#but then THAT guy dies or gets arrested for like grave robbing

[tabbyrocks]

monodeku au where izuku plays this one dating sim visual novel game and one of the characters is monoma.

and i mean that literally. like monoma got trapped in this game somehow.

when monoma starts talking to izuku, izuku thinks "oh this must be a 4th wall break horror type thing" but when he posted about it or something people thought that monoma was a fan character he made (since he like, isnt in the game game, just trapped in izukus)

[brothermouse]

Been on an Urban Legend kick lately, specifically Utah/Mormon adjacent ones.

So here's some that I really need yous guys to know about:

Emo's Grave

In the Salt Lake Cemetery there's a crypt labeled "Moritz"

Rumor has it that if you light a candle, walk around the grave three times chanting, "Emo, Emo, Emo," then peered into the window in the crypt, you would see Emo's glowing red eyes staring back at you.

Today the window has been replaced by a sheet of metal. But all this seems to have done is encourage Emo to wander outside the crypt. People have reported that, after performing the ritual, they've seen Emo's red eyes peering at them from windows and dark hallways for weeks and even months after.

It seems that Emo gets bored after a while and returns to his favorite haunt, but not until he gets a few good scares out of you.

The Grave Robber

Emo isn’t the only monster to escape the Salt Lake City Cemetery.

In 1862, two men accused of beating the Governor John Dawson were shot and killed by Salt Lake City police. One of the men didn’t have anybody step forward to claim the body, so an officer named Henry Heath, being an honorable guy, decided to pay for the man's funeral and even bought him a nice suit to be buried in. After all, everyone deserves a nice funeral, criminal or not.

Sometime later, the outlaw's brother came to collect the body and take him to be buried in the family plot. Heath made all the necessary arrangements to exhume the body. The gravedigger worked quickly and soon they were ready to identify the body. Everyone was shocked when they opened the casket. The outlaw was found to be lying face down and naked.

The brother immediately flew into a rage! He may have been a criminal, but he deserved more than this! Officer Heath swore up and down that the body had not been like that when it was buried. To ease things over he paid for a new suit and funeral and swore he would get to the bottom of this.

The police immediately launched an investigation. They looked for evidence of other grave robbings and, to their horror, found it. Grave after grave after grave was exhumed and most were found to have been similarly pilfered with the body stripped and unceremoniously dumped back in the casket.

News soon got out and across the valley people were in a panic. Accusations flew, suspicions grew, and everyone had a theory. Working quickly, officer Heath started questioning the graveyard’s staff. Eventually coming to the gravedigger, Jean Baptiste.

Baptise lived in a little home near the graveyard with his new wife, Dorothy. Heath and a few officers visited the home. Jean was out working at the time, but Dorothy let them in and offered him something to eat while they waited. While she was in the kitchen, Heath noticed something odd; a box, sitting open, that had what looked like a young child’s shoes on top.

Jean Baptiste had no children.

Heath immediately questioned Dorothy, only for her to say that her husband had brought it home. Looking around, the officers found more boxes of clothes and jewelry. Heath immediately rushed to the cemetery to search for Jean. He found him calmly digging a grave.

Once confronted, Baptiste immediately confessed to the grave robbings. Heath placed him under arrest and, as they made their way out of the cemetery, Heath would point to various graves and ask if he had robbed them. Baptiste would answer “yes” far more often than “no”.

Soon they came to the grave of Heath’s own daughter who had died just a year earlier. He asked the same question and, to his relief, Baptiste said “No”.

Later Heath would say that, had Jean answered “yes”, he would have killed him on the spot.

Baptiste was whisked away to jail and boxes of clothes, shoes and other items were taken from his house. It was estimated that Baptiste had robbed over 300 graves before he was caught. City officials weren't sure what to do with all the items Jean Baptiste had stolen but they eventually decided that they would be put on display at the Salt Lake City courthouse for people to view and claim on behalf of their deceased relatives. Many items went unclaimed and were later buried in a mass grave at the cemetery.

