#so i dont think you are ghosting me again with no forewarning or reason

[wearily-confused]

i wish it was acceptable to ask to dtr friendships

like are we treating this as bfs or acquaintances or talks casually every other month or every day gm and gn or what

like please tell me what amount of energy and care you are willing to reciprocate without pingponging between loving me and not even giving a fuck if i die, just stop with all this hot and cold bs

[kamari333]

I had to actually look back to see if I made any tumblr posts about these guys. I couldn’t find any??? So I guess this is my oppertunity to scream about these absolute fucking bastards.

Now. Um. Forewarning: I don’t actually know a lot about the original dreamtale. Or, I don’t keep up with it, at least. I read the first origin comic (and a bit of the cream ship comic) one time a while ago and... i dunno. found it lacking? I liked the premise but there was something distinctly missing in it for me. So these headcanons are more like an AU (an AU of an AU, surprise surprise, I’m on my shit again XD) that I thought up to help me enjoy the concept more when writing it. I’ve been calling it ‘Dr33mtal3’ in my head, but a friend named it ‘Dryad Dreamtale’ so either of those names work.

So. Dream and Night are tree spirits shaped like skeletons, born of the tree of duality to be its guardians. They were made to be more like monsters to better protect the tree and put its power to use.

Now, plants and gods (and especially god-plants) have very different ideals, morals, and expectations than mortals and humans and monsters. Dream and Night are half plant/god, but they are also half monster/mortal, so they cannot relate entirely to their tree mom or completely understand her. Likewise, she could not completely understand them. Thus, the twins understandably had a stressful, dysfunctional childhood and have long lasting mommy/daddy issues.

They also suffer from significant other kinds of trauma inflicted on them by their villager guardians.

So they are both psychologically fucked up.

They both have “wings” and “tentacles” but Night hides his wings and Dream hides his tentacles. Night’s wings are smaller than Dreams.

they aren’t actually tentacles though. they are roots and vines. because they are tree spirits. using those roots/vines, they can directly soak up energy and water. likewise, the “feathers” on their wings are actually leaves (except near the base and ridges, which are more like flower petals). they use these leaves to breathe in ambient emotions.

when injured, they bleed resin. that goop on nightmare? excess sap/resin he’s overgenerating thanks to consuming so many apples.

usually only strong internal emotions would make them do that. its only because of such strong internal emotions that nightmare continues to do that even after a thousand years.

i think that, being plants (which are terribly spiteful and innovative creatures) night and dream can control the consistency and nature of their sap and resin. dream keeps his sweet and sugary at all times, but nightmare switxhes between spicy-like-ghost-pepper-in-the-face caustic and rubber, and mild maple syrup, depending on his mood and how much he wants the person he is touching to hurt.

i think that dream is both terribly selfish and painfully selfless all at once, both kind and cruel. i think he is a very seelie fae who will never break a promise, but will not let you go unpunished for breaking yours. i think he has no problem breaking your legs if it means saving you from something else. dream will happily beat someone within an inch of their life, then nurse them back to health, if he thinks for a moment it is for the greater good.

nightmare goes to great lengths to make people hate him. at the end of the day he is as disgusted with himself as anyone else, but he does it and will keep doing it because if no one fears him, they will destroy him. nightmare is a terrible unseelie fae, but he will never speak an untrue word or break an oath once struck. it is not in his nature. he will rule with an iron fist, but he is just as capable of selflessness as he is of cruelty.

i think dream is so concerned with the big picture he sometimes forgets little details. i think he is the type to take in strays before he has a home to keep them in. he befriends ink and ink makes him a multiverse home to keep his people safe in. dream then takes it upon himself to make sure it stays operational, despite eventually accumulating a city’s worth of people in what was originally a 4 bedroom townhouse. lucky him that ink has his back, continually expanding as needed.

i think nightmare is far more artistic and clever than folks give him credit for. i think he enjoys making things. i think he is the type of man to take great pride in building everything he has himself. his castle is made out of his own power: stone made of his own resin, hardened into amber; wood grown from his own bones; tapestries woven of textiles made from his own leaves, pets, and processed wood. his castle of black amber is constructed of his own blood, sweat, and tears, lovingly handcrafted art for him to live in. all natural. all his. (such a shame he never got around to furnishing all of it, having only enough time and drive to do the first floor with how long handweaving the carpets took; such a shame no one noticed or cared because the fear for their lives overshadowed any awe they could have had upon seeing the delicate craftsmanship of the arching ceilings and looming statues).

i think dream and night both love fresh water and sunlight. they get incredibly sleepy if its too hot or too cold. they are terrified of fire, squirrels, fungi, and insects. they dont like birds much either. they easily get jealous of other plants (comically so, to the point of sassing or threatening or passive-aggressively insulting non-sapient rose bushes or fica or succulents they come into contact with). they are scared of mistletoe (being a plant that eats other plants, kinda).

i hc that dream with faint dead on his feet if he gets too scared, and nightmare screams like a white girl in a horror movie.

i like to think that because they are trees, they have a “season” (like heat, but for trees) where they are very pro-affection. their leaves turn pink and they involuntarily cover themselves in pink pollen that drives nearby creatures’ libido into overdrive. neither brother likes this, so when their season hits they hide away so nobody notices (night because he does not want to seem weak, dream because he does not want to inconvenience anyone else).

i like to headcanon that a holdover from their human attributes means each brother can only formulate one set of sex organs. i’ll give you a hint: nightmare is trans in my hc (be gay do crime). he takes great pains to make sure nobody knows this.

i like to think that both brothers hide all of this, hide all of their tree-ness as best they can, and instead hide behind the aspects of being an angel and a tentacle abomination in order to throw off anyone who might look for weaknesses. so nobody knows what they really are.

