#tw: almost character death

[rookfeatherrambles]

130 FOLLOWERS. NANI? Alright I've been writing for a bit tonight, have this snippet of something. TW: ALMOST CHARACTER DEATH. almost :) ---- BOUND BY SPIDER'S THREAD

Martin’s gaze followed the thick mass of spiders as it trailed off through the grass to pile upon itself, higher and higher, until...

"Hello, Martin." Annabelle Cane smiled down at him. "You look an awful mess."

Martin felt numb, looking from her to Jon's body, so painfully still.

His eyes were oceans of undisguised fear and worry.

"Is he--?"

Annabelle walked over to Jon and knelt down, pressing her hand over the red line that had once been a gushing, gaping thing, and felt his heart pulsing more regularly. Still weak, but stable.

"He'll live, Martin. His heart is held together by spider silk and prayer, but he'll live."

Martin burst into tears. They were ugly, snotty tears, and Annabelle Cane ceased to exist in that moment as he clutched at Jon, mindful of his injury, and pressed his face into his love's neck, his hair, his chest where he could feel his heart pumping blood the way it was supposed to.

He was blubbering something, something like thanks, if thanks was mucus-muffled and also incoherent.

Annabelle was still there, waiting for him to compose himself, and eventually his grateful sobs subsided and he looked up at her through streaky glasses and red eyes. She just smiled. "I'm glad I found you when I did, Martin. I was worried you two had been left behind."

Martin sniffled, wiping his dirty face with a dirtier hand. "Wh-What do you mean? Why? What do you want with us?”

She reached into her black jacket pocket and pulled out a handkerchief, offering it to him. "It is in the Mother's best interest to make sure your lovely boyfriend is safe and watched over. And now that I've saved his life, I've accomplished that task."

Martin's suspicion rose. "And? There's an and in there, Annabelle..."

She dipped her head and smiled. "And of course you owe me now, naturally."

He groaned, sitting back on his heels. After a moment of watching Jon's chest rise and fall, he looked back up at her with a stony expression. "What do you want?"

Annabelle stood, brushing down her spotless coat. "Ah, well that, Martin- That is an excellent question. I normally wouldn't be so... forthright about this, but the ex-Archivist is on borrowed time, so I'll just tell you. I want you both to work with me. With the Web, with the Mother of Puppets. You've got some aptitude, Martin, and Jon... Jon is a marvel, but he is a danger to all of our plans, even now. We must make sure he doesn't find his way back to the Eye and well, you know what they say about history repeating itself, don't you?"

She looked satisfied at Martin's dumbstruck expression.

[electrozeistyking]

Ghost Drone is an AU where the events of Murder Drones have been spread out some odd years and changed around (except for Episode 1, which remains the same as it does in the show). Alternate takes on Episodes 2, 3 and 5 have already occurred.

The first comic isn't canon to the AU anymore, but since it's the initial concept, I figured I'd include it. This entire post is basically my way of saying "Hey, this AU has been stewing in my brain since the 16th of November in 2023."

[steveshairychest]

It's the apocalypse.

It's the goddamn world splitting apart apocalypse and instead of freaking out like he should be, Steve's standing in front of his bedroom mirror trying to pick an appropriate outfit to visit his friend in the hospital.

The polo shirt is too casual and the sweatshirt is too colourful. And the plain t-shirt says that he doesn't care, but the button-up says he cares too much. He sighs and nervously runs a hand through his messy, grown out hair. It's been three months after all. Three months of mourning and wallowing in his own self hate and blame.

Only for it all to be for nothing because the person he's been grieving is apparently alive.

According to the nurse who called him at exactly 8:30am, he's just woken up from a medical induced coma and he's in the hospital just down the road from Steve's house. She said it so casually as well, like she was informing Steve that it was going to rain tomorrow. She had no idea what to do when he started crying hysterically on the phone.

And now here he is, stressed and flustered standing in front of a mirror because all Steve can think about is making a good first impression. He doesn't understand why, doesn't understand why he's not asking himself how this is possible, how someone he had felt die in his arms is apparently alive and well three months later. There are so many things he should be thinking about and questions he should be asking, but instead, the only thing he can think about is looking nice for his friend who has literally just woken up from a coma.

But he doesn't have time to unpack that.

That's for later; just like the apocalypse, which he pointedly ignores on his way to the makeshift hospital. The cracks that run through Hawkins are quite literally the last thing on his mind right now.

All he can think about is Eddie, who is alive and breathing, who will look at Steve's very carefully picked outfit and probably say something smartass-y and slightly mean, but Steve doesn't care. He needs that right now. He needs the witty jokes and crooked smile. He needs something to replace the lifeless eyes and blood-stained lips from his memory. He needs to know that this is real. That the phone call from the hospital wasn't a dream.

He needs to know that this isn't vecna toying with him.

"I'm here to see Eddie Munson." The words sound jumbled and unreal to his ears. He hasn't said Eddie's name out loud for months. Just the sound of his name would bring him to tears and remind him that he failed, that he is useless at his role as the protector; the shield.

When the nurses don't look at him like he's crazy, like he's lost his mind, and when they actually walk him down the crowded hall to a room marked with the number 27, that's when Steve realises this is real. This is happening.

Because laying there tucked into the all white sheets and hooked up to countless leads, is Eddie fucking Munson.

And he's smiling at Steve weakly, but it's the most beautiful smile Steve has seen in months.

"Hey, Harrington."

[starry-bi-sky]

Blood Blossom Au: before the nightingale sings

---------

for my batdad blood blossom au, the one where Vlad poisoned Danny with blood blossom extract and Danny ran away from him and ended up tumbling into the care of one Pre-Robin Battinson Batman :). A quick oneshot telling the tale of the tragic deaths of the Fentons

TW: Major Character Death Warning

-------

Not all deaths are created equal.

That is a valuable lesson in life to learn. One that Danny learns when he is eleven years old, standing in the pit of his parents’ creation; the culmination of their life’s work. The portal to the other side, the realm of the dead. To the infinite. 

He learns that when he’s eleven years old, in a hazmat suit that sags on him, and boots that clunk when he walks because the only ones that fit are his mom’s, and even those are too big. In gloves that he has to clench his fists in because otherwise they fall off. In goggles that slide down his nose even when he’s tightened them the farthest they can go. 

He learns that when he’s eleven years old, choking on giggles that harmonize with the laughter of his friends’ who stand at the mouth of the tunnel. Sam’s holding a polaroid in her hand. They’re just being kids. 

They’re not laughing when Danny’s hand hits the safety lock — the one with faulty wiring, the only one in the tunnel. The only one he could possibly hit. They’re not laughing when the portal buzzes to life, and the lights inside switch on row by row as the generator begins to rumble and hum. 

They’re not laughing when Danny dies. They’re screaming. They’re not screaming when he comes back.

Not all deaths are created equal.  

Some are poetic, beautiful. The satisfying close of a book as it comes to an end, of the hardback thumping soft against the pages like the sound of a door closing. A train run its course.

Some are violent; unsatisfying; unfair. The unexpected shattering of an egg as it rolls off the countertop when nobody is looking, the unmistakable crack as it falls to the floor. It is abrupt and messy. 

But most are just… unremarkable. Unintentional. Clumsy. 

Danny’s family dies one night in late January. He is thirteen years old, barely a month away from fourteen. It is unforeseen. It is preventable. It happens. 

