#that sounds a lot creepier than intended believe it or not

[kantpattanawat]

It's suspicious, right? First Kanaphan as Kant (The Heart Killers, 2024-2025)

[sk1fanfiction]

the many faces of tom riddle, part 2

 -you dislike frank dillane’s portrayal of tom riddle only because you don’t think he’s attractive-

FULL DISCLAIMER THAT THIS IS JUST MY OPINION OF A CHARACTER WHO DOESN’T HAVE THE STRONGEST CANON CHARACTERIZATION, AND THUS ALL THIS IS BASED ON MY CONCEPTUALIZATION (and this time, featuring a bit of armchair child psych from a student).

Wait, don’t clutch your pearls just yet. Compose yourself.

I am about to explain why it’s not actually that bad, and Dillane’s portrayal is vastly underappreciated.

I definitely agree that his portrayal comes off as ‘creepier’. It’s not helped by the stylistic decisions in the scene -- the smeary, green filter gives the scene a sinister quality. 

Even Slughorn looks suspect here, which is somewhat appropriate, given that he is complicit in this crime. 

Again, this scene is very much intended to be slightly off.

You’ll notice (and I’ll discuss this again when I talk about Coulson’s portrayal) that Dillane is almost always shot from at least slightly below, which makes the lower third of his face look bigger (and thus more menacing). The lighting also makes his eyes glow in a really unnatural way. There’s an echo-y effect to make his voice (and not Slughorn’s) sound unnerving.

People talk about how Coulson would have looked in this scene, and if he was filmed in the same way (monotone, smeary/shadowy filter, and always from below), he’d look a bit creepy, too.

But all of this, imo, is for a pretty good reason. Slughorn isn’t the POV character. Harry is. Harry is learning about how a young Lord Voldemort wheedled the secret of Horcruxes out of an unsuspecting teacher. Unlike in COS, he expects Riddle to be evil. And, so, Harry’s new perception of Tom Riddle literally colors how we perceive him.

Take this shot, for example: he does that head-tilt thing that Coulson does, and it’s actually... kind of... cute???

Imagine Dillane filmed from slightly above, like Coulson usually is, and it looks even more innocent. (I mean, come on, he does not look like he’s killed four people, does he?) It’s not hard to imagine teachers being taken in by this kind of act.

Even that little smirk he does when the camera (aka, Harry’s gaze) pans in, is for Harry’s benefit. No one else noticed that. 

However, I still fail to find this creepy, like, at all. Yes, it’s a fake smile, but he’s portraying a different side of Tom Riddle to Coulson. Whereas, in COS, he’s in his vindictive, murderous element, where he’s free to express himself, in this scene, Tom Riddle is doing what he does best -- manipulating and managing appearances. 

This entire scene is an act. And because Harry knows it’s an act, it should look a bit stilted. 

From the Hepzibah Smith scene in the books: Voldemort smiled mechanically and Hepzibah simpered.

So, Harry is pretty adept at parsing Tom’s fake expressions.

But just look at the expressiveness in his face: he goes from brooding, he blinks, and his entire face changes to this charming (fake) smile. 

At the risk of sounding elitist, I’m a bit tired of seeing the word ‘psychopath’, which is not an actual medical diagnosis recognised by any psychological or psychiatric institution, being tossed about, especially with reference to Tom Riddle (and from a neuroscience perspective, it’s doubly annoying). There’s no such thing as ‘insanity’ or ‘psychopathy’ or being ‘crazy.’

-although I use it too a shorthand in conversation to distinguish ‘canon’ Tom from his ‘softer’ OOC counterparts, I really shouldn’t-

Unfortunately, I’ve seen the ‘psychopath’ comment used time-and-time again as an excuse or a full explanation of ‘why Tom Riddle went evil’ (JKR in fact, has made a weird comment in an interview, basically saying that ‘psychopaths can’t be redeemed or learn adaptive coping skills’ or whatever), which really just goes to show the lack of understanding and compassion when personality disorders, especially, are concerned.

But what I like most about the opening of this scene, actually, is that first, listless expression. And this is where we get slightly into headcanon, but Tom Riddle is the opposite of a happy, mentally healthy teenager. By Dumbledore’s own admission, he has no real friends. He has no parental figures, no real attachments. Yes, he might derive some pride or enjoyment from being good at magic and top of his class and all that, but I really don’t think even Tom finds that truly fulfilling. There is nothing that makes him happy. 

In fact, although some might perceive it as ‘creepy’, I think that listless expression is an accurate window into Tom’s psyche. 

I know people aren’t big on Freud, but I think that he does make some interesting points (also, cut the guy some slack for being relatively open-minded for the Victorian Era, and inventing psychoanalysis and while yes he did say some sexist stuff, good luck finding a field of science that isn’t male-focused and makes crazy generalizations about women, especially back in the day) about the possible origins of thanatophobia, the fear of death.

According to Freud, thanatophobia is a disguise for a deeper source of concern -- he did not believe that people were capable of conceptualizing their own death to that extent. Instead, he believed that this phobia was caused by unresolved childhood conflicts that the sufferer cannot come to terms with or express emotion towards.

Now, I know Freud almost always attributes mental distress to childhood experiences, but I think in this case, it really has some merit.

According to attachment theory, the basis of how we form attachments in adulthood is dictated by learning it from experiences with caregivers in the first two years of life. We know Tom was born in an orphanage, and that he didn’t cry much as a baby, and subsequently, probably received very little attention. Compounded with possible genetic factors and his caregivers being afraid or wary of his magical abilities, he later struggled to form attachments because of this -- I would actually go so far as to say that by the time Dumbledore meets him, Tom Riddle is severely depressed. 

And that flat affect and anhedonia, I think, comes over very well in Dillane’s portrayal. There’s kind of this resignation -- a very deep sadness and loneliness to his character.

Of course, he doesn’t derive any comfort or fulfillment from human interaction, because (to borrow the description from the Wikipedia article on ‘Reactive attachment disorder’, which Tom meets all the criteria for) he has a “grossly disturbed internal working model of relationships.” In other words, he is unresponsive to all offers of attachment because of this unacknowledged trauma.

(You could arguably class Tom as having an avoidant attachment style, but I think in his case the trauma and its effect on him are severe enough to call it disordered.)

RAD isn’t particularly well-characterized (especially neurologically) and quite new in the literature, but here are some links if anyone is interested in doing a bit of digging: Link 1 | Link 2 | Paper 1 | Paper 2

And, instead of trying to resolve this conflict in a healthy way, or at least recognize that this is why he can’t be happy and try to learn how to cope from there, he (a) represses the desire for human attachment and (b) funnels that negative emotion into being the fault of Death, the Grim Reaper (again, to borrow Freudian terms). 

And we all know how that turned out...

(And now, this should go without saying, but psychoanalyzing fictional characters has nothing to do with assigning a morality to mental disorders. Mental illness is neither a cause nor an excuse for criminal behavior -- in the same way that the cycle of violence is a phenomenon, not an excuse. Tom Riddle did not become a genocidal murderer because, in common parlance, he was a ‘psychopath’ -- he was not necessarily ‘predisposed’ to evil and could just as easily chosen to not follow the path that he did -- instead, he willingly made poor choices. This is a descriptive analysis, not a justification -- a ‘how’, not a ‘why’)

Here’s a Carl Jung quote that articulates it better:

“I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.”

Yes, he’s a bit stiff (and a lot more formal than in COS during his *conversation* with Harry). But, and here comes the controversial bit, this is appropriate for a portrayal of a schoolboy in the 1940s. The upright posture is accurate -- respectful, polite -- everything Tom Riddle would have been expected to be (and even Coulson, in that scene with Dumbledore in COS, is quite stiff). Even the way he looks at Slughorn and maintains eye contact is very *respectful.*

And, Dillane (I think he’s seventeen or eighteen here) actually looks like a believable sixteen-year-old. I’m sorry, I love Coulson’s portrayal as well, but he looks around nineteen in COS; so in HBP, he probably would have looked at least twenty-two or so. (Sorry, not sorry).

This may be influenced by my own interpretation of the character (because I imagine Tom always looks young for his age, and Dillane fits that archetype, but I don’t think that’s very popular), but I think young Tom Riddle is supposed to be *cute* and a bit stiff/shy/awkward (being charming and awkward is very much possible), if you consider the way Dippet and Slughorn treat him. 

To support this, he says very few words to Hepzibah Smith (in the book, that scene’s not in the movie), and is very... bashful and coy during the whole interaction? I think yes, he’s charismatic, but he’s not loud, suave, openly flirtatious or particularly verbose. Tom Riddle should have a quiet magnetism, and to me, that came across in Dillane’s portrayal.

"I'd be glad to see anything Miss Hepzibah shows me," said Voldemort quietly, and Hepzibah gave another girlish giggle.

...

"Are you all right, dear?"

"Oh yes," said Voldemort quietly. "Yes, I'm very well. ..."

Even the ‘ugly, greedy look’ described in the books, when Slughorn starts spilling his secrets, is there. This is how he’s supposed to look! Slughorn glimpses it, but doesn’t understand its significance. Harry does. 

“Slughorn looked deeply troubled now: He was gazing at Riddle as though he had never seen him plainly before, and Harry could tell that he was regretting entering into the conversation at all.”

Remember the context of this moment, as well: He’s just discovered how to create multiple Horcruxes. Excuse him for looking a bit creepy (if not now, then when?).

Here’s two direct quotes of Harry’s impression of Tom Riddle in that scene: 

“But Riddle's hunger was now apparent; his expression was greedy, he could no longer hide his longing.”

“Harry had glimpsed his face, which was full of that same wild happiness it had worn when he had first found out that he was a wizard, the sort of happiness that did not enhance his handsome features, but made them, somehow, less human. . . .”

Tom Riddle’s Horcruxes are a direct metaphor for his refusal to allow himself to heal from his trauma -- instead, he continues to inflict destruction on himself and others.

His desire to continue creating more Horcruxes sort of resounds with the fact that self-harm can also become a compulsion.

I’d also like to digress a bit to discuss the Gaunt Ring, while we’re at it. While we’ve talked about his attachment issues in general, this discussion is particularly pertinent to father figures. And while Tom’s attachment issues are extensive, I think there’s ample evidence that as a child, he craved acknowledgement and acceptance from a father figure -- the man who gave him the only thing Tom truly owned -- his name. He would have had a vaguely defined mother figure in Mrs. Cole, perhaps.

"You see that house upon the hillside, Potter? My father lived there. My mother, a witch who lived here in this village, fell in love with him. But he abandoned her when she told him what she was.... He didn’t like magic, my father ... He left her and returned to his Muggle parents before I was even born, Potter, and she died giving birth to me, leaving me to be raised in a Muggle orphanage ... but I vowed to find him ... I revenged myself upon him, that fool who gave me his name ... Tom Riddle. ..."

We know that by June of 1943 (COS flashback) Tom has already uncovered the truth of his parentage; he knows he is the Heir of Slytherin via the Gaunt line, and he describes himself to Dippet as ‘Half-blood, sir. Witch mother, Muggle father.’

In Part 1, I discussed the high probability that as a presumed ‘Mudblood’, Tom Riddle was treated rather poorly in Slytherin House. But by this scene in the fall of 1943, he is surrounded by a group of adoring hangers-on. Why?

In my opinion; the Gaunt Ring. We know that Tom stopped wearing it after school, so its sentimental value couldn’t have been that great. We know he likes to collect objects (which I believe stems from his attachment issues -- he seeks comfort in things instead of other people).

Signet rings (such as the one belonging to Tutankhamun seen above) were used to stamp legal documents and such, in order to certify someone’s identify -- like an e-certificate, if you will. Like Tutankhamun’s ring, the Gaunt Ring bears an identifying symbol -- Marvolo Gaunt tells us proudly that it bears the Peverell family crest.

By the Middle Ages, anyone of influence, including the nobility, wore a signet ring. Rings in antiquity were auspicious -- they signified power, legitimacy, and authority. And so, I believe that all the Sacred Twenty-Eight families would have worn these, too.

And so, bearing the Gaunt Ring would have established Tom Riddle, symbolically and in the eyes of the Sacred Twenty-Eight (his future supporters and followers), as the legitimate heir to the House of Gaunt. This is why, I believe, Tom coveted the ring as soon as he saw it -- not just because it was a family heirloom, and not just because he thought it was a pretty toy for his collection.

(He curses it so that no one else but him can wear the Gaunt Ring safely.)

This is why, to make the legitimization literal as well as symbolic, Tom murders his father and grandparents. It’s not just an act of vindictive, murderous rage due to his perception of being rejected by his father (although it is that, too). And so, Tom, abandoning his search for a father figure (and possibly also giving up on the possibility to allow himself to heal from his own personal trauma rather than continue to inflict it on others), ‘cleanses’ his bloodline, to make himself truly legitimate. It’s rather telling that instead of affirming his legitimacy as a Riddle, which would have put him in line for a nice inheritance, and hey -- money is money -- (thus accepting his half-blood status), he simply kills them all. He has done all the murdering he needs to become immortal (and he hasn’t had the discussion about multiple Horcruxes yet); but yet, he does it again. Frightening stuff. 

(Just look how the others look at Tom. All but the one to his left -- possibly Nott, Rosier, or Mulciber -- have their torsos turned towards him. Their attention is on him, while he knowingly regards the viewer/Harry. Tom seems a little uncomfortable with the attention.).

“And there were the half-dozen teenage boys sitting around Slughorn with Tom Riddle in the midst of them, Marvolo's gold-and-black ring gleaming on his finger.”

...

“Riddle smiled; the other boys laughed and cast him admiring looks.”

...

“Tom Riddle merely smiled as the others laughed again. Harry noticed that he was by no means the eldest of the group of boys, but that they all seemed to look to him as their leader.”

The ‘gang’ are true hangers-on; Tom doesn’t seem to pay them much attention. 

So, if not via careful flattery or charisma, the attraction must be status.

And perhaps yet more telling...

"I don't know that politics would suit me, sir," he said when the laughter had died away. "I don't have the right kind of background, for one thing." “A couple of the boys around him smirked at each other. Harry was sure they were enjoying a private joke, undoubtedly about what they knew, or suspected, regarding their gang leader's famous ancestor.”

That, in my opinion, is as good as we’re going to get as proof that Tom’s shiny new signet ring (and by extension, his new status) made a big impression on his fellow students.

So, when he returns to Hogwarts, he is ‘pureblood’. He is cleansed of his Muggle roots, and becomes the legitimate heir of the House of Gaunt, now well on his way to becoming Lord Voldemort...

Watch the scene again, with a critical eye, and imagine Slughorn’s perspective, instead of Harry’s. There’s nothing creepy about Tom Riddle... unless you know what he is...

Strip away all the effects of Harry’s gaze (and notice, here he’s still looking at Harry), and he’s quite the charmer, actually.

(I will concede that I don’t like the promotional images where they have him looking like he’s up to no good. And I do wish he blinked once in a while.)

My challenge to you: Rewatch the scene with an open mind, and let me know if you agree that Dillane’s portrayal comes off as depressive rather than ‘creepy.’ And if not, why do you dislike his portrayal?

[professortennant]

Their first kiss happens in the locker room in Manchester after a surprising, underdog win for AFC Richmond (though perhaps she should start reevaluating what is and is not surprising when it comes to the Ted Lasso coaching method). 

The boys are rowdy, jumping up and down, cheering and chanting and spraying water, sports drink, and a few stray bottles of beer like they’ve just won the bloody World Cup and not just another league match. 

But the energy of it is infectious. Now that she cares about the future of this time, now that she’s not working to actively destroy it--after all, it would be all the sweeter to take Rupert’s team all the way to the championships, a feat he could never manage, and then bar him from participating in club celebrations--she finds herself all the more invested and engaged. 

(She actually blocks out the thirty minutes in her calendar every morning with Ted and finds herself tucking her hair back behind her ear, eyes flicking to the office door as their time draws nearer, a strange fluttering of nerves and excitement at the prospect of being the center of Ted’s overeager focus.)

So in this dirty, sticky, smelly locker room, the air crackling with exuberance and excitement, she doesn’t overthink the impulse to grab Ted’s hand, yank him into the away team’s office, away from prying eyes, and press her mouth to his, both of them still smiling into the kiss, maybe neither of them as swept up in the moment as she believed.

It’s the exact outlet for all of this emotion that she needs, every feeling concentrated in the electric touch of his mouth to hers, her tongue sliding ever so tentatively against his, letting him share this moment with her. They break apart to gulp breath and that should be the end of it--just one little kiss. But he surges back against her, mouth covering hers, teeth tugging at her bottom lip and his tongue sweeping across the sting of pain to soothe it. Her fingers dance across his jawline and her nails scratch at the base of his neck, itching to bury themselves into the thick, floppy hair that’s teased her since he arrived in her office. His fingertips burn a mark into her hip, pulling her closer, and she just about stops herself from sinking too far into the kiss before pulling away, breathless and grinning.

Ted looks shellshocked, eyes still closed and his hand heavy on her hip. Beyond the office door, they can still hear the Richmond team chant, whoops and hollers and then the sound of music blaring.

“Wow,” he finally says, eyes flickering open and looking dazed in a way that makes Rebecca feel immensely proud. She’s still got it. “Listen, if this is a new employer-employee incentive program for winning, I gotta say, I’m all for it.”

She bites her lip and looks down, forces herself to step back, shaking her head ruefully. “I’m sorry, that was wildly inappropriate of me. I just got caught up in the moment. It absolutely won’t happen again. I apologize.”

It’s an out, she knows it is. From the slight head tilt he gives her, hazel eyes gentle and appraising, he knows it, too.

“No harm, no foul,” he agrees, putting extra space between them and reaching for the office door, ready to rejoin his team. He stops, fingertips on the doorknob and turns back to her. “But I gotta say, boss, feel free to get caught up in the moment with me any time.” He winces, wrinkles his nose. “Nope, nope, that sounded better in my head but came out a lot creepier than I intended, like that one time at homecoming when Ms. Fisher told me--”

She laughs, reaches for him--a gentle press of her hand to his arm--and the motion stops his rambling. "Go join your team, Coach Lasso.”

His eyes drop to her lips, just obvious enough that she notices and it makes her suck in a breath of anticipation. She could blame her kiss on excitement, but if he reached for her now, if he cupped her cheek and drew her back to him, she would be lost with no excuse and only the truth: She wants Ted Lasso. 

But he doesn’t reach for her, seems to sense her fear, gives her the space he suspects she needs right now.

“See you tomorrow, boss.”

She watches him go and leans back against the door, a hand pressing to her stomach to soothe the fluttering of nerves. 

She is unbelievably fucked.

[angelivily]

What the lore of the WAIA is (Because GT didn’t do one yet)

So Mark’s Warfstache Automated Interview came out as a HUGE surprise to us. We had NO idea it was even coming, or at least I didn’t.

I remember coming home from working out at the YMCA and seeing it there. I felt like the entire world fell into my hands, and I got extremely excited.

Watching the video, it seemed as if Will had created a robot who looked like him, only creepier and more...metal, and made it into an interviewer! Maybe to make his life easier, maybe to interview more than one person at once. I have no clue.

If you look in the description, you can see that Will got this idea from a little pizza restaurant. (Freddy Fazbears)

So basically Will had us doing a LOT of little calibrations to make sure the robot was working and doing all the right things to be able to start interviewing.

First we had to listen to some numbers, which all we heard was screeching and a Windows computer notification sound. And than the fucking robot went batshit insane which scared the hell out of me.

But the thing that got me completely interested in the lore was when Will said, “this message is completely pre-recorded.” Which was NOT the case at all.

Because if you continue playing and you click the, “I Think I Heard Numbers”, and “Uh...Potato Salad”, you can hear him say “WOW Potato Salad, a real thinker you, but the test has been passed with fine colors and you’re still alive!”

1. The message is definitely not pre recorded because Will REPEATED what we said. And 2. Guys I think he was expecting us to die.

He even said, “I wouldn’t want to be in the same room as that thing.” Because the WAIA is NOT safe. When you heard him say, “Now the list of survivors...” there wasn’t any. He was expecting us to die because all of the other testers died. That’s why there are so many endings where Will has expected us to die.

And there’s also a third thing. If you continue to watch the video you can hear these simple instructions.

“Left, right, up, down, down, basement.” That has to mean something...right? Maybe it’s instructions for the next game? Or maybe it’s Yancy’s dialogue from his ending in AHWM.

But he also says another dialogue after that. “Who. Where. What...Am...I?” Than he restarts his system only to say some colors before he stops and goes, “I saw you die...”

Later on in the video, Will says that the WAIA has EVERY piece of memory and thought that he has. He placed all his shared memories with the WAIA..