These are all superficial HCs of course. The big thing is that i wanted their natures to be... more complicated than simply good and evil. They believe and say that they are guardians of positivity and negativity (and in a way thats true), but only in its most simplistic of forms.

Dream is the aspect of Giving: he radiates pollen and magical influence to embue those around him with his power. He can give them emotions. He eats positivity, thats what sustains him, but his power is to give. He could just as easily give his people bad feelings as good ones (not that he knows this). However, Dream only knows and cares about giving positivity. So he does. He leaves his magic and influence on the souls of anyone who will give him the oppertunity, and once the door is open, he will continually feed them his power to make them happy. He will eat/breathe that happiness, converting it to energy, perpetuating the cycle.

But unmitigated mania has its drawbacks. There is a price to be paid in the end.

Nightmare is the aspect of Taking. He takes and takes, taking the emotions and energy of others for himself. He can even take the entropy out of an injury to heal a wound. Nightmare can take positivd feelings out of others, but for some reason his body doesn’t like him doing that and makes him sick/hurt. He has a much easier time taking negativity, draining away the hurt and fear and exhaustion, leaving a calming emptiness behind. Nightmare cannot process or use everything he takes for himself, needing to expell it as a waste product. He converts negative feelings (and the wasted energy disipated through entropy) into energy, which lets him continue his taking.

You cannot fill a hole that is already filled, after all. You must empty it first.

These two aspects are neither good nor evil in and of themselves. There are good and bad things about them. But these aspects have been oversimplified and misinterpreted by those around the twins that even they themselves do not fully understand what it is that they are.

and i think a story about them coming to understand themselves would be so much more interesting than a simple story of good vs evil.

[dw-writes]

Ghost Protag 2

I enjoy writing this, it’s fun and a shameless self insert and I dont even care. It’s great. I hope you enjoy it, too.

Again, be forewarned. This story deals with some heavy stuff like depression, self harm, and suicide. I suggest if you’re not comfortable with these themes, that you don’t read. Thank you!

First Part Third Part

Even dead – yes, I am, in fact, going to keep talking about how I’m dead okay? It’s kind of a big deal for me – I still found myself following the streets until I was staring at the looming buildings of my university campus.

I can feel the judgement from here. Say whatever, but I at least decided to go after what I wanted and get that degree I wanted. Your age doesn’t matter you can do what you want! Take THAT DEPRESSION!

She said nothing. Good. Fuck off, you fickle bitch.

Anyway, I stopped next to a bus stop. It was outside the main building of campus, where they had the food court and printers and all that jazz. Not gonna lie, I still felt out of place when I went there, because everyone was years younger than I was. So out of place that I went and got a printer for my apartment. I was stuck eating noodles for two weeks because of it, but whatever. I had a printer. I didn’t have to pay ten cents a page for my essays anymore. Sue me. But as I stared up at the building, I felt sad. I wouldn’t be able to go in there again and get the really awful pizza that they made. Or sit in the too comfortable chairs in the basement and accidentally fall asleep.

I sat heavily on the bus bench and just…stared. I could hear birds and bugs and the faint music coming from one of the frat houses behind me. The occasional car roared past, speeding in the twenty zone. Who cared? No one. I didn’t even think there was a campus cop out right now.

I wanted to cry. Could I cry? I could run into doors, so I could probably cry. But no tears came. I started thinking of even more sad things, just to see if I could. I thought of how my cats would have to be rehomed, and how they probably didn’t even know that I wouldn’t be coming back. I thought of how I had done all that work towards that degree for nothing. I thought of the money that was just going to disappear, probably, from my bank account since I was – hahaha – dead.

Okay, I made myself WAY too sad. I felt my eyes welling up. Instead of wiping them away, like I had at the church, I let them fall. They rolled partially down my face before just…vanishing. I touched my chin, where they normally dripped off, and found it dry.

“This is such bullshit!” I screamed into the night. I stood and stomped my kitty slipper feet on the ground like I was two. “I can’t even cry properly?! What the actual fuck, universe!” I screamed. I screamed loud and hard and way too long for someone who should have been alive. When I couldn’t scream anymore, I stopped, and found myself disappointed when the sound didn’t echo.

I could feel a presence just behind my right shoulder, on the sidewalk, just standing there. Awkwardly. And staring. I wiped at my face anyway, even though my tears were apparently just floating away like tiny fucking helium balloons, and turned towards the presence.

