

“Excuse me?”

The guy raised scratched the back of his neck, face apologetic. “You might… ya know… just keep the voice down in there?”

The audacity of this guy!

“Rich of you to ask anyone to keep it down!” You hissed. “Why don’t you tell your girlfriend to keep it low?” 

With that, you shut your door in his surprised face. The worst part was, after bumping into him in the morning, your mind was producing distinct images of him in the bed, doing things to a woman. You had tried your best not to let them make a home in your head. But like a stickly tenant, they refused to evacuate. No wonder it was hard to look him in those brilliant, brilliant green eyes. The guy was hot! There was no denying that. You weren’t even willing to accept to yourself just how much time you had put into imagining him naked.

If anything, the denial mixed with your pre-existing irritation and sleep deprivation had you ready tonight. 

So the moment the enamoured voice started begging, you hopped out of your chair. You had every intention of yelling yourself hoarse at the delectable resident next door, but the moment you stepped into the corridor, you came face to face with the very man. 

He was- thankfully, completely clothed- looking a bit harassed, himself.

aahhhh… ahhhh… ahhh… right there...

Your head whipped up to the suspected direction of the voice, and back at him. “Wait, you aren’t… it’s not...?”

His face mirrored your expression of surprise and then he burst out laughing. “Looks like we’ve both been played.”

“Not intentionally,” you said, peering at the adjacent doors, mostly to not look at him. “Where do you think it’s coming from?”

He shot a glance at the door opposite to his. “If it’s not you, my best guess is that guy over there. I mean, if you ask me, Nick over there doesn’t look the type to make a woman that happy… but what do I know?”

“You shouldn’t make assumptions about people,” you said, taking a tentative step towards the said door.

Mr. hot guy smartpants laughed. “Oh, trust me. He’s the douchiest douche you’ll ever meet. Guy like that? Definitely selfish in bed.”

You frowned at him.

“He asks women in the street to smile more,” hot guy explained.

“Uhhgg… yeah you’re right. It’s definitely not him.”

Hot guy pointed his fingers at the rest of the doors. “That one’s rented by three guys. I don’t think it’s them. Mrs. Hendrickson over there works night shifts. I have no clue who lives in there,” he pointed to the last door, directly in front of you.

Goodness you’re amazing...

“Yes, lady, we already know!” He called out.

You couldn’t help the giggle that burst through your lips.

His eyes softened. “Dean Winchester,” he said, offering his hand.

“Y/N. Y/N Y/L/N,” you said, taking his. He had a firm grip. A very funny sensation gripped your stomach. Like a flutter. Nervousness? 

“It’s great to meet you, Y/N.” He smirked. “I sure wish the circumstances were better.”

You bit your lip. “Listen, I’m sorry for the comment about your girlfriend. I was just mad about, you know... “

“Don’t worry about it. My non-existent girlfriend is very cool. She took no offense.”

You snorted.

“I was dead serious about the house tour,” He winked. “I can promise great coffee.”

“Sure, sometime soon.”

He shot a look at the door with the unknown occupants again. “I hate to leave this here, but I think we should get whatever kind of shuteye we can while they’re quiet over there, huh?”

“Oh, yeah!” You hurried back to your flat. “Night, Dean.”

He gave you his crooked grin again, just a hint of mischief. “Night, Y/N.”

You knew it wasn’t him now, and he was right about making the most of the quiet and fucking off to sleep, and yet, each time you closed your eyes, your mind decided to replay your imaginations for you. With a start, you sat up in your bed, a thought occurring to you like a hit on the head- If you had been thinking about him that way? Had he been imagining you as well?

Blood rushed to your face at the very idea. Though a tiny part of you begged for the answer- would it be such a bad thing if he had?

*********************

A/N 2: So? So? SO??? What do you think?

I value each and every reblog more than I can tell you! Thank you! Feedback is love and life!

This series will have a total of 5 or 6 parts max.

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[lo-55]

Shattered Chains of Fate Ch. 20

Deal or No Deal?

Achilles appears beside Chad and Orhihime, dressed in his black under armour and holding only his shield. He looks unassuming, for one of the most famous heroes in history. A whisper in the trees and he knows that Medusa and Cu have taken up their posts, but none of them move to interfere. Cu and Achilles have too much respect for a deal made by warriors to come between the two of them, and Medusa will stay where she is unless he looks like he’s going to die.

Which he won’t.

He can’t let himself die yet.

He has far too much to do.

Zangetsu sings when he blocks a tiny cero aimed at him. It cuts easily to both sides of him and blows up a tree violently. Ichigo blocks each one that’s lobbed at him, until Yammy yanks out his zanpakutou and swings it viciously at Ichigo.

Ichigo blocks, narrowly, and swings Tensa out of his sleeve in an uppercut that nearly spills Yammy’s guts from his body. If Hollows have guts.

He doesn’t actually know.

Yammy howls and keeps taking wild, viciou swings at him. He’s strong, and powerful and angry.

But that makes him stupid, too.

Ichigo bolts between his legs when he lifts his sword above his head and avoids a blow that leaves a chasm in the park ground. Ichigo spins on his knees and brings his shorter blade around to slice through Yammy’s tendons on his legs, then up his back with Neive.

On the chance that their Zanpakutou work like his he lops off Yammy’s other hand when he tries to flail behind him and kicks the sword into the trees.

Ichigo levels Neive to Yammy’s throat and stands still.

He’d learned a long time ago not to let people ‘level up’ if he could help it.

“Yield,” he ordered coldly. He didn’t feel much like Ichigo Kurosaki, Substitute Shinigami right now. He felt like Ichigo Kurosaki, Master of of Chaldeas.

“Fuck you!” Yammy snarls at him. “You can’t do this!”

“Funny,” Ichigo says, “I just did.”

He turns his eyes to Ulquiorra, who’s impassiveness is broken only by a slight widening of his eyes.

“Well?” Ichigo asks, not taking his blade away from Yammy’s throat.

Ulquiorra tilts his head. “I will have to confer with our Lord.”

Ichigo bristles. “You made a deal,” he snaps. He sees Achilles start to rise and Cu step out of the trees. The whisper of chains and serpents to his right reminds him that they aren’t alone. All it will take is one word for him and they’ll tear through both of them brutally.

“I didn’t think you would win.”

Ichigo will give it too him. He’s honest.

“We shall return, when Lord Aizen sees fit.”

Before Ichigo can move to stab him or give the order Ulquiorra turns and tears the air apart.

It splits like a mouth, gaping into a void. Unceremoniously Ulquiorra appears in front of Ichigo in a burst of insane speed and thrown Yammy straight through the gap.

Ichigo barely reacts in time to block a blow aimed at his head.

In a second the hollows vanish, Urahara appears with Yoruichi, and Ichigo starts cussing a blue streak.

*

Jekyll is red faced at breakfast the next morning, his shoulders hunched and his gaze guilty whenever it lands on Ichigo.

The girls notice, of course they do. Mash looks between the two curiously, and Mordred seems to come to her own conclusions because she mock gags and drags Fran away as soon as they’re done eating.

Alice and Jack as corralled by Mash, who shoots Ichigo a look as she escorts them out of the room and into another. The authors haven’t even emerged from their room. Admittedly, as servants they don’t need to eat, but its still nice to have everyone around the table, and Jack and Alice act like they’ve never eaten before in their lives.

(Ichigo very intentionally doesn’t look into the implications of that)

That leaves Ichigo alone with Jekyll, who takes one look at him, glances at his lap, and bolts for the door.

Ichigo is left watching him go. What the fuck is he supposed to do about this?

It’s easier dealing with children. It really, really is.

Ichigo taps his bracelet until Romani comes up on the coms.

“Ichigo! What’s going on?” Roman asks cheerfully. Ichigo can hear him take a sip of his coffee and hum.

“Nothing terrible just. Annoying. What do you do when someone’s convinced that their other personality has done something terrible to you, but you can’t explain that they didn’t and even if they did its not their fault for what the other them did because they won’t let you talk to them because they’re guilty and freaking out about what the them that they aren’t didn’t actually do?”

“... what ?”

“Uh. You know what. Never mind.”

