#slimy fortune teller

[bastardblvd]

gaze into freeloader!toji's magnificent crystal balls and reveal your slimy fate ( /¯ °3° )/¯*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

the fortune teller has closed up shop and ran off with the profits! see you next time – and in the meantime, use the tag #slimeball fortunes to view all posts.

[bluecollarmcandtf]

Dads, Dads, and more Dads

I did something I shouldn't have! My buds all bailed on our night out, so I hit the bar and got hammered by myself. Somehow, I ended up blackout drunk in a fortune teller's shop. I remember crying about how much I wanted a fatherly figure in my life. She did this weird ritual to make me feel better. I thought it was a joke at the time, but I know now it wasn't...

"Buddy, get out of bed! Breakfast is ready!"

A pang of guilt empties my stomach. For a moment, I stare at the ceiling with absolutely no urge to eat. It's been two days since that fortune teller put a curse on me, and I have no idea how to live with myself. I obviously can't pretend her little ritual wasn't real anymore.

"Hey, Josh," I nervously answer, stepping into the kitchen to look at my roommate.

"Can't sleep all day, buddy. Eat up!" Josh gives me an endearing smile that sends shivers down my spine.

A few days ago, Josh was a lazy, rude asshole who was only good for paying his part of the rent. We were chill enough roommates, but he only ever talked to me when he wanted a second opinion on girls he saw at the gym. The guy was easily the biggest douchebag in our friend group, always showing off and making someone else the butt of his joke.

Looking at him now, I'd laugh! If only I didn't feel so guilty for his personality's erasure.

"Look at the time! I better get moving. That yard won't maintain itself!" Josh flashes the brand new watch on his wrist. The thing is clunky and old: the kind of wristwatch you'd expect a dad to wear.

"You know we're only renting this place for the semester, right?" I search his expression for any trace of the slimy old Josh, "The landlord is supposed to take care of the yard!"

Josh just chuckles and mutters something about wanting to impress the neighbors. He even has the audacity to reach out and tussle my hair. My face gets hot as a guy, only a month older than myself, treats me like a child.

That curse really screwed up his brain. When Josh found me the morning after, something just broke in him. He immediately jumped to my side and promised to help me nurse my hangover, and it didn't stop there. After he tucked me in for a nap, he drove straight to the mall, buying a whole new wardrobe of cargo shorts and polos. I thought he was just hitting the gym like usual, so when he came back dressed up like the suburban father he hates, I barely even recognized him.

"Have a good day, buddy!"

Josh ignores my protests and plants a big smooch on the back of my head before marching out of the kitchen. It was bad enough my roommate was calling me buddy! Does he really have to kiss me like that too? It makes me uncomfortable to see my scummiest friend infused with such insane paternal instincts, but this is kind of what I asked for. Right?

I slam the back door shut and look at my rusty old bike. Today is already getting on my nerves and I'm not in the mood to peddle all the way to class. Maybe, that guy next door hasn't left for work yet...

"Oh, hey there, Kiddo!"

The deep voice of my neighbor makes me relax a little. I see all six and a half feet of him climb out of the car and stare at me with the same look Josh had on earlier. He's a father of four, but ever since my night out, he looks at me like I'm him his only real son.

"Hey, Mr. Jones," I mumble back.

"Glad I caught you, Kiddo. I was just about to pull out of the driveway," he explains, placing a reassuring hand on my shoulder, "You want a me to drive you to class today?"

I push aside my feelings of guilt and manage a smile, "That'd be great."

Mr. Jones beams back brilliantly. He claps me on the back, which knocks me a bit off balance. Before I know it, he's guiding me into his passenger seat and asking me to hold his briefcase.

"Just let me text work to let them know I'm coming in later than normal," he adds while texting on his flip phone, "How are classes going, kiddo?"

I shrug off the question with a one-word answer. Now that everyone's forced to act like my dad, I get asked about my classes like twenty times a day. My thoughts drift, but Mr. Jones keeps up the conversation, lecturing me about good grades or something. I don't know how a guy who barely knows me can have so many opinions about my academics!

"You know what!" I cut him off just before he starts reminiscing on his own college years, "Just drop me off at this cafe."

Worry lines form on his forehead, "Are you sure you don't want me to drive you the whole way?

"No. Just give me some cash."

Mr. Jones gives me a look of disappointment before shimmying his wallet out of his khakis. He counts off forty dollars and hands it over.

"Can I have a little more?" I press quietly.

Look, I know it's wrong to abuse this bizarre new dynamic between us, but I'm a poor college kid! If he doesn't want to give me his money, he can just say no. It's not like I'm holding a gun to his head!

"Sure thing, kiddo," he gives me a dry smile and pulls out a couple more twenties, "Don't spend it all in one place!"

"Ok, bye," I awkwardly announce and hop out.

"Wait!" his husky baritone calls from the car window, "You want a ride home after class?"

"Nope! Just go back to your own life," I yell stiffly. Even though I don't turn to watch him drive off, I hear his car pull away. It's just a car, but it somehow sounds disappointed in me too. I try to swallow the growing lump in my throat and step into the cafe for some much needed coffee...

"Morning, young man. What can I get you?"

The lump in my throat seems to get bigger when I see the waiter. He's a lot hotter of a man than I expected to find in this little cafe.

Already, the way he looks at me is shifting. That curse is transforming whatever thoughts he'd just had in his head. He's feeling more and more protective and responsible for me with every second he looks at me. At this point, I've grown accustomed to the mysterious effect I have on older guys. It's only been a few days, but I've seen so many random dudes go through this psychological transition. It's like they're discovering a new purpose in life: me.

"Uh yeah, I guess a cappuccino would be nice," I mutter with a dry mouth.

"You got it, young man!" he gives me a friendly wink, "Anything else I can get you?"

I know I shouldn't push my luck, but I can't help myself with this guy, "A hug would be nice! I've been feeling a bit isolated lately..."

The waiter instantly puts his pen and paper down and holds out his arms. His welcoming smile is gone, and a look of genuine concern waits for me, "Come here."

I practically leap into his arms, and he eagerly accepts me, pulling me into his chest like it's where I belong. It feels amazing to be held by this man, even if I don't know him at all. I could stay here all day if he'd let me.

"Seems like you're enjoying the hug," the waiter eventually chuckles into my ear.

For a second, I'm confused, but then I realize I'm fully erect and the waiter can definitely feel it poking into his waist.

"Sorry!" I jump back, searching for any other witnesses.

"Hey, don't be!" he assures me, "It's a completely normal part of life, ok?"

"You're not mad?" my voice comes out more timid than I expected, but I can't help myself. I just accidentally boned up someone who was trying to be nice. What makes it worse, is that he's probably only trying to be nice because of my ridiculous curse.

"Of course not," he affirms, "I can help you take care of it, if that's ok, young man?"

"What do you mean?" My face burns red hot.

"Oh, let me show you," he grabs me by the hand and leads me away from the table, "There's no need to be ashamed of any part of your body! In fact, this part can be a lot of fun."

I'm left speechless as the waiter gives me another fatherly wink, but I can't linger on what he's said. I'm being pulled into the men's restroom. I hear the click of the door locking behind us as he pulls me in front of the mirror, sliding up behind me. I can feel his chest on my back and his thighs against my ass.

If I was hard before, I'm practically bursting now!

"It's time you had the talk, young man," he calmly speaks in my ear like this is a completely normal thing for a waiter to do.

He starts droning on about men, women, sex, and where babies come from, but I'm not listening. I obviously know what sex is, and I think I'm having it right now. His hands slip under my arms and wrap around my waist to unzip my pants. My rock-hard cock bursts out of my jeans the second they're open, and a moan of surprised ecstasy fumbles over my lips just when the waiter gets to his point on male anatomy.

Does the waiter really believe a dad should do this for their sons?

He starts talking me through how to jack off. He must think I've never masturbated before, and I'm sure as hell not telling him that I have! Hearing him narrate every wrist movement, every ball tug, every nipple pinch is just too much fun! Before long, the waiter has me violently shooting on our reflections in the mirror.

"And there you go," he pats me on the back while I stand there stunned. The waiter steps back and looks at me like he's proud of the great life lesson he'd just taught me, "Now you know how to get rid of those boners of yours. Let me go get your coffee started."

I stand in the bathroom, collecting myself, as the waiter finally tends to my coffee order. This dad-curse the fortune teller gave me might be more fun than I originally thought. If I can get one daddy to randomly jack me off, then who knows what else I can do! Rushing out of the bathroom, I already have so many ideas flooding through my head...

"Excuse me, sir!"

"Sorry!" I shout.

In my excitement, I almost crash into the cafe's porter. A little less graceful, and I would have sent every single dish crashing to the floor. Glancing at the face of my would-be victim, I almost moan when I see get a good look at him. I can tell his head is already filling up with the same artificial need to be my father.

"No damage done," he assures me, lingering back to stare at me like I'm some lost puppy.

"Don't you...um...have to bus some tables or something," I breath nervously.

"Oh yeah," he frowns, "Sorry to get in your way."

He shakes his head like he's trying to lose the strange new thoughts in his brain. I stand there frozen like a deer in headlights as he walks away. He glances back at me before turning his attention to a cluttered table.

"Wait!" I yell, "Come back!"

The busboy drops the tub of dirty dishes and rushes back over like his life depends on it. The sight of this worried hunk running back to me makes me hard all over again.

I grab him and pull him into a hug, but his arms quickly take over and support me. Once again, my boner is rock hard and poking into the body of some random guy I just met!

"You have a car?" I ask.

"Yeah."

"You want to drive me around?"

"Of course!" he yanks off his apron and puts a hand on my back.

The waiter comes back around and hands me my coffee, looking at his coworker in utter confusion.

"Cover his shift," I demand, "He's driving me to school."

The waiter nods with an open mouth. He does look completely confused, but there's also a hint of jealousy in his stare. I think he's mad the busser gets to chauffeur me around: poor guy.

The porter doesn't seem bothered to be walking out of his job. He's busy smiling at me like I'm his whole world. I slide into his humble car and tell him where my class is. Before long, he's pulling out of the parking lot and driving me to school. I use our time to get to know him. I'm honestly not all that interested in learning about his life, but I do enjoy watching him talk. It doesn't take a while for us to get to campus, but before I get out I grab his hand and put on my best puppy dog eyes.

"I don't know when you get off work, but I'd love it if you came by my apartment. My roommate is trying to clean it up, but he could really use the help of someone more experienced."

"I love housework!" he just answers, "I'll be there!"

I snicker and slam the car door shut. I might be an hour late, but I'm finally here for class. It's time to give my professor a visit...

"Yeah, I can unbutton my shirt!"

My professor fell under my spell just as fast as the others. He had a look of anger when I walked in; probably from me skipping his class, but that expression quickly warped as he looked at me. Within seconds he was rounding his desk to give me a big old hug. Apparently, he "forgave" me for being so late.

"You like what you see?" he asks, gesturing to his hairy chest, "Trying to check out your old man?"

"You're my old man?" I ask, kind of surprised by the goofy smile on his face.

"Well, no," he bumbles, "But I am a strong male influence in your life! I'm like your dad!"

I nod my head like he's just made a really good point, "Oh. Then you probably want to treat me like your son. Right?"

"Yeah!" he holds his arms out to animate his enthusiasm.

Professor Reid has a reputation for being stiff and demanding in the classroom, so his new personality completely contradicts his true character. The man I know would never smile at a student, let alone bare his chest to them.

"So, I'm off the hook for missing today's class right?"

"Well," he pauses, "Sure."

"Can I skip the rest of the semester?"

"What, no. I want you to have a good education, my boy!"

I creep up to him and place my hands on his hairy torso, feeling the fur and the weight of his body. Professor Reid sure has a lot to hide under all those dress shirts he always wears.

"I'm just so lucky to have a daddy like you," I purr, "A daddy who's willing to do everything he can for me."

My professor grabs my arm and stares into my eyes. With a serious tone, "I am willing to do everything for you, my boy."

"Alright," I smile, "You should give me private lessons then..."

"What a great idea," he's back to grinning like an idiot.

"...and you should always do it in your underwear!"

"I can do that. From now on, I'll be stripped and ready before you come in!" He smiles at me like this is the best decision he's ever made in his life.

"Alright, now pull the rest of your clothes off," I command, "I want to see what the rest of my daddy looks like."

Mr. Reid doesn't hesitate to start stripping in front of his favorite student. I could probably get this guy to do anything now. I can already imagine our private lessons; me lounging in his leather armchair and him on his knees with his mouth full. Maybe that curse isn't a curse at all. Maybe it's actually a gift...

"Hey, buddy! How was class today?"

Josh looks tired from a long day of yardwork, but he still seems excited for me to come home. The lawn looks immaculate compared to our neighbors', and I have my roommate to thank for that.

"The grass looks great, dad."

"Dad! Woah!" Josh yells ecstatically, "Buddy, I can't tell you how much it means to hear you say that."

Josh sweeps me up in his arms. Apparently, it doesn't bother him to be the father figure of a guy only a few months younger than himself. It doesn't bother me anymore either. I kind of like that he smells like aftershave and bacon now instead of weed and sweat.

"Let's go inside, buddy. I'll cook something up for dinner," Josh says with a hand on my back. I'm already growing so accustomed to being guided around everywhere.

"Actually, I invited a guy to come over," I admit, "He can cook. You should relax. You got a lot of work done today, dad."

"I did, didn't I?" he smiles proudly, "Let me grab a beer, then. We can watch TV."

"Actually, I thought there might be something else you'd enjoy."

"You know me so well, buddy. What are you thinking?"

"You could bend over the couch..."

Josh cringes and shakes his head. Once again, it's like he's fighting the foreign thoughts entering his head.

"...I know how much you like to make me happy, and I really want to pound ass right now."

For a second, a look of horror flashes over his face, but it's gone in an instant. A bright fatherly smile spreads between his cheeks.

"That sounds perfect, buddy. Enjoy yourself."

Josh doesn't look away as he unbuttons his cargo shorts, smiling at me with love and devotion the entire time. He seems completely relaxed as he bends over the couch, and he only seems to become more comfortable as he spreads his cheeks apart.

Once again, I'm rock hard as I stare at one of my dads. This curse might have made me feel guilty before, but Josh said it himself.

I think I will enjoy myself.

Thanks for the ASK, Vebrendos

[ekat-fandom-blog]

Bounty Hunter AU but DCxDP

OK, so I really enjoyed my bounty hunter au, but I feel like I could make it more entertaining. This is a human au btw.

Some info: Bounty hunter is an actual job and are mostly called bail enforcement agents or fugitive recovery agents. They can legally pursue fugitives across state lines and break and enter their house without a warrant if they know the fugitive is there. They primarily pursue and apprehend fugitives who have skipped bail or failed to appear for court proceedings. Only 4 states ban bounty hunting; Oregon, Kentucky, Illinois, and Wisconsin. (I do not know if this would be mirrored in DC because of how many super villains there are.) The laws regarding bounty hunters vary state to state. Only the USA and the Philippines have legalized bounty hunters.

Danny becomes a bounty hunter out of spite towards the GIW. His goal is to show up the GIW bounty hunter group and rub it in their face. And to catch Vlad and turn in the bounty on his head.

Danny's gotten pretty good at being a bounty hunter. He's caught quite a few criminals and is on the case of another one that happens to have crossed over into one of the hero's territory.

