#a good corpse.

[ohwynne]

TIMING: Current. PARTIES: Wynne & Mealla (NPB) LOCATION: Saol eile SUMMARY: A banshee invites a wandering Wynne over to tea and speaks of their impending sacrifice. It brings up memories. WARNINGS: Hints at abuse (cult), medical blood (vein mentions)

"You know, I have seen many people die. Have you ever? Seen the light leave their eyes, I mean. I have seen it often. Sometimes it’s almost peaceful, like our sisters in our pit who are giving themselves over to a slow death — but most often there’s something sharp in their eyes. Emotion! Oh, I cannot help but wonder what your eyes will portray. Fear or anger? Relief? Peace? I so love it when they look peaceful."

Every day Wynne woke from nightmares. The improvised beds were not comfortable, nor was the stench of death in the air but at the end of the day it was the lack of Ariadne that made them sleep most fitfully. It seemed they had grown too dependent on her ability to siphon away bad dreams and now they were left to play catch up on all the ones they’d evaded over the past months. 

So every day they woke from nightmares.

Most of the time they dreamed of home. The estate on the shore of Moosehead lake would merge with the estate the banshees called home merged with the barn. Irish lilts came from the mouths of their former loved ones. Their parents lived in white cottages and showed their fangs, ready to sink them in their neck. Nora’s head was ripped off clean. Wynne could not stop screaming. Regan rose in the air with inky eyes and an echoing, berating voice. Siors held his ceremonial knife and brought it down. Iwan pleaded, begging them to stay as he was bled out on the altar. 

Every day they woke from nightmares in an attic that seemed smaller every day and so every day Wynne got out. They walked the streets of saol eile hoping that an answer would come to them, that somehow they would find a solution to the situation they had gotten themself into. That they’d have an eureka moment and finally realize how to get Nora to want to leave. The right combination of words and facial expressions, the exact way to make her fold without doing some irreparable damage. 

They were supposed to leave in one day, but it was hard to feel optimistic. Nora was angry. Elias still was a tall man with a beard destined to die. Regan was nowhere to be found. Wynne was desperate.

So they kept walking and they kept hoping for a metaphorical hole in the fence. It was good to scope the perimeter — they had known exactly where and how to run when they’d left home because they knew the place like the back of their hand. It would be good if they knew the way. It would be good —

It would be good if they succeeded. But how much luck was one person allowed? How often was someone allowed to evade fate? Wynne should have died on an altar, but didn’t. Wynne should have died in the barn, but didn’t. Wynne should die here, but didn’t want to. Was want enough? Was determination? Was bravery? They were surrounded by a people that revered death and saw human sacrifice not as a necessary evil but more like a past time. How could it be enough?

But they kept walking anyway. 

That was until someone stopped them. 

Sometimes the banshees talked to them. Wynne regressed into a former version of themself when they did, cowering and gentle and submissive. Most of the banshees looked down on them, pushed them aside after a comment or two. They weren’t nice comments, but they also weren’t particularly mean — they just were aligned with the doctrine, odd and confusing but something Wynne was trying not to think about too much. They weren’t here to investigate the banshees. They were here for the hole in the fence and to find a way to convince people to leave.

But this banshee looked at them with wide eyes that went from inky to a dark brown, taking them in. “You are perfect.” They were ready to stammer something in response. They didn’t want to know how or why they were, nor did they want to argue. The banshee took their face in their hands before they could, though. “I will make you tea.” 

They were guided into the banshee’s house where a kettle whistled merrily and the walls were lined with mounted animals and bones. The banshee sat them down on a chair (Wynne was not sure where the control of their body had gone as they let themself be guided and pushed onto the seat, but they figured it might be best to remain pliable) and ran around to gather the things needed for tea.

It took a short three minutes and then there were two steaming mugs between the pair of them, a scent of a herbal mix filling the room. A small animal bone laid at the bottom of their mug of tea. Wynne knew better than to thank the banshee, so they just nodded.