It happens like this: 

Their water heater breaks one Monday in January. It’s old, sitting in the garage, and has dealt with nearly sixteen years of Fenton-grade chaos and shenanigans. Of parents tossing scraps and junk into the garage as brief storage to come back to later. Of illegal tune-ups on their vehicles that result in something exploding. Of little children running around and knocking things over, playing with poles and sticks they find on the ground, on the shelves. Of being lived and used.  

Something had to give. 

Jack Fenton notices it immediately when he comes upstairs that very afternoon — his children at school, his wife downstairs — to grab something from the garage. The very same scrap and used material they store like squirrels to use later. 

He stops what he’s doing to fix it.  

It wasn’t supposed to be permanent. 

Despite what many believe, Jack Fenton is not the idiot people make him out to be. He knows what he’s good at, he knows what he’s not. He knows he can be passionate and obsessive and single-minded about things. He knows that he is a scientist, an inventor; an engineer. 

He knows that he is not a plumber. That fixing water heaters is not something he knows how to do, not safely. And he loves his family. What he does is only meant to be temporary — a fix meant to only last a few days until they can call someone in who can fix it for them. 

So Jack Fenton futzes with the water heater, gives it a temporary stitch to last a short while, and reminds himself to call a plumber later that day to come in and fix it. He turns and leaves the garage with the part he came for —  a sheet of metal for his wife to melt down — and disappears back downstairs. 

He does not make that call; it slips from his mind. 

It is not his fault. 

One day passes, then two, then suddenly it is Thursday. The water heater has still not been fixed, the water heater has been forgotten. It is nobody’s fault.  

Danny asks his parents at breakfast if he can stay over at Tucker’s house for the night. Just one night. They’re going to study for their math test and then play video games until midnight, but he only tells his parents that first half. 

He’s been doing well in school. Really well — better than he has in a while. There’s been a delightful lull in ghost appearances for the last few weeks. The living don’t know why, but Danny does. The Winter Truce always calms the dead down for a while, something about how the Zone cleanses itself twice a mortal year and that fresh wave of ecto clears out the old and brings in the new. 

This year Danny got to participate. He’s feeling the effects of it too, and he’s been sleeping consistently well for the first time since the accident. 

It’ll never happen again. 

His parents agree under the condition that he doesn’t stay up late, and Danny harmlessly lies through his teeth and agrees. He goes and throws overnight clothes into his school backpack, and when he leaves for school with Jazz his parents are already departed into the lab. 

The last conversation he has with his sister is in her car on the drive to school. Inane, mindless conversation to fill the air and pass the time. Jazz comments on how relaxed he’s been lately; Danny tells her about the Winter Truce. She listens in rapt attention. 

She tells him that she’s glad to see him so well-rested. She thinks her little brother’s been growing up too fast these days. She thinks he’s been too tense. Too caught up with the spinning of the world around him that he forgets about himself sometimes. 

When they reach school, before Danny can get out of the car, Jazz looks to her little brother and says; “I love you.” 

Her little brother’s cheeks turn an embarrassed shade of red. He makes a scrunched up, grossed-out face, but can’t hide the smile pulling across it. “Don’t be a sap, Jazz. I’ll see you later.” He tells her, yanking his hood up over his head. She hears the bashful, ‘love you too’ before he walks away. 

That is the last conversation she ever has with her brother. 

Thursday is unremarkable, passing by in its normality as it always does. There’s one, maybe two ghost sightings; shades lurking around in curious infancy that are easily spooked away by the presence of a greater being. Danny doesn’t even have to go ghost. 

Thursday evening is even less so. Danny goes to Tucker’s house — Sam has a prior arrangement with her slam poetry club — and the two of them study for an hour before they toss their textbooks aside and reach for the game console. 

Danny sleeps in Tucker’s room with one of the extra blankets on his bed, curled across the room in one of the bean bag chairs. It shouldn’t be comfortable, but to Danny it is. He sleeps throughout the night, the portal shut down by his parents before they’d gone to bed. 

Early Friday morning, before the sun has even risen yet, before it’s even so much as a concept to grace the horizon, the water heater breaks again. It was supposed to be fixed. 

Carbon monoxide is a silent killer. Odorless and scentless, it kills within minutes. It fills the house like a shadow casting over the ground, creeping into the rooms. 

Danny’s family die in their sleep; painless and unaware. 

It’s not Jack Fenton’s fault. He didn’t mean to.  

Nobody wakes up with their alarms. 

Danny wakes up to Tucker Foley’s alarm on Friday morning, and he turns his head intangible and shoves it into the beanbag chair like an ostrich hiding its head in the sand. Tucker gets up before him, and throws a pillow at him as he reaches for the alarm. 

There’s laughter, messing around. The both of them get dressed, and Danny has breakfast with the Foleys that morning. He takes the bus to school with Tucker, and they meet Sam by their lockers. 

To him, everything is as normal as it should be. There are no ghosts for him to fight right now, school is as school does, and he’s on top of all his schoolwork. 

He does not see Jazz at all that morning, he doesn’t notice. Their schedules are so different, their routes on different paths, that it’s not uncommon for Danny to not see Jazz until he gets home some days. That’s if there’s no ghost attacks. 

At lunch, he gets approached by her friends. Worried creases between their brows, they ask him if he’s seen Jazz. She hasn’t shown up to any of her classes. She’s not answering their texts. It’s unprecedented of her; unheard of. 

Danny doesn’t admit to the concern that swells in his gut when they tell him this. He shrugs at them, and says he hasn’t seen her either. But it was probably nothing to worry about; she might just be sick and sleeping it off. 

He offers to text her and let them know if he gets a response, and that seems to ease her friends enough that they shuffle away in uncertainty. He keeps his word, and does exactly that. He pulls out his phone and opens her contact, and shoots her a message.

‘Where are you?’ 

He doesn’t get a response back, Danny is left on sent. He puts his phone in his pocket, and with a sense of unease creeping in the back of his mind, goes on with his day. He gets no response by the time the final bell rings; and he tries not to be worried. 

The house is quiet when he opens the door. Unusually quiet. He drops his backpack to the floor, it lands with a hearty thunk, and begins to take off his jacket. “Mom! Dad!” He yells. He hangs it up, and slips his shoes from his feet. “Jazz skipped school today!”

A laughable untruth that would get his sister all riled up normally; she should be able to hear him from the front door if she was in her room. The house just stays dead silent. 

He can’t even hear the usual banging and crashing from the lab. His unease returns. He reaches for the intercom that leads directly down to the basement, and presses the button to turn it on. A burst of static, and then he speaks;

“Mom? Dad?” 

Danny lets go, and waits for a response. He gets none back. That never happens, not when the house is this quiet. Not when he knows they should’ve heard him. 

Something sickly and fearful borns in the pit of his stomach, and begins to snake upward. He heads for the lab. The cool metal of the door is familiar in the grooves of his hand, and he doesn’t even need to think about the code as he punches it in;  he simply lets muscle memory guide him. It’s been the same since he was little. 

The door hisses as the pressure is released, and he swings the door open. He takes the stairs down two at a time. Something is wrong. His parents aren’t answering him. His feet pound against the metal. 

“Mom? Dad?” He calls again, more worried, more frantic. More scared. His voice echoes down the stairwell, and he reaches the bottom before it’s fully faded. The lab is empty. The portal is still shut down. 

It was four in the afternoon, they should still be down here. 

Danny races back upstairs, fear-raised nausea coiling in his throat. “This isn’t funny you guys!” He yells when he reaches the top, shoving open the door with more force than necessary. His head swims, his voice cracked. 

He checks the garage, the car is still there. 

