#being the oldest makes it really hard to like amy unfortunately

[nerdyrevelries]

Little Women (1949)

You will see several places online that Little Women 1949 shares a script with Little Women 1933. This is true in part but not whole. It shares two of its writers (Sarah Y. Mason and Victor Heerman), and it’s clear that this film takes 1933′s script as it’s starting point as it shares multiple lines and scenes. However, 1949 has a third writer, Andrew Solt, and it’s clear that he’s made some edits to the script. Unfortunately, the edits that he made tend to highlight the parts of the script that were already weak in 1933, sometimes even making them worse.

The pacing of the movie is awful. I noted down times at several points. At 23 minutes in, we still haven’t made it to Christmas day (in book terms, this is a single chapter.) At 46 minutes in, we still haven’t made it past New Year’s Eve (meaning we have only covered through chapter 3 of the novel.) After this leisurely beginning, the movie finally seems to realize it needs to speed up a little, skipping multiple events to get us to the telegram (from chapter 15) at an hour and 5 minutes. We get to the end of part 1 15 minutes later at an hour and 20 minutes. This not only means we have 40 minutes left to try and get through part 2, it also means the movie speeds through part 1 plot points on which it would be better to linger such as the telegram and trip to Washington and Beth’s illness. It’s hard to feel much of anything when we barely get to experience events. 

Just as damningly, 1949 doesn’t have a stand-out performance to distract you from the script’s flaws like 1933 does. Margaret O’Brien is fairly good as Beth, for as little as you get to see her, but as this takes 1933′s approach of having a Jo-centric script, Jo’s actress needs to carry the movie. While all the sisters in Little Women are generally played by actresses older than their book counterparts due to the two part structure of the book, June Allyson is, as far as I can tell, the oldest actress to ever play Jo at 32. This is only highlighted by her much more appropriately aged co-stars, such as the 22-year-old Janet Leigh as Meg, the 17-year-old Elizabeth Taylor as Amy, and the 12-year-old Margaret O’Brien as Beth. Even Mary Astor as Marmee is only 11 years older than the actress playing her second daughter. 

Worse than being too old for the part is that June Allyson never really does anything to make the role her own. She seems to be trying to copy Katherine Hepburn’s performance and only really manages a pale imitation. It’s a shame because it would have been great to see what unique spin Allyson could have brought to the part if she hadn’t either decided to or been directed to imp Hepburn.

[rpctts]

MADS did it, and i’m nothing if not a little bitch who wants plots, so i wrote up my own connections list for my kiddos over at nex. WHICH HAS been around for five years and is still going strong, baby ! anyways, i play five bitches over there right now, and you’ll find my blog in the source link. anyways, WITHOUT FUTHER ADO !

if any of this appeals to you, or you want to join but not with any of my connections and you still want to plot ? feel free to hit me up on DISCORD : 𝖍𝖆𝖑𝖑𝖔𝖜𝖊𝖊𝖓#1978. or shoot me a dm !

general trigger warnings : abuse, death, alcoholism, rape, murder.

CAROLINE SARAH CRANE. nurse, thirty - two.

the lowdown :  she’s too sweet for her own good, and she’s often letting people walk all over her. she had a SHITTY ex - fiance who was abusive, so she’s taking her time getting back into the dating game      ————      there’s this guy, though, but she keeps trying to SELF - SABOTAGE to keep them apart since she thinks she’s the reason people leave. her parents died when she was pretty young and she and her sister moved to fort elms to live with their aunt. she was brought up like a traditional southern gal, born and raised in mississippi until she moved to with her sister claire.

WANTED CONNECTIONS :

sister. they have a relatively close relationship, but her sister was always liked a little - bit - more than caroline was, solely based on the fact that she was more outspoken. which is surprising, since they were raised in the south in mississippi. their parents died when caroline was fourteen, and they moved in with their aunt in washington, which is where they both live now (: requirements : mid - to - late thirties. 1/4 black and louisiana creole, unless adopted    ————      however, preferably still a poc. would have a connection with brandon ( played by mads ), who is her ex - husband’s brother.

coworkers. as you’ll see later, i play two nurses. i’m like, 90% of the hospital staff right now, and i’d love to see more people who work there ! be it doctors, nurses, techs, whatever. i’d love for her to have a mentor or someone to look up to. requirements : none, besides being able to work in a hospital. would also be connected to nat ( played by alex ), and probably malachai ( played by me <3 ).

friends. everyone needs friends, and caroline’s no exception. right now she’s kind of limited on being friends with the guy she’s kind of dating and her sister’s ex’s brother. requirements : in their thirties. would possibly be connected to jack ( played by tasha ) or brandon ( still played by mads ), who’re the aforementioned characters.

CHELSEA ELISE CZERNY. college junior, music store clerk, twenty - one.

the lowdown : she has her own love life issues, and is a store clerk at camelot’s music. the shop across is where her best guy friend and long - time crush julian works, and she’s stupid and in love with him. recently she found out one of her best friends hooked up with him at a party, and that’s really put a damper on their friendship. :zany: anywho, chelsea didn’t have a great life. she was born in louisiana, but her folks moved to washington when she was four. she’s the youngest of five girls, and her parents wanted a boy, so she was chucked to the side unless she was being her dad’s punching bag. her mom was an alcoholic like her dad, and while her mom never laid a hand on her, she didn’t do anything to stop her dad and so of course chelsea resents her. her sisters tried their best to shield her, but she’s five years younger than the next sister, and thus they weren’t always around. she had a stint in a mental hospital, but then cps let her go home to the family because they’re big dumb. she also had an awful experience at a party her freshman year of college, where she was drugged and date - raped, so she’s very selective with who she allows physical contact from. she’s my saddest and most damaged character and honestly she deserves better !

WANTED CONNECTIONS :

sister. she already has one around, but there’s three more to go, baby ! i feel like the czerny girls very much have a relationship like the march girls, with chelsea being very much like amy outside of being a little shit ( love you amy ). they’ve always been very close, and while she’s not closest with the oldest, who’s in her late thirties, she has a very good relationship with the other three. requirements : mid - twenties to late - thirties. the youngest would be twenty - six, and the oldest can be whatever, just under fourty. should be blonde, which makes it pretty easy. would also be connected to christina ( played by mary ), who’s the second oldest, and julian ( played by mads ), who’s been chelsea’s best friend since he moved to fort elms, and is also their neighbor.

potential love interest. chelsea’s bisexual, even if she’s not fully aware of it yet. she’s spent the last five years of her life hung up on her best friend      ————      very much a betty and archie situation, and now she’s crushed that he not only slept with her bff, but also that he probably doesn’t return her feelings. so she really needs someone to come in and swoop her off her feet. requirements : in their twenties. could be connected to kevin ( played by mads ) and pippa ( played by meredith ).

coworkers. chelsea works at camelot’s, which is the record store in fort elms’ mall. right now, she’s the sole employee     ————      which is dangerous considering she’s a klutz and has already fallen off a chair once ! so please give her people to keep her company at work. requirements : none.

STEVEN MICHAEL KINNEY. chemistry teacher, twenty - six.

the lowdown : middle child, perpetual grump. his parents died when he was sixteen, and his baby sister was the only survivor. steven was left with a lot of anger that he didn’t know how to control or get rid of, so in college he joined the boxing team and eventually joined an underground fight club type of thing. he was good at it, and ended up being a crowd favorite and pretty popular with the crowd too. that changed when he hit a guy so hard he passed out, and the guy ended up dying in the hospital. steven wasn’t left without injuries, but his guilt is what’s really done him in. he’s pretty much ruining his relationship with his sisters because he’s punishing himself for the guy’s death by pretty much throwing himself into fights recklessly, hoping to get beat up and d*e. pretty dark and DEPRESSING, if you ask me !

WANTED CONNECTIONS :

cousin(s). after their parents died, the kinney trio were adopted by their uncle and moved in with him. well, steven and sawyer did. sienna had already yeeted herself away. steven would’ve been relatively close to any cousins his age, and they probably would’ve pranked sawyer and any younger siblings. probably would’ve grown apart when steven moved out for college and started withdrawing. requirements : it’d be nice for someone around his age, though maybe a little younger, so early - to - mid twenties. we never specified in canon whether it’s their mom or dad that was japanese, so it would be up to you on whether it’s the side of the family that their uncle’s on ! would also be connected to sienna ( formerly played by meredith, now dead in a ditch somwhere ), who’s the oldest, and sawyer ( played by mads ), who’s the baby.

ex - boyfriend. COLLEGE. a time for learning yourself, and reinvention. steven’s pansexual and he had a secret boyfriend in college. i say secret because it’s the 80s and sawyer is uber - religious. they dated their sophomore year into their junior year, and ultimately the other boy broke things off because, unfortunately, the guy that steven accidentally killed was in fact his best friend. and now that steven’s on the road to love, it’d be fun if someone came in and fucked with that a little bit. requirements : twenty - six / twenty - seven, to be in line with steven’s age. preferably a poc, but not a necessity.

coworkers. give me more TEACHERS ! who will teach the children math in the apocalypse ? it could be you ! requirements : if they’re a teacher, they gotta have a teaching degree sorry babie ! no fifteen year olds allowed.

MALACHAI COLSON KNOX. nurse, thirty - four.

the lowdown : he’s also a nurse, and he ALSO has romance troubles     ————       that appears to be a common trend. he’s in love with his best friend of over twenty years who’s daughter he also raised. they have a complicated history, it’s fine. grew up in chino, they moved to washington after ava was born, and they’ve been living there since. everyone calls kai a simp, which i GUESS he technically is, because he’d do anything for odette. BUT THAT’S BECAUSE HE LOVES HER. gross. there was a time in his mid - twenties where they weren’t living together ( he was living with his ex - girlfriend, who wasn’t an ex at the time ), but THAT was a whole mess. homegirl was emotionally manipulative and a fucking bitch, which wasn’t great. he eventually got out of the situation and moved back in with odette, who he’s now dating     ————      even though no one knows. honestly, he doesn’t even know, because odette’s scared of labels. they make her cry.

WANTED CONNECTIONS :

ex - girlfriend. she's crazy, and a bitch. she manipulated kai throughout their entire relationship, and it really fucked with his mind and is part of the reason he was so hesitant on things with odette. there was probably a lot of gaslighting in that relationship. he did love her, however, and if she showed back up in fort elms that would certainly make things difficult for him ! so of course i love it. requirements : mid - thirties, looks like a bitch. would also be connected to odette ( played by mads ), who she probably hates.

friends. kai needs some buds. mads has a wanted connection for a childhood friendof theirs, which would be great, but i’d also just love some new friends as well. people he can go grab drinks with, or do other friend things with ! requirements : in their thirties, probably, but no specifics. 

coworkers. see above, in caroline’s wanted connection. requirements : should be old enough to work in a hospital.

NOAH HASTUR WRIGHT. contractor, twenty - four.

the lowdown : former football star and resident player. UNFORTUNATELY. for me, anyways. he had lots of relationships in high school, but his most frequent was sawyer, with whom he was very on - again - off - again with. at the end of the football season in his senior year, he tore his acl, which ruined any shot of a football scholarship to a big university. so instead he went to trade school, joined his cousin julian’s band, and now he also deals pot to the town of fort elms. it’s very opposite of who he was in high school, though he’s still a big player. has a shitty relationship with his dad, because who doesn’t ? and also doesn’t believe in LOVE. though he’s pretty sure he might be in love with sawyer, so that’s real rough on him.