“I heard — oh, you — yes, I heard about the arrival. We get so few of you that just arrive, that are this — this perfect.” The banshee was speaking in a tone that was euphoric, hands folded around her mug. “You know, I have seen many people die. Have you ever? Seen the light leave their eyes, I mean. I have seen it often. Sometimes it’s almost peaceful, like our sisters in our pit who are giving themselves over to a slow death — but most often there’s something sharp in their eyes. Emotion! Oh, I cannot help but wonder what your eyes will portray. Fear or anger? Relief? Peace? I so love it when they look peaceful. Oh!” She moved her hand and some of the tea sloshed on the table. Wynne noted a moment too late that she was extending it. “I’m Mealla.” 

With a bit of hesitation they shook it. “Alys.” Mealla was blinking at them and they realized that she was waiting for an answer. They didn’t know what their eyes would show when they were going to die. They didn’t want to know because they weren’t going to die.

Once, they had sat like this with the real Alys. She had been one of the elders back at home, one of the people closest to Siors and one of the people that Wynne sometimes got to spend one on one time with. When they did, it was special. It was special when an elder took time out of their day for you, to dedicate their energy to you. Whenever the real Alys had spoken, Wynne had listened with such intent and concentration that it sometimes gave them a headache. 

She had spoken of how their position was an unique gift. That dying in serenity was their gift to the commune. “Wynne,” she’d said as they walked the shores of the lake, “I need you to think about that moment. About every single second of it. You need to paint it in your mind’s eye. To imagine it in detail.” She’d made Wynne hold the jute rope that would tie their hands on that inevitable day, make them feel every fiber with their fingers. One time she’d wrapped the rope around their wrists, not too tight and mostly for show. Just to make them familiar with the sensation. “I need you to try and feel it already so that when it happens, you know how to respond. A prepared person cannot be afraid. You need to be calm. You need to give yourself over to it. You can do that, can’t you?” She’d halted and turn to Wynne then. “For me? For us? I know you can.”

Mealla was still waiting for an answer. “Peaceful,” they said. “I’m ...” Your death means more than all of ours ever will. You are so special. “Honored.” 

The banshee let go of their hand and returned to her tea, seemingly not minding that she’d spilled hot water over her table. “Yes! Ah — you did well to come here. You understand, do you? You — not so short sighted as other humans, thinking death the very sad end.” She mocked a human expression of sadness. It would be comical if Wynne wasn’t so scared. “Honor! Oh,” Mealla reached for Wynne’s face again, “You will bleed so beautifully. We can make it slow so you can feel the honor all the way through. Not many get such a death! Most die in boring ways. Old bones or weak hearts or someone driving a car badly or disease. You will get to feel it!” She pinched the meat of their cheek. “Do you have any preferences on where you are punctured? I hold some sway. I can arrange this for you. I personally enjoy the thigh, it’s so supple yet so very effective. It bleeds beautifully there. And the chest! It’s a canvas for carving. My si—” Mealla forgot herself as she nearly spoke of ancient family traditions not reserved for human ears. “You will make a very beautiful corpse, Alys.”

Wynne blinked. It seemed to go in slow motion, the way their eyelids made the world go smaller until it was nothing but a strip of light and then darkness. Then light again. The banshee was still sitting there. The hand was still on their cheek. They would make a beautiful corpse. They would be bled out. Not even on an altar, this time. Not even to save their community or spare their brother. Just because.

Once, at home, Siors had sat with them. This was even more rare than sitting with Alys. Siors was their patriarch — he was elusive and when he was present, he took center stage. He had a voice you wanted to listen to and when he turned all his attention to you, it felt like you were chosen. And though Wynne knew they were chosen, it was still different when it was just Siors across from them. It was exhilarating to have his presence be purely dedicated to them and so they’d sat upright and with all their emotions carefully wound up and put away. They’d breathed serenely. Alys and Padrig had taught them well.

