#trying to have fun here without being constantly misinterpreted in bad faith. like i get it. i do. idk.

[mikesbasementbeets]

it's getting a little tiring trying to talk about mike and having to couch everything in five layers of "not to excuse his actions" and "not to downplay anyone else's importance" and "not to demonize this other character" and "not saying this is the only thing going on" and "not dismissing every other meaning this has" and like i'm seeing other people starting to do this more often too

idk feels like some people just insist on having the worst faith interpretations when people want to analyze mike specifically i'm just constantly worrying i haven't put enough "i do understand this character and the implications around his narrative and relationships with others" disclaimers even on silly little posts/reblogs that aren't supposed to be serious i'm just kind of tired

[sovpologist]

hi, genuine question! I want to like Mara, but d2 lore shows her, in my eyes, as selfish and cruel, set on her own goal with no consideration for others. At least that's what I got from marasenna lorebook.

Why is she liked by so many in community? I feel like I'm overlooking something over things I mentioned above, but I would appreciate a perspective from someone who likes her character! If it's okay to ask!

its totally okay to ask!! this is going to be a long post so im going to put it under a readmore :)

i just want to stress first that mara is like.... widely disliked by many in the community. it used to be very unpopular to like her and if you even said anything remotely positive about her, people would reply to your posts and send you anons about how you were a terrible person for liking such a manipulative and toxic character. it was only recently that community opinion kind of started to shift, and people started to actually appreciate her character as nuanced and interesting. i definitely dont think this is because of me or anything crazy like that, but ive tried to correct misconceptions about her and cultivate a space on my blog at least where people can just openly like mara and not feel like they have to qualify it by constantly assuring people that they know mara's done bad things too (because literally every character in d2 has done bad things, and somehow people understand that liking the uldren doesnt mean you support him killing cayde but cant apply that same concept to mara for some reason). ok, im getting off my soapbox now and im going to just talk about why i like her.

mara is genuinely just such a fascinating character to me. reading the marasenna im really struck by how alone she is, even as a 19 year old human. her mom has essentially abandoned her and says that she's mara's friend but not her mother, and mara's father is never mentioned, so mara literally has no parental guidance or supervision or love. this puts a lot more of her pre-awoken actions into context, such as her not knowing how to interact with people and preferring to keep herself away from the rest of the crew. everyone mara loves leaves her. her mom stays in the distributary, uldren is distant in his efforts to impress and surprise her and then dies, and sjur dies too.

i also love mara's character arc, although it kind of makes me sad. mara is so painfully human in the earlier parts of the marasenna. she's awkward, she's lonely, she thinks her and uldren's secret language is "cool," she gets embarassed at her mom's embarrassing petnames, she hero-worships alis li and listens to her advice. watching her lose all of this and crystalize into a queen is so interesting. remember, mara didn't go out into the fight between the darkness and the traveler bc she knew she would gain power and create the awoken, its stated that she went out there to die. so a 19 year old just trying to die peacefully ends up witnessing firsthand the power of the dark and light and being tasked with essentially creating a new species, knowing that one day she wants to go back and fight the darkness. she becomes such a politician and has to scheme and plot and really loses her humanity while following ALIS' advice- alis was the one who told her that people need a mascot, not a friend. this also makes for a really interesting scene where alis grants mara one favor, and instead of asking for political power, even though mara is such an intensely political and scheming person, she tells alis the truth about the awoken and asks for forgiveness. alis, who mara looked up to, doesnt forgive her, and mara really internalizes this and starts to permantantly close herself off. mara made herself into a queen and lost her humanity in the process. there's a couple people who see the real her, like sjur, but even sjur doesnt really understand her. but her relationship with sjur is also so well written and interesting, sjur being the one person she lets herself drop her mask around and just act human. i made a post about this once, but even mara's speech patterns change around sjur, becoming much more casual and "normal." however, at the same time, mara's mask/persona is a part of her character, and one that i love. people hate her for being "mean," but i like characters like that. mara doesnt take any shit, even from the protagonist, and has her own plans and goals that she doesn't feel obligated to share or change for other people. she's ambitious, sticks to her guns, and doesn't allow other people to influence her.