WANTED CONNECTIONS :

ex - girlfriend(s). like i said, in high school he was a player. he was also attractive and popular, so he was a good target for flirtaionships. if he wasn’t dating SAWYER, he was hooking up or dating some other girl, and i’m sure he probably strung some girls along. give him some evil exes that someone has to fight, or girls still really hung up on him. requirements : twenties, between 20 - 28, i guess, since he definitely would’ve dated older girls as a freshman / sophomore. would also be connected to julian ( still played by mads ), who’s his cousin.

friends. a clear trend with my characters is that they need more casual friends / acquaintances. he’s buds with the boys in the band, but he really needs people outside of it to hang out with too. requirements : in their twenties.

buyer(s). he’s a pot dealer, and i’m sure that lots of people in fort elms buy ! it’d be cool to have a relationship that’s like a i’ll text my dealer, he’s cool kind of deal. he’d definitely come by and play video games, maybe even give you a discount on prices if you kicked his ass. requirements : none.

hookup. he’s pansexual and very sexually active. like said, he’s a player, so he’d definitely still be sleeping around with people, but it’d be nice to have a consistent person he can turn to. the kind of person he can call at 3am and they meet in a parking lot, or something. the kind he can count on. requirements : no minors.

his mom. he has a great mom    ————     she’d rival juli’s, if i were strong enough to go against mads. but i don’t. she is a great mom, though, and she raised both noah and his teen sister to the best of her abilities. she’s been a single parent since his sister was born, and she’s now fourteen, so their mom’s had a little bit of learning to do. she forced her kids to learn polish, even though she’s not as in touch with her heritage as her sister is, but it’s there    ————     paczki every saturday morning with breakfast. she’s not very overbearing, but she is a little nosy, and she gives noah grief for dealing out of her house, but he pays rent so she lets it slide. requirements : early forties, can be any white lady, though preferably jewish. would be connected to julian ( yep, still played by mads ) as his maternal aunt.  

[emotionally-imbruised]

Im literally refreshing your account cuz I can’t wait for part of the gemma’s bestfriend!

Adjsjshs WELL WAIT NO LONGER

Accidentally in Love Pt. 2

Pt. 1

“Accidentally, I’m in love.”

There’re many things you’ve done in life that you regret. It’s all part of being human, isn’t it? Whether it be something simple like not listening to your parents when they’d advise you not to do something because they knew it would come back and bite you in the ass. Or even just taking that one extra shot of tequila while out with some friends and having full knowledge of how you have work early the next morning... Being regretful when it comes to one's actions is a part of life, and you are no exception to this fact. And boy, are you feeling slightly regretful right now.

Was it one of your brightest ideas to make out with your best friend’s brother on his couch, while he’s sick? Absolutely the frick not. But was it ever smarter of you to panic when said best friend walked in with her mother on you and said brother unexpectantly, thinking it’d be best to avoid the entire situation rather than deal with it head-on? Ha-ha nope, and now the whole scene haunts your memories on a continuous loop.

It all started on Christmas Eve. Harry had called you stating he was sick, and how he didn’t want to be alone for the holidays after he’d gotten the news that Anne and Gemma would no longer be able to visit him because of the poor weather conditions in London – so he invited you over instead. Spending time alone with Harry was nothing out of the ordinary for you seeing as you’d grown quite close to the Rockstar throughout the years due to your friendship with Gemma. You never really considered him as anything other than a best friend despite the butterflies that always swarmed in your stomach whenever you were nearby one another.

A pathetic crush is what you believed it to be, and you treated it as such. However, all of that was thrown out the window after watching two rom-coms with the curly-haired boy cuddled up on his couch, and it was soon discovered that he’s felt the same about you for some time – and well, things got pretty heated after that.

Even with the countless times you’ve imagined the way Harry’s lips would feel being crashed against yours, there was still no chance in hell that you could’ve ever prepared yourself for how lost you’d get in his touch, and that’s precisely what happened. So very lost that neither of you noticed the sound of car doors closing outside or the soft chatter from the two women that had just arrived at Harry’s home. It all happened so fast once the two walked through the front door, and you couldn’t prepare yourselves for even the thought of them witnessing the two of you all over each other in that hot mess.

At first, everyone stayed silent, and it only went downhill from there. The shock that registered on not only Anne’s face at the scene in front of her but also your best friends will forever be etched into your mind, and it’s the absolute worst. You struggled to find your words as you immediately tried to defend your actions to two women that have become such a massive part of your life but were unable to get a word out as you shifted awkwardly on Harry’s lap and felt his increasingly hardening erection rub against the inside of your thigh.

The gasp that left your mouth as you quickly glanced down at the very prominent bulge making itself known through his track pants didn’t go unnoticed by Harry’s family when Gemma finally spoke up. “Oh my god.”

You nervously bit down hard on your bottom lip as you quickly scrambled off of Harry and you both stood up from the couch as you observed your best friend shake her head dramatically; trying her best to look at anywhere but at you and her brother.

“Mum, Gem, wha-what are you doing here?” Harry stammered as he briskly stood from the couch, and his face visibly became noticeably paler. No more words were exchanged as he instantly pressed a hand over his mouth before bolting around the sofa, past his mum and sister, and down the hall to the closest washroom. Soon enough, the only sounds that could be heard were that of him retching and coughing as he was so obviously busy with emptying the contents of his stomach into the toilet.

Anne wasted no time in rushing after her son, but Gemma stayed planted firmly; looking at you in complete shock and confusion after what she’d just witnessed. An awkward moment passed and just as you were about to finally say something – Anne’s voice sounded from down the hallway requesting Gemma’s assistance in helping with Harry. The oldest Styles sibling took a deep breath before shaking her head again and disappearing down the hall with her family.

A part of you wanted to follow right after them to make sure Harry was ok, but your inner coward which happened to be very present at the time had other plans. Without even thinking about it, you wasted no time in shuffling around the couch and into the hallway, so you could make your sweet escape. Your heart pounded harshly in your chest as you struggled with putting your coat and shoes back on out of fear. Any one of the three could see you trying to flee. Once you were finally situated, you dashed out the front door to your car without looking back.

That was over two weeks ago, and the situation has yet to be resolved.

Besides the obligatory Merry Christmas and Happy New Year text exchanges between best friends – you and Gemma have not communicated, and you’ve been ripping yourself a new one over it.

During that awkward week between Christmas and New Year’s where everyone is all over the place, and no one really knows what day it is; you managed to run into Anne while you were out getting some lunch and she asked if she could tag along. There was no way you were going to turn down the woman who has become nothing short of being like a second mother to you, and it was one of the better choices you’d made in recent days. After expressing how sorry you were for the mess you felt you’d caused, she immediately shut that down and said your apology wasn’t necessary.

“Sure, the situation could’ve definitely been handled a bit better,” she explained, causing you to chuckle softly. “But you and Harry are both adults and if you both have feelings for each other, who am I to say anything about that. M’actually quite glad it’s you he’s taken a liking to even though that’s a bit prejudice for me to say because you’re already part of the family, Y/N. I know Gemma feels the same way, but she needs time to process what happened.”

Your entire exchange with Anne made you feel better, but you were still afraid to face your best friend and knew that needed to change. After sending a text stating how sorry you were with how things were handled and how you were ready to talk whenever she was, but unfortunately not hearing anything back; you decided to give her space she so clearly needed.  

And then there was Harry. After the entire incident, he wasn’t long texting and calling you trying to talk, but you cruelly left him on read and ghosted him for the last two weeks other than wishing him a happy holiday as well.

You’ve felt like absolute trash for ignoring Harry, but you have been too nervous about facing him. What if he didn’t mean what he said about liking you as well? Maybe he was just as caught up in the heat of the moment as you were and was just a little horny. All of these thoughts have drilled themselves into your brain, and you haven’t prepared yourself to deal with them just yet. Oh, and to top it all off… You managed to get sick as well.

You’re currently bundled up on your couch watching Brooklyn Nine-Nine as you reach towards the Kleenex box sitting on your coffee table, besides what’s left of the still steaming bowl of soup you just made because that’s all your stomach can hold down without making you want to vomit.

There is not one appealing aspect of your current situation, and you can’t help but think this really is just the icing on the cake with everything else that has happened. Damn Harry and his overly appealing germ-filled lips.

Just as you finish blowing your nose into one of the tissues while Jake and Amy start going off about something on the television, your phone chimes with a new text message and you’re startled by the sudden noise. You toss the tissue into the small trash can you have placed next to the couch and dig your phone out from under the pillows to see it’s Gemma asking if you are home. After replying with a simple ‘yes,’ you find yourself staring at the small screen awaiting a response – but it never comes. With a defeated sigh you lay your head against the large armrest of the couch and allow the exhaustion you’re feeling start taking you over – but just as your eyes flutter shut, your front door swings open and suddenly you’re wide awake.

You scramble from your laying position to see who just barged into your apartment but result in you falling down onto the solid hardwood floor with a loud thud. The embarrassed moans that leave your mouth are drowned out by a familiar chuckle, and you soon open your eyes to be met by Gemma’s as she glances down at you with a smirk. She doesn’t say anything as she extends her hand out to help you up, and you just shake your head as you accept her assistance.

“Sorry for barging in like that,” she starts and holds up her set of keys once you’re standing upright; showing off the extra key to your apartment you’d given her a while ago to use for whenever she was in LA visiting. “Decided to just let myself in.”

“What-.”

“Am I doing here?” She cuts you off, and you nod desperately. “Well I’ve been thinking, and these last two weeks have sucked a whole lot without having my best friend to talk to. I’m also getting pretty sick of this one’s never-ending sulkiness.” She gestures behind her to where Harry awkwardly stands, looking like an absolute mess, and you make no attempt in hiding your shock at his sudden presence. He’s obviously still feeling sick with how tired and groggy he looks in his loose grey hoodie and simple fitting jeans, and your guilty conscience comes in at full swing as you find yourself stepping towards him.

“Oh fuck, H,” you whisper as his cloudy green eyes meet yours with a hard-unreadable gaze but soon softens and replaced with concern as you’re taken over by an intense coughing fit.

“Y/N, please tell me you’ve gone to the doctor,” he asks immediately, and you feel even worse because even with how shitty you’ve been to him lately; your wellbeing is still a priority to him.

“Brave of you to assume there’s a likelihood of her leaving the apartment at all if she’s as sick as you’ve been,” Gemma pipes in and you look to her. “Y/N doesn’t do the doctors Harry, you know this. And wow, this is what you both get for making it to first base on that damn couch.”

And there it is. “Gem, the last thing I wanted to do was make you uncomfortable with any of this. It kinda just… happened,” your voice rasps out with another small cough at the end of it.

“I know,” she smiles, and you feel as if a weight has been lifted from your chest. “Can’t say I’m the biggest fan of my best friend and brother being all over each other like the way you two were, but I can say that you two are each one of the few people I think are actually good enough for the other. Y/N, as weird as it is to even think about – you’re one of the best people I could ever imagine my little brother with; and Harry, you’ve got some work to do, but Y/N can help you get to her level.”

“Thanks?” He grumbles, and you chuckle. His eyes then find yours, and you both give the other a knowing nod before engulfing Gemma in a tight group hug.

“Ew, no stop,” she whines and tries to squirm away. “I don’t know whatever illness it is you two have been passing around.”

“You love it,” you state and lean your head onto her shoulder, smiling widely as she wraps her arm around you and tilts her head against yours.

“It’s alright I guess,” she responds as your group hug slowly disperses. “I’m going to go though because I have plans with mum. But I’ll be back tomorrow with your Christmas gift, ok?”

“Of course. I’ve got yours as well, along with your birthday gift I forgot to bring to London with me when I visited at the beginning of December.”

“Worst best friend ever,” she jokes before giving you another hug, nodding to her brother, and disappearing out the front door. You were half expecting Harry to follow after her, but you’re pretty glad he didn’t so you can finally talk to him and get some things off your mind.

You turn to face him, and he awkwardly glances to the ground; not knowing how to approach the situation, so you do instead. “H, I was so caught up in worrying about your mum and Gemma I didn’t even consider your feelings in all of this, and I know I’ve said it a lot lately… but I’m especially sorry for how I just left after well, we kissed and-.”

“S’alright Y/N,” he chuckles at your rambling, and you feel yourself melting as he flashes you one of his giant dimpled grins. He steps towards you, and those damn butterflies in your stomach don’t hesitate in swarming. “I’ve never had a girl walk out on me like that before.”

“Is that supposed to sound appealing to me?” You scoff and keep yourself from snapping at him for the snide comment.

“No, I guess not,” he continues laughing, and you let out a huff. “But m’ sorry as well because I never told you how I felt about you sooner. It’s been for quite some time now, I’ve just been too much of a coward to do anything about it. S’a bit intimidating having feelings for someone who is not only your sister’s best friend but also one of your own. Not necessarily an easy thing to discuss.”