On that day, Siors had shown them the ceremonial knife. They had seen it before, of course. Every ritualistic sacrifice was done by this knife. It had sunk into the necks of some thirty youths before them and hundreds of animals. It was something from back in Wales. Engraved and sturdy and sharp. Sometimes they’d catch him sharpening it as he watched his community. The day he’d shown them had been about a week before their sacrifice. Every day had been filled with preparation. 

“This isn’t something to flinch at,” he’d said, turning the blade in his hand. “It is part of us.” He hadn’t asked them where they’d like to be cut, slit or punctured. There had been tradition to honor. The demon had liked his sacrifices a certain way. Siors had guided Wynne’s hand to their throat which had bobbed nervously. “Calm yourself.” It was a demand that they had listened to reflexively. He’d pressed their fingers against their pulsing artery. “There.” He made them tilt their head so the artery was more accessible. “Alys has explained it, right? How it needs to be calm. You cannot squirm, Wynne, nor cry. You remember how quiet Jac was? How good? How dutiful?” He had tilted their head towards them, thumb and index finger holding their chin softly. “I believe you can do that too. I’ll be gentle.” He had looked so sure of it that any doubt washed away. “I will be so proud.” They would make a good corpse for him. For all of them. 

And now Wynne was staring at a woman who might have made them feel certain and special and chosen, had they not ran from that duty. Had they not come here with the intention to run again. But a lot had changed since they’d looked at Siors and Alys for guidance. They stared at her and felt her hand on their cheek and did not cry. They could not squirm nor cry — they had to press their feelings into a corner of their stomach and remain calm. They could not panic. If they panicked, they’d all know something was wrong.

“The thighs. I’d prefer that. It’s better than the neck.” Their voice sounded hollow. Their ears were ringing and it wasn’t because of all the screaming they’d heard. It was the overwhelming urge to run. The even more overwhelming urge to live, despite the threats that hung over their head like an ax. But they could not give the banshee an inch of fear or reluctance. To panic was to make them aware something was wrong. Nothing was wrong. They could only know something was wrong when they were gone along with Nora, Elias and Regan. So for now they remained seated. "Anything but the neck."

Mealla smiled. “You are right. the neck lacks creativity.” She pet their cheek. “Drink your tea.” Demonstratively she took a sip of her own. The tiny clavicle she'd dropped in it made music in her mug as it hit its corners. Wynne sipped their own. It was nice. At least the tea was nice. They wanted to drink more nice tea for years and years to come, but in stead Mealla continued to speak, “Do remember to enjoy the last of your days, Alys. It is beautiful that you are so open to death, but you must also remember that there is no death without life. The weather is nice.” It was raining. The weather had been very much misty and dark, as if spring was reluctant to come around. It would be better to die on a grey day — but they didn't want to die yet. Wynne was quiet, unsure of how to form words that weren't no and please and so filled their mouth with more tea. “Enjoy the last of them. Do this for me, and I will ensure it is your thighs we cut first.” 

[wachinyeya]

Pair of Endangered Corpse Flowers Defy Odds to Bloom at Same Time–Now Bearing 700 Seeds https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/pair-of-endangered-corpse-flowers-defy-odds-to-bloom-at-same-time-now-bearing-700-seeds/

[faeriekit]

"Okay." Danny slowly laid the already cold body back onto the table, ready to slide back it into the refuge of cold storage. "Okay. Dead guy. Stay there."

The body didn't move.

"Fantastic. Now. Hang out while I pour the embalming fluid into the pump, alright? It should only be a minute."

And it usually did; working in a funeral home wasn't extremely glamorous, but it paid the bills, and Danny had already been used to the rhyme and rhythm of negotiating death with the public by the time he sent in his mortuary school application. It had been a transition that made sense. And in the end, the degree had only cost him a few extra years post-graduation and a little dig into student loans, and now Danny had a stable 12-8 job and health insurance valid in the state of new jersey.