Since the WAIA has all of Will’s memories... it’s going to remember everything that happened before Will became who he is today. When he was the Colonel.

We continue to play, and we click “He said...potato salad?” And than Will starts to make up a “fake interview” with the WAIA. It starts all cheerful with a colorful background and exciting music. The WAIA starts speaking normally until he says.

“How many people have you killed?” Which would be somewhat normal for Will... but if you look back to “Warfstache Interviews Markiplier”, he asked Mark the SAME question. The WAIA is obviously going back to that because he remembers it from Will’s memory.

And as we’re waiting for the next question... the lights go out and the WAIA’s face lights up. He begins to tell us a story, sort of like Candy Cadet from “Pizzeria Simulator.”

“A man goes to a party. This man met an old friend. The two friends shared some wine. The two friends played a game... the most dangers game...” WAIA stops for a moment before saying, “I didn’t know the gun was loaded...I didn’t know.”

Will didn’t intentionally kill Mark. We all knew he didn’t in the first place, but this is Mark confirming it.

The story probably goes like this.

Mark was talking to Will when he brought up the fact of Russian Roulette. Will, in his pride of being exclusively good at the game, probably remarked on how he was an amazing player and how he and Mark used to play it all the time. Mark laughed and said, “hey, how about we escape the party for a moment and go to the winery. We can use the excuse that we’re grabbing some more wine, but we can play a single round down there for good times sake.” And Will agreed. They went down, and that’s where it happened.

Did you ever notice in one of the little clip scenes when we’re drunk at the manor and we see Will with a gun? Where do you think he got it?

You see, Mark always knew the gun was loaded. Mark GAVE him the loaded gun on purpose so he could die. It was all apart of Mark’s plan so he could get his revenge. From the moment he got “killed” by Will, he immediately got his plan started. I mean, he obviously wasn’t done with his true revenge because he still needed revenge on Damien and Celine, but he had already gotten what he wanted from Will.

And than WAIA proceeds to ask, “Was it my fault?” And my broken heart at that point said “No!” Because it’s not. Will didn’t know. He was completely drunk and especially blind to the fact that the gun was loaded.

If you click no, he answers with “You can’t change the past. You can tell all the stories you want to tell. It won’t change what happened. You can’t rewrite the past. If you live in fantasy forever... you’ll lose yourself in the story.”

I think this is Will’s way of saying that he’s sorry. He can barely remember what he did (The NO ending.. ill get to that in a moment) and he still questions if it was his fault or not. The fantasy part he was talking about was how he didn’t believe that anyone had died. He believed he didn’t kill anyone, that life was just a joke. He could shoot, stab, murder whoever he wanted, and they’d come back to life.

WMLW explains this canonically because Abe was in the same experience. He got shot in the heart and he made this scenario, this fantasy, that he had been chasing Will for years... but he wasn’t... and Will was trying to break him out of that confusion so Abe could move on.

If you pick the YES ending, this is what he says, “I’m sorry for everything that I’ve done... I don’t remember who I was... I wish I did..but... I am sorry...”

He doesn’t remember who he is or what he’s done. He lived in that fantasy world where death is inevitable for so long, he forgot what reality actually was.

(I think that Mark intended us to click “NO” first, before the “YES”. So we’d get a better understanding.)

Will doesn’t remember ANYTHING he’s done. He’s lived in this world of stories and fantasy for so long.. he doesn’t remember who he was. And he probably won’t.

People paint Will to be this guy that “puts on a facade but at the end of the day, remembers and recalls everything he’s done”...However he doesn’t. That’s the truth.

Remember WMLW when he kept mistaking Abe’s name and after Abe yelled at him about how he was a “murderer”, Will remembered? He can’t remember anything specific until you specifically say it in complete detail. And even than he doesn’t remember everything.

He doesn’t remember who he was, he wished he did, but I think it’s for the best that he doesn’t. I think it’s better for him to move forward as a character, than to look back. That’s what character development is for. And I’m genuinely happy for what Will is now, than what he used to be.

And this definitely won’t be the last we’ll see of the WAIA...

Ps. If we don’t get the WAIA saying “Potato Salad” at least once in AHWM 2 ... I’m suing...

[toast-the-unknowing]

What are the #thots on CDTH?

This is begging for one of those “edgy/depressed/dumbass bitch/thot/bastard” memes, but sadly you sent it to someone with no patience for slapping together graphics, so you get a lot of words instead. Behind a cut, for length and SPOILERS.

I really enjoyed this book, my reactions to most of the additions to canon were positive, it felt a wide range of emotions while reading it and upon finishing I found that it had knocked me sort of off center in that way where I don’t want to write anything ever again, or read anything, or really do much but stare out of windows. I know that feeling will pass, but I’m soaking in it for now. I haven’t yet discerned if there are going to be any substantial changes to the ways that I write these characters, when I write these characters again.

I loved Ronan in this book, which was a relief. I had been a bit worried that Maggie intended for him to end up as Lonely God Ronan, isolated and just too damn special for the rest of humanity, but it now appears that is very much not the plan. It hurt watching him be trapped at the Barns, wanting something different from life and not knowing how to get it, and it was amazing to watch him forge a connection with someone new and find the capability that he has to help other people, instead of just kind of thinking of himself as the fuck-up.

Holy Shit I felt emotions about Matthew, that was unexpected and unprecedented. Fuck did that boy make me sad. I am greatly looking forward to seeing where his story goes, now that he actually has one. I want some quality Matthew & Jordan dream duo bonding time.

I want, just, quality Jordan content in general, I love Jordan, I need more of her, she was wonderful.

Hennessy leaves me cold, but I had a very similar reaction to Ronan until most of the way through The Dream Thieves, so I am giving her the benefit of the doubt and waiting to see what happens in the future.

HOLY SHIT I LOVED EVERYTHING ABOUT DECLAN.

It did crack me up that it literally took one page for the book to start talking shit about him, but I also found the whole “Declan is deliberately, crushingly boring” idea interesting. It surprised me but still makes sense in retrospect, which is the best kind of surprise. I hadn’t pictured him as the kind of guy who would go to work and let people snap at him and call him by the wrong name, but I think my understanding might have been a little closer to the version of Declan that still thought he could have Senator or Congressman in front of his name. I think Declan might be the character I most have to reconsider, but I’m happy with how he was portrayed here and I’m looking forward to doing that reconsideration, and to seeing what happens to him next in canon.

God but he just continues to be the hardest working brother, and he still fucks it up, but he doesn’t want to fuck up, but he just shouldn’t have to deal with all of this shit, and ow, ow, my heart.

I adored Declan/Jordan and every moment where she delights in surprising an honest reaction out of him. “I see the real you when no one else does” is EXACTLY my kind of ship.

I had really wanted this trilogy to force Ronan to reexamine his understanding of his father, but getting to see Declan do some actual work on processing his pain is fantastic too. I love all of the moments where he admits that he hates Niall. It fucked me up so bad, because it’s like he doesn’t want to be thinking or saying it but he just cannot keep it in. It’s like his emotional nightwash, but he doesn’t get to dream it away.

@comicsohwhyohwhy​ and I once discussed the problem of Ashley, and we JOKINGLY suggested that maybe the Ashley from TRB and the Ashley mentioned in TRK are two different Ashleys, that maybe Declan has just dated a string of women named Ashley, and then we had a good laugh about how absurd that would be, and I cannot fucking believe that that has turned out to be canon. I am oddly delighted with this development.

I am happy with the Adam content that we got and with the size of his role. I felt like the book did a good job of honoring his importance in Ronan’s life, letting him be present and matter and affect Ronan (and disagree with him in productive ways where they didn’t just argue and where he wasn’t just Declan 2.0), while still keeping him in a support role, since that was apparently the goal. I’m unclear on what kind of role he’s going to have going forward, but it looks like he’s being set up to have some kind of character arc, with the “Adam is lying to everyone who knows him” situation, so I really do want that to pay out and go somewhere, even if he does continue to be a supporting rather than featured character.

That whole Harvard situation breaks my heart: Adam’s friends think that his family is wonderful and that his boyfriend is a violent drunk. I can’t imagine any interactions around that that aren’t fucked up. Adam having to defend Ronan to his friends any time he comes up, but not being able to tell the truth, so he just sounds like he’s making empty excuses for someone that’s bad for him…which is something that he has in fact had to do, but not about Ronan, about the parents that all of his friends are “jealous” of him for having. Fuck. FUCK.

I loved every mention of Gansey and Blue. I can understand why Maggie doesn’t want to include them as characters, but that could have easily ended in a situation where they’re just…noticeably absent, and instead we got this, confirmation that they still talk to their friends and love them and are involved in their lives, plus we got A+ Gansey-texts-like-an-old-man content.

I enjoyed Farooq-Lane a lot just from a standpoint of being an ordinary normal person who gets put into a weird as shit situation and then…continues to be an ordinary normal person who has ordinary normal reactions to things. I find that kind of shit fascinating – it’s the kind of thing that makes for great comedy and improv, but it can also be very effective in drama, and we really got to see a wide range here.

What. the actual. fuck. is up with the New Fenian and Mor O Corra. Like I mean okay the Lynches have to live through all their parent trauma again, yeah I get that, okay Niall apparently made a dream double of an actual woman he’d slept with which like, wow I didn’t think Aurora could be retroactively creepier but damn if Niall didn’t find a way, blah blah I get all that. But like. What is – what is that relationship, exactly? Between them? Niall’s ex made a dream copy of him, too, but like…as a kid? Or one that doesn’t age? Has Mor O Corra out-creepered Niall Lynch? What the actual fuck is up with those two. I almost don’t want to know. I kind of love being this weirded out.

Bryde is really goddamn tiresome. I am expecting he’s going to turn out to be a villain and honestly that can’t happen fast enough for me. Although I  anticipate that we’ll see Ronan buying into his crap more before that happens, so, it looks like we get to look forward to a lot more overblown insufferable monologues about how “special” we are and how we’re better than those gross boring mundane people. Blah.

I’m kind of disappointed that this is apparently a series where the stakes are THE END OF THE WORLD and where the protagonists have to fight a SHADOWY INTERNATIONAL GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATION that can send ARMIES of WELL-ARMED HIGHLY TRAINED OPERATIVES to HUNT DOWN THE PEOPLE WITH SUPERPOWERS – this is 90% of all fantasy stories, and it’s boring, and I’m tired of it. I like that the stakes in The Raven Cycle are small but still immensely meaningful. What happens in The Raven Cycle if the characters don’t succeed? Gansey dies. Ronan dies and Matthew falls asleep. Adam doesn’t go to college. Blue doesn’t get to travel the world. The world doesn’t explode, but we still care so so much about seeing them succeed, because we care so much about those characters living and getting to build the future they want. That’s a thousand times more interesting to me than “we have to…[dramatic music, put on sunglasses] SAVE THE WORLD.” Spare me.

I’m still going to read the other two, obviously, and I’m not even really mad about this, mostly just rolling my eyes. But I expect that Maggie is going to use this plot device I don’t care about to do things emotionally and character-wise that I do care about, and that’s the important part.

There is one actual thing that pisses me off with this book, that I actively hate and wish was not a part of canon, that I will probably just ignore and pretend isn’t canon, at least once I have wrapped my head around the fact that it even happened in the first place: why the fuck does Ronan go to confession.

I was willing to accept in The Raven Cycle that Maggie had no interest in doing anything with the fact that she had made the Catholic character and the gay character the same character, because Ronan is actively figuring himself out in the course of that series, because there’s so much else going on in his head and his life that I can buy that religion isn’t his top priority, because hey, I kind of liked that the series wasn’t one more Sad Story About A Sad Gay Who Is Sad Because Homophobia. I can accept a Ronan who goes to mass every week because that’s family time, because that’s tradition, because that’s what Lynches do.

But going to confession – with some degree of regularity! – is not going through the motions. When I was a Catholic school girl and an ALTAR SERVER who went to mass twice a week, confession was still a “maybe once during Lent, if we get around to it” kind of deal. What the hell does Ronan say in confession, exactly? He’s not confessing to the shit that he actually feels guilty about, playing god and creating life, because that’s a secret. He’s not confessing to the thing that he’s getting told every week is going to send him to hell. So what is he doing there?

This ceases to be “skipping past homophobia so we can just have a nice happy gay story for once (or at least a story that’s unhappy for other reasons)”. This is firmly into “deliberately and cruelly ignoring the real pain and suffering that the Catholic Church inflicts on oppressed people every single day” and I think it was a grave, grave misstep.

So my super general #thots: loved it, largely positive, some things I’m iffy on but excited to see where they go, a couple of plot elements/characters I don’t care for but can put up with for the sake of all of the good, one big negative that will probably feature only very very sparingly in canon.

[bombshellsandbluebells]

Hiiiii!!!! I was wondering, from your film opinion, how well do you think the 100 did with the psychosis scenes and the portrayal of them? (If this is a barrel of worms you dont want to open I get that!) 💕💕💕

Don’t worry, I’m ALWAYS happy to talk about filmmaking :)

When I first watched this episode, I distinctly remember getting the impression that everyone was over-acting in these scenes - so much so that it kind of took me out of the episode. Everything felt very over the top and fake. Even if I liked the idea of what was happening, the scenes themselves didn’t work for me.

Now that I’ve rewatched the scenes like 8 times, I think I’ve figured out why.

On the surface, the way that this episode was shot and edited makes sense - everyone’s going crazy, so let’s distort the image and edit things in an unnatural way, right? The thought process here was clearly to make the audience feel the same distortion/unnaturalness that the characters suffering from psychosis were feeling.

To be fair, that’s not really a bad idea. And maybe done with a bit more subtly that would have worked. (They used similar filmmaking in 5x11 The Dark Year and I think it worked a lot better then.)

Here are the problems (for me.)

1. This episode relies far too much on the cinematography/editing to sell the affects of the psychosis than it does the acting.

In fact, it actually overshadows the actor’s performances. It’s probably not intentional, but it feels like they didn’t trust the actors enough to make us feel what we needed to feel WITHOUT the aid of flashy cinematography and editing.

Let’s start with the editing. For the most part, good editing is invisible. Stylistic editing can be done really well and with great affect, but the drawback to stylistic editing is that it ALWAYS draws attention to itself. This can easily pull you out of what’s happening in the story and distract you. It can also make what’s happening on screen feel fake, because you’re being directly reminded that you’re watching a film/television. The less you cut and the longer you hold on shots, the more the audience gets drawn into the performances and the action of the scene.

There’s actually a pretty good example of this in the episode - when Clarke has her “Fine, I’ll be the bad guy” speech, the camera only cuts away ONCE to show us Murphy’s reaction. Other than that, it holds on Clarke, slowly dollying in as her speech builds. I don’t like this speech from a a writing standpoint - the dialogue feels cheesy, and while I think another actor might have sold it, Eliza doesn’t - but it’s well cut  - we’re pulled into Eliza’s performance and the emotional moment because we’re not distracted by cutting.

In the psychosis scenes, on the other hand, there’s a lot of short jump cuts where they basically just remove a few frames at a time so that the position of the character jumps. And, in my opinion, there’s way too much of it. It’s more of a distraction than it is an aid to the performances, it draws way too much attention to itself in a very over the top way that feels fake, and it actually ruins the attempted suspense (more on that later.)

There’s also the cinematography. Every single time a character is suffering from psychosis, they shoot them with a wide angle lens, which distorts the image. The distortion is especially obvious when shot very close to someone’s face, which this episode does a LOT as a visual shorthand for “this character is definitely going crazy.”

A wide angle lens used with a wide shot (notice how deep the room looks; that’s distortion of the space)

A wide angle lens used on a close-up: (yikes! my girl has never looked creepier)

I think like the editing, this is a good thought in theory. The lens selected is meant to further the story of what’s happening, and that is the right thought process to have during filmmaking (unlike, say, let’s just throw a handheld shot in here for no reason because…uh…everyone’s doing it? My biggest pet peeve!!)

But the problem is that by combining:

a lot of jerky, stylistic editing that draws attention to itself and feels unnatural (as opposed to “invisible” editing you don’t notice)

a lot of jerky, hand-held camera movement

a wide angle lens that creates distorted images that feel unnatural

sound effects that feel eerie and unnatural and

the actual performances of the actors that are very unnatural

the scenes just feel a little too over the top.

So much is working at once to make things feel WRONG that the impression I was left with wasn’t the intended one, but actually “wow this feels kind of fake and the acting feels very over the top.”

I think the wide angle lens is probably a good idea, but I don’t believe the flashy, quick, stylistic editing aided that choice. And I definitely don’t think it helped the performances. (The one exception I think kind of works is when Echo is having her breakdown and hearing voices.)

2. The way the editing and cinematography (and sound mixing) were used actually eliminates any of the mystery of who is affected and when they are affected and just what is reality and what is the psychosis.

In my opinion, the strongest element of this episode COULD have been the question “what is real and what isn’t?” Is Jackson trying to save Miller from a very real threat of alien bugs? Or are they hallucinating? Is Murphy affected? Or is he acting in his right mind?

A lot of tension actually comes from this question and from us not being able to trust characters we normally trust, not just the fact that people are trying to kill each other. We don’t know who is affected and we don’t know what actions are being made under the effects of psychosis. That is a situation RIPE for tension.

The problem is the editing and cinematography actually keeps ruining this mystery! Over and over again.

Let’s start with the first psychosis scene. Clarke and Bellamy rush into the room with Miller and Jackson to see chaos.

Here’s how the writing of the scene sets up tension and mystery:

We know that the planet is making people go crazy, and we know it’s probably going to affect everyone.

We know there are some crazy alien bugs that DID try to attack people and Jackson kept some in a jar with him.

Miller thinks there are bugs inside of him.

Jackson also thinks that bugs are inside of him.

The question becomes: are Miller and Jackson both RIGHT and is there a very real threat to Miller’s safety right now? Or are they both hallucinating?

The big reveal moment is meant to come when Bellamy sees the dead bugs. To be fair, I’m not quite sure if this moment is supposed to say “yes they’re definitely crazy, the bugs are dead” OR “maybe they’re right, the jar is broken, the bugs could be free” BUT it is clear that this moment is supposed to be some kind of “oh fuck” moment. Here’s the shot.

The only problem is that just moments before this shot - which is…supposed to tell us…something whatever it is - Jackson goes for the knife and the editing starts dropping frames to create jump cuts and adding unnerving sound cues. We’re essentially ALREADY TOLD the answer - that Jackson is suffering from the affects of the psychosis and not in his right mind - before that intentional reveal of the….dead bugs? broken jar? (I REALLY don’t know what the reveal is meant to tell me to be honest) happens.

The other big mystery later is meant to happen when Murphy finds Clarke trying to kill herself.

Again, the writing sets up tension and mystery:

We know that Clarke is unable to defend herself because she’s not in her right mind.

We ASSUME based on everything the episode has told us previously that Murphy is affected and that Murphy is a threat (because everyone is and he also already supposedly shot at Bellamy and Clarke)

We know that Murphy is already angry at Clarke and that his anger is probably heightened by the psychosis.

We ASSUME he’s going to attack Clarke.

Everything has led us to believe that Murphy showing up is going to end very, very badly. And that tension is great. The reveal that Murphy was fine COULD have been really, really rewarding because of how much it goes against our assumptions.

Except the MINUTE Murphy shows up, we know he’s fine, because the use of the distorted wide angle lens is our shorthand for knowing when someone is suffering from psychosis and Murphy is never once shot with a wide angle lens.

Even in the same scene, Clarke is always shot with a wide angle lens and Murphy is always shot with a normal lens.

WAY TO RUIN YOUR OWN MYSTERY AND CUT THE DRAMATIC TENSION TOO QUICKLY!!

To be fair, earlier in the episode when Murphy is muttering to himself that everyone is crazy, I didn’t actually notice the first time around that he’s shot with a normal lens. But during THIS SCENE, I IMMEDIATELY knew that Murphy was fine as soon as he entered the room, though I was sitting there going “wait he’s FINE?”

The tension - based on our assumption that Murphy is there to kill Clarke - could have been drawn out SO MUCH LONGER if the visual shorthand for people being psychotic hadn’t actually revealed the mystery. 

Overall, I think the thought process to film and edit these scenes this way makes sense, but it actually fails in execution. It either cuts dramatic tension too early by revealing the mystery or it’s just TOO MUCH all at once that it distracts us from the actors’ performances and feels over the top. 