“We could always start talking about it slowly?” You suggest and smile at him shyly. “Could watch a movie and see where the evening takes us?”

Your thoughts instantly go back to what happened the last time the two of you watched a movie together and know he’s thinking the same thing; having no control over the blush burning its way across your cheeks.

He smirks smugly but slowly nods in agreement. “I’d like that.”

With a stupidly wide smile, the two of you make way to the couch and bundle up again… together. Once you’re both comfy and all cuddled against the other, you glance up at him and speak again. “It’s your turn to pick the movie.”

The way he smiles and tugs his bottom lip in between his teeth make you want nothing more than to press your lips against his again, but you decide to hold off for the time being as he gazes down at you. “Let’s watch Shrek. I’ve had a song from that movie stuck in my head for a while now.”

[costaxserena]

Introducing Attina Triton. She is a Marine Biologist that works at the Sea Life Sanctuary and belongs to the Autumn District. She’s 32 years old and strongly resembles Amy Adams. She’s open.

Triggers: Death.

Get to know her…

She’s always been the intellectual, the responsible one... the one with the fun mom energy that tends to forget about her own needs until she finds herself falling asleep at her desk. Although she might seem like the Queen of micromanagement, that’s just Tina’s way of showing how much she cares about the people she’s involved with. The eldest Triton has a bubbly sense of humor and it doesn’t take much to make her smile; she loves being outdoors and whenever she needs to unwind, it’s not unusual to find her playing the harp in her apartment. Attina leads a minimalistic lifestyle that allows her to focus on what’s important: her family and Nature; she’s easily one of the most warm-hearted, welcoming people in Costa Serena.

Welcome to the coast…

Attina came into the world and she was loved and nurtured from the first moment she opened her eyes; even as her six sisters arrived into her life, she was still her parents’ favorite. The little girl’s childhood in Tampa was full of music, art, and a deep appreciation of the ocean that she would later on come to comprehend. Her father was a merman– she was a mermaid, along with the rest of her sisters. Aaron and Athena made their oldest daughter promise she wouldn’t tell the young Tritons about their mermaid abilities until they were old enough to use them responsibly; she could even help them with their swimming, given Aaron had slowly but surely guided Tina into mastering her transformation whenever they hit sea water. That day never came. One of the Triton’s monthly sailing trips would tear their life to pieces. Athena lost her life at sea trying to save baby Ariel from drowning after she was thrown overboard. Attina had to be strong and support their father as he blamed himself for not acting faster and jumping after them; he was the only one that could have survived the storm.

Unable to take any more losses, Aaron went to the ends of the Earth to find a solution...a witch. Young Tina wasn’t completely sure about her father’s decision, enchanting all of the sisters so they wouldn’t turn into mermaids ever again– until they conducted a special ceremony that would reverse the spell. Every time they got close to the ocean, as a precaution, they would get ridiculously drowsy; even if they made it to the water, nothing would happen. Aaron hid the written spell, and Tina was sure she would never see her beautiful, orange tail ever again. Attina dried her tears and held her head up high as she helped raise her younger sisters. Fortunately, the girl was as resourceful as her mother; though it took her years to find the old pages between her father’s books, she managed to copy everything down to a T. Cherishing those papers as her most valuable possession, hoping for the day her sisters and her would be able to use it. She worked hard to become a perfect role model, not allowing herself to make a mistake, nor show any kind of weakness or sadness as her and her sisters all grew up into independent women. Life happened too fast for her liking. Given she was always worrying over household matters, Attina wasn’t really prepared to think about college; not like she particularly stood out whenever the honor roll was called. Applications started to be sent out and all she could do was wait for the closest college to accept her; the last thing she wanted was to attend a school that was located on the other side of the country; after all, she had people to look after. Tina was completely in awe of Ancora’s offer, not remembering ever applying there... and certainly not for a full scholarship.

As the first to leave and make a home in Costa Serena, Attina had to be convinced by her father that she deserved the chance to finally be herself and not worry about taking care of the girls anymore. It took her years to finally shake off that guilt, knowing she wasn’t abandoning her family as much as she was finally living her life to the fullest. Tina, who deep down knew Marine Biology was the correct path for her, successfully juggled her education with an internship at the Sea Life Sanctuary. A couple of years in, the young woman tried her hardest to change things at the venue, not entirely content with how things were being handled as money was constantly put above the animals’ well-being. Unfortunately, she was fired for speaking out. Attina, only a couple semesters away from finishing her degree and with no other offers to even consider, was crushed. Even when some of her sisters started to settle down in Costa Serena, she wondered if it was best she went back home. Only a week before graduation, Attina was approached by a man called Poseidon Vitalis; he explained he was the brand new owner of the Sancturary and had heard of the amazing job she had achieved in terms of Marine Life restoration. Needless to say, a managerial position was just what Tina needed to have her faith in herself and in her future, completely restored.

Stay a while…

Over four years have gone by and Attina still spends most of her days inside the Sanctuary; she rarely finds anything more satisfying than nurturing an aquatic friend back to a happy and healthy state. Still, the woman knows the town like the back of her hand and never hesitates to join the welcoming comittee every time a tourist group arrives to the coast. Tina’s a firm believer that some secrets should always be protected, no matter the cost. Her mermaid status lingers in the back of her mind, and it’s something she rarely gets to completely ignore– she does feel like a hypocrite for doing so. Tina, though she knows no transformation will happen, hasn’t found the heart to actually go deeper into the ocean, only allowing for the water to kiss her ankles as she walks and yawns along the shore; she only does so whenever she hears the ocean calling and longs to feel connected to her mother again. She’s never told a soul about any of it, she can’t allow herself to be vulnerable... what she can do, is find the courage to speak to her father and maybe, just maybe, finally have the guts to come clean to her sisters and pull the spell out from its hiding place.

Connections:

Triton Girls (Sisters): There is absolutely nothing she wouldn’t do for them... except tell them the truth about their mermaid status. Attina knows she took up the motherly role too seriously and lost her sisterly bond with them; still, she’s willing to try and let loose to make amends.

Eve West (Best Friend): Given they both are perfectionists with a tendency to overwork themselves to the bone, they keep each other in check. Around Eve, Tina is grateful she can be her own person and not feel as if she has to set an impeccable example.

Mitchell Merlin (Coworker): Something about the younger boy endears Tina, and she has tried her best to take Mitch under her wing whenever they’re working on a project together.

[khrsecretvalentine]

Halloween Gift For Amy!

Happy Halloween, @notaheroofjustice! I hope you’ll enjoy your present - I really love AU’s and I got a little bit carried away with this, so I’m sorry about the length and the general horrible writing (it’s very heavily inspired by Simon R. Green’s The Nightside, Jim Butcher’s The Dresden Files, and Seanan McGuire’s October Day novels! I’d highly recommend them if anyone’s looking for some spooky Halloween reading!)! I hope you’ll enjoy it though and thanks for giving me an excuse to write about this beloved little AU of mine!

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It is always 3 am in the oldest bar in the world. And most of its denizens preferred it that way - the hour had its own seductive magic to it, after all. Magic it be or not, Fran thought, it was also the most boring hour. Everything bored him lately though. Though there was always something going on in this, the oldest town in the world where anything could be bought and sold, often at the price of your own soul…or someone else’s, there’d been nothing horribly interesting lately and the boy warlock was simply too lazy to go seek out anything to amuse himself, letting himself instead sink into a state of ennui. He’d been lazing around his townhouse (which wasn’t really a townhouse but had decided to look like one, at least that week) for months now, barely leaving it, hardly showering, going in between staring at the walls to playing around in his little workroom, setting off occasional cases of spontaneous combustion in the neighbourhoods nearest to him and once making it pour down bloody rain that caused madness and grand hallucinations in all it touched. As his (not) townhouse protected him from all of his own spells, Fran had found this last quite interesting and had been having fun watching the havoc outside of his window. Unfortunately, the Wardens were at his door far too quickly for his liking and he’d had to put a stop to his little spell. After all, powerful as the boy warlock might be, even he wasn’t powerful enough to outright disobey the Wardens.

The only reason he’d emerged into the city tonight was on a tip from an old friend of his, Amy, who worked at the bar he was currently in front of. A quick tip, a little whispered ‘there’s something big going down tonight, don’t miss it’ before she’d left this morning. Amy wasn’t prone to stretching the truth - if she said something big, it must be at least mildly interesting. So Fran had showered, dressed and headed through the always crowded, almost always violent streets, his shield spells at the ready just in case anyone tried anything (not that they would…Fran’s name was well known to those who’d been in the town for very long; those who mattered, those who were strong enough to matter, knew who he served and what he could do). He’d even headed out early, his interest piqued enough to put even the most mediocre of efforts in.

Not that it mattered, he thought, huffing out a breath that blew a few errant strands of teal hair up to meet the underside of the brim of the ridiculously large and old-fashioned wizard’s hat he wore. Shortly after Fran had become acquainted with the bar and its terrifying owner, he’d been asked to do some work on the security of the place. One of his, rather ingenious, security features had been to have the door to the bar constantly move. It was always someplace different and never where you wanted it to be, honestly. You couldn’t simply walk around the building the bar was housed in to find it either - things just didn’t work that way here. The lines between reality and universes and time and space got all mixed up. The only constant to the door was that it was always somewhere and that it often showed itself to those that needed it the most. Unfortunately, Fran had never managed to once find the door on his own since he’d cast that spell. His own magic had always seemed to hate him, in an odd fashion. He normally didn’t mind but in this case, he was slowly growing as aggravated as it was possible for someone like him to feel. This was much more trouble than he’d figured. He was still curious as to what could possibly be big enough for Amy to tip him off to but, at the same time, he wasn’t about to expound so much energy on something that might not pay off. He was about ready to just give up and return home, let himself sink back into the semi-pleasant, horrible ennui again.

“Oh, were you just heading in too? Mind if I come along as well?”

The voice was right behind him, almost speaking into his ear. If Fran had been anyone else, there’s a good chance he’d have jumped, screamed, turned and attacked…anything. Fran, though, was not like anyone else and simply stood there. He blinked his eyes, both his outer eyes and his inner one, and slowly turned his head. He blinked again in recognition as his eyes met large brown ones.

“Ahh…you’re,” Fran started, his words lazy and monotone, his surprise at seeing the boy concealed very well.

“Late, I know. Sorry!” the boy replied, clapping his hands together and bowing slightly over them, looking a little embarrassed. “We should go in now.”

“Go on then, please. Wardens first, after all,” Fran replied, his words extremely polite in contrast to the mocking tone that had spilt into his monotone voice. He still didn’t see any door, after all.

The boy opened his mouth to speak but closed it again before nodding. His hand reached out and closed around a doorknob that Fran swore had not been there a second ago when he looked. The doorknob turned easily and the door swung inwards, illuminating the entrance of the bar. The door most certainly had not been there a moment before. Fran hated that damn door and this bar but Amy had been right…if this boy was here, then something interesting was sure to go down and Fran followed him through the door.

____________________________2______________________________

When you stepped into the bar, you were stepping onto metal grating eight feet into the air. The little landing led to stairs, made of the same metal grating, that led down into the bar proper. Most of the customers that frequented the bar were a bit paranoid about their safety, some for very good reasons, and none were fond of being snuck up on. And the customers were nothing compared to the owner, who wanted to be able to see anything or anyone coming in far enough in advance to prepare for any danger.

The bar itself seemed simply too large for the building that housed it, spreading out below the landing in all directions, seemingly unending, full of twists and turns, big pillars that rose to the ceiling here and there, lots of dark corners and shadows to hide in contrasting with brightly lit corners and jukeboxes. Decades seemed to melt together, old world bar co-mingling with futuristic discotheque and 20’s cabaret, with several others thrown in the mix. Everyone could find their pleasure and their poison there. The bar itself was stocked across an entire wall, the glass shelves behind the bar holding liquors that had long since stopped being made, their aged bottles sitting right beside glowing little orbs of alcohol that wouldn’t be introduced for decades yet. Little vials of dark maroon blood and bar snacks that certainly would never be kosher reminded the patrons just who and what mingled among them.