Here's a few ideas of how this could go:

Danny goes to Gotham to catch Johnny and Kitty. Given that their aesthetic matches Gotham pretty well, they're able to blend in well enough that even though Danny's tracked them to Gotham and is loosely working with the commissioner, he has to resort to asking for help from the Bats. Neither side trusts the other. Danny nearly gives up when Johnny and Kitty go through another dramatic break-up that has nearly the entirety of Gotham gossiping about it. He finds them, handcuffs them, and leaves for Amity. Both the bats and himself are relieved to not be dealing with the other.

Danny goes to Gotham to catch Spectra. Her and her butler are slippery and wonderful at disappearing, but given the amount of poverty they stick out. This tips off the Bats' that something's wrong. Danny gets to town and while the bats do not trust him, he's working(sorta) with Commissioner Gordon. As a last ditch effort to avoid getting caught, Spectra and Bertrand join Joker and Harley. Despite the four getting along, Harley gets jealous which causes them to have an explosive falling out, catching everyone's eyes. The situation becomes Spectra & Bertrand v Joker & Harley v Danny & the Bats.

Danny goes to Metropolis to catch Aragon. He chose the place because he thought it would be easy to lay low and then start a new cult. He wasn't wrong. Danny teams up with investigative reporter, Clark Kent, to find the slimy ex-cult leader.

Skulker goes to Jump City to hunt Beast Boy. He, unlike most of Danny's other bounties, is wanted in several states. He's also one of the few to seek out Danny specifically. So when Danny shows up to prevent him from doing his job, Skulker sees it as an opportunity to use BB as bait. A 'two birds, one stone' sorta thing. Danny teams up with the rest of the Teen Titans to take down Skulker and save BB.

The GIW ends up chasing down the same fugitive as Danny (for different bounties) in Star City. Green Arrow has to keep the two from destroying his city.

Desiree goes to hide in Faucet City. She's laying low by working as a fortune teller(cliche I know) but the ambient magic is causing her reading to be rather accurate. Especially the readings about misfortune. This gains her the attention of the news and Wiz Radio Show host, Billy Batson. The news is how Danny learns where she is. Billy thinks that Desiree is a new villain, while Danny's just trying to figure out how Desiree became such a popular fortune teller while trying not to make a huge scene. The two meet and immediately clock the other as a potential ally in taking down Desiree quietly. Between how many secrets Billy keeps and Danny's constant off-the-wall split second decision making, it's like working with the Bats again but they actually get along.

and here's two crack-ish ideas for you:

Danny is standing just outside of Wisconsin while Vlad taunts him. Saying stuff about how sad it is that bounty hunting isn't legal in Wisconsin. Danny just calls the fricken cops on him instead.

Or instead of Danny calling the cops, he just starts leaving. Vlad is not done taunting him though and starts to follow him, when he realizes he's fallen into a trap and left the relative safety of Wisconsin.

[adamwatchesmovies]

Timecop (1994)

I think we’ve finally done it: we’ve found a good Jean-Claude Van Damme movie. While Timecop may have more than a few logical shortcomings, it delivers what you want from a mid-90s action film and unlike Bloodsport or Double Impact, this is the kind of picture you’d watch as a kid, revisit years later and find it still (mostly) holds up.

In 1994, we've developed the ability to travel through time. This prompts the Justice Department to establish the Time Enforcement Commission (TEC) to stop temporal criminals from altering the future. As police officer Max Walker (Van Damme) debates joining the force, he is ambushed outside his home and his wife (Mia Sara) is murdered. Ten years later, Max discovers that the man in charge of the TEC, Senator Aaron McComb (Ron Silver), has been blackmailing agents to set himself up as the next president of the United States.

Timecop begins with a cool premise. Anyone who’s seen a big company start from nothing has thought “What if I could go back and invest in them when their stocks were cheap?” From there, you can just picture the kind of scenes we'll get: as TEC agents rush to preserve the present while future weapons blast through speakeasies, time travelers pretend they're fortune tellers, etc.

Another strength is the film’s self-awareness. In any other movie, Max would have to figure out who the puppet master behind his wife’s murder and the blackmailing is, only finding out during the second or third act. This is despite the audience taking one look at Ron Silver and screaming “Guilty!” In Timecop, Max learns Senator McComb is dirty immediately. The problem is that time travel is such a powerful ability that you can’t just go and arrest him. If Max makes one wrong move, someone might travel back to 1994 and have him erased! Not that the film is all that cerebral. In fact, the time travel is a block of Swiss cheese compared to what we saw in Terminator 2 (released three years earlier).

The appealing premise of Timecop and the easily-fixable flaws make it a prime target for a remake. An example of a logical hole that needs filling is the TEC itself. There is more than one scene where Max returns from the past to find the future altered. He’s never briefed to find out if his (supposedly successful) mission has completely mangled history. Another flaw is the time travel mechanism itself. When you go to the past, you hop onto this high-speed canister thing that fires itself forward on rails. To return, you use a device you can carry on your person. Either make it consistent or explain why we have both. Finally - and this is going to hurt the Muscles from Brussel’s fans - there's Van Damme. He’s… fine in terms of conveying emotion but several action scenes feel like they’ve been inserted purely to show off the man's ability to do the splits or his muscles.

While Timecop doesn’t explore its time travel premise to the fullest and it doesn't take much effort to find an aspect of it that doesn't hold up, you could say that about many pictures featuring someone traveling to the past. The bad guys are sufficiently slimy and dispatched in memorable ways. The film understands what you want to see and then delivers. Sometimes, that’s enough. (November 12, 2021)

[wispisstillverybored67]

Thrill la Thrill

What's that noise behind you?

What's that shadow on the stair?

It's here. to remind you...

You'd better beware!

*yawn* We're there already? Wait, why were we here again? Um, let's see... His Fowlyness and that slimy prick had suddenly booted up the tank, and before I could settle on my side, we were driving off to the fortune teller's. I asked, but they both shushed me. Oh well. I should go get some more peanuts if there's time. I think I'm out...

Hey... Is that a blood moon hanging up? Right in the middle of fall too... Uh, did something come up?

Oh... His Fowlyness is finished here. Time to head back. The guys step on the gas and thusly drove back "home".

"Yo... What was the deal with the visit to Mabel? At least tell me what she said." I tried to get an answer from the boys. 

"Yeah. What'd she say?" Hey, one of the few times me and Escargoon are on the same page! That never happens.

"She says I have this ghost on my tail." I can practically feel the fear radiating off DDD. His tone... didn't change a bit.

"A ghost on your tail? I didn't even know you had a tail."

"Well I guess I don't stand a ghost of a chance." The boys joked about the problem. We all laughed a bit at the stupid pun, in a bad attempt to lighten the mood. Hahahaha... no.

"But maybe this is just some giant mistake. Maybe there's some logical explication of the whole situation!" His Fowlyness is gonna have a stroke if he attempts to figure out the truth.

"Sorry, a ghost?" Might as well join 'em... "Sure that wasn't just, I don't know, your shadow? His shadow? The mini monsters' shadow? Come on you two-"

"Hey, it's there in the camera too. You gonna argue with the camera?" I was gonna say something else, but then that slimy prick interrupted me.

"*yawn* No, not really. Well, I won't really care if there was a ghost on you. Unless they like peanuts. That's my only rule. A ghost can move in here, but if it takes rent in peanuts, we need to do something..."

"Yeah, picture sure don't lie." Oh my...

All remained silent, and good, until...

We hit the castle. "Wait what's up with that drawbridge?!" His Fowlyness was already screaming. Are we going to be squished?

"I don't know, Sire! It's actin' like it's HAUNTED OR SOMETHING!" Wait what? Hey, why's the tank slanting?!

*ka-thonk!* Dang it all... What was all that about?

"What was that for...?" I complained.

"Drawbridge never done that before..." And DDD complained too.

"Maybe that's the ghost's way of sayin' 'boo'." Why does that slimy prick keep insisting there's a ghost?

"There ain't no ghost!" We would've argued on this for longer, but the boys quickly got scared by something else. A noise, then footsteps. How odd. Maybe that IS a ghost. But ghosts don't have feet! So what's with the noises?!

It's... It's... Waddle Doo? "Ah... I'm glad yer alright, Sire!" How did he get there?

"You... We..." What was I gonna say? Dunno.

"Some guard you are!" "With an eye like that, ya should look out for the king's safety!" You tell 'em, boys! "The boys are in a horrible mood, so you better not make this worse!" I joined in.

"Well I'm sorry, Sire, but it wasn't my fault! Somebody must'a sabotaged the drawbridge!" he then claimed, motioning up and down for it's broken motion.

"Huh?" We all went. "Not a likely story!" I sensed that Escargoon was probably gonna go off on him, so I just took my cart out, and wheeled inside. Wonder what awaits me there?

______________________________________________________________

*a handful of minutes later...*

"Oh... It was a spook, I knew it was a spook...!" Ms Lady Like was pacing back and forth in the main hall (I think it was). Her sir was attempting and failing to get her to relax.

"Try to calm down, my dear!"

"What is it? Spill it, Like-Like." I was just wondering what was the proverbial spook.

Oh, footsteps.

"Great... Sir Ebrum and his gang of grousers. Now what's the matter?" Ah. Judging from that being the slimy prick's voice, the boys are back inside.

"Well we... We think we might've seen a-"

"A galloping GOBLIN!" Erm... She's probably exaggerating this... right?

"Huh? What's she talkin' about?" His Fowlyness was guessing just as good as me.

"I mean, it does sound rather silly, and there could be some perfectly logical explanation fo-"

"But we saw a ghost!" Alright, alright. Point taken...

"Uh, maybe it was just a pigment of your imagination-"

"But I saw it too!" And now Tiff (of all people) jumped in. And thus, she made her piece. A few hours ago (at least I think it was that time ago...), she was heading back to the main hall to finish something before going to bed, but footsteps overshot the hall, as if someone or something was following her. Between the surprised screams, I can tell no ghost had touched down here. She probably didn't believe in ghosts until now, either.

Is that so? Hmm... 

"That thing gave me a scare too." Thus, Like-Like told her piece next. 2 hours before Tiff came here, she was just watching a drama, too bad the curtains flew open. Though the sound of bats were lingering around, the thing that was imprinted on the outside world was a ghost. I think it then came inside when she shut the windows. So it's her that brought the ghost in? Aw... She probably pinched herself to see if she's not awake.

"...I had a rather disturbing encounter myself, Sire." With the Sir giving the last piece, that makes everyone. A day (I think) ago, he was down in the cellar in an attempt to see what needed to be replaced and what didn't. Too bad the ghost found out how to move some of the wine bottles around. Man, I'm glad he never saw the skeleton chained up down there... Hehe, a spirit among the spirits. Caught the pun.

"This is all way too conveniently timed..." I complained a bit.

"Oh, I see the plan!" DDD finally spoke. Huh? "When I move out, y'all take over the castle." What the hell. Mr. Prime immediately denied something like that.

"But if you did leave, I hope you take Clara and Escargoon with you." Lady Like on the other hand, didn't exactly deny that stuff either. At least get my name right!

"Look, if that would happen, I'm not goin' with them... I'm staying." I complained in the back.

I began to zone out as the group conversed a bit. Nyeh... I wonder where Kirby, Tuff and the mini-monsters, Fololo and Falala are? Um... They mentioned having something to do today, but I don't know what they said they had to do... Oh, is that Meta Knight? How'd he get here? When did he get here?

"Hmph... With all due respect, sire, I do find it hard to believe that you aren't involved with these... paranormalities." Is that a word? Erm...

"Uh... This ain't my fault, I get spooked by spooks!" Dedede scrambled to defend himself from the thing in the corner.

Everyone got impatient. Mmm... Why, though? Oh, I know.

Tiff especially was having none of that. "I bet it's another one of those monsters!"

"Is that so? Is this another plot against Kirby??" Even Sir Ebrum joined in on this. I didn't expect that from him. Well, to His Fowlyness, that is.

"Look, I ain't plannin' nothin' to nobody, and there ain't no ghosts 'cause there ain't no such a thing!!!" He's quaking.

K(that's me!): Oh really? Seems like the evidence is turning against it.

L: Then what was that floating in my window?!

S: Why were those bottles floating?!

T: There's a ghost here!

Against our mounting evidence, he quickly broke under pressure, and I think he lost it.

"AHHHHHHH!! THE GHOST IS AFTER MEEEE!!! AND I GOTTA DO SOMETHIN' BEFORE IT GETS ME!!!!" He screamed out in a panic, and then left immediately. The other one followed him to... wherever he ran off to. Oh no, wait, he just went to the direction of his room. Mmm... How tragic.

"*sigh* That was so weird..." I complained once they left.

"Indeed. I simply hope it won't reappear while we sleep." Oh, is the group gonna go to bed? Yeah, it's about time.

"I am sure it would keep to the outdoors. Now..." Ah, yeah, they're gone. Tiff and her parents left the scene. But Tiff herself is lingering. Hmm...

______________________________________________________________

...

"Oi, Tiff, can I talk to you for a sec?" I called out to her once those two left the scene.

"Yeah, but first off... A ghost haunting him?" she questioned while I walked up to her.

"I tried to get something out of the boys." I sighed. "Nothing came out. But I did overhear Mabel giving her verdict on this to his Fowlyness. Something like that is true, apparently."

"I have trouble believing this fully... I just hope it leaves soon enough."

"The boys should be back by tomorrow... *yawn* So I'll be off now... Hehe, don't let those ghosts bite." I told her off as I began paddling my cart to my room.

"I guess. Goodnight." And thus, we've gone our separate ways.

The hall to my room isn't that far. Just keep right until you hit the yard view, then go left. After about 15 minutes, I'm back to my room.

Ahhhh... This is nice... Just gonna cozy up in my blanket fort with a bowl of peanuts and a cold bottle of iced tea. Maybe I can crack open the TV and see what's on. Or not. Let the soft moonlight filter through the room.

Hmph... Why can't the lights get fixed soon enough? Wait a sec, they already fixed it, didn't they? I hate that they whir like that. Hate it hate it hate it. Let's see if they get fixed in the morning...

______________________________________________________________

Hate hate hate... That's a nice word, isn't it? Hate... Let me tell you how much hate we can stuff into this place since I got here. There are 3.84 million watts of electricity (or something) flowing through this castle in wafer thin wires in all angles. If the word 'hate' was sent in every wire's nano-something or other in these hundreds of thousands of watts, it wouldn't equal a billionth of the hate I can stuff into this castle for it's screwed upness at this microinstant. For this. Hate. Hate.

Er... I'm just watching my shows, right now. This one is based a novel on a young detective and her repeated encounters with a brilliant, yet insane serial killer. I don't exactly like the ending change on TV, but other then that, it's quite solid. Still, the fact that it comes on at night is a huge detriment. I'm trying to get some sleep here, you know? But I guess it'll be fine.

Oh, what's that at the window? Better check it out...

Walk up to the window, open the curtains, and then the window itself.

"Ah... You know, you ARE supposed to trail inside while the others do their stuff, you know..."

"Hahaha. I get that, but it's too funny to see people's reactions!"

"Just don't get too loud that they'll figure you out. We don't want our jig to be up..."

"Right right right. So you take the right, and I'll take the left, sound good?"

"Yeah, why not? As long as the target gets down there. How about you three... What do you think about your potential game plan?"

"A what?"

"Game plan? Isn't just doing what we're normally doing fine?"

"Poyo."

"Uh... I suppose. Okay... How about we meet near the men's room once all is dealt with, does this sound good?"