“Wait, no, Ichigo I wanna know more what the fuck is happening down the-”

Ichigo hung up on him swiftly and stared down at his watch. God this was a stupid situation.

Jekyll acted like they’d just woken up in vegas or something.

And Ichigo has no idea how to fix it.

* *

Ichigo sits in the room in Urahara’s. Cu and Achilles are in the front of the store with the kids, and Medusa had gone to see to the girls, and make sure that they were safe. If someone had been sent to find him, there was always a chance that Aizen would send someone after the others too. He hated it, but he had to keep reminding himself that Aizen isn’t Kyo.

He isn’t the same person as the one he’d met in america. They haven’t fought and almost died together. Ichigo hasn’t shoved his very soul into Aizen’s. He hasn’t stayed night vigils on the restless river with him. He hasn’t held him while he begged for his memory.

Still.

Ichigo has promises to keep.

“What were you thinking?” Urahara asks, “Making a deal like that?”

He doesn’t even sound like he’s scolding Ichigo, for which he’s grateful. He might punch him if that was the case.

It’s strange sometimes. Urahara doesn’t patronize him nearly as much as other people have. People who’d known much more about what he was capable of and what he’d done in the past. He has a startling amount of faith in Ichigo. Even if he is a liar.

“I was thinking I need to have a … discussion, with Aizen,” he says at length.

Urahara’s brows shoot upwards. “A discussion.” He repeats.

Ichigo shrugs, and offers no other explanation. He said what he said, and he meant what he’d said too. He needs to talk to Aizen, if only to tell him the truth.

He may be a traitor to these people, and there’s a history between him and the exiles that Ichigo doesn’t know the details behind, but Ichigo has been to Seireitei. He’s talked with Kyo for hours, lamenting the state of the world and encouraging him to light the spark of revolution. He has no ill will towards him for betraying such a bad place. He barely begrudges him Rukia’s near execution.

Ichigo plays favorites. Sue him.

“Ichigo. He’s a very dangerous man. If you had gone what was your plan?”

“Are you trying to say you’re not dangerous?” Ichigo reasons, looking dead at him. Urahara has the decency to tilt his hat down.

“Certainly not. I would never lie to you like that, Kurosaki. We have a deal, don’t we?”

Ichigo shoots him a half a grin. “So we do.”

“And,” he adds, “My plan is the same as it always is. Charge in with a motley crew and make allies when I get there. It worked before.”

“These aren’t shinigami. They’re hollows.”

“It seems to me that at this point I’m as much a hollow as I am a shinigami. And, they were my enemies too. Does it really make that much of a difference? They clearly have personality and opinion. Not all of them can be on Aizen’s pay roll.”

Urahara considers this.

“It was still reckless.”

Ichigo leans across the table at him. “ I am reckless. It’s always served me well. Besides, I have people watching my back.”

“Yes, your friends. Who you’ve never explained.” Urahara shoots him a pointed look.

“I wasn’t just referring to them,” he nods to Urahara, who actually looks startled before he snaps his fan out to hide his mouth.

“That still doesn’t explain your friends.”

“No. You’re a smart man, I’m sure you can figure it out.”

Ichigo did not grin when he said it, even if he wanted to. The truth is impossible, even for ghosts in most cases, but Urahara had had a hogyoku. He’d held the impossible and possible in his own hands and nourished its power for centuries. He can come to his own conclusions about Ichigo’s life.

Ichigo kind of wants to know just what they’ll be.

“Anyhow. What are we gonna do about the Drosiv?”

“Dro- what now?” Urahara genuinely looks befuddled.

“Well they’re hollows with shinigami power right? The opposite of Visord. So Drosiv. Do you have a better word for them?”

“... I do not.”

* * *

Gin watched the show Ulquiorra put on for the gathered arrancar.

On Aizen’s order, without even blinking, he ripped his own eyeball out and crushed it into dust.

First was the sight of the bloodied teenagers. A young girl with brilliant hair that looked far too much like Rangiku for Gin’s own personal comfort, a bulky boy who Yammy swatted like he was little more than a fly. The girl held up better. She was strong, and a fighter, but it was pretty clear she took no joy in fighting.

Then came Ichigo.

The first thing Gin noticed, besides his hair, was his sword.

When last they’d met it had been a massive, body length kyber knife. Now it was the same length but the ribbon had turned black and there was a hollowed out portion in the blade.

Even more surprising is the white knife, pattered in geometric blue that appears from inside his sleeve.

“Looks like yer boy is gettin’ new tricks, huh?” he tilts his head towards Aizen, who wears a smile that would make lesser men grow cold. It’s not even a cruel smile. It’s just far too interested for someone like Aizen. Gin almost pities little Ichigo Kurosaki. Almost.

As it looks now the kid knows how to hold his own, and how to be vicious. Which was not the vibe Gin got from him during their brief encounters in the Seireitei.

Determined yes. Stubborn yes. But not cruel.

“Let’s make a deal,” Ulquiorra met his gaze squarely. Brown burned at his, and now Gin’s too, with a jaw set hard.

“And just what would that be? ” he asked, his voice smooth and flat. Through the memory Gin can feel the most muted tick of interest. Funny, the last few times they’d done this he hadn’t felt anything besides mild annoyance.

“You work for Aizen, right?”  A redundant question. Ichigo adjusted his grip on his blade.  “If I win I want you to take me to him.”  

Ulquiorra looked briefly between the pair of them before he closed his eyes. It was dark for a long moment.

“So be it.”  

Gin kept looking at Aizen, watching him reactions even when Grimmjowstarted berating Yammy for his state and Ulquiorra for not simply killing the other two. Grimmjow was always picking fights.  

When they finally got the end, Aizen hummed.

“Interesting,” he said at last. “He wants to come here, then we’ll let him.” Aizen’s smile grew steadily.

Gin had a bad feeling about this.

* * * *

Yuzu was getting frustrated.

She wasn’t unused to being the weakest in the family. It wasn’t a surprise. Ichigo and Karin had taken all of the ghost power when they were born, and only left a little bit for her. Just enough for her to know when ghosts were around.

Not like the other two.

They could see them, interact with them, and even fight them. They were truly their mothers children.

For all Yuzu took over as a housewife once she was tall enough to touch the stove she had always felt the least connected to their parents.

Masaki had always been Ichigo’s world. She was a light for all of them but it was Ichigo that she doted on the most, and Ichigo that had clung so hard to her. Even after she died, Yuzu remembered the grieving more than her mother herself. Masaki was a distant memory, a warm and soft one that was corrupted by the rain of sorrow and the hole in the family that she’d left behind.

Yuzu remembered dark days, days when her dad wouldn’t talk to anyone, and when he brother paced the river bank looking for something that not a one of them could ever see.

Then, in those months, it had just been her and Karin.

It had been the two of them that had pushed their dad out of the house to find Ichigo when he stayed out in the rain. It was them that held each other in the dark of the night. It was them that cried for someone that they would barely remember in the years to come.

Then Karin had grown. She had taken the route of the tom boy, and despite his doting on her it was Karin who had more in common with their dad. Even their hair was the same.

And now it turns out that all of them had been able to see spirits the entire time.

Yuzu had always been the odd one out. Always.

So sometimes, when they go to visit the Ishida household she spends more time with Ryuken than practicing shooting like she’s supposed to. She can barely see what she’s doing, let alone form a proper weapon.

It’s frustrating, and it’s easier to find Ryuken and sit with him and do her homework while Karin tried to learn to fight from Uryu.

It’s during one of these sessions that Ryuken looks up from something he’s doing, hospital administration she assumed, and speaks.

“You should give this up. It will serve you better to focus on the living instead of the dead.”

Yuzu looks up at him. She feels older than 11. Sometimes she thinks she is.

“It would probably be easier,” she admits, “But… But this is something for us to remember our mom with. Did you know I only have three memories of her?”

Ryuken’s brows furrow minutely.

“I… did not.”

“Mhmm. I remember her in the kitchen. She had me sitting on the counter, and I was her taste tester for her curry recipe. It was way too spicy, but I liked it anyway. I liked the color it was. That was a long time ago…”

“I remember when me and Karin were first going to pre school. Dad was crying and making a fuss, and mom had to pry us out of his arms so we could go to class. She told him that he should be pushing us to explore, not trying to hide us away at home.”