Fran was bored by all this, barely took note of it. He’d been in the bar a thousand and one times before and it failed to excite him anymore. It was old hat to him. The boy in front of him though…he wasn’t entirely boring. He was surprising Fran already, those amber eyes wide and almost gawking around him, fascinated and repulsed all at once. It was surprising - most Wardens didn’t enter the bar, to begin with, but when they did, they’d always been inscrutable, even to the almost eerily observant warlock. Fran studied the Warden. He was so small, short legs and messy brown hair. He looked so young, almost like a child but Fran supposed he shouldn’t be surprised by that. This man was supposed to be the youngest Warden ever and it was no secret that some of the most powerful forces of the city had allied themselves underneath of him. Fran couldn’t understand why though. He looked so innocent and weak that Fran found it hard to believe that this man had once beat not only his master but his boss as well.

They reached the bottom of the stairs and Fran followed the boy towards the bar, catching the multi-coloured gaze of the unearthly beautiful leannan si working beside Lussuria at the bar.

“I told you so,” she mouthed, grinning and nodding almost imperceptibly to the boy Fran was behind.

Fran made no return comment, ignoring her gloating words as he slowly followed along. Amy’s grin was gone by the time the Warden got to the bar, replaced with a sultry smirk and an air of detachment as she made to approach the Warden, only to get pushed aside by Lussuria, who hurried over, hips almost wiggling with excitement as he stared at the boy.

“Well, don’t you look just good enough to eat?” Lussuria simpered, his forked tongue darting out at the end of the sentence as if it desperately wanted to taste the boy. Probably did, though, Fran thought. Ghouls were always hungry and Lussuria had always favoured his food young and male. “What can I do for you?”

“I’m here to speak to Xanxus, Lussuria,” the boy said. Fran smirked a bit as he watched Lussuria’s face pale even more, his eyes grow wide. That wasn’t a bad trick, Fran thought, to surprise a stranger with their name. He wondered just how much this boy knew about Lussuria, about his boss, about all of them.

Lussuria wasn’t quick to just stand there though. His coquettish nature came back quickly, though Fran noticed he put a lot of space between him and the boy as he chattered away, coming out from behind the cupboard to lead the way further into the bar, leaving Amy alone to tend the bar. She held little interest to Fran now, who instead continued following along behind Lussuria and the boy. Xanxus and the Wardens were supposed to have a temporary peace bond and the bar was always, always neutral ground. What could be going on? Whatever it was, it was unknown and therefore, interesting.

___________________________3_______________________________

The idiots were loud as always, Fran thought. The inner group that served the bar’s owner, of which Lussuria was a part of and Fran guessed you could marginally include him in, could be heard far before they were seen. They were always so loud…it was exhausting. It was definitely one of the reasons Fran didn’t frequent the bar more than he did.

Fran was paying close attention to the Warden now and noticed the bob of his Adam’s apple as the boy gulped, the tremor of his hands as they approached the cluster of booths and chairs that marked the center most of the bar. It was where Xanxus always held court, the area reserved especially for him. If he wanted people around, he’d allow them but if not, the area was cleared, a quiet spot simply for him to sit and drink without having to deal with any of the peons he considered his customers to be. And if any peons did sneak their way in when he was in the mood for solitude? Well, Lussuria had always been a fan of using human remains in his cookies and Xanxus was always willing to contribute the ashes of whatever poor sap displeased him to Lussuria’s pantry.

Speaking of the dragon, Fran saw him now, glaring at them as they approached from his spot on the high-backed golden throne that he always occupied. Story was that it was an old spoil of war, plucked from the throne room of King Arthur himself back in the day when Xanxus allowed his true self to roam free instead of taking the more humanesque form that he’d adopted in the modern age under prohibition. Whatever the truth might be, Fran thought it was terribly gaudy and tacky but he certainly wasn’t going to be the one to say so…at least, not without shifting the blame onto someone else. That had been fun. And really, Levi was able to just hop into a new body so there was no harm done.

Lussuria’s chatter died abruptly as he noticed the look on his boss’ face. He scampered to the side abruptly, almost hiding behind a very loud, very angry looking fish-man, who was brandishing around a very sharp looking trident while demanding to know who had let the trash in. Fran simply ignored him. It was pretty hard, given that Squalo managed to be louder than even the Banshees Fran had met, but he’d had a lot of practice at ignoring idiots. The Warden seemed to fare pretty well too, surprising Fran yet again.

“Good evening, Xanxus,” the Warden said. “You look well.”

The sharp tinkling of breaking glass quieted everyone quickly, all eyes going to the golden throne. Bits of glass stuck into Xanxus’ black talon tipped hand but he simply ignored them as he let the mostly destroyed glass go, sending it to fragment completely on the floor under his throne. His crimson eyes glared and small plumes of smoke rose from his nostrils.

“You have three seconds to get out of here, Sawada Tsunayoshi, or I’ll fucking roast you.”

Oh yes, this was going to be interesting.

To his credit, the Warden didn’t look as afraid as Fran would thought. He didn’t turn tail and run, either, though whether that made him brave or an idiot, it was too soon to tell.

“I was hoping we’d have moved past this by now, Xanxus. But I suppose it’d be best to get straight to business. I have a job I’d like to discuss with you.”

“VOOII!” Squalo yelled, drawing all the attention back to him. “Didn’t you hear the boss, you trash?! Run away or I’ll gut you like a fish!” The scaled hands tightened their grip on the trident as it swung towards Tsunayoshi.

“Shut up, you trash, who told you to talk?” Xanxus growled as a bottle flew through the air to crash against Squalo’s head, dark amber whiskey staining his long, white hair. Xanxus clicked his fingers towards Lussuria, sending the ghoul scurrying back towards the bar for more liquor for his boss before his gaze fixed on Tsunayoshi once more. “You have three minutes.”

Tsunayoshi nodded and smiled. “That’s more than I thought I’d get. Thank you for your generosity.”

The smile disappeared from his face quickly though, his expression turning serious.

“You’ve all heard of the recent rash of disappearances, I assume,” he asked, his eyes darting around the room. Every head was nodding, even Fran’s. Though he’d been housebound for a while, his radio was always on - a side effect of one of his first spells had made it impossible to turn off - and was always tuned to the one lousy radio channel that anyone got in this town. It was a weird channel - sometimes there was music (oldies, new hits, new hits that should be oldies - Elvis’ cover of Despacito was pretty good - ancient druidic chanting that once put the whole city to sleep for two days), sometimes there was the weather (it was never right), sometimes there was just this weird static followed by screaming and bursts of crying (Fran always had to turn it down at that point - he liked the static but that screaming always gave him a headache), but always there was the news. And the news for the past several months had been focusing more and more on some rather mysterious disappearances. At first, nothing was thought of it as it was just tourists, people who came to the city seeking something wicked and wild or who were called there by something. It wasn’t rare for tourists to go missing or to meet bloody ends. In fact, sometimes it was entirely the reason they came to the city. People had some weird fantasies, after all; life in this city taught you that quickly. But then the disappearances started becoming more frequent and it wasn’t just tourists going missing. Fran remembered that a couple regular customers had gone missing. Neither were weak; one was the Phantom Knight, after all, an unholy spirit of madness sharing a body with the bodyguard of the Collector.

Fran didn’t let his mind drift too far into that though as he focused his attention back in on what the boy was saying.

“The Warden’s are, of course, tasked with looking into anything serious in the City and keeping peace and order within the city. The case of the disappearances were assigned to my task force, special order by one of the high-ups. The news has covered a lot of it but not all of it - there’s been thirty-three disappearances to date, much less than they acknowledge on the station. And we haven’t let a lot of the important details slip. At first, we didn’t want to spook the perpetrator, cause them to escalate or flee from us. Now though…now we have different reasons.”

Those amber eyes glowed almost orange as Tsuna’s gaze resolutely met Xanxus’.

“Of those thirty-three, we’ve recovered thirty-two…though I shouldn’t really phrase it that way. We can’t actually recover their bodies. We can’t get any closer than ten feet to them, not by power or any magic we can think of. We can’t move their bodies or alter them in any way. All the bodies recovered so far are completely drained of their blood…”

Tsunayoshi’s next words were muffled, inaudible over a sudden loud giggling coming from a pale, blond-haired boy wearing a tiara.

“Shishishishishi…blood…I like blood…the prince would’ve liked to have been there to see that happen…”

The boy shut up quickly as he noticed everyone glaring at him, pouting and whining for blood, sending Lussuria once more scurrying for a bottle of the stuff behind the bar.

“As I was saying,” Tsunayoshi said, eyeing the boy cautiously and taking a step away from him. “All the bodies are drained of blood. Each one has been missing a major organ, following a pattern. Heart, brain, stomach, and then male genitals.”

Everyone took the appropriate moment to wince at that before the Warden moved on.

“They’ve been heavily mutilated, tortured most definitely. The problem is that they’re all still living. There’s no way they should be - they haven’t been turned into any sort of creature nor were any of them a particularly long-lived or eternal being. They haven’t been infected with anything that we can tell. They are being purposefully kept alive, by magic, by someone or something for some very special reason. These people are being kept alive and aware and in horrendous pain…”

Yes, the eyes were definitely orange now, orange and so very angry. Fran shut his inner eye, the eye that saw the truth in everything, very quickly as he took a step back from the Warden. Yes, now he was seeing why this boy was such a big deal.

“VOOII!!!” came the next interruption. “Just trace the magic back to the user, trash! Don’t waste our time with something so trivial!”

“We’ve, of course, already tried that. We can’t trace the magic because whatever’s protecting the bodies is obscuring the magic keeping them alive. We also can’t trace the protection spell - it’s devoid of all markings and the aura is exceptionally faint, without a single hit in the database. We also can’t figure out what the spell is that is on these people - not only are they all protected but they’re all linked. A spell to do both that strong - we’ve tried researching, tried every road we can think of. The books we need always seem to be missing, the leads we have have been turning up dead, oftentimes literally…it’s odd, especially since there’s only one other person besides my team that knows all the information and knows exactly what we’re doing at any given moment.”

Fran looked around as Squalo laughed, Bel giggling along with him. Xanxus took a long swig from his bottle before turning his fierce gaze back onto Tsunayoshi, the sides of his lips curling up devilishly.

“Oh, and who’s that, trash?”

“I wouldn’t think you’d need to ask. It’s my boss, of course, the man who made sure this case was assigned to me.”

“So, you’re saying the Authorities are behind this?” Levi asked, looking and sounding confused. He always was the last to catch up.

“Of course I’m not,” the Warden said. “The Authorities are our all-protectors after all. May they be blessed,” he said, making the customary symbol over his heart, even as he smiled wanly and nodded his head. Fran joined everyone, including Xanxus himself in repeating the Warden’s last words and repeating the same symbol. Fran wasn’t stupid enough to mess with the Wardens but even the Warden’s didn’t compare to the Authorities. Nobody even thought about opposing the Authorities, the group of seven almighty beings who were said to have created the City itself and all inside it. The city and its inhabitants were their playthings, their little experiment and the Wardens the dogs they used to keep people in line.

“So what are you saying, Sawada Tsunayoshi?” Xanxus asked, pointed teeth bared in a feral smile, talons gripping tight to the arms of his throne as he leaned forward as if anticipating the boy’s next words.

“I’m saying that we could use some help. You were once a part of us - won’t you come out of retirement one last time?”

Xanxus’ smile grew even larger before he broke out into laughter, the others around him picking up on it, intensifying it. Even Fran found a small grin working its way onto his lips. He had been right…this was going to be fun.

___________________________4_______________________________

Or at least, he’d thought so at the time. He’d been grinning (at least as much as it was possible for him to grin - he wasn’t exactly known for his wide range of emotions) as the Warden had left, leaving an air of heavy tension and anticipation behind him. Fran had looked around before nodding and waving as he turned his back, already walking towards the stairs and the outside world again. It would be such fun to watch how things turned out from a nice, safe vantage point. Fran liked living and had no plans to get himself killed by going up against the Authorities but he sure enjoyed the prospect of watching the morons he worked with do exactly that.