“Mom!? Dad!” His voice bellows out throughout the first floor, loud enough that it bounces back at him and rings against his ears. He’s never raised his voice this much — mom would scold him if she heard him. But she doesn’t show up. “Jazmine!” 

Finally, he goes upstairs, and he can’t tell if what he’s feeling is anger or terror. Something is very, very wrong. 

He swings the door of his parents’ rooms open first, and there they are, with the lights still off and the curtains still drawn. As if they hadn’t left their bed all day. Some of Danny’s fear lifts from his shoulders just by the sight of them, but he’s still trembling. Something is still wrong — the room smells… off. Not good, not bad. Just… off. 

He swallows dryly, his throat still thick, and steps into the room. “Mom, dad?” They do not stir. “Didn’t you guys hear me yelling?” 

There is only room static. Danny’s heart shrivels in his chest with a tenfold return of terror, he feels ill. He remembers, just now, that they’re not heavy sleepers, and his dad should be snoring like a freight house. 

Danny reaches their bedside in seconds, hand outstretching for the covers, “Momma? Dad?”

Not all deaths are created equal. 

But many of them are accidental. Unmeditated. Shocking.

Danny Fenton finds his family dead in his childhood home. He runs to his neighbors in hysterics, inconsolable, in tears. Nine-one-one is called, but there is nothing that can be done. They were dead for hours by the time Daniel Fenton returned home. 

He sits on the front steps of the neighbor’s house beside FentonWorks, his jeans slowly becoming wet from the snow that was unable to be scraped off, and watches the paramedics cart out his family beneath white sheets. There are police cars blocking off the street, yellow tape blocking off his house, red-blue lights lighting up the block, an ambulance on the scene. He is wrapped in a shock blanket, and he is missing his jacket and his shoes. His tears are freezing onto his face, he can’t feel the chill. 

Not all deaths are created equal

But all of them are unforgettable. 

[revacholian-girl-utena]

There are no stars. There is no light. There will be no future. (Requested by @thediscoelysiumlesbian )

Alt text: Screencaps from Revolutionary Girl Utena with overlaid text. 1: A closeup of Anthy's eyes, hair down and no glasses, staring down Utena in the moment she discovers Akio abusing Anthy. Text: "Oh, yes."

2: A closeup of Utena's eyes, wide with shock, from the same scene. Text: "This is real darkness."

3: A framed photo of Akio and Anthy, half in shadow as the window shades rise to reveal the room. Text: "Real darkness has love for a face."

4: Anthy's silhouette, hair flying wildly, pierced by many blades. Text: "The first death is in the heart." End alt text.

[befuddled-calico-whump]

Total $hit$how: I'm Going In

in which Joy goes on a life-changing field trip

cw: referenced violence, death mentions, implied lab whump, adult language

previous // masterlist // next

×~×~×

Tomorrow came too fast.

In preparation for the mission, Joy’s body refused to sleep, waking her up at least once an hour to remind her that hooray, you have an important task in the morning! Better be ready, wouldn’t sleep be great?

She rolled out of bed at the first chirp of the alarm clock, groggy and more than a little pissed at her own brain. Vic hadn't specified a required uniform, so she changed back into the clothes she’d arrived in; breathable hiking pants, a black tank top, and a pair of combat boots. The shit they'd been provided for training was nice and all, but if she was about to embark on an expedition she wanted to remember exactly where her pockets were.

No one had seen Sahota since yesterday’s challenge, but Vic said he'd meet her by the compound’s exit. She waited there, slouched against the wall, tapping her foot in an uneven rhythm. 

Fuck. The moment of truth was at hand. She knew she could technically hold up her end of the deal now, shoot an ‘oh damn, are you okay?’ Sahota's way and immediately get shot down with a gruff ‘fine. Don't ask me again.’

But that probably wasn't what Jericho had in mind. Joy couldn't be direct about it. Last time she'd tried, it had only pissed Sahota off, and that wasn't the effect she was going for. She'd have to be subtle, dance around the subject as best she could. Too bad she had two left feet.

If she hadn’t been cued in already, the first sign that something was wrong came when Sahota actually made noise on his approach. His footsteps were heavier than they usually were, his breathing more ragged. It took effort to suppress a wince when she caught sight of him. He'd looked bad before, but now she was surprised he was still standing, much less about to head off on a mission. His left eye was swollen shut, and cuts and bruises littered his face. 

How many times had Harbor hit him?

Her anger at the other man doubled in size, but she managed to choke it back, keep it out of her expression.

“Hey,” she said. “Time to go?”

Sahota gave a silent nod, moving to the door and typing in a sequence on the keypad beside it. Joy thought to try and catch a glimpse of the code two seconds too late, and all she could do was mildly regret it as the door slid open.

It struck her as a little weird that it locked from both sides, but that was probably for cases like theirs: schmucks off the street, employed by vague threats and promises and kept on a tighter leash by Vic’s control issues. 

She followed Sahota up a set of concrete stairs and into the daylight. The morning air was almost chilly enough to make her wish she'd brought a jacket, the overcast sky promising rain. Gazing up at the clouds, she realized this was her first time setting foot outside since her arrival. Thank fuck she’d been distractred enough that the thought was only occuring to her now, otherwise she would’ve been going stir-crazy in there.

Getting to the compound had been a bit of a blur—some generic car with tinted windows and a silent driver dropping her into Vic's loving arms—so she wasn't too surprised that its exterior wasn't familiar. Brutalist concrete building that wouldn't look out of place in a sci-fi movie. Bigger than it looked from the outside, but she knew now that most of the structure was underground.

Sahota moved away from the entrance, to an overhang at the side of the building. Joy didn't know why she was surprised to see a car parked under it. It made sense that they had a way to come and go, but their vehicle of choice caught her off guard. It was just a beat-up truck, not the sleek spy car she might've dreamt up. It was probably better for blending in, but she still found herself a little disappointed. All the fancy tech Vic had at his disposal for training, and he'd settled on a ford for his getaway vehicle.

Sahota moved to the driver's side, and she noticed for the first time he was limping. Just a little, barely enough to tell, but once she caught on, it was clear he was favoring his left leg. 

Joy couldn't stop herself. “Did Harbor do that too?” she blurted out, gesturing down. He stared at her blankly for a second, then gave a small shake of his head. 

“Old injury. Acts up in bad weather.”

“What's it from?”

He unlocked the car, sliding into the driver's seat. “Training.”

Bit ironic that a lasting injury came from training and not the job itself, but life was a bitch like that sometimes. She'd broken her wrist in a middle school softball game once. Not diving for home plate, or even staggering back to catch a ball. She'd just… tripped and landed wrong. It still got stiff on some winter mornings, much to her irritation.

Joy climbed into the passenger seat. “Is it gonna bother you on the mission?” It was a blanket question. Should you even be out here? Go to bed, is what she wanted to say, but she imagined Sahota would take offense to that.

“This isn't a mission,” he replied, starting the truck and tactfully avoiding her question. Fair enough.

“How far is it to the lab?” she asked.

“Hour. Maybe more if we catch traffic.”

Well, on the plus side that gave her plenty of time to slowly close in on the topic of Sahota’s okay-ness. On the negative, if she somehow pushed the wrong buttons, she’d be stuck with a silent and grumpy Sahota for the rest of the drive. And the mission. And the drive back. Joy swallowed, winding her fingers together and pointing herself towards the window. Tactful. Be tactful.

“Uh.” She cleared her throat. “Kinda lame that Vic shot down your idea.”

“Hm?”

“The challenge? I thought it was…” Fun? Hell no. It had been just as awkward as this. “...Interesting,” she finished. Sahota said nothing, his eyes—eye. Should he even be driving?—locked on the road.