She fell silent. Ryuken slowly leaned closer across his desk.

“And the third?”

Yuzu looks up at him. “I remember her funeral. I was the only one who could stand to look in the casket. She looked like she was sleeping. I kept waiting for her to open her eyes and tell us it was all a mistake, she was fine. But she never did.”

“No. I suppose she wouldn’t have. I remember that funeral.”

Yuzu startles. She hadn’t even realized he had been at it. “You do?”

“Mhmm. I always thought they’d picked the worst lipstick for her. She hated red with a passion. My mother always wanted to wear more make up, and look more lady like.”

“I’m sorry,” Yuzu said quietly. “You must miss her.”

Ryuken hummed. “She was my best friend.”

He stood at last. “If you’re really so serious about this, I may be able to help.”

Yuzu scrambled to her feet, her homework discarded, and rushed to follow him.

* * * * *

Ichigo was gonna kill someone.

He really, really was.

All he wanted to do was duel a hollow, jump through an interdimensional tear, and talk to his time travelled/mind wiped best friend so he could ask him about overthrowing the government but no!

No!

Now an entire band of dead people were standing in his homeroom, making a massive spectacle, and  how do they think they’re actually blending in right now?  

Ichigo looks at Hirako, who looks back at him with what might be his more honest expression to date. A frown.

“Don’t look at me fer help. I’m just a normal human person.”

“Oh yeah. A regular fellow human, you human fellow,” he drawls.

Rukia appears on the WINDOW of all things, her arms crossed and her chin lifted regalling.

“Ichigo! It’s time to talk.”

“Later,” Ichigo waved dismissively at her. “We’re about to start history. Sit down or take a step back, would ya?”

He ducks when Rukia flings herself at him with a vicious punch.

“And the rest of you! Sit down, what’s wrong with you?” Ichigo demands irritably. “Why does everyone insist on putting school on the back burner?”

“Why Ichigo, I had no idea you were such an academic!” Rangiku leaned right into his personal space, her blue eyes bright and teasing.

“I’m not,” he says flatly. “But the better I do the sooner I graduate. So. Sit.”

One by one the shinigami sit around the room, stirring up ripples of conflict.

Ichigo can feel a headache building behind his eyes and the bell hasn’t even wrung yet.

Couldn't they find him after school? Or just leave well enough alone?

  Stupid question. Of course they can’t. They’re my friends, after all.  

* * * * * *

[the-master-cylinder]

SUMMARY Kate (Catherine Hickland) is driving alone down a highway in Riverton, Arizona after having left her fiancé at the altar. While driving, she hears the noise of horses galloping outside her car, but sees no one. After pulling onto the side of the road, she is whisked away in a dust cloud and disappears.

Sheriff Langley (Franc Luz) is dispatched to Kate’s abandoned car, found later that day. While pulled over, a man on a horse rides by and shoots at him. Langley exits the car, and a stray bullet hits the car’s gas tank, causing the vehicle to explode. Langley wanders by foot, stumbling upon a ghost town off the main road. After falling asleep in an empty building, he awakens the next day to various apparitions that appear to be linked to the town’s past. He meets a barmaid, Grace (Penelope Windust) and a blind gambling dealer (Bruce Glover), as well as a blacksmith and his daughter, Etta.

Meanwhile, Kate is being held captive by Devlin (Jimmie Skaggs), a zombie-like outlaw who has control over the town through a pact he made with Satan. Devlin terrorizes the souls of the town’s residents, and kills both the blacksmith and Etta after they confide in Langley. Upon discovering his modern gun to be ineffective, Langley is given an old revolver by Grace, and finds that he is able to kill Devlin’s henchmen with old bullets.

After finding Kate, Langley is hunted by Devlin’s henchmen. The two hide in the abandoned church, which Devlin and his henchmen light on fire. However, Kate and Langley escape. Outside, Langley has a shootout with Devlin, during which Langley effectively destroys him. As he and Kate leave, the souls of the town’s residents look on with approval, and the town disappears behind them.

PRODUCTION Empire’s Ghost Town, by Australian Richard Governor, produced by Tim Tennant, who is dealing here with his first horror movie after involvement with the likes of Gung Ho! and Hot Dog: The Movie. The lead role is essayed by Jimmie F. Skaggs, who has his first-ever starring part in his first-ever horror film as the demonic Devlin, a zombie gunslinger who lives-if that’s the correct word in the titular town and who ends up battling a present day sheriff who wanders in.

Experienced genre hands on the Ghost Town shoot include popular cinematographer Mac Ahlberg, stunt Coordinator Kane Hodder, the MMI makeup FX crew, which comprised Scott Coulter, Greg Johnson and Mike Deak. The FX trio, like the others, went on location in an Arizona ghost town for the five-week shoot. MMI shop foreman John Criswell and lab workers Tom Lauten, Andrew Kenneworthy and Roger McCoin also contributed to the FX workload.

So what did this combination of genre newcomers and seasoned horror vets come up with? Well, for one thing, they didn’t come up with a splatter movie. Oh, sure, we’ve all heard that before, usually from would-be auteurs who want to juke us into believing what they do is real serious art. This time, though, the “not-a-gore-film” line appears to fit.

“It’s more a Gothic horror film than a slasher film,” says producer Tennant. “It’s not what you see in the film, it’s what you don’t see.” Head zombie Skaggs allows that “it’s more like a Twilight Zone episode.” And perhaps the strongest indication of what can be expected from the movie comes from Coulter, the man in charge of Ghost Town’s prosthetics and makeup FX.

“We intentionally stayed away from gore effects in the film,’ Coulter claims. “In fact, when Devlin gets shot in the film, he does not bleed blood, he does not bleed slime. He bleeds dust. When he’s shot, dust hits fly out. We did it with squibs just like regular squibs, but instead of filling them with blood, we packed them with Fuller’s earth.”

Don’t panic. Ghost Town won’t attract Alan Alda fans. The movie contains plenty of sequences designed to raise the gooseflesh, such as a scene in which a prosthetic arm (created by Greg Johnson) gets shot off an actual one-armed man, which Coulter terms a “great” effect, as well as a zombie resurrection.

“When the sheriff comes across the ghost town, the original sheriff from 100 years ago who had been buried alive comes up out of the ground as a rotted zombie and grabs his hands to warn him,” reveals Coulter. “This is the big zombie effect in the movie, and it’s entirely a mechanical puppet. I sculpted it, and John Criswell did the mechanics.

“We shot about 35 miles away from our hotel, out in the middle of nowhere, with no electricity and no water,” he goes on. “They had to get power loaders in there to dig this big hole about six feet deep. There was a big wood platform over it, dirt over that, and a big pit where the actual puppet was. So we had to bury this thing and operate it, and it took all of us. We were grabbing grips and people off the crew to pull cables for it. There were eight or nine of us packed down underneath the thing. and it was about 185 degrees. We were in there for a number of hours, but there was a handy little trap door we could open up between takes, so it was OK. We even had a little video monitor down there so we could see what we were doing.

“The other big spectacular gags are the various things that Devlin does in the movie,” continues Coulter. “He does one really good effect. We were in this barn that was built for another movie. It was old dry wood, full of straw and stuff, and the director insisted upon using a hot iron poker in the scene. Devlin’s a walking zombie at this point in the film, and he takes this hot iron poker and pierces it into a blacksmith, lifts him off the ground, and slams him all across the barn, pinning him to the wall. The special effects guy did this amazing rig; it looked real.

“But what was funny about it was that in the barn, with dried wood and straw all over the place, we were using a 1.500-degree hot iron poker,” Coulter laughs. “I was standing by an exit. If anything happened, I was grabbing my makeup kit and getting out of there. The desert was already quite hot enough.”