I hope I clarified everything well, but if I didn’t, let me know!! And thanks for asking a question about filmmaking so I could rant for a bit :)

[sleepymarmot]

Twilight Mirage liveblog 5/5 (finale & post-mortem)

64-67

Found a new shortcut to my heart: announcing your finale is going to be a mashup of The Quiet Year and Firebrands 

Why is it surpising that the Qui Err Coalition allies with the Waking Cadent? That was my first thought when Iota was making her speech! The Qui Err thinks the humans should leave, the Cadent thinks the humans should leave, sounds pretty compatible to me. 

What's the logic of “When Crystal Palace arrives, we will blow up this system”? It's not a bomb! But it will be in danger if a bomb goes off right next to it!

Oh no, Ali is doing the classic “shoot yourself in the foot on purpose” move

I don't get how Grand Magnificent got promoted from “got paid once to retire” to “is trusted to do actual missions for Advent”

Why the hell does Gig want to kill Ballad

The players keep underestimating how “horny” the scenes in Firebrands are and Austin is increasingly exasperated 

I would like to thank Jack from the bottom of my heart for choosing dance as a framing for making contact with Grand. Also I completely lost it at “there are talons on my shoulder”

I must have missed something, what's so bad about the Splice and Our Profit that everyone's so excited to fuck them over? The Mirage is made a renewable resource, right, so the Splice isn't a drain on anything?

The Echo-Ballad scene is so frustrating that I can't even feel appropriately bad about it! Come on Echo, just help Grand go back to Advent as an undercover spy, it doesn't have to be a competition this time!

I still don't understand Independence II… How do you send your new very conspicous and recognizable design to friends in rival factions without blowing your cover 

The timeline here is really weird… Echo rescues Grand and brings Ballad with them, Ballad calls off his people, Grand sends out his new mech design… And a week later, Grand's still on Qui Err territory having a friendly lunch with its leader? If going back is still an option, how is that going to look without making Advent seem like total idiots? Ah, it's only a day after? Okay…

I'm very glad the Volition problem was solved so peacefully!

5 minutes later: “Quire could die!” How about no??! I was so busy preparing to mourn Volition. I am completely unprepared to lose Quire just like that.

Memorious was alive and also an axiom worm this whole time? Wut

Fuck, do we need another opportunity to kill off Ballad?! This list of NPCs is making me very nervous, I don't want any of them to die… As soon as they said “tactical skirmish” I started screaming internally and likely won't stop until it is over… Wow, Ali, that was cold Oh no, Keith is really on a mission to murder Ballad

Grand how could you bring a bomb to Christmas dinner what the hell RIP bird leader / avian boss, he had an amazing unique voice and, in my head, a really cool cartoony design

Thanks for 9.5 hours of fun. Now I guess it's time for the 4 hour long brutal and heartbreaking final boss encounter

Full offence Gig, but I wouldn't log off even the real internet for lawn games

Signet fucking saved everyone single-handedly, twice. Two biggest threats. Incredible. What is the rest of the game even about

Seriously, do the players know something about Advent that I don't?! Otherwise please stop calling your cheesy space mafia “nazis”

I've been waiting for Even and Cascabel stealing time together since the beginning of the finale! For 11 hours! Finally! This finale is in dire need of more romance content I like that everyone immediately starting dragging all Bioware games at once

I don't see how a secular virtual reality is more of a “weird cult” than an augmented reality in which people maintain an actual religion worshipping the union of human and synthetic life for 30k years. Can we not do the hypocrisy again please. Why is it okay for the Divine Fleet to build their own take on utopia but when the NEH does it's portrayed as a threat and all characters treat it with suspicion and contempt

OK all these ideological debates are fine and dandy but people really should ask more practical questions like “you don't have to rush, why don't you just go back to the previous eco-friendly methods we have previously agreed upon” Glad Fourteen won, but ideologically, as you can guess from this entire liveblog, I'm with Our Profit

I don't like how Tender started with the intention of attacking Our Profit / the Splice but very much like how it somehow turned into her offering to help them and solve everyone's problems in one move

Grand Magnificent building a pseudo-Divine to blind the Crystal Palace with the power of bullshit is the ideal happy ending for him

Good on everyone for doing the best possible things with the Divines, except for the DFS for managing to do every possible bad thing simultaneously!!! My dislike of that faction is vindicated but at what cost Oh god it's even worse 

“Echo Reverie, who knew well both the value and the cost of violence, and who dreamt powerfully of peace” is such a beautiful and concise summary of their character arc God I just love how organically Echo and Gig's arcs led them to help a decolonized society lead independent, peaceful and joyful lives

A new Fleet with a healthier relationship between the Divines and everyone else is nice, thank you Signet

Oh my god, the ending titles are Gig interviewing everyone, that's so sweet!!! Really the perfect sentence to end this campaign with.

(I feel like a jerk mentioning it but… Whenever there's music overlayed with the voice track, it's almost always too loud and I have to strain my ears to hear the words… It's been like that since season one. Am I really the only one with this problem?!) 

Whew! Hard to believe this long, long listening experience is over. I have mixed feelings: sometimes it was exciting or inspiring, sometimes it was fun but I felt I could as well be doing something else, sometimes I listened to the outro and thought “this music and the montage for it in my head right now make me feel so much more than the episode I just heard”, and sometimes the ideology of the narrative or characters'/players' opinions and actions clashed enough with my worldview enough to poison the entire experience. What's new is that, unlike the previous arcs, I didn't have an urge to shake my friends and yell at them “you absolutely must listen to this!” and that made me sad. But that might be just me getting used to this show and taking its good features for granted.

Post-mortem

Oh god, the production of the final sequence sounds like absolute nightmare

Thanks for validating me with the speech about the Fleet's lack of engagement with its “original sin”, Austin 

Thanks, Janine, I hate it! This religion didn't need to get any creepier!

Yes tell us how many ears Tender has! I need to know!! Tender's fursona is the Russian food cat?! Amazing The livestream practically starts with googling animal pictures. Classic

Honestly Echo's disability was barely noticeable to me as a listener… There wasn't a lot of visible difference between the way they accessed the mesh and other PCs did, and after the nanites did activate, I don't think it was ever brought up again…

Yeah I'm genuinely upset that Tender and Fourteen didn't get together, by the way! Or at least have an overt romantic storyline! Give me that sweet sweet PC/PC romance my soul is starving Like I get what Jack is saying about the value of depicting friendship and normally I'd be on his side but 😭 😭 😭 On the other hand I didn't know Echo/Grand was a thing (And now feel kind of bitter it got more official endorsement than my ship that has more canonical foundation) This universe is actually about Austin inventing NPCs who have crushes on Keith's characters and then Keith pointedly avoiding the subject How could anyone forget about Tender's wild fangirling over Waltz lmfao

Austin calmly talking of all these things I screamed about above like “yeah that's what I intended”. Like on the one hand I'm glad, but on the other why couldn't you make it less frustrating to listen to

The rehabilitation theme is another thing that is present thematically but was not discussed on screen enough imo. One thing my mind kept returning to re: Contrition's Figure was the question of forgiveness for serious crime, personal boundaries and principles, and the policy of not disclosing the inmates' crimes. I imagine a survivor of rape or abuse wouldn't want to share space with someone who did the same kind of crime that hurt them. Even if they wouldn't be made to interact, of course, but what if that person believes those kind of people don't deserve rehabilitation at all? What if they reject that system on principle? You often encounter seemingly serious statements like “abusers/rapists/nazis should die”, especially lately. I've heard that about “fascists” (which is a separate issue) in this very campaign. Where do people with these opinions go in a utopia? Do they not exist? Do people who commit horrific crimes not exist either? Because I was listening to that arc and thinking “What if one of those undisclosed crimes was csa or serial murder or something like that? Would I be expected to shake hands and play chess with that criminal? How could I rehabilitate, heal, re-socialize, learn to trust in a space where anyone I meet could be Shrodinger's rapist?” And that leads to the bigger question of what a utopia is. Is it a better society – or better human nature? If latter (and Austin said so) – then to what extent? Because the theoretical people who are so much more advanced than us that they are, en masse, incapable of extreme cruelty, must also differ from our generation with their entire psychology. And a psychology so different would be unimaginable, unplayable, and would not provide necessary dramatic conflict or antagonistic characters. Which is why most alien characters in most stories, including this one, are just humans in silly costumes or prosthetics.

Oh dear god, that must be the heaviest personal story yet… But I understand better what Declan's Corrective was about.

Oh I've been definitely thinking about static utopias vs utopias of process while listening! When I wrote at some point that they made me stop and consider what a utopia is, it was one of the things I meant.

Yeah, sure, in our world the Splice would be terrible because of the existing power dynamics. But that's a Counter/weight story! Twilight Mirage and the Divine Fleet have been about the technologies and ideas that could have been, or were, used to terrible ends, but miraculously, we got to see them used in good faith with genuinely good intentions and good results. Divines have been all kinds of threats over the ages, and yet the Fleet managed to build a community around them that was a small paradise for 30,000 years. So why do the NEH and the Splice not get the same benefit of the doubt? Why is narrative not treating them with the same respect? Why are they always a threat? Why isn't there a major, likeable NPC whose life was enriched by the Splice to the extent that it is central to their identity, who could be our advocate for that point of view? Why are some powerful and potentially infinitely dangerous things, like Divines or religion itself, shown as more valid than others? And don't tell me that our player characters are from the Fleet – none of them are Qui Err either, and yet by the end it is a respected, lovingly portrayed player faction.

Oh, and also, speaking of the Splice's dangers, and what would have made it dangerous in the real world – one of the things that bothered me about it was that these dangers weren't actually described and addressed in the show properly! Probably at least in part because this techology is so magical it's hard to codify how it works. If it gives an indefinite amount of time, how do you sync up all these infinite amounts of timelines? Whenever anyone logs in to visit Tender, how do they know if it's been a day for her, like in the real world, or a hundred years? (Oh and by the way, I waited in vain for the explanation for these strange duplicities and possible time anomalies; what was going on with Ache and Acre?) If opposing the Splice and the NEH were about solving specific problems with the Splice, I would be all for that!

But yeah, I really do appreciate “processes that self-regulate and address their own issues”, how the story and specifically the finale were about the work of building a better world. I like the finale especially because it shows the social processes more clearly; TM's lack of a faction game and its focus on “bigger picture” was palpable, so I was happy to see again that aspect of the show I think is really good and unique. At first I thought it was anticlimactic that the main threats of the finale were solved so easily, early, and pretty much single-handedly. And, indeed, in a tv show that would have looked pretty strange (and require some rewriting, because with how it went down, Signet should have been the sole protagonist from the start lol). But on the other hand, it gave a lot of space and focus to what the whole story has been about: building a better society and future. Not just saving it from an external threat and drawing the curtain on that – but making sure the world we won is the one we want to live in. Preserve the environment! Decolonize the land! Shut off the tyrannical prophecy machine! And that's a good thing, and from my perspective very characteristic of this show. Before it, I didn't even know there were games about building and preserving communities and addressing civil issues! For years I thought “Well, stories of adventure are fun, but they don't address the real issues”, but turns out, there are people and systems that at least try to combine both. And that's a thought I can find comfort in, even if the specific choices of this campaign make me frustrated sometimes.

“I also tried to move away from violence this season and ended up making an arms manufacturer”

Somehow the end of the post-mortem feels sadder and more final than the end of the show proper

[infinitehours]

Chapter 5

Have you ever wondered what would happen if you didn’t heed The Ghost Host’s warning about flash photography and too many bright lights?  

What a coincidence; so have I!

Hello and welcome to part 2 of my Ted Talk series, “Let’s Torture Karen For Fun”.  Thank you all for joining me here.

Oh.  I should mention that this is the “scary” chapter.  As in, it probably won’t frighten you, but it is a bit creepier than the other chapters.

There’s a character based off of a face character in Epcot in this chapter.  This particular face character I’ve always thought was some kind of spirit when I was younger, hence why they’re referenced here.  

Also, you’re going to start to see signs of the references I’ve put in to both the Phantom Manor and the Phantom of the Opera (only natural since the book/musical inspired the Phantom Manor).

Additionally, I wanted to explain/reference the two mansions and why only one has the aging man portrait in the foyer.

Van Winkle was an actual delegate back around that time; I may go back and change it to a fake name later.  As well as maybe edit this chapter later.  If anyone can give me tips and pointers, that would be appreciated.

Also I apologize for the really terrible art.  I will probably go back and edit them later.

~~~~

Trigger warnings: ghosts, death concepts/discussions, murder, suicide, abuse, blood, lots of scary stuff (horror), implied sexual abuse, cursing (damn and hell), drug abuse, attempted rape (never completed; in a later chapter).

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Table of Contents Link

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Ch 5: Poor Unfortunate Souls

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”If you want to cross a bridge, My Sweet, You’ve got to pay the toll.”

                         -Ursula,  Disney’s The Little Mermaid

~~~~

Cautiously, she began to climb the stairs. They were going up; not down to where Michael presumably was, but she could swear that statue was going to spring to life at any moment and jump her.  And she couldn’t bear to be around when that happened.

On the next floor was another hallway, this time it was framed with doors lining either side as far as she could see.

No, literally.  She could not see the end of the hallway.  

It seemed to go on for miles and miles; if there even WAS an end to it, it was certainly well out of the visual range of any human being.  

Who the heck would even make a house like this?

There was not a soul in a sight, but there was creaking throughout.  The walls creaked, the floors creaked; Karen just hoped it was the house settling.  

She muttered disgruntled strings of sentences insulting the Ghost Host as she turned at a junction reached for what she had hoped was the light switch for that next set of hallways.  

The old fixtures of the chandeliers above her were sluggish in illuminating her surroundings.  That wasn’t too comforting when there were shadows at one side that she couldn’t quite account for, but relief came when this turned out to be merely another table with papers.  

Out of curiosity (and because it couldn’t possibly make her anymore lost than she already was), she briefly shuffled through them.  

Among the items that caught her eye was a newspaper.  It was faded in several places, but the words of one particular headline stood out.

“LION EATS MAN

On this morning, officers of the law have found what is believed to be the half eaten remains of local man, one Mr. Hugh Hudson.  Mr. Hudson had been reported missing by his cousin and overseer, Mr. Jefferson Lewis of the textile company Williams Textiles, just earlier today, when he had neglected to show for work or respond to visitations to his home.  Mr.  Hudson frequently suffered from unseemly bouts with the bottle, and it was under such influence that it was believed that he had happened across the grounds of the traveling Circus, The Museum of the Weird.

Although initially a suspect in this terrible tragedy, ------, the owner and ringmaster of the circus”

Karen squinted her eyes, but the name wasn’t faded but deliberately blacked out.  

“Although initially a suspect in this terrible tragedy, -----, the owner and ringmaster of the circus has cooperated in full with authorities and was henceforth released from suspicions.  He expressed his opinion that exceptional drunkenness was a type of evil, second only to lecherous behavior, and that such tragedies were an inevitable consequence of Mr. Hugh’s choices.

No evidence has been found that would implicate foul play.  Officers of the law have investigated and determined that the methods by which the scene happened involved Mr. Hugh hefting himself over the fencing using a nearby ladder. After which, becoming trapped when there was method of climbing on the other side.  Authorities are working with the assumption that the remains are, indeed, Mr. Hugh, in spite of the condition they are, which is to say, in rendered completely unidentifiable, as there was a bottle of his favored heavy wet near the beast’s cage.   And, furthermore, on the good logic that none others in town have been found to be missing.”

Lion.  Unidentified body.  And again, that Museum of the Weird.  

Karen looked at the date.  1879.  Was this the same event that the other letter she had found described?

Underneath the paper were more letters. She opened a few, but most of them had names she didn’t recognize.  Until she came across one addressed to ‘A Mr. James Bartholomew Gracey’.  

Gracey.  That was the surname of the other letter author.  She opened it up.

“Mr. James Bartholomew Gracey,

You had wrote previously expressing interest in our convention that took place in Wheeling; I write to you now that we shall hold a second convention on the 11th of June.  Ordinarily, only delegates are meant to attend, but as you have previously provided a great service for many of our members I do not think that your presence will incur an uproar.  

Take care, my friend.  For there have been rumors of late of those who wish to secede stirring trouble in towns.  I recognize that you have a certain attachment to your estate, and I do not contest it is very much your birthright, but I urge you to consider relocating closer to Parkersburg, where you could be among the many who share your sentiments.  At the very least, I pray you take care until this war reaches its conclusion.  

Sincerely,

P. Van Winkle”

This one didn’t have a year date or any other identifying features, but it mentioned a war.

She sighed, rubbing her forehead. This was going to be a headache and a half to make sense of any of this, and likely wouldn’t even get her any closer to finding Michael.  

Gracey.  Given that she was finding so many letters with that surname, and given that Solomon’s portrait was hanging prominently in the foyer, she’d have to guess that the family lived in this mansion at some point.  

She frowned when she went back to staring at the letter.  Why was it…darker…?

Looking up, it seemed to have escaped her notice that the hallways she came from were now nearly black.  Goosebumps prickled over her arms and neck.  

Someone had turned off the lights.

And, judging from the human sized shadow that stood in the murky darkness: that ‘someone’ was still there.

“H-hello?”  She asked in a voice much smaller than she’d intended.

The only sounds she could hear was the echoes of a door slamming off somewhere in a distant part of the house.  The shadow didn’t change its position.  

“Michael?”  She said, a little too hopefully.  But he would never have pulled a prank like this; she knew that even before she was met with silence once again.  

“G-Ghost Host?”

Not a sound.  This was likely too subtle for someone as show-offy as he was.  

“Please….won’t you….won’t you say something?  I can see you, you kn-”

THE SHADOW SUDDENLY LURCHED, JERKY INHUMAN MOVEMENTS COMING CLOSER COMING TO HER

She screamed and turned and fled.  Down the hall in the opposite direction, she came across even more intersections and just blindly went down another and another, turning on the light switches as she went because she couldn’t stand to be left in the dark with whatever the heck that thing was.  

                            [Frightfully sensitive to bright lights]

She winched. There it was again, a thought floating to the surface of her mind that distinctively did NOT belong to her.   Unlike with the memory of Solomon, this thought didn’t gradually come upon her but was instead thrusted into the forefront of her mind.  And complete with an unwanted sense of anxiety to boot.    

She dared to look behind her, and despaired to find that the hallways she left were already dark again.  Getting desperate and running out of breath, she grabbed the first few things she could find, another table and an unlit candelabra, and positioned them under the light switch so that the prongs of the candelabra held the switch on.

Karen didn’t actually think this was going to do much, but as she went to the next hallway she witnessed the candelabra shake.  On its own.  Violently, at first, but as she stared, the object moved less and less frequently until it stopped.  The light switch remained on.  

She sighed in great relief, hoping to all heck that whatever it was, ghost or not, that it had given up its attempts.  The shadow certainly didn’t seem prepared to peep around the corner without the darkness there, so for all points and purposes it had worked.  

Frightfully sensitive to bright lights…Had that been some kind of hint?  Was she somehow peering into the desires of another being? Or was it a purposely sent message? Did the shadow really think she was going to turn off all the lights and allow herself to be at the mercy of a creature she knew nothing about?

She shook those thoughts away.  It didn’t matter anymore; a quick glance at the candelabra confirmed it was still there, keeping the lights safely on.   And so long as they were on, she apparently needn’t do anything about the shadow.

Another table. Another pile of assorted papers.  She’d have briefly scanned over them and just kept moving, as she didn’t want to risk the shadow getting brave, but the top ones….

…Were etchings of the two different types of houses she had seen when they first came across this place.

Just like how she’d seen before.  EXACTLY.

One was a Southern style house, with a flat roof and four large Roman-esque pillars surrounding the front door.  There was a second story veranda that wrapped around the entire house, with iron wrought bannisters that looked just as decorative as they were practical.  Though the etching was in black and white, she recalled from her previous contact that the building was mostly white and looked like it was made of paneled painted wood.

The other was in a style she’d seen around really old houses in mostly the Northeast.  A brick building, with roofs slopping at sharp angles and a decorative turret with many decorative toppers scattered on key points of the roof.  One of the most notable and visible points of interest was a glass room on the side that formed a half circle before fusing into the rest of the building.  

Underneath these was a note.

“Mr. Solomon Gracey,

Apologies, but I am afraid I have no answers for you again.  Though we have had a thorough investigation, the authorities have not been able to locate the evil persons who had accomplished the fire set to your home. Many of us have the opinion that the fire was a joint effort by many persons, who were eager to take advantage of your late father’s passing and your current absence.   And that Mr. Wyatt Williams may be involved.  As there were no fatalities, we thought it wise to let the matter drop; granting, of course, that you do not wish to press further.  

As requested, the style of the new exterior will be a marked difference from your original inheritance.  You recall your acquaintance in Pennsylvania, for whom you had favorably mentioned his newly completed estate some three years prior?  We were able to coax Mr. Asa Packer, the architect of that estate, for advice.

