#still haunts me tho

[mcmissileproof]

at least once every couple of months I still think about the time my old coworker said I was an extremely serious person and she'd never once heard me make a joke, and apart from that not being true at all I just kept thinking about a few days prior when I'd told this same coworker "my brain actually doesn't have any wrinkles, it's actually perfectly smooth and round like a beach ball"

[desos-records]

suddenly struck with thoughts about the devastating concept of Jason Todd

because he was good. because he had a bleeding heart despite every reason not to. he loved school and was good at it. he was the first to be adopted, with little pretense of guardianship. he did everything he could to be a perfect Robin and live up to an impossible ideal. he only ever wanted Bruce and Dick to like him.

because he met Bruce in the same place and on the same day that Bruce's parents died--the single defining moment of Batman's existence. and he made Batman laugh. he hit the Dark Knight, Terror of Gotham, with a tire iron. he wasn't afraid of the man who turned fear into a weapon.

because he couldn't save his mother from herself, but he tried. because he was too good not to try and save the woman who gave him up. too good to play the Joker's game. the crowbar didn't kill him, the bomb did. he died knowing he wouldn't make it and tried anyway. he died a hero.

because other Robins have died, but none of them put an irrevocable tear in the mythos of Batman. because Jason Todd always dies, in every universe. he dies for the sins of his father. he was put to death by popular vote, sacrificed by the crowd. doomed by the narrative and doomed by the audience. the boy who only ever tried to prove he was good enough--wasn't good enough.

because he has every reason to be angry. because he didn't ask to be murdered, didn't ask to be brought back, and when he did everyone acted like he was better off dead. Bruce tried to kill him and nearly succeeded. he's blamed for his own death and blamed for his resurrection. he can never come home because the house is haunted by his own ghost.

because he's been the hero, the victim, and the villain. because his family and his writers and his universe don't know what to make of him. they don't know how to look his tragedy in the eye. and how can you?

it hurts to look at the hero who cannot be good enough, the victim who will only ever be angry, the villain who can sometimes be right. the audience hates to feel complicit and, in this exceptional case, they are.

[lovereadandwrite]

“I shall protect you, & you alone… even if…you stand as the last person on this earth”

[nocek]

Day in life of Miguel O'Hara, one unlucky bastard.

[spookberry]

Why is the Pool at Haunted High an actual giant cup of water tho

(Previous) (next)

[poseidon-you-loser]

Cursed!Odysseus EPIC au drabble

“Choose.”

“Choose?”

“Someone’s got to die today and you will get the final say. You?” Zeus leaned in next to his ear, sparks alight in his eyes.

Odysseus held his side, blinking away the salt of the sea.

“Or your crew?” Zeus backed away as his eyes darted to the cowering remainder of his fleet.

“Please don’t make me do this, don’t make me do this.” He pleaded. He was so tired from it all.

Zeus paused, awaiting his decision, and his eyes unblinking in only a way that a god could.

“Please anything else. Please.” He begged, his knees giving out as he collapsed in front of the king of gods.

Zeus stared at him, then a wicked grin filled his face. “Very well.”

He breathed, looking up. “What?”

“Let’s make it a game. I won’t kill anyone. Their fate will rest in your hands, King of Ithaca.”

Odysseus stared in shock. “I don’t follow.”

Zeus stretched out his hand. “Your last game was a wind bag. Let’s see how long you last holding back the monster you’ve become.”

Odysseus felt a pressure in the air, a charge similar to the feeling before a thunderstorm. It made the air suffocating and his breath hitched as he pressed harder on his stab wound.

“The rules are this: you will have safe passage home if you do not kill a single member of your crew. If they kill you or release you off the boat, you all die. Can you play this game, Odysseus?” Zeus continued speaking.

Odysseus squinted at the brightly shining god, knowing there was a catch. There was always a catch. But he knew looking at the god before him that he had no other option. From behind him, Odysseus heard Eurylochus take a step closer to him. “Captain?”

Ah, and here he was, captain of the ship again. Words spoken so hatefully by his second reverberated in his ears once more:

“If you want all the power you must take all the blame!”

He told himself that Eurylochus didn’t know better, he’d never had to be captain, to own up to his mistakes for the crew.

And it didn’t look like he would start now.

Odysseus met the eyes of the god, never acknowledging the presence of his second. “Yes.”

Zeus, hand still outstretched, twisted his wrist in a flash and lighting struck Odysseus so hard that he lost his breath.

He might’ve screamed, but he wasn’t sure if sound even escaped him or could even be heard in that moment.

He vaguely heard the cries of his remaining crew, Eurylochus the closest to him yelling for him.