It was a boy. A man? I dunno, but he was most definitely that awkward age were you think you’re one but you’re still probably the other but, legally, you’re the adult. Option B. The one that pays the taxes.

Oh, man, I didn’t have to pay taxes anymore. I didn’t get a tax return anymore. That sucks!

“Are you okay?” he asked. His voice was higher than mine, just a little, and he squeezed his arms when he asked the question. He hugged himself like he was cold and his black sweater was doing nothing to help him. It was a turtle neck with long sleeves. And boy, this kid needed sun. His was brown, but not very brown? Like, he had been taking his night classes a little too seriously? Get this poor child some Vitamin D!

I looked around as I registered his question. “Me?” I asked, when I saw I was the only one. His thin brown eyebrows lifted to tell me yes, he was in fact talking to me. A car turned the corner and rolled past him, its headlights illuminating him. His hair was swept up and away from his face, dark brown, and covered in a blue that was growing out almost too much. The sides of his head were cut close. He hadn’t gotten it done in a little while, alright. “You’re asking me if I’m okay?” I repeated.

He shook his head and shoulders like I was absolutely nuts. “Yeah. You were screaming,” he said. He shrugged his shoulders and unfolded his lanky arms to shrug again. “You’re the only other person—”

“Holy fucking shit, you can see me?” I interrupted, stumbling around the bench towards him.

He lifted his hands and backed up into the street. “Lady, I think you’re drunk.”

“Trust me, I am SO not drunk,” I said. I stopped, though, and rolled my eyes up in thought. “Am I?”

He started to walk away. “This is what I get for being a good person,” I heard him say to himself.

I scrambled after him, shouting wait at his back, until I managed to catch up and latch onto his arm. He, too, tripped over his own feet and yanked his arm away from me. “Why are you so cold?” he demanded.

“I’m cold?” I protested, “You’re cold! Did you just walk out of a freezer?”

“No, it’s just cold outside!” he shouted back. His head snapped to the side and he backed up to the sidewalk. It was then that I realized that I had followed him out into the road. Just in time for another car to roll down the street and barrel right into me.

Through me.

I didn’t, like, disappear. I was still there. I pressed my hands to my stomach and wailed as the car continued on. “What the fuck?” I squeaked. I looked at my palms and continued to press them into my abdomen. “What the fuck? I can’t go through a door but a car can go through me?!” I groaned and crouched in the road. “Oh my god, that was, like, the worst possible cramp I could have ever had.”

I could see the man child in the turtle neck anxiously pacing on the sidewalk. His messenger bag had dropped to the ground and his hands were buried in his hair. He stared at me. “You just got hit by a car,” he said.

“No, I think it went through me.”

“A car just went through you.”

“Yes?”

“Holy hell, a car just went through you.”

“We’ve established this. Let me cramp in peace.”

He practically slid across the ground, kneeling next to me in the road. “You’re dead,” he concluded.

I set my elbow on my knee and propped my chin in my hand. “No shit?” I asked, “And here I thought I was tripping balls.” The thrill of discovery flickered and almost disappeared from his eyes. He pulled me up from a crouch – with my protests – and pulled me back to the sidewalk.

“You’re a ghost,” he said slowly.

I would have smacked him if a wave of pain hadn’t rolled through my stomach. It, honestly, felt like the car had ripped through my back and squeezed out of my belly button. Worst cramps ever. “Yeah, I’m a ghost,” I said through gritted teeth. I held out my hand and sank to the ground, pressing as much as I could against my stomach. “God, that hurt,” I sighed.

The kid kneeled in front of me. “I’m Francisco,” he said. His letters rolled beautifully off his tongue. I could have swooned. “Pancho,” he added, “To…people.”

I looked up at him. The pain was starting to pass. Bless. “Pancho?” I repeated.

“It’s short for Francisco,” he persisted.

“…In what world?”

“Spanish!” he replied. The word was drawn out and upset. I could have laugh.

I could have done a lot of things. Instead, I swallowed down the nausea that was coming with the passing of the pain and held out my hand. “Piper,” I said, “Piper Mills.”

“Like paper mills,” he said as he shook my hand.

“Okay, okay, get it out, Pancho Man,” I shot back.

He sucked on his teeth. Carefully, he stood, and pulled me with him. “If you’re gonna make fun of me, at least be original,” he said. His head tilted. His hair fell just right. There was a pout, even. That feeling in the back of my mind pinged but I kept my mouth shut. People were in the cupboard for a reason. Shit, I was. Sitting quietly with my kitchen utensils were I belonged. Instead, I pulled my hand back and wrapped my arms over my stomach. “If you’re gonna make fun of the people that can see you, then you need to choose wisely,” he warned. He picked up his bag and shook his hair from his face. Again.

Ping ping, motherfucker.

I licked my lips. “People?” I asked.