you say she's selfish, and i think it is easy to brush her off as selfish and doing everything for her own gain, but there's a lot of subtext and outright text in the marasenna and other lore that shows mara genuinely believes that the only way to fight the darkness is to become a being on the same level as the darkness and the traveler. she doesn't let the awoken become immortal gods, which some people regard as a bad thing, but she did that for a reason. mara understands that a people who are eternal and ageless will never grow as people, and she knew that the darkness wanted them to just be complacently sitting aside in their little realm while it does whatever it wants. mara wasn't going to let that happen, and knew she had to find a way to encourage people to leave paradise. you can dislike the way she went about this, essentially encouraging conflict and war among her people, but she did not just do it for her own gain or amusement. mara has also been hated on for starting the reef war/firing a missile at the house of wolves, people act like she did that just for fun too, but the eliksni fleet was heading to conquer earth. instead of just hiding and building up her own resources, which wouldve been the logical thing to do in this situation, mara put her own fleet and power on the line to draw the eliksni's attention away and help earth. she doesn't do things solely bc they benefit her, but because she genuinely loves and wants to help earth. her uncaring persona is a mask, the thing that she feels she needs to be for people to have faith in her.

i have more to say but this is already so long and ive said a lot, so i'll end it here :) at the end of the day, some people are just not going to like mara and thats totally fine. she's not everyone's type, bc she IS ambitious and manipulative and sometimes cruel. i just wish she didnt get a disproportionate amount of hate for being like that when i know for a fact that if she was a male character she would not get this much hate, and i wish that people could just dislike her normally without lying about her or misinterpreting her character and motivations. but if you dont like her, you dont like her! sometimes we just dislike characters, sometimes for well thought out reasons snad sometimes just for no reason! thats completely fine, as long as you're respectful!!

[cgmayra]

I know this is super unoriginal, but how about a boom!sonamy mistletoe story?

(x) Permission was given by artist! If you’re an artist or have artists friends who would be fine with letting me use their art for ‘Preview Images’ for my stories, please let me know! I would be very grateful!!!

I don’t think it’s unoriginal, I have done one before, but that was years ago… So I’ll try and write a new one this time XD

Prompt:

All was adorned with decorations and fun.

Leafs on trees had fallen off slowly, but Amy had excitedly waited for her perfect snow day.

That way…

Sonic couldn’t escape!

She squee’d as she pushed her muzzle up against the glass of her warm home, hearing that a mysterious wind had brought a great cold to the usual tropical island.

Excited about this change, she purchased a traditional tree and even… a silent, but hopeful mistletoe to work some holiday magic!

Eggman… on the other hand, hated this cold front.

Amy smiled and closed her eyes, feeling the cold of the window seep onto her nose and give her a thrilling chill of the freezing degree of the world outside…

Eggman huddled near a fire he man-made and coughed at the smoke, not able to open a window or having made plans to make a chimney. He was bundled up, but still freezing…

“Confound it all!” He threw his blanket down, looking fat with layers of clothes, stacked hats, and mittens all toppled over the other in a frantic attempt at staying warm. “This hunk of metal grows cold just by a sneeze! Now we’ve got this miserable weather abnormality… HA-CHU! -sniff-… Cold moves right through me too… What luck! I can’t even attack Sonic today like I planned without freezing half to death!”

Eggman imagined him in his icy eggpod, floating over the battlefield while rubbing his arms, his teeth chattering, and the team having a snowball fight to destroy his robots.

He shook his head, snapping out of it. “I HATE the cold…” His eyebrows dipped sinisterly down, before striding the best he could with a wedgie and so many layers that it was almost impossible to move right with them all on.