You will be pleased, but likely as puzzled as we were, to know that much of the core inner rooms had remained perfectly intact.  Indeed, it was because so many rooms were unscathed that injuries and deaths were prevented. The resulting consequences should be that it will not take more than a handful of years to fully complete her, as only really the outmost rooms and outside appearance need be worked on.  And, of course, we will extend the conservatory in accordance to your previous wishes.  I believe I can speak on behalf of my sister and say that the promise of this particular expansion delighted her.  

I hope I am not out of line in the choice of my next words, but know that it is out of concern for your safety that I state them.  Stay at the University.  The town has been broiled over with unrest as of late, perhaps due to the circumstances by which our new President was elected.  Coupled with the unpopularity of the Gracey family among the townspeople, returning now may only elicit additional responses against the estate before it has even reached completion.  

Besides which, your presence is not needed for the reconstruction, and I offer my assurances that myself and the rest of staff will make do with the family townhouse in the meantime.  We will take care; you needn’t express such worry as you’ve have.

Regards,  

Edgar Galloway”

She looked back down to the pictures but they were go-

                       She was standing somewhere else again.

It was….it was the foyer.  And the man standing in front of her…

Solomon Gracey.

There were two rows of people before him.  On the right, was a row of maids in the green, pinstripe dress she had seen before on both Nell and the maid from the other memory-dream.  On the left, was an apparent row of butlers.  They, too, were dressed in a deep forest green, albeit as a suit.  They had a pinstriped vest of a more grayish-purple color under their open jackets with a row of golden buttons, and a black tie around their neck.  Both sides were standing rigid as if at attention.  

As a butler took hold of Solomon Gracey’s hat and outer coat, she could hear one of the maids whisper to the other ‘You’re right.  He is quite handsome in person.  That portrait hardly does him justice!’

At the other end were a maid and butler pair; they seemed to be in charge, because the maid silenced the other two with a harsh glare.

Solomon, for his part, smirked in good humor.  “Thank you. I’ll consider that a compliment.”

And the maids, upon being found out, couldn’t help but giggle in both embarrassment and relief until the head maid interrupted them with a cough.  

Head maid and butler stepped forward to greet him.  Both had similar shades of hair, a deep raven black.  The woman’s was longer and had been tied in the back to be plaited into a single braid.   The man’s was cut very short and side swept at the front, but there was still much left on the sides that it would have just covered his ears if he hadn’t had it swept behind them.  Both, too, had cloudy grey eyes.

“Welcome home, sir.” The head maid said.

“Thank you.  It is good to be back.  Despite…” His face fell as he surveyed the room, “Well, despite everything.”

“We did do our best, sir, to organize the reconstruction and recreate many of the rooms.” The butler said.   “But there were limitations-“  

“I know, Edgar. I do thank you all for the effort and the willingness to stay despite the hardship this must have brought.”

“How was the University?”  Edgar said.

“Boring.  It was everything I had hated from the academy plus the addition of an overbearing school administrators that paraded the grounds as though it were their battlefield.  The amount of posturing would have you nauseated.  But at the very least, I’ve passed the bar and can now open a practice.”

He stopped short when he came upon his own likeness up above the fireplace.

“Oh, is this the previously mentioned portrait?”  He turned to Edgar and the head maid with a raised eyebrow and a wry smile. “What on Earth were you thinking?”

“Sir, we thought it would be wise to have your portrait displayed prominently for guests who may come to call upon us.”  The maid replied, giving even Solomon a pointed look of warning. “It would do much to send a message that, despite your youth, you are indeed the current, true master of Gracey manor.”

“Indeed, a wise choice,” Solomon agreed, still smiling.  “But couldn’t you have commissioned someone who displayed my chin a little LESS prominently?”  

The maids fell into a giggling fit again, and the butlers seemed threatened to join them, but a clap from both overseers put them back into line again.    

…..

Karen could feel the scene fade away; this time, the change was much more obvious.

The hallway returned. The pictures and letters returned.

This…this was the same house.  

                                              Plink.  Plink.

She picked up the two drawings and placed them side by side.

                                         Plink.  Plink.

The same exact house, just at two different points in time.

                                          Plink.  Plink.

Most of the same inner rooms, just a different exterior.

                                         Plink.  Plink.

Is that why she saw BOTH when they were approaching the mansion?

                                        Plink.  Plink.

Wait….What….

                                        Plink.  Plink.

….was that sound?

She looked up from the table….only to realize, in horror, that the other end of the hallway was dark.  

And the shadow was waiting there.

                                               Plink.

Shards of small glass came down from one of the above light fixtures, and the room grew a shade darker.  It was then that it dawned on her, fresh goosebumps rising, what the shadow intended to do.

                                      PlinkPlinkPlink.

Three lights tauntingly broke all in quick succession.  The shadow was halfway down.  

                              [Fire. Fire. Fire. Fire. Fire.]

Another unwanted thought.  Wrapped in fear and anxiety.

She fled again further down the hall.

                             [Catching up. Catching up.]

Another corner.  Again, again.

                                   PlinkPlinkPlink.

But this corner had a stop.

Stop around the corner. There was no place left to go.

                           [Catching up.  Catching up.]

                                  PlinkPlinkPlink.

There was no more hallway left, only rows of doors that led to a door at the end.

Can’t go back.  She’d run right into the shadow.

                                        [I SEE YOU]

Try one. Try two.  Why are all of these doors locked?

                                    PlinkPlinkPlink.

Finally.  The door at the end.  

She opens it and slips through.

                                       PlinkPlinkPlink.

She looks around for the light switch. A single bulb in the center of the room, dangling from a thread.  

She closed the door behind here and learns the hard way why this door wasn’t locked.

It was because it didn’t have a lock.  

The sounds of breaking bulbs gets closer.

She opts to put her weight against the door.  

Only just to register what’s actually IN this room.

…..

Coffins.  

There are coffins in this room.  

Why were there coffins in a storage closet?

Piled high, undecorated, unpainted. Just plain wooden coffins.

She doesn’t have time to think about it; already the door is pushing her back.  

                            Keep it closed. Keep it closed.

Digs her heels in, gaining leverage to force the door closed again.

She manages to find the perfect spot to put her feet.

It will close for sure.

Keep the pressure up.

But the lightbulb, the lightbulb. The single lightbulb.

It was already flickering.

                     Please don’t go out. Please don’t go out.

The shapes of the shadows of coffins dance in the flickering light like an old movie.

Sometimes, they seem to move.

                              Please don’t. Please don’t.

The pressure against her back again.

Her hand in her pocket.  It curls around the ring.

The ring in her pocket she’d forgotten about.

The ring, the ring….

                                               The water.

She was standing up near the water.   Someplace in town near the water. She couldn’t recognize where.

The fear.  Nauseating fear, it didn’t go away.

A woman was there.  That woman.  It was from the first memory.  The maid and the boy and the angry young man.  But she wasn’t wearing a maid’s uniform.  And she was scared.

Yes.  So scared. Please.

“Rolly!”  She cried, stumbling in the darkness.  Her blonde hair fell in curls about her neck, and her eyes were a dull grey-blue.

Why was it dark?  

That’s right, because it’s nighttime.

But we were in a closet….weren’t we?

“Rolly!  Rolly please!”

Please save me.

Someone.  Please help me.  

“Good evening.”

Both of them turned to see.  That wasn’t Rolly….that….that voice….

A man dressed in all black.  He was almost impossibly tall and thin, his face covered by a grotesque, demon-like mask.  

The mask had horns, it looked like it was screaming, and there was a crack on the right eye socket of the mask which displayed the unusually large eyeball the man had.  An eyeball that held a color electrifyingly blue; a shape and size and color that was so different from his ordinary looking left eye.  

Almost instictively, she wanted to run at the sound of his voice.  

“Who are you?   What do you want from me?? Do you-do you want to hurt me??”  

                      “Would you take comfort in hearing me say ‘no’?”

Run.

Run off into the town; after all, it was right there.  But she was held into place.

Couldn’t move.  

….

…This was the Ghost Host.    Seeing the Ghost Host having an actual, physical form.  Not merely a voice floating on the wind.  And all back when he was alive.  

“What….what do you want, then?” The woman anxiously looked at him, but also kept looking around her.  “Rolly?  Rolly are you near?  Please, Rolly!”

“He cannot hear you.”

“Why??  What have you done with him??”  She was frantic.  

“Why I’ve done nothing, Miss Slater. It is Miss Slater, correct?”

“How do you know that?!”

“I know someone who knows things. And I happen to know that your friend has traveled the next town over in search of some work.”

“He…..he wouldn’t.  Not without telling me.”

“Are you so sure, Madame?  And even if he was here, are you so certain he would be able to help you?  That he would have the funds at the moment to spare food for an extra mouth?”

Miss Slater was silent.  Karen was silent.

The nervousness was hers.  Or was it Miss Slaters?  Was SHE Miss Slater?

This was bad.

“And what would his friends think, hmm? His former captain? As I understand, he gets a generous sum of money as a sort of thanks for a good length of service from a company that just so happens to be owned by the Graceys.  And you?…Well…You were just fired from their house for meddling with one of the master’s sons, weren’t you?”

“That..! You…!”  The woman’s face went pale.  She doubled over as if in pain, her hand clutched to her heart.

Karen felt a tinge of pain in her own heart.   Stabbing. Burning.  

“Now, now.  Calm yourself.  You wouldn’t want to aggravate your condition, now would you?”

The man chuckled darkly, circling around her like a wolf with prey.   Her eyes followed nervously along.  

“I hold no judgement of you nor bear any grudge.  In fact, I’m rather well aware that, as a mere maid, you had little choice but to say ‘yes’ to the young master’s amorous affections.  How awful that must have felt; kicked out in the cold because you only did what you were told!”

“Stop!”  Miss Slater’s eyes were winced shut, the tears beginning to streak down her face.

The man.  The Ghost Host.  Waited patiently for her to catch her breath.

“Nathaniel said he loved me.”  She said, mournfully.  “And I….I convinced myself that I felt the same, if only to make it easier.”

“But you didn’t.”

“I don’t. …I don’t know anymore.  I think…I think a part of me did. In a way. In a twisted, awful sort of way, because he only ever made me feel twisted…and…”

She sat shaking on the riverbank. Sobbing quietly.  

“Twisted….twisted and awful….I hate him….I want to get away….And I”

She gulped.

“And I don’t…I-I don’t have anywhere to go….”

The man’s hands lifted, and those long, bony fingers ghosted along the woman’s frail shoulders.   Skeletal white against the bare of her arms.  

“Allow me to help you.”  Fingers caught underneath her elbows just as they reached them, and she was coaxed to stand.  

“You could come with me.  My troupe and I just so happen to be moving out tonight. A fresh start.  Fresh clothes.  A warm bed, warm food.  Does that interest you at all?”  This last part was whispered right at the shell of her ear, and she felt compelled to pull away in response.  

“And what,” She said, glaring at him. “Pray tell, is your price for such luxuries?”  

The man laughed, and his booming voice caused the woman to nervously ease herself away even further from him.

“I assure you, Miss Slater,” The man’s toothy smile could barely be seen underneath the shadow of the mask.  “I am not THAT kind of man.  I apologize if I have given the wrong impression.  It is fear that interests me, not lust.  As for my price, I’m not asking much.  What I want from you is...” The man reached out to very gently lift her chin.   “….your voice.”

Her hand went to her throat.  Her face no less filled with anxiety than before.

“Do you mean to rip it from me then, sir?”

He chuckled.  “Nothing so macabre.  I merely want you to perform with us.  Your performance needn’t be strenuous.  A song here, a song there.  Surely a fair price for what I offer in return, yes?”

“I’m not a singer, sir!  Only for my own enjoyment; I’ve never performed or had any sort of train-“

“Unnecessary, I promise.  The sort of clientele we get is often far from the obnoxious, discerning upper crust.  You need only be decent, and we shall fill the whole tent!”  

He offered his hand, and she hesitated to look at it.  

She reached up, gently, slowly. Until her hand was firmly in his grasp.

The man smiled.

“Welcome to the Museum of the Weird, Miss Emily Slater.”

Jerked from below.

Taken back into darkness.

Pitch darkness.

But there were outlines of coffins, despite the darkness.

                                                          Oh.

She was back in the closet.  

The memory was gone again.  

And the single lightbulb must have gone out.  

Karen sat there, her back against the door, and attempted to regulate her breathing. The room had dropped a whole 20 degrees, accented by an awful burnt smell that reeked through the air; her jacket, which felt particularly heavy against her shoulders, did little to ward off the chill.  In fact, it felt as though the cold went right through its threads.    

When she was sure that she could actually hold her own weight without passing out, she made the attempt to sta-

……

She tried to sta-

……

She.  Tried.  To. Stand.

Stand Up.  

….

She couldn’t stand up.

She felt the color drain from her face, the burning smell threatening to overpower her as she lifted her shaking hands up….up to her neck….

Only to find.

An….an arm.

…..

Made of stone.

The hand was on her right shoulder, the arm itself resting on her collarbone, the bend in the elbow right on her left shoulder and all of it coming from…

…No….coming through the door.

...The arm was coming through the door.  Unhindered.  As if the door wasn’t there at all.

She whimpered.  Tears lightly stinging her eyes, she stayed perfectly still.  As still as she could with all the shaking she was doing.

The statue...The statue had been chasing her this entire time?

….she tried…to go under the arm. To wiggle…

…wiggle

…wigg-

The arm suddenly pushed down on her collarbone, pinning her harder against the door.

She cried out in response, the burning smell was getting worse, and worse…and worse…

The…head…of the statue was now through the door.  Stoney eyes staring directly at her.

She whimpered again, silently wishing someone would hear her.  Would know she was there.

Her arms clung to the stone, trying to pull it off her but it was too solid and heavy.

Stoney eyes staring at her.

“P-please…..Please….”  She whispered. Was it for her savior to hear?  Or the statue?  Karen herself didn’t know who she was calling for.  The tears were running down her face and she couldn’t care to stifle them.

They remained like this, the two of them. A statue and a person.  The smell of burnt carcass enveloping her just as strongly as the arm did.  

But there was an eventual shift on the statue’s face.  The stone eyelids…flickering….Opening.  Revealing…

Actual human eyeballs.  

This only made her cry harder, because not only was it unnerving to see eyeballs set in stone, but they didn’t have any pupils.  

At least, at first, they hadn’t any pupils.  But dark pools began to phase into their center, stronger and stronger until the pupils fully appeared.

And with them came….a sort…of softer gaze. The statue looked at her with some sort of recognition.

And….And slowly….meticulously….the statue’s hold began to soften too…

The face moved away….The arm moved away….

Even the single lightbulb in the center of the room came back on.

The burnt smell disappeared.

Without the strength to hold herself in a sitting position, or even the statue to pin her there, Karen slumped to the floor.

Shaking.

In a closet full of coffins.  Curled up on the floor, shaking, with the tears still streaming down.

And she finally was able to shudder back to life A nice, long, deep breath.  

[trendingnewsb]

41 Of The Creepiest Unsolved Mysteries Of All Time

Settle in, this is a long one. These “scariest” unsolved mysteries are based on the opinions of the people over on r/unresolvedmysteries who know enough about unsolved cases at large to be experts on the creepiest ones. If you’re looking for a lengthy thread of bite-sized “true scary stories”, we’ve got one of those too.

The woman who recorded other people’s voices on her sleep app

Here’s how she describes what happened:

“This night I was sleeping in my bed – my 3 year old was with me that night as he is scared of the dark. It was just the two of us in the whole house. The next night I decided to go through and delete my recordings and saw this particular record. In it, you can here some clicks that start to get louder over the course of the recording. Eventually you can hear me say “What are you doing??” and immediately after there is a deep voice that says “Nothing”. The clicks become very loud at that point and at the very end of the recording you hear the same voice say “That’s them” (I think?). I am pretty creeped out by this. I don’t remember being awake that night. The only plausible explanation is that I answered my own sleeping talking but the voice doesn’t even sound like me or something I could emulate. It definitely doesn’t sound like a voice my preschooler could emulate, either. I have no idea what the clicks could be. I keep a fan going at night for white noise but the clicks sounds like they’re coming from right near my phone (which is placed right by me on my bedside table). I want to say that I’ve picked up the clicks a few times on recordings before but deleted them thinking it was nothing – this is the first time I’ve ever heard anything, though.”

Here is the audio of the recording. The woman has since moved to a new house, but one Redditer who followed up with the story said:

“I actually private messaged with the OP of the sleep app story. She was happy to say that things were going well in their new home, and her son was doing well. However, if you look at the more recently dated comments after the story was posted, OP says her son had started asking where “Ho” was and seeing “the black guy with no face.” OP and I exchanged some PMs about a year after their original post to discuss what could be going on, and apparently “Ho” followed them to their new home.”

UVB-76

Also known as “The Buzzer”, UVB-76 is a radio signal of unknown origin. No one knows what it’s purpose is or why it’s happening. They suspect it may be of Russian origin. Here’s what it sounds like:

Dutroux

“Last one: a somewhat bigger mystery, but truly terrifying. Dutroux is a well known Belgian child abuser that was caught in the 90’s. It turns out the circle of abuse is much bigger and influential than one can imagine. This is a very long and well documented read about how the investigation into child abuse is being hampered by government, police, upper class figures, etc. It takes a strong stomach to digest the witness accounts (highly nsfw) and a strong stomach to digest the injustice.” — IamScuzzlebut

The murder of Mark Kilroy

Wikimedia

From Wikipedia:

He was taken by his abductors to a ranch where he was murdered in a human sacrifice ritual. Kilroy was killed with a machete blow and then had his brain removed and boiled in a pot. His killers then inserted a wire through his backbone, chopped off his legs, and buried him at the ranch along with 14 other people who had been killed there before him.

Jodine Serrin

From Reddit:

Serrin lived on her own, but depended on her family for help due to her mental challenges. Late in the evening of Valentine’s Day 2007, Jodine’s parents went to the condo they had purchased on Swallow Lane for their daughter and walked in on what they thought was an awkward situation. Art Serrin went to find his daughter in her bedroom, and saw a man having sex with her.

According to a 10News report, Serrin told the man to get dressed and then he and his wife, Lois, went to wait for what they expected to be an embarrassed couple to join them in the kitchen. After several minutes, Serrin returned to the bedroom and found his daughter murdered, having been beaten and strangled to death. The man had escaped, possibly through a back door.

In fact, as investigators later found, she had been dead for between 12 and 24 hours.

Dale Kerstetter

YouTube

From Reddit:

At 11:00 PM on September 12, 1987, 50-year old Dale Kerstetter showed up to work the overnight shift as security guard at the Corning Glassworks plant in Bradford, Pennsylvania. Dale was a divorced father of six who worked at the plant for 29 years, but had recently been transferred from his position as a trades worker to a security guard, which involved him taking a pay cut of between $5,000-7,000 per year. At 7:00 AM the following morning, Dale’s relief arrived and discovered he was missing. Dale’s truck was still in the parking lot with the keys in the ignition. His daypack and a full carton of cigarettes were inside the truck, along with the holster for a .22 caliber gun he carried which was never found. Dale’s keys to the plant and a newspaper were found on a table in the cafeteria, along with his lunch pail, which still had all his food inside. A police dog was brought in and tracked Dale’s scent from the cafeteria to the second floor, but it came to an end at the plant’s glass furnace.

The security tape from that night was later checked. The plant had three security cameras and the feed would alternate between each camera at random intervals. The footage revealed an unidentified masked intruder walking through the plant at various points between midnight and 1:00 AM. In one of the shots, the intruder was seen meeting up with Dale in the back of the plant. They both walked past the security camera together, where Dale appeared to look up and stare directly at the camera before they disappeared out of frame. Dale did not show up in the security footage again, but one shot showed the intruder heading towards the glass furnace, the same area where the police dog tracked Dale’s scent. There was also a shot of the intruder wheeling a large bag through the plant on a manual forklift. It was soon discovered that $250,000 worth of platinum lining had been stolen from the furnace.

On the surface, it appeared the intruder had forced Dale to escort him to the area containing the platinum before he subsequently murdered him and disposed of his body. However, Corning’s management believed that Dale was actually involved in the theft.

When Dale walked through the plant and stared directly into the security camera, some people interpreted this as a signal for help, but Corning thought Dale might have been taunting them about his crime. At the time, Dale was in debt and unhappy that his employer had cut his pay and given him a security position, so Corning believed Dale willingly escorted the intruder to the furnace, helped him steal the platinum, and then skipped town with his share of the profits. Of course, Dale’s family did not believe he would get involved in anything illegal and abandon his children, so they feared he was an innocent victim of foul play. Whatever the truth, there has been no trace of Dale Kerstetter in nearly 30 years.