It was like he just realized what he said. He pressed his lips together, eyes growing wide. Suddenly, his mouth split with an audible pop and there, right there, were fangs. A little stained like teeth of a wine drinker, but there, right there, were fangs that extended down from his upper gums and sat carefully over his bottom jaw. I watched as they shrank back into his gums until they looked like regular old – okay, who am I kidding, sharp as fuck canines.

What did my anthropology professor say? Oh, right.

I had a God damn, mother fucking paradigm shift right then and there. The universe itself tilted and the planets aligned and Zeus himself reached down to flick me in the back of the head. I knew what he was. I knew the word. Still, the only thing I could say was an intelligible, “Uhhhhhh.”

Pancho smacked his lips and sucked on his teeth again. He grabbed my arms and carefully turned me around. “That’s the normal reaction, it’s okay,” he murmured. He kept an arm around me as we walked. I half wondered what people who looked outside thought. Who knew. Vampires were said to be able to do a lot of things.

I did look up at him – boy was much taller than I was – and asked, “Are you just hugging air to people?”

“Yes, I am, so let’s walk faster,” he answered.

I knew campus was big, but I had never realized how big until Pancho took me to his university apartment on the. Other. Side. Of the world. I wish I were kidding. It was, like, fifteen blocks away from the bus stop bench. I didn’t even know the campus was that big, you know? But it was, and we walked up four flights of stairs and down, like, five hallways, until Pancho finally opened a door and unveiled his apartment.

There was a dog. There, right there, in the middle of the floor. It was small, and black, with a tail that was home to three perfectly round, although different sized, orbs of curled fur. That tiny, adorable, tea cup poodle jumped to its adorably small, teeny tiny paws, and barked as loud as it could.

Those damn evaporating tears poured down my face as I thought of my cats. Pancho panicked. He lowered me onto his leather futon near the door as I sobbed and asked me, repeatedly, what was wrong. I told him. I told him how my cats were at home by themselves, or probably with my parents, and I would never see them again. He had the fortitude to kiss my hair.

“Do you want me to get your cats?” he asked.

“Yes, I want my cats!” I wailed.

He carefully placed the tea cup poodle – named Thor – in my lap and set out every remote for the various devices around and connected to his television. He told me how to work his shower, how to work the stove if I was hungry, and left. The door clicked shut. It opened again as he asked for my address and I gave it to him through muffled and bubbly sobs as I buried my face into Thor’s fluffy tummy. He had rolled over in my lap. I was grateful. Pancho told me to give him an hour. The door shut and the lock clicked and I was alone with a happily panting Thor and my pathetic sobs. I righted Thor in my lap and he licked my face where my tears should have been. I smiled at scratched his ears.

“Well, that answers one question,” I cooed at Thor. He tilted his head at me. “Animals can see ghosts.” He leaned his face in towards mine and licked my nose clean. I squeezed my eyes shut as he continued to clean the rest of my face. When he was done, and his rancid dog breath was puffing in my face, I replied, “Thank you.”

He barked.

I nodded my head.

Thor jumped off my lap and click clacked his way across the hard wood floor to the kitchen, where he sat pretty next to a full food bowl. I followed him. He daintly pressed a paw into his food and brought it back to the floor. I stared at him. “You,” I stuttered, “You have food.”

He did it again.

“Yes, it’s right there.”

And again.

I crouched this time. “Food. Right there.”

Thor stood and shoved the plastic food bowl at me. I watched as it hit my foot. “I eat?” I asked, “I food?” Thor barked this time and sat back down. “I food,” I repeated. I stood and looked around the kitchen. “Me eat.”

Pancho’s kitchen was minimalistic and perfect – of course. The only flaw was a hook near a coffee pot that held a leash and collar, and a bowl underneath that held colorful doggy bags. The collar was teal. So was the leash. The leash itself was long and cloth and had black letters up and down it. I reached over and lifted a piece to read.

It said service dog.

I looked down at Thor. “Now you make sense,” I said. Thor lifted a paw. I dug around in the kitchen, finding little in the way of snacks and more in the way of garnishes for dishes. I opened a cabinet and found a single box of cereal. And in the fridge, milk. I made a bowl and sat on the island in the middle of the kitchen, kicking my feet and spooning the small sugary discs into my face. It was nice to eat. I didn’t feel hungry – I didn’t know if I could be hungry – but it was nice to eat. Comforting. Normal.

I looked around the apartment as I ate bowl after bowl until I had finished both the box of cereal and the milk carton. The living room had the futon, a matching chair, a glass coffee table, and a large flat screen with multiple game consoles and multimedia players underneath. There was a VCR. I couldn’t remember the last time I saw a VCR. Across from the island of the kitchen was a nice, square dining table, fit for four people. On the walls behind it were old pictures. Sepias and black and whites, with a single person in every one. I walked around the island, dragging my feet, and stared at them. It was the same man in every one.

It was Pancho.

The two walls were filled floor to ceiling in a gallery setting. It was a chronicle of his time. It was damn amazing. I wondered if he took the photos or had someone take them.