He moved over to his microwave, took it out, and examined it. “Hmm… If I could cause a huge heat wave to this cold front… I could create enough force to melt the snow and bring our warm weather back.” He planned out loud in his head, but Cubot and Orbot looked at each other.

Finally, Orbot boldly moved forward, meekly rubbing his hands together, “But… wouldn’t that cause a wind speed conflict? Something like a-“

“Tornado!!!” Cubot flung his arms up, spinning around frantically as Orbot looked away from him, spiraling off behind him, and shook his head with slanted, disapproving eyes.

“Hmm… still a good plan to take out the island’s inhabitants… And even Sonic!” He giddily yanked the cord out from the wall, not even giving it a second thought, “Boys! Get Steve on the line! We’re getting rid of this- winter. wonder. land.” He glared at each work spoken, moving slowly over the syllables as if to emphasise and stress his hatred for it.

Amy excitedly welcomed her friends in the door, looking up constantly at the mistletoe and moving them discreetly away from it as they came in.

“Hello, how are you-Woop! Watch out, ice puddle. Hello, Sticks- Ah! To your left more,… perfect! Welcome in~ Knuckles, happy to see you- Wah! Watch your step, buddy. SONIC!” after moving them in and dodging them standing under it, Amy happily blocked the entrance of her home from Sonic, who abruptly halted from the fast-paced line being suddenly interrupted in its flow and simply just waved.

“Oh, uh… Hiya, Amy! What’s up? It was really awesome of ya to open your house for us… less fortunate… haha.” He hunched down a little, putting his hands together as he smiled weakly up at her. His home was not ‘properly built’ for anything ‘cold’. So Amy’s ‘Snow Party’ was very much welcomed when she mentioned it would be hosted in her warm abode.

Amy giggled, thrilled to introduce him to a traditional Christmas gag, but waited for him to step under it.

“Umm…” he rubbed his arm, then shifted his eyes to the right. “M-may I come in?” He was freezing, and asking felt a little weird but Amy wouldn’t budge…

She blinked her eyes, expecting him to move closer. “Sure.” But she didn’t move.

He rose an eyebrow, before looking behind him and seeing the snows swirl with such power, the wind blasting them in its wake, and clearly, a horror-scene was waiting to happen…

A Sonic Snowman was about to be formed…

He gulped and looked back to Amy, “Hey! I’ll freeze to death out here!” He finally stated, trying to move past her but she blocked his way time and again.

“O-oh, I’ll just step backwards then..” She tried to not make it obvious… but stepped precisely behind the mistletoe.

“Phew, finally…” Sonic got one foot to the rim of the door’s bottom frame when Amy cried out in glee.

“You’re under the mistletoe!”

“The what?” Sonic felt his legs start buckling up from the cold, his back shivering, and finally… his ears growing numb along with his cheeks.

The gang inside, happy and warm, were taking off some layers of clothes before gasping and looking back at the door.

“You say you found the missing toe?” Sticks, completely intrigued, peered over from the couch.

“No, not a toe!” Amy looked disgusted by her misinterpretation, before pushing Sonic gently back out the door. “If a boy and a girl are under the mistletoe during a white snow day… that means… well, especially on Christmas anyway… actually, it’s a tradition that all started with-“

As Amy dragged on, explaining, Sticks started snoring, becoming absolutely uninvolved now that the topic was less to her liking. Sonic began to see ice forming on his nose, his teeth clattering as he held himself, his lips becoming blue.

“I really need to come in, can you tell me about it later?” He had no idea what she was talking about, nor why she was so passionate about it. But right now, his mind was in survival mode.

He needed to get in now!

“O-oh, right. So that means you have to-!” She lifted her arm and closed her eyes for a split second, and with that moment, Sonic dashed to the fire and skid on his frozen knees, swiping off his scarf and basking in its glow.

“WARM ME!” he cried out, demanding the fire to obey him as he bent his back all the way back and sighed out a long-winded breath at the immediate warmth he received.

“Ahhh… that’s it. Thank you.” He then turned to see Amy’s eye twitching.