“Also,” Joy continued when he said nothing, “it's kinda bullshit that Vic changed the plan after we won.”

At that, Sahota let out a sigh. “I shouldn't have let you try in the first place. That's on me.”

“Is it?” She turned in her seat, facing him. “Sounds like it's on Vic. Aren't you guys partners?”

His expression didn't change, but his hands seemed to tighten around the steering wheel. “Yes.”

“Then why is he the one calling all the shots? You should get a say.”

“It's complicated.”

“Complicated how?”

“It's…” his mouth tightened. “Vic’s had a lot more time on the job. He knows better than I do. If he overrules me, it's for a reason.”

It could be true, partially true, but Vic seemed to think he had more power than just that. Her mind went to the video. Vic’s total disregard for his so-called partner.

“Maybe he knows better, but that doesn't mean he can treat you like shit.” She might've been overstepping, and maybe the incident really was just so routine that neither of them cared about it, but the slight shift in Sahota's face, the way his arms tensed, had her thinking she was right.

“Why do you work with him?” Joy asked. “You're really fucking skilled. Why not get a job with someone who appreciates that?”

“What about you?” Sahota replied without missing a beat. “You're smart. You build and fix things like it's second nature. Why'd you go for the criminal side when you could be something better?”

Joy scoffed. “It's not that easy.” She'd watched her oldest sister struggle with student loans, and high school had already been hard enough to stay focused through. She'd been scared of college, to tell the truth, and joining the army fresh after graduation just seemed like the smart path. No financial burden for her parents, no help from anyone else.

“Exactly,” Sahota said. “It's not that easy.”

She couldn't think of a retort on the spot, and instead turned her gaze back to the window, watching the clouds gradually darken. The city skyline was growing in the distance, but they didn't seem to be headed in that direction. She figured she could ask about that, fill the silence, but she knew it wasn’t the question she was supposed to be chasing.

Are you okay? It was on her tongue, refusing to be spoken. Whatever he answered, she knew it would be a lie, and voicing it seemed pointless when she knew he wasn’t.

Eventually, they turned down what her mother would've called a road less traveled; a ribbon cut through the trees that was more pothole than asphalt.

“Rotorworx has a lab back here?” Joy said, trying to peer through the dense foliage. 

“Used to. Closed down after an incident.”

“What kind of incident?”

“You’ve probably heard of it. Happened during the experiment Harbor was part of.”

Wait wait wait, this was that lab? Joy wracked her brain, trying to recall everything she'd read about the experiment. The published studies were vague at best. Something something innovative, life-changing technology. A sixth sense in development, a peek into another word. For a few months, it had been advertised on the daily; little teasing articles that told you nothing.

And then all of a sudden, news of the experiments stopped completely. Rumors circulating a few online forums suggested the project ended in a disaster, but she'd never found an official source; nothing to indicate exactly what went down. For all she knew, the research team had just been forced to scrap everything after losing funding. 

But something had to have gone right, right? Harbor had come out with… with… well, the promised sixth sense. Why hadn’t that ever been publicized?

“What do you know about the incident?” she asked Sahota.

“There's not much intel available,” he replied. “Something went wrong. Several researchers were killed, and the lab was closed by the government.” He pulled the truck into a patch of weeds that lined the road.

Killed? It had gone that wrong?

“We’ll need to walk from here,” Sahota said. “The area will be fenced off.” He hopped out of the truck, stumbling a little on the dismount. Joy couldn't tell if it was from his knee, or some new, Harbor-caused injury. She jumped out after him.

“You okay?” she said.

“Fine.”

Exactly how she’d thought it would play out. Ah well, it was a decent warmup. Sahota started into the treeline, his boots crunching against fallen leaves, and Joy followed him.

“You said people died.”

“They did.”

“How?”

“Cause of death was never made public.”

Joy raised an eyebrow. “None of this was ever made public. It just… I don't know, went away.” She probably shouldn’t be too shocked. Big companies loved their good publicity.

The promised fence made its appearance before too long. It was simple chain-link; no barbed wire, no cameras that Joy could pick out. Instead, spaced out along every ten meters or so, there was a plastic sign:

DANGER. CONTAMINATED AREA.

“Contaminated,” she read aloud. “Fun. Should we be worried?”

“Probably not.” 

Sahota scaled the fence with ease, and Joy followed. The area inside was less overgrown than the surrounding woods. Weeds came up past her ankles, but all things considered, that was pretty well-kept. Directly ahead, nestled between a few trees, a white concrete building stuck up out of the earth like a broken molar.

For a moment, she forgot she wasn't alone, taking off towards the lab without another word to Sahota. It wasn't very big. Was most of it underground? Had this been built solely for the sixth sense project, or had they conducted other research here?

“Cavan.”

Joy stopped short at Sahota's voice, casting a sheepish glance over her shoulder. “Sorry.” She waited for him to catch up, then held back a bit, deciding it was probably smarter to follow his lead. She knew her way around a shady area, but he seemed far more versed in subtlety than she was.

Sure enough, he honed in on what she assumed was a maintenance door, and knelt in front of it to get at the lock. In the six steps it took for Joy to reach him, she heard a click, and then he was easing it open, squinting into the darkness with his one good eye.

“No lights, no sounds. Safe to assume they cut all power once shit hit the fan.”

She peered over his shoulder. The maintenance room looked untouched, if a little dirty, and at one end, a flight of concrete stairs descended into darkness. Inviting, in a survival horror kind of way.

Sahota produced a flashlight, turned it on with a twist, and led the way down the stairs. The door at the bottom was also locked, but he made quick work of it.

That was a good sign, right? If there was anything inside worth seeing, it had to have been sorta protected by these security measures. The second door opened into a silent hallway. A thin layer of grime covered once-white tile, and she could see a few darkened doorways further in.

“If the main target's Elysium, this must be Asphodel,” she said, wrinkling her nose as the smell of mildew wafted out to greet it.

Sahota cast a glance over his shoulder as he stepped into the hall. “Didn't pin you for someone who knows Greek mythology.”

It sounded like something she should take offense to, but Joy just shrugged. “I'm allowed to have more than one hobby.” It wasn't like she made a habit of studying mythology, but the Percy Jackson books were some of the few she'd been able to sit through as a kid. Not only that, she'd actually enjoyed reading them.

“You like reading?” Joy asked as they pushed further inside, past a few empty rooms that looked like they'd once been offices. The corridor seemed to end at a set of double doors, deep in the dark.

“When I have time,” Sahota replied.

“Funny, I didn't pin you for a nerd,” Joy said. It was too dark to see his face, but she was willing to bet he wasn't smiling. “Are the books in the library yours?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“All of them?” Her mind went to the copy of 1984, all the tally marks. At first she'd assumed they'd been made by some previous owner, but maybe it had been Sahota all along. What would he be counting? Missions? Kills? Why put it there, of all places?

“Some are Vic's,” he answered.

She couldn't imagine what Vic would be counting either, unless it was all the parades he’d rained on. “Got a favorite book?”

He was silent for a moment, the only sound the faint fall of their shoes on the grungy tile. “The Hobbit,” he said at last.

“You are a nerd.”

“Maybe.”

She couldn't see shit past the flashlight’s beam, but this time she swore she heard the touch of a smile in his voice. 

Before she could ask if he had a favorite character, they'd arrived at the double doors. They looked sturdy—or rather, they looked like they used to be sturdy. The layers of wood and metal had warped somehow, buckled outwards. Like it had been rammed with a truck from the other side, or sustained some kind of intense pressure.