The door opened and I whipped around. Pancho was setting down two crates. He opened them carefully. From one shot a rotund feline in shades of brown. She yelled and yelled as she looked around, until her eyes settled on me. I fell to my knees as she waddled over and climbed into my lap. From the second slinked out a thinner, darker cat. He was much smaller and slight, and very very nervous. He, too, shot across the room to me once he spotted me. I sprawled on the floor and hugged them both too me.

Pancho make awkward sounds. “I don’t know how ghosts work,” he said. He shrugged. “But I can take all your stuff and bring it here. I’ve got another room.” I babbled at him. It was complete nonsense. Pancho patted his thighs. “I’m taking that as a yes.” He pointed across the living room to one of three doors. “I’m just gonna go make a bed for you,” he said.

There was a long time where I just stayed on the floor, smooching and hugging my cats even though they didn’t want the affection. My rotund child, Anna – Actually, Grand Duchess Anna Petrovna, but semantics – yelled as I buried my face in her stomach. She was purring. What a little liar. My other cat, Cracker Jacks, very gently meowed as he settled on my stomach. I heard Pancho walking past me as he made up the room. He stopped and his knees cracked.

“It’s getting close to morning,” he said softly.

“How did you get my kids so easily?” I asked instead.

He shrugged. “I have my ways,” he said. Vampire ways, probably. Fair enough. I wouldn’t push it. He ran a hand over Anna’s back. “I have to sleep soon, but you do whatever.”

I stared at him, at his stupid teal and brown hair and his stupid narrow face and hooked nose and giant ass eyes. What a stupid kid. What a nice kid. “Thanks,” I finally said.

Pancho shrugged. “We uh…” He cleared his throats and his eyes darted around. “We supes gotta stick together.”

Yeah. Supes. That’s the community name now. He patted my head and stood. “Hey, how old are you?” I asked. His mouth dropped open. “Is that a vampire faux pas I just committed?” I asked again.

“Uhhh,” was his response. He shrugged. “Nineteen.” I almost protested. What the fuck? What the actual fuck? Who in their right mind decided ‘oh hey, this kid is a tasty morsel, how about I convert him into a vampire?’ That’s, like, what parents do when they send their ten year olds to bible camp. “I’m going to bed now.” I tilted my head as I followed his form with my eyes. He opened the middle door in the wall. The room beyond was completely dark. Like. Horror movie dark. Roll for dark vision dark. I didn’t even know if he had windows. Maybe he didn’t.

What all was true for vampires?

I opened my mouth to ask but Pancho shut the door behind him. I saw he had one of those door fit things underneath it, the kind you use in winter to keep your warm air inside the house. There was another on the top of the door. Neat.

The fat Anna Banana crawled under my chin and sprawled across my chest and throat, pinning my head into that really awkward position. The sun rose. Kept rising. Made a bright square right on my face. I suffered. But I refused to move because my cats were asleep. Was I a great mom, or what?

Finally, Anna moved and padded somewhere and I heard the sound of claws in litter and wondered when the HELL Pancho had brought that, too. Weird. Vampires were weird. Cracker Jacks followed her and I attempted to roll backwards, heels over head, and failed with a choking sound. I climbed to my knees instead. I guess being a ghost didn’t come with cool supernatural powers like flexibility. I looked down at my green pants and frowned.

“Do ghosts wear normal people clothes or is there a ghost mall?” I shouted towards Pancho’s room.

“Fuck off,” came the muffled reply. I shrugged. Fair. I went to one of the other two doors and opened it to find a bathroom. It was nice – as nice as an apartment bathroom could be – and I took the chance to shower. Shampoo and conditioner and soap at least cleaned me off. One new thing I have learned about being a ghost. Once I was wrapped in a towel, I dug around Pancho’s drawers until I found a case of new toothbrushes. I stole a green one. He wouldn’t mind. I hoped, anyway. I scrubbed my teeth as vigorously as I had scrubbed my body and my hair and left.

The last door was a second bedroom. Bare of anything personal, it had a bed and a closet and a dresser and windows. You know, like a room would. I opened the closet and found some of Pancho’s clothes. I wondered if he had the closet in his own bedroom full. Probably. Boy looked like he shopped at places with half naked male models pretty often. I grabbed a pair of jeans that were almost too small and a shirt that was, also, almost too small. Would people see floating clothes? How did this ghost thing work? Could I scare people?

I pondered this for so long that when I stopped pondering, my hair was dry and in awkward curls and angles. I decided to test it. Shoving my hair back, I jogged across the apartment and grabbed a piece of fruit off the counter. A lime. Perfect.

Why did Pancho have limes?

Anyway, I opened a window wide enough to stick my arm out of it. Peeking through the window, I waited until someone passed by on the sidewalk. Then, I pushed the window completely open, leaning out, and dropped the lime on the kid’s head. He yelped and looked up. But he didn’t say anything. I even waved. Stuck my hand in my shirt and waved. Still, nothing.