Speaking of hot, Kane Hodder and stuntman Alan Marcus pulled off a seldom-seen treat for the film. “Richard Governor wanted to see a guy ignite on camera, and that presented a little problem.” admits Hodder. “If you think about it, when you see someone on fire in the movies, they usually cut from something else to that person already on fire. This was a little tricky. You couldn’t just do the regular thing where I’d come in, wait until the cameras start to roll, light Alan and then run away before the shot begins. Alan was doubling a zombie who had just been shot, and Richard wanted to see a little action of Alan first, then have him burst into flames on camera. What we did was this: Alan stumbled out of a doorway, smoking, and bumped into the door jamb, pausing for a second. I had positioned myself on the other side of the door with a torch, and I ignited him the instant he hit that door jamb. So he continued stumbling for a few steps, and then caught on fire. It worked out real well.”

Hodder echoes the others by stating that Ghost Town is not really a gore exercise. “Of course,” he adds, “there are a lot of excellent makeup effects things, but not so much of the blood-and-guts type. It’s more scary than gory.” He also believes that Skaggs’ performance is one of the brightest things about the entire film, a feeling shared by others.

“Jimmie Skaggs is the sweetest guy in the world playing the meanest guy in the world, and it’s a wonderful contrast,” asserts Tennant. “It’s a very demanding role, because of the makeup. and the hours, and the getting into it and out of it when there isn’t enough time. He’s a real pro and very powerful in the role.”

“Director Richard Governor seemed like a crazy, high energy, highly sexed, charismatic guy with a strong Australian accent… At the time, I was not sure that he had complete control of his set, but I’ve since learned the no one ever has complete control of any set.” – actor Franc Luz

MMI head John Buechler designed the appliance that converts nice guy Skaggs into the hell-on-hooves zombie. The Devlin makeup was sculpted, fabricated and applied on set by Coulter, who likewise praises the actor. “Jimmie is the best actor I ever worked with, as far as using the makeup correctly.” Coulter raves. “He is honestly better than Freddy Krueger, better than any of those guys, about using the foam latex. I watched him when he first got it, and he just sat there, right in front of the mirror, and saw what the foam could do, and then he used it. The man used his entire body, too. He had a walk, a whole attitude. He was very character-oriented. There’s a complete character there on the screen.”

“I had never worn appliances on my face before, and interestingly enough, I got used to them very quickly,” notes Skaggs. “I noticed, though, if I got warm and started to perspire, it would bubble a bit. But Scott Coulter was so experienced at this that he knew how to doctor it up so that no one would ever see. Cut a little hole, drain the sweat, then cover it back up and color it, and no one knew. I didn’t have a real problem wearing it, because once I was in makeup. I was no longer Jimmie Skaggs, and people respected that.”

Prior to the location filming, Skaggs visited the MMI studios for some pre-production work. He says he had no idea what to expect when they sat him down to cast a life mask. “They talked me through it and it all sounded very simple, so I agreed and made a few jokes about how it was like practicing Zen and the art of patience. But then they

started putting this stuff on,” he laughs. “I have never experienced anything like that in my life. It was almost total sensory deprivation. This stuff went in my ears, over my eyelids, covered my mouth. All that was left open were two little nostril holes. I was just fine … for about 15 minutes. Then, all of a sudden, I could feel this flush start to creep up from my chest through my neck up into my face and ears, and I got a little nervous. And I guess about 20 minutes into it, I thought, ‘Oh, God, I’ve got to get out of this! So I started making motions with my hands, and the guys were joking: “What do you want? A glass of water? A cigarette?’ Finally, I stood up in the chair and they got the message. They got it off and, thank God, it had set enough so they could get the mold.”

After one particularly long day in the Arizona sun, Skaggs learned another rather painful truth about the makeup FX business, thanks to some baiting by Coulter and company. As he relates it. “We went back to the trailer to take the makeup off, and everyone was tired. I was tired, Scott was tired, Mike and Greg were tired, and they were taking this stuff off. It took about two hours, and about 45 minutes into it, they were saying, ‘Oh, let’s just get this crap off. Just pull it off, Jim. I pulled that sucker-and my skin came with it! I learned very quickly that we were going to take our time.”

“Yeah,” grins Coulter. After that, he never ever complained about the length of time it took to take the makeup off.”

Stories like that, coupled with a tough shooting schedule and the remoteness of the location, might help explain why a passerby-had anyone passed by-on the last night of filming would have been treated to the bizarre spectacle of a shirtless Jimmie Skaggs, zombie appliance hanging from his face, gleefully shooting up an outhouse in the middle of the Arizona desert as whooping crew members joined in.

“It was after a whole night’s shoot,” recounts Coulter. “And it was the end of the film, you know? You don’t get an opportunity to be out in the desert firing guns very often, so we stopped in the middle of removing the makeup. Jimmie was covered in grease, his makeup half off, out there with a gun. That’s one thing I wish I’d gotten a picture of.”

Besides the performance of Skaggs (and the rest of the cast, which includes the beautiful Catherine Hickland and veteran bad guy Bruce Glover) and the special makeup FX work of the MMI crew. an outstanding facet of Ghost Town may be the film’s overall look. Tennant counts the visual quality as one of the strongest things about the movie.

“Richard Governor brought to Ghost Town a rich visual look,” asserts the producer. “Richard is one of the top commercial directors in the world, and he specializes in documentaries and TV comedies as well. This is his first theatrical picture, but down the line he’s going to be a well-known director because of his tremendous visual sense. He’s a terrific painter of pictures, and the film has a great look because of that. The negative side of it is that he falls in love with everything he sees, in terms of how he stylizes things. He fell so much in love with the images in the picture that when he went into editing, he wanted everything to stay. But everything can’t stay. You’ve got to get away from it, and he couldn’t do it. So he ran into trouble in the editing room.

“Richard is in love with the Gothic horror look, and with European film,” Tennant adds. “Empire, on the other hand, is more bang-bang bang!-get it into a fever pitch and keep it that way to the end. Richard’s cut is more romantic. It has more transition between scenes: it’s not a hard-cut film. There is more of a romantic form after the violence. That’s what he wanted, and that’s what we shot.”

Richard Governor did something very smart in this film,” elaborates Coulter. At the beginning, he shot not the effects, and not the stuff that Empire wants to show in their films. He shot the characters. He spent a great deal of time shooting them and shooting the gravy stuff, the extra stuff, not just the essential storyline. So when it comes time to shoot the stuff that Empire wants to see, that’s when you’re running out of time. But at the same time, he has a strong human story in there now.”

Although Tennant concedes with rancor that Empire knows its market, he also makes it clear that he preferred the director’s original cut, which was paced a bit too leisurely for Empire. “Empire knows their genre better than I do,” he states. “They know their market, and they’re exactly right about that market. But there’s not much you can do to speed up Ghost Town because of the type of film it is.

“A Western is just slower-paced,” Tennant sights. “It’s not modern day cops and robbers, where you have chase scenes with cars. It’s a Western, and you have chase scenes with horses, and a horse doesn’t go as fast as a car. It’s not a car screeching around a corner, it’s a horse turning a corner, and the two are different. You just can’t make things move faster than the period lets them.”

CAST/CREW Directed Richard McCarthy

Produced Larry Carroll

Written Duke Sandefur

Story David Schmoeller

Franc Luz as Langley Catherine Hickland as Kate Jimmie F. Skaggs as Devlin Penelope Windust as Grace Bruce Glover as Dealer Zitto Kazann as Blacksmith Blake Conway as Harper Laura Schaefer as Etta Michael Alldredge as Bubba

CREDITS/REFERENCES/SOURCES/BIBLIOGRAPHY Fangoria#75

Ghost Town (1988) Retrospective SUMMARY Kate (Catherine Hickland) is driving alone down a highway in Riverton, Arizona after having left her fiancé at the altar.

[wine-and-words]

Fine

Hey everyone. I wanted a place to share my writing and other thoughts without judgement, so here I am. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or concerns about my posts, or if you want to talk. I’m always here.