"Sounds like a plan! See ya later, Claire!" "Bye-Bye Clara!" "Poyo Poyice!" They leave for the windows on another side of the wall. When will they get my name right?! *sigh*

Now that they reminded me... I need to go put my makeup on for the big event. One moment...

______________________________________________________________

*30 minutes later...*

"Excuse me, Clara? Sorry to interrupt, but do you have a moment?" Meh? Sir Ebrum now? My makeup is on... How'll I excuse this?

"Nah, you're fine. *opens door* So what's it?" I'm covered in flour from head to toe, my lips are coated in barbeque sauce, my eyes are outlined in a fruit punch powder/thickening liquid agent mixture, my ears are traced with egg yolk in it's inner sections, my hair is capped in a straight black wig, and it's tips are dyed yellow-and-black with honey mustard and activated charcoal. I eventually kept it mostly shut, so he could hear me properly, but to not ruin my makeup or ask about it. What's it for, you may ask? Why, to scare off the ghosts with a ghastly wail, of course! Why do you look so sad?

"I recall you telling me about a specific song that can repel ghouls and the like. In the rare event that it does not leave after tonight, do you remember the title of the song?"

Oh.

"Blumenkranz?" I know this song by heart. I think he's talking to me first about it, since the dang ghost was seen there last, according to a report from some Waddle Dees 6 hours ago. Why does he say that I said that it repelled ghosts? I don't remember saying that. When we went over the book imports some time ago, I never said anything of the sort when the book of scores came up.

"I see. Well, in this case... Good night." Ah... He left.

Hey.

He never asked what Blumenkranz actually meant.

Everyone always asks what Blumenkranz means.

Even you're asking what it means behind that screen.

But it's fine.

I can tell you now.

But this may take a while.

You see... it translates to "Flower Wreath", or a, how you say, flower crown. But it carries a higher dignity then a simple flower crown... Only the strongest, finest flowers should be woven and bound into this shape. Withered flowers should be removed immediately. If you don't want to be upset by it's poorer quality, only bind the fresh flowers. A well placed one should improve one's condition, or at least their mood and posture. To bear a blumenkranz... is to take in it's near-weightlessness. But the finesse and dignity it requires to bear it with elegance and grace is difficult to utilize effectively... One who bears the highest quality blumenkranz demands everyone's attention, trust, love. At least, that's what my dad always told me

...Okay, ramble over. I have to leave now. But first... Peanuts, my cart, and computer! Alright... let's go.

______________________________________________________________

*10 minutes later...*

Let's see... Faulty lights? Check. Halloween themed snacks in the basement? Check. Cameras broadcasting that slimy prick's voices and turn it into ghastly wails? Check. Flashing lights? Check. Flappers going in and out of the windows? Check. Unknowing victims castlemates? Check. Languid maiden wheeling herself to where she thinks the king may be? Check. This may sound off, but all this is simply extra measures against the ghosts. I believe some other inhabitants will also be attempting a "Kill la Kill" deal. That's when you scare something by pretending to be it. It's referred as such because if you have to scare a killer, go and kill it. Simple. To scare a scarer, scare it back. Kill or be killed. Scam or be scammed. Scare or be scared. Thrill or be thrilled. That's how it goes here, at least. Although, all those snacks are reserved for me, I just hope His Fowlyness isn't hijacking it off down there...

*ssshwoon!* The heck was that? Um... From the direction it came from... and connect that to the direction it flew into... Shoot. The men's room has more guests...

Out of curiosity, I decided to go and check it out.

Now, I was rolling towards the boy's room to hunt down any stragglers. I heard screaming from this area, so why not take a detour? Okay.

*a few minutes later...*

The door to the bathroom is open. and I can hear DDD's erm... potty break from here. I was in the middle of the hallway, mind you. Oh... It seems it's not just him that's here. Why is he running to my direction?

"Klarissa! What the heck were you doing the whole night?!"

"Picking off any stragglers, what does it look like? You know... with this, no interruptions will be encountered, since I took care of the Waddles and whatnot."

"And the Ebrums?"

Oh. "No worries, they're off looking for the book with that song... What was it called? Said it repelled ghouls or something." I think... Didn't anticipate that, but I'm sure it'll be fine.

"The makeup? Really?"

"Listen, dumbass, I don't appreciate the constant questioning. If you waste anymore time, he'll ruin the whole thing. H-H-He-HEY! ESCARGOON DON'T LEAVE ME BEHIND IN THIS CRAZY-" Don't ditch me now! What was that even for?!

"Clara?! Get over here!" Is that His Fowlyness?! Why does he sound so terrified?! I thought he doesn't fear this kind of stuff! Hey... What's that noise behind me?

"Spot." I finished myself. With this, he ran out to see me from the bathroom. I froze. My face would've been warped more menacingly, but I just looked terrified. It looks suspicious, but I assure you that it's just for getting the ghost out. I'm not doing anything else.

You think Dedede could'a pulled this off? No.

Why do you look so sad? I had no reason to reject this.

What's with these ghastly wails behind me? I tensed up, so it kinda looked like I was nervous at the sight of the king, probably rushing towards me. ...Hey. I recognize those voices anywhere.

"AYYYEEEEEEEEEE! MY SAVIOR!!" I'M SAVED! I projected my voice into a demonic conaltro, but they knew who I was. He sure as hell didn't. I ran onto the mini ghosts like there was no tomorrow: with these events, it looks very suspicious.

I didn't exactly recall what he shouted at that moment, all I needed was them...!

Since the three chased down the king elsewhere once they shifted over there, I waited at one side of the hallway. It's exactly who I thought it was! Everyone came back. It was...

...

"I knew you had in in you, Tuff, Fo-Fa and Kirby!!" I exclaimed when the coast was clear.

"Hehehaha!" the former giggled a bit as he helped unmask the latter. "Told you we'd pull it off, no problem!"

"Yeah! That gave him ghost-bumps!" Fololo joked around.

"We sure scared 'em bad~!" I can tell that Tuff's feeling proud of himself for this.

"Let's spook 'em again!" Falala just read my mind!

"Sounds like a plan! Let's go!" I quickly wheeled off to our runaway king for this idea to work. I assure you, it's to set an example for the ghost, nothing else. If we have DDD vulnerable, he'll know what for, and not bother us again. Es ist fraglich aber wahr.

______________________________________________________________

*30 minutes later...*

Awaken...

My King!

Heed...

My call!

I have an axe to grind with this guy...!

It's time for the biggest event of the night! We have the king strapped down to a makeshift autopsy table, while a large axe is set on one side in the basement. A degradable wall is set to fall just off his feet, while the other one will crumble easily all over the floor. Praise! This is a fine opportunity of examples! Oh, in a little while, you'll understand too. Watch! He's gonna wake up now! He won't recognize me in the makeup. I'm sitting on the hanging axe.

A scream... then realization.

"Them ghosts finally got me!" Hahaha... The king's gonna wish he was never born...! We toyed with His Fowlyness for a bit, then knocked him out, and brought him into the place where there is no darkness (a lie).

The wine cellar and torture basement! This is usually where the tortured are exposed to mindless torture until one pisses off the torturer and gets turned into slime. But we don't have a slime-grinder, nor a large enough computer program in here, so it's been refurbished into the centerpiece, where we lay our scene. One night, we'll finish our due, we'll take our leave and go.

I gave Tuff the thumbs up, the signal to unhinge the axe. Let's begin...

*nyoom*

"♬Ich möchte stärker werden, weil unsere Welt sehr grausam ist, Es ist ratsam, welke blumen zu entfernen♬" I sang loudly in a dominating tone to drive a point. Isn't it ironic... The Ebrums had gone off to find the specific song from the library, and which song did I decide to sing, in a bout of irony? You guessed it; Blumenkranz!

I swung down close to him, and amplified my voice's volume whenever I did so. All he could've done was suck in his gut so he doesn't get bisected.

"That's cuttin' it too close!!" Yeah no kidding.

*nyoom* Another scream from him. *nyoom* How are you screaming already, when it barely begun?! Ah, whatever! The hair on my body is firing off, my gut is burning! Sweat is pouring! l LOVE THIS PLAN!

"SOMEBODY HELP ME!! I'M SORRY FOR EVERY BAD THING I EVER DONE!! OH I'M A GONER FOR SURE!!!!" "WAHAHAHAHAHA!!!" My laughter sunk up with his screams. With this leaking out, I changed to a different song.

"♬Woah-oah-WOAH-oah-oah-oah-oah-oah! Ooo, show me!" "♬Ja, ich bin viel stärker, als ich je gedacht hab, Fliege höher, Laufe viel schneller, Vergiss die wahrheit nicht Ja, ich bin viel stärker, als ich je gedacht hab, Ich entferne welke blumen, Wieso siehst du so traurig aus?♬ " Lalala lalala... That song simply doesn't get old.

The axe had to be brought back in for the next trick. I would've liked for it to last longer, but I get why. Now, I gave Tuff the OK. He then gave signal to Fo-Fa to push down the walls. First, the crumbling overcover wall. *ka-boom!* He seemed to have braced for pain from it, but he was super shocked/relieved when it was revealed to just be wet paper-mache and toilet paper. Then the miniature skeletons appeared. That was my idea. Mmm... I hope that ghost is watching! Watching and dreaming that it's not gonna be scared of this sight! Woooooo! I continued to sing my Blumenzehn mixture. "♬Ist der blumengarten echt oder falsch?♬" "♬Show me your looove~! Show me your love! Oh!♬" I can hear footsteps, it's sad but true. But I'm not worried.

And then, on my scream, the trio of ghosts fly downward, having donned their disguises beforehand, to circle the target in a medley of ghastly wails and evil smiles. The air is stagnant, and the scene is perfect. He even started crying! I'm unsure whether to feel bad or laugh! The song must go on, the show must go ON! 

"♬Was willst du von mir? Ich mag wollen oder nicht, ich muss den feind verfolgen, Ich bin nicht frei von dieser welt, Was willst du von mir? Ich mag wollen oder nicht, ich muss den feind verfolgen, Ich bin nicht frei von dieser welt♬"

After a bit of madness... He conked out. Whaaaa?

Tuff and I jumped down from our perch to observe. "Yo. That's peculiar." I commented.

"Wuh-oh. He got so scared, he fainted!" He realized.

Laughter came emanating from one side. It was Escargoon...! I can't believe the words... My savior...!

"That was excellent work, team." He remarked as he came out from the shadow. I hope he saw everything. What an exhilarating moment! "A trick like that deserves a nice treat!" Lollipops.

"Alright!!" We all ran to get a lolly before everyone else did. Mmm... I guess getting candy as a reward is the best thing for a kid, and I don't blame them at all, but you can also just buy these from the candy store down in Cappy Town normally. Still, it tastes quite good.

"And don't think I didn't forget about you wanting 'proper' compensation for this, Klarissa." *gasp* PEANUTS! He remembered! I ran back over quickly to grab the bag of the good stuff. First he's the only one to pronounce my name properly, and now this?! Ahh... This is the life. More for the pile. And these are pre-de-shelled, too! I am SO gonna take any more offers from him, I HAVE to pay him back after this!

"That was fun!" Fololo exclaimed what was on everyone's mind.

"So's getting candy!" Falala was more interested in what was in her hole. Kirby too. "Poyum~"

"I guess it's okay to help Escargoon as long as it doesn't help King Dedede." Tuff noted. 

"You said it. Could he ever work up these schemes like he does?" I told him, shoving the goods into my mouth. No. No he cannot. Can he think properly? I think not. This is a memory I'll forever cherish as the night we enacted our thrill or be thrilled scheme..!

Hahahaha... *fwush!* The lights flushed open, halting our victory. We looked at the other direction. Oh no.

"Uh oh!" Falala squeaked out once we saw.

It was what remained of the Ebrums, clearly annoyed that they were lead astray... and Meta Knight tagged along too. The book that held the score of Blumenkranz was promptly dropped by Tiff.

"What's going on here, you guys?"

"Kirby?"

"Why are you all here with Escargoon?"

Daughter, mother and father were looking for answers. Everyone shambled about, trying to find a way to salvage this discovery. Tuff laughed awkwardly. I followed suit.

"Uhh... Hehehe... Ya see, uh... *sigh* The jig is up. We're pinched for sure." I tried. Really. I'm afraid I'll have to tell you the truth. There... was no ghosts. There wasn't ever a ghost.

"U-Poyo!" Why is he so happy about this? This is most certainly not a good thing!

"It appears we've found our... ghosts." Meta Knight was half prying, and half expecting of what he was seeing.

"One of you had better explain!" Mr. Prime pushed us for an answer. Quickly. A lie is the only thing that pitifully planted inside our heads. How can we save ourselves from this? How can we save face...? How can we survive this night unscathed? Our "leader" took a step forward, and reluctantly ratted us all out.

"Alright. This... was my revenge."

"What do you mean?" Simple, Tiff.

And thus, the whole thing was explained. His Fowlyness likes pranking him because he's a coward. He's got a seemingly bottomless imagination of ways to drive him... mmm... "crazy". Simple jump scares, locking rooms, dark and light contrasts, freaky costumes... Could be anything, really. But, judging by his tone, he seemed... guilty from this. But why? He's the one who started the whole thing! The one who brought us all together for the night for this prank!

"And so that is when I decided to turn the tables and make him the victim for a change...!" Yes... he's tearing up right now. But why?

Wieso siehst du so traurig aus? I whispered to myself. I'd ask out loud, but I don't wanna get hanged, drawn, and quartered for treason. But I DID take it far, so I should probably own it to not be the only one among us to live. I'll ask later. Why do you look so sad?

"Well... That's tragic, isn't it?" I don't understand, Mr. Prime. It's not tragic at all. It shouldn't be.

That slimy prick continued with the schpiel. I'm sorry I lied to you. I was onto this the whole time. Kirby, Fololo, Falala, Tuff, Klarissa, and Escargoon... We were the ghosts that roamed the castle to seek revenge, just as she said...! I'm sure you don't trust me with things as much, since you believed in me so... H-Hey! What do you mean I was awful at hiding this from you?! Where do you get all that... Anyways... He spent hours planning every detail of this elaborate, golden scheme before tonight. Breaking into the vault to get enough Denden to bribe Mabel with... Boobytrapping the drawbridge, and making sure Waddle Doo was kept in the dark... Editing the camera so a ghost appeared behind him... Even recruiting us all into his Ghost Squad...

"Just to get back at that beast...!" I hear you. He WAS a beast. But I haven't heard that 'til just now. He approached me one afternoon privately. He whispered to my ear. I had no reason to reject him. I have no reason to reject this. And here I was, facepalming in embarrassment, hoping for this moment to just be a daydream, or to die on the spot. That was me. When I had taken so much joy in making the king wail... Why do you look so sad? Why do we look so sad?

"It appears you were able to shamboozle us all..." Meta Knight trailed off, bringing some of us relief. Relief that at least he wasn't mad. Against better judgement, I slowly uncovered my face.

"By Jones, you certainly had me believing in ghosts!" Mr. Prime remarked. Someone such as him could've fallen for it any day. I'm just surprised Tiff fell for it...!

Like-Like on the other hand was having none of it.

"Tuff, I'm ashamed of you!" Kind of expected for now, isn't it?

But then again, neither was he.

"King Dedede's ALWAYS doing somethin' to scare us; why shouldn't we scare him?!" "Poyo." Now they were both defending their new "friend", and their actions. Well, I don't know about Kirby. I think he's still eating the lollypop.