“And where do you think you’re going brat?” boomed out a loud voice as Fran found himself being tugged back by the tip of his over-sized hat.

“Please don’t touch my hat, Mr. Squalo. With all due offense, your scales stick to the fabric and the fish smell never goes away.”

“WHAT DID YOU SAY TO ME!!! I’LL SLAUGHTER YOU, YOU SHITTY BRAT!”

Fran looked on, slightly amused as he watched the others hold back Squalo as the merman jerked towards him. The tip of the trident slashed past Fran’s ear, shaving the barest hint off the ends of the hair by his ears.

“Ah, thank you, Mr. Squalo. I’ve been needing a trim.”

Once again, Fran turned to leave and once again, he was stopped.

“What’s the spell that’s being used on the bodies?” Xanxus drawled out lazily, as he settled himself back into the chair, his bottle of whiskey back in bleeding, but now glass free hand.

“I don’t know.”

“Find out and prepare a countermeasure against it.”

“I was actually thinking I’d sit this one out. You don’t need me - you have a crack team over there. Make them do it.”

Xanxus glared at Fran. He’d be terrifying to anyone else but Fran figured that between the Authorities and Xanxus, he’d always risk Xanxus.

“That was a command, not a request. Do it.”

“Make Mr. Bel do it. Or Mr. Long-Hair. They’ve got all kinds of free time.”

Xanxus’ eyes narrowed, the whiskey in his bottle bubbling under the sudden heat of the glass containing it.

“Do I need to give your master a call and tell him how you’re violating our agreement? He gave you to me for five years. I own you, trash and I’m not going to repeat myself.”

Fran had quipped something or other and dodged a plume of flame in return. He couldn’t help it - words just seemed to come out sometimes. And despite his remarks, here he was, doing exactly what he���d been told to do.

“Shishishishi…no dilly-dallying around, peasant,” Belphegor laughed, hanging over Fran’s shoulder. “Haven’t you found anything yet?”

“No yet, Mr. Fake-Prince,” Fran retorted, slipping quickly under the table to avoid the sharp bite that would’ve torn his carotid. Bel only laughed that silly giggle of his again and whined about how long things were taken. It was so stupid, thought Fran, to have a babysitter. Xanxus had gone a little overboard there. Of course, he probably would be doing anything except researching right now without Bel there but that didn’t matter. It hurt how little his boss trusted him.

Fran sighed, shaking his head and drowning out Bel as he went back to concentrating on the last few pages of a dusty old grimoire. Nothing in that one, either. Fran turned and slammed the book down on a wobbly tower of them. He’d read through nearly all of his books since the encounter with the Warden the previous night, not getting a moment’s sleep. That had been his last grimoire and there’d been nothing in that either. Fran honestly hadn’t expected there to be. He had a few ideas of the basics of the spells but couldn’t remember ever reading anything close to something like it. His eyes glanced down to the table legs and the last remaining untouched book in his library. It would be….while Fran had no problem with the darker side of magic (preferring to play around with it rather than anything else), there were things that even he didn’t dare to touch. That book, a heirloom of his master’s, was the only grimoire in his library that discussed those sorts of things. Figured it would be in there.

Fran called out a warning too low for Bel to hear from where he was leaning on the tabletop as Fran pushed up slightly on the table, just enough to slide the book out from under the table-leg it was supporting. Letting go, the table listed heavily to the left side, sending dishes (and Bel) crashing off the table. The small vampire lunged towards him again, only to find himself biting a book.

“I have to read that, you know, Mr. Fake-Prince. Please don’t rip any pages with your stupidly pointy teeth.”

“Call me fake prince again, stupid brat, and I’ll tear your throat out,” Bel said, grinning as if the prospect was the happiest thing he’d ever heard. “You can address me as your highness!”

“But wouldn’t Dracula be the one I’d call your highness? After all, isn’t he the King of the Vampires? You only claim to be a prince.”

“Idiot. Dracula was just some fool with bad teeth that humans thought was a vampire. Vlad Tepes though…he’s been dead for years though. He was hard to kill…but I’m the Prince over all vampires now so you should be nicer to me and maybe you’ll live longer, little witch.”

“You know, Mr. Prince over all vampires…this is wasting time I could be finding the information our stupid boss wants to know.”

Bel pouted then, because arguing with Fran was at least doing something to interrupt his boredom. He hated babysitting as much as Fran hated being babysat. However, despite all his grumbling, he sat back and let Fran read the book.

The book itself didn’t look like much but inside…inside it were amazing, terrifying thing. The spells were ancient and powerful, remnants from when the Ancient Ones walked the Earth. Fran opened his inner eye and read, seeing not only the words and images on the pages but the actions of the spell, the sacrifices and consequences of each passing page, the madness and terror and utter beauty of it all. And at the end, there was that, the very faces of the Ancient Ones. Not even he could close his inner eye quickly enough and he gazed upon it, the embodiment of insanity, of madness and beauty so complete, so absolute that the mind simply couldn’t withstand it. Fran looked into it, captivated, unable to look away. He looked and he knew - he knew all, the beginning, the end, true happiness and absolute fear. He knew the answers to everything…his brain felt like it was melting, burning in the heat of the books pages, his eyes itched and watered, fingers trembling with the mad desire to just scratch that itch, to dig in and scratch until pus and ooze crawled between his fingers…

The next thing Fran knew, he was waking up with a head that felt like it had just been cracked open and Bel’s face right over his, the prince drooling a little over the sight of the blood dripping down the other boy’s head. Fran didn’t notice right then though. All he could do was sit up, lean over, and vomit all over the stone floor between the two of them before flopping back to the ground to pass out again.

Using his inner eye always took so much out of him to begin with but the whammy he’d been treated to? It didn’t surprise him the next time he woke, with a pounding headache, to find that hours had passed. Bel was grumbling and groaning but Fran paid him no mind. How could he? Fran’s brain was focused on a sigil, almost burning behind his eyes, so clearly did he see it. A sigil and the knowledge, the spell, the plan you’d have to use. Yes, yes, he seen it all in those last moments of lucidity and it was brilliant. Terrifying and repulsive but brilliant.

He was on autopilot. His seeking hands found a pen, a piece of paper, sketching out a map of the city from knowledge he didn’t know he had and would never have again. More lines followed over top of the map, graceful, curving lines in shapes that were all wrong, that made you sick to look at, overlapping and joining and forming the sigil that was forefront in his mind. Thumbtacks followed, thirty-two bodies expressed as thirty two little circles of brass.

“Mr. Bel,” Fran said finally, his voice coming out groggy and hoarse, his throat closing up with the taste of bile again. “Call the others. I’ve figured it out.

___________________________5_______________________________

Fran found himself recalling all kinds of other, very fun-sounding and very destructive, spells as he stepped outside his (not) townhouse beside Belphegor, the utter noise of the City beating hellishly against his head.

"Let’s just get to the bar, Mr. Fake-Prince,” Fran groaned. He wanted nothing more than for this whole thing to either be over or to be watching from inside the quiet of his home. When he’d asked Bel to call the others, he’d assumed they’d simply come to where he was. It was a pretty reasonable assumption. But no, his stupid boss would have to leave his throne and his bar that way and, as Fran was reminded once again, Xanxus only did that if he was leaving to wreak havoc or kill people, sometimes both. While Bel had been eager to insist that Xanxus should come, for the very reason that it would be enjoyable to watch Fran be eviscerated, Fran had begrudgingly agreed to go back to the stupid bar to present his findings there.

Fran looked back at Bel with a slightly annoyed look that most people wouldn’t even have noticed - his face always had an almost dead look on it, to be honest. The blond vampire was slowly trudging along behind him, precariously balancing the map, trying to avoid the thumbtacks still stuck into it, on top of the other books that Fran had loaded into his arms to carry. Fran himself moved faster, only his master’s grimoire in hand.

“Can’t you hurry up, Mr. Bel,” Fran said, dropping the insults in a bid to get the older boy to hurry up his pace. “It takes forever to find the stupid door to the bar. I want to go home already so let’s go.”

Bel giggled his creepy giggle, the sound long and high-pitched. Something Fran had said had evidently amused him greatly.

“Idiot!” Bel almost sang out. “The door’s right up there! Don’t you see it, you shitty witch?”

Fran just stared at him, annoyed, as Bel, still laughing insanely, dumped his load of stuff into Fran’s arms, almost dropping valuable papers as he did so. He walked forward a few steps, veering slightly to the left, almost skipping along. Bel’s pale, thin hand reached out into seemingly invisible air and Fran felt his anger already beginning to grow. Not again.

One second, there was nothing except the street ahead of them, dirty and dark, with little gangs huddled here and there, peeping out at you from the shadows of doorways and leering at you from stoops. The next second, an opened door stood slightly to the right of Bel, the doorknob in Bel’s hand, the faint glow of the bar inside appealing despite Fran’s quiet anger at seeing it.

He really had to fix that spell around the door…or find a spell to blow up the bar. He wasn’t quite sure which one he wanted more at the moment. Putting those plans aside for careful consideration at a later time, Fran hurried through the doorway. He took the stairs two at a time, Bel sauntering slowly along behind him. Levi, who was at the bottom of the stairs, seemingly waiting for them, opened his mouth as if to greet them only to be abruptly stopped before he could speak a single syllable.

“Ah, take these and come on,” Fran ordered, dumping everything but his master’s grimoire into Levi’s arms. The other man barely reacted in time to secure everything, the thumbtacks sticking into his pale, pudgy skin.

“Don’t order me around, you shitty brat!” Levi protested, even as he followed Fran’s instructions. Fran only looked back at him over his shoulder, his regular apathetic expression on his face.

“You’re always saying how much you want to help the boss though, Mr. Stalker, and since you’re so useless I figured you’d be happy to get to actually do something.”

Levi’s face coloured angrily and he started shouting on and on about Fran’s words and choice of nickname, about how he should take his job more seriously and so on and so forth. Fran tuned him out easily enough, hurrying along faster, knowing that as soon as they got close to Xanxus, Levi would shut up abruptly anyway. He wouldn’t dare to scream and disturb or upset his precious boss, after all.

The walk through the bar seemed longer this time, which was, of course, entirely possible as the geography of the bar was always changing and shifting, but at long last, Fran spied the sight of the tackiest chair in history and the scowling figure upon it, who glared at them as they approached.

“You better have brought me something good,” Xanxus growled out as soon as they were close enough to hear him.

Fran, surprisingly, bit back his urge to make some sort of sarcastic, wry comment or quip fairly quickly. Though his words often ran away with him, he tried not to be plain out idiotic with them and, seeming as he knew the long explanation that was going to be needed here would annoy Xanxus, who liked things kept short and simple whenever he had to be briefed on anything, Fran thought it safest to stay mum.

“Are the others around? I don’t want to have to explain anything twice,” was all Fran replied, his tone making it abundantly clear that he didn’t even particularly want to have to explain once.

“Fuck if I know. Go find them, Levi.”

Levi spared Fran a quick glare before giving his boss a simpering smile and hurrying away. Belphegor settled himself onto a chair, getting comfortable as Fran took the time that Levi was gathering the others to pull a couple of tables together close to where the gathering of chairs and stools were. He spread out the map, made sure the thumbtacks were all still in order. Books got flipped open, passages already marked with post-it notes, symbols and sigils splashed ominously across pages. He was opening the last of the books, leaving his master’s book still closed, when Squalo and Lussuria entered the little gathering loudly, plopping themselves into their usual positions in their favourite spots.

“Vooi! You found the spell, did you, you shitty brat?” Squalo asked, leaning forward and peering curiously at the spread of pages and pictures, trying to decipher the ancient languages and odd symbols.

Fran shook his head, causing Xanxus to lean forward and growl threateningly. Fran was quick to start speaking after that.

“I mean, it’s not a spell. I know what’s going on though…a spell…so stupid,” he said, shaking his head as if to express his disgust that anyone would ever think it was something so silly. The way the others all glared at him amused him and Fran teased a couple seconds more, relishing the only enjoyment he was sure to get out of this, wanting to put off the less funny aspects of what he’d learned and what he’d have to explain. Eventually though, after dodging several pointy objects (and a glass) thrown his way, he knew he could put it off no longer.