TW: Self harm, strong language, assault

“I don’t know how anyone could cut,” I say as I sit on Lily’s bed, picking at the loose thread in the blue comforter. I’m sitting on her feet, but she’s not making me move because we’re both cozy. I have a blanket thrown around my shoulders. She’s underneath the comforter. “Yeah like, I don’t know how you’d ever want to hurt yourself,” she agrees, frowning. “It doesn’t make sense. Besides, I don’t like blood.” “I hate blood,” I say emphatically. At ten years old, even the thought of blood makes me squeamish. The idea that anyone could ever hurt themselves intentionally is beyond me.     * * * * * I sit on the bathroom floor with a knife in hand, brow furrowed in concentration. I make slow, deliberate cuts, watching the way the blood bubbles up with cool detachment. I’ve always hated blood. I faint when I so much as cut open my finger while getting dinner ready. But this blood is different. It’s like roses, or like the poppies in Flanders Field— the way it blooms up, promising new life. The blood is sticky on my fingertips, and I wince as I gather it all up. I smear it around on my leg in a swirling, floral pattern. It’s paint and I am making myself beautiful. I’m fucking art. I cock my head, hair falling over my face, and I smile. Sane Julia, the one hovering over my shoulder to the right, is screaming at me. She’s not actually there of course, or maybe she is and I’m the one who’s not real. Sane Julia is hovering over all this, watching me as I sit there in a black bra and short shorts and slide the knife over my skin. You’re fucked, please stop, please please please please, she screams at me as she sees the smile curl my lips ever so slightly, watching me paint myself with the blood from my thighs. Sane Julia, innocent Julia, is always wearing the same goddamn outfit. She wears an impossibly short black skirt from American Apparel and a burgundy crop top that shows off a rounded stomach. My tits were bigger back then. It’s the same outfit I wore that night, as I’ve come to refer to the night that I lost my virginity and my sanity and my youth all at once.

I call her "Sane Julia," but I realize how inaccurate that name is. I'm not sane, if I was sane then I wouldn't have the image of a younger self floating around and screaming at me while I tear my body apart. If I'm not sane, and she's just a product of my insanity, then by definition she is not sane either. Nor is she truly innocent- the Julia that she's a reflection of had already chosen a path that led far away from innocence. 

When I sit there, I think in sentences. I can hear Sane Julia’s voice in my head too. 

I think, I need a black pen to draw more patterns on my leg, I need something that contrasts the blood. She screams, don't you see what you're doing? You're sick, please stop, you're better than this. Look at the blood. Please. Bitch, I don’t bleed blood. I bleed fucking poetry, I retort. When I get like this, when my head gets dark, I’m not quiet and scared like I am in the daylight. This Julia speaks her mind, even when it’s something impossibly rude.

He’s not worth it, she screams. She’s always screaming.

I ignore her.

I never cut more than two or three times. If I know I'm going to have sex, I do not cut my thighs. If I know I'm going to wear a short sleeved shirt in the next couple of days, I do not cut my wrists. I never cut deeply enough to scar. Often the cuts look accidental. Oh, I cut my leg on something at work. I fell and hurt myself. The cat scratched me.

No one questions it. No one except my friend, Lily, and that’s only because I fucked up and cut my wrists the day we were supposed to go bowling. and the blood soaked through my shirt.

I lean back to admire my work, arching my back like those models I hate, those girls who get paid for being pretty. My eyes slip down my body, over my breasts that have grown smaller with the weight loss, and then my stomach that is still not flat, even after all this time. 

I don't usually need to stick my fingers down my throat. I've learned how to think myself into throwing up. I just think of hands on my body when I do not want them, of laying back and accepting it; I think of my dead dog who was never buried; of all of the countless baby birds who died in my hands. I buried them myself, using my fingernails to scratch at the dirt until I had dug a hole deep enough to place their ice cold corpses in. 

Sometimes, when I am too numb to feel repulsed at these thoughts, I do use my fingers. I shove them down my throat and gag until my stomach is empty and my eyes are burning. 

Sane Julia watches me do this with the same horror that she watches the cutting. She begs me to stop, but it’s not that easy.

I've lost weight since the night when he pushed me into the couch and told me he would go slow, to just be quiet. Ten, twenty pounds, maybe thirty? Who knows. Maybe if I had been prettier, thinner, I would have been enough. Maybe he would have stayed after that night instead of tossing me aside like a piece of fucking trash. I was garbage to him, a fucking disposable Starbucks cup. He had gotten what he wanted from me, used me, and then I was nothing to him except something to be rid of.

Actually, fuck that. I’m not a Starbucks drink. I’m more like shitty gas station coffee. I’m trash.

Tonight I did not need to use my fingers. I thought of his face and his sweaty body on top of mine, and I threw up until I cried. My stomach is empty, and I have a headache. I have nothing left except a burning throat, like I've been inhaling smoke. I don't feel any pain. Instead there's this weird mix of elation and despair, the two sides of me warring against one another.  

Dark times like these have come with increasing regularity since that night. It’s been three months, almost to the day.  My mother asked me last week if I was depressed. I guess she noticed that I look like shit and all I ever do is sleep. I told her no, of course. A good religious girl does not get depressed.

She asked me if I was having boy problems, and I laughed. I told her no, boys didn’t like me. As far as she and my dad knew, I had never as much as held hands with a boy. How was I supposed to tell her that I had snuck around and had a thing with a boy who ended up date raping me? That would not go over well. They would kill me a hundred times over. A good Christian girl waits for marriage. She doesn’t get depressed, because she always has God to turn to when things get bad. 

I am not a good Christian girl.

Someone knocks at the door of the bathroom. “Ju-Ju?”

It’s Lila. She’s four, and my youngest sister. Everyone says she looks exactly like me. She even has a stutter, like I did when I was younger. She’s called me Ju-Ju since she could talk. 

I grab the hoodie laying on the ground beside me and slip in on. I always make sure that I don’t get blood on anything besides myself, and that I have clothing to cover my marks up with. Living in a house with eight other people almost guarantees that I’ll be interrupted at some point. It’s late though, so I don’t know why Lila is up.

“What’s wrong?” I ask as I open the door to the bathroom. Lila is standing there in her pink princess pyjamas, clutching the stuffed dog I bought her last year for Christmas.

“I want a story,” she tells me seriously. 

After I’ve read Lila her bedtime story, I go to my own bedroom and lock the door. I grab my melatonin, shaking out a decent handful and shoving them into my mouth. It’s the only way I sleep these days. Too bad it’s not enough to kill me.

The ceiling is that crumbly stuff that all old-ish houses seem to have. You know, the white bumpy squares that break far too easily? My sister and I threw a super ball—one of those insanely bouncy little balls you get at the dollar store— really hard one day and it hit the ceiling so hard that it snapped one of the panels and covered my bed in a fine white dust. That was years ago, and the dust is long gone, but there’s still a hole the size of a super ball in my ceiling. At night I stare up at it and wish that I could melt away into the blackness.

Lila wakes me up for breakfast the next morning. Dad’s made pancakes, as he has every Saturday morning for the past fifteen years. We’re all here for breakfast today, which doesn’t happen as often these days. 

I’m the oldest child in the family at eighteen. Next is Jake, who is sixteen, then the twins, Lauren and Sophie, who are thirteen. Jace is ten, Lexie is seven, and Lila is four.

“Julia, will you help Lila with the syrup?” Mom asks me. Lila is trying to pour it herself and has already spilled it all over the table. Lauren and Jace are having a heated discussion on whether or not corn syrup is real syrup, and Dad is explaining the economic crisis to seven-year-old Lexie. She looks like she’s going to fall asleep in her jam-covered pancakes. Jake is playing air guitar along to the Christian rock song coming through the radio. Sushi, our mastiff, is sitting by Sophie because she knows that Sophie never finishes her bacon. It’s chaos, it’s insanity, and it’s beautiful. 

It’s a good day.

I’m getting better, I tell myself as I make a cup of tea and settle down to read. I ate today and I didn’t cut. I’m fine.

“I’m fine,” has been my mantra for a long time. A boy, one who I talked to only briefly, snapped one day and told me to stop saying it because it wasn’t true. I told you, I only talked to him briefly. 

A friend introduced us, thinking that having a new boy to flirt with would distract me from what she called my “abject bitterness at being dumped.” After I told him off, they started dating. 

He was an asshole anyways. He told me to talk to someone, a professional. Told me I was fucked in the head and needed help. I considered it for a bit, but then I realized that there was no way to explain that to my parents. Again, coming from a religious family, therapy is frowned upon. And for all my parents know, I am perfectly fine and happy. 

Fine, fine, fine. That word is my anchor, my true north. Whenever thoughts of him pop into my head I push them aside and cling to the word like it can save me. 