Today, though, the pump had that decided enough was enough. With a bang and a boom, the pump spat out a cloud of smoke and clunked uncomfortably.

The dead body sat up.

Danny scrambled over to push it back down. "No. We talked about this. Dead people don't move. If you want to stay here and have me put you back together all the time, you have to stay put. Got it?"

Whatever the weird gold-eye corpses were on in Gotham, they at least listened to him on occasion. They weren't ghosts, per se— they never pinged on any of the ghost detection devices Mom and Dad had packed in his going-away-to-college bag— but they were, despite being occasionally animate, perfectly deceased.

Weird. Danny had never gotten used to it. Still, they came in droves, too eager to sit on the top of the basement stairwell and lurk in the corners and stare endlessly at them with their weird, avian eyes, and sometimes they heralded the arrival similarly weird-ass bodies that had lost their heads or their arms or their limbs through the more conventional channels.

"I'm losing too much thread to all y'all coming in all the time," Danny complained to the dead body, who, at the moment, was the only person present to blame. "Stop getting your limbs cut off. This stuff is expensive, you know. It's a specialty order."

The body didn't even have the courtesy to blink. Rude.

"At least let them bury you this time. Every time one of you darts off when my back's turned, my boss thinks I'm stealing corpses. My coworkers think I'm building my own Frankenstein or something."

The corpse neither verbalized nor blinked, but Danny hadn't expected it to; with a sigh, he rolled the corpse back into cold storage, locked its little door (not that locking it in had ever stopped it) and called it quits for the night.

It's not like anyone was paying him for the extra hours anyway.

The whole fic on ao3

[theribbajack]

"Now, the vow will be honoured, and my Lord brother's soul will return."

Radahn stans keep winning, but I personally am in Miyazaki's walls rn

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Ghouls night out

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[charlie-artlie]

I think the death weirdos should hang out

[sunderwight]

SVSSS bingliushen fic where Shen Qingqiu assumes that even though he somehow managed to turn the former stallion protagonist gay (he's still not totally clear on how that happened) and in love with him (x2) there's no reason to assume Binghe would become monogamous as well. So he preps himself for the possibility of there still being a harem, just, full of dudes this time.

Meanwhile, Binghe has in fact become functionally monogamous but it's in self-defense. Theoretically there is some universe where he would be happy to sleep around. His relationship with SQQ is unique and deeply important to him, but that would be true whether or not they were sexually exclusive.

The problem is that Binghe knows with 1000% certainty that if he brings other dudes into their lives, they will fall in love with Shen Qingqiu. In the unlikely event that they did not fall in love with Shen Qingqiu, then they're be so incomprehensible to Luo Binghe that he wouldn't be able to find them attractive anyway. Luo Binghe's insecurities cannot yet handle the idea of Shizun being with other men.

Cue the inevitable mess of Shen Qingqiu trying to set Binghe up with suitable hot men, only to unwittingly accumulate more fodder for his own unacknowledged harem of admirers, while Binghe tries to fend off these would-be suitors until he finally decides he's going to bring Liu Qingge into the relationship just so he has an extra set of hands ready to help throw other people back out of it again.

[homkamiro]

Sooo....are we gonna acknowledge Sniper's voicelines or

[technicallyblakebelladonna]

M. Night Shyamalan's ATLA adaptation died so Netflix's ATLA adaptation could trip over its fucking corpse.

[sketchquill]

*Reading off note* Somebody order some Corpse Puppet art with a small side of angst?

[neckromantics]

Cazador talks a lot of shit for a dude that's only got 200 gold when you pickpocket him. Like, I thought you were rich and powerful? Untouchable? Yet, here we are standing over your dead² body, and all you've got to your person is wack ass vibes and a measly 200gp?? Disappointing. I bet you lied on your fantasy taxes, you wet sack.