"Eh..." I stammered out a bit. He's not WRONG, but...

"Clarice?" Meta Knight blurted out.

"Hmm?" What does he want.

"I just cannot understand why you would do this. You say that you're 'carefree and unflappable'... but the revenge idea just does not make sense." Well...

"Oh, is that so? Well, that's because I have no cause for it."

"So you weren't pranked by the king? How-"

"No no, I was. Anyone he knows gets pranked in under 2 weeks, and you of all people should know. I think, yeah. You were there for that part, you know? He used to have some fun with me, you know. But he got bored of it ever since he tried switching the hot water in the ladies' room with boiling water."

"But then why-" Hmm?

"Oh it's nothing, Tiff. See, I legitimately am carefree and unflappable, like I said. You think that's a good thing... But when you're like that all the time, your whole world just sorta becomes... dull. Nothing can excite you anymore. Nothing can reach you anymore. Everything bores you now."

"And on your apparent disliking of him?" On my disliking of who? Ah...

"I'm going to ignore you mispronouncing my name, Meta Knight. But you'll get it soon enough. Because yeah, we just do NOT get along. Can't stand his smug attitude. Honestly? I'm looking for cheap thrills. I don't care if it's coming from someone like him, as you can see. Truthfully, if siding with Escargoon means I can go get THIS level of thrills... What does it matter if we're vitriolic? I honestly don't see the problem."

"Is that so?"

"Yes. He approached me for this trick on his own accord. You were there for that part, I believe. I was going to cut out most of my 19 hours of sleep for this joke. And the proof is in the lolly. A fitting payment for the fulfillment of his wish. No?" I held it out in front. It was sort of small. "Normally, I work for peanuts, but for this, I made an exception.

"Fitting?! This is simply a petty trick!" She's STILL not over it?

"So you say, Like Like. But it's as Tuff said. If the king is constantly pulling worse pranks on us, what does it matter if this gets pulled off? This, ultimately, is the hardest I've ever worked for a single piece of candy, and I'll gladly do this again, if it means getting a shred of THESE thrills... Besides, I suppose making His Fowlyness faint is nothing compared to the stuff he pulled with us~"

"Pardon? Like with what?"

"Look at my neck. Do you see this mark? Do you see this? Do you know where this came from? You probably already anticipate this answer. Yes, this is no thanks to him. His latest prank on me was, as I said, overloading the water load in the woman's bathroom, so when I would use the sink, it would splash boiling water everywhere. Sounds dramatic, of course. But it's true. 'Course, I'm no coward. He is. I'd never get a good reaction, but he did. So this is the last prank on me. But you know what, honestly? You could say it kinda circles back to what he said. 'Just to get back at that beast' or something, you know~?" This is probably going over your heads... so just take it as it is.

"So that's it, huh?" Tiff finally realized it all. Right back at ya.

"Exactly. And now, with this truth in your grasp, we all can say that this Escargoon Squad finally got their revenge." I popped out some sunglasses, and put them on, so it would look cooler once I said the "got our revenge" part.

"Well, I guess bad things happen to bad kings!"

"That's bad karma to you! Ohohohohohohoho!" We all broke out into laughter after I spoke. I'm just happy he's perked up from it. I can't fathom on why he felt guilty, but I'll ask that later...

"Ya sure had me shooken." WOAH! He's awake?! The king's awake?!

Everyone was also quite shocked at this turn of events. I would be, too.

"Ah! Sire-!" 

"You sure went through a lotta trouble, and you got me good." Okay, I don't get THIS. Why is he so relaxed on this? Normally he'd have our heads any other day. Why is he not flipping out.

And he's... admitting that this is his fault?! What happened to him that made him act like this? Oh, I knew we should have simply hypnotized him asleep instead of hitting him with his hammer! Is he... Does that slimy prick not see anything wrong with this? Put this behind us... When has DDD ever done that? I know where this is going. I've seen it in a play. No boys, you're NOT buddies! Oh...

"You're free. Now let's put this whole thing behind us...!"

"My chum... Or should I say: my chump."

*WOOSH!* 

"NO FOOL MAKES A FOOL OUTTA KING DEDEDE!!" THERE IT IS! THERE'S THE BEAST!!

"HUH?! Does this mean you're still mad at me?!" Yeah, no kidding!

"QUIEEEEET!! YOU JOKESTERS THOUGHT YOU SNUCK OUT THE LAST LAUGH?! WELL THE LAUGH'S ON YOU!!!"  Ayeeeeeee!!! No no no! Run for it! Us ghosts ran like mad out of the basement.

______________________________________________________________

*5 minutes devoted to sprinting later...*

"YER ALL GONNA BE GHOSTS WHEN I CATCH UP WITH YA!!!"

I think he's still behind us. He's still behind us. He's still behind us he's still behind us he's still behind us he's still behind us he's still behind us he's still behind us... Wait, what's that flying overhead? Oh, no use worrying, just keep running!

"Oooooooo..." The thing went on as it flew closer to us, then past us. We stumbled, then stopped, stumped. "A ghost...?" I thought aloud. It was honing on His Fowlyness...

"Hehehe! Can't fool me this time, Kirby!!" Your Fowlyness. That's not...

He tried catching it, but it just phased behind him.

"Kiiiiiiiiing Dedede~" It speaks?! Oh no. It turned around to face the one it wanted. The aforementioned king was stumped, like us.

"Uh... Kirby? Fololo? Falala? So who's that over-" His Fowlyness stopped just when he realized it. Fear warped across his face, so he just ran. Away from that thing. Yeouch!

"Pay what you owwwwwweee..." It went on like that as it chased him around. I shrugged to the group, then followed after 'em. They followed as well.

...

*5 more minutes devoted to sprinting later...*

I must've lost sight of the group, I ended up in the throne room... First the ghost came in, holding a sack of Denden, and taking it with it to that monster portal in the middle. Hey... Was that needed?

"A gold digger ghost...?" Wow, seems like the man of the hour's perplexed from these events as well. Everyone not named DDD files in here, circling in front of the TV to get some answers. Since that's where the Sales Guy makes fun of him through.

"What the hell." I blurted out in a dead-pan.

"What's this all about?!" Something the man of the hour didn't preparer for.

The TV suddenly flashes on. Yeah, it was the Sales Guy alright! "Overdue bills. King Dedede owed us big-time, and this was the only way we could collect. Ta-ta~" It turned off as quickly as it flashed.

What the hell.

"WOW Escargoon! Looks like yer tricks costed the king a lotta money!" Tuff shouted on an impulse.

"He DESERVED it! Life ain't a free ride, kid, you gotta pay for everything!" He's owning it now! Hahaha... I knew he had it in him.

*click!* Again?! The doors flung open. We faced the target.

"Heh. That's right." DDD's tone was just dripping with ill intent. "Now you're gonna pay BIG TIME!!!" Ayeeeeee! Get me outta here! Oh I wish Marx was here to see this...!

[praeteritus-memories-muses]

Name: Noriaki Kakyoin

Series: Jojo's Bizarre Adventures

Continuity: Anime / Canon divergent ending

Age: 17 - 28 - 40

Height: 5'10"

Birthday: July 27th 1970

Birthplace: Japan

Orientation: Bisexual

Species: Human / Stand user

Occupation: Stand Historian and Researcher for the Speedwagon Foundation

Father: Unnamed

Mother: Unnamed

Cousin: Ryoko Kakyoin

Stand: Hierophant Green

Bio:

Noriaki Kakyoin is a natural stand user, inherieting the ability to have a stand from his grandfather whom he never met as he passed away before he was born. He was able to see his stand from birth, no one without a stand could see one after all. Even though he grew up in Morioh, it was before certain cases that caused a huge influx of stand users. Prior to 1985, stand users were incredibly rare and were confused for psychics and fortune tellers. As stand users were rare, Noriaki grew up feeling alone and scared that no one else could see his stand, Hierophant Green. He began to isolate himself because he didn't want to be seen as a freak. By the age of eleven, his parents and teachers were already deeply concerned and how far he'd go to isolate himself from other children. As close as he was with his cousin, Ryoko, even she never knew about his stand.

Yet Noriaki would remain strong and proud despite not speaking to others. If someone were to truly get to know him, he's a natural born leader and incredibly intelligent. As he has been able to use his stand since the age of five, he's extremely skilled in using Hierophant Green who's abilities cause it to shoout out emeralds and enravel itself into a slimy rope-like substance.

Thinking maybe Noriaki should see the world to help come out of his shell, his parents took him on a trip to Egypt. His father is a translator so he already traveled frequently so it was decided they would travel around as a family in hopes that Kakyoin would finally come out of that mysterious shell. At first, the trip was actually rather fun! There was much to learn and study among all the pyramids and the interesting city of Cairo. Everything felt like it was going well, until he was approached by someone.

The man towered over him, and he had inhumanly sharp teeth. When he spoke, it was in a tone like that of a sweet poison. Kakyoin wanted to run away from him and get back to his parents, but he found himself frozen in fear at the sight of this man. He spoke to him kindly, asking him to join him because of his stand. Yet Kakyoin had no idea how this man knew anything about Hierophan Green!

The strong and prideful Kakyoin had no choice but to smile and nod out of pure fear of this man who immdiately put a parasite into his head that would brain wash him. It was the most humiliating experience Kakyoin will ever know, it damaged his own strong pride and he vowed to never let himself face that again.

Brainwashed by the man, named Dio Brando, he went to go kill Jotaro Kujo who's the youngest in the Jostar family. In a battle with Hierophant Green with Jotaro's stand, Star Platnium, Kakyoin lost and Jotaro managed to remove the parasite from Kakyoin's brain.

Incredibly greatful to the Joestar family and Jotaro's kindness to spare his life, he knew he owed his life to him. Even meeting Jotaro's wonderfully kind mother, who immdiately collapsed as her own stand was slowly killing her, Kakyoin vowed to help Jotaro in defeating Dio.

The four of them, later five and six, would journey across Asia and the Middle East with all kinds of battles and adventures together throughout. For once, Kakyoin was finally feeling like he could open up to people and genuinely had people he could call friends that he could relate to. To think all it took was one moment where his pride was destroyed for him to regain it and friends.

The night would finally arrive in Cairo where everyone was ready to face off Dio. It was Kakyoin facing off Dio with Joseph Joestar, but unfortunately Kakyoin had lost the battle. He was thrown by Dio, using his stand The World, far off into a water tower where he was close to death. He nearly died had it not been for the miraculous recovery of the Speedwagon foundation.

Kakyoin currently has scars on his eyes, from an attack by an enemy stand user in the Egyptian desert, and walks with a slight limp from the severe damage he took from Dio's attack. He's told that he'll have to start walking with leg braces and will have to start wearing glasses by the time he's 28 from how badly he was injured in the fight. He was even told that he'll be bound to a wheelchair by the time he's 40 years old. Yet the point was that he was alive, he gets to continue living in a world with the Joestar's and Dio defeated.

Kakyoin is a very kind young man. He's quiet and serious sometimes, but he can be very sweet and friendly depending on the person. After returning from Egypt, he felt this newfound energy from a near death experience to come out of his shell and accept his new self as a leader. He's currently running for student council president at school in his final year and has plans to become a Historian after high school.

After graduating, Kakyoin works with the Speedwagon foundation in researching the history of stands. In 1999, he moves back to his hometown of Morioh and helps Jotaro Kujo in an investigation regarding stand arrows and his uncle, Josuke. After that, he stays in Morioh as his permanent home as he wants to help all the youth learn to control their stands. Though he does travel due to his work as a Historian. Especially in 2011 when he makes an immdiate trip to try and help Jotaro's daughter, Jolyne.

Kakyoin's stand is Heirophant Green, a long range stand that can unravel itself into a tentacle-like string. It has multiple uses such as binding itself around enemies to prevent them from getting away much like a rope, unraveling itself to build a rope-like barrier or even posessing a human using it's tentacles. Though Kakyoin refuses to use his stand to posess people, regardless of what kind of person it is, because it kills them. His stand can also shoot out emeralds from the palms of it's hands that he calls the 'emerald splash'.

[skxllz]

I'm terrified of bugs, so there's no way I'd survive in the st universe. slimy creature that opens up like one of those paper fortune tellers? fuck fear, I'll puke and then get eaten from not paying attention.

[detective-seong]

"Red String of Fate"

PLOT: With his sister's nonstop insistence, Mark Hoffman goes to a popular fortune teller to have his fortune checked.

ONESHOT

*Takes place in Mark Hoffman's rookie days, somewhere around 1992 when he was probably 27.

*Slight mention of my SAW OC Seong Mi-Young :3

*Also slight Avatar: TLA reference :D

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

"This is a dumb idea." Mark grumbled as Angelina tugged on his arm.

"C'mon it'll only take 5 minutes! Besides, I want to know whether I'll be seeing a sister-in-law soon." She smirked as they were nearing the tent of this so-called "fortune teller".

"Ugh, fine. But only this one time." Mark was practically pushed into the tent as the scent of burning incenses invaded his senses.

"Good evening Madame Wu, this is my big brother, Mark." The old woman looked up from her book and smiled softly.

"Ah yes, the police officer. Welcome young man, what brings you here?"

"He'd like to get his fortune checked, specifically his love- hmph!" Mark clamped a hand on her lips as she angrily tried to pry it off.

"Just tell me what my luck in the future will be- or whatever you predict." Madame Wu simply chuckled and motioned for him to sit in front of her, letting his hand go once he felt Angelina's slimy tongue on his palm.

"Angel that's disgusting!" She stuck her tongue out to him as she skipped her way to the entrance.

"I'll leave you two alone. Make sure you ask her about if you'll ever get married!" She giggled, getting out of sight as Mark grumpily took a seat.

"So.....what do you see in my future?" Mark asked awkwardly. He really had no idea how this fortune telling thing worked.

"Hmm, let me see your hand," he hesitantly held one (the one Angelina didn't lick) out to her as she closed her eyes and traced the lines on his palm. "I see in your future that you will live a life full of hardships and suffering. So much so that you will reach the point of no return."

"What does that mean?" Mark still couldn't believe all of this but there was no doubt what she just said caught his attention.

"Mark Hoffman, I'm afraid that I see darkness slowly forming in your heart and soon enough you will unleash that darkness onto others," he involuntarily gulped. "However, much like your choice to serve and protect, you have the choice- the chance, to reshape your destiny."

Opening her eyes, Madame Wu peered straight into Mark's steel blue eyes.

"Young man, I warn you, do not allow this darkness to overtake your heart. Instead, allow it to see the light." Mark didn't know what to think of it. Whatever it was, he hoped what she said was just a bunch of BS.

"And uh....my love line?" She raised an eyebrow at him and smiled softly.

"Ah yes, of course. Hmm, I see in your love line a very beautiful young woman with a heart of gold," he unknowingly leaned in closer. "But, I am afraid that you won't be meeting her anytime soon."

"Huh? Why not?" Mark frowned.

"As of now, your bride-to-be is not yet of marrying age."

'Oh great, a minor." Mark thought, mentally facepalming himself.

"So when do I meet her?" Madame Wu thought for a moment.

"Most likely in over a decade from now," Mark groaned. He hated to admit it, but he was actually hoping he'd get married before 40 at least. "However, no matter how long or how tangled it gets, the red string of fate never breaks. So do not worry, you will meet your soulmate when the right time comes."