I am fine, I tell myself as I head off to work later in the day. 

I am fine, I tell myself as I quickly smoke a cigarette on my break. It’s a habit I’ve only recently taken up, more of a hobby than anything.

I’m fine, I tell myself again as I clock out. This time the thought is accompanied with a sign of relief. I check my phone. There are four missed calls: Two from my dad, one from my mom, and another from my sister Sophie. There’s also a text from her.

Mom and dad went snooping. Come home right away.

I throw up in the work bathroom, then drive home. My stomach is in knots. Did they find my birth control? Or maybe the untouched bottle of tequila that’s poorly hidden behind my copy of The Pilgrim’s Progress. The possibilities are endless. I suck at hiding stuff and my room is full of contraband. God, it could even be the three seasons of Gossip Girl I have on DVD. The sex scenes in that show would give my father a heart attack. One time my dad saw the melatonin on my shelf and asked me if I was a drug addict. Maybe he found them again and is too dense to realize that I’ve never done any kind of drug in my life. I walk into the house and yell, “I’m home,” like I always do.

“Julia, come on up.” Mom’s voice is strained.

My mother is a beautiful woman. She looks ten years younger than she is, and to look at her you would have no clue that she’s pushed seven fucking kids through her body. She is always calm and collected and in control, and she is the kindest person I’ve ever met. People said I looked like her when I was younger, but when I hit puberty they started saying I look like my dad. My mom and I both have green eyes and dirty blonde hair, but there the similarities end. Where my mother is tall and built slender but strong, I am short and frail. She has high cheekbones and always looks happy. I, on the other hand, have cheeks as round as an infant’s and a resting bitch face. I look like a pissed off five year old. 

I look and act more like my father. He too is tall, with dark brown eyes and a firm face. He used to smile and laugh more, when I was younger. I remember him bouncing me on his knee and chasing me through the house to tickle me. He used to be happy. Now, our whole life revolves around Dad’s mood. If he’s happy, it’s a good day. If he’s stressed, you steer clear and toe the line. It’s been like that for years. I see the same traits in myself that I see in him—I am opinionated, stubborn and proud. I am truly my father’s daughter.

Now, as I walk into the kitchen with forced nonchalance, Dad’s face is taut. 

Mom’s is swollen like she’s been crying. 

This is off.  Something is wrong.

“What’s wrong?” 

“Julia, Macey showed us something today.”

As soon as those words cross Mom’s lips, I feel my stomach heave. Macey is my mom’s friend, and my best friend Lily’s mom. Where my parents respect my privacy, Lily’s mom snoops in her things daily.

I think of the text I sent Lily last night. The one where I finally told her what went down that night. I think of what I can say, how I can explain him away and make them believe I never did anything wrong.

“She showed us the pictures you sent Lily. Of your leg and your wrist.”

The words fall like pebbles in a still pond. The relief is almost instantaneous. 

They don’t know about that night. They don’t know about him. I struggle to keep my expression neutral. I sent Lily a picture to prove that I wasn’t trying to kill myself with the cuts. Looking back, that was a really dumb idea. Way to go, Julia. Fucking A for stupidity.

I pull up a chair. The scraping noise of the legs against the hardwood floors makes Mom wince. 

I am fine.

“I went into your room to try and find the knife. I found your journal on your bed.”

Fuck. I’m not fine.

The silence grows. And grows. And grows.

I close my eyes, breathing deeply, summoning that blanket of calm that surrounds me when I cut and purge. I let it cover me, smother the anxiety. I am calm. I am in control. I am fine. I smile.

I open my eyes. Mom and Dad are both staring at me. 

“What do you want to know?” I ask them.

“I read…” Mom chokes, sounding sick. She can’t finish the thought. I can only imagine what she read. After it happened, I wrote everything down in detail. The scent of lemon Lysol in his house, to the way his brown couch scratched my body as he pressed me down into it, to the way he put his hand over my mouth when I started crying. 

Mom continues. “I- I couldn’t keep reading, so I called Lily. She told us what happened that night.”

That fucking snitch.

“She told us that he forced you, that you didn’t want it. That he’s the reason for all this. Is it true?” Her voice pleads with me, begs me to tell her that this is just a sickening story I’ve created for a class project.

I am praying to a God I’m not sure I believe in anymore, praying that my parents don’t kick me out when I tell them. Standing to my left this time, Sane Julia is crying. She’s reacting in the logical way, sobbing out the whole story. She’s responding to this confrontation the way I would have, before everything happened.

She needs to shut the fuck up so I can think.

“Yeah.”

“Julia, who was he? When? I’ll kill him.”

I’m not sure who’s saying what. All the voices sound the same, and Sane Julia’s sobbing drowns them out.

Shut up, I tell her. I need to fucking concentrate. 

Tell them. For once, she’s not screaming. She looks at me, pleading. Just tell them.

No. I can’t. I’ll think up a story.

Please, just let them in. You’re killing yourself. Why won’t you just ask for help?

I pause at this. The secret is out. What do I have to lose? I’ve already disappointed my parents in every way possible. Could I just tell them everything and let them in? I’ve spent so long hiding things from them that the idea of letting my parents know me is terrifying. 

I take a long, shuddering breath. Sane Julia is quiet. I’m quiet. Mom and Dad are quiet. And for once, my brain is quiet too. 

I am fine.

[theunabridgedgamer]

Shutter (Vol 1 - 3) Review

Talking psychotic robot clocks, grand old school adventure, and cyber roman lion bounty hunters. This one has it all, and is one hell of a journey.

Also, bear in mind, minor spoilers.There is also one specific quotation from the end of Volume 2, but it is block quoted so it can be easily skipped. I try to avoid the majority of the story’s twists and turns, but some examples and key points needed to brought up. I apologize for the inconvenience.

So, without further adieu, this is…

Shutter (Volumes 1 - 3)

Writer: Joe Keatinge Artist: Leila Del Duca Letterer: John Workman Colors: Owen Gieni Cover Artist: Leila Del Duca Format Read: Collected Trade Publisher: Image

You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting to do this one!

Shutter is a prime example of what makes comics so different from other media. It is as heavily reliant on its vivid visuals as it is its razor sharp writing, and it blends the two (along with twists on several comics conventions) into a riveting tale of famed explorer and photographer Kate Kristopher dealing with the sins of her father while trying to figure out her own identity. Also, things like this happen:

Yes, that is an assassination hit being ordered in Sunday newspaper comic strip paneling. The story uses this sort of framing device at several points, actually, and while you’d think it might clash with an otherwise more “Gabriel Ba but somehow more intensely on acid than usual” aesthetic, it works remarkably well. In fact, the story seems to pride itself on continually breaking traditional barriers without even a hint of smugness or pretension. It knows the story it wants to tell, it wants to tell it as well as it can and it does not give a shit how crazy the means to tell that story may become.

It uses flashbacks sparingly yet has an incredibly complicated history for all its characters. It changes narrative framing to seemingly minor characters, building them up only to kill them off or shift course entirely until far later down the line, like something out of Urasawa’s Monster. The world is too complex to be fully explained in one series, let alone a single book. The sheer density of it all hits you like a freight train, and you just cling on for dear life as it rushes along.

And when I say it rushes along, I mean it flows fast as all hell. The sense of momentum to Del Duca’s art is amazing, and makes me hope that some day this comic will get turned into something animated. Each panel looks like a frame of animation given an extra polish of detail. You have to linger on each page and just soak in all the details. The earthy tones of the world give Shutter a rather grounded feel, and are contrasted by the bright hues whenever conversations get intense or bullets start flying. The layers Gieni adds punctuate the world when other colorists might have simply given the line work all the emotional reigns.

Owen Gieli’s coloring, lighting and shading, on top of Del Duca’s expressive line work and use of perspective; just absolutely astounding work all around.Credit must also be given to the lettering by John Workman. The lettering is not only varied and impactful, but the bubble placement is always directing your eye to the next critical moment.

The story itself is also quite endearing, despite the larger than life setting and progressively large cast of characters. At the heart of all things is Kate, daughter to the famous (and now deceased) explorer Chris Kristopher, and current travel photographer. She’s got a flat with her transwoman friend Alain and a talking robot cat clock. Life was always an adventure for Kate, but after her father’s passing, she’s tried to put those times behind her.