The bright white surrounding him abruptly faded away and he gasped on the deck as the lightning tapered off.

“Captain?” Eurylochus kneeled down to him, hands hovering over his body.

“Let’s see if you and your crew can handle the monster you truly are, King of Ithaca.”

Zeus boomed over him and that’s when a shiver went down his spine.

“Wait-“ he gasped out as his right hand supporting his weight on the deck suddenly cracked loudly.

He bit his lip as he groaned out at the terrible pain. His hand started to distort and he saw claws break through his fingertips.

He realized what was happening in horror. “No wait-please-“ he pleaded until he was interrupted by his own cry of pain as the rest of his body cracked sickeningly as it took a new form.

Eurylochus backed away from him.

The laughter of the king of gods boomed as he stepped back from them, taking his leave.

“Remember this, even one man dies and you lose the game. I will not shelter you from the wrath of my brother any more.”

Odysseus would’ve tried to respond to the retreating god, but he was busy holding his ribs as they rearranged below his skin.

He gagged and dry heaved onto the deck of the ship, nothing to come up from their lack of meals.

The whole reason they were in this mess to begin with, he thought bitterly as his breaths rattled in his aching chest.

It was agony for his body to betray him like this, but not unsurprising when betrayal was the most intimate feeling this crew felt.

He let out a guttural sound as his hands became giant paws, his hands clawed, and that wasn’t the only pressing issue.

His back throbbed as dark wings sprouted next to his shoulder blades, blood spraying out as they emerged violently from inside of him and tore through his clothes. He gasped out a strangled sob, and his tailbone had become some twisted tail emerging from underneath his cloak.

He’d felt every change happen slowly and agonizingly, until he was a panting mess on the boards of the ship, nothing human left about him. He blinked open his eyes, aware that his headache and stab wound from the mutiny were unfortunately still present.

His stomach growled loudly. A burning hunger unlike anything he had experienced before lit up his insides.

They had starved for countless days, this shouldn’t be anything new, right?

Right?

The burning felt all consuming and he vaguely realized what this feeling was.

Bloodlust.

His eyes darted to focus on his surroundings. He was so hungry, so desperate for relief, and he whined low in his throat as he picked himself off the deck.

He stood, noticing that he was much larger than before.

Even Eurylochus and his giant sword seemed small.

Insignificant, he thought.

Food.

A fumbling but still solid step was taken before he realized what he was doing and all the remaining crew on deck had drawn their weapons and pointed them at him.

Oh. Oh no.

Odysseus stood frozen. He opened his mouth to speak, finding an assortment of teeth of large sizes taking up space there and preventing him from forming words.

They had taken such a precious commodity from him. Who was he, King of Ithaca, former champion of Athena, and known strategist without his mind and his words?

A beast. A monster.

He gasped back a sob, backing away from his crew as they stared on in horror at him.

He felt something shift inside him, a minuscule thing really, but enough for him to groan as he grabbed his ribs.

He looked down to see a part of his flesh briefly reverted back to human before changing back to the grotesque combination of mammalian fur and reptilian scales.

He blinked, shock fading and his brain picked back up to problem solve.

Was this not permanent? Could he revert back to himself?

His stomach growled again and the bloodlust clouded his eyes. He fought it so hard, arms locking over themselves in front of him.

“Captain?” Eurylochus called for him, and the uncertainty in his voice was one he’d not encountered many times before they left for home.

He’d moved abruptly, tail swinging wildly as he backed himself to the edge of the ship. He was too large to go below deck and wait this out. Zeus knew this well he was sure.

He tried to open his mouth and speak once more, but all that left his throat was a low rumbling growl that reverberated through his chest and vibrated the very boards beneath him.

The crew did not drop their weapons.

Odysseus couldn’t blame them. The bloodlust was near impossible to fight and he panted harshly as he wrapped his arms around himself.

Penelope. Think of Penelope.

His left hand cracked loudly and he groaned. Looking down, he saw it was shifting back to normal, shrinking and taking on the hue of his flesh.

Taking a deep breath, he kept thinking of Penelope, her smile and the way she laughed.

More cracks of bones, more groans and growls of pain, but he didn’t stop.

Penelope. He would return to her, no matter the cost.

The cracking took a different sound. He looked down to see it had halted and even reversed, and the hunger hit harder than before.

He fell onto the deck, claws yet again supporting him as he fought back more bloodlust. It was so intense he could see red on the edges of his vision.

No. What had caused this? He was thinking of Penelope. What harm could she cause? She was the only thing keeping him human.

Or.

No. His drive to be with her is what caused his monstrous actions in the first place.

Scylla could attest to that.

But he couldn’t bring himself to think any differently.

He would do anything to see her again.