Neat. I mean, it still sucked that I was a ghost. But now I was a lime throwing ghost that people couldn’t see in normal non-ghost clothes. Neat. I closed the window to make sure my cats wouldn’t jump out and, also, become ghosts, and sat on the floor. I didn’t really know what else to do. I looked over to where the crates sat and saw a few backpacks were sitting with them. Pancho had the good graces to grab some of my things, too. How nice.

Us supes really DO stick together, holy hell.

When I made it to the bags, I started to open them. One was filled with clothes. Well, I was already dressed, so he’d have to deal. Another was filled with my bathroom stuff. I pulled out a full bottle of my anti-depressants and shook it. It felt necessary to take one, so I did. Honestly, I was a little afraid of not taking it, even though I was dead. I remembered, one time, when I stopped taking my shit, and spent two days sobbing and wanting to die. I didn’t feel like doing that again. I dunked the bottle back into the bag after I was done and continued to look through the bags.

The door to Pancho’s room swung open. I looked back. The apartment was dark.

“How the fuck does ghost time work?” I asked. He shrugged as he made his way to the bathroom. “It was, like, noon not even twenty minutes ago.”

“Maybe it’s like when you sleep,” he said through a yawn. He stopped in the bathroom door and lifted the green toothbrush I had used. I shrugged this time. “Don’t make me regret this,” he threatened.

“Like you would kick me out.”

“I just met you yesterday,” he pointed out.

Valid. I kept my mouth shut. He showered and primped and pampered while I dug out socks and a pair of shoes. Ghost time passed. He nudged me, fully dressed and hair styled, and I looked up. “We’re gonna see a friend of mind. She might know a little more about what happened to you than I do.”

“Why do you say that?” I asked as I stood.

He led me outside and down the stairs. “She’s a journalist. She’s got her nose so deep in the supernatural scene that she knows anything that happens before it even happens.” Pancho’s eyes landed on me. “She should have an idea.”

I held up my hand and kicked the lime I had thrown when we reached it outside. “I fully trust the community reporter with my life.” Pancho said nothing. I wondered if he regretted helping me. Probably, I mean, now he has this roommate that doesn’t contribute anything, and that he didn’t even ask for.

Common Sense stepped in and said, “Shut up, you frivolous bitch, we just died.”

Depression backed into her corner. Yeah. Take that. Why can’t I listen to Common Sense more often?

I followed Pancho to a squat building off campus, one not too far from where he lived. He didn’t even knock. Instead, he just pushed the door open and a little bell dinged his arrival. “Miss Villa?” he sang into the office room. Office was generous. It was a little suite in a building, housing four desks and a door that was probably a back room. The back door was propped open with a bright red heel. That heel pushed the door open and a girl peeked out.

Retro. Retro. Fucking Retro. She owned the retro name. A cute sweetheart dress in black and white with buttons on the front, tight curls framing her head, and the brightest red lipstick I have ever seen. It matched her shoes. She grinned. “Mr. Zapata,” she greeted cheekily.

Please be my friend.

Pancho moved me towards a desk. “This is Piper Mills.”

“Like Paper Mills?” the girl asked.

“Haaaah,” I responded.

She crossed the room and held out her hand. “Paloma Villa,” she introduced herself. When I shook her hand, her expression changed. “Oh,” she said, “Piper.”

I made an unhappy sound. “Yup, Piper,” I said, I shoved my hands in the deep front pockets of the jeans I wore. “The girl that apparently killed herself.”

“Apparently?” Paloma asked. She kicked her heels off and sat in a chair. “The paper said it was a suicide. Open and shut.”

“Pap—I was in the paper?” I asked. I rounded the desk.

She turned the screen off. “You probably shouldn’t read it,” she murmured, “Maybe just…take a seat.”

“I’m not sensitive, I’m dead,” I stated. I crossed my arms. “Pancho said you’d know about things about…ghosts. Can you tell me?”

Paloma sighed. “Let’s go somewhere else,” she said. She turned the computer off and stood. I followed.

[crown-eater]

Only the Vital Ones

[ With Symbiotic Self-Indulgence, 3.] [ The Uptake (table of contents) ]

defunct outdated draft. you want this one

“In those days, desires weren’t allowed to become reality. So, fantasy was substituted for them–films, books, pictures. They called it ‘art.’ But, when your desires become reality, you don’t need fantasy any longer, or art.”

–Amyl Nitrate, “Jubilee”

The small kitchen table in Cecil and ‘Choly’s studio apartment abutted a full-height open-frame modular shelving unit which doubled as a space divider. Slumped at it, before ‘Choly was a quaint parchment-and-string box, a small kitchen knife, and his reader on a kickstand. He rubbed at his face in a dull restlessness, staring down some of the pieces he had in his drafts. Ultimately, he stood and paced a good bit the long narrow space which ran from one end of the apartment to the other, a track which functioned not unlike a hallway.

“Are you all right?” Cecil asked from the loft-bunk in the front corner of the room, not looking up from  where he’d curled up with a physical book. “I made more coffee before I got comfy, if you want.”

“Yeah, trying to work on some writing. A hot drink sounds good, really.”