However, when a gang of rabbits, ninja spirits, and a robot start fighting over Kate against a lion mafia hit squad (yes I just wrote that sentence with a straight face), things quickly begin to unravel as all of Chris’ past choices all start to come crashing down on Kate. A quick visit to the old family home leaves Kate with more questions than a struggling 20-something ex-adventurer can handle, leading to a struggle to regain control in the face of a world determined to force her down a path she refuses to go down.

Among the early revelations for Kate is that her father sired several children, some of which would very much like for Kate to be dead, and others just as innocent as Kate in the ongoing schemes for power and revenge. Along the way, cyber-foxes, secret societies, and even inter-dimensional entities come to blows with Kate and her ever shifting group of allies.

If there’s one thing you are probably noticing at this point, it’s that a core focus of the entire series is on defying expectations and cutting your own path, even if you struggle for it. From the way the story is told to the actions of our protagonist, the traditional Campbellian hero’s journey gets tossed out the window in favor of a protagonist who actively says things along the lines of “no, f**k that noise, we’re doing this my way” and grapples with the consequences; which is part of what makes Shutter so interesting.

In improv, you’re taught to always say “yes”, no matter what, but Shutter makes a compelling argument for how much more interesting things can become in a story when you dare to say “no”. Volume 2 encapsulates this beautifully with Kate’s rant when she stands before a coallition of her enemies who have been pulling the strings and causing suffering for all those she cares about:

I’ve been trying to deal with it all. Sometimes very poorly and definitely too reactionary because I hoped it’d go away on its own. Sometimes I caved in and ended up doing some really stupid shit, like running off with a minor and possibly killing a fox or jackal or whatever she was, instead of using my brain. And the whole time you all keep relentlessly coming at me with this issue or that whatever, and I kept trying. And I kept messing up. Because everything you all want out of me isn’t who I am.

Everybody feels like I have to deal with their crap or alter my life to suit their needs and do things their way. But guess what? FUCK EVERYBODY! You all want me? You all got me! But on MY terms. Kate Kristopher is back. By popular demand. And she’s going to fight every one of you morons until your collective bullshit is straight up non-existent. Any questions?

So long, Hollywood bog-standard “the chosen one” narrative storytelling! While some stories have taken this concept and rolled with it, like Avatar: The Last Air Bender, Shutter does all it can to flip that notion the hell off and tells it to go jump in a lake.

It’s a sentiment that appeals to us all, dealing with a world that always demands more of us than what we’re often prepared to give, and is a universal story as a result. The at times absurd scenarios Kate and company find themselves in work because the unusual is normal in the world of Shutter. You can’t get lost in the grass critiquing a particular political angle or detail because the world is intentionally built to shut up that noise and get everyone to sit down and focus on what it’s actually trying to tell. It’s kind of a reverse mute-button, going full blast to keep your attention.

For example Chris Jr., Kate’s secret little brother, has to use a shotgun on someone at some point in self-defense. They address it and talk briefly about it, but in the context of survival and making snap decisions, not the gun itself. Alain being trans is a part of her character development, they even devote a flashback to it, but that’s not even a tenth of Alain’s character as Kate’s best friend and an awesome ass-kicker coming in to save the day. The existence of deities is known and some pay reverance to arcane aspects of the world but others don’t and no one blinks an eye either way. Ghost ninjas aren’t terrifying so much as a nuisance, with people dismissing their ancient moans as a running gag for the first volume.

it’s not that the story doesn’t obviously have a liberal slant, and it’s far from pro-spirituality, but also isn’t taking potshots at anyone (unless you’re part of an ultra-secretive Illuminati-esque organization, in which case, um, hi!). And in our current online and political landscape, that is a refreshing change of pace.

As if I haven’t gushed enough, it must also be said that good gravy are the amount of cogs in motion in this story just utterly insane. I wasn’t kidding when I said the story could pull Monster levels of bouncing about, with character development for the whole cast and a litany of sub-plots playing out. Also, unlike certain video games, these sub-plots do get properly fleshed out over time, even if the narrative can ignore certain plot beats for a time before bringing them back into focus.

There’s also a sequence in chapter 3 that goes so meta that you almost double-take at the sequence on display. It’s pretty typical for such a surreal universe to have a crazy drug-induced dream sequence, but Shutter goes out of its way to really knock your socks off, and that’s all I’ll say.

Beyond that, I fear I’d spoil too much of the experience for you describing what happens. The series so far has reached Volume 4, and I’ve got my copy patiently sitting on my desk as I write up this review. Each act of the story has taken two volumes, so I’d imagine it will take at least until Volume 6 to wrap everything up.

If you’re interested in catching up before Volume 5 gets collected, you need to decide if you are going physical or digital. Digital copies have been fairly cheap on Comixology recently, but I honestly plan to get the copies I have digital in physical form at some point. The volumes do cost $15 a piece, but the art is just so much more vivid in physical form, with some of the best covers I’ve seen in ages.

                                              In Summary

Shutter is probably one of my new all-time favorite series. It’s fresh, interesting, laser-focused and realistic of its limitations but also ambitious as hell within those very same boundaries. I can’t wait to see how Kate’s quest to solve the conspiracies and save her friends pans out, but odds are good it’s going to be one hell of a final fight. Until then, it’s going to be a very trippy, hilarious, poignant, and beautiful ride. Available at: https://www.amazon.com/Shutter-Vol-1-Wanderlost-TP/dp/1632151456/ref=pd_bxgy_14_3?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=EYFQSKZBNEHSEWH74TY8 For: $3.99 - 14.99 (Depends on if you get it digital, especially in the case of sales, or physical) Next Time: Giant Days (Volume 1) FOR REAL THIS TIME!

[fly-pow-bye]

Powerpuff Girls 2016 - “Super Sweet 6“

Written by: Haley Mancini, Jake Goldman

Written & Storyboarded by: Julia Vickerman, Cheyenne Curtis

Directed by: Nick Jennings, Bob Boyle

Not so super.

When I first heard this episode’s title, I was thinking this was going to be the Powerpuff Girls�� Super Sweet 6. I was also dreading to see certain “best friends” that would have been on the guest list. Thankfully, that won't be the case.

The episode starts with Townsville getting invaded by UFOs in the shape of Princess's head. One of them busts through The Mayor's window, and it reveals itself to be a holographic invitation to Princess's Super Sweet 6th Birthday Party. Hmmm, a spoiled rich girl having an extragavagant birthday party. It's just like that infuriating MTV show that was cancelled almost a decade ago. How topical!

The Mayor is invited, Barry the Illuminati Kid is invited, and even the Derbytantes are invited, in their first visual appearance since Princess Buttercup. They don't have any major role in this episode; it's just to show that Princess invited everyone. She did make one tiny exception.

Princess: (yelling in a megaphone outside of the Powerpuff home's window) I've handed out all of the invitations, so if you weren't invited...BLOSSOM...then tough luck! BLOSSOM!

Princess really hates Blossom in this episode. Some have interpreted this as Princess hiding her feelings about their friendship in Poorbucks. It's later implied that Blossom is the only one that bothers her to see the light, even if she knows it's futile. I personally don't see any real connection. She still invites the other two Powerpuff Girls and their father figure, and they take it quite well.

Bubbles and Buttercup are super excited about the party, even after hearing that their sister wasn't invited! Buttercup even tells Blossom that she must have done something to deserve it, blaming the victim. Bubbles and Buttercup don't seem to mind that this party is being held by someone who has tried to kill them at various points of their lives, but that's par for the course for reboot Princess episodes.

The Professor, the loving father figure who is usually the one spouting the moral of the episode, is also super excited to go to the party, even without one of his "daughters". He eventually agrees that it would be wrong to leave one member of the family home, much to the annoyance of Bubbles and Buttercup. However, he has to hold back his tears as if he's forcing himself to do the right thing. This is far from his usual character, and it only gets worse from here.