Retreating his hand back, Mark gave his pay and left the tent as an excited Angelina jumped up at him.

"Soo~ what'd she say? Are you gonna get married or not?"

"She did say I'll meet my "bride-to-be" soon-" she hitched her breath. "in over a decade from now."

"AWW MAN," she pouted. "I was hoping I'd be an aunt before graduating."

"Don't get your hopes up." Mark said, pulling her under his arm and giving her a noogie.

"Hey!"

"That's for licking my hand you weirdo." He chuckled, letting her go as they headed back to his car.

[time-to-write-and-suffer]

Just saw ur post mentioning that u had some story ideas. I am intrigued. If you're comfortable sharing of course would you mind telling us a bit more. I love to see ur idea process and you taking about ur wips. It's really interesting and quite fun to read.

Oh sure! They're only seeds for ideas that I'm sort of playing with so it's nothing grand or involved, but I guess they could be fun to share anyway!

So one idea evolved from a fae story concept I had about a fortune teller whose biggest scam -- letting people know who their soulmates were -- turned out to be real, and then when a gang of hot fae dudes showed up to the carnival they worked at they saw that they were the main dude's soulmate. But they're afraid of commitment and sorta lied to him that he had no soulmate, then fuckin ran for it. So it'd be like a cat and mouse thing where one of them is like "noo pwease stay with me we could be great together" and the other one's going "noo I don't wanna I wanna be free and also intimacy scares me goodbye".

That was the initial idea. And then I went "what if I remove the fae shit and the soulmate crap and add in my priest kink and then flip it around" and then I got an idea abt this hot cool paladin dude who tries to chase down a scoundrel and a rat bastard who's like "babe ... ur too sexy to obey that vow of celibacy ... but your priest uniform is so hot" and then it'd be like shit about how religion can be a tool to oppress people and abt the priest finding out his kindness and goodness has nothing to do with his god and is innate, meanwhile the criminal learns that while there's no proof that there's a heaven or hell there's still value and holiness in doing good. And then they fuck on an altar under a stained-glass window or something idk.

Now my third and final idea is inspired by this book series I've been reading called Elven Alliance and I really want to try writing something that's all abt royalty and arranged marriages and fancy ppl scheming and shit, but I'm too stupit so I don't have anything beyond the initial premise of a queen having three daughters, two of them being royals who were born to the dead king and the oldest being from her first marriage. And they've been at war with [insert hot people race here] and while there's been a ceasefire for many years, there's still no peace. So the queen tries to convince the king of the enemy nation to marry his two brothers to her two daughters. And the protag assumes she's safe because she's technically not royalty. But unfortunately she's hot and sexy and badass and one of the enemy princes is kind of a slimy spymaster type, so he's like "I think I should marry the non-princess daughter of the queen. Because the queen clearly cares about her more than her other daughters so she'd still be a good hostage to keep just in case, but she's also not technically royal so your people won't lose an heir. we all win :)))" and the protag is like "yeah sure if it saves my youngest sister from having to marry one of you fucks". And then they try to kill each other on the wedding night and only get a few stabs in before they decide the other is worthy of respect idk.

So yeah, that's about it! As you can see these are ... nothing. And usually ideas like these don't go anywhere. But I do have fun turning them around in my head.

If people have thoughts on that last idea, do let me know cuz it's the one I'm most interested in pursuing at the moment. Probably because I'm reading Elven Alliance and thinking about how it could be so much better and cooler if I wrote it. Because I'm an asshole. They're not bad books though, just a little underbaked.

[deedee-sims]

Clubbing scene from chapter 4 pretty please? Or just a part of it, if it's too long? Up to you :D

Well, not the whole scene, but the important parts :P

Warnings: alcohol, canon-typical clubbing experience

I’m kissing someone.

It’s… not a good kiss.

I have to recommend them to check in with a doctor, because no healthy person should have that much saliva.

Ew.

I break the kiss, to look at the person. I have no idea who this guy is.

He leans in for another kiss, but I push him away.

“I need to find Olls!” I shout at his face, which earns me a confused look.

The hell.

But where is Olls? How could I lose him?

I look around squinting, but I can’t see him anywhere. Although everything is a bit blurry, so I’m not sure.

Where would I go if I was him?

Home, probably.

Something uncomfortable settles in my stomach for this thought. He would’ve said if he went home, right?

Fuck, I need another drink.

When I get closer to the bar, I see a very familiar redhead. I can’t stop myself from smiling.

“Hey, handsome!” I shout to his ear, which startles him a bit. He looks at me with wide eyes, but his expression softens when he recognizes me. “Wanna dance?”

“I was actually thinking about going home,” he admits. I should practice as a fortune teller, honestly. But I don’t want him to go home!

“But we just got here! The party hasn’t even started!” I point out when I sit down next to him. My head is heavy.

“I've seen you throat deep in a guy, maybe dance with him?”

“Naaaaah, it was awful!” I tell him honestly. “It felt like kissing a fish! So slimy! Ew.”

Olls rolls his eyes, and I decide that he looks cute from this angle.

I need to be more convincing.

“Ooooolls! Dance with meeeee!” I whine dramatically.

He thinks about it for a moment, then sighs, defeated. “I know you're not gonna stop bugging me, so okay.”

Yesss! I jump up, excited, but I get dizzy for a moment. Where the hell is his hand?

I finally get hold of it, and pull him to the dancefloor.

We start dancing in the crowd, which is even thicker than before. Not that I mind. I only really want to be near Olls, his presence attracting me, like a magnet.

Some random chick tries to distract me, and honestly. I’ve been having a good time here lady. Bye! I turn her around, and slide behind Olls.

The world is spinning. I pull him closer to me, because he’s the only fix point in this entire universe.

His slim body fits so well here. I catch a whiff of something pleasant… something minty. I lean closer to him, and yes, it definitely comes from him.

“You smell so good, I wanna lick you,” I tell him, before I plant a kiss on his neck.

And ah… it indeed feels good. I flick out my tongue, and he reacts so beautifully, grabbing my hair and pulling on it, sending a shiver through my body.

Ah shit, I start rubbing up on him, because I’m apparently in horny teenager mode right now, but he feels fucking good.

That’s when a new song comes in, and it’s one of my favorites! “I love this song!” I shout, and move away, to perform it like I’m on tv.

“All I ever wanted was to find you!”

I grab Olls, and give him a twirl. I don’t intend to let go of his hand.

“Find a love I never knew!”

He looks incredibly cute, cheeks rosy, colorful lights playing on his pale skin. He looks like a dream. Maybe I’m dreaming.

“I can feel the pain inside me fading!”

He trips on something or someone, and I’m quick to catch him. For a moment, we just look at each other.

My insides buzz as I hold him. The fact that I shouldn’t do it doesn’t matter anymore, all I can think is how soft his lips look like.

“I’ve wanted to do this for a while,” I admit, before I kiss him.

My brain short circuits (not like it was any functional before tonight), and fuck. Kissing him feels so good… so fucking good. I deepen the kiss, because I can’t get enough.

And he kisses me back, and pulls me closer, and my heart is racing, and his ass feels nice under my hands, and I’m drunk on whiskey and attraction.

Everything is blurry, and I want to put my mouth all over him.

When we pull away, and tell him we should go home, he doesn’t oppose.

[bastardblvd]

WHAT IS IT? a variety of games (ask games, polls, writing challenges, etc.) hosted by stepdaddy merc & daddy cherub.

WHEN? july 28th

WHERE? @bastardblvd

WHAT DO I HAVE TO DO? freeloader!toji says "bring that booty" (but for real, just show up and support your local slimeballs!)

WHAT KIND OF SLIMY FESTIVITIES WILL THERE BE? "wet hot slimeball summer" collab masterlist (summer-themed fic), stepdaddy merc's caricature booth (shitty sketches and edits), slimy fortune teller, slimy kissing booth (poll), dunk tank (poll), and the ultimate 2023 slimeball king brackets hosted by @linklebard 🦠

MESSAGE FROM HOST STEPDADDY MERC (｡・//ε//・｡): come celebrate the summer with us and our silly little slimeball games!

[jadienjaystoriesandart]

Freak Show AU - Sander Sides

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVwqkBG0ulE

So this is an idea I’ve had for a while.

WELCOME TO IMAGINARIUM 

A freak show circus only open from the late hours of the night to the early morning hours. We are a hardcore, bloody, and gory circus who caters to the freaks, kooks, weirods, emos, and gothics alike 

Your every wish is our command, your every whimsical desire brought to life. But be careful, there is always a price!

Thomas Sanders:

The ring master, a Frankenstein like monster, made of many body parts, one eye is brown the other is orange with no pupil. He wears a top hat and had a large screw in his head that he twists until he clicks it back into place, he says it helps him ‘think clearly’. He takes care of his lovely freaks and allows any like them to join. He is very much ‘Dad’ to them. 

Patton Phibian: A frog like creature, his hands are like a frogs and he only ahd three fingers, and greenish brown scales that are slimy and got down his arms and are on his legs. Which are also frog like. He has large eyes that he can actively bulge out of his head. And a frog like tongue. He runs the ‘Nightcare’ service, so that the kiddies don’t have to deal with the horrors of this circus and the adults can enjoy themselves. He normally does tightrope and high up things due to his power to stick to any service. 

Virgil Silk: A spider like being, he has extra limbs on his back that are spider like, and has four eyes and two more on his back and one of his chest.and one on the back of his head. His mandibles are retractable and reside on the starts of his jaw line. He can also open his mouth from cheek to cheek. One of his eyes are green the other is purple. He produces silk with his hands. And is the Fortune Teller and enjoys scaring adults. 

Roman Price: A tentacle like dragon monster, had has red silky tentacles along with dragon wings and horns. He says tentacles tend to run in his family, big or small, and he only has four of them. He can retract them, unlike his brother. He typically does trapeze and such with Patton. He sometimes helps take care of the kids with Patton when Logan isn’t there. He has claw like hands and sharp teeth and dragon slit like red eyes and a long tail that has black and red and gold scales.

Remus Price: A tentacle monster like kraken or mind flayer. He has more than his brother, with eight of them and they are a slimy acid green and teal color. With suctions that has small teeth for injecting a venom into people. Don’t worry, he doesn’t use them much. His act includes knife swallowing and knife throwing. Oh and he can cut off his own limbs and regrow them... many swear he’s a cannibal. All sharp teeth and his eyes are huge on his face and coin slit eyes. 

Logan Tics: An Automation like robot who helps Patton take care of the kids. He is a steampunk looking eye, who isn’t human. He can take himself apart and put himself back together in odd and bizarre ways. He can’t feel pain, and has trouble with feelings. Yet he looks scarily human, save for some of the gears and steam that shows. He tends to deviate from his ‘programming’ and starts to ramble about how he’s trapped, just ignore him. he entertains the kids with facts and science experiments. 

Janus Scrags: A naga like being, with the top half being human though his right side is covered in yellow and brown scales. His right eye is gold with a slit while his other eye is a honey brown. His tail is over ten feet long and ends in a rattle that he buzzes to scare people. He puts on puppet shows, does hypnosis, and ventriloquism. He has large viper fangs that he hides, but does flash them if asked. He also helps with the kids from time to time, but likes to keep to himself only ever speaking to Thomas and some of the main acts. 

PLOT

Well it’s not easy to explain, the plot is still working. But I do know that the circus is the way it is due to Thomas having made a deal with a dark beings. He’d get fortune and power, if he gave it souls. Thomas did, and now is a creature like demon also. All in the circus are his to do with what he likes. Oh he’s a nice guy, but he does enjoy on preying on the weak and helpless souls who had no one else to turn to. Everything has a price, and that it does.

For those who enter his circus, the acts tend to have their favorites that they like the kidnap and terrorize until they either gain a new helper or a meal. And often times the only way to escape this fate is to make a deal and give Thomas your soul. It can range from minor things you must give him, other times.. well Logan asked once to have his feelings removed and Thomas turned him into a Robotic act who must obey him.

Not everyone was forced, Janus and Virgil joined willingly to get away from abusive situations. Patton was kind of forced and such. The twins, well Remus wasn’t but Roman was by his brother as Remus refused to leave him behind. 

Best hope the acts don’t take too much of a liking to you, or you might find yourself trapped in the circus with no way out, your choices. Die, join them and loose your free will, or make a deal and hope that the price isn’t too high. 

So I got this idea by listening to Creature Feature: The Greatest Show Unearthed and reading through @fangirltothefullest many many AU’s. So credit is due in she gave me some inspiration.  OH, and @5am-the-foxing-hour and their headcannons.  Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVwqkBG0ulE What do you all think?

@my-short-gay-ass-cant-deal

[mst3kproject]

She Freak

Oh, boy, this is going to be a fucking delight.  If the 1932 movie Freaks were Invasion of the Saucer Men, She Freak would be Attack of the The Eye Creatures.  Freaks is a very troubling movie, but it does go to great effort to present the denizens of the sideshow as human beings who can be loving, greedy, heartbroken, or naïve as much as anyone else, and who find family in each other when the rest of the world rejects them – and must be very careful who they let into that club.  The horror of the story is derived as much from their predicament as from the fate of Cleopatra.  She Freak is… not like that.

A woman named Jade Cochrane works at a little diner somewhere in the south, quietly (and sometimes not-so-quietly) enduring sexual harassment from both the customers and her married boss.  Wanting more out of life, she quits her job and goes looking for work at a passing carnival, which she figures will at least allow her to travel.  From there she sets her sights on marrying Steve St. John, the owner of the freak show and the richest man connected with this community. Unfortunately for everybody around her, even this very moderate form of power corrupts Jade to the core, and after too much of her mistreatment, the sideshow stars take a horrible revenge!

The opening sequence is a bunch of carnival footage in which everybody looks bored, worryingly reminiscent of both Carnival Magic and MUZ.  Even worse, quite a bit of it is shot by somebody sitting on a moving ferris wheel or other midway ride.  I’ve never been able to enjoy midway rides because I get motion sickness (I can’t see J. J. Abrams movies in theatres for the same reason), so this was not a fun experience for me, even on my tiny laptop screen.  It goes on way too long, and most of it doesn’t even have any credits over it.  Crow would have fled to go throw up in a corner.

The moment I knew She Freak belonged on MST3K, however, is this shot:

What the hell does that sign say?  YHJCY A+ FTJB?  What does it mean?  Is it an acronym?  A secret code?  An in-joke? A message to or from aliens?  That would have fascinated Mike and the ‘bots.  They’d have built a whole host sketch around that sign.

She Freak is tooth-rattlingly bad in many different ways.  I don’t know what any of the people in it think they’re doing but it sure isn’t acting.  It’s relentlessly padded, full of pointless footage of putting the midway up, taking the midway down, putting the midway back up again, and carnival-goers wandering around looking dazed.  At one point we have to watch a stripper do her act, to a chorus of background hooting and applause that sure isn’t coming from the bored-to-shit audience we see.  Most of the film feels like nothing is happening, and then what ought to have been the entire plot is crammed into the last fifteen minutes.

The one place where there is a glimmer of competence is in a couple of quite nice directing choices.  There’s a scene where Jade leaves her new husband with his buddies and sneaks off to bang the guy who runs the ferris wheel, Blackie (don’t worry, he’s white. She Freak has a little person called ‘Shorty’, but to my relief it wasn’t tasteless enough to cast a character named ‘Blackie’ as an African American) that makes a very good use of shadows to tell us what’s going on in two places at once.  Pity the film stock is so crappy it almost ruins it.  I also liked how Jade’s scenes with Blackie have proper dialogue, while Steve woos her in a series of montages.  Jade wants to spend time with Blackie, while her marriage to Steve is something she goes through the motions of and gets out of the way.

