#aw horrorfest

[after-witch]

Horrorfest: Trick or Treat [Yandere Chrollo x Reader]

Title: Trick or Treat [Yandere Chrollo x Reader]

Synopsis: "Can you at least tell me where we're going?" Chrollo, in the driver's seat, says nothing. And you barely resist the urge to rip the blindfold off your head.

For Horrorfest request... Chrollo taking darling to a house & won't say the rest because the reveal is necessary for the catharsis.

notes: yandere, reader is kidnapped, emotional damage idk

“Can you please tell me where you’re taking me?” The edge in your voice makes it crack like glass, a tone just as fragile as your poor nerves. Your fingers curl tighter against your thighs. Just what the hell is going on?

Chrollo is beside you in the driver’s seat, as always. He’d never trust you with a car, even in the ordinary circumstance you find yourself in them--traveling from place to place, whisked to hotels and hideouts and sometimes less-than-hospitable abandoned places. 

You can hear the gentle acceleration of the engine, the hum of the road underneath you, the rush of wind when he opens the window a crack. The weight of his presence is there, that almost imperceptible sensation of strength from his pure existence. 

But. 

You can’t see a damn thing through the blindfold he tied around your forehead after getting you into the car earlier this evening.

“You’ll see soon enough, dearest,” he answers finally. You swear you can sense the way his head glances down at your clenched hands. “Do try to calm down. I promise it’s nothing bad.”

You bite your cheek.

“Your definition of bad is often different from mine, so you can see why that doesn’t exactly reassure me.” 

The swerve of the car when it turns, more frequently now, like you’ve gone off the main road and are now somewhere more complicated. Where is he taking you, and why? There’s a thud in your heart when you consider the possibilities.

If this was simply a matter of moving to a new hideout, he would have told you; you would have packed your things, few though they are, and been given at least a vague schedule. Driving times. Flight take-offs. Whatever.

But tonight, he’d asked you to follow him after dinner, led you out to the car, and gently urged you inside. He ignored your questions. Then he said it would be a surprise and tied a blindfold around your eyes. 

There’s only the vaguest sense of time passing--how long have you been driving anyway? Wherever he was taking you, would you stay there long? Would you be back at the hotel by nightfall? You’d hoped to catch a horror movie marathon the hotel was hosting on its own channel. It was the only Halloween activity Chrollo had agreed to, since he didn’t like the idea of taking you out to a party and it wasn’t like a hotel was going to get trick-or-treaters. Maybe you could have asked him to get some decorations, but somehow the thought of taping up paper bats on the walls of the luxury hotel room didn’t feel in the spirit of the season.

The car comes to a stop and you lurch slightly in your seat.

Chrollo turns off the engines. He leans over and unbuckles your seatbelt. 

“Just a moment,” he says, and you swear your hear warm mirth in his voice. Asshole. He enjoys playing with you, doesn’t he? And that’s what this must be, some sort of sick game.

The door opens and there’s a whoosh of pleasantly cool air that smells like leaves and bonfires. He grabs your arm and helps you out of the car. You shiver, not from the chill. You’re outside, that much is clear. But where? And why? And for what?

”Chrollo,” you say, pleading. Your fingers dig into your upper arms. How much trouble would you be in if you just ripped the damn thing off your head on your own?

He chuckles, and he’s close enough that you can almost feel it. Finally his fingers fiddle with the knot of the blindfold and you feel it drop away before your eyes register that you can see again.

It’s--

It’s--

A neighborhood. An ordinary neighborhood. The evening has not quite settled in, and the sky reflects brilliant orange and red against rows of homes, all flickering yellows and purples and greens from Halloween decorations tacked and staked and pinned outside. The glow of lit jack o’lanterns practically shimmers against the dutifully swept sidewalks.

It makes your heart hurt to see this sort of life. 

“Why… did you bring me here?” A thousand thoughts rattle off, most of them not staying long to catch. The idea that he’s taunting you or teasing you comes to mind. Or maybe he’s got some target inside that he’s going to kill and make you watch as revenge for telling him that if he loved the expensive lingerie that found its way into your suitcase so much, he could wear it himself.

He doesn’t answer. Instead, he simply takes your arm and you can do nothing but follow. Helpless thing that you are. Sure, there are people outside. Children itching to trick or treat, parents forcing them to pose for photos. And they’d be dead in a second (if they were lucky) if you said something to them. 

The house is nice. A typical suburban house, you suppose. There are orange-and-black garlands strewn about, a giant witch stood up in the corner with a cauldron that has fake lights and an artificial bubbling sound. 

There’s even a jack o’ lantern in front of the doorway, glowing softly from a tealight placed inside. It’s a pretty thing. Maybe you should have asked Chrollo if you could carve a pumpkin in the hotel, after all. 

When he gets to the front door, he stops and shoves his hands into his jingling pockets. He… has a key to the house, which should perhaps surprise you. But your heart is pounding and your nerves are frayed, and all you can do is think in alternating thoughts: why are we here, and why can’t I live like this?

The door creaks open. You half-expect something to jump out. A corpse. A member of the Phantom Troupe. Both?

But instead there’s just… a house. Just an ordinary house. With some of the lights on in the kitchen and a fake fireplace and fairy lights with orange pumpkins strung up in the entryway. Next to the coat rack is a table with an immensely large bowl filled with an assortment of candy. Chocolates and sour sweets and licorice. 

A few feet in front of the entryway is a rack of--clothes? No, they’re colorful and strange looking. Costumes, you realize. Halloween costumes. But why…

Your heart thuds, once, twice, three times.

“I don’t understand.” Your mouth is dry. Something in your chest tightens as Chrollo gently pushes you forward until you’re in front of the costume rack.

His voice comes from next to you, but you don’t dare face him. You don’t know what expression he will wear and worse than that, you don’t know what expression is on your face right now. But you know that it’s something too vulnerable to share with him so openly.

“You said you’d never been able to hand out candy to trick or treaters, didn’t you?”

It takes a few moments to hit you, and when it does, your hands wring together.

“So you… this is…” Not some awful, nasty trick, but something kind and done for you? You don’t say it. You don’t need to say it. The disgusted, awful relief of it--the gently rising pleasant surprise--must be showing on your face.

He holds up a princess costume while your mind tries to process what’s happening, and you shake your head at it. Too sweet and colorful for your vision of Halloween.

“Don’t think too much about it, dear,” he says, thumbing through the hangers of costumes. “Just find something and get dressed. I’m sure there will be plenty of kids coming to the door soon enough.”

Kids. In costumes. Trick or treating. 

At your--no, not your house, but maybe your house? In some way. Just for now. For the moment. For one one night--Halloween night.

That has to be good enough.

--

The witch costume is just the right size, but that’s no surprise. Chrollo has a shockingly detailed knowledge about your body; he’s even, with trial and error, mastered the art of nabbing nearly perfectly sized underwear across different brands. Bastard.

But you don’t think about that now. All you think about is how… spooky you look. How fun. How pretty, in that dark and morbid and delightfully Halloweeny way. 

You forgot how this felt, actually: wearing a real costume. Not the mask you put on every day to survive co-existence with Chrollo Lucilfer, but a real Halloween costume. Something shiny and cheap, not meant to be worn more than a few times before you find a broken seam, sigh, and chuck it out. 

In the end, you look like anyone else might, living in this house, dressed up on Halloween. A witch costume, complete with a hat and fake wart that you are sure is going to fall off your face within about 15 minutes thanks to some questionable quality sticker glue. 

When you step out to show Chrollo, you find not Chrollo, but a vampire in his place. Okay, okay. It’s Chrollo, wearing his normal outfit with a thin black cape lined in red over everything. He slicked back his hair--admittedly you prefer it loose, not that you’d ever tell him so--and it looks like he applied a thin layer of white powder to dilute his pallor even more. 

A vampire. Dracula. A bloodsucker. How appropriate for him. Not that you’d ever ruin this night by vocalizing that thought, so you bury it like a fake skeleton underneath the house of your mind. 

“You look marvelous,” he says, when you come out into full view. And you laugh immediately. Because he’s stuck fake fangs in his mouth. The cheap kind that looks like dentures. They make him sound absolutely ridiculous. 

He doesn’t take offense, or at least he hides it well. He pops the fangs out, a line of drool trailing after them and holds them in his hand. They glow a little green in the dimness of the house. 

“Too much?” You only smile in response, and he drops them in the trash. “They were uncomfortable, so it’s no loss. I’ll pretend that I keep my fangs hidden until I’m ready to bite.” The last words were spoken almost too lasciviously, and hIs gaze seems to lighten then. Because of course he’d feel better about looking like a fool as long as he could turn it around on you.

You don’t have time to let this bother you, though, because--

The doorbell rings. A quaint thing. Ding-dong.

Is it possible for your heart to stop while you’re still alive? Suddenly your legs feel heavy. Suddenly your whole body feels heavy. Suddenly you can’t possibly answer the door.

Ding-dong.

“Go on, love.”

Chrollo’s hand is on your shoulder and for once it feels reassuring rather than terrifying. You let him guide you to the door, which you open with trembling hands.

You’re greeted by a group of small children dressed up, holding out pillowcases and candy buckets.

“TRICK OR TREAT!!” 

You can’t speak. You forgot how to interact with normal people, normal things. No, no, it’s not just that. You want to cry. You’re going to cry. Because this is the first time you’ve ever opened a door to find smiling children waiting for candy on this most special of fall nights, a night when people can be anything, when the air itself feels magical.

You feel like you’re moments away from whirling around and running deep into the safety of the house when Chrollo touches your shoulder again. And his touch grounds you. Shakes you up. Snaps you out of it.

“O-Oh, I’m sorry!” You say, half-laughing, to the children who have begun to stare at you like a particularly curious bird in a tree. “Your costumes are just so cool, I was speechless!”

You begin to scoop handfuls of candy into their waiting bags and buckets. Most of them look eagerly at their growing haul and run away without another word.

One kid dressed like an oversized turtle yells out “THANKS!” before he, too, runs away. You look down the driveway and see that some of them have parents waiting, but most are traveling with friends. The turtle kid almost bowls over his mother, who looks back at the doorway. You expect her to wave and smile, but she only quirks her head a little at you before her son grabs her arm and drags her away.

You pay her little mind--it’s the trick or treaters that interest you, the way they happily shout to one another about what houses are giving out what, the shrieks you can hear when they are scared by electronic dolls that pop out when they pass a threshold. 

What a lovely thing, that freedom.

What a lovelier thing, right now, for you to play your part in it.

There are no other kids running up the sidewalk towards the house, so Chrollo shuts the door for you. There’s a silence between you, until Chrollo reaches up and wipes away at tears that had just begun to make themselves known in the corner of your eye.

“Are you all right?” His voice is low, soothing. He doesn’t usually tease you when you cry. Maybe he knows it would push you even further away. You wonder, briefly, if your tears or his touch smeared your carefully applied witchy eyeshadow.

“Yes,” you say, when you realize he actually wants an answer. “I’m just…” How to explain the feeling in your chest? This warm, fuzzy feeling that only comes on Halloween and that feels amplified by the role you’re playing right now. “It feels weird,” you decide on. “To be finally doing this.” 

Chrollo looks at you quietly. He nods, but says nothing more. 

A few moments later, that beautiful sound returns.

Ding-dong.

Ding-dong.

And--

”Trick or treat!”

--

The night goes on wonderfully. You stay more or less by the door, though you occasionally wander into the living room to admire the decorations. You wonder how long it took Chrollo to put them up. Maybe this was why he was gone for the better part of the previous day, setting everything up so it was just right for you. The thought makes you feel… pleasantly tingly. 

He thought of everything, actually. He even puts on a Halloween movie with the volume low, perfect for watching in between trick-or-treaters or peeking at from the entryway. While you’re handing out candy, you hear the microwave buzzing in the kitchen, and when you shut the door he hands you a plate with warm pizza on it.

It’s not the kind you usually get--you’re a pineapple on your pizza person, even if it might just condemn you to hell--but you suppose the options for pizza around here were different than in the city. It’s a little stale, too, but since it seems likely that Chrollo got it yesterday to avoid having to stop there on the way, it doesn’t matter. It’s not like some mediocre pizza was going to break the spell that the night was casting over you.

It was just… perfect. The air was cool but not terribly cold, and you felt like you could smell the leaves, the bonfires, the hint of apples and plastic pumpkin pails that seemed to rush through the door every time you opened it. 

Chrollo makes light conversation. Not the exhausting philosophical discussions that he likes to pull from you, usually in the late hours of the morning, but light, fun, casual. He asks about horror movies, horror books. He asks what you typically dressed up as when you were young, and chuckles when you rattle off the exact list of your costumes age 4 to 12 in sequential order.

It feels, heaven help you, domestic. Like the kind of life you might  have had, if Chrollo didn’t enter your life. Or if he wasn’t who he is, because he didn’t have to be out of the fantasy entirely. If he was the type to settle in the suburbs and buy a house with you and work 9 to 5 and come home tired but eager to see you, this could be your life. You would ask him to hang up the Halloween lights and he’d sigh but do it for you, because he knows you love it.

In return you’d promise to roast pumpkin seeds later that evening, and maybe even give him a kiss. The two of you could spend the night cozying up by the fire (a real one, not a fake one, perhaps you are too used to that luxury now--) drinking hot chocolate and making idle chit-chat. 

His arms wrap around you suddenly, and you almost flinch as the cobweb of your fantasy is unknowingly stepped through. This close, you can smell the powder on his face, see the little dots of it that have caked on his skin. 