Saliva dripped from his panting mouth, and huffs of air burst from him as he could only see red.

Penelope.

I must have her.

The cracking became louder, but this time, it was not making him human again.

He howled, pain and hunger and bloodlust making him sound like a true monster.

He rose to his feet, and he heard distorted cries of fear from his remaining crew.

Good.

The blood from his stab wound still bled, red staining the fur and scales on his side, and he opened his mouth to roar.

These men betrayed him. He wanted to go home so badly and they were in the way.

He would make it back to Penelope, no matter the cost.

He charged at the nearest crew member, dodging the sword slashing down at him as his claws punctured their shoulder.

He raised them up in the air, and his memory told him this was the one who’d stabbed him, wasn’t it?

He’d opened his mouth, ready to feast upon him when a slash down his back, between the wings lying there, made him roar and drop the man.

He turned to see a man with a large sword. His eyes shined with horrified shock. His second. His betrayer.

Eurylochus.

Odysseus widened his eyes.

Eurylochus.

He froze. This was his friend. His brother. These were his men, his crew. What was he doing?

Odysseus could hear the echoing laughter of the king of gods in his head.

They were never meant to win this.

An arrow slammed into his right shoulder.

Stumbling back, he brought his left hand up to break the arrow shaft off with a wounded growl.

Red tinged his vision again and he took a step forward towards the direction of the shot arrow.

A clanging sound diverted his attention and he looked over at the source.

Odysseus took deep breaths as he saw Eurylochus shout at the crew, his sword tossed to the ground beside him.

The crew lowered their weapons. They had stopped.

He noticed that he also had stopped.

The crashing waves around them and his harsh pants were the only sounds for a moment.

“Captain?” Eurylochus held out his hands and did something he’d never expected him to do.

He stepped closer.

“We don’t want to fight you, Captain. Look at all we’ve lost and all we’ve learned.”

Odysseus recoiled, the familiar words hitting him hard.

Eurylochus was right.

The cracking started up again and he hunched over with a groan.

Eurylochus was right.

They couldn’t afford to fight each other like this. It was all a part of these god games.

He wouldn’t play their game.

He’d play his.

“Come back to us, Captain.” Eurylochus held out his hand and Odysseus could swear he saw the shadow of Polites from behind him.

He blinked and it was gone.

“You can relax my friend.” The words echoed, said by the wind and his second in front of him.

A sob choked out from his chest as he’d collapsed on the deck, nearly human again.

“Captain!” He’d heard murmurs around him as he panted harshly, bones trying to arrange back to what they once were.

Some didn’t quite make it, as he felt the uncomfortable feeling of sitting on a tail and the wings lying limply to his sides. He felt his head fall back and heard a hollow thunk at the same time his head jerked with impact. A hand raised to inspect found horns as well upon his head and his ears were not the shape or location he was used to.

They twitched when he touched them.

Eyes closed, he sighed and groaned at the pains of his body, and flinched when a hand landed on his shoulder.

“I’ve got you, Captain.”

“Eurylochus.” Odysseus slurred the words, teeth too sharp and large in his mouth and the blood loss, wounds, and body transformation trauma catching up to him.

“Rest. I need supplies for his wounds. Now!” His second commanded from over his shoulder.

Shuffling and murmurs confirmed a few of the crew’s compliance.

“We will get through this.” Eurylochus spoke under his breath.

Odysseus groaned again as a hand reached for the arrow lodged in his shoulder.

“Nooooo,” he’d moaned, a low underlying growl vibrating in his chest.

“I’m sorry, my friend.” A pause. A shaky inhale. “I’m so sorry.”

The arrow came out with one swift jerk.

He howled as his claws tore at the wood beneath him and his eyes shot open to see the stormy skies above him.

He would make it. They would make it. The gods would not win this game.

[a-a-lost-munchkin]

So, I missed the livestream and instead listened to it first on YouTube, and I thought the ghosts of all his crew came back and helped him beat Poseidon and that it was a powerful and poignant message about forgiveness/“fuck it, one of us should make it home” camaraderie, thus why the last song is called “Six Hundred Strike.”

But no my man used a fucking jet pack and the power of the zoomies 😭

[rodrickheffeley]

“God loves you, but not enough to save you”

[galaxostars]

“where else did he want to run to when he was scared besides right here?”

extract from a scene in Hide Your Fires by @starsworth

I am still in pieces since that hug ✌🏻

[astersofthesky]

I just finished reading L change the world and that ending was so sad oh my gosh. I mean, I've watched the film but what the heck, the narration is just so simplistically sad. I MEAN, U GIVE ME LAWLIGHT ANGST, SOICHIRO AND LIGHT ANGST, AND THEN FINALLY END IT WITH A SCENE WITH WATARI, AND THEN THIS FREAKING ART, who wouldn't have their hearts broken ahsjfkdkd

I gotta admit, the novel isn't perfect and at some point, i felt bored at the middle but it gave out nice little plot twists and wrapped the story nicely in the end. This is a good alternate universe L content where we get to see his more "human" side and yeah, I enjoyed this. Also, i would be lying if I don't mention the "L mourns for Light" is one of the reasons why I like this novel, so there's also that.