Sahota tested the door on the left, and it gave, just a little. He hit it with a more focused shove, and it gave a little more.

“Help me get this open.”

Joy stepped forward, bracing her palms against the door and leaning forward with all her weight. The door swung open with an awful scraping sound and a terrible smell to match, all stale smoke and the sour odor of rusted metal. She took a step back, letting Sahota and his flashlight get in there first.

The walls were charred, likely by scientific failures. The floor was also charred, with a few random squares lightened by what she could only assume was the removal of equipment. It looked emptied out, but not completely. A few metal cabinets were jammed together against one wall, a few more toppled like dominoes near the center. 

If Joy didn't know any better, she'd say there’d been some kind of explosion in here. And really, she didn't know better.

“Site of the incident?” she said.

“Looks like it,” Sahota agreed. “Check the cabinets. We're looking for notes, blueprints, any surviving papers.”

Joy nodded, even though he couldn't see it, and moved to the first cabinet. Sahota set the flashlight in the middle of the room, creating a dim, but usable, glow. 

Cabinet number one wasn't in great shape. It seemed buckled in on itself, much like the doors, and getting the top drawer open took a lot of effort on Joy's part. With the scant lighting, she couldn't see what it held, and was resigned to feeling around inside. Nothing.

“How long have you been working with Vic, anyway?” she called over her shoulder as she moved to the second drawer.

“Almost twelve years now.”

Damn. “You guys must be close.” Vic was an asshole, there was no doubt about that, but had she been overthinking his and Sahota’s interactions? If they'd been together that long, they had to have some kind of weird coping mechanisms for when the other was hurt.

“Mm.”

A week ago, she would've asked exactly how close he and Vic were. She was still pretty sure they were romantically involved on some level, but their weird power dynamic made her… uncomfortable. But maybe it was just some kind of kink that had leaked out of their bedroom? If that was the case, it really wasn’t her business to be calling Vic a piece of shit to his partner’s face.

Joy wriggled open the next drawer. “Sorry about what I said before,” she said, feeling around the inside of the space. “About Vic treating you bad. I shouldn’t have made that assumption.” To her surprise, her fingers brushed paper. A few sheets by the feel of it. 

Behind her, Sahota let out a quiet sigh. “It’s fine. Vic’s… he’s hard to get used to.”

That was an understatement. She’d liked Vic in the beginning, but it hadn’t taken long to see the ruthless apathy hiding behind his friendly mask. Maybe under that there was yet another layer, a sweet side that only Sahota got to glimpse. For his sake, she sure fucking hoped so.

Aside from a lonely sheet of paper in a bottom drawer, the remaining cabinets held a grand total of nothing. Joy shuffled her findings into the crook of her arm.

“Can we move this back to the hall?” she asked once she’d given the drawers a final once-over. “The smell is gonna give me a headache.”

Sahota didn't say anything, but when he knelt to pick up the flashlight, she took it as a yes. Joy left the room in a hurry, taking a deep breath as soon as she'd gotten a good few meters away from the door. Sahota handed her the flashlight, a folded piece of paper clutched in his other hand.

“Check what we have. See if it's necessary to explore further.”

Joy nodded, scanning page one. It took a few attempts of reading the first line before the words actually stuck; her mind was still bouncing between all the other topics of the day. The mystery of the lab, the mystery of Vic and Sahota, the fact that she still hadn’t finished her quest for Jericho… Fuck.

She forced her eyes into focus.

Your X4900 printer’s settings can be accessed by toggling the home menu.

Joy sighed. “This one's no good.” 

“And the next?”

She shuffled the page to the back. “This one… looks like a list of names?”

“Names?” He leaned over her shoulder. It looked like some kind of spreadsheet; names and dates and a shitload of scientific jargon.

Marian Sullivan. 08-12-097. 09-29-133. 10-16-133. Failed acclimation, occular failure, released.

Ahmed Faisal. 11-02-102. 03-10-134. 04-22-134. Failed acclimation, observed deterioration. Released.

It was a list of… what, test subjects? For the sixth sense, or something else? Joy scanned the names, doing a double take when she reached the bottom.

Hunter Harbor. 04-11-113. 02-28-136.

The next two spaces were blank, as if still waiting to be filled in. Joy glanced at the doorway they’d left, the burnt-out, destroyed room. It looked like Harbor was the project’s only success by a hundred miles. And somehow, that hadn't been a great thing. 

She swapped pages. The next seemed to be another piece of some manual, but after that… a collection of notes.

Construction largely consists of a bio-friendly silicon isotope; flexible and non-degrading. Interior electronics package is shown to be well-shielded against external factors. Centermost hollow houses Isotope G—

Joy paused, glancing back at Sahota. “Isotope G. You know what that is?”

“No.”

Definitely seemed like something worth finding out.

—designed to power implant, provided activation can be achieved. Extent of properties unknown, has been shown to emit a unique energy signature.

Joy sighed, shuffling the page to the back. “So Rotorworx is sticking shit in people's heads without fully understanding it. Is that a common thing with them?”

“Rotorworx has a history of not thinking things through. They prefer to look at results over consequences.”

Joy looked down at the next sheet. “Oh, here's more on the G stuff.” It was another set of handwritten notes, neatly penned onto a torn piece of notebook paper. This time, she read aloud.

“Properties largely unexplored, further research to be conducted ASAP. Full energization has been achieved on a microscopic level through ionizing Na-22 sample in proximity. Energization resulted in temporary visual phenomena that witnesses described as ‘otherworldly’. Energization of larger sample to be enacted ASAP.” She glanced over her shoulder. “You don't think… maybe they used this shit for the Reality Cage too?”

“We shouldn't assume,” Sahota said, taking the page from her and squinting at it.

“They said it was otherworldly,” she argued. “Even if it doesn't open portals or whatever, is that gonna stop Rotorworx from trying to use it that way?”

The corners of his mouth tightened. “Probably not.”

Joy glanced at the papers in her hands, once again face to face with the printer manual. “What was the one you grabbed? Have you looked at it yet?”

“Not yet.” He passed it to her, and she hit it with the beam of the flashlight. More handwritten notes, which so far, had been the jackpot.

1237 - Rate raised to .070 mSv/H, no change.

1300 - Rate raised to .071 mSv/H, no change.

1320 - Session terminated. Results inconclusive. Subject stable.

She re-read it aloud for Sahota’s benefit. “Milli-Sieverts,” she finished with disbelief. “They were straight-up zapping the test subjects with radiation.”

It seemed like the researchers were trying to energize the ‘larger sample’ while it was inside someone's head. Even though she knew this project had been shut down, Joy still cringed at the thought. She didn't have every piece of the puzzle, but the bits they'd found didn't paint a pretty picture. How had this been allowed? Why hadn't anyone stopped it before everything blew up in their faces? Literally?

She handed the page back to Sahota. “Think we have all we need?” she asked.

“Isotope G is a good starting point,” he replied, tucking the paper away. “It's more intel than we came in with.”

“Thank fuck for that,” Joy replied, rolling her shoulders back in a stretch. She'd really prefer not to spend any more time in this pit. She passed Sahota the flashlight and got to her feet, following the beam back the way they'd come. Once they reached the top of the stairs, she threw open the maintenance door with a dramatic shove. Ah, sunlight.

She held the door steady for Sahota. “You know what? That was fun,” she said. 

He raised an eyebrow. “Really.”

“Really. Not every day you get to break into an abandoned lab and find weird shit. Fun.”

He let out a noise that might've been a laugh. Maybe. “Glad you enjoyed yourself.”