“What are you thinking, dear?” 

You look at him and for once don’t feel like telling him to shove it. For some reason, hurting his feelings right now would actually make you feel worse, not better. Maybe it’s because you feel like you’re on high; maybe it’s because he did all this for you. 

“Just… that this is nice,” you admit. You smile at him, and it’s not forced. It really isn’t. “Thank you.” 

Chrollo presses a kiss to the top of your head.

“I must say, my reward was well worth all this effort.”

You quirk your head, the gesture reminding you briefly of the mom from earlier before you return your focus to Chrollo. “What reward?’

Chrollo, surprisingly, pushes you a little bit away from him. A finger goes up to your chin and your cheeks feel heated at the sudden intimate touch.

“Seeing you light up like this all night. I don’t believe I’ve seen you like this before, not really.”

You feel silly. Not humiliated, but silly. This is the first time that he’s seen you happy, isn’t it? And you suppose, for someone like him, it must be some kind of treat for you to be happy. To be open. To not be hissing, metaphorically and otherwise, at his attempts to be around you.

It’s a little too much to confront right now. 

You grab a slice of the pizza he left sitting on the side table, and take a bite. You chew through the cold dough. “It’s hard not to have a good time on Halloween,” you mumble, averting your gaze. 

Chrollo chuckles at you, but lets you eat your pizza in peace. He takes up his own slice and chews, watching you look out the window, eager to see if more children come scampering down the walk.

--

You flick the porch light off with a sigh. The last trick or treaters have fizzled away, and the only people on the streets are tipsy people stumbling home from parties and the occasional person that you assume must be returning from a late night shift at work. 

There’s a certain magic to this, too, but it’s different from the tingling atmosphere of Halloween evening. Now it is a fading feeling, the last whimpers of the night as life returns to normal in the morning. 

“Shall we finish the movie?” Chrollo asks, and you nod. You may as well hold onto Halloween for as long as possible. 

There’s still some candy left in the bowl, and you grab the whole bowl as you head into the living room. Chrollo follows you, turning off the kitchen light as he goes. That leaves only the dim lighting in the living room from the fake fireplace and the glow of the TV, which is playing the last few minutes of a schlocky B-horror movie.

When he takes a seat on the couch and pats the spot next to him, you don’t hesitate. You don’t feel the need to, though you’d normally try to make a bargain for agreeing to sit next to him so readily. Now, though, you slide into the seat with the bowl in your hands and set it next to you. 

There’s only one chocolate bar left, and you impulsively grab it and hand the bar to Chrollo, who raises his eyebrows briefly before accepting it. 

“These are your favorite,” he says. “You eat it. I don’t mind.”

Your fingers curl on  your thighs, but this time you don’t dig into your skin. Instead you merely look at a bit of pizza grease shining from the reflective TV light. “I know, but… it’s…” The words come out slow and sticky, like candy stuck to your teeth. “It’s a thank you. For this, I mean. Tonight.” 

“Ah,” he says. After a moment, he unwraps the bar. Suddenly half a chocolate bar is shoved into your line of sight, and you look at Chrollo before letting out a little snort and taking it. 

Sharing food with Chrollo didn’t feel so awful tonight.

Lots of things didn’t feel so awful tonight, actually. Like being in the same room as him. Talking with him. Laughing with him.

And maybe, maybe it wouldn’t feel so bad if you scooted closer to him, either. Just because the movie was actually a little scary, a side-effect of the new environment and too much greasy pizza on  your nerves, probably. 

So you do. And he doesn’t say a thing about it and that feels amazing, because if this was your life, it wouldn’t be so extraordinary to sit thigh-to-thigh with your lover on Halloween night. It wouldn’t be so extraordinary to turn slowly towards him and feel a flush of heat in your cheeks, your chest. Heat that was accompanied by gratitude for the way he found this abandoned house and decorated it so fully for Halloween and got you dinner and let you be normal, so perfectly normal, for one single night.

It wouldn’t be strange at all, really, for you to lean in close and kiss him on the mouth.

Chrollo’s breath mingles with your own and it feels like your first kiss, though your logical mind knows it’s far from it. But it’s the first kiss you’ve given him. Your hidden kiss, then, special and secret.

When it’s over, you lean your head against his chest and let him wrap his arms around you. The sofa creaks and you wonder, abruptly, why there was a sofa in a house where no one lived. Why a house with no one in it would have a fridge stocked with food or a manicured lawn or toiletries scattered in the bathroom. Why some of the parents looked at you funny, even after your fake wart had fallen off.

“Chrollo?” 

“Mm?” He strokes your hair, keeping your head against him. 

“How… did you come across this house? Did someone move out? Or--”

You don’t vocalize it. And with Chrollo, you don’t need to. He knows how your mind works better than you do, sometimes.

You hear him intake a breath, formulating an answer, and suddenly shake your head. 

“No. Don’t,” you murmur, feeling yourself beginning to slide into sleep. An easy sleep. A completely ordinary Halloween-night sleep, brought on by the excitement of the holiday, the thrill of the goblins and ghouls who roamed the night and were satisfied with fistful after fistful of candy from your hands and nothing else.

“Never mind.” You whisper against his chest, and let your eyelids close. “Please, whatever happened, don’t ever tell me.” 

[frostyreturns]

Frosty Ruins "Bottoms"

Are you ready for this movie review? Get ready because it starts rough and never stops getting rougher. This is a review I was dreading because it seems to have marketed itself as a cringe fag fest and the first 10 seconds of the movie didn't disappoint, I already hate it and I already have so many complaints. The movie opens on two women discussing "getting puss." You don't know these characters, you know nothing about them not their personalities, their interests their values, not even their names…but you do know about their sex lives. Not only have they prioritized their sex lives over every single other aspect of who they are, making this a degenerate starting point…but it's disorienting from a story standpoint. Why do I care about this character…what do I call this character…give me some setting, some backdrop…anything. Porn starts with more story and less focus on sex than this.

I can tell already this is going to be a constant violater of the classic "show don't tell" advice because the dialogue is atrocious. Lines like "Im in a little suit like the lesbian I am" make you reject the idea that these are even people talking…all I can see is script writers, cameramen, and a director, it does the opposite of making me forget I'm watching a movie…it makes me painfully aware of it and I don't buy it as a genuine human interaction. This is dialogue that can only be the work of a broken illiterate persons imagination or an algorithmic writing program. It's like someone asked chatgpt to write superbad but gay and without any humour or reason. Tell me this doesn't sound like a robot attempting humour... "I bet you could eat food, digest it, let it marinate and poop it out." I'm not making that up or being hyperbolic that is word for word actual dialogue from this awful fucking piece of shit horrorfest of a movie.

Although I will give them credit for one interaction where they acknowledge that some or even all of the bullying and hate they get doesn't come from being gay but from being "ugly and untalented" and show an example of a popular gay dude being widely accepted. But yeah a premise of the movie is that the people are hard to look at on purpose. Finally some acknowledgment that physical appearance plays a much greater role in bullying and acceptance than any minority or special interest status ever did.

One final point in this movies favour is presenting a completely accurate depiction of how cringe and gameless most lesbians are. The moment a woman tries to pickup other women they grow a fedora and a neckbeard and start spilling spaghetti out of their pockets. It's a reluctant point because it also makes the movie incredibly hard to watch for a whole new reason.

I have to talk about the black characters rant early on in the movie, I call her that because again I have no idea who anyone is or what to call them because who they are has taken a massive backseat to who they want to fuck. She goes on this explosive insane rant and there are so many things wrong with it I don't even know where to begin. It comes out of nowhere for one, it makes no sense, she talks about hanging up her vagina…but then her idea of hanging it up is having sex with someone else…I only know it's a guy because I was able to rewind 3 times and listen back to what she was saying. She introduces a character in the dumbest way imagineable. Imagine the first time you get introduced to a character is in a mumbly lightning fast rant about their sex life. If you slow it down and piece it together you learn she's introducing a religious character who is a friend of hers and a closeted homo. See I thought homosexuality was supposed to be two people of the same sex hooking up but she seems to think that because she can't get women and he's closetted it means they would of course be a good default couple.

The rant is also grossly blasphemous and not even just to Christians. I can't explain how bad this is you just have to hear it. "Because he's gay and fearless he's probably going to fuck me without protection, I'm gonna get pregnant, we'll have to join a church and he'll probably be the gay pastor." What the fuck is she talking about, why would a gay man be fucking her…how is she so certain he would fuck her without protection and why is she saying it like she would have no say in the matter? Why would her getting pregnant mean they would have to join a church…why would he then be the pastor of the church? You already established he was gay so why do you have to specify he'd be a gay pastor? None of this makes any sense, every sentence deviates further fom rationality than the last and every line brings with it new unanswered questions. Then it ends with her screaming "the deacons fucking the evangelist" over and over and crying. My headache has a headache. Gay people have to pray people do not watch this movie because "homophobia" will skyrocket if they do.

The movie also has some of the most unbelievable and wooden dialogue I've ever heard in my life. Nobody in the history of planet earth has ever spoken or behaved the way the people in this movie do. It's almost like to make up for the fact that it's a comedy with no jokes or humour at all they try to just exaggerate every interaction and then do it very big with overacting and overreacting. For example a football player is insisting he did nothing wrong by groping an older woman in front of his girlfriend….already a ridiculous caricature of straight men, then he tries to stop her from leaving in her friends car where they gently bump into him with the car and he explodes into hysterics like he's been gievously injured…and the entire football teams comes running to help and fawn over him like he's a gunshot victim. As I write this I figured out what this movie is and why every moment of it feels so cringe and wrong…every interaction is like a fake tumblr story, from the start it had "the whole bus clapped" vibes. Like when the principle summons the main characters to his office by getting on the intercom and announcing to the whole school "can the ugly untalented gays please come to my office." You know the saying it's funny because it's true…it goes the other way…this is not funny because it has no truth in it whatsoever. Every second of this movie is false, every line, every action, every shot…just rings of untruth and fabrication. This movie is the comedy equivalent of a real doll. It has all the same parts all the limbs are where they belong…but they are not real…there's a hollow soullessness to it, a feeling of plastic wrongness.

I said before it's like someone prompted chat gpt but it gets worse and more likely AI written the more you watch. It's like they said to combine superbad and fightclub but make it sound like it was written by tumblr and one of the criteria was that it had to be lesbians and it had to be pure unfiltered cancer.

By the way as of this point in the review I've only watched 9 minutes of this horrific piece of dogshit. This is going to be without a doubt the worst movie I've ever watched every sentence of it pisses me off. Every moment is a new thing to piss you off, this is a weapons grade bad movie…like it was made in a lab to cause frustration and braincunting. Just when you're relieved they stopped arguing over which one of them is faggot #1 and which one is faggot #2 the one asks the other if she "perioded herself." Then there is a completely unexplained "joke" where one of the students claims her vagina is owned by the government and as the viewer you're left with again so many questions…why was that supposed to be a joke? what does it mean? And please can I have at least a ten second break from incoherence and cringe?

Then in another "that happened" moment the football guy from earlier comes into class…in his full gear…because to whoever made this movie it's just a costume and football players are not people outside of playing football. He then smashes a glass and threatens her with it by mimicking dragging the glass across his throat…and the teachers response is "hey man you couldn't make that analogy with your fist?" And again so many things wrong all at once. Why is the teacher not punishing him for smashing school property and then threatening another student? Why does a teacher not understand the difference between an analogy and a gesture? Again these little details are part of why I'm starting to seriously believe my this shit is all being written by algorithms theory. It's like nobody even bothered to edit the script. It's full of lines that make no sense, jokes that have no setup or no punchline…just the cadence of a joke.

If I go in depth into everything wrong with this movie I'll literally…not figuratively have to examine every single line, because at least for the start of this movie there is not one line that is not absolutely mind numbingly retarded and frustrating. And every line has multiple things wrong with it. Listen to some of this shit…

"How come you can't buck up and learn to protect yourselves without running somebody over."

"You can beat the shit out of each other while you perform the vagina monologues,just stay in your lane until you're munching beaver at weslyan."

By the way those two lines are how the concept of them starting a fight club comes up, it's so abrupt, so out of nowhere and so retardly nonsensical…it doesn't follow at all. The entire premise of the movie hinges on a throwaway line that makes no sense. The only reason they bumped into a guy with their car was he was threatening them and preventing them from leaving because they were offering a ride to his ex girlfriend. They took this to mean we as gay people need to learn self defense…already a leap in logic because nobody was attacking them and certainly not because they were gay. Then they accept their principles notion that they shouldn't use anything to defend themselves with, a retarded idea that nobody even bothered to attempt to explain or defend…and they just accept that they can't or shouldn't use whatever means they have available to defend themselves and instead have to learn hand to hand combat…another stretch. And then decide that the best way to do this is to start a fight club with other gays where they all just beat each other up. And they do this because the principle suggested it for no reason while insulting them. And by the way I'm explaining this all way better and more clearly than the movie does, the movie is just a string of incoherent sentences that form some idea of a patchwork of a plot I'm just trying to make sense of the nonsense. This plot is not the work of an intelligence at all…nevermind a low intelligence.