[totalshockwaves]

2013: *fall out boy comes back*

monkey paw curls and my chemical romance disbands, leaving millions devastated

2023: *fall out boy comes back, again*

monkey paw flips off brendon urie, and frees ryan ross from having to see him continue to butcher his old band

[faeriekit]

#i'm very pro danny accidentally adopts a whole bunch of talons previous installments

*

The next day, the body was back.

The green was gone from its eyes, but the awareness wasn't; it spent about an hour watching people go around outside Danny's apartment, which was new behavior. None of the corpses that shadowed him had shown any interest in garden-variety humans before. Now it sat at the window and watched families come home from school or head to their afternoon shifts.

That went into Danny's notes.

After that hour, it taught itself to flush the toilet repeatedly, rearranged the contents of Danny's half-assed linen closet (again) and then stood hovering over the safe where Danny had stashed the ectoplasm.

"...Okay," said Danny.

The dead body croaked. It was a new sound, but there was no context for it. Danny just kind of...wrote it down and hoped for the best.

The day after, Danny woke up at a very reasonable ten forty eight in the morning to find stray corpses feeding each other spoonfuls of ectoplasm in the kitchen.

At that point he kind of had to throw out the notes on how much each one was dosed with, because what the fuck.

"Really?!" Danny shouted, spooking the bodies into fleeing behind chairs and doors and back into his closet again. The only one that didn't flee was Danny's ringmaster corpse of the hour, of course. "You really couldn't wait??"

It stuck out a withered black tongue out at the mortician, who was, really, the victim in all of this. A victim to his parents' whims and a victim to the dead people who followed him around all the time.

This was how Danny found out that, when it doubt, the corpses could just tear through solid steel if they were motivated enough. The finger-marks were so deep and so embedded that they actually looked more like rough claws in the metal.

Great.

Danny ordered a new locking cage for the fridge on Prime and darted off to work. One of his regulars was on the table, though, so Danny just ended up doing what he would have at home— sewing up a gash in its neck and reattaching dead fingers back onto dead stumps.

On the third day, in which four of Danny's frequent fliers had learned from the first how to flush the toilet (and therefore raise the water bill immensely) Danny got a ring from a dark voice he (almost) recognized.

"Is he here?"

Danny squinted, jerking the phone further under his ear as he whipped up some scrambled eggs. The dead girl leaning over his shoulder leaned a little closer to watch the egg froth up. "Is who here? Who is this?"

"This is Batman. Is— the body requisitioned from your facility currently at your place of residence?"

Danny fully let go of the whisk. It landed haphazardly in the glass bowl he'd been stirring in. "What on Earth is a Batman?" he asked, incredulous.

"I visited your workplace previously."

Oh! "Yeah, the cop's friend. I remember now." Danny pulled the whisk out of the liquid eggs and held it out to the body. The unusually animate cadaver mostly prodded the whisk wires and paid no attention to him. "No one's here but me, though. Not that it's your business...?"

"And there are no non-living bodies currently in your apartment?"

Danny ignored the flushing noise in the other room. "I don't know, dude. They practically live in the walls at this point. Don't come over unless you have a warrant."

The call ended with a click.

His omelette turned out amazing, by the way. In case you were wondering.

On the fourth day, the ectoplasm was gone, because the corpses had apparently all taught each other how to lockpick the container in the fridge.

"Okay, some of that was meant to be my dinner. No more lotion at the funeral home now, okay? Now you all can be ashy forever. I'm so serious," Danny complained to the only visible dead person in the room.

The dead person held up a cracked egg. It was probably a gesture of peace, but now there was egg on his vinyl flooring to deal with. And. It wasn't exactly all that comforting in the end.

On the fifth day, Danny awoke to the sensation of a hand jamming itself through his neck until it punched into the mattress beneath him.

Fuck.

[artoutforblood]

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Welcome to the Dungeons of Fear and Hunger.

[p34ce0fm1nd]

maybe in another universe we’re meant to be together

another universe(s)