Joy grinned at him, leaning back against the white cinderblock and casting one final glance at the papers she'd found, now slightly crumpled from their place in her fist. She could probably trash them as soon as they made it past the fence. Sahota had the important shit, and she doubted she'd ever own an X4900 printer.

But in the daylight, something caught her eye.

Joy frowned, smoothing out the stack before grabbing the first manual page. Turning it over, seeing nothing but manufactured words. Nothing new, what had she just..? Ah. The second page, something had been scrawled with a soft pencil in the margins on the back, hardly noticeable.

“Hey,” she said. “I think there's more here.”

These notes were hastily written, like whoever'd made them was smack dab in the middle of something and just needed to get it down. It took her a second to make out the words.

0918 - Rate raised to 10 mSv/H. Material appears to react. A spike of energy equivalent to 11 Joules is read on the monitor.

0923 - Rate raised to 25 mSv/H. Material shows a spike of activity, equivalent to 78 Joules. Increasing.

“Sahota..?” Increasing. They'd managed to energize the G shit then, at least a little. This… this must've been Harbor's test. She continued reading, this time out loud.

“0929 - Source energy appears to malfunction. Readings asymmetrical. Geiger tube alarm threshold reached. Advise shut down and reschedule test. 

0932 - Rate raised to 100 mSv/H. Material energization increases exponentially, reading 939 Joules.”

Sahota frowned. “And then?”

“That's all,” she said, feeling her eyebrows knit tighter together. “It just ends.”

A hundred milli-sieverts. She'd never gotten too deep into nuclear physics, but that was a lot, right? At the very least it wasn't a healthy amount of radiation for a human to be exposed to. And she knew Joules. Harbor'd basically had a microwave going off in his head. Joy clenched her jaw. Even if she was still pissed at the guy, she couldn’t imagine how that would’ve felt.

“This is what caused the incident, isn't it? They tried to activate the… whatever Isotope G is, and it backfired.”

Sahota had taken the paper from her and was staring it down. “We can't know for sure, but…”

“But you'd agree it's pretty likely?”

He nodded, a grim set to his mouth.

“Fuck,” she whispered. It didn't surprise her that everything had gone so wrong. Popping energetic material into the human brain—even in the name of research—was a disaster waiting to happen. But if things had gone so wrong with something small enough to be implanted in someone's head, what could happen with larger quantities?

“Fuck,” she said again, louder, shaking her head when Sahota looked her way.

“We need to get to the Reality Cage as soon as we can,” she said.

“That is the mission,” Sahota replied.

“No, it's…” Joy shook her head again. “I think it's worse than we thought. I think…” She clenched her fists, tapping her knuckles against her thighs. “If Rotorworx is using Isotope G, if they're trying to fuck with it the same way they did here…” She looked him in the eye, setting her jaw.

“It's gonna be like setting off an atom bomb in the middle of the city.”

×~×~×

@theonewithallthefixations , @violets-whumperflies , @whump-me , @pirefyrelight , @soheavyaburden ,

@snakebites-and-ink , @whumpsday , @kixngiggles , @echo-goes-aaa , @whumpcateyes ,

@clickerflight , @sodacreampuff , @starfields08000

[artbybai]

Have Mercy On Me // Finally, Peace

Z Broly Angst doodle fan comic whatever

Ramble ( TW // Ideation headcanon )

Had the devastating realization/headcanon that maybe Z Broly saw fighting Goku as his only way out of the hellish suffering he was being put through by his own father all his life. There was no rivalry. Death was his only escape. Broly likely knew that he’d end up killing himself by letting loose all his power at once, or that Goku could at least be the catalyst for it.

Maybe Broly wasn’t even fully trying to destroy the Z Fighters, but just making it a good show for his father to give him the impression of doing his bidding—until Paragus ran. Abandoned him, after everything.

And then Broly didn’t care anymore. His efforts, wasted; every day he has ever been alive. His freedom after crushing Paragus wasn’t worth sticking around for anymore, given that the Z Fighters and everyone else would already consider him a threat in need of being put down for good, anyways. A freak. The devil himself. Nobody would ever even try to save him, like he once did for another, even as a baby.

Broly was screaming for mercy when he called for Kakarot, challenged him to fight, threatened to take away everything Goku loved. Of course the Z Fighters were in mortal danger, BUT, they were still in good enough condition that a senzu bean could heal them. That just… Sticks out to me. Broly easily could have one-shot TPK’d every single one of them once he went LSSJ.

He just wanted to escape.

(Of course I’m reading way too far into it all lol BUT this character speaks to me personally somehow. Broly’s tragedy of a story tears at my heartstrings like no other character before him the more I delve into what his character can be and mean. His story is a powerful warning and a heartfelt comfort, a devastating mirror.)

[moon-mirage]

Your biblically accurate Haymitch is everything to me, he's my fave character! If you ever wanted to make me cry and take an elaborate request, I'd love to see your take on Haymitch remembering his family/his girl in a half-drunken haze. Or even his devastation after the announcement of the Third Quarter Quell and he's remembering snippets of his Games while drunk at his kitchen table! :'(

So, a happy request for your favourite character then? I love it when people go "X is my favourite character… now make them suffer!" 😂

Now, it’s not like l want to make you cry but since you asked for it:

[everybody-loves-purdy]

What if I said Rootspring thinking about Bristlefrost in a few years time

[littleeggrock]

i did a little silly and accidentally wrote a whole 500 word one shot based on the ending of todays lethal stream with bolas + Ranboo lmao

they'd all do anything for the company, but especially Mouse. she's been here the longest and knows her way around the dangers of these planets. so when their ship malfunctions, and none of the controls work anymore, she knows what to do. the doors won't open anymore, but one of the hell beasts outside managed to make an opening and grab Cellbit before they could block up the crack again. That won't do, now they won't have the money to meet their quota. oh well. Ranboo goes willingly, kneeling before her as she looms over him with the sign. it takes 4 hits directly to the head to kill him, and Baghera helps her move his body over to the small pile of loot they gathered on this planet. Bags is next, and stands in front of her as she pledges her allegiance to Mouse and the company. it only takes one hit to break open her skull, she collapses over Ranboo and the crates, and Mouse wonders how much pain she was already in if that was all it took. Jaiden is last, crouched in the corner pleading for her life. Mouse loves Jaiden, one of her closest friends, but this is for the company. maybe they'll even let Mouse live if they ever recover their ship. Jaiden scrambles, muttering wildly to herself as she searches the controls for something, anything that could let her live. Mouse knows that this is a lost cause, but she indulges her anyways, because really, they aren't running on a time limit here. the ship is all but impenetrable now, nothing gets in, nothing gets out. that's just how it goes when they break, she's heard all the horror stories from other co-workers. eventually, Jaiden slows, all but whimpering as she is backed into the corner, and Mouse almost feels bad. but it's her or the company, and two hits cave her ribcage in as she pleads and screams, tears streaming down her face. a day passes. she can still hear the beasts outside, waiting for something. three have gone by now, and the bodies and blood have begun to smell. more creatures have arrived, howling and screeching as the sun goes down. the ship loses all power on day 6 of waiting, and she grabs the sign and starts trying to bash the door down. all passage of time has stopped for her, and the creatures outside howl with every clash of the metal, they too are waiting for her to escape. the company isn't coming, Mouse wonders if they ever were. who has she become? someone who kills her own friends under the guise of safety? under the selfish whim that maybe she could save her own miserable life. she's starving now, a raging thirst burning her from the inside out, but she who kills her co-workers does not deserve respite. eventually, at the dawn of the 7th day (though Mouse does not know this, for her it has been an eternity in darkness, tripping over the bodies and screaming until her voice gives out, yelling for help, screaming for something to take her out and listening to the chorus of animals outside respond) she blacks out and does not wake again.