I really can't finish this movie,this is normally the amount of rage and content I have after a full 2 hour movie but im only at 14 minutes here. It's not even that the writing is so atrocious, the timing, the delivery…the acting is just the worst I've ever seen. I've sat through some horrifically bad movies over the years for these reviews I've sat through countless movies and shows that I grade as F-and yet never once did I say ok I can't watch this anymore…I've always finished it. I've watched woke black sitcoms, Rian Johnson movies, femsploitation reboots and yet this is the first time I've ever had to say no I can't finish this it's too awful. This movie is without a single doubt in my mind the worse movie ever made. It has ruined my grading curve because I need a grade so much lower than an F- and it just doesn't exist. Is Z- minus a thing? If in theory that is 20 grades lower than a fail that's what I give this movie. May God have mercy on us all.

[transandor]

sorry i now have the mental image of jordan with those awful fuzzy slippers but the fuzzy slippers are just straight up Moss.

oh yeah no dont get it twisted. half of jerry's tree is sculk. that shit is a deep dark all on its own. it is a horrorfest. jordan is the most relaxed anyone has seen him since Literally Ever

[aradia-queen-of-the-sheep]

rant about a vampire anime under the cut

so for whatever reason I was looking for reviews for Shiki and obviously there are a bunch on MAL, and it had a lad of high-star ratings but a lot of bad reviews. obviously this is true of most things, but like they kinda grinded my gears because I feel some of these people are deliberately missing the point. the plot of shiki is one giant buildup, and then a bloodbath which is basically a pogrom, where the human characters go out and murder all the vampire characters, destroying the town in the process but saving lives. but it is terrifyingly brutal. every method of torture and murder is employed, blood is everywhere, you know, it’s a general horrorfest, the most violent thing you could imagine. in the name of destroying the evil vampires. yaaaay. and everyone rightfully says this is the best part of the show, but all these people leaving bad reviews believe it’s the best part because it’s cathartic, and the townspeople finally band together to do what’s right, and the vampires finally get what’s coming to them. but that’s not it. it’s to highlight how this punishment is unwarranted, and make you sad and scared. it’s horror, not action. the point of the show is to make you think about whether the vampires truly deserve such a punishment, even if they are evil. the vampires in shiki aren’t misunderstood, or just edgy or whatever, they legitimately have to kill people to live. rightfully, they should all die. the villagers are legitimately justified, but that isn’t the Point. the point is that it doesn’t matter how awful they are, they don’t deserve genocide. and the people writing bad reviews say they see the moral conflict in the show, and think about it critically. who’s the good guys? well clearly the humans, because they don’t have to kill to live. so the philosophizing is just annoying and pointless, since the riddle’s been solved already! but that’s not the riddle, it’s not about who deserves to live more or whatever. it’s a false ultimatum. there are ways for the humans and vampires to live in harmony, they’re just difficult, and zero humans are willing to accomplish it. there’s a youtube review i also watched which i think got the point of the show even better than i did. as a fag i was on team vampire since day one, because i’m also reviled by society. humans already hate me and think i rape dogs and children and whatever. i obviously don’t but i’m still very clearly in camp vampire as someone who is reviled for doing evil. but this youtuber said you’re supposed to start of empathizing with the humans, who are facing someone so clearly antagonistic, but then shift to empathizing with the vampires as you realize how human they are too, and how this relationship, although yes, the vampires need to prey on the humans, does not need to result in the bloodbath. the horror of the show isn’t that those poor vampires are being murdered, it’s that anyone could be a murderer and Think They’re Doing the Right Thing. the pogrom against the vampires is justified, after all. ergo the atrocities are. this is how war works, this is how genocide works, this is how oppression often works. there is an us vs them, and They are doing bad things. it doesn’t even matter whether they’re doing bad things or not ultimately, because They are going to end up paying. being Them is inherently evil, because They are just Like That. the vampires are just like that, and so logically, well you know. it’s not that the people giving bad reviews on mal aren’t getting the point of the show, they see the grey morals are logic them out and go “i’ve come to the logical conclusion that the vampires should all be killed.” and it just feels very “i’ve come to the logical conclusion that the vampires should all be killed.” to me. like if someone’s causing a problem you stop that person, right? my brother said he thinks shiki’s a commentary on ableism (esp related to perceived mental disorders that are actually personality types cough autism) and honestly he’s probably right bc like. step one, story made for otakus, step two, it’s about organized murder of a minority. like i wonder to which oppressed group most otakus belong. and like the root of ableism is the belief that disabled people are inferior, and don’t need special treatment, and most importantly, shouldn’t get help. basically that they’re a drain on society. and that part is kind of hard to argue against because like yeah. your average autistic person is gonna need more resources to stay a functional human than your average nt person, and will find it much harder to function in society. the vampires fit the bill. they are an active drain on society, taking resources and providing literally nothing, which is how many people feel, even if it’s unwarranted in 99% of cases. it’s not about logicing out the best solution to the “vampire problem”, or maybe it is but the best solution takes compassion into consideration or something, but anyway, it doesn’t matter that the vampires actually Are a Problem. it is about how we treat the people who are “problems” and i think that’s why so many people are annoyed by it. the show makes them empathize with the “problem” and they just. don’t like it. morality dictates the vampire is evil and deserves this. and like yeah sure but maybe your morality sucks if it can’t account for tolerance of “bad people.” this wasn’t coherent at all but end rant.

[the-girl-who-flies]

It Was a Bad Idea, pt. 2

Part I

Dying sucks, but somehow, coming back to life sucks even more. Jason's mind doesn't feel like his own in the drug-filled haze he awakens in, too sluggish and disjointed to focus on anything. It reaches out to his body but comes up empty, and then he thinks he might actually be dead - that this is what death is like – being trapped inside your own skull, helpless and lost, laid out like a dissected bug under the blinding clinical lights. 

He would honestly rather have the vampires. 

Brightly coloured hazmat suits hover at the edge of his vision. He tries to call out, to scream, but there’s something shoved down his throat that turns any sound he tries to produce into a pitiful wheeze. Maybe it’s a good thing that he blacks out again.

It goes on like this for a while, his consciousness coming and going, with nothing but blackness in between. Eventually, the sedatives start wearing off and he becomes aware of a thousand little discomforts - the straps around his wrists, the itch in places he can’t reach, the fucking tube shoved down his throat.  They do take it out once they seem convinced he can breathe on his own, and he finds out just how deep that thing went, because every inch fucking hurts.

“You’re very lucky, Lieutenant.” Says a hazmat suit with a clipboard. “We almost didn’t manage to bring you back.”  

For someone who claims to be his doctor, she sounds a little too disappointed.

She ends up giving him a pretty vague explanation of what happened - some kind of delayed anaphylaxis followed by respiratory arrest, followed by him basically being dead for six minutes. The substance he inhaled may or may not have caused it. They don’t know. Jason’s vocal cords feel like they’ve been treated with sandpaper, but he manages to get some basic answers out of her.

It turns out he’s not at Camp Slayer anymore, although he could’ve guessed as much, since the room he’s in is way too bare and modern to be part of Saddam’s palace. They’ve flown him to some kind of medical facility just about two weeks ago, only where this medical facility is is apparently something no one wants to disclose. He gives up on that one and asks about the other survivors.

“You were the only patient they brought us, Lieutenant.” Is all the doctor tells him.

Pretty much all his other questions are ignored, and he’s too tired, and way, way too weak to insist. He’s still unconscious more often than not, but now when he sleeps, he dreams, and his dreams are not peaceful. They are awful, feverish, nonsensical things. Sometimes they chase him out of the cavernous depths of his subconscious and he wakes up in the middle of the night gasping for breath and straining against his bonds, possessed by a distressingly familiar sense of urgency he can't remember the cause of. He imagines it must be the drugs, taking his fresh experiences from the House of Ashes and vomiting them back at him. At least before, he had a choice. Now he doesn't even have that anymore.

Of course, they can't remove the bonds yet. They have to make sure he’s not a danger to himself, he’s told. Who knows what other symptoms could have a delayed onset?

 Jason keeps quiet about the nightmares and withdraws into the little corner of himself he still has left. He’s never been very good at being alone, but now it seems that he has no other real company. 

His mind turns into a highlight reel of his finest moments.

The blistering heat of the road, the dead silence that follows a single gunshot. Oranges rolling out of a bag.

Nicky, calling out to him in the middle of the night from the top bunk, pleading to have someone to talk to, while Jason pretends to be asleep.

And down in that alien horrorfest of a place, facing a fate worse than death, him finally admitting that he’s full of shit. That he’s as lost as he was two years ago, as lost as he has been all his life, really. Except now there’s blood on his hands and it won’t wash off. He told Nick they’d die in that place if that was what they deserved, but he really only meant himself.

There’s one speck of warmth in his little parade of self-contempt, and that’s the memory of who he bared his soul to. Jason doesn’t know what became of his other comrades, but he tries to convince himself that Salim made it back home to his son. He hangs on to the thought as if it were a lifeline.

One day he wakes up and finally finds himself free to move around, or at least so he thinks until he actually tries. Making his way to the bathroom is a slow and painful process that leaves him sweaty and trembling, and when he finally sees himself in the mirror, he wants to cry. The man staring back at him is nothing but skin and bone.

Incidentally, or maybe not, this is also the day he finally sees a familiar face. 

“Shit, Kolchek.” Eric looks genuinely taken aback by the sight of him. "Should you be up and about?"

Jason makes a sound that is either a cackle or a cough, he's not sure which one, and hangs on for dear life to the edge of the bed because the last thing he wants is to need Eric King's help getting back into it.

"Disappointed that I'm not a corpse, Colonel? Yeah, I know. Me too."

"That's not what I meant." Eric frowns. "Listen, I've got some good news for you."

“Did they let you all go, then?” Jason interrupts. “Nick, Rachel… they okay?”

Eric actually looks over his shoulder, towards the door. When he speaks again, his voice has dropped a few decibels.

“This isn’t the best place to have this conversation. But yes. I… promised them I’d make sure you were taken care of.”

“Taken care of?” Something very unpleasant twists in Jason’s gut at those words. As if to add to the pathetic image he must be presenting, his legs feel like they’re about to give out under him, so he has no choice but to plop himself on the bed awkwardly.

“I know this isn’t the usual process, but given the circumstances, expediting this was the best option for you.” 

Eric hands him a sealed letter which Jason’s shaking, clammy hands take a frustratingly long time to get open. He skims over paragraphs of official nonsense until his eyes finally catch the words that sound like the last nail in his coffin. 

Unfit for duty.

He must spend a long time staring at them, because Eric breaks the silence with a small cough, having probably grown tired of hovering politely.

“Like I said, it’s good news. You’re going home, Lieutenant.”

[junkercrush]

Yo! Can I request junkrat being oblivious to his feelings with an equally oblivious crush?

Yes, you may! Here you go!

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

“Oblivious” 

Junkrat x Reader (I’m guessing female?)

Rating: SFW

Words: 3,303

You’re finally caught up with work, and Junkrat was coming over. Nothing special, just a hangout.

“Aw, crap.” You groaned as the scent of burnt popcorn hit your nose. You ran to the kitchen and popped open the microwave. Thank goodness the popcorn bag wasn’t on fire (this time). You threw the darker pieces in the trash and poured the rest into a huge party bowl.

You skipped excitedly to the living room where you were preparing for Junkrat’s arrival. Tonight, you and Rat were going to watch horror films until the crack of dawn. You turned on the TV and reviewed your horror playlist. It was filled with frightening titles featuring vampires, ghouls, and zomnics. Junkrat might love the zomnic one, even though he can’t stand Omnics in real life.

You peered at the clock hanging on the wall over your TV—6:23 pm. You moaned with impatience. “Where the hell is he?” You asked aloud.

The pizza guy with the four extra-large pizzas you ordered was supposed to arrive 45 minutes ago. You could nibble on some popcorn as you waited, but you wanted to save it for your horrorfest. Your stomach growled. Perhaps one small bite---

Ding dong!

Was that the pizza guy or Rat? You set the popcorn aside and rushed to the door. Wait, the pizza money! You checked your pockets and pulled out two $20 bills. The pizza guy could keep the change.

You opened the door, and a blue light zipped past you. “Hello, hello!” Tracer chirped.

“Tracer,” You sighed. “The hell are you doing here? I thought you were out on a mission.”

Tracer was already munching on your popcorn in the living room. “Nope, false alarm. What are you doing?”

Tracer turns to the TV you left on with your horror movies. “Oooh, movie night! I’m game!”

“Uh no, actually—”

“Am I  interrupting something?”

“Not really—”

“ ‘Not really?’ Sounds suspicious to me.” Tracer’s eyes lit up. “Are you waiting on your date?”

“No! It’s just Rat and me. We’re having a movie night.”

Tracer stares at you with a sly grin. You only roll your eyes at her. “God, Lena, it’s not like that!”

“Are you sure? You two have been ‘hanging out’ for a while.”

Tracer zips around your living room, checking under your furniture and peeking behind your hanging picture frames.

“What are you doing?” You asked.

“Searching for surprises. I know you’re hiding condoms and your kinky toys around here somewhere.”

You playfully whacked Tracer with a couch pillow. “Get out.” You ordered.

“Aw, c’mon!” Tracer groaned. “Let me hang out with you guys on your date. I  don’t mind. I want to see ‘Attack of the Living Zomnics’ too.”

“For heaven’s sake, it’s not a damn date!” You laughed. “Rat is not into me like that. Just friends. It’s been like that for years.”

Tracer crossed her arms. “Remember when you caught him ogling at you at Lucio’s pool party?”

You traced your memories back to last week. You hated parties, especially the kind where you got wet. But it was Lucio’s party, and you liked his music.