'Choly rinsed out his mug and poured himself a fresh cup, and sat again. Then, he snipped the string with the knife and unfurled the wrappings to reveal a wax-coated box. His glasses came off and lay across the table from him, as he continued massaging at his cheeks and chin and neck marbled with scars. Abruptly, he switched frames to his messenger app and clicked on Augen’s username. A heavy sigh came out of him, and rather than initiate conversation he produced from the small box a chalky-looking pastel ball the size of a fruit. With a small detachment he smoothed out the parchment with his free hand, setting the ball down atop it with the other. He also fished from the box a plastic bottle containing a thick amber substance, which he set by his drink. Drawing up the knife, he was about to make a cut, but stopped short.

“I got confec earlier. Y’want a slice?” He would have mentioned the resin, but didn’t want to share that.

“Hm? Yeah, I’ll take it.” Inviting it, Cecil didn’t question the acquisition.

The dreg pressed the knife into the edge of the ball, which had a mealy consistency somewhere between soap and fudge. A quarter-inch butt fell to the paper, and he got up and took it over to his boyfriend, who reached down to accept it. Cecil put it in his mouth, a dry ineffectual suck, and sank back down into his nest of comforters to return to his book. Once he’d returned again to his reader, ‘Choly made two more slicing motions and doled one disc for himself, letting the hyssop-like bouquet dissolve on his tongue as he sank into his chair and stared at the messenger window he’d opened.

ketherphorbia: what are you up to tonight, fish dick?

9augen: admiring the moon, if it really interests you. its full tonight

ketherphorbia: you’re such a goth omg

9augen: im taking a break from scavving the ocean bed of the bay. its not a bad thing to pause and admire natural beauty. honestly im surprised i can see it from beneath the surface of the water

ketherphorbia: you can? that’s nuts

ketherphorbia is typing…

9augen: i found another prosthetic eye earlier. i think that makes 5 now

ketherphorbia has stopped typing.

ketherphorbia: do you ever write to get shit out of your system? like. not in a carnal sense. sort of in a carnal sense. an emotional sense. a purgative sense?

ketherphorbia: also that sounds neat. dare i say eye-catching

9augen: terrible

9augen: im not sure i see what youre getting at, but most of the time my writing takes a particular headspace. that, or as you insinuated, a good inspiration does wonders to get me in the mood for it as well

ketherphorbia is typing…

ketherphorbia: you remember how i was writing stories about me getting with the geek, but then i stopped abruptly? the last wip i posted before i stopped, was right after i found out that the geek and larva were the same person. early on, the reasons i couldn’t reconcile with finishing the piece were because of how badly the encounter went when i first met him. then he caught me stalking him and.

ketherphorbia: you remember that right? i know i sent you a selfie of the black eye he gave me

9augen: you couldnt shut up about it for a month.

ketherphorbia: he even tracked me down, what, five weeks later? and things got super weird. i’m still trying to process everything that happened. 

ketherphorbia: forewarning i’m thrushed

9augen: hoping a mouthful of wax would help you focus? noble, i suppose

9augen: this is about the walls, isnt it.

ketherphorbia: not quite. and yet exactly

ketherphorbia: i just. i owe it to him to get the details right, don’t i? it feels real lousy to even consider writing a nonfictional account of him, and yet

ketherphorbia: i feel like i need to get the very concept of him in print to get it out from inside of me. i know it’s already been two years since the walls went up, but i don’t think it’s possible for me to forget even for a day

ketherphorbia: how do you stay motivated to write something that hurts and arouses you, both in ways nothing else has ever really managed to?

9augen: a difficult question. but, perhaps a better reply is another question: who are you writing this for?

ketherphorbia has stopped typing.

ketherphorbia: …i’d say it was for me, but i feel like i need to put his ghost to rest. i’d say it was for him, but it’s also in hopes of jamming my brain because something more accurate could exist of him. and i’d say it was for you or any of my followers, but i… don’t even know if i can bring myself to post it after completing it…

ketherphorbia: i gotta have a second slice

9augen: youre already waxing, man. i dont blame you for wanting to melt, but i know you dislike worrying cecil

ketherphorbia: we’re both thrushed tbh. i could eat the whole confec right now and i’m considering it. gives everything such a *veneer*

9augen: seeing what youd write from that would be entertaining to say the least. that is, if you even got words on screen.

ketherphorbia: …you’re right

9augen: you never did tell cecil about the geek, did you? have you ever wanted to?

ketherphorbia: i told him about chalcedony. and he hasn’t said anything but i know he knows about the geek. i don’t think i will ever get used to how open he is to it. it’s as though he believes leaving me untethered keeps me more faithful. he’s not wrong, though, i guess

ketherphorbia: i miss your face

ketherphorbia: i miss you sandwiched between us. skin like glue

9augen: stop wasting your high on me and go burn yourself out on your writing, bug dick. i need to get back to work anyway

ketherphorbia: …yeah…

[isaacathom]

serren gets beat up by Endlyn (with her ghost-punchin’ arm) and genuinely believes shes gonna be totally dead because at this point, she’s vaguely aware of the whole ‘kiss to come back’ thing (not sure from where) and shes like ‘fuck fuck fuck FUCK IM A GHOST’ and probably spends her last moments desperately reaching for Endlyn even though she knows thats.... pretty pointless actually. she’s desperate, yknow.