The People were furious. Baptiste had to be under guard 24/7 to protect him from the other prisoners. Brigham Young even weighed in saying that he felt hanging or shooting Baptiste would be too easy of a punishment, and life in prison "would do nobody any good". The only option he felt would be proper was to exile Baptiste to a small island in the Great Salt Lake.

And they did just that. After being found guilty, Baptiste was taken to Fremont Island. At the time a ranching family called the Millers kept a herd of cattle and a small shack of provisions there. They were instructed by authorities to have no contact with Baptiste if they could help it.

To prevent him from escaping his punishment, he was fitted with a ball and chain and the words “GRAVE ROBBER” were tattooed across his forehead.

The Miller Brothers visited every few weeks. The first time they found that Baptiste had helped himself to most of the food in the shack. They secured locks on the door and left. When they came back the second time, however, the shack had been almost completely dismantled and one of the cows was found to be ripped to shreds.

Baptiste was nowhere to be found, and no one would see or hear from him again.

But, legend has it that on stormy evenings you might see a strange figure, hobbling along the banks of the Great Salt Lake. If you're brave enough to get closer you may see the figure is clutching a soaking wad of funeral clothes and, wouldn’t you know it? They’re just your size.

Salt Lake Whales

You may see stranger things than Jean Baptiste if you hang around the Great Salt Lake.

In the 1870s an eccentric scientist from Britain named James Wickham had a strange theory. He hypothesized that whales could survive in the salty depth of the Great Salt Lake.

Of course there was only one reasonable way to test this theory: capture two whales from the southern coast of Australia, take them to San Francisco, put them in a custom built railcar and ship them to Utah.

He named the whales Genevieve and Rupert and built a half-mile enclosure for the whales near the mouth of the Bear River and had intended to monitor their activity and health from there. But within minutes of being released into the water, the whales burst from their enclosure and escaped.

For the next few years the two whales were spotted regularly by locals, until poachers were reported to have killed them in 1877. But then, shockingly, the sightings continued. Over time the whales's appearance seemed to change to adapt to their new surroundings. One reliable witness claims that the Salt Lake Whales are small with wrinkly skin like jerky or old leather.

Let me know of any Mormon/Utah Urban Legends you know of.

[notmrskennedy]

Whatever You Need

(Chip x Fem!Reader)

A/N - am I little in love with Chip? Yes, but who isn’t? So please enjoy my hot take on our lovely Mr. Chip Taylor

Summary - a university professor meets a very adorable maintenance guy ...

Warnings - a pinch of swearing and two teaspoons of mentioning gross things

Word Count - 3k 

-------

There’s a thin line, she realises as she rushes into the lecture hall, between anthropological research and grave robbing. When you’re on loan to the federal government and a water pipe bursts at a cemetery, there isn’t much to do other than say, ‘yes sir Mr. FBI agent, I will gladly slop through three feet of mud and water, digging through graves!’

She’s ten minutes late to her lecture. Ten minutes long enough that the TA’s are snickering. Ten minutes long enough that the entire class looks horrified that their Anthropology 101 professor is covered head to toe in dried mud, grass, and whatever else could be found in destroyed 19th century coffins.

She sets her bag down heavily on the desk and startles everyone in the room. Sans the maintenance guy. He’s tinkering with vent at the foot of door. He’s mostly a faded ball cap and a distressed jean jacket, one arm shoved up the vent. She can’t imagine why someone would have their arm up a vent, but god only knows why the university would ask someone to.

A moment passes where she unabashedly stares. How did she miss him? Was she in that much of a hurry that she nearly tripped on the guy and didn’t look back? And what the hell is in that vent?

The TA’s snicker behind her back, sobering up when she shoots them a half deadly look. She’s covered in mud, not lenience. She half hopes Maintenance Guy will turn around—she has a desperate, yet beguiling feeling he’s hot. But what she’s really curious for is what’s stuck up that vent.