You came out in a shockingly fitting bathing suit Tracer bought for you just for the occasion. You didn’t care about the guys looking at you. You were shocked to see Junkrat there. He was in the swimming pool sitting on top of a huge inflatable duck. His mouth was slightly open, eyes straight at you.

You remembered asking him to go to the party with you, but he made an excuse that he was sick. There he was, staring at you like you were God just descended down from heaven. 

You two got together later and ended up playing pool volleyball with some random partygoers. Junkrat was very touchy that night. You were used to it, he was that way with everyone. But that time was different, way different. 

The image of Rat’s lean, wet body lasted in your mind for a week. You weren’t going to tell anybody about that, especially Tracer.

“Yeah,” You said, coming back to the present. “No big deal.”

Tracer slumped her head down and let out a heavy sigh. “C’mon, you can’t tell me the signs between you two aren’t right there!”

“Looks like somebody’s has been watching too many chick flicks.”

The doorbell rang again. Before Tracer could say anything else, you paced to the door and peered through your door’s peephole. Finally, the pizza man.

“Sorry, miss,” The skinny, freckled face delivery boy apologized as you opened the door. “There was a bunch of traffic—”

You shoved the money to his face and took the pizza boxes from him. “Glad you made it. Thank you so much! Keep the change.” You blurted and waved at him. The boy counted the money.

“Sweet, thanks!” He scurried to his run-down rusty car and sped off.

“Mmmm, I smell pepperoni.” You heard Tracer from the house.

You closed the door and placed the pizza boxes in the kitchen. The cheesy aroma goodness traveled up your nose and made your stomach rumble with anticipation. Man, Junkrat better hurry up before you ate all this pizza yourself! 

Tracer arrives and opens a box. “Mmm,” She hums. “Extra large too.”

You glared at her. “Don’t you take a single bite.” You warned her.

Tracer only smiled. “Oh, you’re right. We have to wait before the love of your life arrives.”

You reached for her, and she teleported to the kitchen entrance with a giggle. “I’ll leave your little get together when you guys start snogging.” She said, taking a bite of a gooey cheese pizza slice.

“Hey!” You shouted. The doorbell rings again. You froze. Tracer’s smile grew wider.

“I’ll get it!” Tracer zipped to the front door.

“No!” You shouted.

Junkrat was let in before you could protest further. He was oddly clean today, except his hair was covered in ash. He wore a fresh tank top and some (unripped) cargo shorts. He definitely smelt like he was forced into a flowery-scented bath. The rose and lavender scents slowly filled the room.

“H-hey!” Your voice quivered.

“Hey, I heard some yelling while I was outside,” Junkrat said. “Everything alright?”

You glared at Tracer again. She only shrugged her shoulders like she didn’t know anything.

“Everything’s fine.” You sighed. “Just fooling around.”

“Hey!” Someone barked outside your door. Roadhog entered. He looked like he just rode out of hell. He was smoking, covered in soot, and his mask all beat up. You rushed over to him.

“Jesus, what happened to you?” You asked Hog. The Junkers exchanged glances and laughed.

“We just robbed a bank,” Junkrat answered.

“And I wanted to keep him clean.” Hog added. “Knew he was going to see you tonight.”

Tracer grinned. “I knew this was a date.”

“The hell are you talking about?” Junkrat asked her.

“Admit it, Rat!”

Junkrat shot you a confused glance. You only shook your head. “I don’t know what’s going on.” You sighed. “She’s gone nuts.”   Roadhog patted Junkrat’s shoulder. “I’m off. The police may find us here. I’ll distract them.”

Junkrat shot him a thumbs up. “Good call, mate.”   “I’m going to get some ice cream too.” Hog continued.

Tracer appeared in front of Hog in a hot second. “Can I come?” She asked him.   Police sirens blared in the distance. Hog threw Tracer over his shoulder and marched out of your house. “Sure, let’s go!” He huffed.   Perfect, she was finally gone. “Bye!” You waved with a great smile. You and Junkrat watched as Roadhog strapped Tracer into the passenger wagon of his motorcycle and zoomed off.   “Finally.” You sighed, walking back to the living room. “I got pizza and popcorn ready for us. Which movie do you want to see---” You turned to Junkrat and froze. He held out a bouquet of daisies for you. Looking at the roots, it seems he pulled them out of the ground somewhere.    “What’s this?” You asked.   “A gift for you,” Junkrat answered. “Found them in some bloke’s yard.”   Tracer’s stupid smirk popped in your mind. If she was still here, she would’ve flipped. You cleared your throat. “That’s nice of you. Thanks!”   You took the daisies into the kitchen and placed them in a vase filled with water. Junkrat followed you. From the corner of your eye, you noticed his eyes kept shifting at you then down at the floor like he was afraid to ask you something.    “Do you want to see Blood Sucker Junkers first or Junkenstein’s Revenge 2?” You asked. Junkrat scratched his head.   “Actually, I changed my mind about our movie night.” He said.    “Oh?”   “I want to take you to the beach. Heard it was going to be really nice this evening.”   You shrugged your shoulders. “I don’t see why not.” You said.   Junkrat grinned. “We’ll take the food with us. Feed the popcorn to the seagulls.”   You laughed. “Don’t blow them up!”   Junkrat raised his hands in mock guiltiness. “Oi, have you ever tried fried seagull? Delicious!”   “No thanks. I prefer chicken.”   “You don’t know what you’re missing, mate. You need to live a little more.”   *~*~*

Rent on your place can be a bitch on your wallet, but having only to walk a few minutes to the beach was worth the money.   You and Junkrat arrived at the beach at sunset. People were already lingering away from the calm, blue waters to the parking lot. One frustrated mother was dragging her screaming child, who clearly didn’t want to leave. The little boy yanked his arm away from his mother’s grip and fell out on the ground, kicking sand up in the air.   “Nooo!” The boy shrieked. “I have to finish my sandcastle!” He pointed to the sandcastle decorated with seashells, sticks, and seaweed. The boy’s mother only huffed and placed her tightened fists on her hips.   “We have to go, Cayden, or no ice cream!” The mother warned. The boy’s tantrum stopped immediately.   “Ice cream?” Cayden asked.   “Yes.”   The boy ran past his mother to the parking lot for his parent’s car. The mother chased after him. You watched the sandcastle as a colossal wave smashed it into nothingness. Good thing little Cayden didn’t see that.   “Man, that boy can scream!” Junkrat chuckled behind you. He was lying on his stomach on a beach towel eating out of his second pizza box.   “Hey!” You closed the box. “Save some for me!”   “But I didn’t get to eat all day.” Junkrat moaned, looking up at you with pitiful eyes. “I’m starving!”   Junkrat opened the pizza box and nibbled on a large pepperoni slice. “Hmm, crunchy.”   You eyed him questionably. “Crunchy?”   Junkrat giggles. “I think I got some sand topping on my pizza.”   You laughed. “That’s what you get!”   A beach couple walked past you two, holding hands. They looked like they literally lived in the gym and the tanning salon. They parked their beach towel not too far from where you were sitting and started watching the sunset together. The beach body boyfriend had his hand right on his girlfriend’s ass, playing with her g-string thong. You rolled your eyes and returned to chewing your pizza slice.   “Oi,” Junkrat called out to the couple. “Get a room!”   You didn’t know why the couple bothered Junkrat so, but it was funny until he pulled out a small cherry bomb from his pocket.   “Junkrat, no!” You hissed, taking the bomb from his hand before he lit the fuse.   “What?” Junkrat looked completely innocent. “I was just going to scare them. Not blow them up!”   “Let them be.” You muttered. You turned back to the couple, and they were already making out. For real?   Luckily, a huge wave came ashore and hit the couple. The girlfriend screamed.   “My hair!” The bikini goddess yelped. You could only snicker. Why the hell was she there if she didn’t want her long, blonde luscious locks wet?   The couple glanced your way then moved further out from the rushing waters. Junkrat sighed with relief.   “Thank God,” Junkrat said. “They were ruining our spot.”   You turned to him. “Ours?”   Junkrat gently grabbed your face with his prosthetic hand and turned you toward the glowing sunset. It was a splash of red, yellow, and orange in front of the purple clouds. It was perfect, just perfect.   Seagulls circled the skies, searching for fish to pick up for the late evening dinner. A line of dolphin fins peeked out of the water. You gasped at the sight and pointed at the sea. “Junkrat, did you see that?”   “I did!”   You jumped as you realized Junkrat was sitting right beside you, still chewing on pizza.   “I don’t understand why Tracer thinks we’re dating.” He continued.   You shook your head. “I don’t know, man.”   Junkrat turned to you, a cheese string hanging from his mouth. “Is this dating? I just gave you flowers because I know you like them.”   You threw your arm around Junkrat’s shoulder. The first stars appeared as the sun slowly descended into the ocean.   “This is the best place to look at the stars.” He said.   You smiled. “You’ve been here before?” You asked. Junkrat only grinned.   A man’s loud cough made you jump. You turned to a couple sitting on the bench watching the sea. A huge man and a tiny man garbed in fishermen’s gear with sunglasses. Looks like they were taking a break from their fishing. You felt weird vibes from their presence.   “I like you,” Junkrat said. “I mean it.”   You stared at him. “I like you too. You’re a good friend.”   Junkrat shook his head. “No, no, no. I meant—”   “Daddy, look!” A little girl shouted behind you. A little girl and her family stepped off the boardwalk into the beach. More and more people steadily approached around you and Rat, pointing at the skies and planting their beach chairs on the cool sand.   “Daddy, look, look, look, LOOK!” The same little girl shouted.   “I see, I see, sweetie!” The exhausted father replied.   The sky was nearly covered with shooting stars. Your mouth dropped with amazement. “Oh my God,” You gasped. “I almost forgot about this.”   You remembered last week you were watching the news with Junkrat when an anchorwoman announced a meteor shower was coming up. The beach was the best place to see anything up in the skies, whether it be the stars, an aerial hostile Omnic invasion, or UFOS.   “I remembered,” Junkrat said, tapping your nose.   You smiled, blood rushing to your cheeks. You shyly turned away from Rat. Geez, why were you acting like a timid schoolgirl with a crush on him now?    “Remember the time we went out to King’s Row?” Junkrat asked.   “Yeah.” You recalled. You remembered it like it was yesterday.   After bringing in a British TALON spy into custody, you, Junkrat, Tracer, and Roadhog all went out for drinks as a celebration. Roadhog and Tracer returned to their hotel rooms early. At the same time, you and Rat explored London seeing Big Ben, visiting Piccadilly Circus, and almost getting regrettable matching tattoos.   “Remember Junkertown?” Junkrat continued.   “Yep.”   “South Korea? Brazil? Paris?”   “Yep, yep, and yep.”   “Were we dating back then?”   You and Rat would often take on week-long trips together. Just the two of you. Whoever asked where you all were going, you quickly responded it was a mission. Really, you just liked being around each other. You didn’t know why, but you just did.   “Maybe we are dating.” You admitted. Your heart rate increased after your confession. You opened your mouth to say something else, but a sudden pang of fear stopped you.   Junkrat only stared at you, a genuine smile slowly forming on his face. He leaned closer to your face, and you immediately backed away.   “You want to get some snow cones?” You asked, breaking the moment. “I know a place nearby. It’s not too far from here.”   Junkrat turned to the empty pizza boxes and patted his stomach. “A dessert sounds nice.” He said.   You two gathered up your beach towels and trash and walked away from the beach, leaving the crowd still watching the meteor shower. You glanced over at the bench where the mysterious fishermen were sitting. They were gone. You had a strange feeling you knew them from somewhere.   *~*~*

An hour later, you and Junkrat finally received your snow cones after a terribly long line at the snow cone hut. Only two people were working at the stand.   “Finally!” Junkrat sighed as he stabbed his blueberry snow cone with a spoon. “That took longer than I expected.”   “Yeah, seriously.” You replied.   With no warning, Junkrat stole a scoop of your cherry snow cone. “Mine!” He shouted.   “Hey!”   You reached for his cone with your spoon, but he moved it out of the way. “Ha! Missed!” Junkrat shouted. He leaned forward and surprised you with a kiss. Both of you stared at each other in shock afterward. “Uh, whoops, sorry about that, mate.” He giggled nervously.   You licked your lips, tasting the artificial cherry/blueberry flavor. “It’s all right,” You said as you set your cup down and grabbed the back of Junkrat’s head. “Fuck it!”   You crushed his lips with a long, savory kiss.   “Daddy, look. The pretty one is kissing that strange, ugly man!” The little girl from the beach pointed at you. You jerked away from Junkrat and laughed.   The beach father rushed over and scooped the child up to his arms. “Shh, that’s not nice!” He said. “We don’t talk about people that way.”   The little girl looked back at you as she was taken away. “But Daddy, he’s weird! Look at his funny hair!”   “Be quiet, and you eat your snow cone!” The father hissed.   Junkrat ran his fingers through his half-burnt hair. “Me hair’s funny?” He turned to you. “It’s not that bad, is it?”   You pecked him on the cheek. “You’re absolutely fine.” You said. Junkrat pulled you closer to him and buried his face into your neck.   “Mmm, I love you (Y/N).” He said.   You blushed. “Yeah, me too.”   “AH HA!”   The fishermen from the beach burst out of the bushes, scaring a couple of beachgoers.   “What the fuck!?” One tan man holding two snow cones yelped. One cone accidentally fell to the ground. “Fuck!” The man groaned.   “Oh, sod off.” The tiny fisherman said to the man.   “Um, do I know you?” You asked the fishermen. They removed their sunglasses, and you instantly recognized them.   “Tracer? Roadhog?! So you’ve been spying on us this whole time?” You frowned.   Roadhog pointed at Tracer. “It was her idea. I just wanted some ice cream.”   Tracer clicked her teeth. “Ah, ah, ah! You brought up the idea as we were eating ice cream.”   “Did not!” Hog barked back.   “Enough!” You shouted. Junkrat only laughed.   “Sorry we spied on you.” Roadhog apologized, twiddling his fingers with his massive feet turned inwards. You scoffed.   “Hog, it’s okay.” You assured the Maori giant. “I’m just startled.”   “I’m not surprised,” Junkrat said. “I knew you two were watching us back at the beach.”   You stared at Junkrat. “You knew?! And you didn’t tell me!?”   “Love, if I did, I wouldn’t have had the chance to kiss ya!” Junkrat wiggled his eyebrows.   “Oh my God.” You rolled your eyes.   Tracer pulled out her smartphone. “Smile for the birdy, would you? I want to capture the moment King Junkrat and Queen (Y/N) have finally reunited.”   You smiled and threw your snow cone at her.   “Hey!” Tracer cried.   The picture caught your snow cone flying towards her direction. Your face in the frame half-covered by the flying dessert while Junkrat had his lips planted on your cheek. A blurry Roadhog hand hovered over you two.