The Circleville Letters

A woman and her husband in Circleville, Ohio started getting creepy letters. One day, the husband received a letter and got riled up enough that he got his gun and left the house. He was letter found dead in a car crash, his gun had been fired. The husband’s brother was eventually charged with the crime, but began receiving the same letters once he was in prison.

Here’s a nice write-up on the whole store from The Line-up.

The Sodder Children

Wikimedia

From Wikipedia:

On Christmas Eve, December 24, 1945, a fire destroyed the Sodder home in Fayetteville, West Virginia, United States. At the time, it was occupied by George Sodder, his wife Jennie, and nine of their ten children. During the fire, George, Jennie, and four of the nine children escaped. The bodies of the other five children were never found. The Sodders believed for the rest of their lives that the five missing children survived.

Dave Bocks

A factory worker at a nuclear power plant went missing during his shift. Many people suspect foul play as he may have been a whistle blower for illegal activities taking place at the plant.

Blind River Killer

I remember this as the scariest episode of in which an elderly couple on a cross country road trip stopped at a rest area to sleep for the night. In the middle of the night attacked the couple and shot and killed a bystander to came to their aid. He drove off in a blue van and was never caught.

East Area Rapist / The Original Nightstalker

American Law Enforcement

A serial rapist and killer who raped at least 50 women in northern California in the 70’s. He has never been identified.

A few things that make this killer a bit creepier than the rest:

1. The East Area Rapist sent letters and drawings to newspapers in the area taunting citizens. Here’s a map he drew of what is believed to be his “ideal” suburban neighborhood stalking grounds:

Sacramento Police Department

2. He would call and taunt his victims or intended victims. He called one woman he raped to wish her a merry Christmas, saying:

Merry Christmas, it’s me again! (hangs up)

You can listen to some of the phone calls here, but please be warned, these are very disturbing!!

3. There was a town meeting to discuss the rapist/killer at large. During the meeting one man stood up to say that the East Area Rapist could never harm his family because he wouldn’t “let” something like that happen to his wife. His wife was latter attacked leading people to believe the actual East Area Rapist attended the town meeting. A photo from that meeting exists.

Keddie Cabin Murders

3ternalist01

From Wikipedia:

Glenna “Sue” Sharp, 36, and her five children had been renting the cabin since November 1980. At approximately 7:45 AM on the morning of April 12, Sheila Sharp, upon returning from the sleepover next door, discovered the tied-up bodies of Sue, John and Dana in the home’s living room. Plumas County Sheriff’s deputies later determined Tina Sharp was missing from the location. The murders have been commented upon for their particular viciousness.

After approximately 4,000 man-hours spent on the case, it grew cold but, in 1984, the cranium portion of a skull was recovered near Feather Falls in neighboring Butte County, a distance of roughly 63 miles (2 hours 12 minutes) from Keddie. Butte County Sheriff’s Office released both the original and back-up copy of the audio recording of the ‘anonymous call’ to an undisclosed member of law enforcement.

As of May 2017, no arrests have been made in connection with the Keddie murders, although two suspects who had criminal records, now deceased, have been proposed. In 2004, Cabin 28 was demolished.

There’s been a recent break in the case that, for many, may explain what happened:

On March 24, 2016, a hammer matching the description of a hammer suspect Martin Smartt said he lost shortly before the murders was taken into evidence by Plumas County Special Investigator Mike Gamberg. Sheriff Hagwood stated, “the location it was found… It would have been intentionally put there. It would not have been accidentally misplaced.

The Mothman

From Reddit:

The Mothman sightings of 1966 was always a favorite story of mine and still is this day. If you go down the rabbit hole there are soooo many weird pieces including MIB showing up to this tiny town. Some of it might have been mass hysteria but damn if it isn’t a wild ride until the very end.

Morgan Nick

Wikimedia

From Wikipedia:

On June 9, 1995, Morgan Nick and her mother, Colleen Nick, went to a Little League baseball game in their town of Alma, Arkansas. At around 10:30 p.m., Morgan asked her mother if she could catch lightning bugs with her friends. At first, her mother was uncertain, but eventually let her go. She was last seen at 10:45 p.m. by her friends, emptying sand out of her shoes alone near her mother’s car while her group of friends emptied their shoes a few dozen feet away. Morgan’s friends reported seeing a “creepy” man talking to Morgan as she was putting her shoes back on.

When the game ended shortly thereafter, Morgan’s friends returned without her. They told Colleen that Morgan was at her car, but when Colleen returned to the car, Morgan was not there. She has not been seen or heard from since.

Pedro Lopez

A Columbian criminal known as the “Monster of the Andes” is out of prison after serving 13 years of a 16 year sentence for murdering as many as 300 little girls. No one knows where he is now.

Brian Shaffer

The medical student who went to a local bar for a drink and was never seen again. Security footage showed him entering the bar, but not leaving. He was by all accounts happy and had plans to propose to his girlfriend the following week. He hasn’t been seen since that night.

Hinterkaifeck murders

Andreas Biegleder

From Wikipedia:

A few days prior to the crime, farmer Andreas Gruber told neighbors about discovering footprints in the snow leading from the edge of the forest to the farm, but none leading back. He also spoke about hearing footsteps in the attic and finding an unfamiliar newspaper on the farm. Furthermore, the house keys went missing several days before the murders. None of this was reported to the police prior to the attack.

Six months earlier, the previous maid had left the farm, claiming that it was haunted; the new maid, Maria Baumgartner, arrived on the farm on the day of the attack and was killed hours later.

Exactly what happened on that Friday evening cannot be said for certain. It is believed that the older couple, as well as their daughter Viktoria, and her daughter, Cäzilia, were all lured into the barn one by one, where they were killed. The perpetrator(s) then went into the house where they killed two‑year‑old Josef, who was sleeping in his cot in his mother’s bedroom, as well as the maid, Maria Baumgartner, in her bedchamber.

On the following Tuesday, April 4, neighbors came to the farmstead because none of its inhabitants had been seen for a few days.

Dorothy Jane Scott

From Wikipedia:

Dorothy Jane Scott disappeared on May 28, 1980, in Anaheim, California. She had driven two co-workers to the hospital after one had been bitten by a spider. While they were waiting for a prescription to be filled, Scott went to get her car and bring it around to meet them. Her car approached them, but it sped away; neither could see who was driving as its headlights had blinded them. They reported her missing a couple of hours later, after not hearing from her. In the preceding months, Scott had been receiving anonymous phone calls from a man who had reportedly been stalking her. He had threatened to get her alone and “cut [her] up into bits so no one will ever find [her]”.

Dyatlov Pass Incident

Soviet investigators

From Reddit:

The Dyatlov Pass Incident is the unsolved disappearance of nine hikers in the Ural mountains in Russia in 1959, and subsequent discovery. There’s a whole lot of details to this case which are mentioned in the link, but for a brief summary:

Ten experienced ski hikers embark upon a trek through a mountain pass that locals describe as “Devil’s Pass.”

One of the hikers returns on his own due to illness. The others continue ahead. After the party don’t return when expected, a search party is sent out into the mountains to look for them. Their campsite was eventually found, abandoned and slashed open from the inside, and the bodies were eventually all found at various points nearby in various unusual states, including some naked or undressed, some with their heads basically smashed in (which later investigations showed were impossible to have been done by humans).

This is a conspiracy theorist’s wet dream, with details that don’t add up, Cold War/KGB cover-ups, UFO sightings, cryptozoology (yeti theories), weapons testing, nuclear radiation emanating from the bodies, stories of local savage tribes etc. But even without all that, it’s still a pretty eerie story on its own.

Dyatlov Pass is a total rabbit hole and it’s one of my personal favorite mysteries.

Laureen Rahn

From Reddit:

14-year-old Laureen Rahn was last seen in her apartment in Manchester, New Hampshire on April 26th, 1980. She spent the evening drinking beer with a male and female friend while her mother Judith was away at a tennis tournament. At some point, the boy heard voices in the hallway and left through the back door, thinking Judith was coming home. He stated he heard Laureen lock the door behind him.

When Judith finally returned at midnight, she found the building completely dark because the light bulbs on all three floors had been unscrewed. She checked Laureen’s room and thought she saw Laureen asleep on the bed. In the morning, however, this turned out to be Laureen’s friend, who said that she had last seen Laureen going to sleep on the couch. Laureen’s clothes and new sneakers were in the living room, and the back door was open.

The police investigation went nowhere until Judith looked at her phone bill and discovered she had been charged for three phone calls made from Santa Monica, California on October 1st, 1980, three months after Lauren went missing. Two of these calls were placed from a Santa Monica motel to another motel in Santa Ana. The third call was to a teen sexual assistance hotline run by a plastic surgeon. Authorities in Santa Monica questioned this surgeon, and he denied knowing anything about Laureen.

Judith hired her own investigator in 1985, who questioned the doctor again. This time he altered his story and said that his wife was sometimes visited by runaway girls (!?) and that one of these girls may have been from New Hampshire. He also believed that a colleague of his wife’s named Annie Sprinkle knew more about these runaways. Authorities looked into this and found that Sprinkle was involved in the pornography industry, but nothing was found linking her to Laureen.

Another investigator traveled to Santa Monica in 1986 and learned that the two hotels may have been used by a child pornographer named “Dr. Z.”, but authorities couldn’t find a connection between “Dr. Z” and the doctor who ran the hotline.

For a year after the disappearance, Judith reported getting regular phone calls at around 3:45 a.m., but there would be nothing but silence on the line when she answered. She received similar calls around the Christmas holidays for several years until she finally changed her number. According to Charley Project, a childhood friend of Laureen’s received a call from someone claiming to be her in 1986. His mother answered the phone, but unfortunately the article doesn’t elaborate on what the caller said.

In the previous thread about this, the OP quoted someone from a forum post who claims that her mother was the friend who was with Laureen when she vanished. Her mother said that they were hanging out with two guys that day (not one as stated in Charley Project) and that Laureen may have left with one of them. The guy who left through the back door committed suicide in 1985 and is not considered a suspect.

It is also worth nothing that other women, Denise Denault and Rachael Garden, of similar physical appearance to Laureen, disappeared from the same area within a six-week time period. Their cases are also unsolved and have never been linked.

The “30 Minutes or Less” murder

From Wikipedia:

Brian Douglas Wells was an American pizza delivery man who was killed by a remotely controlled bomb fastened to his neck, under coercion from the maker of the bomb. After he was apprehended by the police for robbing a bank, the bomb was detonated.

“Down the hill”

From Wikipedia:

On February 14, 2017, the bodies of Abigail “Abby” Williams and Liberty “Libby” German were discovered on an American hiking trail in Delphi, Indiana, after the young girls had disappeared from the same trail the previous day. The murders have received significant media coverage due to the fact that a photo and audio recording of a man believed to be girls’ murderer was found on the cell phone of German. Despite the photo and audio recording of the suspect being released to the public by police, and an estimated 18,000 tips being sent to police, no arrests have been made in the case.

One of the girl’s Snapchat photo:

Two Indiana teen were murdered shortly after taking these eerie photos. Today at 3, @DrOz looks at the cellphone of victim Liberty German. http://pic.twitter.com/cEdB4PZ7sk

— WSB-TV (@wsbtv) October 17, 2017

The audio:

Lars Mittank

Findet Lars Mittank

From Reddit:

a case about a 28 year old man from Germany, Lars Mittank, who visited Bulgaria with his friends. This place in Bulgaria is very famous for young people from Germany and England, same as Mallorca or Ibiza.

Mittank got involved into a fight and hurt his ear. Something that happens always at those places where many young people are partying.

He stayed there and enjoyed the rest of his holidays with his friends. When they had to leave though, the doctor said he can not use the airplane because of his ear. He decided to stay in Bulgaria and rented a room in a hostel while his friends left.

He called at night his mother and said he fears for his life.

Here is a footage from the airport. Mittank wanted to leave again and catch his next flight. He went to the doctors office though, with all his stuff, suitcase etc. After that, he runs out from the doctors office.

People outside saw him how he climbed over a fence and disappeared in a nearby forrest. Till today, no one knows what happened or where he is. His family is still searching for him, there is even a facebook page.

Elisa Lam

From Wikipedia:

Her disappearance had been widely reported; interest had increased five days prior to her body’s discovery when the Los Angeles Police Department released video of the last time she was known to have been seen, on the day of her disappearance, by an elevator security camera. In the footage, Lam is seen exiting and re-entering the elevator, talking and gesturing in the hallway outside, and sometimes seeming to hide within the elevator, which itself appears to be malfunctioning. The video went viral on the Internet, with many viewers reporting that they found it unsettling. Explanations ranged from claims of paranormal involvement to bipolar disorder from which Lam suffered; it has also been argued that the video was altered prior to release.

The circumstances of Lam’s death, when she was found, also raised questions, especially in light of the Cecil’s history in relation to other notable deaths and murders. Her body was naked with most of her clothes and personal effects floating in the water near her. It took the Los Angeles County Coroner’s office four months, after repeated delays, to release the autopsy report, which reports no evidence of physical trauma and states that the cause of death was accidental. Guests at the Cecil, now re-branded as Stay on Main, sued the hotel over the incident, and Lam’s parents filed a separate suit later that year; the latter was dismissed in 2015.

Paula Jean Weldon

From Reddit:

Paula Jean Weldon was a sophomore at Bennington College in Bennington, Vermont in the fall of 1946. On December 1st, she told her roommate, Elizabeth Johnson, that she was “through with studies; I’m taking a long walk” . Dressed in a red parka coat with a fur lined hood, blue jeans, Top-Sider shoes with thick soles, and a gold Elgin wristwatch with a black band, she made no indication she planned on staying gone for very long.

She was supposed to walk part of Vermont’s Long Trail. Danny Fager, who owned a gas station near the college gates, said he spotted Paula. He said he had seen her run up then down the side of the gravel pit near the entrance of the college around 2:45 P.M. 15 minutes late, Louis Knapp claimed to have picked up a young girl matching Paula’s description on Route 67A and let her out on Route 9, near the Long Trail. Just after 4 P.M., she was spotted by several people in Bickford Hollow, seemingly headed toward the trail. When Paula did not come home later that night, Elizabeth was not yet worried, and did not warn anyone. The next morning when Paula had still not come back by the next morning, she contacted College President Lewis Webster Jones. Jones then phoned Paula’s parents to ask if she had gone home for the weekened.

Mrs. Welden collapsed with worry. Her father, W. Archibald Welden immediately left the family home in Stamford, Connecticut. He helped organize a massive search party, but their search turned up empty. He then called the New York and Connecticut state police forces, as VT did not have a state police force at the time.

Days passed and Paula was still missing. Then, a waitress in Fall River, Massaschusetts claimed to have served dinner to a “disturbed” women fitting Paula’s description. Strangely, after hearing this, Mr. Welden vanished for 36 hours. After his return, people began to suspect that he had something to do with his daughter’s disappearance. It came to light that Mr. Welden did not approve of a boy Paula had been seeing. He claimed this boyfriend had to be the responsible party, but his only proof came from a clairvoyant. He then began to trash the police for their lack of professionalism and lack of records. Mr. Welden soon returned to his home in Stamford.

Poor weather eventually halted the search for Paula, but 9 years later, a lumberjack came forward saying he knew where her body was buried. After being questioned, he eventually admitted making it up for publicity. Then, in 1968, a skeleton was found. It was later determined it was far too old to be Paula.

There have been many theories as to what happened to Paula that fateful December day. Did she simply get lost in the woods and die in the elements or did she run off with her boyfriend? Or did the so called Bennington Triangle, where 5 people vanished between 1945 and 1950, have something to do with it?

Sadly, as more and more time passes, it seems very unlikely the case of what happened to Paula Jean Welden will ever be solved.

Grave Robbing for Morons

From Reddit:

In the early 1990s, a homemade VHS circulated around called “Grave Robbing for Morons”. It features a young man explaining how to rob graves without getting caught, what bones are most valuable, and other grave robbing “tips.” In the video he shows what appears to be an actual human skull that he’s stolen and at the end he gives the nicknames of himself and his grave robbing crew: “Anthony, “Gino, “Taco”, and “Pucci” and vows to continue robbing graves for the fun of it. To this day, no one knows who made this video or who the narrator is. There is a site dedicated to finding out the origin of the video and the identity of the narrator, but they don’t have any additional information to add.

Because of the over-the-top nature of some of the advice, some believe that the video is an act intended to cash in on the pseudo-reality television craze that was going on thanks to things like Faces of Death. But others seem to think that at the very least the narrator has robbed graves, and that this could be a “legit” (i.e. not faked) video.

Kathryn Ott

From Reddit:

This missing person’s case does not have much coverage and I am hoping to bring some interest back to this 3 year old unresolved disappearance.

In 2014, Kathryn Gayle Ott was 56 years old. She was 62-64 inches tall and weighed around 125-140 pounds. Kathy had brown eyes, that may appear hazel and wore eyeglasses. She avoided driving at night. She underwent a hysterectomy in 2013 that left her with an abdominal scar. She had a bad left knee cap with noticeable scarring from where a wire was placed to keep the knee together. She had been losing her blonde, graying hair and wore a wig. Her family believes she had been recently diagnosed with a serious medical condition in 2014, although she had not disclosed any details of an illness to them.

Kathy packed up her things and left her husband at their home in Lapeer, Michigan, in May 2014 after receiving social security disability with back pay. CORRECTION: She received supplemental security income with back pay. She drove her 2003 gray Chevrolet Impala with Michigan tag 2JS N90 to her son’s home in Gulf Shores, Alabama arriving in the end of May 2014.

On June 17th, 2014, she left Alabama after finding out she would not be able to receive her SSI checks. Her wig was left behind at her son’s home. According to family, a missing person’s report was filed and her children have not spoken to her since she left Gulf Shores.

But in late August 2014, Kathy called her father from St. Thomas Rutherford Hospital in Murfreesboro, Tennessee where she was receiving treatment for unknown reasons. This is the last time anyone heard from or saw Kathy.

Her NamUs case file has Murfreesboro Police Department as the investigating agency and her missing person’s report was filed February 27th, 2015.

What did Kathy do for 2 months with no incoming money? How did she end up in Murfreesboro?

Where is Kathryn Ott?

Barbie.avi

From Reddit:

Allegedly found on a computer in a dumpster, the whole clip remains mysterious.

An amputee can be seen on camera, she gets emotional throughout the video. During the video text can be seen which says B.I.I.D after analysis it was found out this stands for Body integrity identity disorder, this is a disorder which makes people feel as if they need to have there limbs amputated because they believe they do not belong on their body.

People have speculated that the woman is discussing her next operation with rogue doctors.

Jessica Haddix

From Reddit:

Jessica Haddix, 29, went missing in late April of 2009 from the Perry County area of Kentucky. In early May of the same year, her body was found in the Knott County area on an old strip mining area. She was wrapped in a tarp and stuffed in a drain pipe. I don’t think they ever released her cause of death, but IIRC she was killed around the same time she was reported missing.

She was last seen arguing with her ex-husband, who she had been living with. Jessica had two kids, one with this ex. She was reportedly threatening to leave him and was planning on taking their son with her. Her ex was also seemingly abusive. Jessica had even showed up to her daughter’s soccer game with a black eye on time.

After she was last seen, her ex-husband was seen on camera using her food stamp card at a local grocery. Her car was found not far from his house.

A local woman who did Jessica’s taxes tried calling her, not knowing that Jessica was already missing and presumably dead. She was calling to inform Jessica that she needed to come in and sign some papers. Jessica’s ex-husband answered the phone and simply said Jessica was not there, and hung up.

After her body was found, her ex-husband received custody of their son. The woman who tried calling Jessica reported the phone call to the police, and they said they would look into it. They never followed up with woman.

Most people are convinced her ex-husband killed her to stop her from taking their son.

His parents were well known, and had many connections in the community. The investigation into her death was virtually non-existent, and it seems to point to a cover up by the local PD. It seems plausible, because how do you put no effort into what seems to be a murder that seems easily solvable? No DNA tests were ran, ex-husband has no alibi, no arrests were made and nobody was thoroughly questioned. So was it shotty, inexperienced officers? Or a cover up?

Her daughter was barely 9 years old and her son wasn’t even a toddler when their mother was murdered. They had to grow up without a mom. Jessica and her family deserve justice.

Missy Bevers

From Reddit:

On April 18th, 2016, 45 year old fitness instructor, Terri Bevers (who often went by the name Missy) was brutally murdered inside Creekside Church located in Midlothian, Texas in the early hours of the morning.