[alexhasalotofthoughts]

Fun fact about me is that this is my laptop wallpaper:

and this is my Google Chrome background:

So for like a week after Ice Adolescence was cancelled, I was haunted by Victor and Yuri every time I opened my laptop. It made me so happy 😐.

[cosmichorrorlesbians]

what's your dissertation about? you mentioned it in the siltcord and i'm really interested

oh my god hey I'm so happy you're interested! broad strokes because I've only been working on it for a few weeks but: the current theme is 'resistant landscapes' (both man-made and natural) in the later writing of Shirley Jackson!

Essentially, my main thread is that Jackson had two parallel strands to her work, which as far as I can tell began kind of interrelated but then diverged quite significantly? She's probably best known now for The Haunting of Hill House and to a lesser extent We Have Always Lived In The Castle, which are these. weird surreal psychological horror novels, engaging explicitly or implicitly with the supernatural, and centred around introspective, strange and sometimes deeply misanthropic female characters from isolated social units with dysfunctional, possessive relationships to each other.

Aaaaand then on the other hand she was known for being a 'happy housewife' who wrote these whimsical, quasi-autobiographical stories about all her children and how hopeless her husband was. These were popular too. Betty Friedan called her out in landmark 1963 feminist manifesto The Feminine Mystique for essentially spreading patriarchal propaganda.

The interrelation between the two is really jarring, because in one family is a source of horror and tragedy and in the other it's a source of, like... laundry. And Jackson's home life wasn't everything those stories made it out to be-- her marriage was unfaithful, her mother could probably be fairly called emotionally abusive, and as I talked about on the siltcord, she developed severe agoraphobia which often left her housebound.

So, yeah. My plan is to explore the depiction of families as constructed social units in dialogue with the environments they are constructed in in that work. Obviously a lot of that is relation of house to family, in the context of which Hill House is especially rewarding to consider, but I also want to look at relationships with nature and urban environments (especially in the context of settler colonialism and how that has had an enduring legacy in Jackson's particular part of New England), xenophobia (largely in regard to class, though racism and anti-Semitism are presences in her writing), domesticity and the idea of the housewife, and how horror relates to All Of This. The ideal of making a home within a hostile environment and of that environment turning on you, essentially.

I don't yet have particular areas of focus within that broad umbrella, but I might update with bits and pieces about it as I work? I don't really talk about academic stuff on here but I am very much Critical Literary Analysis Guy and I do also post relentlessly about haunted houses as a concept so if people would be interested in it maybe I will

anyway if you've read this far I recommend Horror in Architecture: The Reanimated Edition (2024) by Joshua Comaroff and Ong Ker-Shing which is a book about how horror movie tropes can be mirrored in built environments! I'm reading it right now and it's conceptually fascinating plus fairlyyy comprehensible by academic standards (if a little dense) if you, like me, are a Fool who knows nothing of architecture. very good also for getting to look at pictures of some of the most Fucked Up Buildings (affectionate) you've ever seen.

[sysig]

Do you remember? Nope! (Patreon)

[issylra]

Chapters: 7/7 Rating: Teen Word Count: ~2,000 Ship(s): Dream of the Endless | Morpheus/Hob Gadling Additional Tags: Slice of Life, Friends to Lovers, Slow Burn, POV Alternating, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Domestic Fluff, Touch-Starved Dream of the Endless, Mutual Pining, Cuddling & Snuggling

There's so many things Hob wants to ask, most of them starting with "why" and then trailing off into wordless nonsense while his brain fights the urge to short circuit. It's all he's wanted, to offer Dream comfort. To know he's succeeded so thoroughly, that Dream felt the urge to replicate his bed down to the silk sheets and the creaky headboard? Well, Hob can't help feeling a surge of pride. "Next time just come over," Hob says, because he's suddenly and foolishly brave. "Bed's always open."

[AO3]

[bb-eb-db-bb-eb-b-ab-f-b-ab]

i’m going to ask something that no one is going to like. do we really believe kavik outlived yangchen

[jester-step]

just girly things: reading batman: dark victory and feeling nauseous every time harvey dent gets mentioned 🌸🥰💕