“It’s a ritual…a really old and really obscure one. It’s magic that most magic-users would never even know about.”

“Okay, we get it…very few people would know about it. We’ve been told who is behind this - that information only hammers it in more. A spell that old - someone’s whose been around since the beginning of the city would know it, of course!” Lussuria piped up, hands fluttering about. “And here I was hoping for something a little juicier!”

“You better not have called us all together for something this worthless!” Squalo yelled.

Fran sighed and looked around, waiting for them to quiet down. What a bunch of impatient morons. Why did he put up with them all again?

“Are you done interrupting now?” he asked, giving everyone a second, glaring at them all. “Good…now, as I was saying. The ritual…it’s got to be older than the city, actually. I think it dates back from when the Ancient Ones walked the earth. It’s old and incredibly dark. We’re talking magic so heinous that I don’t know anyone who’d actually perform it. Not the most ruthless of Wardens, not the Collector, not the Immortal Gods, not even Master himself. It’s that disturbing…but at the same time, it’s a brilliant thing. It’s so precise and delicate and difficult…I could probably start the ritual,” Fran mused. “I think Chrome could as well, she was trained by Master as well, after all. But I don’t think even Master could actually accomplish the whole ritual…there’s nobody I know who is strong enough. Even as monstrous as we’ve been told the Authorities are, I can’t see how any one person could pull it off by themselves….it would take a whole group of skilled, incredibly powerful magic-users. Either all the Authorities are in on it, which is difficult to believe as it would be hard to conceal from someone as observant as that Warden, or they’ve got to be using some sort of booster for their magic.”

“Booster?” Levi questioned, the man’s face confused. Fran looked around, waiting for someone to either shut him up or explain to him but he saw that same confusion echoed in all but Xanxus’ and Squalo’s faces. Sighing, he explained, trying to do so quickly so he could go back to the main topic.

“Warlocks, even powerful ones, use natural forces to 'boost’ their power sometimes. It lets them accomplish stronger magic and softens the kickback of the magic on them, takes away some of the brunt of whatever they must sacrifice to perform that magic. It’s got to be a pretty powerful force though to be used as a boost - natural things like thunder storms, emotional things like an act of true love, spiritual things like pure belief in something…I’ve even seen some darker magic-users use another’s life-force. I was thinking that might be why so all the victims are linked together - their souls could potentially be used as a boost - but it can’t be. Not even that would be strong enough…”

Fran trailed off, his mind searching, a frown on his face. It bothered him that he hadn’t been able to come up with an answer to this. He’d figured out most everything else but this and it upset him. What was he missing?

“Che,” Squalo scoffed, looking unsure himself and not meeting Fran’s eyes. “You said people’s pure beliefs could be used as a boost?”

Fran nodded, wondering not only where Squalo’s normal loudness had gone to but also where he was going with this. Bel shifted in his chair, almost bouncing in it as a huge smile spread across his face. He looked at Squalo excitedly.

“I’ve got it,” the blond cried happily. “You’re thinking Halloween, right?”

Fran blinked, considering for a second. Halloween was a huge deal in the City. The very month of October was a magical one, with the magic intensifying with each day, culminating in a magic strong enough, on October 31st, to bring the dead back to the earth and help bring about the most grisly, exciting, terrifying tricks and treats.

“Well, yes, that would certainly do it,” Fran said. “But Halloween’s still a couple weeks away, the magic wouldn’t be strong enough yet.”

There was general laughter from the rest of them before Lussuria, hiding his laughing mouth behind one hand like a prim old-fashioned lady, corrected the teal-haired boy gently.

“Fran, my dear, Halloween is tomorrow night. You poor thing, you really need to get a calendar for your house, you know, since you tend to hide away in there for such long periods.”

Fran ignored Lussuria, though he admitted he was inwardly right. Well, this solved the last piece of the puzzle. If it was October 30, the disappearances would have started in October and the caster had been using it’s magic to progress the ritual along. When tomorrow hit, if he tapped into the forces of magic that had culminated because of the power of the season, he’d be unstoppable.

“It has to be tomorrow then,” Fran said, finishing up his thoughts out loud. “He’s going to finish the ritual tomorrow.”

“What’s the ritual for?” Xanxus asked, his eyes staring hungrily at the books of magic on the table. “What’s he doing?”

Fran hesitated before launching back into the explanation, hands pointing at diagrams, following along with passages in books.

“He’s changing himself and not in any small way. It’s not like one of those sacrifices where he’s taking other people’s gifts or powers. That’s chump magic. No, he’s going for something much bigger - he’s aiming to become a god…though I guess that wouldn’t even be right. Here’s the ritual to give oneself godhood and immortality. And here’s the ritual he’s using,” Fran said, pointing to a spell in one of the books on the table before flipping open his master’s book, letting it fall open to the right page. “See the differences - they’re huge. What he’s trying for is much more than that. He’s calling up one of the ancients. That’s most likely why all the victims are linked. He’s using their souls as bait, as feeding fodder to distract the Ancient One after he calls it through. The organs - he’s been eating those, preparing his body for the next phase. One more and he hits thirty-three and we all know just how powerful that number is, magically speaking. He’s going to use the magic of thirty-three and the boost from the magic of the season to finish the ritual tomorrow night - he’s going to take the Ancient One and bond it with him. He’s aiming to become an Ancient One.”

Fran was slightly winded by the time he finished and more than a little nauseous. His revulsion seemed echoed on every face looking at him. Even Xanxus looked disturbed by Fran’s explanation, barking out an order to Fran to close the books, he was sick of looking at them. Fran did so happily, using the time to gain back his breath and to let the others grapple with the idea of what it all meant if Fran was right.

The return of the Ancient Ones. Even if it was only just one of them…to say it would be the end of the world would be too tame. The Apocalypse paled in comparison, looked like simply the same level of hell as your first middle school dance. And even the most idiotic of the Varia understood that.

“So, what do we do now?” Lussuria asked, his face more solemn than Fran had ever seen it. “We don’t even know where to find this guy or how to stop him.”

Fran pointed to the map.

“Each of the victims has been placed strategically, actually. They’re all points on the sigil needed for the ritual. There’s only one place this guy can be,” he said, his hand moving to a point on the map. “He’ll definitely be there tomorrow. It’s the only way to complete the ritual.”

Lussuria didn’t seem cheered by this.

“Is he immortal yet?” Xanxus asked, his eyes locked onto Fran’s own, so intense that Fran had to look away.

“No. He won’t be until he eats that last organ. That’s what that part of the crimes has been all about.”

“So, we just have to kill him before that happens,” Xanxus said, a contented smile on his face as if the idea of getting to murder caused him great happiness. To be fair, it probably did. That happiness was echoed on the other’s faces too and Fran shook his head a little. What a bunch of freaks.

“Yeah, it’s just that easy,” Fran said, his tone dead-pan.

“Good,” Squalo shouted, his enthusiasm back in full force. “Now let’s come up with a plan of attack.”

____________________________6______________________________

There was nothing worse than being completely and utterly bored, Fran had thought at first. He and Bel had been assigned to watch the inside of the building that lay at the coordinates of the final ritual spot, something that could only be achieved from on top of the building. So there the two of them had lain all day, peeking through the filthy glass of the skylights into the dim interior of the building. Fran had amused himself for a while by taking in the interior of the building, what he could see of it, and describing it, in his own unique way, through the telepathy link he’d established between all of the Varia’s members. They hadn’t found it quite so amusing, which only made Fran happier.

The building was a grand old mansion, the center of it the room the skylights looked into, a huge old-fashioned ballroom. Even in the dim, meager light streaming into the room, Fran could tell that it was all set up for the ritual. The sigil was burned into the old wood of the floor. He couldn’t look at it too long, he found. It made him sick to glance at and his head pounded and swam if he concentrated too much on it. He could see the candles needed, spread strategically around the sigil on the floor, misshapen, yellowish hunks that Fran figured were made from the fat of humans. He’d seen other such candles around before but had never used them himself as he’d come across no rituals or spells that needed them. He could see what looked like a little table-like square close to the sigil, the weak sunbeams making whatever was on top of it sparkle and flash occasionally but Fran couldn’t clearly make it out.

As there really wasn’t much to the room, Fran quickly ran out of things to describe and the day stretched out. It was odd how fast the days went by when he was lazy of his own accord but went so slow when he was just laying around because someone else had ordered him to. Funny how that worked. His first thought of boredom being the worst thing in the world was quickly replaced by the thought that being bored alongside Belphegor was the worst thing in the world. The other boy did not enjoy being stuck in one place and grew antsy quickly. He whined and complained and made Fran into a plaything, tormenting him and threatening to eat him every couple minutes. The threat of eating him, Fran thought, was growing more and more serious as the day dragged on and Bel started getting hungrier and hungrier. Fran could hear Bel’s stomach growl as the day turned slowly into night, twilight setting into Halloween night. He hoped whatever happened would be soon because he was becoming all too aware of just how much blood he probably held and how he probably looked very much like a juice box to a hungry vampire. He’d thrown up a quick protective spell around himself but still, he didn’t want Belphegor’s mouth anywhere near his skin. Fran always doubted just how much dental hygiene Bel actually practiced.

His worries faded somewhat though when, as full dark fell, Lussuria’s voice echoed inside his head, telling him that someone was coming down the street that might be a hit. Levi’s voice in his head, confirming from his vantage point as a rat just inside the door of the building, that someone had just entered the building. Fran’s worries bit the dust when he started hearing the sounds. He focused intently on seeing through the gloom as he saw a figure enter the room, a bag slung over his back that he dropped carelessly onto the floor. The bag made a heavy thud as it fell, a muffled scream audible faintly from where Fran lay, peering in, stretching out the pins and needles in his legs and getting ready for action. For now though, they were still on orders to just sit and watch, to give the orders when it was time for everyone to move.

One by one, the candles lit up the dark of the room, giving a much better view of what was happening below them. The figure, a tall man with verdant hair, stubble, and glasses, blew out the match he’d used to light the candles and began to whistle cheerfully as he walked towards the bag. The bag moved more violently as he started to untie it, though it seemed to cause the man no issues nor did it change his cheerful mood. An unsettling grin came over his face as he tried to pull a kicking, screaming young man from the bag. The boy was heavily bruised and it was easy to tell he’d already been through quite a bit. Fran could spot the missing tongue in his mouth as he opened his mouth to scream, the sound distorted from the normal.

“Ah ah ah,” the man chided, sounding like a disappointed school-teacher. “That’s enough of that, now. We’ve had this discussion before, haven’t we? If you don’t stay still, then it makes me angry. And when I get angry, then I have to do things we both regret, don’t I?”

The man was quicker than Fran could keep track of, moving to the table Fran had seen earlier, which he could now tell was full of knives, scalpels, jumper cables, and various instruments of torture. A flash of steel and an ax was embedded in the floor right in the middle of the boy’s thigh as he tried to crawl his way to freedom. The boy’s screams seemed to get louder, tears streaking his face, though he stilled on the floor, stopped his attempts to run. Not that he really could’ve anyway, Fran thought.

“Now that’s a good boy,” the man said, reaching down and dragging the boy away, leaving a dark red, wet trail across the floor from the severed leg to where he settled the boy, sobbing heavily now, in the middle of the sigil.

This was it now. The ritual was about to begin. Fran became aware of Bel beside him, wiggling heavily and growing antsy. Fran glared at him and shushed him, putting a quick spell on Bel to keep him still and mute his hungry squeals of 'blood, blood’. As long as Bel didn’t get too excited, it would hold him. A reminder through the link that Bel could have all the blood he wanted soon helped calm him down a bit and Fran turned his attention back to what was happening in the room.

The man was talking, bragging on and on about how the boy should feel lucky to be a part of something like this, this grand experiment of his. Fran ignored the talking - all crazy people soliloquized, it was just the general rule. Instead he watched, intrigued and curious as to how it all went. He opened his inner eye a crack, wanting to watch this as it was actually happening, without any confusion or guise over it. His eyes never left the man…no, not a man anymore but a thing and a thing of intense power… as he went through his actions, his voice calm as he talked about what he’d do when this was over, as he explained to the boy just what exactly was happening step by step. The man’s hands were steady as he undressed the bleeding, shaking boy, stripping him naked before him. Anyone else doing this, Fran thought, and he’d simply write them off as a pervert. But Fran could see this man, could see the glimpses of the true him under the skin suit, and that wasn’t it. This man radiated power and madness but not a hint of lust. The nakedness was simply a necessary part of the ritual, nothing he enjoyed.