At the time, she was getting preparations ready for a fitness class — Camp Gladiator — before her students were to arrive at 5 in the morning. Once class was soon to begin, that’s when Missy’s students discovered her lifeless body. Her death was caused by puncture wounds to the head and chest.

As the investigation went underway, the police discovered surveillance footage [inside the church] with the suspect dressed in tactical gear [SWAT]. This person was dressed to the nine, from the vest, pants, boots and even a helmet, along with a hammer that was used for Missy’s murder.

This is where things became peculiar. Whomever this POI is, they had a very unorthodoxed and unnatural posture/stance, especially when walking aimlessly. Whether this was intentional or not, it cannot be confirmed.

Nevertheless, this footage did allow the police to build a timeline of events.

Surveillance shows the suspect inside walking around casually and opening the many doors. Not only that, this incident took place at approximately 4:15 in the morning, just 45 minutes before Missy’s class was to start.

Although presumed to be male, officers are still unsure on the gender of this individual. Subsequently, investigators started to look into Missy’s personal life. Due to search warrants the police were able to find — possible — motives.

Missy was a mother of three kids and having a lot of troubles financially and with her marriage, specifically on her part with unfaithfulness. Texts and other forms of messages found her being flirtatious with another male(s?). With that being uncovered, police finally had their biggest break in the case, yet unfortunately that avenue didn’t provide any substantial clues that would help determine Missy’s killer.

Missy’s husband, Brandon, told police he strongly believes that the murderer is a female and knew her on some form of personal basis. Furthermore, he suggests that this unidentified person attempted to make this tragedy look like a burglary gone wrong, mainly due to surveillance showing this individual opening doors and breaking glass windows.

The strangeness of this case didn’t stop there, however. A few days after the murder had happened, Missy’s father-in-law, Randy Bevers, went to the dry cleaners bringing in a women’s XXL long sleeve shirt covered in blood. He told the employees that it was merely from a Chihuahua dog that was recently injured and taken to a vet.

Out of suspicion, employees contacted the police and the shirt was subjected to DNA testing for evidence. Nonetheless, the vet was able to confirm this incident. Although the shirt became ruled out, investigators still had their eye on Randy.

More interestingly enough, Randy, the father-in-law, is roughly the same height and weight of the stranger captured on surveillance. While this crime was making its coverage on various television news channels, the family of Missy were brought into the public eye.

During a particular broadcast, the father-in-law was interviewed. As such, many people noticed that his demeanor was slightly different in terms of emotion. Not only that, the way Randy walked was practically identical to the POI in the surveillance footage. Eight months has since passed by and despite all of this information, the case is still unsolved as of today, December 28th, 2016, and no updates have been made that’s been released to the public. Missy’s murderer is still free.

I think this case deserves a lot more attention than it’s receiving. Whether the killer is a male or female, I cannot say for certain. That being said, in my eyes, this case should be solvable. I can’t fathom the notion of this simply being an act of sheer randomness.

To me, it was methodical, deliberate, and personal, with the killer knowing Missy on a level of friendship or simply acquaintances in one way or another. This unidentified person had an idea of Missy’s schedule and planned their attack accordingly. I’m hopeful this case will be solved soon.

More footage of a strange vehicle driving around the area before the murder:

Here is a chilling comparison to the gait of the person on surveillance footage and Missy’s father in law:

Gareth Williams

A spy who was found dead locked inside a gym bag in his own apartment.

Jennifer Kesse

From Wikipedia:

Jennifer Kesse was last seen on January 23, 2006, at approximately 6pm, leaving her place of employment, Westgate Resorts, in Ocoee, Florida. That evening she made several calls to family and friends; the last call around 10 p.m. was to her boyfriend. Typically, Jennifer would call or text her boyfriend every morning on her drive to work to talk and wish him a good day. On the morning of January 24, Jennifer never called or sent a text message. Any call to Jennifer’s phone went directly to voice-mail. When Jennifer failed to arrive at work that morning, her employer contacted her parents, who immediately made a two-hour drive from their home to her residence. Her parents noticed that her car was missing, but upon entering her condo, they saw nothing that looked out of the ordinary. Evidence at her residence, including a wet towel and clothes laid out, indicated that Jennifer was at home the morning of January 24 and had showered and dressed for work.

Alistair Wilson

From Reddit:

Alistair Wilson, he was shot on his door step in Nairn, Scotland in 2004. His wife answered the door to a small, stocky man who asked for her husband by name. Once Alistair got to the door the man handed him an envelope, which Alistair took inside for a brief moment and then came back out and was shot dead by the unidentifed man. Who took the envelope with him.

The silent twins

From Reddit:

June and Jennifer Gibbons were identical twins born to a Caribbean couple in 1963. The family moved to Haverfordwest, Wales, shortly after the children’s birth. From the time they learned to speak, June and Jennifer had a particular high-speed patois that made it difficult for people to understand them. Being the only black children at their school, they were frequently bullied by their peers. The bullying led to their special language becoming even more irregular, to the point where no one could understand what they said.

At 14 they were sent to separate boarding schools, to encourage them to thrive on their own. Both girls became catatonic and were quickly reunited. Following their reunion, they spent several years locked in their room, playing with dolls, putting on operas for one another, and writing.

They wrote several short stories that they self-published. The stories tend to revolve around criminality and sex. After the stories failed to garner any attention, they left the confines of their room and started living in the real world. They continued to speak with no one but each other. They started committing crimes such as arson, theft, and assaulting one another. A judge ruled that they need to be committed, and they were sent to Broadmoor Hospital, where they remained for 14 years.

In 1993 it was decided that the twins would be transferred to Caswell Clinic, a lower-security facility. When the twins arrived at Caswell, Jennifer was found to be unresponsive. She was rushed to the hospital but later pronounced dead. The cause of death was acute myocarditis or a sudden inflammation of the heart. No drugs or poisons were found in her system.

A few days after Jennifer’s death, June was reported to say, “I’m free at last, liberated, and at last Jennifer has given up her life for me.”

Bill & Dorothy Wacker

From Reddit:

Bill and Dorothy Wacker lived in a small town in Stark County, Ohio in the same house they have lived in for most of their 48 years of marriage. Despite being quiet, unassuming people, they’ve been subject to a campaign of harassment which began in 1984. On January 16, 1985, their home was ransacked. Though this had happened twice before, Bill informed the sheriff this time. In July of that year, Dorothy was home alone, recovering from heart surgery, when she heard a knock on the door. She didn’t recognize the visitor but allowed him in to use her phone, as he told her that his car broke down somewhere down the road where she couldn’t see it. After making the call and saying goodbye, she believed he had left. However, he was actually still in the house and managed to sneak up behind her and knock her out with a blow to the head. She woke up bound and gagged on the kitchen floor. She managed to crawl to an open window and alert her neighbors, who called emergency services. She was not seriously injured from the ordeal, but Bill returned home to find some possessions stolen: a .22 caliber revolver, an antique watch, a movie camera, and a radio scanner. In the dining room, the message “cheaper, but will do” was scrawled in crayon on the wall. About four months after the assault, Bill found the revolver on the front porch, wrapped in a plastic shopping bag. Over time, the other three objects were quietly returned as well. Notes left by harasser Notes left by the harasser The harasser began calling the house, sometimes threatening them with violence and sometimes simply breathing deeply. Changing their phone number several times failed to make the calls stop. The harassment began to escalate. Occasionally after dark, they would hear a series of banging on the side of their house, though they never saw or heard anything unusual when they’d check outside. Eventually, they put up a security light but later found a note on their front porch saying “your lightz are a laugh.” Periodically, notes began appearing on the front porch, threatening and mocking them. Police noted that the uneven, jagged style of the writing appeared to be due to someone using their non dominant hand to write, as if to conceal their handwriting style. No fingerprints have ever been found on the notes. On the night of October 27, 1993, another attack on Dorothy sent her to the hospital with skull lacerations. Police searched the neighborhood and questioned residences but failed to find any clues or witnesses.

Why would someone stalk and attack this old couple? What are your thoughts and theories?

Candace Hiltz

From Reddit:

Candace Hiltz was a seventeen year old single mother, a junior at Brigham Young University and a newly accepted student to be at Stanford Law School. She dreamed of becoming a Supreme Court Justice. She had a brilliant level of intelligence, a ferociously protective personality and a great affinity for the law. All of that was destroyed when she was brutally murdered. Her family sought answers, but ultimately discovered that the men charged with solving her murder may have in fact been involved in it.

On August 10th, 2006, a Deputy from the Fremont County Sheriff’s Department in Colorado arrived at the Hiltz family home. He questioned Dolores Hiltz in regard to the whereabouts of her son, James. Sometime during the questioning, Dolores’ daughter Candace became angry by his demeanor and told him to leave. The Deputy threatened to arrest Candace, who then threatened to expose him for taking bribes from local drug dealers.

Three days later, the Hiltz family dog went missing. It was later found tied to a tree and had been killed with a hatchet or small ax. Two days later, on August 15th, Dolores left the home to run some errands. She arrived home three hours later and found her granddaughter unsupervised and crying in her crib. There were pools of blood on the floor and drag marks. Dolores made the grisly discovery of Candace’s body. She had been shot multiple times, wrapped in a green comforter and shoved beneath a bed.

The investigation was shoddy from the beginning, with the lead investigator being the same Deputy who had the verbal altercation with Candace just days earlier. The crime scene wasn’t protected and sealed, evidence was left behind and the prime suspect was Candace’s brother, James. After he was apprehended, he was charged with for breaking into a home and stealing some items, but not the murder of his sister. Over the next ten years, no new leads were developed nor evidence discovered. The Hiltz family and the Fremont County Sheriff’s Department engaged in a rather public exchange of contradictory statements.

Candace’s autopsy showed she had been shot by two to three different weapons and at least two assailants as several shots were projected into her front and back simultaneously. However, there were several errors and contradictions in the report. Then, out of nowhere, a man who purchased an abandoned storage unit discovered vital pieces of evidence related to the murder which had been stolen from evidence and kept there but the Deputy who ran the entire investigation, the very one who had that altercation with Candace.

Theories began to build up accusing the Sheriff’s department of a cover up and even of being complicit in the murder itself. The lead investigator retired amid a torrent of accusations, and just months after, was brought up on charges for his mishandling of evidence as well as tampering with official paperwork.

Was Candace Hiltz murdered in a random act of violence? Did the father of her daughter lash out and take her life? Did her brother James lose control and murder his own sister? Or did the lead investigator play a much more vital role in the very murder he was investigating?

Nacole Smith

Crimestoppers

From Reddit:

On June 7, 1995, 14 year old Nacole Smith left her home in Deerfield Apartments in Southwest Atlanta to walk to school with her sister and a friend when she forgot her book report. She left her friends and took a shortcut through the woods back to her home when she was attacked by a man who assaulted her and shot her. Security guards in the area found her at 9:20 AM but her killer was long gone.

Several years later on June 20, 2004, a 13 year old girl was preparing for Father’s Day in East Point, Georgia. She was lured by a man into the woods on Connally Drive where he then assaulted her. She was able to escape and get help. DNA linked this man to the 1995 murder of Nacole Smith. This crime occurred 3 miles away from the first.

The second victim provided investigators with a description of the man. The black man appeared to be in his late 20s to early 30s, was 5-feet-10 inches tall and weighed approximately 190 pounds. He had a medium complexion, a gap in his front teeth, and was wearing round, gold-framed glasses, according to police.

In the “On the Case” episode, the detectives working on the case stated that they believe the man is someone from the area. The detectives were able to obtain school records for the day of Nacole’s murder and they were able to narrow down the male students who were absent from high school that day. One man named Steven Boris (sp?) piqued their interest because he was arrested for statutory rape and false imprisonment. They were able to interview him and he willingly offered up his DNA. His DNA did not match.

It’s really scary that this man has never been caught in all these years. I assume he didn’t stop after the second crime unless her escaping spooked him. The detectives seem convinced that the man is someone in the area but what’s the likelihood he’s not from the area? He’s pretty distinctive looking (if the sketch is accurate) so I don’t see how he could go unnoticed in the area.

Relisha Rudd

From Reddit:

Relisha Rudd is a young African American girl who disappeared from Washington DC in approximately 2014. Relisha Rudd stayed at a homeless shelter in DC with her family where her mother, Shamika Young, handed over her daughter (allegedly) to Kahlil Malik Tatum, the janitor there. The last day Relisha Rudd was seen alive was March 1, 2014. Due to many missed absences from her school, a school counselor calls DC Child & Family Services Agency to inquire about Relisha’s repeated absences as she had missed more than 30 days. Shamika Young, excused her absences by noting that Relisha was ill per “Dr. Tatum”.

TIMELIME:

February 26, 2014, Relisha is seen walking toward a room in the Holiday Inn Express on Bladensburg Road, NE.

March 1, 2014: Last day Relisha was seen alive. There are no other confirmed sightings of Relisha or Tatum together after this date

On March 19, 2014 a social worker calls, Tatum in order to set up a meeting, however Tatum does not show. The social worker finds out that “Dr. Tatum” is actually a janitor.

On this day DC police begin a missing-person investigations. Around 9 PM an officer tries to call Tatum’s cell however it is powered down and never gain activated.

On March 20, 2014 somebody returns to the motel and finds Tatum’s wife, Andrea Tatum, dead. The source indicates that he helped Tatum do internet search for a handgun.

March 31, 2014, Tatum is found dead in a park in DC.

So what happened to her? Where did Relisha go in the thirty days she was missing?

The legs

Read more: http://ift.tt/2zrU74P

from Viral News HQ http://ift.tt/2AkJjcx via Viral News HQ

[crypt-addict]

EXCLUSIVE: Review of the ‘Demonstration (I)’ EP by CHURCHGATE.

**This is a direct copy of last weeks review of the pre-single in support of this EP - along with the addition of the reviews of the 3 new tracks; in order to review the Extended Play in full. Just to clear up any confusion caused**

Wow? Who would have thought the day would come where i…an unimportant reviewer in the depths of tumblrs’ half-arsed pastel, goth and alternative dungeons would have the chance to exclusively preview and review such a spectacular release?! I have tried my hand at reviewing many mainstream albums before, with pretty hit and miss responses; but i assure you - this is one review you definitely need to read through and listen to the end product, because by GOD you need CHURCHGATE in your life, like NOW.

The duo, consisting of Murdo and Jessie, is arguably, one of the best independent queer and alternative/dark synth bands to come out of 2017 so far, and in my opinion, the best. Raining from two very different corners of the country, with a 100 mile journey between them - this is one of the best musical outcomes of a long distance friendship i have seen, in my good decade of observing the DIY and alternative scenes. Mixing earworm guitar and synth leads, with haunting ghostly and scream-like vocals - which seep into your bones and out of your every nerve - shivering your senses and leaving you hungry to press the repeat button, like a hit of the best drug you have encountered; CHURCHGATE are definitely a force to be reckoned with. Don’t sleep on this release, because these guys are going to be big, sooner than you might think! Without any further ado, lets get into the track by track review:

–TRACK BY TRACK REVIEW–

WEEPING SONG: Beginning with sharp, and harsh guitar strikes, with a catchy but off-putting (in the best kind of way) synth structure soon jumping in, pulsating and enrapturing you like a siren of the post-goth era, Weeping Song is the début single everybody wishes they could put together. Reminiscent of some fucked up, euphoric musical smoothie, consisting of Alice Deejay’s ‘Better Off Alone’ and CRIM3S’ ‘BREED’ - with a pinch of Cocteau Twins; CHURCHGATE have clearly redefined the dark electro genre as we know it.

No ounce of emotion is spared as you focus onto each personal and relatable lyric, from “broken bone, forgotten home” to “still holding hands, we are the weeping” - it’s obvious just how much this song hits home, for me at least. I don’t know about anyone else but what captivates me with music is being able to have a sense of relation with the artist who wrote the lyrics, and with such a powerful tone its clear to see how much effort went into not just the complexity of the lyrics, but the instrumental- which in itself has countless layers of instruments, further drawing out emotion.

I don’t quite know how to say it in words, without sounding like a psycho - but music really does sometimes have the ultimate power to make you ‘feel’ sadness but also strength, the strength of ‘keeping-on-keeping-on’ and regardless of what shit life throws at you, carrying on with some façade of happiness, which eventually turns into true overcoming of sadness, and a real sense of happiness after all. Few songs manage to draw it out, but those that do leave a lasting memory on your heart and in your head. CHURCHGATE managed to reach that flag-post in their first track; something many bands can’t achieve til their final years together, or never at all.

My favourite thing about the lyrics is that they are relatable ina  sense that, each verse could be taken with a variety of definitions. For example, my stand out lyric is perhaps one of the verses which could most definitely be interpreted into many different scenario’s - “pierce the night, with our light // held you down, without a fight”. For me the line suggests that whomever the song’s point of view is about, has overcame some trouble, and the light is suggestive of the dark times being over, but the struggle was hard, given that whatever held them back was so easy to give in to. With genre’s constantly moving on in terms of musicality and vocal techniques; it is a constant struggle to have your own sense of uniqueness within the community - but this track has no trouble finding its own benchmark within a variety of genre’s - and for that reason alone, is why i find myself so hexed whilst listening to it.

Musically, the song has a few key ‘changes’ in structure - around the half way point, the guitars become more prominent for a while, before becoming engulfed, but not overshadowed by the synths once more. A synth breakdown follows, where more layers gradually gravitate over the main melody until the bridge - where the guitars become highlighted once more. Leaving no stone unturned, the outro within itself, manages to give you one last shiver - refraining the synth melody that kicked in initially after the intro by itself, before submitting itself into a sea of white noise glory. I cannot do anything but recommend this track to anybody - regardless of their strict genre rules or tastes in music, i have all hope and trust that this track will go far. I’m calling it right now! And for that, this track deserves no less than a 10/10.

BELLS RING: Channeling a twisted take on the original dream pop track, originally by Mazzy Star - this cover is sickeningly sweet, in the strangest of ways. With Murdo’s aggressive, almost demonic mumbling of the lyrics, eerily distorted synth accompanies and Jessie channelling 80′s rock with his guitar leads - this is nothing short of a dark synth-wave take on a once serenading track.

Lines such as “Bells ring into the night, Sounds like a mistress on a rainy night” have a more mellow mumble, whereas the chorus; bearing lyrics such as “Nobody wants to know your reason why” resonate a creepier, more mischievous tone. All the while between the glorious guitar, short bursts of clashing synths give a sense of uneasiness, followed by a warm nostalgic feeling once more.

All in all, this cover is a gem amongst many covers of the song a quick YouTube search can find you. And in comparison to other artists who may decide to play it safe when using a cover as a b-side, CHURCHGATE went far, far, FAR from the ‘norm’ partially by choosing such a track that was little known to begin with, and also by conjuring up such a daring, whimsical and unique take on the track - vocals in particular. 9.7/10

PURE: Portraying a guitar lead reminiscent of oldschool college punk and rock works, pure is one of the softest and most mellow tracks on the EP - or so you thought...As the drums and synths drop into full on anarchy not long after the relaxing almost introduction.

Lyrics such as “I’m pure for you” and “The end has never been quite so sweet” cannot help but trigger a sense of abandonment of a relationship, with the one side feeling so much emotion for the other, whom has nothing quite left to give. Pure is to me, a great representation of not feeling good enough for somebody - and paired with the wholesome instrumental track makes for a lowkey banger if i’ve ever heard one! 8.9/10

FLORAL INTERLUDE: The perfect pairing of uneasy synth randomness and beautiful guitar riffs has the outcome of floral interlude. The shortest track on the album, and serving as a sickly sweet intro of sorts to the next track, i have never been so in love with an interlude in my life! I usually have the opinion that they’re pointless little half-afterthoughts to an album, but as of late, i really do believe they can add a lot to the theming and atmosphere of a release. In this case; that is ESPECIALLY the case!

It kinda reminds me of an old classic, yet i can’t put my finger on anything in my mind. It feels so nostalgic to my childhood, but i have no idea why or what to reference it to and i’m unsure whether to be creeped out or amazed by that - so i’m just gonna go ahead and say i’m shook instead!

Lyrically, the track is quite dark and beautiful - referring to being sprawled across a bed of dying leaves and’fleurs’ spouting from one eyes. The lyrics spread across your ears like jam but in the thought of them, after listening twice or three times, that’s kinda a scary thing to happen to someone?! Eitherway i’m so impressed with this interlude, and will scream from the rooftops of its greatness as i bask in this prickly rose garden it layed out before me; or should i say it encouraged to grow out my iris’ hahah. 9.9/10

PRECIOUS THING: Well, where do i start? We learnt from Bells Ring that CHURCHGATE don’t do conventional and fitting in when it comes to covering iconic tracks! In this instance they put their own spin on possibly one of the best punk rock/glam anthems to come out of the 80′s.