She slammed the door shut. “You can’t get out of a Christmas tradition!” she complained.

“But I was dying! I still can’t really feel my lips!” Sonic pointed to them, before moving to the fire and rubbing them, making a silly sound with them.

“Ugh, I could have helped with that…” Amy groaned to herself, leaning on the door and folding her arms, pouting.

Her plan had failed… not surprisingly… but maybe she could get him before he left…

Suddenly, the snow was flooding the house through the cracks from the door frame and around the home, as a terrible heat wave was creating countless tornados and hurricanes!

After some Christmas fun, the team was ripe and ready to rumble but had to take off their extra layers, sweating from the new heat.

“I can’t believe… he’d ruin the island’s first real snow day.” Tails complained, wiping his forehead and taking off his heavy jacket.

“That fiend..! He’s killed Larry!” Knuckles mourned the loss of his crudely made snow-castle, having given it a smile, a carrot nose, and two bead eyes that stared into your soul.

It began to melt away… as he leaped towards him and carried to giant handfuls into Amy’s home, stuffing them in the freezer. “I won’t abandon you, Larry! Not now! Not ever!”

“My home!” Amy cried out, “Why is it you guys always trash it!?” She placed her hands on the sides of her cheek, before seeing a massive wave carry through her home, knocking her friends and her down.

But worst of all…

“The mistletoe!”

She rose up to see the stream of warm water carrying her precious tradition down to town.

She raced frantically after it, as Sonic was climbing dead trees to stay out of the water.

“Ah! Amy!” He saw her getting caught in the stream and glared at Eggman. “Hey! The snow isn’t all that bad, Egghead! Why’d you have to ruin everything!?”

Eggman sat with a long-bathing suit from older times and sipped some tropical drink with an umbrella in his Eggpod, soaking up the sun.

“Ah~ Nothing like a good tan, some sauna steam, and an annoying hedgehog complaining in your ear~”

“Grr…”

After taking down the machine, the team desperately looked for Amy, who had also taken out some water robots Eggman had sent to the village.

When she counteracted the tornado with her own hammer spinning, the other wind currents turned cold once more, and no more formed after that…

She reached desperately up to a roof for her mistletoe, having followed it with absolute faithfulness, but felt her foot slip on some melting ice and start falling.

“AHH!!!”

“Got’cha!” Sonic raced up and grabbed her, smiling cheekily, “Miss me?”

“My mistletoe!”

“What’s so special about that herb, anyway?”

“Ohhh! If you would have let me finish! It means we have to-!”

She reached out for it, before pulling back and frowning at him, but the plant toppled off from the winds and smacked Sonic right on the lips.

“ACK!” He hacked and spat it down to hit Amy’s lips, where she took it off and held it out.

“Tastes terrible!” he coughed, but Amy blushed, realizing…

She shifted her eyes to Sonic and blushed more as she held the mistletoe up. “Does this make one more?”

“One more what?”

Before she could, Sonic turned his head to the others calling, and Amy aborted the mission when she noticed he didn’t see her attempt at a kiss.

She hid the mistletoe after that… played in the newly falling snow, and enjoyed the rest of the day.

She even let him go without complaint.

But apparently,… Eggman heard Sonic complaining about the plant and mentioned what it meant, and then snickered at thinking they may have kissed.

Sonic, embarrassed by the truth of Amy’s schemes, tried to avoid any plant that hung over his head for a full month! Still not really understanding what it truly meant…

(I’m not sure if the real show would mention ‘Christmas’ but if not- ‘snow day’ works too xD)

[snappingsound]

Summerland

Happy Halloween, everyone! I really wanted to begin posting Part III today, but it’s just not quite ready. I have a few more chapters to finish up and then an editing pass. So I thought I’d post this instead. This ditty takes place in the same world, but is along a different timeline. It is tangentially related to the main story of A Snapping Sound. I had lots of fun writing it. Hopefully you spooks will enjoy it too. 