then, poof, she jolts awake in her tower in derse. its incredibly confusing all around. theres probably noone on derse to actually help her make sense of the situation either... or any way for her to leave.......... uh. thats actually an issue. though i suppose she should have a computer in her room (given jade did, right) so she could possibly contact someone. not sure how theyd help, exactly. this is the issue. she’d be essentially stranded on derse until one of the other derse dreamers - Endlyn, Dahnte, and Tsitas - wakes up and offers to fly her home. the only candidate for that is Tsitas. Dahnte would refuse unless he could possibly wrangle a favour out of it, though if Serren mentioned shed ‘visited his hive’ as a ghost he’d do it immediately. he hates ghosts. this boy is terrified of ghosts.

unless someones.... god tier? which could work. my candidate is Lyndel or Junzha. Having Junzha do it seems like overkill considering he is already responsible for Serren not being dead (and thus responsible for her existing as a ghost, because he woke up her dream self way fucking early) so having him also ‘save’ her by picking her up seems too much. since Lyndel’s role in the slightly rewritten sage of Rhiana Tasiai has her relegated to buying serren a laptop, having her ascend reasonably early and then going to collect Serren from derse seems... fair enough. and she’s a doom player, so dying way early on seems completely justifiable. have her die early on as a sort of ‘sacrifice’ that allows the players of the session to know that in this new world, death isn’t the finale. Which gives Serren a lot of hope, which can then be briefly crushed when Endlyn accidentally finds out she exists and beats the crap out of her. i think that works?

which then begs the question of how Lyndel dies. it’d have to be a quest bed death in order for it to work properly whiiiiichhh begs a lot of questions, to be honest. Zekari could help be a part of that, perhaps accidentally self fulfilling by seeing her death in the clouds (for those keeping score [me] thats the second time hes seen a death in the clouds) and deciding to forewarn her, resulting in her deciding to do a sweep of the area around her home to ensure its safe. resulting in her getting blindsided and totaaaaaled. in a big ol pyre-looking mfucker. nice. though if she’s a Page and we’re going Active Serve on this bitch.... imma have to reread the thing, hold up. if she’s a page, arguably she should be forcing (accident or otherwise) someone to serve her doom - to act as the sacrificial pony upon which the session new understanding of death can be built off. whose the candidate for that? Junzha, probably. he’s not all that strong, his telekinesis isnt even very powerful and in fact pales in comparison to his two other psychic friends (serren has pretty decent telepathy and zekari is a gold blood telekinetic with a more versatile set, while junzha can only manipulate momentum and not direction). so him accidentally dying earlier, as a result of something Lyndel told him to do, allows him to do all the shit. and it works really well because their classes mesh together REALLY well here, and in fact would manifest in similar ways. as Junzha is Knight of Life, and so being killed and brought back to life sorta fits that mold - passively serving (giving, whatever) life to the session, with Lyndel actively giving death to the session by showing them how it can be used. they fit together here. so, ok, Junzha dies early on as a complete accident that Lyndel takes the responsibility for. She’s the one who called him to her planet or whatever, she put him in that place, she accepts her place, and finding out he survived after she kissed him is literally one of the best things she’d heard all day. then she allows Zekari to serve her Doom later when she doesn’t cut off a conversation with him (aka she was busy but stopped for her when she couldve ignored it) and to tell her where she should go in order to get herself killed (that wasnt his intent - its a Page thing. it also ties into him being a Bard, though not into his aspect). serves doom to the session by again showing Good Death and shit. yeehaw.

ok. junzha dies early. whiiiich would then strand him on skaia????? Zekari IS on Skaia though, and has been awake for ages, so its wholly possible for Zekari to, if convinced to fucking go to bed (you dumbass) to give Junzha a lift. way easier than convincing The Crew to do the same thing on Derse, due to the shenanigans involved in those folk.

yeaaassss...... i think that works. Junzha dies early in an accident that Lyndel caused (by accident, she didn plan this), Lyndel is later killed in her quest cocoon (or Pyre, really, thats what her world is Full of) and ascends, which allows her to then collect Serren after Serren gets the absolute shit kicked out of her by an enraged Endlyn, who was angry that Serren had tricked her by pretending to be a Cobalt (again, Endlyn is kinda weird about this shit, and if Serren were a more manipulative person and had done it deliberately to earn favours, like.... endlyn’d be right to be miffed).

the loop successfully closes.

admittedly Junzha dying because of Lyndel doesn’t have any real place in the Ancestral Karmic Cycle but its an accident, so its not a huge deal. i dont think Junzha can even die as part of that cycle..... he could kill Tsitas, but thats about it. and there are a good chunk f folk who would kill Tsitas. so its literally whatever. he’s a Life player, he’s not going around killing his friends, yknow.