Keeping the guitars relatively similar, but possibly harsher - it is the vocals that completely suck you into this cover. Insturmentally, the track seems to be like a mashup of the original ‘precious things’ with the total cliché of american dream aesthetics and sounds, whereas Murdo’s vocals seem to malform into a gorgeously creepy, double-angst-raged embodiment of Joan Jett, screaming out the obviously sexual intended lyrics - such as “I will hold you down” and “You are my precious thing, as long as you remain beneath me”.

I didnt really know if 80′s punk could ever be topped, and i say this with no disrespect to the greats who coined the genre - BUT FUCK, CHURCHGATE REALLY CAN DOMINATE ANY GENRE AND TURN IT INTO A GOTH ROCK, SYNTH GLAZED, WITCH HOUSE, TRAP DOUBLE-DIPPED EXTRAVAGANZA! If you don’t enjoy this track are you really as punk as you think? 9.4/10

*TOTAL RATING: 9.9/10*

Overall, i see big things happening for these guys. They definitely have their heads screwed on, and their ideas mounted together in order to define themselves within the already diverse musical playing field. With a benign exterior, and an interior almost like being hit in the face with a candy-covered machete; i genuinely have nothing bad to say about this release! Now please excuse me whilst i drown in my tears at how emotional i feel after listening on repeat for days, hahah.

Always remember to support the artist! - you can get your very own copy of Demonstration (I) via churchgates’ bandcamp page ❤

[trendingnewsb]

41 Of The Creepiest Unsolved Mysteries Of All Time

Settle in, this is a long one. These “scariest” unsolved mysteries are based on the opinions of the people over on r/unresolvedmysteries who know enough about unsolved cases at large to be experts on the creepiest ones. If you’re looking for a lengthy thread of bite-sized “true scary stories”, we’ve got one of those too.

The woman who recorded other people’s voices on her sleep app

Here’s how she describes what happened:

“This night I was sleeping in my bed – my 3 year old was with me that night as he is scared of the dark. It was just the two of us in the whole house. The next night I decided to go through and delete my recordings and saw this particular record. In it, you can here some clicks that start to get louder over the course of the recording. Eventually you can hear me say “What are you doing??” and immediately after there is a deep voice that says “Nothing”. The clicks become very loud at that point and at the very end of the recording you hear the same voice say “That’s them” (I think?). I am pretty creeped out by this. I don’t remember being awake that night. The only plausible explanation is that I answered my own sleeping talking but the voice doesn’t even sound like me or something I could emulate. It definitely doesn’t sound like a voice my preschooler could emulate, either. I have no idea what the clicks could be. I keep a fan going at night for white noise but the clicks sounds like they’re coming from right near my phone (which is placed right by me on my bedside table). I want to say that I’ve picked up the clicks a few times on recordings before but deleted them thinking it was nothing – this is the first time I’ve ever heard anything, though.”

Here is the audio of the recording. The woman has since moved to a new house, but one Redditer who followed up with the story said:

“I actually private messaged with the OP of the sleep app story. She was happy to say that things were going well in their new home, and her son was doing well. However, if you look at the more recently dated comments after the story was posted, OP says her son had started asking where “Ho” was and seeing “the black guy with no face.” OP and I exchanged some PMs about a year after their original post to discuss what could be going on, and apparently “Ho” followed them to their new home.”

UVB-76

Also known as “The Buzzer”, UVB-76 is a radio signal of unknown origin. No one knows what it’s purpose is or why it’s happening. They suspect it may be of Russian origin. Here’s what it sounds like:

Dutroux

“Last one: a somewhat bigger mystery, but truly terrifying. Dutroux is a well known Belgian child abuser that was caught in the 90’s. It turns out the circle of abuse is much bigger and influential than one can imagine. This is a very long and well documented read about how the investigation into child abuse is being hampered by government, police, upper class figures, etc. It takes a strong stomach to digest the witness accounts (highly nsfw) and a strong stomach to digest the injustice.” — IamScuzzlebut

The murder of Mark Kilroy

Wikimedia

From Wikipedia:

He was taken by his abductors to a ranch where he was murdered in a human sacrifice ritual. Kilroy was killed with a machete blow and then had his brain removed and boiled in a pot. His killers then inserted a wire through his backbone, chopped off his legs, and buried him at the ranch along with 14 other people who had been killed there before him.

Jodine Serrin

From Reddit:

Serrin lived on her own, but depended on her family for help due to her mental challenges. Late in the evening of Valentine’s Day 2007, Jodine’s parents went to the condo they had purchased on Swallow Lane for their daughter and walked in on what they thought was an awkward situation. Art Serrin went to find his daughter in her bedroom, and saw a man having sex with her.

According to a 10News report, Serrin told the man to get dressed and then he and his wife, Lois, went to wait for what they expected to be an embarrassed couple to join them in the kitchen. After several minutes, Serrin returned to the bedroom and found his daughter murdered, having been beaten and strangled to death. The man had escaped, possibly through a back door.

In fact, as investigators later found, she had been dead for between 12 and 24 hours.

Dale Kerstetter

YouTube

From Reddit:

At 11:00 PM on September 12, 1987, 50-year old Dale Kerstetter showed up to work the overnight shift as security guard at the Corning Glassworks plant in Bradford, Pennsylvania. Dale was a divorced father of six who worked at the plant for 29 years, but had recently been transferred from his position as a trades worker to a security guard, which involved him taking a pay cut of between $5,000-7,000 per year. At 7:00 AM the following morning, Dale’s relief arrived and discovered he was missing. Dale’s truck was still in the parking lot with the keys in the ignition. His daypack and a full carton of cigarettes were inside the truck, along with the holster for a .22 caliber gun he carried which was never found. Dale’s keys to the plant and a newspaper were found on a table in the cafeteria, along with his lunch pail, which still had all his food inside. A police dog was brought in and tracked Dale’s scent from the cafeteria to the second floor, but it came to an end at the plant’s glass furnace.

The security tape from that night was later checked. The plant had three security cameras and the feed would alternate between each camera at random intervals. The footage revealed an unidentified masked intruder walking through the plant at various points between midnight and 1:00 AM. In one of the shots, the intruder was seen meeting up with Dale in the back of the plant. They both walked past the security camera together, where Dale appeared to look up and stare directly at the camera before they disappeared out of frame. Dale did not show up in the security footage again, but one shot showed the intruder heading towards the glass furnace, the same area where the police dog tracked Dale’s scent. There was also a shot of the intruder wheeling a large bag through the plant on a manual forklift. It was soon discovered that $250,000 worth of platinum lining had been stolen from the furnace.

On the surface, it appeared the intruder had forced Dale to escort him to the area containing the platinum before he subsequently murdered him and disposed of his body. However, Corning’s management believed that Dale was actually involved in the theft.

When Dale walked through the plant and stared directly into the security camera, some people interpreted this as a signal for help, but Corning thought Dale might have been taunting them about his crime. At the time, Dale was in debt and unhappy that his employer had cut his pay and given him a security position, so Corning believed Dale willingly escorted the intruder to the furnace, helped him steal the platinum, and then skipped town with his share of the profits. Of course, Dale’s family did not believe he would get involved in anything illegal and abandon his children, so they feared he was an innocent victim of foul play. Whatever the truth, there has been no trace of Dale Kerstetter in nearly 30 years.

The Circleville Letters

A woman and her husband in Circleville, Ohio started getting creepy letters. One day, the husband received a letter and got riled up enough that he got his gun and left the house. He was letter found dead in a car crash, his gun had been fired. The husband’s brother was eventually charged with the crime, but began receiving the same letters once he was in prison.

Here’s a nice write-up on the whole store from The Line-up.

The Sodder Children

Wikimedia

From Wikipedia:

On Christmas Eve, December 24, 1945, a fire destroyed the Sodder home in Fayetteville, West Virginia, United States. At the time, it was occupied by George Sodder, his wife Jennie, and nine of their ten children. During the fire, George, Jennie, and four of the nine children escaped. The bodies of the other five children were never found. The Sodders believed for the rest of their lives that the five missing children survived.

Dave Bocks

A factory worker at a nuclear power plant went missing during his shift. Many people suspect foul play as he may have been a whistle blower for illegal activities taking place at the plant.

Blind River Killer

I remember this as the scariest episode of in which an elderly couple on a cross country road trip stopped at a rest area to sleep for the night. In the middle of the night attacked the couple and shot and killed a bystander to came to their aid. He drove off in a blue van and was never caught.

East Area Rapist / The Original Nightstalker

American Law Enforcement

A serial rapist and killer who raped at least 50 women in northern California in the 70’s. He has never been identified.

A few things that make this killer a bit creepier than the rest:

1. The East Area Rapist sent letters and drawings to newspapers in the area taunting citizens. Here’s a map he drew of what is believed to be his “ideal” suburban neighborhood stalking grounds:

Sacramento Police Department

2. He would call and taunt his victims or intended victims. He called one woman he raped to wish her a merry Christmas, saying:

Merry Christmas, it’s me again! (hangs up)

You can listen to some of the phone calls here, but please be warned, these are very disturbing!!

3. There was a town meeting to discuss the rapist/killer at large. During the meeting one man stood up to say that the East Area Rapist could never harm his family because he wouldn’t “let” something like that happen to his wife. His wife was latter attacked leading people to believe the actual East Area Rapist attended the town meeting. A photo from that meeting exists.

Keddie Cabin Murders

3ternalist01

From Wikipedia:

Glenna “Sue” Sharp, 36, and her five children had been renting the cabin since November 1980. At approximately 7:45 AM on the morning of April 12, Sheila Sharp, upon returning from the sleepover next door, discovered the tied-up bodies of Sue, John and Dana in the home’s living room. Plumas County Sheriff’s deputies later determined Tina Sharp was missing from the location. The murders have been commented upon for their particular viciousness.

After approximately 4,000 man-hours spent on the case, it grew cold but, in 1984, the cranium portion of a skull was recovered near Feather Falls in neighboring Butte County, a distance of roughly 63 miles (2 hours 12 minutes) from Keddie. Butte County Sheriff’s Office released both the original and back-up copy of the audio recording of the ‘anonymous call’ to an undisclosed member of law enforcement.

As of May 2017, no arrests have been made in connection with the Keddie murders, although two suspects who had criminal records, now deceased, have been proposed. In 2004, Cabin 28 was demolished.

There’s been a recent break in the case that, for many, may explain what happened:

On March 24, 2016, a hammer matching the description of a hammer suspect Martin Smartt said he lost shortly before the murders was taken into evidence by Plumas County Special Investigator Mike Gamberg. Sheriff Hagwood stated, “the location it was found… It would have been intentionally put there. It would not have been accidentally misplaced.

The Mothman

From Reddit:

The Mothman sightings of 1966 was always a favorite story of mine and still is this day. If you go down the rabbit hole there are soooo many weird pieces including MIB showing up to this tiny town. Some of it might have been mass hysteria but damn if it isn’t a wild ride until the very end.

Morgan Nick

Wikimedia

From Wikipedia:

On June 9, 1995, Morgan Nick and her mother, Colleen Nick, went to a Little League baseball game in their town of Alma, Arkansas. At around 10:30 p.m., Morgan asked her mother if she could catch lightning bugs with her friends. At first, her mother was uncertain, but eventually let her go. She was last seen at 10:45 p.m. by her friends, emptying sand out of her shoes alone near her mother’s car while her group of friends emptied their shoes a few dozen feet away. Morgan’s friends reported seeing a “creepy” man talking to Morgan as she was putting her shoes back on.

When the game ended shortly thereafter, Morgan’s friends returned without her. They told Colleen that Morgan was at her car, but when Colleen returned to the car, Morgan was not there. She has not been seen or heard from since.

Pedro Lopez

A Columbian criminal known as the “Monster of the Andes” is out of prison after serving 13 years of a 16 year sentence for murdering as many as 300 little girls. No one knows where he is now.

Brian Shaffer

The medical student who went to a local bar for a drink and was never seen again. Security footage showed him entering the bar, but not leaving. He was by all accounts happy and had plans to propose to his girlfriend the following week. He hasn’t been seen since that night.

Hinterkaifeck murders

Andreas Biegleder

From Wikipedia:

A few days prior to the crime, farmer Andreas Gruber told neighbors about discovering footprints in the snow leading from the edge of the forest to the farm, but none leading back. He also spoke about hearing footsteps in the attic and finding an unfamiliar newspaper on the farm. Furthermore, the house keys went missing several days before the murders. None of this was reported to the police prior to the attack.

Six months earlier, the previous maid had left the farm, claiming that it was haunted; the new maid, Maria Baumgartner, arrived on the farm on the day of the attack and was killed hours later.

Exactly what happened on that Friday evening cannot be said for certain. It is believed that the older couple, as well as their daughter Viktoria, and her daughter, Cäzilia, were all lured into the barn one by one, where they were killed. The perpetrator(s) then went into the house where they killed two‑year‑old Josef, who was sleeping in his cot in his mother’s bedroom, as well as the maid, Maria Baumgartner, in her bedchamber.

On the following Tuesday, April 4, neighbors came to the farmstead because none of its inhabitants had been seen for a few days.

Dorothy Jane Scott

From Wikipedia:

Dorothy Jane Scott disappeared on May 28, 1980, in Anaheim, California. She had driven two co-workers to the hospital after one had been bitten by a spider. While they were waiting for a prescription to be filled, Scott went to get her car and bring it around to meet them. Her car approached them, but it sped away; neither could see who was driving as its headlights had blinded them. They reported her missing a couple of hours later, after not hearing from her. In the preceding months, Scott had been receiving anonymous phone calls from a man who had reportedly been stalking her. He had threatened to get her alone and “cut [her] up into bits so no one will ever find [her]”.

Dyatlov Pass Incident

Soviet investigators

From Reddit:

The Dyatlov Pass Incident is the unsolved disappearance of nine hikers in the Ural mountains in Russia in 1959, and subsequent discovery. There’s a whole lot of details to this case which are mentioned in the link, but for a brief summary:

Ten experienced ski hikers embark upon a trek through a mountain pass that locals describe as “Devil’s Pass.”

One of the hikers returns on his own due to illness. The others continue ahead. After the party don’t return when expected, a search party is sent out into the mountains to look for them. Their campsite was eventually found, abandoned and slashed open from the inside, and the bodies were eventually all found at various points nearby in various unusual states, including some naked or undressed, some with their heads basically smashed in (which later investigations showed were impossible to have been done by humans).

This is a conspiracy theorist’s wet dream, with details that don’t add up, Cold War/KGB cover-ups, UFO sightings, cryptozoology (yeti theories), weapons testing, nuclear radiation emanating from the bodies, stories of local savage tribes etc. But even without all that, it’s still a pretty eerie story on its own.

Dyatlov Pass is a total rabbit hole and it’s one of my personal favorite mysteries.

Laureen Rahn

From Reddit:

14-year-old Laureen Rahn was last seen in her apartment in Manchester, New Hampshire on April 26th, 1980. She spent the evening drinking beer with a male and female friend while her mother Judith was away at a tennis tournament. At some point, the boy heard voices in the hallway and left through the back door, thinking Judith was coming home. He stated he heard Laureen lock the door behind him.

When Judith finally returned at midnight, she found the building completely dark because the light bulbs on all three floors had been unscrewed. She checked Laureen’s room and thought she saw Laureen asleep on the bed. In the morning, however, this turned out to be Laureen’s friend, who said that she had last seen Laureen going to sleep on the couch. Laureen’s clothes and new sneakers were in the living room, and the back door was open.

The police investigation went nowhere until Judith looked at her phone bill and discovered she had been charged for three phone calls made from Santa Monica, California on October 1st, 1980, three months after Lauren went missing. Two of these calls were placed from a Santa Monica motel to another motel in Santa Ana. The third call was to a teen sexual assistance hotline run by a plastic surgeon. Authorities in Santa Monica questioned this surgeon, and he denied knowing anything about Laureen.

Judith hired her own investigator in 1985, who questioned the doctor again. This time he altered his story and said that his wife was sometimes visited by runaway girls (!?) and that one of these girls may have been from New Hampshire. He also believed that a colleague of his wife’s named Annie Sprinkle knew more about these runaways. Authorities looked into this and found that Sprinkle was involved in the pornography industry, but nothing was found linking her to Laureen.

Another investigator traveled to Santa Monica in 1986 and learned that the two hotels may have been used by a child pornographer named “Dr. Z.”, but authorities couldn’t find a connection between “Dr. Z” and the doctor who ran the hotline.

For a year after the disappearance, Judith reported getting regular phone calls at around 3:45 a.m., but there would be nothing but silence on the line when she answered. She received similar calls around the Christmas holidays for several years until she finally changed her number. According to Charley Project, a childhood friend of Laureen’s received a call from someone claiming to be her in 1986. His mother answered the phone, but unfortunately the article doesn’t elaborate on what the caller said.

In the previous thread about this, the OP quoted someone from a forum post who claims that her mother was the friend who was with Laureen when she vanished. Her mother said that they were hanging out with two guys that day (not one as stated in Charley Project) and that Laureen may have left with one of them. The guy who left through the back door committed suicide in 1985 and is not considered a suspect.

It is also worth nothing that other women, Denise Denault and Rachael Garden, of similar physical appearance to Laureen, disappeared from the same area within a six-week time period. Their cases are also unsolved and have never been linked.

The “30 Minutes or Less” murder

From Wikipedia:

Brian Douglas Wells was an American pizza delivery man who was killed by a remotely controlled bomb fastened to his neck, under coercion from the maker of the bomb. After he was apprehended by the police for robbing a bank, the bomb was detonated.

“Down the hill”

From Wikipedia:

On February 14, 2017, the bodies of Abigail “Abby” Williams and Liberty “Libby” German were discovered on an American hiking trail in Delphi, Indiana, after the young girls had disappeared from the same trail the previous day. The murders have received significant media coverage due to the fact that a photo and audio recording of a man believed to be girls’ murderer was found on the cell phone of German. Despite the photo and audio recording of the suspect being released to the public by police, and an estimated 18,000 tips being sent to police, no arrests have been made in the case.

One of the girl’s Snapchat photo:

Two Indiana teen were murdered shortly after taking these eerie photos. Today at 3, @DrOz looks at the cellphone of victim Liberty German. http://pic.twitter.com/cEdB4PZ7sk

— WSB-TV (@wsbtv) October 17, 2017

The audio:

Lars Mittank

Findet Lars Mittank

From Reddit:

a case about a 28 year old man from Germany, Lars Mittank, who visited Bulgaria with his friends. This place in Bulgaria is very famous for young people from Germany and England, same as Mallorca or Ibiza.

Mittank got involved into a fight and hurt his ear. Something that happens always at those places where many young people are partying.

He stayed there and enjoyed the rest of his holidays with his friends. When they had to leave though, the doctor said he can not use the airplane because of his ear. He decided to stay in Bulgaria and rented a room in a hostel while his friends left.

He called at night his mother and said he fears for his life.

Here is a footage from the airport. Mittank wanted to leave again and catch his next flight. He went to the doctors office though, with all his stuff, suitcase etc. After that, he runs out from the doctors office.

People outside saw him how he climbed over a fence and disappeared in a nearby forrest. Till today, no one knows what happened or where he is. His family is still searching for him, there is even a facebook page.

Elisa Lam

From Wikipedia:

Her disappearance had been widely reported; interest had increased five days prior to her body’s discovery when the Los Angeles Police Department released video of the last time she was known to have been seen, on the day of her disappearance, by an elevator security camera. In the footage, Lam is seen exiting and re-entering the elevator, talking and gesturing in the hallway outside, and sometimes seeming to hide within the elevator, which itself appears to be malfunctioning. The video went viral on the Internet, with many viewers reporting that they found it unsettling. Explanations ranged from claims of paranormal involvement to bipolar disorder from which Lam suffered; it has also been argued that the video was altered prior to release.

The circumstances of Lam’s death, when she was found, also raised questions, especially in light of the Cecil’s history in relation to other notable deaths and murders. Her body was naked with most of her clothes and personal effects floating in the water near her. It took the Los Angeles County Coroner’s office four months, after repeated delays, to release the autopsy report, which reports no evidence of physical trauma and states that the cause of death was accidental. Guests at the Cecil, now re-branded as Stay on Main, sued the hotel over the incident, and Lam’s parents filed a separate suit later that year; the latter was dismissed in 2015.