THE END

Want more stories? Click here!

[primusdemoniccreatrix]

Why

(Had this in my drafts for over a year; enjoy) Miko, Jack and Raf sat in the back of Ratchet’s cab as he closed the door shut to silence the myriad of voices and machines outside. The mech had come to bring the kids to the base from school. 

The other bots were on missions, leaving only an injured Bee to man the groundbridge and Ratchet to come pick up the children. After all, Bee lost his T-cog (thank goodness nothing else was taken but still that is awful) so Ratchet had to collect the fleshy nuisances. And while shutting the back had closed off the noise, it concentrated the ones on the inside. 

For no reason whatsoever, the children had begun yelling and it was for some reason so ridiculously loud of an argument he wished that Arcee was right about his hearing. His hearing was so sharp it was a pain in circumstances like this. 

“-ou don’t even have enough money for chicken nuggets!” 

“What did you say, Miko?! No, what did you say?! Step the Hell up, Miko!” 

“Jack, you don’t even know how to read, like Jared!” 

....What in the Allspark was a ‘Jared’? A name or something?

“That’s why your shoes raggedy” came Miko’s voice. 

“That is not correct, Miko”, came the voice of Raf, who had stayed stayed suspiciously quiet for the first few seconds; “According to the Encyclopedia of-” and what in Primus’ name was that slurping noise- 

Primus, end my life now, prayed Ratchet, getting confused. 

He didn’t know why the children started yelling, and why they were shouting at each other, or why the frag he recognized it from somewhere, but this shouting match was too much. Far too much for his sleep-deprived brain. Ratchet turned on the street once more as the others continued shouting, with Raf’s and Jack’s giggling accompanying Miko’s shouting. Ratchet grumbled as he strained to follow the path back to the base with his sanity as intact as possible. 

The potholes and the shouting were grating on his nerves that it took every ounce of Ratchet’s remaining sanity to not explode. The non-sensical way they spoke was doing damage to his brain module, he just knew. He was losing IQ, he could feel knowledge leave his body.

Primus, Have mercy. 

Ratchet wasn’t very superstitious or religious, but if he died from implosion out of the sheer horrorfest in his own vehicle mode, he needed to pray because logic wouldn’t help. 

Before he knew it he was already inside the base. Thank fragging PRIMUS- 

He let the children out, turned down his audials, got back to work and called on Optimus to hurry. He needed a friend to stomach this. 

Optimus turned once more on the streets, hoping to get back to the base without incident. Agent Fowler needed his assistance to pick up files from some anonymous tip, and having collected it (while almost boiling alive in the Nevada sun for about 30 minutes before he remembered he had air conditioning in his vehicle mode to cool himself off he totally remembered and wasn’t embarrassed), Agent Fowler returned to Optimus’ vehicle mode and here they were, both of them on the way back to the base after that meeting. 

For some reason there were many construction signs on the rods, even on the only one leading to the base. Agent Fowler explained that the state was hoping to clean up the potholes in the area, so they needed to block off some routes. The Prime was glad to hear that the municipality was taking care of their roads (and not because he sunk into one too many on missions shhh) and was pleased to see things were going to be fixed. Only problem was, there were so many roads covered in pylons, especially the ones that were just barely big enough to allow him through by his sheer size. They had to search for a few roads, going back and forth between a few to try and find open roads to accommodate the bulk of the Prime. 

“Thanks for helping me, Prime. I really appreciate it, you know”

“It is no problem, Agent Fowler. I am glad to have assisted you” 

“These roads aren’t too nice” commented Fowler, trying to make small talk. 

“No, but I am glad they are being fixed. Your municipality is doing well to ensure the safety of vehicle-using citizens” Optimus complimented. If only he knew what the actual federal government was like Fowler joked to himself inwardly.

Finally, the last road on the edge of town appeared, the one directly in front of the base. Optimus drove up the road, the pylons squeezing the road but allowing him enough room thank Primus. He was almost home. 

Fowler tilted his head and looked into the street, reading the sign. 

“Road work ahead” murmured Agent Fowler, reading the sign aloud. 

Optimus must have thought it a question, for he replied: 

“It appears to be functional; I hope it does”. 

Optimus never would know why Agent Fowler suddenly laughed so much he barely breathed. 

[margatemcmansions]

Thurlow Ave: Back-to-back Horrorfest part 2. This house at the corner of Thurlow & Atlantic was built by the same company as the monstrosity abutting it, and it definitely shows. It’s got the same fake chimney (2 of them this time!) and the stupid round windows with the metal roofs, ugh. This house also has awful features like the white molding on the first floor that is framing… absolutely nothing, and the double columns that TOTALLY don’t need to be there. They’re on the f*cking SIDE of the house. And, the 2nd floor roofline interrupts the far left column! It cuts out! Why?? It’s horrible! I’m going to need therapy after this!

[brett-buckner-the-dirt]

“He smiles a lot. But I think there might be worms inside him making him smile.”

The Stand

For the record, I’ve read The Stand – twice. I read the original edited version sometime around high school and I read the sweet-baby-Jesus-this-book-is-heavy “compete” version right before my now-9-year-old daughter was born. I also just finished  listening to the Audible version.

The Stand isn’t in my Top 5 Stephen King novels. It’s probably not even in the top 10. While this is blasphemous to some, it’s just not that great. Now, I love Book 1, when Captain Trips lays waste to most of the human and animal population, and throughout the novel, King writes some  utterly devastating passages about societal decay and fueled by government-inspired paranoia. Consider this from the early stages of the flu that wiped out 99 percent of the United States’ population:

“Show me a man or a woman alone and I’ll show you a saint. Give me two and they’ll fall in love. Give me three and they’ll invent the charming thing we call ‘society’. Give me four and they’ll build a pyramid. Give me five and they’ll make one an outcast. Give me six and they’ll reinvent prejudice. Give me seven and in seven years they’ll reinvent warfare. Man may have been made in the image of God, but human society was made in the image of His opposite number, and is always trying to get back home.”  

Such a prescient observation, but as with most of King’s epics, he gets lost somewhere along the way. For me, that happens right around the time our scattered bands of travelers come together – either on Team Flagg or Team Mother Abigail – I just stop caring.

The same holds for the film version of The Stand. I enjoy watching the world burn, but the re-build just isn’t as interesting. It’s also impossible to watch The Stand in a cinematic world where a pretty good movie was made of apocalyptic novels like World War Z  (I liked it, at least). That’s a totally unfair  judgement, I understand, but it’s a fact. The Stand simply looks terribly dated – maybe ‘cause it stars Molly Ringwald – and lasts F-O-R-E-V-E-R.

About 45 minutes in, I realized that I’d never seen this before. It’s one of those movies you just sorta know through osmosis. About 2 hours in, I realized why I’d never watched it … The Stand is awful. It shouldn’t exist. It should have never been made because it fails on every conceivable level.

The cast is a weird ensemble, save for Bill Fagerbakke who plays the mentally disabled Tom Cullen. To young readers, Fagerbakke is the voice of Patrick from Spongebob Squarepants, but to me he’ll always be the lovably dumb Dauber from Coach … so he pretty much plays the same guy in The Stand, only a little smarter.

I quit watching The Stand around hour 4. I can watch a bad movie without feeling I’ve donated too much of my life to the cause, but a bad mini-series is a bridge too far. The Stand adaptation lasts roughly 468 hours – or about as long as it took to read King’s complete version. But at least by reading it I could imagine Randall Flagg as the true embodiment of evil. In the miniseries, the Big Bad has a hockey mullet, wears a blue jean jacket like John Cougar Mellencamp.

But as we are in a King renaissance, The Stand deserves a second look – four about the third or fourth time. There were rumors a decade ago that Ben Affleck was trying to pull together. But after what he did to Batman … please, no. King himself had recruited his horror movie muse, George Romero, to direct a theatrical version but it fell into the Production Abyss, never to be heard from again.

It’s still worth a shot, and dystopian movies are all the rage right now. And while we’re resurrecting King projects, let’s give the same treatment first to Pet Semetary and Thinner, movies that don’t have the word “epic” attached.

Up Next:

Cujo: King did for dogs what he did with clowns in this horror classic that he claims to not even remember writing thanks to booze and drugs he was abusing at the time. But the adaptation makes one major change from the novel, diluting its emotional impact

  HorrorFest 2017: The Stand “He smiles a lot. But I think there might be worms inside him making him smile.”

[after-witch]

Horrorfest: To Make me Fret or Make Me Frown [Yandere Scaramouche x Reader]

Title: To Make Me Fret or Make Me Frown [Yandere Scaramouche x Reader]

Synopsis: You bought a life-size puppet in terrible condition and restored it. But now it doesn't want to let you go.

For Horrorfest request:

Might be cheesy, but Scaramouche haunted puppet for horrorfest? Maybe reader inherits an uncannily lifelike doll, or finds him as an antique?

Word count: 1156

notes: yandere, puppet shenanigans

“He’s creepy,” your friend says. Her nose crinkles and she puts a hand up as if she can ward away whatever haunting abominations she imagines must be inside the doll, waiting to slither through her nostrils. “And weird,” she continues. “And broken.” 

The doll has colorful blue hair and most of his strings are missing; one of his eyes is missing its pupil and an arm is cracked, a jagged wound that goes all the way to the fingers. If the doll were to be lifted, the damaged pinky on that arm would probably come right off--maybe the forefinger, too. He’s dirty and wearing only some cast-off shirt, itself probably too damaged to be sold by the secondhand store. 

Your friend moves on, eager to head to the second floor where all the nice, expensive secondhand goods are kept, often behind glass cases so they don’t get damaged by looky-loos.

But you stay where you are.

Because the moment you took one look at the damaged life-size puppet propped up at the back of the store, in the same pricetag-less limbo as piles of tupperware with no lid, ripped books and ugly dolls missing arms, and your heart swelled. 

“He’s perfect.” 

--

The pinky on the damaged arm did come off before you even left the store, but you were able to salvage the original forefinger. The pinky, sadly, couldn’t be repaired--but you made a new one using the original as a mold and unless you’re staring quite intensely (which to be fair, you often do, when working on the puppet) you wouldn't be able to tell that it’s not original to the hand. 

“I’d like to keep all your original parts as much as I can,” you murmur in the direction of the puppet, currently propped up on a chair you’d dragged into your workroom for the sole purpose of letting him have somewhere to sit while you worked. “You really are exquisite, you know? I can’t believe someone let you get into such rough shape.” 

You sigh, lamenting the treatment of such  a unique piece of craftsmanship, and place the finishing touches on the puppet’s repaired eye. The pupil needed to be filled in with new material but you went ahead and refreshed the iris of both eyes to make them look newer. 

“Good as new, see?” You hold up both repaired eyes to the puppet, but realize your mistake when you’re greeted with a prim looking puppet with two black holes where his eyes should be. 

“Oops.” You carefully slide the eyes back into the socket, fiddling with your finger until they slot right into place. “Sorry about that. I wasn’t thinking. There!” You grab the magnifying mirror from your desk and hold it up in front of the puppet. “Now, see? Much better.”

It took a few months of work, but the puppet was just about restored, in your view. You’d even bought a new outfit for him, a simple white blouse with ruffles and plain trousers. It wasn’t exactly what you imagined he might have worn originally, but that was fine. 

“I’m glad I found you,” you say, to the puppet--and to yourself. “I’ve had a really nice time working on you!” You hum to yourself and start tidying up your work bench. “Now all that’s left is attaching your new strings, and I can have you picked up.” You smile, to yourself, to the puppet, to no one in particular. “I can’t believe that antique shop gave you away for free--they had no idea they were sitting on such a rare item!” 

But you, who repaired dolls and the like for a living, immediately knew what the puppet was worth; and who to contact as soon as you were able to get it home, as you knew a friend with an antique shop that took special requests, and he had a particularly wealthy customer who was dying for one of these rare life-sized pieces. 

The puppet with freshly painted eyes stares back at you and says nothing.

--

Something is sitting on your chest. Something heavy and cool to the touch. 

Sleep paralysis?  It wouldn’t be the first time. You did sleep on your back, after all, and your nights were sometimes restless. 