She Freak really has no right to tout itself as a remake of Freaks, for the simple reason that it isn’t even about the sideshow.  The older movie had characters like Hans the dwarf and Daisy and Violet the conjoined twins, who were people with relationships and roles in the plot.  In She Freak we never even see the sideshow that so upsets Jade in an early scene.  There’s Shorty, the little guy in a cowboy hat who works for the carnival, but when we see him he’s acting like he’s Steve’s friend and assistant rather than one of the exhibits.  An armless woman and a few people in funny makeup appear at the climax, but we’ve never seen them before and we have no idea who they are.  Where the hell is the ‘Alligator Girl’ the banners promised?

It’s probably all for the best.  If there had been any ‘unusual people’ with major roles in the movie it would doubtless have treated them in a disgusting and exploitative manner.  But what’s on screen shouldn’t even pretend to be a remake of Freaks.

As the owner of the sideshow, Steve insists that he cares about his employees and considers them ‘human beings, just like you and me’. He tells Jade that many of them came from abusive homes, and that in his show they’re able to earn a living and be around others who won’t judge them.  This is a reasonably noble sentiment, but what we are subsequently shown is somewhat at odds with it.  Steve says his employees are also his friends, but he hangs out and plays cards with the other carnies, not with them.  When Shorty tells him that Jade is cheating on him, Steve slaps him like he would a misbehaving child.  This is not how people treat friends and equals.

You may have guessed where this is heading: in one of my favourite running complaints, yep, we have nobody to root for in this movie.  We’re probably supposed to like Steve, but he’s bland and his actions don’t agree with his words insisting he’s a nice, compassionate guy. The character from whose point of view we see the events is of course Jade, but Jade is the villain of the movie and we’re watching it to see her hubris destroy her.  That means the protagonists ought to be the sideshow people themselves, but since we never actually meet them, their revenge is meaningless. In this context they are not human beings, they are not characters, they are merely what Jade has been calling them all along: monsters.

(Shorty, by the way, is played by Felix Silla, who is the closest thing this movie has to a star. He was Cousin Itt on the Addams Family TV show.)

She Freak presents us with several reasons why we ought to dislike Jade.  She’s introduced working at the greasy little diner, where she turns down a date first with a customer and then with her boss.  The customer accepts this gracefully but the boss does not.  The scene tries to show us Jade as an uppity bitch who thinks she’s too good for other people, but her boss is such a slimy toad that we have to take her side.  She tells us how her mother married too young and lost any chance at her own dreams, and while Claire Brennan is a terrible actress, the story is one that inspires sympathy.  When Jade seizes on the carnival as her chance for escape she becomes downright pathetic.  I mean, how awful is your life if a travelling midway and sideshow seems like a step up in the world?

Of course, as the movie continues we find that Jade really is just a snotty bitch whose idea of ‘getting more out of life’ is having a rich husband to carry her bags when she goes shopping. She sees others only as what they can provide to her – Steve for money, Blackie for sex.  This attitude blinds her to others’ true intentions.  She is entirely oblivious to the fact that Blackie is an abusive bastard or that Steve honestly loves her.  The lesson of the movie seems to be ‘beware of women who want more out of life.’  She should have known her place!

This is a pretty nasty attitude towards women but there are other female characters who are treated a bit better.  Pat the stripper tried marriage and domesticity and didn’t like it.  She seems to enjoy working at the carnival and is gregarious and kind-hearted.  We’re invited to leer at her performance but she’s presented as much less trashy than Jade, who considers herself above such things. Pat continues to try to be a friend to Jade for as long as she can, and keeps giving her second chances long after it should be obvious that Jade isn’t interested in reciprocating her kindness. There’s also Olga the fortune-teller, who needed to support herself after her husband died.  The three of them even manage to have conversations that pass the Bechdel test.  In a movie called She-Freak that’s almost impressive.

The ending of She Freak is the only place where it really even seems inspired by Freaks.  The sideshow employees take their revenge on Jade, and we see her on display in the sideshow, licking a snake and wearing some unconvincing Harvey Dent makeup.  This is supposed to feel like justice, in that she has become what she most hated, but it’s been so watered down by the movie’s refusal to humanize the sideshow, or even to show us Jade interacting with them at all, that it has no power to horrify.  It’s a big letdown after the opening scene that promised us a horrible freak that was once a human being.  Why does her burned side have an elf ear?

Invasion of the Saucer Men was not a good movie, at all, but it still deserved better than Attack of the The Eye Creatures.  It’s up for debate whether Freaks was technically ‘good’ but it was an ambitious film with much to say about how human beings treat one another and about the eugenics movement of the 1930s.  In fact, the US National Film Registry considers Freaks one of the most significant films ever made, and it currently boasts a 94% on Rotten Tomatoes.  The fact that writer David Friedman claimed She Freak was a remake of Freaks just proves that, like the audiences who booed that film in 1932, he never bothered to understand it.

[unrestedjade]

Mermay Kuwameshi nonsense

Damn, the month’s half over already! I’m rereading Pet Shop of Horrors, rewatching Yu Yu Hakusho, and coincidentally obsessed with Kuwabara/Urameshi. So! Half-assed crossover time. Maybe Count D has a second location in Japan?

 Kazuma wasn't sure how long the pet shop had been there on the edge of Chinatown. It looked like it had been in that storefront for years, but he couldn't remember seeing it until a few months ago. Maybe he'd just missed it, but he didn't think so. He liked animals. If the place had been there the whole time, he'd have gone inside at least once, just to check it out.

He also wasn't sure why he hadn't checked it out. He tended to pick up his pace when he passed by, trying to put space between himself and the shop for no reason his rational mind could come up with. It was just a pet shop. Yet for some reason it hit him the wrong way, sending a cold shiver up his spine whenever he neared it.

Today he was feeling it again, the unpleasant tickle crawling through his nervous system urging him to go, walk faster, get away. It was getting irritating, to tell the truth. Was it haunted, or something? A haunted pet shop? That could be a thing, right?

Regardless, Kazuma wasn't about to have his rep endangered by a place that sold goldfish and bunnies. Today he was gonna go in there. He'd settle these creepy-crawlies once and for all, and get his walk home from school back to normal.

Yep. He was gonna walk inside in just a minute. Just a few seconds. Gonna walk right in!

Boy, it was darker in there than a pet shop really should be, wasn't it?

Growling at himself in annoyance, Kazuma forced himself to step forward. It was just a pet shop, for god's sake.

It was dark inside, for sure. Heavy curtains draped over the windows and walls cut not just the light from outside, but the noise, too. Kazuma could hear the sounds of traffic and activity outside, but it seemed so far away, like the inside of the shop was in its own little world. Weak lamplight played across the deep red drapery, the corners of the room vanishing into shadow.

The shop had all the expected stuff. Bird cages with canaries and parakeets. Cages for the rabbits and puppies and...ferrets? Did pet shops have ferrets? This one did, apparently. What was weird was the rest of the furnishings. Aside from the animal cages, there was a kind of seating area-- a sofa, a couple chairs, a fancy coffee table. The place looked more like a fortune teller's place, or a brothel out of one of his sister's romance novels that he definitely didn't sneak to read and then skip over half the pages because he got too embarrassed. Covering the smell of animals was the heavy scent of incense.

There was no sign of the shopkeeper that Kazuma could see. Was this place actually open?

A hallway led farther back. Way farther back, with fancy, painted doors leading off to the left and right every few meters. The place was a lot bigger than it looked from the front. Kazuma called out a tentative hello, in case someone mistook him for a thief, or something. God, he hoped this place wasn't actually a front for a brothel, or he'd be so mortified he might die on the spot.

Someone answered him. "Hello?"

Kazuma jumped at the sound of a male voice, and felt immediately foolish. Of course someone else was in here! The door was open, wasn't it? Following the voice, Kazuma found himself in a side room filled with fish tanks on heavy iron racks. Though he'd sworn he heard someone speak, there didn't appear to be anyone in here. Just the tanks.

There was no lighting in the room other than the lamps on the fish tank hoods. They cast greenish, shifting light across the floor, the ceiling, and Kazuma himself. The light flickered, making the whole room look as though it were submerged underwater. Most of the tanks were occupied. A few contained what looked like koi, others held angelfish, guppies, or fighting fish. A few others held fish Kazuma couldn't identify other than they were ugly and off-putting, with mouths crammed too full of teeth and oily black scales. Some fish seemed to change somehow when he looked away from them, shifting and melting at the corner of his eye.

There was one enormous tank running the length of one wall. The glass was overgrown with algae, shading the water emerald green. Something moved inside. Something big, pacing the length of the tank back and forth. Was it a shark? It seemed large enough-- a little longer than Kazuma was tall.

"Who are you?"

There was the voice again! Kazuma looked for the speaker, and nearly leaped out of his skin when a guy popped his head over the side of the enormous tank.

"Wh-what are you doing in there?" It was a stupid question, maybe. But what else were you supposed to say to a guy who suddenly yelled at you from a fish tank?

The guy pushed a mess of dark, wet hair from his eyes. He looked about Kazuma's age. A part-timer? "What are you doing in here, stupid?"

Kazuma's temper flared, but the question was a fair one. He was the one who'd decided to poke around. "No one was out front, so I thought I'd look around." Maybe this was a back room only employees were supposed to be in, but it wasn't Kazuma's fault that this shop was run so sloppy. There wasn't even a sign posted. If the place was open, then the shopkeeper should be where customers could see them!

"Heh." The guy leaned his bare arms on the rim of the tank. Scum from the tank stuck to his forearm. It looked like it was a real mess in there. "Not much to see, is there? This place sucks."

"It kinda does," Kazuma agreed. He ventured a little closer, looking for the shape of the huge fish through the murky glass and not finding it. Wasn't this guy worried about it biting him? "What are you doing in there, cleaning? It looks like shit."

The guy laughed. "Tell me about it! Nah," he said, grinning. His teeth looked weird, like they were sharper than they ought to be. Or probably they were just crooked. "If the owner wants it clean, he can do it himself. Not like I'm getting paid to be a maid."

Okay, now Kazuma was really confused. Did the guy work here or not? If not, what the hell was he doing splashing around in a fish tank?

"You here to buy something?" The guy's smile wilted, like it wasn't an expression he was real used to making and he couldn't keep it up long.

Kazuma shook his head. "Just curious," he said. He didn't mention the creepy feeling he got every time he walked by this place. Or the fact that the tickle up his spine hadn't gone away yet. If anything, it was getting stronger, harder to brush aside.

The guy seemed to perk up a little at that, which was weird if he was an employee after all. Shouldn't he want Kazuma to buy something?

"What's the weather like today?"

Kazuma blinked. That was a weird question. "Uh...sunny? Why don't you go outside and look?"

"Can't," the guy said simply, leaning his chin on his arms.

"Your boss that much of a slave driver?" Kazuma asked, frowning. "Won't let you walk outside for a minute? There aren't even any customers in here right now."

The guy smiled again, briefly, and his teeth definitely weren't normal. Kazuma stared without meaning to. Had he filed them down? Why were they...pointy?

"Hey," the guy said. "What's your name?"

"Kazuma Kuwabara," Kazuma said. "Do you go to school here? I haven't seen you around before."

"Nope," the guy said, shaking his head. His wet hair sloshed along the surface of the water. It was really long, for a guy. Or a girl, for that matter. "Name's Yusuke. You got somewhere to be, Kazuma Kuwabara, or can you stick around for a few? I'm bored as shit in here."

Kazuma had homework to do, in fact, but it wasn't like that had ever been a pressing concern. It wasn't every day he met someone new, much less someone who seemed kinda cool. Sarayashiki wasn't a school people wanted to transfer their kids into. "I guess," he said, still looking out for any sign of that big fish. Had it hidden somewhere in the tank?

"You scared of water, or something? You don't gotta stand all the way over there," Yusuke said, chuckling. There was a swishing sound, like he was kicking his legs under the water.

Kazuma wasn't scared of water. He just had a weird feeling about the fish in that tank, that was all. Still, it wasn't like it was gonna launch itself over the side at him, right? This wasn't a Jaws movie. If Yusuke was safe where he was, Kazuma could get closer. So he did, moving to lean on the glass. The tank came up to his chest, and the glass was seriously thick, almost the width of his palm. It must have weighed a ton. He peered into the water, but it was just more murky green. He could make out what he thought might be sea grass or something, and a few chunks of driftwood for decoration, but no fish.

"What are you looking for?"

"There's a big fish in here, so..." Kazuma trailed off, finally taking a look at Yusuke up close. His teeth really were sharp, it wasn't a trick of the light. Serrated, like steak knives. The dim, shifting light from the tank lamps glinted too well off slimy skin, and with his arms raised Kazuma could see three long gashes following the curve of his ribs. They weren't bleeding, just flexing in time with his breaths. His long hair fanned out behind him in the water. Beneath the surface, where Yusuke's body was shrouded in murky green, a massive tail swayed lazily back and forth.

Yusuke watched Kazuma's eyes widen, smirking. "Find that fish yet?" A tail fin as wide as Yusuke's shoulders gently broke the surface of the water, gray and sleek. Softly, it slapped back down, splashing some water on Kazuma's uniform jacket.

Kazuma could give a shit about the jacket right now. "Um," he said, blinking while his brain tried frantically to catch up with his eyes. "Are you...a mermaid?" It felt stupid to say it out loud.

He felt even stupider when Yusuke burst into loud laughter. "What? I'm not a mermaid, you idiot!"

Kazuma could feel his face redden. Great. He'd met this guy all of five minutes ago and he was never gonna live this down. He knew he'd never let it go if someone said something off-the-wall crazy like that to him. Mermaid? If he was lucky, Yusuke would just assume he was drunk and not terminally stupid.

After a minute, Yusuke got a hold of himself, reaching up to dab tears from the corners of his eyes. "I'm a merman. Genius."

"Whatever, I was just joking anyw- wait, what?"

Yusuke pushed back a little from the glass, pointing one clawed finger at his own chest. "You see any boobs? I'm a guy."

Kazuma sputtered. "I know you're a guy, stupid!" Alright, he was gonna wake up in the middle of math class any second now. This shit had officially gotten too weird to be real. 

"Seemed pretty confused to me," Yusuke said, with a smirk and a shrug.

"Are you really half fish under there?" Kazuma didn't have space in his brain to get too mad about accusations of being dumb right now. He was too transfixed by the dark shape of Yusuke's tail moving under the water. Was it a trick? A...a costume, or something? They had to do that for mermaids in movies, right? There was no way it was real. Even if Kazuma's Bizarre Crap Warning Tickle was now a full-body shiver.

"I'm all me, not half fish. But whatever." Yusuke shifted his grip on the rim of the tank, pulling himself closer to Kazuma. "You want a better look?"

Kazuma nodded brainlessly, and had a half second of utter confusion as Yusuke gripped his shoulders. Then he was pulled forward, down into the water, a cold shock slapping him in the face and a moment of vertigo as his feet left the floor.

It didn't occur to him to hold his breath. In unconscious panic, he tried to take a breath, choking on cold water instead. Yusuke floated just below him, his laugh ringing through the tank, surrounding Kazuma in mocking sound. Sure enough, tan skin gave way to two-tone gray just below his waist, a large tail bumping against Kazuma's thrashing legs. It looked pretty damn real from here.