Because she wasn't invited and the Professor isn't allowing Bubbles and Buttercup to go to Princess's, Blossom throws her own party to cheer them up in a B plot. It's a foregone conclusion that it's not as good as Princess's party, but the episode really exaggerates this to the point of unbelievability. She forces the others to play a tax board game. Because Blossom is a boring nerd that likes things that no other 6 year old, 16 year old, or even 26 year old does. How relatable!

Needless to say, this doesn't please the other three, especially with the promise of tanks, cotton candy, and coffee at Princess's party. Blossom tries to sweeten the deal with lukewarm water and unsalted crackers. There's no reason for this, other than to hammer it in that Blossom is a terrible person to hang out with. I get that she could be considered the least interesting of the three, as she's not as rascally or as childish as her sisters, but she shouldn't be this boring.

Blossom tries to entertain them with some television, but the first channel turns out to be a breaking news segment about the best party ever that Blossom isn't invited to! She changes the channel to a very boring educational special about slugs. The narrator of the special, who isn't the missing narrator of this show, even outright says it's boring. Blossom seems to like it, because, as mentioned before, she's a boring nerd that people are supposed to relate to.

Unfortunately for Blossom and only Blossom, the camera zooms out to reveal that this slug is at the best party ever that Blossom isn't invited to! They could have made some good jokes about random shows turning into advertisements for the party, but they give up on the running gag pretty much immediately. Blossom turns the TV off, and does a different plan.

Blossom: No more TV. We’re just going to sit here and stare at each other...

Blossom: ...LIKE A FAMILY.

What is Buttercup and Bubbles supposed to do? If they go to the party without Blossom, they'll make Blossom feel bad. If they stay with Blossom, she'll bore them to death with her now exaggerated nerd personality! It's such a dilemma when Blossom doesn't act like her usual self!

Tired of all of this, the Professor tells Blossom that he needs to get more lukewarm water, leaves, and we hear his car going full speed ahead to the party. Just a reminder that this loving father left three 6 year old girls home alone to go to another kid's party. The TV apparently turns itself on, because the viewers surely wouldn't notice a continuity error, to show the Professor drinking this super coffee at the party.

Apparently enraged by this, Buttercup goes to the party to give Professor a piece of her mind, or at least that's what she tells Blossom. Buttercup ends up joining the party too. Blossom desperately clings to Bubbles, but her being boring really got to her, so she just walks away slowly. This joke would would be slightly smirk-worthy if the Powerpuff Girls didn't walk so often in this reboot.

Blossom decides to crash the party by waiting in the gift line. I guess we were supposed to find that funny because Princess points that out. All of her pieces in place, Princess finally reveals her evil plan: to lure the Powerpuff Girls into a trap to get rid of them forever. Gee, this villain was actually a villain this whole time?! She would do this by tying them up on the giant six candle on her giant cake, which is actually a rocket that will fly them into the sun.

There's one tiny problem with this plan that isn't addressed: why did she decide to not invite one of the three superheroes she was trying to get rid of? She does say that she intentionally didn't invite Blossom because she knew she would crash the party, but what if she didn't crash the party? What if Blossom wasn't boring and Bubbles and Buttercup didn't show up either? Really, all this "plan" did is force the B plot and the supposed moral of the episode.

Blossom tries to stop this madness, but Princess uses a giant cake icer to cover her in superhero-trapping "indestructable icing"! It's nice to have them actually explain why buildings-full-of-people strength can't get out of something even with just one word, something they won't do later on. Blossom tells Princess that the Professor’s there, and he’ll save them! Because that ordinary man should save these helpless little superheroines in this feminist show, am I right? Unfortunately, the Professor is too busy burning his esophagus by pouring freshly made coffee into it.

Yeah, I think that coffee has an extra ingredient to the concoction. He even scares off Ms. Keane at one point to get more of it. It might be a nod to that one time they dated in the original, but I’d go with coincidence. By the way, take a took at the once loving father figure completely ignoring his children being in danger, something past episodes have shown that he'll put above all else.

After that scene, Blossom is now suddenly tied up to the giant 6 candle along with her sisters, because the viewers surely wouldn't notice a continuity error. Princess lights up the rocket in the tallest structure in the room, surrounded by everyone in the party. Either nobody seems to notice this attempted murder, or nobody seems to care.

What makes this even worse is that Princess didn't even do much to them. No unbreakable diamonds, no Antidote X, not even any fancy icing, just some rope. These superheroes, who have once beaten up giant monsters, was able to survive taking a dip in a volcano, and had the strength to lift entire mountain ranges, are now trapped in the same way Bluto traps Olive Oyl.

As they get launched into space, Princess announces to all the party-goers that since the Powerpuff Girls have left Earth, she’s now the strongest superhero in Townsville. She even reveals a costume similar to the Powerpuff Girls', except with sleeves for some reason. Once again, the partygoers don't care that the reasons why their town isn't a smoldering crater are gone, and they all start cheering despite not seeing Princess do anything! Eh?

We're only at the 7 minute mark, and it's unlikely that the episode will spend 4 minutes on how the Powerpuff Girls escape from this death trap. The writers find a way to extend the episode a bit, and it's not a necessarily bad way. The cake suddenly starts shaking, and robot arms and legs pop out, and a certain monkey shows up.

We got Reboot Jojo in one of his better appearances in this reboot, which really only means that he refers to himself in the third person a few times. Also, no needless drag jokes! Reboot Jojo was invited to this party, and he wants to return the favor by ruining it. Because he's a silly evil monkey with a silly hat. I say "better" relatively here, in fact, just assume that every time I say the word "better" in these reviews.

There is a very, very tiny point to Reboot Jojo’s appearance outside of filling the episode's length. One of the once cheering fans tell Princess to save them, as they apparently believed that she is a superhero because she said so. She doesn't do anything, in fact, she cares about as much about her party being ruined as the partygoers care about Princess's apparent murder. Other than that, it's just to fill time.

Meanwhile, in space, we get the seemingly once-an-episode "I'm sorry I was such a jerk" scene. Bubbles and Buttercup apologizes, which I get, and Blossom apologizes for being so jealous, which I kind of get. They play sad violin music over this, because we're supposed to be sad.

The rocket flies toward the sun, the Powerpuff Girls seemingly not able to free themselves from the rope. They don't even attempt to do anything. They could eye laser the rope, they could use their aura powers, they could probably just squeeze out of it, but no, these ultra-super-powerful are apparently helpless...or are they? Back on Earth, Reboot Jojo continues to gloat about how he ruined the party, but just before he can say his name again...

We get a surprise Reboot Jojo beatdown from the girls! Unfortunately, it’s just these still images zoomed around with a little animation on the broken glass, and they couldn't even draw the Powerpuff Girls on-model. I guess they used the money they could have used on this on that amazing coffee scene with Professor "I don't care about my children" Utonium. I'll give them this: there's no Nike swooshes this time.

Princess is not amused, and asks how they got out of the trap. I won't spoil it, but I can see the logic in the explanation. She starts shooting at the Powerpuff Girls with her giant cake icer. Blossom uses her ice breath on the nozzle, causing the icer to overinflate and explode, because pineapples, and leave Princess crying about how this is the worst birthday ever while being stuck on a wall. This is the only scene that reminds me of My Super Sweet 16, which is a good thing.

Back at home, they find fun in playing board games with Blossom again, even though they’re playing that same tax game they were criticizing a few minutes ago. I guess Bubbles and Buttercup learned that if something is unfun, just pretend you like it and everything will be all good. I try to learn that lesson every time I watch this show. Doesn't seem to stick.

...and where is Princess’ dad, anyway?

Does the title fit?

A girl does have a 6th birthday party in this episode, and she is a spoiled brat, so definitely.

How does it stack up?

The Reboot Jojo scene is alright; I like how it ends with the beatdown that should be usual and better animated. The way they say they got out of the trap isn't too bad either. That's all the postive things I can say. Bad characterization, a forced moral, and I am getting sick and tired of damsel-in-distress plots in a show that's supposed to empower mothers and daughters.

It may not be the worst party this cartoon has ever thrown, but it barely makes the bottom three. The fact that it could be chalked up to the lack of magical twerking pandas isn't helping.

Next, Blossom gets jealous! Again! This seems to be a theme of PPG 2016 episodes, usually on the bad end of the scale. Oh, I can wait.

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