But you open your eyes without trouble, and the sensation does not go away. It takes a few moments, blinking in the dark, to realize who (no--what) is sitting on you.

It’s the puppet. 

Freshly painted eyes stare down at you, a face framed by the carefully sewn-in hair. In the dark, you can’t see the wood grains of his skin or the repair marks that you’d buffed until smooth. All you can see is his human shape, the gleam of glass eyes. 

“What--” you say, before a wooden finger presses to your lips.

“You were going to sell me.” It’s the puppet--the puppet is speaking.

You nod, terrified, every nerve in your body inflamed.

This can’t be happening, and yet it is. 

“Why?”

Your lips are dry and you stutter out an answer, hoping to wake up from this dream at any moment. But the more time goes on, the more you realize that you’re living in reality. An awful one, but reality all the same.

“I-I needed the money, you… you’re worth a lot.”

There’s a sound that comes from the puppet’s wooden throat, but you can’t quite place it. 

“You can’t sell me,” he says, simply. If you weren’t sure that you’d lost your mind, you might say that he sounds upset. Not just angry, but--hurt. 

“I-I won’t.” You swallow. “Just um. Get off me and I can…”

“No.” The glass eyes bore down on you, and you wish your eyes weren’t becoming accustomed to the dark. It was better not to see the cool stillness in them, unmoving, unblinking.

It’s then that you notice the strings.

Not on the puppet--but on you. 

The strings are wrapped around your wrists, tight, pinching into the skin. When you look up you see he’s attached them not to a marionette control bar, but to his own fingers. To himself. 

He raises his repaired pinky and your wrist goes along with it--too fast and harsh, nearly flopping over your face.

”Ah.” He regards your flopped appendage with curiosity, before simply lifting it himself and placing it back on your chest. “Well. I’ll have plenty of time to figure that out.” 

He leans forward, pressing his weight down on you, until his face was close enough that you could spot your own work; spot the little fine details in the paint, the grooves of his wooden flesh, the way his hair fell in a certain manner thanks to the placement of your carefully created knots. 

Oh, you thought, as his face came closer to yours, as he kissed you with puppet eyes wide open and wooden lips stiff. 

The paint on his lips needed to be touched up. 

[after-witch]

Horrorfest: Stay Out of the Basement [Yandere Monster x Reader]

Title: Stay Out of the Basement [Yandere Monster x Reader]

Synopsis: There's something in the basement and it wants you so bad.

For Horrorfest request:

“Theres something in the basement” trope

Word count: 671

Notes: yandere, monster

There’s something in the basement. 

There’s something in the basement, and you don’t think it’s human. 

There’s something in the basement, and you think it’s in love with you.

--

You don’t know exactly when your thoughts on the thing in the basement went from “It wants to kill me and possibly eat me” to “It’s fallen in love with me and probably doesn’t want to eat me.” 

Maybe around the time that you started finding scraps of plants--vegetation and dirt with hints of flowers, scraggling things that barely saw any light--on  your kitchen counter, complimented with a telltale track of dirty footprints leading to the basement stairs. Yes, that was around the time that you began to think whatever was in the basement had feelings for you. 

The flowers (and dirt); then came trinkets. Little rocks, sometimes jagged, sometimes smooth. One morning, there was some sort of black stone, shined and polished. You didn’t want to touch it--something about it made your mind absolutely forbid it. You scooped it into the trash with a paper plate and took it to the curb that morning. 

If the thing in the basement minded, it didn’t let you know. It only left more gifts. More footprints. More--and you swear this must be what it’s doing--signs that it exists and it likes you. Tapping noises from behind the doorway leading to the basement stairs--tap-tap, tap; jars of long-forgotten canned goods left in front of the door, black-mud streaks on the bases. 

You haven’t seen it, but you know it’s there. And you know this won’t last forever. You know it won’t be satisfied with leaving gifts and trinkets and tap-tap, tapping to get your attention. 

No one believes you. Not your parents, not your friends, not the police. Not the therapist you called out of desperation. 

You’re alone--only oh, how you wish that were really the case. 

--

There’s something in the basement. 

There’s something in the basement, and it wants you. 

There’s something in the basement, and it’s coming up the stairs. 

--

Your fingers grip the edge of your comforter, but you don’t dare bring it up over your face.  You want to see it coming. 

And you know it’s coming. It’s only a matter of time now. You can hear it. 

You first heard it coming up the basement stairs--thudding, thudding, thudding--and now you hear it coming down the hall. It’s not the steps of a person. It’s a heavy sound, almost dragging and--oh, someone help you--slightly damp. Like the basement. Like the sweat on the back of your neck, staining your pillow beneath you.

Like the stupid tears pooling at the edge of your eyes. What good would they do you? None. 

They fall anyway when the half-closed door creaks open.

Your bedside lamp is on, and if you were smarter, you would have turned it off 10 minutes ago. It would be must easier to face this reality in the dimness of the night, if you couldn’t see exactly what was standing in front of you.

It’s tall and broad shouldered. 

It has a mouth and eyes and a face, yes, and you might be tempted to call it humanoid. There are two arms and two legs, heavy and covered in something black, like it’s painted itself with dirt and mud. Its skin is splotches of green, dark and faintly damp, like moss growing at the edge of a swamp. Two yellow eyes blink at you and you don’t think you’re imagining it when your brain interprets its gaze as… fond. Loving. Wanting. 

It opens its mouth and there are teeth--sharp--and you think it must be trying to smile. Trying to smile and then say something to you.

What finally comes out, warbled and deep, is your name. 

You do pull the covers over your head, then.

Not that it does you any good.

--

There’s something in the basement.

There’s something in the basement, and you’re there with it now. 

And neither of you will ever leave again.

[after-witch]

Horrorfest: Unfurled Splendor [Yandere Xiao x Reader]

Title: Unfurled Splendor [Yandere Xiao x Reader]

Synopsis: You know daylight existed, once. You just can't remember what it really looked like.

For 2022 Horrorfest request: always night trope with xiao

Word count: 1270

notes: yandere, kidnapped reader, isolation

There are certain things that you must tell yourself on repeat or you’re certain that you’ll forget them. They keep you tethered to the ground, sometimes by a thread, so that you don’t simply give up and float away. 

One, you were not always here, in this little house created inside Xiao’s abode. “House” being a lofty term for a space with two rooms, a simple bathroom and open living space. 

You used to live outside, and not the artificial outside that he created at your behest (and begging) but the real outside. With unpredictable weather and animals that did not behave on loops, only capable of repeating what gestures and patterns Xiao had created for you. 

There were other people, people who were mean or nice or somewhere in between. You worked at a job and went to shops and had friends and family. 

And there was freedom, most importantly of all. An elusive creature, now. It’s not something Xiao can create and set onto a carefully tracked loop, though you’re certain that if he could come up with a way to do so, that he would try his best. 

And two--this one is easiest to forget--it was not always night. There had been sunshine, once. Warm, lovely sunshine that dappled through the trees when you walked in the woods; that bore down on you, a hot blanket, in the summertime; that shone through your windows, waking you in the morning with the delighted chirping of the birds.

Yes, you had seen the sun… but that was a long time ago. Before Xiao took you here. Before you had gone nearly mad with being stuck inside all day, and he’d offered up the solution of letting you go “outside,” which turned out to be yet another artificial world of his own creation.

Before he’d decided to make it night time and never bothered bringing back the sun. That was… weeks ago, at least. You don’t know why or when he stopped bothering with daylight. Maybe it was too taxing on him to go back and forth between night and day. Maybe he just didn’t care. 

You do not ask him for the daylight again, because you should not need to ask. Yet that is what your life has become, reminding Xiao of all the things humans need to stay healthy and sane. Like a variety of food and not the same thing day after day; like blankets and pillows; like a bathroom with a  properly fitted tub and toilet. Like books or clothes or things to do. 

Not that he always gives you what you need. He considers most of these things “wants,” to be meted out at his own discretion.  

Sunlight, apparently, fit within that category of “want.” And no matter how often you stared up at the same night sky, wishing for it to fade or at least change, he didn’t seem to pick up on things.

It’s here that he finds you, again, staring at the night sky. Only this time your thoughts have grown so sour and introspective that there are tears in your eyes, sparkling in the cool moonlight that always shines into the window a little bit, dappled through a large, leafy tree.

If the tree were real, there might be any number of nocturnal animals that call it home. As it is, there is only a stationary night-bird that calls out exactly twice an hour. Mechanical. Like a clock. You thought it pretty once, but now you hate it.

There’s a touch on your shoulder and you flinch. Xiao draws back, and says your name. Evidently, he’d said it before.

You turn, just a little, and let him see your tears. Why not? It’s not like he ever responds to them, except perhaps to excuse himself or awkwardly shove a handkerchief into your hands. 

This time, he actually speaks up, although you can see the tension in his stiff posture.

“Why are you crying? What’s wrong?”

There might have been a time where you would have turned away from him, now, and went back to crying silently. Let him worry. Let him figure it out himself, if he could. But something about tonight--tonight? it’s always night, damn it--has you increasingly wound up. Your fingers curl on the windowsill. Your chest aches.

And so you whirl on him, chest heaving. 

“What’s wrong is that it’s been night for weeks and it’s driving me mad and you don’t seem to care.” Your voice cracks on the last word, spiteful tears sliding down your cheeks. 

 He stares at you for a few long moments before looking out the window at the sky he created. And then he looks back at you with such a confused expression that it makes you want to slap him and bring him into your arms, one and the same. 

“You… said you liked the stars,” he says, eyebrows furrowing. You can tell he doesn’t understand. He treats your complaints like that of a child, demanding something nonsensical in the middle of the day, perhaps due to a lack of nap. “So I’ve kept them there.”

You turn and gaze out the window at the same night sky that you’ve seen for weeks on end. You could explain that humans need daylight and sunlight. You could explain that seeing the same night sky for an extended period of time is enough to drive anyone mad.

Instead--

“Those aren’t stars,” you reply, quiet. 

Behind you, Xiao huffs. 

“Yes, they are. They look just like the ones--”

You turn on him, and your face begins to crack, eyes crinkling, mouth turning down. “They aren’t real stars. I want real stars. I want real sunshine. I want everything to be real. Can’t you understand that?”

Xiao’s eyes widen, and the look on his face takes on an expression of slight hurt. Just enough to notice. He raises one of his hands toward your cheek, moving to touch you.

“I… understand,” he says, finally. Slowly. Weighing your words and his own. You’re afraid to do the same, afraid to see you through his own eyes. 

So you shake your head, blinking away the tears, and crawl into bed. Maybe in your dreams something will be different for once, but more often than not, the night sky leaked into your dreams, too. 

You hear the sound of Xiao sitting down in the chair by the window as your brain begins to drift into the fogginess of sleep. 

When you wake up, sunshine filters through the sole window inside the house. Birds chirp in a pattern that you know will loop, eventually. It’s startling, jarring. Your brain doesn’t make sense of it at first. 

You slowly get out of bed, afraid that it might be a dream. You set aside the blanket, you stand up, you take a few steps to the window--and still, the scene outside is blissful, sweet daytime. 

Your fingers rest on the windowsill, soaking in the scene he’s created before you. The sound of birds--a few you can spot, but you hate to look at them, knowing that you’ll recognize their pattern soon enough. A mechanical breeze that comes every so often (you don’t count the seconds between them, not yet); clouds, lazily drifting by in the blue sky, and all of it lit by an artificially bright sun stuck up high. 

It’s not real. It will never be real. Only you are real, here, the only normal, human, mortal thing that will ever exist on this plane. 

Behind the clouds, you can see the remnants of those artificial stars, still twinkling. 

[after-witch]

Horrorfest: And Be Immortal [Yandere Dabi x Reader]

Title: And Be Immortal [Yandere Dabi x Reader]

Synopsis: "I think I'm being haunted," you say. "By the ghost of my dead best friend."

For Horrorfest request:

Dabi with the movie Candyman?

Word Count: 1084

notes: yandere, implied kidnapping

“I think I’m being haunted.” 

The words come out so fast that you’re not entirely sure that your friend heard them at first, until she gives you a look that is a mixture of pity, confusion  and--maybe you’re imagining it--curiosity. 

“By my best friend’s ghost,” you continue, when she doesn’t say anything. You stumble a bit over the words, realizing how crazy it sounds, how out-there. Especially to your friend who has never given so much as an inkling that she believes in anything remotely supernatural. 

“He died when we were younger--there was a fire, and…” 

You shake your head, unwilling to go further. 

Your friend reaches out, touches your arm. When you look up, she’s got the softest, kindest expression on her face. A smile, subtle and warm, with a twitch of knowing anxiety behind it.

“I know something that might help.”

--

You wake up, breath hitching, sweat covering the back of your head, making your hair and pillowcase damp and uncomfortably warm. 

--

“All you have to do is say their name in the mirror three times,” your friend told you. “And they will appear to you.” She paused. “You could try to get closure. Or at least know that you’re not crazy.” She laughed a little, but the sound didn’t match her expression. 

It was your turn to look confused--and curious.

“My neighbor had a problem with a ghost,” she clarified. You stared, and she bit her lip. “And… so did I, once.”

You frowned. She had never mentioned it, not even once. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Your friend shrugged.

“You probably wouldn’t have believed me back then.”

You said nothing, because she was probably right on that count. You didn’t really believe in ghosts yourself until a few weeks ago. 

That was when it all started--the haunting. 