Yusuke's grip on Kazuma kept him from reaching the surface, only a few inches overhead but still too far. Panicked from lack of air, Kazuma lashed out, landing an awkward punch square on Yusuke's nose. The merman's head snapped back, his hair tracing the arc of his movement, but he didn't let go.

"Aw, quit freaking out, will ya?" Yusuke's voice filled the tank as he shook his head to clear it. A trickle of blood drifted from his nostril to dissipate in the water. "Thought you said you weren't scared?" He pulled Kazuma closer, like he was gonna take a chomp out of him. Kazuma froze, bracing for teeth, but Yusuke only pressed their lips together.

Kazuma knew he wasn't getting any air, but at once the water stopped burning in his lungs. He could breathe, somehow. Which was a lot to process on top of his first kiss and also maybe drowning, and also this guy was a goddamn mermaid. Too close to focus on properly, Yusuke's eyes glittered with mischief.

A hand grabbed the back of Kazuma's collar. He was hauled from the water, coughing and sputtering. He dragged air back into his lungs, though it almost felt too harsh. Too dry. The man who'd saved him helped him clamber over the rim of the tank to collapse to his hands and knees on the floor.

"I'm sorry," the man said, voice smooth and lilting as Kazuma heaved up more tank water. "You'll need to stay well back from the displays. Some of the animals are dangerous."

Water streaming from his hair and every stitch of his clothing, Kazuma blinked up at his rescuer. The shop owner was a tall Chinese guy, dressed in fancy silk robes and wearing...was that red lipstick?

"Did you have an appointment?" the owner said, polite and distant, like he hadn't just saved Kazuma from drowning or getting eaten or whatever had been going on. Casually, he flicked water from the sleeve of his robe and pushed a lock of his straight, black hair behind one ear with manicured nails. "I'm afraid you'll have to come back another time if not. I'm quite busy at the moment."

"It's your own fault for leaving me stuck in here with nothing to do," Yusuke chimed in, looking at Kazuma over the edge of the tank once more. He smiled like he'd just gotten away with something, or like he'd just told a real groaner of a joke. Kazuma stared back at him, unsure how to feel. 

The owner shot Yusuke an exasperated look that seemed to say 'I'll deal with you later.' His eyes were different colors, one dark and one light. Kazuma had been too surprised by the lipstick to notice at first. The guy was like a creepy, pet-shop-owning David Bowie. His presence filled the room. With slight surprise (because most of his sense of surprise had already been taken up by Yusuke) Kazuma realized he was kinda scared of this guy.

"How come," Kazuma rasped, throat aching. "How come you got a mermaid in a damn pet shop?"

The owner turned his attention back to Kazuma, frowning down at him. "That's a very rare and very aggressive species of shark from the Japan Sea. You shouldn't have approached the tank so carelessly."

Knees shaking, Kazuma pushed himself to his feet. "Bullshit," he said, wringing out his jacket. "I may not be the smartest guy around, but I know that's not a fish. Fish ain't people. That's a damn mermaid."

"It's merman," Yusuke grumbled. "Dumbass. Get it right." He was still staring at Kazuma as if he were the only thing worth worrying about in the whole room. It was a little intense, but Kazuma found himself staring right back. Now that he wasn't under the water, he wasn't scared anymore. Not that he'd been that scared! It was surprising, that was all! Anyone would have been just as put off as he was!

The owner took a small step back, putting distance between the spreading puddle of dirty water and what looked like very expensive shoes. "I see." He studied Yusuke for a moment, thoughtful. "Have you ever kept saltwater species before, young man?" he said, addressing Kazuma. "The initial setup can be somewhat onerous, but it's quite rewarding. Many people find that watching fish swim helps alleviate stress."

True enough, Kazuma hadn't been stressed about school or anything else when he'd been pulled into the tank, except for getting eaten or drowned. Real soothing. More importantly... "You're trying to sell him?"

"This is a pet shop," the man said, as though Kazuma were five years old and also incredibly slow. "The shark seems to have taken a liking to you, or there wouldn't have been much left of you for me to pull from the water. What do you say?" He stroked his chin, completely at ease with this insane situation. "We can discuss a fair price, along with a care guide and contract you'll need to abide by, of course."

For some reason, the idea of someone buying Yusuke outright was even more unbelievable than the whole being-a-mermaid thing. "You can't just sell him! He's a person!"

Yusuke leaned out over the edge of the tank, a curtain of black hair dripping onto the floor. "Aw, c'mon! Don't be a cheapskate! Just get me outta here before I go outta my mind. It's boring!" He was leaning so far out, one hand clutching the edge of the tank while the other reached to tug on Kazuma's sleeve. His gills were already starting to wheeze awkwardly in the dry air.

"And what am I supposed to do?" Kazuma shot back. "Carry you home and hide you in the bathtub? You're huge, man!" It was stupid anyway. Even if Kazuma had a whole swimming pool at home, it wasn't right to keep Yusuke locked up like that. If mermaids were real-- which apparently they were, and Kazuma wasn't going to be over that for a long time-- then they should be in the ocean, right? Of course Yusuke was miserable in this stupid little tank in a room with no windows, and no one to talk to! He wasn't some goldfish, or something!

The man smiled, small but genuine. He turned to Yusuke, gently shoving him back to the water when it looked like he was about to overbalance and fall from the tank. "It seems your mind is set on this one?"

"Yeah, this guy's an idiot, but he's alright." Sulking, Yusuke lowered himself in the water, wetting his gills. "Anybody else you shove at me is getting eaten, got that?"

"And just like that," the man said, with a helpless gesture, "the decision is made for me. As you can see, this particular specimen is something of a liability, so I'm willing to offer you a favorable deal to take it off my hands."

Kazuma had just about enough money in his wallet for a sandwich from the convenience store. He knew he wasn't gonna be able to cough up the cash to get Yusuke out of here. Still, he couldn't walk away. Yusuke's eyes were burning a hole through him.

"It's gonna have to be a hell of a deal, mister," Kazuma said, finally dragging his eyes from Yusuke to look at the shop owner. "I don't even have a job, and I'm pretty broke."

The shop owner only smiled. "I'm sure we can reach an agreement."

[kingofdirtandnothing]

@polyfacetious big ass Christmas Drabble Extravagaza: Day Nineteen

George has a damned fine voice. And it’s a good thing that he does, because the man talks about boring shit more than anybody that Atticus has ever known. 

Like now. He’s been droning on about chemical reactions for god knows how long. If they weren’t naked in bed, Atticus would get up and walk off. Go make a cup of tea or something. It wouldn’t deter George at all. He’d just keep on talking. 

Because it wasn’t really about having a captive audience. George just did his best work thinking out loud. God only knew how much chatter that little assistant of his heard. Hours upon hours would be Atticus’ guest. 

But you didn’t get to be one of the best chemists in the world by being white bread and butter normal, now did you?

Atticus waits for a lull in the onslaught of words, giving it a full three seconds before he speaks, just to be certain George had wrapped up his thought. (He’ll never admit to thoughtfulness out loud. That would ruin his reputation.)

“I’m getting leave again at Christmas.” George shifts onto his side, head resting on the upturned palm of his hand. He’s not what anyone would call beautiful, but there’s something about him that makes Atticus’ blood run hot. (He’s not a looker himself. Atticus figured that out young. He also learned that personality could get you the same bits with just a little more work.)

There’s a moment where George’s eyes are far away. Atticus waits, as patient as he ever is. You had to give the man time to come back to himself from wherever those rambling thoughts were. But there’s a blink and those clever eyes zero in on him, because George is clever, and he sees what’s being offered. 

A holiday. Together. 

Neither one of them had any family to speak of. Atticus had the crew, and George had his work socials and his bored rich housewives, but beyond that, there wasn’t really much to do on a holiday. 

Unless one of those bored rich housewives could sneak away from her family on Christmas day. Which if a woman could handle that, Atticus would concede his spot in the bed, because that’s some fucking logistics and deep lies to accomplish. 

“I could swing ‘round this way.” An offer. Because they’ve been doing this on and off for years, but it’s never been Official. It’s never been just the two of them and no one else. Atticus don’t mind it that way. He’s not jealous of saggy breasts or diamond earrings. A man had his urges. 

But there was something about asking to spend a holiday together that felt intimate in a way they tended to skate away from. Atticus was head over heels, there was no denying that truth. He’d been in love with George for a long time now, and he’s confident enough to say it’s mutual. But mutually in love and mum about it was a hair different than mutually in love and spending Christmas together like a pair of old queens. 

He brushes his fingers along the corded muscle at the back of a strong neck, his breath a sharp exhale when George clambers on top of him. “You aren’t exactly light as a feather here, Georgie.”

And that gets him an elbow right to the ribs for his trouble. “I’m perfectly shaped for all my activities, I’ll have you know.” George had a voice that made your toes tingle. It’s what drew Atticus in, back when they first met. Sitting a few blokes apart at the bar, nursing drinks in the quiet of an early morning. 

All the partiers were gone, the lightweights sleeping it off against the bar top. All that was left were the lonely men and the alcoholics. And when Atticus heard that raspy, dry paper grumble of ‘another, damn it’, his dick was already on board and half hard. 

There wasn’t much courting, then. But neither one of them were the type for romance. (A lie Atticus perpetrated because if George saw his notebook full of poetry, he’d never let him live it down.) Atticus had simply moved three stools down, knocked back the rest of his pint, looked over at George and said ‘I’ll jerk you off in the bathroom if you’ll do the same for me.’

And they’d been meeting ever since. A slow and steady escalation, because despite the drugs and the booze, George was as steady in spirit as he was in hand. Hand jobs in the bar bathroom became back alley blow jobs. Back alley blow jobs became backseat fucking in George’s car. Fucking in George’s car became a short drive to whatever hotel that Atticus was scrimping out to get him through leave. 

All to get them here. Legs tangled like mad drunk grasshoppers, fingers tracing muscle and ink. (George had a fondness for tracing the lines of the compass tattooed on the top of Atticus’ head. He said it helped him think.) Talking about spending the holiday together in a hotel room just like this. 

“Well.” The word is snapped off at the end, though the rasp of it is teasing. “If you’re going to be staying more than a day or two, it stands to reason that you should sleep at my place. That way, you can spend your money on getting me a proper gift.”

Another escalation. Atticus knows where George lives. He’d gotten the address back when they were still fucking in the back of the car, fogging up the windows like teenagers. He’d used it only to send the bastard postcards, though. Atticus liked to fill them out with useless facts about things he saw when they were out and about. The biggest thing he saw in a place, and the smallest. What the oddest local cuisine was. Atticus liked his little facts.

And he liked an excuse to keep himself in George’s thoughts, since the slimy git had a habit of taking up space in Atticus’ thoughts, whether he wanted to or not. 

But being offered to stay at George’s place? That was a big deal. Because it made this holiday bit even more serious. It wasn’t two men sharing take away on a shitty motel bed with A Miracle on 34th Street playing quiet in the background on an out of date TV. 

This was a proper Christmas. At home. In George’s home. For at least three or four days. 

“You’d do that?” It’s a stupid response, and Atticus sees just how stupid it is by the way that George is looking at him. 

“I wouldn’t have offered if I didn’t want to.” And he had a point there. It was like moving mountains to get George to do things he was indifferent about. Atticus couldn’t imagine what it would take to make the bastard do something that he really didn’t want to do. 

“Right.” Atticus murmurs, tracing the crow’s feet wrinkles where they crease the skin at the corner of George’s eyes. Some people said you could read those lines, the same way you read the lines on someone’s palm. But Atticus can’t be sure if those were lines of laughter, or lines of squinting behind goggles in a lab. 

He hopes it’s more laughter than anything. 

Atticus saw a fortune teller once, a little old woman set up on a blanket at the fringes of a bazaar in India. She had taken his hand and pointed out the lines to him in broken English. His life line was long, a few close calls written into the cracks in the line along his hand. His fortune line was more like Morse code, and Atticus felt like that was pretty true to life. 

But most of all, she earned those rupees when she pointed out his heart line. ‘Late’, she said with an all knowing nod. ‘Strong.’ 

It’d be years more before he met George. The old bag had been more right than Atticus could have guessed. Late meant he was in his forties before George Cholmondeley. (And another year plus before he could spell the bastard’s last name.) 

Strong wasn’t the half of it. 

Nothing was ever going to keep Atticus from being out at sea. But George was enough to lure him back to land more than he ever did before. This was the first year that Atticus was actually going to use up all of his leave, instead of having it converted and put onto his pay. 

“Right.” George agrees, and that’s the end of that. There’s a light in those clever eyes that says ‘argue with me and lose hours of your life and still do what I say’ and Atticus can’t argue with those facts. 

Arguing with George was like trying to shove a camel through the eye of a needle. You’d work up a sweat, you’d get pissed off and tired, but you’d be no closer to your goal hours later. 

No, it was settled. 

“And what does a man such as yourself want for a Christmas gift, hm?” Because Atticus has no earthly idea what to get him. He knew all the stupid tidbits, things that George liked to eat, the things that he loathed. What movie he’d roll over to watch, if it was on the television when they were done fucking. 

But none of those things equalled out to Christmas gifts. It’s not like Atticus could buy him a tie or a nice pen and call it a day. 

“You to figure it out.” And Atticus should have seen that coming. George was contrary, often just for the fun of it. And even more often, just for the amusement of watching Atticus get pissed off trying to figure it out. 

“Bastard.” He drops his head back against the overly starched hotel pillowcase and sighs, eyes on the ceiling. There were no stains up there, which was an improvement from the last time that they met up to spend the night together. But it was that popcorn style that reminded Atticus of being a little boy, spending his nights staring up at the ceiling in the boy’s home. Right out of the 1970s, it was. 

“You like it.” And again, Georgie isn’t wrong. Atticus loves the holy hell out of the bastard, not that he’s going to say that out loud any time soon. His silence is rewarded with George easing down into the crook of his left arm, cheek pillowed against Atticus’ chest. 

He wasn’t exactly a chiseled Greek god, but it was easy to not feel insecure about the softness of his belly when George was running his fingers through the soft, downy hair there. 

“A notebook is cheating.” Because he knows that George is going to buy him a gift too. There’s a huff of offense that blows warm air against his chest, and Atticus grins. “If I don’t get the easy out, then you don’t either.”

His notebook did need replacing, though. It was a battered old spiral bound number. In a few more weeks, it’d go in the bottom of his trunk with the other full ones. But he wasn’t going to carry around some expensive leather wrapped thing. Hell, just last week he dropped his notebook in the toilet. 

Not going to risk doing that with something that cost more than a pound or two. 

“Now you’re the one who’s being a bastard.” George’s irritation always has such a lovely bite to it. Atticus likes getting him riled up, though he doesn’t try too often. It wasn’t easy. But it was always worth his hard work, as evidenced by the blunt nails dragging deliciously down his belly. 

It’d be awhile yet before he was able to go again, seeing as they’d just finished fucking about ten minutes ago, but the spirit was really fucking willing right about now, regardless of what bullshit the flesh was on about. 

“Yeah. But you love me.”

And yeah, it was very much mutual. 