[bylertruther]

i was doing my regular rewatch the other day and tbh... lonnie and will's relationship is so unsettling. lonnie literally did not give a single goddamn fuck that his own twelve year old son was missing and later "dead". he just... did not fucking care! at all. couldn't even pretend to. jonathan comes to tell him what happened and we see that...

lonnie got joyce's call and still didn't care to reach out,

when jonathan tells him this is serious and real, he mocks will by saying "he was never very good at taking care of himself" (which is already disturbing considering this is his son he's talking about, but especially so when you remember that lonnie abused will for being gay and tried to get him to like "masculine" things),

he's already talking to jonathan about seeing him more and reconnecting, like will isn't fucking missing, like he's already fucking dead and he's moved on, as if will is some stranger or worse someone that never existed at all,

instead of feeling any kind of shame about jonathan not believing him when he says will isn't there and him looking in the actual fucking trunk of his car, he just makes a joke out of it asking if jonathan's gonna check up his ass too,

his neglect is brought up again when jonathan slams one of the posters to his chest and tells him "in case you forgot what he looks like",

and that's not even touching on the fact that the very first thing we see lonnie do when jonathan enters the house is fucking shove and pin him to the wall, telling him "you got stronger".

like, he is not a good man in the slightest—the complete antithesis of the byers we know.

and then afterward... lonnie finally decides to come back. he's being nice to joyce and pretending like he's the man of the house again. like he's finally come home to fix and save his family.

he goes to will's funeral and treats it like a schmoozing event, like that isn't his youngest son being buried right in front of him, showing less emotion than one of will's classmates that hasn't ever even talked to him.

but... he's not there because he's had a sudden change of heart.

no, he's there because he has something to gain out of this unimaginable tragedy. his own youngest son is dead and he comes back home to collect a fucking check for it. because he's never cared about will, hasn't ever even seen him as a human being, he just... sees his death as something he can benefit from.

it's just so fucked up and so sinister. lonnie isn't a man riddled with vices, beholden to some disease which makes him act in ways most unbecoming. no, he's... just a man. a small, manipulative, and cruel leech of a man that just doesn't fucking care and is in it only for himself.

it's just... it's really tragic to think that will really was dealing with monsters way before that first demogorgon ever came through the gate.

and even then... that demogorgon was an animal acting as animals do / possessed by vecna and you can't really blame it for that. but what's lonnie's excuse, huh?

[cartoonsbyandie]

New contender for worst thing I’ve ever drawn (Source)

[electrozeistyking]

AU where Jestro dies for ten seconds upon being electrified. Monstrox, of course, is more perplexed by the fact he suddenly came back to life without any input than the fact he unwittingly killed him.

Bonus flats of the first image:

[shmorp-mcdurgen]

Mandela Prophet AU: Buried Memories

Adam has another nightmare. A nightmare about events he wished he had forgotten about.

TW: Body horror mentions, blood/gore, death implied

Notes: Around 1300 words, so. pretty damn short compared to my other fics. Got this idea randomly and thought it would be funny to write a little something so. yeah! this thing!!!

-----

 5:23 AM

           Adam was lying on his side, his body barely covered by the blankets draped over him as he was spread across his twin bed. He silently slept, his eyelids twitching slightly as his body shifted around on the mattress. He could barely get comfortable; despite how many times he fluffed his pillows or put more blankets on, he felt uncomfortable in his own skin on a good day and feeling like everything hurt at worse. However, the discomfort was minimal, meaning that when Adam heard his bedroom door creak open, his attention would snap to it instead of the internal unrest he felt.

           Adam’s eyelids flicked open, glancing around the dark bedroom before he looked towards the door, seeing a figure duck out of the way, into the hallway. Adam’s breath hitched as he sat up in bed, throwing the blankets off of him and staring into the oddly pitch black hallway. He swallowed hard, his clammy hand grasping the front of his white T-shirt as if it would give him any comfort. He shifted, planting his bare feet onto the carpet before standing up, his eyes staring into the inky blackness in complete silence. Maybe it was Sarah; getting a midnight snack or something, and Adam was getting restless for nothing. Either way, Adam found himself approaching the door slowly, noticing that the parasite in his chest was oddly calm despite his increasing heart rate.

           Adam walked out into the hallway, looking to his right to see Sarah’s bedroom door, noticing that it was closed. He could hear faint snoring from the other side of the wood, his brows furrowing when he realized Sarah was still asleep.

           “Adam.”

           Adam felt a chill run up his spine as he turned towards the other side of the hallway, two white dots where his pupils were reflecting through the darkness. He saw a figure quickly disappear into the darkness, with no light coming into the hallway aside from the moonlight from Adam’s bedroom, as if the hallway went on forever into the blackness of the void. Adam glanced back at Sarah’s bedroom door all before turning back and taking in a deep breath, walking into the darkness, after the voice he heard just out of sight.

           “Adam.”

           The hallway went on longer than Adam knew it should have. Every time he thought he reached the end, it only stretched further and further. The carpet beneath his feet turned into cold concrete, with a thin layer of water on top of it. The temperature dropped with every step forward, soon feeling as if Adam would freeze within a matter of seconds. Adam could see his lukewarm breath cloud in front of his face, though despite the cool air, he didn’t shiver or even acknowledge it. He was too focused on the voices he heard in the distance.

           “But Adam, if you walk down those stairs, you’d be joining her…” A familiar voice spoke, making Adam’s heart sink. Adam wanted to speak back, but his words were stuck in his throat, unable to be choked out. Adam shook his head, turning back to retreat into his bedroom before he was stopped. He looked forward, his breath becoming heavier when all he saw was a wall in front of him.

           “And if by some miracle you come back out, I don’t think you’d be yourself.”

           Adam turned back around towards the voice to see a door, stained near the bottom with a red substance Adam didn’t even want to think about. Adam’s mind was going too fast for him to even start to question what was going on before he reached towards the doorknob, jerking his hand back as soon as he felt the ice cold metal on his fingertips. He took in a shaky breath before grasping the handle and pushing the door open.

           Cold winter air and snowflakes hit his face as soon as the door opened fully, Adam’s tired eyes widening at the sight in front of him. He stepped outside, his bare feet hitting the snow cloaking the ground of the field, leaving footprints behind. Adam looked around, seeing that the doorway led into the field in between Bythorne and Mandela, seemingly attached to no building or hall. Adam’s heart filled with dread as he walked forward, seeing all too familiar sights.

Adam’s eyes fixated on the car sitting on the side of the road, its doors open and the right blinker flicking on and off. He looked into the vehicle, seeing blood staining the dashboard and splattered against the windshield. He turned towards the road in front of the car, seeing the puddle of blood freezing onto the asphalt. He stared at it, feeling a slight twitch come from his chest before he heard the voice again.

“Adam.”

Adam walked around the car, staring into the field before freezing, though not due to the cold. His arms dropped to his sides as he stared into the dark field, his eyes dilating to see further. Standing in the middle of the field was a man, standing with his arms straight down, his pose stiff and odd, like a mannequin. He was wearing a white sweatshirt underneath a black leather jacket, along with blue jeans and snow-covered red high-tops. However, through his teary eyes, Adam could see that his clothes were covered in snow, freezing the blood running down from the stump where his head would have been.