Items missing from your apartment, treasured things. Your old stuffed bear. A photo of you and Touya as children, and that hurt the most, because it was the only one you still had. 

Your mother had misplaced your photo album before you moved out, but this one, the one you kept in a frame on your bookshelf, had been spared. Admittedly, the photo frame had gotten dusty, but so had other things from your childhood.

And now it was gone. Who would take it? Not some petty thief. Nothing valuable was missing. Just your personal treasures, and trinkets.

And then there were the noises. Footsteps in the night. The sound of a cupboard opening and shutting in the morning, before you got out of bed; sometimes they were left open, and your fingers twitched while you shut them.

And… you swear, you swear this is true, you began to get the distinct feeling that you were being watched. During the night, and then during the day. While you tried to sleep. While you showered. While you ate what simple meals you threw together, unable to focus much on cooking or shopping as time went on.

If what your friend told you is true, maybe you can get some closure. 

Maybe you can ask Touya to stop haunting you. 

Maybe you can tell him you’re sorry.

--

This isn’t going to work. It can’t work. It’s stupid. It’s crazy. You’re crazy.

You take a breath, then another. You’re just anxious. You’re just… frayed.

Nothing will happen, probably, and you’ll realize that this has all just been some walking fever dream, the end-result of too much stress from university and your job and all the villain attacks in the area. Your mind has clearly retreated to the last time you felt understood, safe, comfortable; aching for the hole left by the loss of your best friend, a hole that could never be filled no matter how much dirt you tried to shovel into it.

Your fingers fumble with the matches in the darkness of the bathroom. You were tempted to leave the door open, but your friend was clear on that count: it needs to be as dark as possible when you complete the ritual. 

There’s the telltale sound of the match strike, the faint scent of sulfur. And then the match is lit and you quickly hold it down towards the tea candles you set up on the bathroom counter. When they’re lit, the bathroom is less dim, but no less frightening. If anything, the flickering candlelight bouncing off the walls gives the room (and your reflection) a strangeness that makes your chest tighten.  

Just… do it. Do it and get it over with, and if nothing happens, then you can call a therapist to work through your clearly ongoing grief and stress issues. But if it does work, then maybe… maybe.

You exhale, closing your lips a little, and look straight into the mirror. 

“Touya… Touya… Touya.”

A moment, then another. Then another. 

But the reflection in the mirror doesn’t change. There is no rippling, no blurring, no appearance of the ghost of your dead friend. Nothing at all, except your own tired face and the flickering yellow-orange light of candles. 

A low ache blooms in your chest. What were you expecting? That his ghost would show up in the mirror and forgive you for not being there for him, forgive you for letting his picture get dusty, forgive you for living the life he never did? 

You scoff at yourself, at the ember-lit reflection in the mirror.

And then the bathroom door behind you creaks open, and every nerve in your body stands on edge.

The reflection in the mirror does change, then. Not replacing yours but showing a figure standing behind you. Not just a figure--

Touya is standing behind you.

Only his hair is black and he is burnt and it’s Touya, Touya, Touya burnt from the fire and here to drag you to hell or drive you crazy or something incomprehensible in between.  

You turn, slowly, aware of his reflection in the mirror, aware of the way adrenaline has taken away your ability to feel your body.

“Touya,” you say, voice hoarse. I’m sorry, how are you, why are you here, why have you been haunting me--all these words stick to the roof of your mouth.

The specter grips your wrists with all-too-warm hands, and oh, oh, this is not a specter but flesh and blood before you, something twisted and wrong but wholly alive.

“Not anymore,” he breathes out, and he smells of sulfur and ash. 

The candles behind you all snuff into darkness at the same time. 

[after-witch]

Horrorfest: He Came Home [Yandere Michael Myers x Reader]

Title: He Came Home [Yandere Michael Myers x Reader]

Synopsis: You're being stalked by the Boogeyman but no one believes you.

For Horrorfest request:

I'm so happy you write for Halloween omg 👀 can I request a stalker ish michael Myers, more yendere than I'm going to murder you brutally right away lol

Word Count: 1647

Notes: Yandere, stalking, death/killing (not reader); some graphic violence descriptions.

It’s someone playing a prank. People always do it around Halloween.

You shouldn’t make up stories using Michael Myers. It’s not funny. He really killed people, you know.

If you don’t have concrete evidence, we can’t do anything for you. It’s probably just some teen messing with you.. Keep your doors locked and call us if anything happens.

You’re being stalked by the Boogeyman and not a single person in your life, your whole damn town, believes you. And maybe there’s a reason for it, God knows that it wasn’t uncommon for people to pull pranks like this--to turn tragedy into mockery and entertainment.

Damn kids, and all that.

But it’s different now because it’s real and it’s happening to you. And you are not crazy or lying and this is not a prank. You’ve seen him more than once, a shadow at first, something you brushed off.

The next time, he was standing down the street, half hidden by a tree. But you saw him. And he saw you. And every muscle in your body had tensed before you whirled around and ran. It was a joke, a teenager with a morbid sense of humor, maybe one of your friends praying on your scaredy-cat tendencies. 

But then you saw him from your bedroom window, standing down below in the grass. 

And your kitchen window, behind the fluttering sheets you’d tacked up earlier in the day.

And you know, you just know, that one day he will be inside your house.

Coming for you.

--

No one believes you. But that doesn’t stop your friends from laughingly agreeing to have a sleepover to ease your worries, something none of you have done since you were teenagers. Only this time instead of sneaking booze from mom’s locked cabinet using the pilfered key and drinking until you saw stars, you were going to be stone-cold sober and sleeping with a knife.

If (when?) he came for you, you’d be ready. 

Glenn disappears first, after announcing that he’s heading out to the garage to grab a beer. Like he’s at some teenage kegger.

Your friends laugh when he doesn’t return--maybe he’s chugging them all and not saving any for the rest of us--but you start to tear up and Tina sighs and says she’ll go out to get them.

But Tina doesn’t come back, either.

The house is silent and it’s just you and Nancy, and Nancy is the sensible one. She won’t make jokes about what you say you’re experiencing, even if she’s keen to downplay it as a prank. She doesn’t dismiss Glenn and Tina not coming back as something silly. Instead, she locks the door to the garage and flicks off all the lights and grabs a baseball bat.

Don’t, you should say, don’t go looking for them. But you’re too afraid to look yourself and Nancy, Nancy is strong isn’t she? Strong and brave. She won’t do anything stupid. So she heads to the front door and tells you to lock it as soon as she leaves, then wait by the phone and call the cops if she isn’t back in a few minutes.

And you do, with fingers that fumble and sweat. The lock clicks hard and you run to the phone, hand trembling on the receiver so hard that you keep lifting it off and hearing little bursts of dial tone. 

You glance down at your watch, squinting in the dimness to see the time. It’s been a minute, maybe two. How long should you wait? Maybe Nancy was chewing them out, scolding them for scaring you. Yeah. She would do that. Then she’d make them come in and apologize, like she’d had to do before when they pushed your buttons too hard. 

This fantasy carries you through to the next minute, and the next, until the garage door bursts open, and you can hear the wood splintering and cracking, swiping away anything but an awful reality that sends your heart rate sky-high.

You should run, really, but it feels like your legs are stuck to the floor. Rooted like a tree, even though your hands are now shaking wildly. You dimly hear the dial tone and remember what you’re supposed to do, and your finger shoves itself into the rotary dial, twisting and twisting the local sheriff’s office--

Until the phone is ripped out of the wall like a piece of paper, and you turn around to see the real-life boogeyman standing in front of you. No longer far away and through glass, but flesh and blood, close enough to see, close enough to smell. 

Close enough that you can see the glint of a knife in his hand.

You can even see his eyes through the mask and meet his gaze, your own eyes wide with pinprick pupils, and his merely staring at you through the holes in this mask. You hear, softly enough, the sound of breathing; his or yours? 

A gasp is caught in your throat when he grabs your shirt and shoves you away from the ruined phone, hard enough to knock you off your feet. You land on the floor, but your legs no longer feel rooted, and you scramble to your feet and do the only thing you can do: run.

The ruined garage door is the path of least resistance, and you run through the doorway and grope for the railing but miss it. 

You trip down the stairs, landing on the concrete hard enough to make your palms sting and even bleed, but--no, that’s not your blood. That’s not your blood at all. The blood on your palm is thick and wet and when you look up, you see Nancy’s corpse sprawled out on the ground, face down, stab wounds oozing from her back. Tina and Glenn are behind her, both bleeding heavily from the chest. Tina’s red chest heaves and maybe her eyes look at you, but you can’t tell if she actually sees you.

“Oh,” you say, voice suddenly unrecognizable to your own ears. “Oh.”

And there’s a shadow above you, the shadow of shadows, and you don’t even have time to turn around as his hand grips the back of your shirt and pulls you backward. 

Words flash through you--I’m going to die--before there’s a dull awful pain at the back of your head (why the knife blunt?) and darkness overtakes everything in the world.

--

You don’t expect to wake up, but you do. 

And when you do, you’re sitting in an unfamiliar space full of dust and dirt. A simple room with nothing in it but a ragged blanket and some stray, dusty furniture--an old wooden chair, a wooden chest. The windows are boarded up, but you can tell it’s night-time.

A house that no one has been in for years, maybe. A house that has fallen into disrepair and ruin. There weren’t any houses like this in town proper, you knew, so you must be in the woods outside of town, where there were occasionally remnants of abandoned places. 

Why were you in the woods? Why were you in a house?

The thoughts are clear and simple, piercing through a swimming ache in the back of your head. You focus on these thoughts to keep you from passing out again. In the woods, in a house. In the woods, in a house. In the woods, in a house.

But why?

And then you remember. Michael Myers. Your friends. The blood. The pain.

As if on cue, there’s another sound in the house. A sound that is distinctly familiar, heavy footsteps and yes, it must have been his before--the sound of breathing. Soft and subtle, like a stray sound muffled through the wall. 

You move to stand on weakened legs, but keep yourself pressed back against the wall as the figure of Michael Myers walks and stands in the doorway.

It’s as if the air itself becomes thick and heavy with his presence, and you almost want to sit down again. But you force yourself to stay standing. At least if you’re standing, you have a chance to run, if you can.

But he doesn’t give you one, not at this moment, anyway. Instead he stays in the doorway and simply stares at you.

Long enough for your tongue to loosen, words coming out dry through your chapped lips. How long were you out, anyway?

“Why… why did you bring me here?”

No answer.

“Where are we?”

No answer.

Finally, you swallow spit, and ask a question that you don’t really want to be answered. 

“Are you going to kill me?”

You swear you hear him inhale through his nose, a short, thin sort of breath. 

He takes a step into the room. There’s nowhere for you to go, and you feel helpless sobs start to bubble up in your throat. You look down and there’s no knife--that you can see--but that doesn’t stop the visuals of your murdered friends and vague impressions of everyone you know who has been killed by him from flashing through your head.

He stops right in front of you. You half expect him to grab your neck and twist. Or grab your throat and squeeze.

But all he does is tilt his head slightly, looking at you through the holes in his mask. You wish you could erase the visual memory of his eyes, wish that you’d never seen them at all; the faraway impression that he had two big black holes was more merciful than this. 

And then his hand reaches out and touches your face, callused fingertips brushing against your cheek. 

His fingers leave behind traces of grime and your friends' dried blood. 

[after-witch]

Horrorfest: No Appointment Necessary [Yandere Overhaul x Reader]

Title: No Appointment Necessary [Yandere Overhaul x Reader]

Synopsis: It doesn't matter how good of a patient you are: he's going to hurt you, anyway.

For Horrorfest request:

i'm sorry if it's too vague & ignore ofc if so, but! overhaul x medical horror? looking forward to these prompts, thank you!! love your writing so much.

Word count: 1833

notes: Yandere, kidnapped reader, medical horror and abuse (including: needles, sedation, restraints, medical ests)

You’ve been living on this hospital bed for oh, so long. Long enough that your world feels horizontal most of the time, an endless parade of the same sights and sounds that has gone so far as to seep into your dreams. 

The windowless wall with nothing to see but shelves--for gloves, for needles, for medicines; and cabinets--for charts and reports and test results. You’d asked Overhaul if he might put up a picture, something sweet and soft, a flower, a cloud, a drawing. And he’d looked at you like he wanted to coo, but he denied your request--

“Clinic rooms are no place for pretty things.” And he’d paused, then. “Except for you, of course.”

So you don’t see a pretty picture on the wall. 

Above you, there’s the bare ceiling with its tiles, counted a million times. Often, there is Overhaul, wearing his medical mask and always framed by a surgical light that he swivels around. His eyes are always intent, staring down at you with varying degrees of curiosity, focus, possession, irritation, disgust, but never pity.

The machines next to you, which at least offer a little variation. Sometimes your heart rate is fast, sometimes slow. Sometimes the IV is clear and other times it has an awful tinge to it; those are the medicines that make your arms hurt, make you feel sluggish and sick, before you are forced into darkness.

The only reason that you don’t have bed sores, you think, is because Overhaul would find them too disgusting to treat. So you are turned like clockwork and walked like a dog every day. He gives you a mild sedative beforehand, of course, so that you’re too woozy to try something silly like running away from him. It’s too hard to run when the world spins and you’re only wearing grippy socks and he has to drag the wheeled IV behind you as you shuffle along.

You look forward to your walks, hazy those they are, because at least when you’re being walked you’re not on the bed. And if you’re not on the bed, he can’t do anything awful to you.

Like this, right now.