[jojosbizarreblog]

Let Down Your Crystal Walls

2 //3// 4

Chapter 3: Tongue Tower Twister

Well, being on a plane was certainly a lot more lackluster than she realized. After the tense car ride and ticket-checking, the group settled themself comfortably on the plane. Kyogen had managed to snag a window seat next to Avdol and was staring out the said window at the clouds passing by. Jotaro and Joseph were napping in the seats behind her and Kakyoin behind them. Avdol was reading a book and Kyogen lamented not bringing any with her. 

Avdol piped up, not turning from his book. “You have a very unique Stand, Wind-san.”

Kyogen glanced at him. “So do you, Avdol-sama.” 

The male closed his book and retrieved something from his pocket “You don’t have to be so formal, Avdol is fine. But as for appearances, Stands come in all sorts of different shapes and sizes. I’ve never seen two alike Stands before.”

Kyogen hummed thoughtfully and started comparing her Stand’s feature to the others that she glimpsed. Sharpnote seemed to be the only one with extremely simplified facial features, its eyes being upright rectangles and mouth being a simple triangle, incapable of displaying any facial movements. Compared to Star Platinum who looked like a human, minus the flowing hair, purple body, and the chiseled muscles of a Greek god. “Yesterday was my first time seeing any Stands besides Sharpnote.” 

“That’s interesting... Stand users are attracted to each other, and Sharpnote is pretty friendly too.”

Kyogen shrugged. “That’s just the way he always is.”

“Hm. While Stands are influenced by your fighting spirit, they also act out based on your innermost emotions.”

Kyogen glanced at him. What was the man trying to get at? “And?”

“Nothing, it’s just you’re very different from your Stand.”

She frowned and stared at the airplane seat in front of her. “Some scars run deep.”

“I see. You are a girl of mystery, Wind. If you would indulge me for a moment, I would like to try and read your fortune.” He presented the pack of Tarot cards to Kyogen.

Kyogen huffed but reached for it. Just as she was about to pull out a card, the plane rumbled and she looked up. A buzzing was heard echoing throughout the cabin. She paused and handed the cards back to Avdol as a huge beetle drifted into the aisle she and the group were at. Jotaro was the first to get out of his seat, being the closest to the bug.

“Be careful,” Avdol warned Jotaro as the teen got ready to catch it. “I’ve heard there is a user of a bug Stand that likes to rip out the tongues of its victims.”

The teen didn’t reply. “Star Platinum!” Jotaro called, the spirit manifesting and taking a swipe at the bug, who dodged.

“I-I can’t believe it!” Avdol exclaimed. “It’s faster than Star Platinum, whose speed and precision are such that it can grasp bullets!”

That put Kyogen on high alert as she stood up from her seat. This was not good.

“It has to be a stand,” Kakyoin muttered. “That bug is a stand! Where is he? Where is he hiding?”

Kyogen scanned the plane warily. She wished she had her knives with her, but they were packed away in the bag under the chair.

The bug hovered above them and began to foam green froth at the mouth. “It’s attacking!” Kakyoin yelled.

A slimy needle erupted out of its mouth and hit Star Platinum’s hand. It drew blood and the protrusion retreated back. Kujo had a wound on his hand mirroring his Stand.

The protrusion launched forward again.

“Jotaro!”

“Jojo!”

A crackle filled the air. The needle was hovering three inches from Star Platinum's open mouth. A wall of crystal held it back, shielding Jotaro and his stand from more damage. Sharpnote revealed itself from behind the wall and Kyogen twitched. She barely knew these people, and yet...

Joseph said, “Sharpnote was able to stop it from hitting Star Platinum’s mouth but…”

“Since it tried to bite off Jotaro’s Stand’s tongue…” Avdol murmured. “It must be him! The Tower Card of the Tarot… The one that depicts a Stand suggesting destruction, calamity, the end of a journey, Tower of Gray!”

What?

“The Tower of Gray commits mass murders, making them look like accidents,” the fortune-teller said, placing the heel of his palm over his forehead. “The airplane crash that happened last year in England, causing 300 deaths, is thought to have been its work. I had heard rumors, but it seems he’s working with Dio!”

Star Platinum reared back and soared over Sharpnote’s wall, unleashing a barrage of punches and screaming ‘ora’ as it aimed for the beetle. Or, where the beetle was, as its mouth needle broke free off the crystals just in time to dodge the attacks.

“I-It’s so fast!” Avdol stuttered. “It dodged all of that, not only the single hand but the two-fisted rush of blows!” 

Kyogen heard laughter as she called Sharpnote back, the wall of crystals shrinking as the Stand disappeared. “Even if you were to have ten guns shoot bullets from one centimeter away, they would not be able to touch my Stand!” The mysterious user said. “And you couldn’t kill my Stand with a bullet anyway.” A new needle emerged from the beetle’s mouth. 

Strangely, Kyogen noted that all the other passengers were still asleep despite the racket they were making. She couldn’t find a single soul who was awake. The beetle disappeared and reappeared behind a man, laughter emitting from it as it slowly dropped behind him. Kyogen let out a hoarse cry as it erupted from his jaw and plowed through the other passengers in front.

Blood spurted from them and Kyogen flinched when some splattered near her, thankfully stopped by the wall of crystals and her Stand. She stared in shock at the scene in front of her. The beetle had all the corpses’ tongues on its mouth needle. Bile rose up from her throat and Kyogen clasped a hand to her mouth. She could still see it when she shut her eyes, dark, crimson blood, and limp, bloodied flesh.

The voice cackled. “Bingo!” He cheered. “Got their tongues! And my objective…” The beetle flew to the wall and began writing on it with the blood. “Massacre!”

Kyogen had to squeeze her eyes shut to prevent another bout of nausea, trying to preserve the remnants of her composure. She was beginning to hate planes as well and it seemed like Sharpnote shared her sentiment, shifting back and forth tensely next to her.

From beside her, Avdol yelled, “I will burn it to death! Magician’s Red!” 

A flaming, bird-headed behemoth emerged from Avdol, ready to fight. They were held back by Kakyoin. “Wait!” He called. “Wait a moment, Avdol!”

The heat died down as Avdol paused and the Stand was brought back to him. A rickety old man straightened from his chair, rubbing his eyes. “It’s so noisy,” he grumbled. “I wonder what all the ruckus is.”

Kyogen and the group tensed as the beetle floated closer to him. “Sir,” she began cautiously. “Please do not move out of your seat.”

The old man didn’t seem to be paying attention to her and stood up. “I guess I’ll go to the bathroom…” he said. He paused and Kyogen grimaced as he swiped at the blood on the wall. “What’s with this slimy stuff? M…A…” The rest was cut off by a scream as he began backing away from the wall. “I-Is it blood?!? Blood!”

Kakyoin moved as the man got closer to him. “Atemi,” the male said as he struck the man in the back of his head. Said man promptly collapsed. Sharpnote moved beside him and carefully dragged the old man away from the aisle. “We have to defeat it before the other passengers panic. But, Avdol, an active Stand like your Magician’s Red could make the plane explode. And Jojo, if your power were to put a hole in the fuselage, it’d be a catastrophe. My quiet Stand,” Kakyoin whirled to face the beetle behind him, “Hierophant Green is most suited to defeating it.”

“Heh, heh, heh. Kakyoin Noriaki, eh? I’ve heard all about you from Lord Dio. Stop. If you know that your Stand is quiet, there’s no point in challenging me. You cannot catch me with your speed.”

“You think so?” Kakyoin asked. His Stand appeared next to him with its hands facing each other, one upright and one pointing down. “Emerald Splash!” Kakyoin called. Green liquid burst forth and exploded from the Stand. Kyogen’s eyes widened when she saw the glimmering emeralds in it. Sharpnote had an attack very similar to Hierophant Green’s Emerald Splash, although it had some changes. 

The beetle had no trouble dodging it, so Kakyoin yelled for Emerald Splash a second time. He would need help. Sharpnote clunked his way in front of her and tilted his head back, waiting for instruction. Kyogen nodded and whispered, “Diamond Rain.”

The Stand nodded and turned back. Sharpnote inhaled. A burst glittering crystals exploded from the Stand’s mouth, spreading across the area where the beetle was. It wasn’t prepared for the sudden attack from a different angle and got nicked a few times. However, the insect righted itself and continued dodging. “Fools!” It cried. “You seem to think you can hit me if you fire enough shots, but you’ve barely hit me at all!” 

“This isn’t good! Even with Wind’s help, it’s still dodging with speed!” Avdol cried. 

The needle protrusion shot from its mouth and cracked open Hierophant’s mouthpiece, blood emerging from both the Stand and Kakyoin himself. 

“Kakyoin!”

Said boy fell to his knees with his Stand and Kyogen dove to prevent him from hitting the floor. She grunted as most of his bulk rested on her and thanked the fact that his stand was incorporeal at the moment. Kakyoin propped himself up with her and Sharpnote’s help.

“My speed is on an entirely different level!” The beetle buzzed above them. “You’re way too slow to get a bingo! And Kakyoin…” It zoomed closer and foam began to froth at the corner of its mouth. “With my next attack, I’ll stab your Stand’s tongue with this Tower Needle and rip it out! And then I’ll rip out the stupid girl’s tongue!”

No, Kyogen gritted her teeth. She wasn’t going to allow it to touch Kakyoin nor his Stand. “Diamond Rain,” she muttered. Sharpnote inhaled and launched the attack again, chunks of crystals shooting at the beetle. 

“Don’t you get it??? Once this rips your tongue out, you’ll go mad from the pain!” It dove at them.

Kyogen let loose a low growl and tried to drag Kakyoin back, but paused when she saw his stand. Hierophant’s feet were spread out on the ground, worming its way underneath chairs. She was confused about what was going on as Kakyoin said, “What? If its tongue is ripped out, it’ll go mad from the pain?” He straightened, taking his weight off Kyogen. “My Hierophant Green?” 

The needle from the beetle shot at them and two things happened at once. Sharpnote shifted to cover them as green tendrils shot from the surrounding areas and speared through the beetle. “What?!” 

“If it rips you apart, it’ll go mad alright… from joy!”

Pained sounds escaped the beetle as it trembled in its suspended state. One wrong move would mean the end. Now that the bug was immobilized, it was safe for Kyogen to pull herself up as Kakyoin did the same. She dusted her school uniform off, thankful that it was still clean. Kakyoin's plan became clear and she cursed at herself for not realizing it sooner. “Hierophant’s appendages had already slipped beneath the sheets. Didn’t you realize I was trapping you there with the Emerald Splash?” 

The bug twitched and got pulled into bits as the appendages yanked it apart. The old man that Sharpnote had moved to a chair jerked up, screaming. A dark imprint of a beetle began to appear on his tongue as it blackened and split apart. Kyogen looked away as blood spurted from his head and he went limp. She didn’t know how to feel. Relieved that the danger was over, conflicted that she’d sent Sharpnote to aid this man, nauseated by the things the man did.

“So that old geezer was the Stand user?” Kakyoin asked. He took out a handkerchief and wiped at the blood running down his chin. “A repulsive Stand usually has a repulsive user.”

The group gathered around the dead man’s body, although Kyogen went back to her chair and collapsed in it. She was mentally exhausted from the event and wanted to find some semblance of peace in the form of sleep. Hopefully without nightmares. 

Kakyoin stared at the man and messed with the end of his hair strand. “It doesn’t appear that he has Dio’s flesh bud in his forehead…” Kakyoin mused. 

Avdol sat back down next to her after draping a sheet over the body. The other three chose to stand in the aisle. “From the start, Tower of Gray was an evil Stand that killed tourists, making it look like an accident only in return for payment. I’m sure Dio was able to use him because he was easily bought, and blinded by greed.” 

Kyogen was slipping in and out of sleep until her body tilted and hit the wall. She straightened up and groaned inwardly. Sleep would be so nice right now.

“Something’s wrong,” Joseph said. Kyogen growled underneath her breath. “I could be imagining it, but it seems like the plane is flying crooked.”

“It is crooked, Joestar-sama,” Kyogen mumbled. 

The older man jolted. “I-It can’t be!” He began to make his way to the front of the plane. 

The rest of the males shared a look and Kyogen screamed silently as they began following Joseph. The girl plodded along after them, her blank face a little more dead-looking than before, and her ponytail mussed up from sleep. She couldn’t quite see what was happening as they reached the door to the cockpit because of how absurdly tall everyone was. Sticking her head out from behind Avdol, she saw Kakyoin with two attendant ladies in his arms. He seemed to be murmuring comforts to them and Kyogen raised an eyebrow.

Kakyoin gently pushed them aside to make way. The cockpit door was wide open as she stepped in after Avdol and bore witness to the scene before her. The bodies of the pilot were all slumped over, their tongues missing from their mouth. 

Joseph went up to the controls and bent down, looking at them “It’s falling,” he said. “And the autopilot’s been destroyed as well. We’re going to crash!”

Kyogen decided at that moment that she really hated planes as well. There was a loud splat behind her and ugly laughter. Kyogen whipped around, face twisted into a scowl when she saw the old man. 

He was somehow alive and walking, although he looked worse for wear. “I am the Stand that holds The Tower card which suggests accidents at the end of a journey,” he declared, pointing a finger at the group. “You will not reach Lord Dio! Even if you survive this crash, you are 6,213 miles from Egypt! Those who swore loyalty to Dio will pursue you every hour of the day! There are Stands in this world that you can’t even imagine. Lord Dio is the master of Stands! He has the power to reign over them, you bastards will never reach Egypt!”

Kyogen turned away from him as he fell down into a pool of his own blood. The attendant ladies gasped in fear as they saw the old man’s body.

“You’re definitely professionals,” Jotaro said, settling himself onto the pilot seat next to Joseph. “It’s a good thing you didn’t scream, that would have been annoying. Now, I have a request. This old man is going to emergency land this plane on the water. Go put life jackets and seat belts on all of the other passengers. “

“G-Got it!” They both bolted away.

Jotaro turned to Joseph. “Old man,” he said to Joseph, silently asking the question they all had on their minds.

“Well… I have experience with propeller planes. But Jotaro… this is my third time. Have you ever heard of someone being in a crashing plane three times?”

Kyogen’s legs got weak as she sighed forcefully through her nose. Planes, national public enemy number two on her list.

“I’m never going to ride on a plane with you again,” Jotaro said. “You three, grab our belongings and get buckled up. It’s going to be a rough ride.”

Kyogen didn’t wait to hear it a second time and gingerly stepped around the bloodied body in the hallway. “Come on, Kakyoin, Avdol. We need to grab our stuff from the overhead baggage and get ready to land.”

The other two followed her and they passed the attendant ladies frantically handing out live vests. Kyogen snagged three and passed the other two to Avdol and Kakyoin. They reached their seats and Kyogen waited for Kakyoin to pass down the baggage, being too short to reach the overhead compartment herself.

“I’ll take either Mr. Joestar’s or Kujo’s bag,” Kyogen said. “I have the least baggage to carry.”

“Are you, sure?” Kakyoin asked. “Avdol and I can carry them.” “Yes.”

Kakyoin passed a black duffle bag to her and Kyogen sat down with it. She pulled hers from the under-seat compartment and settled down. Her hands trembled as she buckled the seatbelt and Kyogen’s heart was pounding. She squeezed her eyes closed. Jeez, she just faced off against an assassin but she was more terrified of an airplane crashing? 

A warm hand settled on her shoulder and Kyogen snapped her head to face the person. “It’s okay, Wind.” He soothed. “The plane has safety precautions which will make a water landing much smoother.”

Kyogen gave him a stiff nod. 

All she could do now is to wait.