And he doesn’t turn around—his complete disregard of her is a 180 from the rapt attention she’s receiving from her students—until she’s frustratedly brushing dirt off her face. Pulling grass from her hair.

“Let me just start with,” she begins, pulling an earth worm out of her sleeve, “if the federal government asks you to sort through bodies in a flooded cemetery, tell them no. And despite how much fun grave digging can be, there’s a thin line and that line is punctuated by whether they’re arresting me or not.”

Maintenance Guy snorts, head turned to beam up at her. She’s almost taken aback by how bright he seems. How his grin puts the sun in its place. He looks honest, grease stains and all.

There’s something to be said about the fact she’s studying his bone structure instead of his fleshy bits. She can’t tell you what colour his eyes are, but his zygomatic bones are killer.

“Professor?” a TA prompts, ineffectively holding back their own knowing smiles.

“Thanks for reminding me,” she replies, digging through her bag to hand out a stack of student essays. “Pass these back, please?”

Tick one for the professor.

“And as per usual,” she announces, leaning back against the white board, “let’s do our daily recap. And as you know, these questions can be used to aid in exams.”

She sneaks a glance at Maintenance Guy, pulling his arm out from the vent. He grumbles, digs through his toolbox, and grabs a screwdriver. Whatever is in that vent is stuck.

Once the rustling stops, she says, “Okay, question one: if your professor—that would be me for those of us who are new—were to be one of, say, five wives with one husband, it’s called—?”

“Polygamy!” a student shouts from the front row.

“You’re right, but you aren’t correct,” she says, standing up straight. “Polygamy is the practice of having more than one spouse. Polygyny—with an ’n’—is multiple wives to one husband. Examples of the culture are Kenya’s Logoli and other Abalulya sub ethnic groups.”

She writes it on the board for spelling, and glances over to see Maintenance Guy paused in his excavation of the vent. He’s paying better attention than her students. It’s sort of sweet and she stifles her soft giggle at the thought.

He’s ridiculously tall and she takes a moment to appreciate just how long his femurs have to be.

“Question two!” she announces and finds even the most hungover kids forcing their attention on her. “If your professor were to marry five men all at once, that’s called—?”

“Polyandry,” a student pipes up from the back. “A lot of times it’s fraternal marriage.”

“Examples of a culture that practices—”

Pop!

Maintenance Guy rolls back with the force. His knees are still bent from where they’d been used as leverage against the vent, a wall of debris bursting into his face. In one gloved hand was a dead raccoon, while the other desperately brushed bits of the vent’s clog—a raccoon’s nest—from his eyes.

“Oh Jesus,” she mutters, jumping into action. She picks up a garbage bag from his toolbox and nets the dead animal from his hand. It’s a pretty tame find, though she’s used to human remains which tended to be—gooier.

With the animal tucked up, she hauls Maintenance Guy to a sitting position, frantically cleaning the odds and ends of the nest out of his eyes. She steals his ball cap as she whispers kind words to him, further trying to shake the bits of insulation out of his shaggy hair.

The class is in a terrible chatter behind them. Not that it matters. Not with Maintenance Guy’s eyes opened and his hands gently clutching onto her wrists as she brushes the last bits of insulation off his cheeks. His eyes are definitely hazel up this close.

“Thanks,” he croaks, still gently latched onto her hands.

“It’s no problem,” she smiles back, absently studying the rest of his face. He’s got the kind of skull she’d love to see on her table—well, maybe once he’s died of his own accord because he seems rather sweet. Confused and concerned, but…sweet. “Don’t worry. I’ve had much worse flung all over me. You don’t much get used to it.”

He smiles, barely chuckling. Coughs up a bit of insulation.

“You might want to see a doctor. Insulation in the lungs is…what gets you a one way ticket to my lab.” She grins at her own terrible joke. His eyes are too close and she can’t help but wish for a skeleton to be looking back at her. She understands those. People are too…gooey.

“I’m Chip,” he offers, silently asking her for help to his feet. She does, offering her own name in return. He mulls over it, like it’s a fine wine sitting on his tongue. “Professor Y/N. Thanks again.”