Your inhale is sharp and pained, and you whimper out something like a protest as he pushes the ultrasound wand down harder against your skin, moving, moving. Looking for something--but what? Your stomach is uncomfortably warm and sloppy, rubbed with lubricant that makes it easier to push the wand around.

“Stop complaining.” His words are spoken so casually that it only makes them sting more. “It doesn’t hurt.”

“It does,” you whine. And maybe you’re exaggerating a little. It doesn’t hurt in the same way as the needles sometimes do or the medicines that make your heart go too fast or the aftermath of waking up from his quirk, when things went awry. 

But a little pain is still pain and you’re stuck in this bed wearing a hospital gown for what will probably be the rest of your miserable life, so why can’t you complain?

“It doesn’t,” he corrects. “You’re just being childish. If you keep squirming, I’ll have to strap you down again.” 

Your lip trembles, but you don’t vocalize your complaints anymore. Instead you force your eyes up, glancing as much as you can at the ultrasound screen, where you can see the vague impressions of your organs being mapped and recorded.

This test is taking longer than you thought. You’d like lunch. You weren’t allowed to eat breakfast or your morning snack because he said you had to fast for the ultrasound. You did get a bit of water with your medicine, but that was it. 

After a while of him pressing the wand around, humming, clicking on his computer, you sigh.

“What are you looking for?” 

He doesn’t so much as glance down at you. Instead, he pushes particularly hard against your side, then tsks. 

“Don’t worry your little head about it. Just checking on the progress we’re making.”

Your hands curl into a fist and uncurl, then curl and uncurl. It sometimes keeps you calm, when you’re worried. But right now it’s mild entertainment, more entertaining than the gray-and-black-and-white blobby organs you can only just barely see on the screen.

“Progress we’re making on what?”

This time, he does glance down at you. Is he smiling? He might be. The skin around his eyes crinkles a little.

“Something wonderful, dearest. But don’t trouble yourself.”

You hum, unwilling to argue, and go back to staring at the ceiling. Maybe this time, when you count the tiles, the number will be different.

--

Lunch is always the same. You used to hate that, but now it’s almost comforting. Anything routine is better than wondering what awful thing might happen next and will that awful thing involve needles, scalpels, or his bare hands? 

So, no, you don’t mind eating the same lunch tray this afternoon. Steamed rice, fish and vegetables and a cup of broth soup that he tells you is fortified. When he first brought you here, you’d thrown the trays on the ground and accused him of drugging you because he was a really sick FUCK.

So he strapped you down, fed you through your nose, and sedated you while explicitly describing exactly how much sedative he was inserting into your IV every time.

You don’t accuse him of things like that anymore. You also don’t throw away your food.

And it’s become apparent that, for as much as he does use sedatives on you, he never hides them in your food or tricks you. Is that worse or better? Sometimes it’s better, you think, because he’s letting you know before it happens. You can prepare yourself, steel your nerves, be ready. But it might be nice not to sit there for a few minutes, heart pounding, agonizing over the fact that you know he’s about to drug you. 

Ah well, it doesn’t matter, because you don’t have a choice in what he does anyway. 

When lunch is over, you let him clean you up. He wipes your mouth and you sanitize your hands in the portable sink he brings over to the bed. And when you’re settled down long enough to wonder what the rest of the day will look like.

On good days, the tests mostly involve checking your pulse, your blood pressure, your reflexes. Maybe drawing a bit of blood, which usually isn’t so bad. He lets you rest and once he even rolled in a TV on wheels and you watched a movie. Now that was a good day, but that hasn’t happened again. Maybe it was too exciting.

On bad days… on bad days you are strapped to the bed, because even if you are trying your very best to be compliant,  you cannot stop yourself from trying to rip out the IVs that pump painful sludge into your veins; you cannot help but scream and thrash and try to get away.

But while you are pondering all of this, Overhaul has come back, clipboard in hand.

He looks you up. He looks you down. 

“You’ll have to be sedated for this evening,” he says.

And oh, you know at once: bad day.

You shift backwards on the bed, the paper-like material of your gown scrunching up around your knees as you bring them to your chest.

Your mouth already feels cotton dry. Maybe your throat is anticipating the screams.

“Does it have to be today?” 

He blinks at you. Then walks over to the side of the bed and pulls out the restraints--two for your wrists, two for your ankles. 

“Lay down. Don’t make a fuss. Can you do that much?” 

It takes you a long, agonizing moment but yes, you can do that much. Because you know what happens if you fight. You squeeze your eyes shut while he straps you in, but before you open them, there’s a gloved hand on your forehead--a sympathy touch? Or, ah--just checking for fever.

Whatever the case, you hear the sound of a snapping glove and the dull thud of the containment trash can being open and shut. 

And then a hissing. The sound of wheels rolling harshly against the floor. A pop of plastic being released from its holder. 

Your fingers clench inward until your nails bite your skin. 

You open your eyes just in time to see the edge of the gas mask fitting over your nose, fogging up just a tad when you whimper into the unforgiving plastic. It’s an awful taste, and you can never get used to it--like licking the inside of a beach ball that’s been left to sit in the sun. It seeps into your mouth, your nose, down your throat.

Your eyes blink and blink, fighting and heavy, but it doesn’t help: your consciousness slams into the darkness.

--

You wake up. You always wake up, though you’re not always terribly grateful for that fact. 

Waking up is slow, like pulling your feet out of something deep and sticky. The world comes back in waves. Sounds, first, always sounds. The beeping of your machines. His voice, sometimes, talking to himself as he jots down notes. Occasionally the sound of someone else--an assistant, though you rarely see them at all. 

Sight, then, but it’s more gradual. Maybe it would be easier if the room was brighter or if there was a window. Or if you were actually interested in what was in front of you beyond the need to know what will happen to you today.

Then sensation comes back into your limbs that feel like lead even after you’ve woken up. 

You smack your lips. Dry lips. Dry mouth. Dry throat. 

But you don’t need to ask for water. Overhaul is there with a little paper cup that he presses to your lips, slowly, tipping just enough that you don’t choke out of eagerness. 

When you swallow

“The procedure went very well,” he says. He sounds cheerful. But his words only carve out a dull ache in  your stomach.

“What… did you do this time?”

He never tells you. He only taps his clipboard and moves on, and you don’t push the issue out loud.

All you know is that something else is missing. Some integral part of you, as if each time he puts you under, you wake up with less of yourself; what has he scooped out with a knife or his hands or his very presence?

Your quirk?

Your soul?

Something else, far more intangible but just as precious? 

The pillow underneath your head is hospital-grade. The ceiling above your head has an even number of tiles, one of which has an old water stain that you’re surprised was allowed to remain. The machines on  your side continue to beep and your left arm lays palm upward, so your IV doesn’t get disturbed.

And you? 

You’re still on the hospital bed--and that’s where you’ll stay. 

[after-witch]

Horrorfest: I'm a Mouse, Duh [Yandere TPOF!Ren (Fox) x Reader]

Title: I'm a Mouse, Duh [Yandere TPOF!Ren (Fox) x Reader]

Synopsis: Fox wants you in just the right costume for his party.

For Horrorfest request:

Fox making his darling try on different "sexy" Halloween costumes

Word Count: 1291

notes: yandere, kidnapped reader, a bit of humiliation/degradation, descriptions of previous injuries including eye gouging, questionable taste in Halloween costumes

You didn’t know you could feel anything like shame anymore, but there it was, red-hot, covering your cheeks, not unlike a thin, sticky layer of latex that you couldn’t peel off yourself. 

Speaking of--

“Turn around,” Fox murmurs, idly swirling his glass of champagne while you swiftly obey his words. 

You turn ever so slowly, because you know what’s what he wants to see. You imagine you’re a doll in a music box, sans music and static ballerina pose, spinning slowly enough to let him get a look at his newest handiwork. 

The skin-tight latex cat costume does wonders in keeping your movements slow as well, but you try to ignore that part and stay in the music box metaphorical fantasy. 

He sighs lowly--your stomach roils--and shakes his head. 

“No, not quite right.”

He gives you another once-over, and you must be frowning, because he continues in a casually reassuring tone. “Not that you don’t look lovely, but it’s not what I want for tonight.” What he wants, in this case, is unclear. You’ve already tried on 3 different costumes, and he didn’t care for any of them. 

He gestures with his free hand at your hand, and you dutifully remove the latex cat ears (that matched your outfit, of course) and hand them over. 

He sets them on the table and beckons you over.You eagerly scamper over, turning away from him; you really did need help removing the thin layer of latex. At least he does it swiftly, though you feel a veneer of sweat on your back when he begins to peel it away. He continues pulling it down until you lift each of your legs, stepping out of the tight concoction with a visible sigh of relief. 

There’s a warm chuckle behind you, and you shiver when you feel his nails lightly raking down your back. 

When he stands and makes his way over to the long costume rack that one of his employees brought in, you follow. He thumbs through them, humming, pulling a few out now and then.

He pulls out a black and white lacy concoction, something that looks like the type of clothing people world in olden days. A big felt sword hangs off the flimsy top and there’s a large tricorn hat attached to the hanger, and it takes you a moment to realize what the costume is meant to be. 

A pirate.

He smiles, but you don’t. Your empty eye socket suddenly aches and your lip trembles. Which just makes him grin a little.

“Too on the nose, huh?” He taps his finger above your eye patch, a neutral black cloth for now. Fox said he wanted to pick your costume before they went about choosing what prosthetic or patch to give you. 

You suppose he wants you to care that he’s taking the time to find you the right costume, that he wants you to be appreciative that he’s putting so much effort into it. And when you suppose what he wants,  you do your best to fulfill it. That’s how you’ve made it this far.

So you look closer every time you think he might be choosing a costume and you try (pirate mistake notwithstanding) to mimic his reactions. This one is cute, mm-hmm. That one won’t do, nuh-uh. 

Maybe you would be appreciative, maybe even a bit excited about the idea of getting to dress up on Halloween, if you weren’t dreading tonight. You were going to attend a Halloween party with him. Thrown by him. Populated by the guests he chose. 

You weren’t putting on a show (that fear had already been cooingly whisked away, the moment you broke down into seizure-like sobs at the thought) but you would be… on display. 

Like a pet. No, no, that’s not entirely right, is it? You are a pet. You’ve got the collar to prove it. 

What would the people at the party be like? As bad as the ones who watched the show? Worse, because they were there in person and not just through a screen? Maybe some of them would be the same… would any of them recognize you? Would they hurt you? Would Fox let them hurt you? What if--

“Ah! This one!” He says, pulling you out of your heavy thoughts. There’s a glint of excitement in his voice that makes the tension in your stomach ease off. 

When he gets excited like this, it’s a good sign. Usually it’s related to finding out that you like some of the same things as him (you genuinely enjoyed, at least as much as you could, curling up on a sofa and watching anime with him) or you surprising him in a way that pleases him.

Sometimes he seems younger when he gets like this, more carefree. There’s a pang of envy when that happens, but you never let it last too long. 

He pulls out the costume he’s chosen and shoves it into your waiting, slightly trembling, arms. You don’t even have time to really see what he chose. 

“Quick now.” He flashes a muted grin. “The guests will arrive soon enough. Don’t want to be late for your first party.” 

You don’t waste time getting dressed. The end result, when you stand up and let him zip up the back of the costume, is cuter than you expected. It’s a mouse costume, a short little gray number with a black tail hanging off the edge. The costume covers your ass enough that as long as you don’t bend over, you should be fine.

 (You try not to think of ways that Fox might make you bend over in front of others. But then, he didn’t like it much when others were around you, so maybe he didn’t want you to show off more than necessary? The questions are really too difficult to consider for long.)

The finishing touch is a big pair of cutesy gray mouse ears that he tenderly places on your head. It’s the type of costume that you might have worn on a night out with friends, before. Though you’d have worn something else underneath, and you’d definitely still have two eyes. 

Still. It’s better than the tight catsuit. 

And you look... cute. If you ignore the missing eye, and the scars on your face. And the cauterized nail wounds dotting your body. And the cross-cross of scars, old and new, lining your arms and legs.

These are all things you have gradually forced yourself to ignore, so yes, you can put them aside and appreciate the way that the mouse ears frame your face or the way that the costume is made from nice materials.

You can ignore the hungry gaze of Fox standing behind you, keeping his eyes on your own as you stare at your reflection.

“Perfect,” he murmurs, standing behind you and looking at the finished product through your reflection. In the mirror, you see him place a kiss on your neck. Your body recognizes what will happen before your brain does, because your shoulder tenses even before he bites your skin harshly, lapping at the blood he leaves behind. 

“We can leave the patch as-is,” he says. You’re too busy staring at your reflection to answer. Maybe he takes it for being pouty, because he continues.  “Unless you want one of your prosthetics tonight?” 

How nice of him to ask, you think, and your heart feels sick when you realize the thought came without a trace of sarcasm. You’re really fucked up, huh?

You shake your head and give a little smile, looking at him in the mirror.

“No,” you say, voice meeker than you meant it to be. “Whatever you think looks best, sir.” 

He smiles, just a little. An intimate smile, a you’re-being-good smile, the kind you think (you hope) he reserves just for moments like this. And then he places a tender kiss on your bite wound. Bits of red stick to his lips and he licks them away, sighing low and almost husky. 

You know this sound, these gestures, the way his breath quickens and comes out of his nose. You feel two hands grope your ass and you squeak, like the mouse you might as well be. 

“I suppose it won’t hurt if we’re a little late… it is my party after all.”