Alice Fox did not believe in ghosts. In fact, she didn’t believe in much of anything. It was a constant thorned crown of pain to her devoutly Christian mother and father, and a source of bemusement to her recently converted Jewish older brother, Parker. Faith, and the dearly departed, more than politics, was the one topic best avoided in the Fox den.

So why was she working the reception in a haunted ‘museum’?

It was a question that, just this morning, Alice had been asking herself more often than not. She had opened the museum one hour ago. Already, an older woman had fainted on the morning tour from a ghost-story induced panic attack. Alice had already been already asked five times if she had ever experienced any paranormal activity while at work, and, on top of all that, had been cornered into hearing the long and bloodied past of a guest’s Palm Springs condo.

It wasn’t even ten in the morning.

Alice let out a small groan and, instead of letting her head fall onto the wooden surface of the receptionist desk like it wanted to do, she tilted it up at the ceiling. Her curly brown hair fell away from her face as she squinted two equally brown eyes up at the museum’s infamous ruby chandelier.

“Disneyland,” she whispered, a reminder. Or, more of a pep talk.

That was why she worked here, and would remain working here all summer long. She needed exactly four-hundred and seventy-two dollars to fly to Anaheim with the rest of her high school orchestra. She played the Viola. And while she wasn’t one for animated movies, she loved theme parks. More specifically— roller coasters. Also, she had never been out of Ohio. Her parents weren’t ones to travel, and her family rarely had spare cash.

Most of the time, working the museum wasn’t so bad. It had air conditioning and free coffee. In between tours was hours of downtime where Alice could do her homework or watch YouTube. Once in awhile a guest would wander in without making a reservation, and she would deal with them, but for the most part the entryway remained quiet.

It really was a pretty place to work, too.

Alice took in the restored frescoed ceiling and the delicate Victorian lace trimmings. Far, far above her head on the domed ceiling, lions and wolves leaped and chased prey, tearing fur and skin apart, their eyes staring directly down at anyone that passed beneath. The morning sunlight refracted off the absurdly intricate ruby chandelier, making their eyes seem to glow red.

If she was easily spooked, or believed any of the rumors of this place, spending hours alone in this hallway would have gotten in her head. It was why her boss paid her even more than any of the guides. He couldn’t find anyone else who felt comfortable sitting alone in this house. Alice didn’t understand it, but hey, why question a gift horse?

A hollow clunk jolted her out of her thoughts, jerking her attention from the ceiling.

A tall, fit boy with creamy dark skin smiled. In one hand he held a mug of coffee. With the other, he pushed a second mug across the table. “Wilmot Morgan,” he said, by way of a greeting.

Another very strong case for not quitting: Bishop Lee, or as everyone called him, Hopper. He was a Senior and Alice had spent the past year crushing on him. She wasn’t alone. Almost every girl at Casper High crushed on Hopper at some point or another. It was because he was a good head taller than every other boy his age and he was steadfastly shy. His introversion had been misinterpreted as enigmatic. It didn’t help that, in her overly superstitious hometown of Amity Park, Hopper’s Native American heritage placed him squarely in the ‘folklore’ category, whether he liked it or not.

While Alice’s crush had definitely centered around his high cheekbones and kind hazel eyes, the way her class exotified him not only infuriated her, but had been what, ultimately, forced her to let go of her crush and get to know him as a friend.

This past summer she had shared more sentences with Hopper than she had the past five years of elementary, junior, and high school. And while she certainly still liked him, she was no longer paralyzed with affection whenever he swung by her desk. During those daily desk visitations, Alice had learned he harbored a meganerd obsession with this house and a strong belief in spirits, which made him a lot less mysterious and a whole lot sillier.

Alice realized Hopper was staring at her expectantly, although his grin had faded a bit.

“Sorry, what?” she asked. She reached out and grabbed the mug from him. It said I SEE DEAD PEOPLE on the side. Hopper had most certainly picked it out on purpose.