But the next part, that part Fran could tell the man enjoyed. The madness and sickness poured out of him in waves. Fran could feel it, deep in his stomach, almost infecting his brain, as the man laughed, testing device after device on delicate human skin, creating cuts and holes that oozed with blood. The boy should’ve died but Fran knew he wouldn’t, couldn’t do that. The air outright buzzed with the man’s powerful, overwhelming magic, it and the ritual keeping the boy alive. One very sharp scalpel made delicate lines, tracing from neck to shoulders, shoulders to chest, chest to stomach, all over the boy’s ravaged body, tracing a sigil onto him to match the one he lay on. Fran could feel the spell snap in the air then, saw the lines of power glowing blue in the room below him, centering on the boy’s body as it connected to all the other victims, lucky number thirty-three.

The knife was quick then, going from the stomach to the genitals, making quick work. Fran winced heavily and looked away, almost wanting to scream along with the boy. He was just about to give the orders when he felt his own magic disrupted and a loud scream of hunger and desire rise from beside him. Fran was quick to react, trying to throw up another spell while reaching out to stop the vampire from doing something stupid. His spell missed though and Belphegor was strong in his blood-lust, throwing Fran aside as he leaped off the roof of the building, desperately needing to hunt and feast. Of course, being that they were on a roof with skylights, when Bel threw Fran, he threw him through the glass. If the man below hadn’t heard Bel’s screams, he certainly noticed a teal-haired boy come hurdling down from the ceiling, a hastily constructed gravity spell being the only thing to stop his fall. Even in his panic, Fran was quick to act, throwing up the alarm to all the others even as he floated to the floor not more than a foot from the sigil and the man, who was staring at him as if he was some fascinating new discovery.

Oh shit…this just went from interesting to very bad. Very, very bad, Fran thought, as the light caught the glare of metal as the knife slashed through the air.

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­_________________________7_________________________________

All hell broke loose then. That was the only way to put it. Fran knew he would’ve died if Lussuria hadn’t charged in just then, distracting the man just enough to throw him momentarily off balance, allowing Fran to duck just enough out of the way to only get grazed along his back. Thank god he’d worn his leather jacket, was all he could think. He’d done a bunch of warding spells to the coat long ago - it had cost him a pretty penny but still, the coat had never let him down, protecting him from damage all the time.

Fran kept moving, never staying still. He couldn’t. The man was simply too strong. He was dodging Lussuria’s physical attacks as if the ghoul was moving in slow motion, laughing and muttering about how weak this was. The man’s magic ripped through all of Fran’s offensive spells as the warlock threw a few attacks his way. Granted, most of Fran’s attacks were cheap, easy attacks that most warlocks could easily master - his specialty had never been in that area of magic after all. Even with Levi running into the room, having taken over the form of a some old lady, the three of them were hopelessly outclassed, something Fran would’ve been surprised by if he couldn’t clearly see the power emanating from this man. Terror was banging against his brain, screaming at him to let it in as he pushed it aside, trying to keep calm.

Fran was on autopilot, looking for a way out of this situation, defusing his panic by treating it as just another of his master’s training sessions even as he cursed Bel in his head, promising to pay the boy vampire back for this if they all got out of this alive. And Fran really hoped that, if nothing else, at least he made it out of this alive because honestly, being dead sounded far too uninteresting for his liking.

Dodging and weaving, throwing barriers up to protect the fighting Levi and Lussuria and hiding a few small tricks and traps with magic to confuse or slow down the Authority, Fran focused on what to do first. He became very glad the boy was a young one as he scooped up the crying, battered body off the floor. The thrum of magic that was running through him, keeping him alive, burnt hot against Fran’s hands and he swore, though he didn’t drop him. Fran saw Lussuria dive from the corner of his eye, the ghoul’s hand closing around what Fran’s hadn’t been able to.

Unfortunately, Fran wasn’t the only one who’d seen what Lussuria had done. Anger, toxic and cloying, rang through the air, almost suffocating in it’s intensity.

“Give that back!” the man yelled, his eyes big and bulging behind his glasses. “You have no idea how important it is!”

Fran could barely see the man launch his attack and only did so because of his extra sight. He knew how this would end if he did nothing and, taking advantage of the distracted, angered state of the powerful sorcerer they fought, Fran threw up his most powerful attack, putting everything he had into this one desperate attempt to buy them time.

____________________________8______________________________

The scene was a bloodbath. Almost literally, in fact. Blood was sprayed across the wall in streaks and splatters, arterial clots sending blood dripping down to join the blood running along the floor. The corpse of the little old lady that Levi possessed was groaning from it’s spot, hammered into the wall by the length of pipe rammed through her chest, hovering near the brink of death but kept alive by the thrum of another spell, another sacrifice in the end. Lussuria’s body was nearby, his torso burst open, white bones poking out of what no longer even resembled a body, organs a mass of jelly from the effects of the spell the man had used. The boy warlock….how weak he’d been, the man scoffed, a hand going up to his nose, his middle finger sliding under the bridge of his glasses and pushing them up, leaving a small streak of blood along his skin. Ah, no mind. He could get it later. Now though, he had more pressing matters.

The man sighed, looking at the body of the weak warlock who’d been foolish enough to try to oppose him. His body barely hid the crying, whimpering body of the boy the man so desperately needed.

“Come on now, Daisy,” the man said, pushing Fran’s body aside with his foot as if it was nothing more than a bag of potatoes or something. “We’ve put this off for long enough now. We’re on a bit of a tight schedule, I’m afraid, and we won’t have time to play around anymore.”

The man dragged the boy back to his position before stopping and looking around. His eyes narrowed, searching for it, the much needed little bundle. He was soon smiling and in a few short steps he’d crossed to where Lussuria was, scooping down to pick up the small bundle of flesh on the floor.

“Found you!” he cooed out, his fingers reaching, almost touching it now…

And then it was gone. It was all gone in a searing flash of pain that jolted through his brain. The man’s eyes widened in shock and fury as he looked down to the bleeding stump of what had been his arm.

His arm was gone.

The bundle of flesh was gone.

The beautiful, blood-painted room was gone, Fran’s desperate illusion dropped by the merman’s sudden attack. Squalo stood, chuckling deeply, the tip of his trident bright red and pointed right at the man.

“Check-mate, trash,” Squalo gloated, looking maniacally pleased as Levi and Lussuria both moved in to flank the man, Lussuria behind him and Levi to his right. Fran, though? Fran only moved back further, something rankling against his mind, his inner eye sensing that there was something not quite right about this. He wasn’t brave enough to open it fully though. Something told him he didn’t want to see this thing at its truest self. So he moved back, cradling the boy and working at breaking the connection spell to the others. He’d almost had it, almost broke it when the man started to laugh.

______________________________9____________________________

The laughter rang out through the big ballroom, echoing and seeming to grow louder and louder still. The laughter was mad, grating and repulsive to the ears, banging against the brain and it seemed never-ending.

“Check-mate?” the man laughed out. “Is this a game then?”

Fran made to yell then, to point out what his inner eye noticed before it became apparent to his, and the others, outer eyes. However, he couldn’t - his tongue wouldn’t work, his brain wouldn’t form the words as his inner eye was forced open, against his will, in a brutal act of violence. It was overwhelming, the whole scene, the grotesquery of it, the very power of it all and Fran felt almost raped by it all as he fell back, eyes crying tears he didn’t even know he was capable of making as he felt himself fall into the essence of it all.

The man’s arm was regrowing, faster and faster, dark tendrils of something far older and far more Lovecraftian than should be allowed to exist growing and connecting and covering themselves in human skin even as the man moved, too fast for the eye to see, his green eyes inhumanly wide and dilated behind those glasses, the sick laughter still ringing out. The ax was no longer on the floor, was in his hand, was in the air, was sliding butter-like through it, a glowing symbol of pure violence as it sliced through the shimmery, blue scales that coated Squalo’s flesh. Squalo was good though - he was almost quick enough to dodge it, one webbed hand reaching out to grab at it, forcing the man’s balance off enough that the ax simply detached one of Squalo’s arms, leaving the fishman stumbling back, his other hand instinctively going to clutch at the spurting wound left just below his shoulder with a curse.

“Do you really think you can play games with me?” the man laughed, holding Squalo’s detached hand in his newly reformed one, using it as a club as he struck lightning quick, blow after blow raining down on Lussuria, leaving the ghoul’s face misshapen, his body wrecked as Lussuria fell to the floor.

“You? Be on equal footing with me?” the man questioned again, his tone furious and horrifying. “What could you pathetic fleas do to me? I am a God! I am your God!”

Fran could barely withstand it. The pressure against his head, the pain of his inner eye being open for so long, so wide…but he’d never been one to just let others do whatever to him. Even though blood dribbled from his eyes and nose, ran from his ears, he made himself move, made himself crawl. Just a bit further and he’d reach it. Using his last little bit of strength, he grabbed the knife on the floor by him, took aim and threw.

It missed the man by several feet, which made the man’s laughter grow higher in pitch still. All his attention focused on Fran, his very existence pounding against Fran’s own and threatening to suffocate him under the sheer power.

“You missed, little warlock,” the man gloated.

“Not if I wasn’t aiming for you,” Fran forced out through a mouth that felt like it was melting, against teeth that felt too soft and too sharp all at once. His own laughter came then as the scene unfolded before his eyes, all of them, the sights overwhelming him.

“There’s only one god around here and it ain’t you,” a rasping voice said by the door. Fran’s smile grew larger and more terrifying at the sight of the red and golden scales, the beautiful curves of a serpentine body, the cool blue of the flames, burning so hot as they engulfed the quivering mass of tendrils and tentacles, of things not meant to exist, the image of Levi’s own soul, disturbing but loyal to the end, superimposed over it, the Dybbyuk holding it still to the very end, which came about so intensely, so blindingly bright, that Fran blacked out before seeing the very final death of the thing that had tried to become more than it had ever been meant to be.

____________________________10_____________________________

When Fran next awoke, it was to find cold night air blowing against his hot, fevered skin. It would have been much more pleasant if he hadn’t been bouncing about, making his pounding migraine feel ten times worse.

“Stop moving,” Fran moaned out, “or I’ll puke all over you.”

He wished the next second he’d said nothing though as the bouncing ended up being preferential to the solid clunk and the dull pain of being dropped unceremoniously onto the hard pavement.

“Thank you,” Fran muttered out sarcastically as he straightened himself out, sitting up and glaring at Xanxus, who had apparently been carrying him, something Fran didn’t want to think about too hard. “That was exactly what I’d wanted you to do.”

“Good,” Xanxus said, smirking, in a good mood, no doubt, from the wanton destruction he’d been allowed to cause. “Now get your useless ass up. We need you to cast a tracking spell for Bel so we can get this thing over with.”

Fran grumbled and groaned as he stood up, brushing off the dirt from his clothes and looking around. Squalo was slightly in front of Xanxus, the stump below his shoulder hastily bandaged, looking pissed. Fran could see Lussuria beside, smiling at him and waving a pinky, all he could wave as both arms were busy carrying the boy, still just barely alive thanks to the spell that Fran could still sense on him. His thoughts were too jumbled and frazzled to think to hard about that right now. A rat rode on top of Lussuria’s head, which Fran rightfully assumed to be Levi.

“Get on with it,” Xanxus barked, a hint of anger creeping into his voice now.

“Fine, fine,” Fran said lazily, extending out his will, casting the basic spell as easily as he breathed. He felt along the paths, the roads, sensed it out until he felt the familiar presence. “Two blocks over,” he said with a yawn. “Good luck with the rest of this. I’m tired. I’m going home to bed.”

An angry yell as Squalo reached out and grabbed him by the hat again and Fran was stilled. Sighing, he looked at Xanxus.