She shrugs, mouth suddenly too dry. Heart beating too fast. Jesus, human interaction was going to kill her. There was no job to distract her from Chip’s strong hands. There were no bodies to keep Chip’s genuine gaze off of her. There wasn’t anything to distract from seeing Chip as so pleasantly human.

“Want the raccoon as a consolation prize?” he chuckles, rubbing the back of his neck with a newly de-gloved hand. There’s something satisfying about answering questions that aren’t meant as questions. Especially ones that showed just how weird she really was. The questions that were relationship testers—like can we be friends if I tell you that I keep carrion beetles as pets?

“Actually, sure.” Chip’s jaw drops just slightly open. He has cute teeth. “Dissection is a key part of the anthropological process, forensic or not. Let’s see just what this raccoon was up to. Eh, class?”

Every single one a deer in the headlights, the class goes eerily silent. She winks at Chip and announces again. “Don’t you guys want to see what I do for a living? I mean human remains are much cooler but I think we can settle for a mostly solid raccoon carcass.”

A TA clutches at her stomach. “Professor, never say that again.”

The professor just laughs, absentmindedly taking a soft grip on Chip’s shoulder. “Don’t worry everyone, Chip’s going to keep the raccoon. At least I’m not making the final a practical examination. I do have access to laboratory rats—“

The entire class clambered forward, hoping to dispel the idea and the evil smirk off their professor’s lips. She just beamed back at Chip, dropping her hand. She expected the same horrified expression of her students, but he seemed, dare she say, impressed.

That wide eyed shock creeps onto her face. Because who would risk being impressed by a professor covered in dirt from grave digging who offered to dissect a raccoon at 10 AM on a Tuesday?

Apparently, it’s this guy. Must have a thing for crazy women.

Chip shakes his head, bites his lip, and turns to stoop for his raccoon trophy. “I’ll, uh, have them send someone for the nest. I—I guess I have to do something with the raccoon, if you’re sure you don’t want it?”

She just shakes her head, failing miserably at keeping her cherry red tint to herself. “No, no. Maybe next time.”

“Next time,” he repeats, rather sadly, to himself. Though, as he turns to leave, it feels more like a promise.

#

The worst part about knowing Chip is that she seems to see him everywhere. Rushing between lecture halls? There he is, doing his best to fix a fountain. Getting escorted away by federal agents? There he is, sympathetically waving as he walks across the quad. Leading a group of students outside to lecture on the green? There’s Chip, fixing a sprinkler.

She’s had exactly three times in the last six months to talk to him. All under three minutes.

But today, today she’s running late from court. Grand jury testimony had gone fine, until Agent—God, she’ll never learn his name—WhatsHisFace tried to ask her out again. Because what a turn on talking about the mutilation of a hacked up college girl was.

It also didn’t help that, outside of the court room half an hour before, she was doodling what she thought Chip’s skull would look like.

So she can’t help but storm into her postage stamp of a classroom, dropping her package on the desk with a gentle, yet annoyed huff. Her 12 students, all seniors in the Anthropology department, raised their eyebrows at her. At her court getup.

She’d missed those formative lessons at 13 on how to be a proper lady. And even if she had had them, it probably wouldn’t have stuck. Besides, what she wore into the field had to be more than acceptable for the university’s standards. The heels and pink blouse of today were extremely rare and uncomfortable.

“Whoa, Professor Y/N!” Reese Rosebeck calls out, dramatically twitching in his chair, “Is that really you? You look hot!”

“Ha, ha. That’s a very coherent thought for the kid who wrote the worst paper I’ve ever read,” she deadpans. She relents when she sees his dramatic puppy dog pout. “Though, I do have to say I enjoyed you’re use of colloquial slang. Accentuated your point very cleverly.”

“As long as I impress the hottest professor on campus, I’m alright.”