“The ceiling. It was painted by Wilmot Morgan in 1902,” Hopper explained, taking a sip from his own mug and shooting the fresco a fond glance. “A commission.”

“He was a very detailed artist,” Alice entertained.

“She,” Hopper corrected. “Morgan was a woman.”

Alice blinked. She took in the ceiling again, in a different light.

Most of their conversations revolved solely around the house itself— never about homework, or school, or family life. Alice could never tell if this was Hopper’s way of trying to get her to believe, or if it he found those other topics too painful or too boring to bring up.

He raised his mug in a cheers. “You should—”

“Go on one of your tours,” Alice interrupted. “Yes, I know. Unfortunately, my job is to man the front desk.”

“You might learn something.” Hopper took a long sip from his mug. His usually sparkling eyes hollowed out and his grin twisted into more of a grimace. “My people say this house sits atop sacred land. An Indian chief was buried long before it was ever built. That’s why the land is cursed.”

Despite herself, Alice felt a chill run down her spine. “Are you serious?” She had meant it to come out sarcastic, but her body betrayed her.

Hopper’s haunted expression cracked and he let out a short laugh. “No, Alice. There’s no stupid Indian burial ground. That’s just a bunch of crap white people made up.”

“I knew that,” Alice blurted. She hid her burning cheeks behind her coffee mug, taking a big, flustered, sip. It burned. She forced herself to swallow it instead of spit it back out to avoid any further mortification.

“I hope you’re not saying stuff like that to the guests,” a voice grumbled.

Hopper winced and spun. “Of course not, Mr. Lancer. Guides speak only truth,” he recited.

Coming from down the hall, Mr. Lancer paused and spared the two of them a suspicious look, though it was hard for him to see Hopper’s face considering Hopper was abnormally tall and Lancer had developed a rather bad hunch in his old age. “Enough actually happened here. We don’t need to further encourage rumors and hearsay,” Lancer warned.

A blanket of gloom descended over the entryway.

Mr. Lancer had personally known the teenagers that died here. It was the reason he had founded this museum in the first place. Whenever her boss mentioned what happened, Alice couldn’t help but feel a tinge of remorse for being so unaffected by the house’s past.

Lancer didn’t make Hopper uncomfortable. Quite the opposite, Lancer’s stories fascinated him. Hopper had also worked here a lot longer than her. Alice supposed she’d get used to Lancer eventually.

“Good morning, Alison,” Lancer greeted.

“Morning.” She didn’t know if she would classify it as ‘good’.

It seemed to satisfy Lancer, though, who handed her a sheet of paper with the list of attendees for the noon tour, and shuffled back down the hall towards his office.

Alice plucked the paper and scanned the list. “Twenty-seven,” she counted.

Hopper whistled. More people meant a bigger tip pool for the guides to split at the end of the day. “I should go change.”

Movement out on the very edge of her gaze caused Alice to peer at the second floor railing. She had sworn she had seen a dark shape, like a cat or a raccoon, but there was nothing. Some of the rubies in the great chandelier casted jewel shine on the wallpaper up there and whenever a breeze passed through it gave the sensation that the wallpaper was crawling. That had probably been it.

When she took in the room again, she found herself alone. Hopper must have gone to grab his uniform. She had missed him leave. Alice sighed, a little disappointed, and instead set about logging the number of people attending the tour onto the museum’s spreadsheet.

A knock on the door interrupted her as the computer booted up.

“It’s open,” Alice called.

It wasn’t uncommon for guests to knock instead of freely enter the museum. The museum was a house, so it was a bit weird to walk straight inside without knocking first, but it meant Alice had to get up from her desk to open the door constantly. After her first week, she had even made a sign that said ‘Come on in!’ and had taped it next to the door handle. Still, some guests continued to knock first.

When the knock happened again, Alice gave up, sliding off her stool and opening the door. “Next time, you don’t have to knock. You can just walk right in,” she said, trying be as polite as possible, while still being informative.

A boy around her own age tilted his head. “Really?” he asked, still standing on the doormat, despite the fact that Alice was holding the door open.