Paula Jean Weldon

From Reddit:

Paula Jean Weldon was a sophomore at Bennington College in Bennington, Vermont in the fall of 1946. On December 1st, she told her roommate, Elizabeth Johnson, that she was “through with studies; I’m taking a long walk” . Dressed in a red parka coat with a fur lined hood, blue jeans, Top-Sider shoes with thick soles, and a gold Elgin wristwatch with a black band, she made no indication she planned on staying gone for very long.

She was supposed to walk part of Vermont’s Long Trail. Danny Fager, who owned a gas station near the college gates, said he spotted Paula. He said he had seen her run up then down the side of the gravel pit near the entrance of the college around 2:45 P.M. 15 minutes late, Louis Knapp claimed to have picked up a young girl matching Paula’s description on Route 67A and let her out on Route 9, near the Long Trail. Just after 4 P.M., she was spotted by several people in Bickford Hollow, seemingly headed toward the trail. When Paula did not come home later that night, Elizabeth was not yet worried, and did not warn anyone. The next morning when Paula had still not come back by the next morning, she contacted College President Lewis Webster Jones. Jones then phoned Paula’s parents to ask if she had gone home for the weekened.

Mrs. Welden collapsed with worry. Her father, W. Archibald Welden immediately left the family home in Stamford, Connecticut. He helped organize a massive search party, but their search turned up empty. He then called the New York and Connecticut state police forces, as VT did not have a state police force at the time.

Days passed and Paula was still missing. Then, a waitress in Fall River, Massaschusetts claimed to have served dinner to a “disturbed” women fitting Paula’s description. Strangely, after hearing this, Mr. Welden vanished for 36 hours. After his return, people began to suspect that he had something to do with his daughter’s disappearance. It came to light that Mr. Welden did not approve of a boy Paula had been seeing. He claimed this boyfriend had to be the responsible party, but his only proof came from a clairvoyant. He then began to trash the police for their lack of professionalism and lack of records. Mr. Welden soon returned to his home in Stamford.

Poor weather eventually halted the search for Paula, but 9 years later, a lumberjack came forward saying he knew where her body was buried. After being questioned, he eventually admitted making it up for publicity. Then, in 1968, a skeleton was found. It was later determined it was far too old to be Paula.

There have been many theories as to what happened to Paula that fateful December day. Did she simply get lost in the woods and die in the elements or did she run off with her boyfriend? Or did the so called Bennington Triangle, where 5 people vanished between 1945 and 1950, have something to do with it?

Sadly, as more and more time passes, it seems very unlikely the case of what happened to Paula Jean Welden will ever be solved.

Grave Robbing for Morons

From Reddit:

In the early 1990s, a homemade VHS circulated around called “Grave Robbing for Morons”. It features a young man explaining how to rob graves without getting caught, what bones are most valuable, and other grave robbing “tips.” In the video he shows what appears to be an actual human skull that he’s stolen and at the end he gives the nicknames of himself and his grave robbing crew: “Anthony, “Gino, “Taco”, and “Pucci” and vows to continue robbing graves for the fun of it. To this day, no one knows who made this video or who the narrator is. There is a site dedicated to finding out the origin of the video and the identity of the narrator, but they don’t have any additional information to add.

Because of the over-the-top nature of some of the advice, some believe that the video is an act intended to cash in on the pseudo-reality television craze that was going on thanks to things like Faces of Death. But others seem to think that at the very least the narrator has robbed graves, and that this could be a “legit” (i.e. not faked) video.

Kathryn Ott

From Reddit:

This missing person’s case does not have much coverage and I am hoping to bring some interest back to this 3 year old unresolved disappearance.

In 2014, Kathryn Gayle Ott was 56 years old. She was 62-64 inches tall and weighed around 125-140 pounds. Kathy had brown eyes, that may appear hazel and wore eyeglasses. She avoided driving at night. She underwent a hysterectomy in 2013 that left her with an abdominal scar. She had a bad left knee cap with noticeable scarring from where a wire was placed to keep the knee together. She had been losing her blonde, graying hair and wore a wig. Her family believes she had been recently diagnosed with a serious medical condition in 2014, although she had not disclosed any details of an illness to them.

Kathy packed up her things and left her husband at their home in Lapeer, Michigan, in May 2014 after receiving social security disability with back pay. CORRECTION: She received supplemental security income with back pay. She drove her 2003 gray Chevrolet Impala with Michigan tag 2JS N90 to her son’s home in Gulf Shores, Alabama arriving in the end of May 2014.

On June 17th, 2014, she left Alabama after finding out she would not be able to receive her SSI checks. Her wig was left behind at her son’s home. According to family, a missing person’s report was filed and her children have not spoken to her since she left Gulf Shores.

But in late August 2014, Kathy called her father from St. Thomas Rutherford Hospital in Murfreesboro, Tennessee where she was receiving treatment for unknown reasons. This is the last time anyone heard from or saw Kathy.

Her NamUs case file has Murfreesboro Police Department as the investigating agency and her missing person’s report was filed February 27th, 2015.

What did Kathy do for 2 months with no incoming money? How did she end up in Murfreesboro?

Where is Kathryn Ott?

Barbie.avi

From Reddit:

Allegedly found on a computer in a dumpster, the whole clip remains mysterious.

An amputee can be seen on camera, she gets emotional throughout the video. During the video text can be seen which says B.I.I.D after analysis it was found out this stands for Body integrity identity disorder, this is a disorder which makes people feel as if they need to have there limbs amputated because they believe they do not belong on their body.

People have speculated that the woman is discussing her next operation with rogue doctors.

Jessica Haddix

From Reddit:

Jessica Haddix, 29, went missing in late April of 2009 from the Perry County area of Kentucky. In early May of the same year, her body was found in the Knott County area on an old strip mining area. She was wrapped in a tarp and stuffed in a drain pipe. I don’t think they ever released her cause of death, but IIRC she was killed around the same time she was reported missing.

She was last seen arguing with her ex-husband, who she had been living with. Jessica had two kids, one with this ex. She was reportedly threatening to leave him and was planning on taking their son with her. Her ex was also seemingly abusive. Jessica had even showed up to her daughter’s soccer game with a black eye on time.

After she was last seen, her ex-husband was seen on camera using her food stamp card at a local grocery. Her car was found not far from his house.

A local woman who did Jessica’s taxes tried calling her, not knowing that Jessica was already missing and presumably dead. She was calling to inform Jessica that she needed to come in and sign some papers. Jessica’s ex-husband answered the phone and simply said Jessica was not there, and hung up.

After her body was found, her ex-husband received custody of their son. The woman who tried calling Jessica reported the phone call to the police, and they said they would look into it. They never followed up with woman.

Most people are convinced her ex-husband killed her to stop her from taking their son.

His parents were well known, and had many connections in the community. The investigation into her death was virtually non-existent, and it seems to point to a cover up by the local PD. It seems plausible, because how do you put no effort into what seems to be a murder that seems easily solvable? No DNA tests were ran, ex-husband has no alibi, no arrests were made and nobody was thoroughly questioned. So was it shotty, inexperienced officers? Or a cover up?

Her daughter was barely 9 years old and her son wasn’t even a toddler when their mother was murdered. They had to grow up without a mom. Jessica and her family deserve justice.

Missy Bevers

From Reddit:

On April 18th, 2016, 45 year old fitness instructor, Terri Bevers (who often went by the name Missy) was brutally murdered inside Creekside Church located in Midlothian, Texas in the early hours of the morning.

At the time, she was getting preparations ready for a fitness class — Camp Gladiator — before her students were to arrive at 5 in the morning. Once class was soon to begin, that’s when Missy’s students discovered her lifeless body. Her death was caused by puncture wounds to the head and chest.

As the investigation went underway, the police discovered surveillance footage [inside the church] with the suspect dressed in tactical gear [SWAT]. This person was dressed to the nine, from the vest, pants, boots and even a helmet, along with a hammer that was used for Missy’s murder.

This is where things became peculiar. Whomever this POI is, they had a very unorthodoxed and unnatural posture/stance, especially when walking aimlessly. Whether this was intentional or not, it cannot be confirmed.

Nevertheless, this footage did allow the police to build a timeline of events.

Surveillance shows the suspect inside walking around casually and opening the many doors. Not only that, this incident took place at approximately 4:15 in the morning, just 45 minutes before Missy’s class was to start.

Although presumed to be male, officers are still unsure on the gender of this individual. Subsequently, investigators started to look into Missy’s personal life. Due to search warrants the police were able to find — possible — motives.

Missy was a mother of three kids and having a lot of troubles financially and with her marriage, specifically on her part with unfaithfulness. Texts and other forms of messages found her being flirtatious with another male(s?). With that being uncovered, police finally had their biggest break in the case, yet unfortunately that avenue didn’t provide any substantial clues that would help determine Missy’s killer.

Missy’s husband, Brandon, told police he strongly believes that the murderer is a female and knew her on some form of personal basis. Furthermore, he suggests that this unidentified person attempted to make this tragedy look like a burglary gone wrong, mainly due to surveillance showing this individual opening doors and breaking glass windows.

The strangeness of this case didn’t stop there, however. A few days after the murder had happened, Missy’s father-in-law, Randy Bevers, went to the dry cleaners bringing in a women’s XXL long sleeve shirt covered in blood. He told the employees that it was merely from a Chihuahua dog that was recently injured and taken to a vet.

Out of suspicion, employees contacted the police and the shirt was subjected to DNA testing for evidence. Nonetheless, the vet was able to confirm this incident. Although the shirt became ruled out, investigators still had their eye on Randy.

More interestingly enough, Randy, the father-in-law, is roughly the same height and weight of the stranger captured on surveillance. While this crime was making its coverage on various television news channels, the family of Missy were brought into the public eye.

During a particular broadcast, the father-in-law was interviewed. As such, many people noticed that his demeanor was slightly different in terms of emotion. Not only that, the way Randy walked was practically identical to the POI in the surveillance footage. Eight months has since passed by and despite all of this information, the case is still unsolved as of today, December 28th, 2016, and no updates have been made that’s been released to the public. Missy’s murderer is still free.

I think this case deserves a lot more attention than it’s receiving. Whether the killer is a male or female, I cannot say for certain. That being said, in my eyes, this case should be solvable. I can’t fathom the notion of this simply being an act of sheer randomness.

To me, it was methodical, deliberate, and personal, with the killer knowing Missy on a level of friendship or simply acquaintances in one way or another. This unidentified person had an idea of Missy’s schedule and planned their attack accordingly. I’m hopeful this case will be solved soon.

More footage of a strange vehicle driving around the area before the murder:

Here is a chilling comparison to the gait of the person on surveillance footage and Missy’s father in law:

Gareth Williams

A spy who was found dead locked inside a gym bag in his own apartment.

Jennifer Kesse

From Wikipedia:

Jennifer Kesse was last seen on January 23, 2006, at approximately 6pm, leaving her place of employment, Westgate Resorts, in Ocoee, Florida. That evening she made several calls to family and friends; the last call around 10 p.m. was to her boyfriend. Typically, Jennifer would call or text her boyfriend every morning on her drive to work to talk and wish him a good day. On the morning of January 24, Jennifer never called or sent a text message. Any call to Jennifer’s phone went directly to voice-mail. When Jennifer failed to arrive at work that morning, her employer contacted her parents, who immediately made a two-hour drive from their home to her residence. Her parents noticed that her car was missing, but upon entering her condo, they saw nothing that looked out of the ordinary. Evidence at her residence, including a wet towel and clothes laid out, indicated that Jennifer was at home the morning of January 24 and had showered and dressed for work.

Alistair Wilson

From Reddit:

Alistair Wilson, he was shot on his door step in Nairn, Scotland in 2004. His wife answered the door to a small, stocky man who asked for her husband by name. Once Alistair got to the door the man handed him an envelope, which Alistair took inside for a brief moment and then came back out and was shot dead by the unidentifed man. Who took the envelope with him.

The silent twins

From Reddit:

June and Jennifer Gibbons were identical twins born to a Caribbean couple in 1963. The family moved to Haverfordwest, Wales, shortly after the children’s birth. From the time they learned to speak, June and Jennifer had a particular high-speed patois that made it difficult for people to understand them. Being the only black children at their school, they were frequently bullied by their peers. The bullying led to their special language becoming even more irregular, to the point where no one could understand what they said.

At 14 they were sent to separate boarding schools, to encourage them to thrive on their own. Both girls became catatonic and were quickly reunited. Following their reunion, they spent several years locked in their room, playing with dolls, putting on operas for one another, and writing.

They wrote several short stories that they self-published. The stories tend to revolve around criminality and sex. After the stories failed to garner any attention, they left the confines of their room and started living in the real world. They continued to speak with no one but each other. They started committing crimes such as arson, theft, and assaulting one another. A judge ruled that they need to be committed, and they were sent to Broadmoor Hospital, where they remained for 14 years.

In 1993 it was decided that the twins would be transferred to Caswell Clinic, a lower-security facility. When the twins arrived at Caswell, Jennifer was found to be unresponsive. She was rushed to the hospital but later pronounced dead. The cause of death was acute myocarditis or a sudden inflammation of the heart. No drugs or poisons were found in her system.

A few days after Jennifer’s death, June was reported to say, “I’m free at last, liberated, and at last Jennifer has given up her life for me.”

Bill & Dorothy Wacker

From Reddit:

Bill and Dorothy Wacker lived in a small town in Stark County, Ohio in the same house they have lived in for most of their 48 years of marriage. Despite being quiet, unassuming people, they’ve been subject to a campaign of harassment which began in 1984. On January 16, 1985, their home was ransacked. Though this had happened twice before, Bill informed the sheriff this time. In July of that year, Dorothy was home alone, recovering from heart surgery, when she heard a knock on the door. She didn’t recognize the visitor but allowed him in to use her phone, as he told her that his car broke down somewhere down the road where she couldn’t see it. After making the call and saying goodbye, she believed he had left. However, he was actually still in the house and managed to sneak up behind her and knock her out with a blow to the head. She woke up bound and gagged on the kitchen floor. She managed to crawl to an open window and alert her neighbors, who called emergency services. She was not seriously injured from the ordeal, but Bill returned home to find some possessions stolen: a .22 caliber revolver, an antique watch, a movie camera, and a radio scanner. In the dining room, the message “cheaper, but will do” was scrawled in crayon on the wall. About four months after the assault, Bill found the revolver on the front porch, wrapped in a plastic shopping bag. Over time, the other three objects were quietly returned as well. Notes left by harasser Notes left by the harasser The harasser began calling the house, sometimes threatening them with violence and sometimes simply breathing deeply. Changing their phone number several times failed to make the calls stop. The harassment began to escalate. Occasionally after dark, they would hear a series of banging on the side of their house, though they never saw or heard anything unusual when they’d check outside. Eventually, they put up a security light but later found a note on their front porch saying “your lightz are a laugh.” Periodically, notes began appearing on the front porch, threatening and mocking them. Police noted that the uneven, jagged style of the writing appeared to be due to someone using their non dominant hand to write, as if to conceal their handwriting style. No fingerprints have ever been found on the notes. On the night of October 27, 1993, another attack on Dorothy sent her to the hospital with skull lacerations. Police searched the neighborhood and questioned residences but failed to find any clues or witnesses.

Why would someone stalk and attack this old couple? What are your thoughts and theories?

Candace Hiltz

From Reddit:

Candace Hiltz was a seventeen year old single mother, a junior at Brigham Young University and a newly accepted student to be at Stanford Law School. She dreamed of becoming a Supreme Court Justice. She had a brilliant level of intelligence, a ferociously protective personality and a great affinity for the law. All of that was destroyed when she was brutally murdered. Her family sought answers, but ultimately discovered that the men charged with solving her murder may have in fact been involved in it.

On August 10th, 2006, a Deputy from the Fremont County Sheriff’s Department in Colorado arrived at the Hiltz family home. He questioned Dolores Hiltz in regard to the whereabouts of her son, James. Sometime during the questioning, Dolores’ daughter Candace became angry by his demeanor and told him to leave. The Deputy threatened to arrest Candace, who then threatened to expose him for taking bribes from local drug dealers.

Three days later, the Hiltz family dog went missing. It was later found tied to a tree and had been killed with a hatchet or small ax. Two days later, on August 15th, Dolores left the home to run some errands. She arrived home three hours later and found her granddaughter unsupervised and crying in her crib. There were pools of blood on the floor and drag marks. Dolores made the grisly discovery of Candace’s body. She had been shot multiple times, wrapped in a green comforter and shoved beneath a bed.

The investigation was shoddy from the beginning, with the lead investigator being the same Deputy who had the verbal altercation with Candace just days earlier. The crime scene wasn’t protected and sealed, evidence was left behind and the prime suspect was Candace’s brother, James. After he was apprehended, he was charged with for breaking into a home and stealing some items, but not the murder of his sister. Over the next ten years, no new leads were developed nor evidence discovered. The Hiltz family and the Fremont County Sheriff’s Department engaged in a rather public exchange of contradictory statements.

Candace’s autopsy showed she had been shot by two to three different weapons and at least two assailants as several shots were projected into her front and back simultaneously. However, there were several errors and contradictions in the report. Then, out of nowhere, a man who purchased an abandoned storage unit discovered vital pieces of evidence related to the murder which had been stolen from evidence and kept there but the Deputy who ran the entire investigation, the very one who had that altercation with Candace.

Theories began to build up accusing the Sheriff’s department of a cover up and even of being complicit in the murder itself. The lead investigator retired amid a torrent of accusations, and just months after, was brought up on charges for his mishandling of evidence as well as tampering with official paperwork.

Was Candace Hiltz murdered in a random act of violence? Did the father of her daughter lash out and take her life? Did her brother James lose control and murder his own sister? Or did the lead investigator play a much more vital role in the very murder he was investigating?

Nacole Smith

Crimestoppers

From Reddit:

On June 7, 1995, 14 year old Nacole Smith left her home in Deerfield Apartments in Southwest Atlanta to walk to school with her sister and a friend when she forgot her book report. She left her friends and took a shortcut through the woods back to her home when she was attacked by a man who assaulted her and shot her. Security guards in the area found her at 9:20 AM but her killer was long gone.

Several years later on June 20, 2004, a 13 year old girl was preparing for Father’s Day in East Point, Georgia. She was lured by a man into the woods on Connally Drive where he then assaulted her. She was able to escape and get help. DNA linked this man to the 1995 murder of Nacole Smith. This crime occurred 3 miles away from the first.

The second victim provided investigators with a description of the man. The black man appeared to be in his late 20s to early 30s, was 5-feet-10 inches tall and weighed approximately 190 pounds. He had a medium complexion, a gap in his front teeth, and was wearing round, gold-framed glasses, according to police.

In the “On the Case” episode, the detectives working on the case stated that they believe the man is someone from the area. The detectives were able to obtain school records for the day of Nacole’s murder and they were able to narrow down the male students who were absent from high school that day. One man named Steven Boris (sp?) piqued their interest because he was arrested for statutory rape and false imprisonment. They were able to interview him and he willingly offered up his DNA. His DNA did not match.

It’s really scary that this man has never been caught in all these years. I assume he didn’t stop after the second crime unless her escaping spooked him. The detectives seem convinced that the man is someone in the area but what’s the likelihood he’s not from the area? He’s pretty distinctive looking (if the sketch is accurate) so I don’t see how he could go unnoticed in the area.

Relisha Rudd

From Reddit:

Relisha Rudd is a young African American girl who disappeared from Washington DC in approximately 2014. Relisha Rudd stayed at a homeless shelter in DC with her family where her mother, Shamika Young, handed over her daughter (allegedly) to Kahlil Malik Tatum, the janitor there. The last day Relisha Rudd was seen alive was March 1, 2014. Due to many missed absences from her school, a school counselor calls DC Child & Family Services Agency to inquire about Relisha’s repeated absences as she had missed more than 30 days. Shamika Young, excused her absences by noting that Relisha was ill per “Dr. Tatum”.

TIMELIME:

February 26, 2014, Relisha is seen walking toward a room in the Holiday Inn Express on Bladensburg Road, NE.

March 1, 2014: Last day Relisha was seen alive. There are no other confirmed sightings of Relisha or Tatum together after this date

On March 19, 2014 a social worker calls, Tatum in order to set up a meeting, however Tatum does not show. The social worker finds out that “Dr. Tatum” is actually a janitor.

On this day DC police begin a missing-person investigations. Around 9 PM an officer tries to call Tatum’s cell however it is powered down and never gain activated.

On March 20, 2014 somebody returns to the motel and finds Tatum’s wife, Andrea Tatum, dead. The source indicates that he helped Tatum do internet search for a handgun.

March 31, 2014, Tatum is found dead in a park in DC.

So what happened to her? Where did Relisha go in the thirty days she was missing?

The legs

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