“Fine. Can I get a ride again, then?” Fran asked, his face and voice deadpan. Unfortunately, his boss didn’t find the comment as funny as Fran did, something Fran rather pitied him for as they rushed along, Fran sporting a few new burns and a set of ears that felt like they were bleeding from Squalo’s yelling.

Speaking of bleeding, Bel was bloody, even the tips of his blond hair stained crimson, when they found him, hunched over the body of a youngish man laying on the ground. Wet, slurping sounds were heard before they could properly make out the scene, Bel chewing and drinking, always the messy eater. The prince looked up, almost uninterested, before dropping his meal, grinning widely at them all. Fran could see a little vein caught in between two of Bel’s sharp, shark-like teeth and shuddered, turning instead of look at everyone else. His own anger at the prince was reflected in every face and yet it remained silent for several seconds before Lussuria sighed and broke the silence.

“The Wardens won’t be happy with another dead body, you know,” he chided Bel, who merely shrugged his shoulders in a 'who cares?’ gesture.

“Well,” Fran mused. “Who says he has to be dead?”

Lussuria looked at Fran quizzically before the teal-haired boy pointed to his head. A look of comprehension grew on Lussuria’s face, which broke quickly into a happy smile.

“Oh my! I forgot totally about him! That’s the perfect solution! In you go then, Levi!”

It was always weird to watch, Fran thought. One second the body was laying there and the next it was sitting slowly up, it’s wounds starting to slowly heal from the odd magic Levi A. Than held. The body, that of a tall, broad, tanned man with black hair and piercings, stood up to it’s full height and seemed to take stock of itself, shaking arms and legs experimentally, bending fingers, twisting it’s torso from side to side.

“Well, what do you think?” Lussuria asked, eyeing the form approvingly.

“I think it’s working for me,” Levi’s raspy voice said. “What do you think, Boss? Isn’t this a good body? These sideburns are really cool too, right? They kind of look like lightning bolts, right Boss?”

Xanxus grunted, ignoring Levi as always, turning and walking away from them all.

“Let’s go,” he threw back over his shoulder. “We still have to finish shit with that Tsunayoshi Sawada and his Wardens.”

The rest of them scurried after him, all of them grinning, happy and energized after a long night’s work. Fran followed along behind lazily, also thinking that, all and all, the last couple day’s hadn’t been so bad. They’d been interesting, at least. And hey, at least when he got bored, he’d have more amusement ready at hand. After all, how interesting would the faces of those morons be when he pointed out that, since the spell on the boy wasn’t broken, there was still some little part of that thing kicking around somewhere?

From @ciaossu-imagines to @notaheroofjustice

[hypnoticharlequin]

Hypnotist Posters (Again!)

I’ve done this once before, but there are so many interesting old hypnotist posters around I couldn’t resist showing off some more I’ve come across.

I covered the Flints in my previous post but I wanted to show this one off. I actually unironically love this poster as it reminds me of Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s works due to the floral pattern and the lush skin tone used on Miss Flint. 

What I have found out since the last installment was that Miss Flint was heavily advertised as a solo performer, getting her own posters and other things. According to one source I found, she was famed for her dress collection and women would attend her shows, just to see what dress she was wearing that night!

Also, she had the cutest nickname a hypnotist has ever had. Seriously, “The Little Hypnotic Subeam” is just fantastic and would actually make her stand out amongst her contemporaries who went for much more formal and authoritarian titles.

I think this poster is from the 1890s. At least that is the date I see linked to this poster when it is mentioned and the art style sort of fits that date.

Obviously, the first thing that draws your attention is Kennedy and his pose. Where a lot of hypnotists went for a more intimidating or solid pose, Kennedy seems rather fancy-free.

Also, it’s nice to see the moon from Majora’s Mask getting work. This was one of it’s earlier appearances while it was still young and fresh faced. The people on the moon are pretty cute, I like the woman in the middle, I mean it takes a lot of effort to be having so much fun you almost fall off the moon. This poster seems to fit in with a tradition that saw magicians hanging out with various magical beings on their posters. Seriously, the sheer number of posters that feature magicians just chilling with Satan is pretty mind blowing.

If I could sum this poster up in one sound, it would be never ending screams. 

Now, I can’t find much about “The Amazing Ormond” but I do wonder if this is Ormond McGill, better known as Dr. Zomb. He wrote the book “Encyclopedia of Genuine Stage Hypnotism” which is still considered to be the bible of stage hypnosis. 

This poster is honestly terrifying. I’m not sure if it’s partially due to the reproduction, old paper stock with a black background is notorious for its inability to scan well. But the black eyes mixed with the uplighting give this a seriously creepy vibe, Ormond’s face having an almost uncanny valley look to it.  

But, I can’t deny it worked, I’m not able to go through my folder of hypnosis posters without this one catching my eye. In fact, one of the main reasons I am writing this post is so I can delete this image from my hard drive. 

I don’t know why, but this poster reminds me of a perfume ad. I’m not sure if it’s the color palette or Miss Brandon’s slightly wistful look. 

Joan Brandon is pretty famous in magic circles for being the first televised female magician. She was famous for combing her magic with orchestra music (played by her own orchestra) and was very well known for her signature trick, a magic cocktail bar (a variation on the Think-A-Drink trick.) 

In hypnosis circles, she is most known for her books, The Art of Hypnotism, Successful Hypnotism, The Science of Self-Hypnosis and Help Yourself Thru Hypnotism and Self Hypnosis which are all still good reads even to this day. 

The Art Of Hypnotism is also known for its rather amusing photographic illustrations. It’s easy to find online but quite often turns up for a few dollars on eBay or in second-hand bookstores and I thoroughly recommend it. 

This poster is one of those I see around a lot and only recently bothered to look into the history of. It’s from 1966 and I always thought it was from later on. This poster looks just so very 60s I really had it down as a later parody of the style as opposed to actually just being of that era. 

It actually took me a long time to find out even the most basic things about this guy but Merlin (real name William Joseph Rawle) was from Australia and was Australia’s oldest performing hypnotist.

I want to zoom into the text under Merlin for a moment, as it is rather glorious. 

It really is a throwback to older posters to have a description of the acts performed front and center, but compared to some of the older hypnosis posters (which promised utterly insane things) this seems rather restrained. In fact, these are now considered stock hypnotist tricks.  

What makes me chuckle is the onion eating trick. It’s done all the time but it always interests me to see which fruit is used as the replacement taste. In the UK it always tended to be an apple, and I’ve seen orange used a bit in the US. I wonder if you could do a chart of “onion taste replacement fruits” arranged by geography. 

Being the oldest performing hypnotist, Merlin has several other posters over the years. 

This one focuses more on his mind reading as opposed to his hypnotism, but I utterly love the design. It has this almost 3D effect which makes it look like the poster has a few actual physical layers, but I do suspect it might be the issue with scanning black ink rearing it’s ugly head once more.  

While the last one was pretty joyous this one is practically metal, with its skulls and very industrial images in the crystal ball.

 This poster seems very old school compared to the other two, mostly due to how text-heavy it is. But unlike some posters, the claims all seem pretty normal by today’s standards. The only one that sticks out to me is the one about treating children for nervous complaints while they sleep. All the methods I have seen for this involve just standing and whispering to your child while they sleep because nothing helps the nerves more than an adult looming over your bed whispering at you in the deepest, darkest night. 

Virgil and Julie were a big magic act in the 1950s and 1960s taking shows containing a few hundred illusions around the world. 

Hypnotism played a part but it was nowhere near the focus of the show, but this poster is something to behold, it really is a mish-mash of everything that was hip in the era. The B-movie Esq UFO and the almost eerie-cutie spacewoman flying around it. 

Julie’s costume is very similar to that of the Jeannie from the Tv series I Dream Of Jeannie which debuted in 1965 and went a long way to putting the “harem” costume we know today into the public consciousness.

I want to end on this poster which became quite the rabbit hole for me and I’m frankly not 100% sure I’m correct on all of it. 

I had a real good laugh when I saw the Reveer because he looks like every stereotype of a magician and hero cowboy got thrown into a blender. The turban and the Lone Ranger mask just look so silly together. 

I also found it funny that his name was close to that of Reveen, the hypnotist famous for his performances in Canada who would have been performing at around this time.

Then I got to digging and found I could find hardly anything on Reveer, apart from some poster seller listing him as Tony Cole, a magician who apparently worked sharpshooting into his magic act which does explain the Lone Ranger mask.

Tony Cole also apparently had posters of his own, but all I can find of them is the following: 

And no, Tumblr isn’t going weird, that is the only image I can find of one of his posters. I did, however, turn up a news article on him from 1977 from “The Independent Record from Helena, Montana” advertising a show he was going to do. 

As you can see the resembelence is there so I presume this is the same guy.

As an aside, you might realize this picture is totally and utterly unreadable. The place I found it had the plain text of the article, unfortunately, it was made by OCR copying the document and the results are an utter mess.

Some highlights include: 

To be able to make someone do what another person desires carl brln^a gleam .into the eyes of ambitious people. 

This impression oF hypnotism's power is one of the mast fallacious and dangerous, according to Cole, who when pressed will admit bis lull name is Tony Colo, a hypnotist, magician ami entertainer.

In between all the weird OCR errors, we can see a recurring theme that Tony Cole doesn’t like to use his first name, which means he is the Cole from the latter poster and would explain why he would make a stage character.

M PEOPLE L'NDEH HYPNOSIS won t do anything they wouldn't do normally, " ttie Canadian-born entertainer said In an Interview In Helena. 

Cole recalled ihnl a Groat Falls A A W manager had been hypnotized and was told he was Elvis Presley. The man began gyrating and singing, dulng spills and performing in the late-lfloOs style (bat endeared Presley lo the teen set. Cole said. He added that the shy A & W manager would not normally rarry 1 don't think a person has to put someone in an embarrassing situation or use anything smutty or not in clean family fun in order to entertain. 

I’m sure we can all agree that Elvis’ late-LfloOs style was by far his best style and one that really became his signature. And all of the teen girls were into Elvis for his pet bat. 

He tries, to Tony Cole, a hypnotist, magician and all-around entertainer correct any misconceptions about hypnotism, anri he hypnotizes willing members of the audience. 

He tries to himself? Is that some artsy way of saying he tries to be himself?

On his stage, people might shiver In Ihc arctic temperatures he has described or away In Lhc breeze like palm trees. 

And his chauffeur and helper, Wayne Adolph, emphatically added In his gravelly voice. "It's real."

I don’t know why that bit made me laugh so hard, but it really did. I’m not sure if it’s the fact the guy is called his “helper” or just the fact he decided to just randomly join the interview. 

MORE AND MORE PEOPLE are believing in Ihr authenticity of hypnosis, contends Cole, who has certificates from at least three schools of hypnotism and who has been licensed to leach hypnotism Physicians, dentists, psychiatrists, pollliuUnH, ministers, entertainers, teachers, lawyers, salesmen, atnletes and pilots are among those, who are studying or using hypnosis, Cole said. 

Some beneficial uses for which hypnosis Is being sLudled include easing childbirth, treating alcoholism, slopping smokers from Indulging and treating empbysemn and asthma victims to breathe properly. 

All of these arc medical uses or hypnosis and "the practitioner must by certified as a hypnolechuician and receive a doctor's prescribed order before he hypnotizes someone. Cole said. 

Yes, everyone remember to become certified as a hypnolechuician, that is a very important qualification to have. 

But ask him about himself and the answers dissolve in shrugs and evasiveness. He doesn't like to use his first name. 

Again, some more information that works with the idea that Cole had a few side characters he played sometimes. 

 He makes good money at hypnotism and his oilier entertainments as he travels across the country and into Canada. 

However, I do not wish to see Mr. Cole’s oilier entertainments.

"I know I have a talent but that talent should he scared. ]f pc0pte |,ave a latent and don't share it they re ripping it elf." 

And your guess is as good as mine on this last one. 

So there we have it, The Great Reveer, hypnotist and fiction all rolled into one oddly costumed package. I wish I could find more on this as there seems to be an interesting story in here, but unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be any records I can find.

However, if this taught us anything, it’s that if I get bored of hypnosis, I can just turn this into a bad OCR blog.