“Sure. I mean, as long as we’re open.”

The boy walked inside. As he passed her Alice felt a radiating cold, as if the boy was carrying an open freezer. Something in her unsettled, wanted to run, but just as quickly as the impulse came upon her, she shrugged it off as stupid.

Alice settled back behind her desk and watched the guest meander the entryway, taking in the double staircases and the ceiling that Alice herself had been ogling earlier.

This wasn’t odd behavior. They were, after all, a museum, and the detail poured into this house’s construction at times felt like a kaleidoscope for the eyes. But, something about this boy was familiar, and the fact that Alice couldn’t put her finger on it made her uneasy. She knew him from somewhere. Maybe he resembled a famous person. With hair and an outfit like that, he reminded her of James Dean.

“You’re pretty early for the noon tour,” she mentioned, feeling like she had to initiate polite conversation. “It’s not for another twenty minutes.”

The boy turned and stared, bright blue eyes blank.

Oh, so he was one of those guests that didn’t read the website. Looked like it was just going to continue to be one of those mornings. Swallowing her annoyance, Alice explained, “The museum gives four tours, each about two hours long. Our guides will take you through the entire house as well as the backyard and surrounding forest. The next tour is at noon.”

At the boy’s completely baffled look, Alice felt a little bad for being so cold. She grabbed the sheet of tour attendees and a pen. “There’s still three spots left, if you want to join?”

The boy scrunched his freckled nose and scanned her desk for a long moment, almost as if he didn’t understand what it, or she, was doing there.

Alice’s annoyance came back, this time tempered with a tiny bit of fear. This kid was beginning to creep her out. Once in awhile a guest wandered in that truly loved all the horrific gory shit that went down here, and those guests always freaked Alice out a lot more than any of the ghost stories ever did. “What’s your name?” she asked, working to keep her tone squarely in the polite camp, lest she provoke this weirdo.

He looked upset and a little lost. Like he had been expecting someone else. After a minute his shoulders slumped in defeat. “Danny,” he told her.

“I’m Alice,” Alice greeted.

Introductions seemed to break Danny out of whatever little mood he had been in. He neared her desk, eyes flicking towards her nametag. An amused smile spread across his lips. “I can see that,” he teased. “Alison Fox.”

Alice couldn’t help but lean back a bit. The guest smelled faintly like cigarettes. If Parker didn’t also smoke occasionally, she would have taken the smell as a sign of delinquency, somewhere next to tattoos. 

He didn’t look like a delinquent. If anything he looked like he was on a debate team, what with his sweater vest and gelled hair. Only, his style was so accurate, it had transcended nerdy and had crossed over somewhere into cool. His clothing could have been thrifted straight out of her great-grandfather’s closet.

She cleared her throat. “Want me to put you down for noon?”

“How long has this place been a museum?” he asked.

Alice put the roster down and blinked. “Dunno. As long as I can remember.”

The guest quieted, humming to himself.

Figuring that was the end of their conversation, and that he would look around before deciding twenty minutes wasn’t worth the wait, Alice turned back to her computer which was now on. She typed in her password. The old monitor flickered a quilt of static and she blinked, reaching around to jiggle the wiring.

“What do you think of it?” a voice asked, sounding so close it almost came from inside her own head.

Alice jumped, narrowly missing a mug of coffee.

The guest was super close. He was leaning over her desk atop his elbows. He craned his neck to peer around at her monitor.

Alice scowled and tilted the screen away. “What do you mean?”

“This place,” he clarified. “What do you think of it?”

No one had ever asked her that before. Sure, there was a lot of ‘ever see any ghosts?’ or a lot of ‘how long have you worked here?’ then the subsequent disappointment when she said two weeks. Never what she thought about the museum. Alice found people rarely asked her what she thought of things.

Alice let go of the screen and played with the handle of her mug for a second, trying to get a read on him. She supposed he looked earnest. “I’ve only worked here for a few weeks so I don’t really know a lot about it besides the stories I heard growing up,” she admitted. “I suppose it is beautiful, in the same eerie, disorienting way an eclipse is.”