“Jonah?” Adam choked, feeling a pressure in his chest, not from the parasite that called his body its home, but the overwhelming dread building within his very soul. Jonah didn’t respond, standing as still as a statue, thick coagulated blood dripping onto the pure white snow below his feet. Adam stumbled backwards, tripping over his feet before swinging his body towards the doorway, only to see that it was no longer there. Adam’s breathing picked up speed as he looked back at the car, letting out a yelp when he saw Jonah’s headless body standing in the beams of the headlights. Adam couldn’t look away from Jonah’s body before he glanced towards the other side of the field, eyes widening when he saw a bird-shaped shadow rapidly flying across the ground. Adam shook his head, ignoring the tears streaming down his face as he turned the other way and ran.

           He sprinted into the forest by the field, ignoring the intense feeling that something was directly behind him. He felt a pressure building in his chest as he ran, ignoring the burning he felt inside and the inhuman laughing he heard from above the trees. The branches of the trees bent like arms, creaking and cracking on both sides as Adam ran through the thick forest. He kept stumbling over his feet, pressing his arm against his stomach and grimacing as he felt the shifting of half-formed limbs inside of him. He was sobbing; all before he fell to his knees, unable to keep moving as the pain inside of him became unbearable.

           He turned onto his back, staring up into the inky blackness of the night sky before he saw something come into view; Jonah, staring down at him as his cold blood dripped onto Adam’s chest. Adam’s mouth hung open, feeling mandibles scratching at his inner cheeks as he spoke. “I-I’m sorry.” He squeaked through the tears, the pain, and the overbearing guilt. “Jonah…I’m s-sorry.” Adam’s bloodshot eyes gazed at Jonah as his body shook, all before he shut his eyes tight, hoping it would all end.

           Until he found himself on the living room floor.

           Adam awoke drenched in sweat, no longer feeling the bitter cold of winter nor the cold blood dripping on his chest. He felt the burning in his chest continue and the parasite press against his back as he laid on the floor hyperventilating. Adam could feel it; it was wanting out at that very moment, skipping over the five minutes of agony and getting to the point. As his ribs shifted and the parasite clawed at his back, he turned onto his stomach, sobbing as he realized he had no time to warn Sarah.

He just hoped him screaming in agony would be enough of a warning for her.

[ourflagmeansgayrights]

MAJOR OFMD S2 SPOILERS!!

talkin' about the most recent leaked audition tape below the cut!

so we now have the leaked archie audition tape, archie being one of the two probable s2 lesbians and who will be played by madeleine sami (who is not actually the woman in the audition tape, for those of you who are also faceblind like me lol). i want to talk about the first scene from the audition tape

it's hard to tell what's going on, since it sounds like there's at least three characters in this scene and two of those characters are being read by someone off-screen. but here's a rough transcript of that scene:

READER(CHARACTER 1?): Let me die you cunts! Archie: Woah, hey! Easy on the c-word, compadre. That word just—makes me feel really uncomfortable READER(CHARACTER 2?): Sorry, man, we got orders. ARCHIE: Bite down on this. [HOLDS OUT BELT] READER(CHARACTER 1?): Bite down on my nob you bugging twat! ARCHIE: ...Okay. [ARCHIE SMACKS THE BELT ONTO A TABLE OFF-SCREEN, POSSIBLY KNOCKING CHARACTER 1? UNCONSCIOUS] ARCHIE: Um, do you think you could do the honors? Cause I’m—I’ll be honest I’m more of a, um, stabber than a chopper. I don’t love chopping. [SMACK NOISE FROM SOMEWHERE OFF-CAMERA, PRESUMABLY THE CHOPPING] ARCHIE: Ooh, haha, ugh. Icky. Icky yucky. READER(CHARACTER 2?): Well that was um, that was intense. ARCHIE: Haha. Super intense, eh? Superrr intense. [LONG PAUSE, ARCHIE MAKES PROLONGED EYE CONTACT WITH PERSON OFF-CAMERA] ARCHIE: [WHISPERS] Do you wanna...? [ARCHIE GRINS AND RUNS OFF-CAMERA]

so, obviously we have to take scenes from auditions tapes with a grain of salt. like, i doubt this is finalized dialogue. it's possible the plot has changed in some way since casting the role of archie. and also, again, it's kind of hard to really tell what's going on

but from what i can see, here's what i personally think is going on:

izzy is character 1

izzy is getting something amputated. probably his foot or part of his leg.

izzy calls the people in the room "cunts"

archie expresses discomfort with the word "cunt"

izzy then calls her a bugging twat

archie knocks him unconscious

the other person in the room proceeds to chop off izzy's body part

archie and the other person in the room... get horny from this? and leave to go hook up

(that last one tracks with the next scene, where it sounds like ed is making archie and another person fight to the death because "all love dies." this could be the same person who did the "chopping" in the scene above.)

and again, we don't know for sure that this is what's going on here! the plot might change, and it's kinda hard to tell who's saying what. but here's my main takeaways from this bit:

1. this scene is meant to be funny

unlike the toe scene, this scene seems tonally in-line with lucius's amputation scene in s1e06. just like how roach saying "knives are knives, meat's meat" was meant to be funny, archie's "icky, icky yucky!" is meant to be funny. it's also meant to be funny that and then she makes bedroom eyes at the person behind the camera and they presumably go hook up, after just having chopped a body part off izzy.

and yeah, that's pretty gross and fucked up! yknow what else is fucked up? the nose jar. lucius cutting off his own finger. making a turtle fight a crab. beating each other up for "vacation." lighting people on fire. turning people into furniture. "making some poor bloke eat his own toe for a laugh."

the show treats stuff like this as funny. this is nothing new. this should absolutely not be a surprise to anyone. izzy's foot (or other body part, but most likely his foot as a result of an infection) getting cut off in a comedy scene is very on-brand for this show.

2. izzy's misogynistic language is given a female target

izzy's probably delirious and feverish from his infection, just like lucius was in s1e06. interestingly enough, lucius did not call anyone misogynistic slurs when he was delirious and in pain. and lucius especially didn't call anyone a misogynistic slur after they told him they were uncomfortable with the first misogynistic slur he called them.

yeah, izzy's probably delirious in this scene. but the writers who wrote this dialogue probably weren't. in this scene, a woman expresses discomfort with being called a misogynistic slur, and when izzy then tells her to "bite down on my knob you bugging twat" she proceeds to hit him, possibly knocking him out. this is not the final cut of the show, so this scene might play out differently on screen, or maybe this scene will be cut altogether. but i think there's three possibilities for what this means for izzy's character arc in season 2:

they cut this scene entirely and we never see izzy say sexist slurs to a woman at any point in season two. if/when he continues to say "twat" or "cunt" it does not get called out

izzy gets the same feminism 101 arc that black pete got in season 1

the story punishes izzy for using sexist slurs but he doesn't have any character growth about it. izzy getting body parts chopped off becomes a running gag.

and on a smaller scale, here's what i think it means for this scene alone, provided that the final cut of the show has similar dialogue:

the writers chose to have izzy call a woman a cunt to her face because they want to make it clear that he is the butt of the joke in this scene

this is different from lucius's amputation scene, where he was still the butt of the joke but he was portrayed more sympathetically. this decision to write izzy less sympathetically was done deliberately.

3. medical inaccuracy in ofmd is alive (lol) and well

bro they literally just leave him there. like they chop a body part off this man and then leave him there. they don't stitch him up or anything they just leave his unidentified body part as a bleeding stump. whatever they cut off is probably still on the goddamn table.

this shit is hilarious i love this show so fucking much.

[muffledexplosion162]

“..?”