The boy glanced down at the top of her desk, brows furrowed. 

Maybe he didn’t like her answer. Feeling a little self-conscious, Alice said, “Hopper can answer better. He’s worked here longer and he’s a guide.”

Danny glanced up, a wide grin unfurling across his face. His teeth were really white and perfect and so was his skin. “Let me guess. Hopper is the guide for the noon tour?” he teased. “You’re pretty good at pushing these tours on people. How much do they cost?”

Alice blushed, embarrassed. “I wasn’t trying to push anything.”

Footsteps, thankfully, interrupted them.

“Did I leave my coffee...?” Hopper trailed off, gaze darting between the guest and her. He was now wearing his tour guide white button up jacket and his name tag. He skidded to a halt in the middle of the foyer, jaw going slack, face pale.

“So you’re a guide?” the boy, still leaning on her desk, accused.

Hopper nodded, mute.

Alice was starting to feel embarrassed at Hopper’s weird reaction. Strange or not, this boy was a guest. He wasn’t even as bad as the Wiccans and Spiritualists that plagued the tours, hoping to scry something meaningful from the mansion’s creaky floors. She raised her eyebrows at him, motioning for him to say something.

If the guest noticed anything unusual, he didn’t show it. Instead his blue eyes lit with amusement, like he had just thought of something really funny. That grin widened until it felt edged with mania. “What’s it take to become a guide?” he asked. “I’m looking for work.”

With Hopper still frozen, Alice scrambled to overcome the awkwardness, shuffling through the mountains of papers hidden in the drawers of her desk. “Ah, here.” She grabbed an application and scooted it across the desk. On the top, a simple logo read: Masters Villa. Erected 1892. Amity Park Historical Monument & Museum.

The boy scooped it up. “Thanks.” Just as quickly as he blustered through, he left.

As the door clicked shut, Alice fully turned to give Hopper a frown. “What was that all about?” she complained, gesturing at the door.

Hopper swayed slightly.

Alice’s anger snapped to concern. It looked like he was about to pass out. She contemplated trying to get out from behind her desk and catch him, but with how tall and built Hopper was there was no way he wouldn’t crush her.

Instead of fainting, Hopper asked, in a weird and floaty voice, “You don’t know who that was?”

Damn, Alice thought. So the boy had been famous. “No. Who is he?” Now she was curious. Although, something about Hopper’s glazed look filled her with dread.

Hopper yanked out one of the pamphlets from the wall holder, flipping through the mini stapled book. Finding the right page, he held it up so Alice could see. “Who that was,” Hopper corrected.

It was a black and white photo of a kid in a lawn chair. A kid that looked remarkably the same as the one that had just taken a job application. He had his ankles crossed and his t-shirt sleeves rolled up as if it was a hot summer’s day. In one hand was a Coke, only, it was one of those old curvy Coca-Cola-shaped glass bottles. The ones they stopped making years and years ago. Alice glanced at the caption.

Danny, 1959. Disappeared August 12, 1962.

Alice flicked the pamphlet away. “Very funny. That was one of your higher production jokes.” She scowled. “You know, Lancer’s going to fire you one of these days.”

“It’s the truth,” Hopper insisted. His slap-glazed look faded into annoyance.

Something in his tone made her pause and reconsider. He truly believed it. Either he wasn’t trying to pull one over on her, or whoever was doing the pulling was pulling it on them both.

Alice glanced down at the roster where she had written, on the last line: Danny. Just Danny. “Well, he might become a guide, if he’s qualified,” she said, not knowing what else to say. Internally, she was trying to explain the past five minutes and the longer she couldn’t come up with a plausible answer her skin inched further and further in all directions.

Alice Fox didn’t believe in ghosts.

“Qualified?” Hopper repeated, offended. “Of course he’s qualified. He’s been here the whole time.”