There was a quiet laugh from the back of the room, and she found her eyes snapping to the hunched over back of none other than, Maintenance Guy Chip Taylor. He’s just quietly listening—as always—tinkering with the radiator pipes in the back of the room. She’s half thankful. It is starting to get cold.

“Hey, Chip!” she chirps and the poor thing bangs his head on the pipes. He waves her off in a flash, hand extended wildly above the other desks in the room. Reese chuckles to himself, dragging Lionel with him.

She kicks her heels off behind her desk, straightening herself once she’s back on stable ground. She’s about three apples short of a pie to wear heels for more than six consecutive minutes. The female students give her rather sympathetic looks as she begins to roll her feet and open her package.

She pauses halfway in. Jeez, she forgot about—“Hey, Chip?”

Like a meerkat, he pops up with a dazzling soft grin.

“Are you going to call the cops on me?”

“Excuse me?”

Her students’ eyes bounce back and forth between the pair, following the invisible tennis match. The professor settles on a rather tired, “Are you going to call the cops? The last person who attended lecture that didn’t know me, called the cops because of a demonstration. So, are you?”

“No.” He shakes his head and she wonders if he’s a little too trusting. He’s honest as he leans back down to continue futzing with the pipes. He’s genuine in every interaction they have. Does she really deserve the kind of trust he’s offering? To a crazy woman who’s asked if he’ll call the cops on her?

She shakes the thought away. These 12 students—tangible students—need her focus. At least for the next few minutes. She pulls six human skulls from her package, all neatly wrapped up in protective glass cases. She places those on the table along with a box of gloves.

“Two people to a skull,” she announces and runs through the rest of the directions. “Don’t forget your gloves. You too, Ms. Figg.”

Jamie Figg’s fierce blush is long forgotten once they are all set to work. Tactile learning is the best way to learn in her opinion, expressly in advanced classes like these. It also gives her a moment to rest her brain—even if it’s a few minutes before the onslaught of necessary questions.

She settles into an unused section of chairs and desks, smiling absently at the way all of the kids have squeezed themselves around the one table. She misses the days when she was young and new, ready to find her own legs to stand on.

Chip’s not quiet and she watches him with too much adoration as he sits down next to her. It’s not all too unexpected nor uninvited. He smells like grease and good cologne up close, mixed up with that dangerous combination of hazel eyes and delicious bone structure.

Chip smirks, drawing her out of her smidge of staring. “See anything good?”

“You have excellent bones,” she mutters, tracing a finger against her own cheek instead of his. “Prominent zygomatic bones and well balanced supraorbital margins. But the, um, the rest of you is—is nice too.”

Oh great one, Y/N. Perfect. You’re such a fucking creep.

Chip just smiles. The kind of soft upturn of the lips and dip of the head that means he took it like the compliment it was meant as. He runs a rather shakey hand through his hair, bringing his gaze back up to do his own staring. She wonders what he sees about her. She’s sure he doesn’t see bone structure like she does, but does her flesh give away something she doesn’t know about?

Chip wrings his hand down behind his neck and she sees it. That little bit of something that brews between his bones and his epidermis. The fuzzy sort of thing that sits behind his eyes. The one she’s seen in war veterans, cops, and now the university’s maintenance man.

And as if he’s just a skull on her table, she states ever so eloquently, “You look like the kind of guy who’s seen some shit, Chip.”

And as if she’s accepted his offer for the raccoon all over again, he beams. He further turns away from her, shaking his head, and she follows his eye line to the students not so subtly glancing over at the pair every three seconds. The dozen are still chattering on, examining the skulls in their hands with rapt fascination.

Chip, despite all the non-threatening, sensitive, idiot boy vibes, looks over the skulls with more recognition than she cares to admit she sees. Most people don’t look at skulls like they’re familiar. Like the idea of them being formerly attached to a living person doesn’t bother them.

Again, looks like he’s seen some shit.

“Are they real?”

She nods, taking a tiny chance and pressing their shoulders together. She’s not upset to say that Chip carries very warm skin on his lovely skeletal structure. She wipes the blush off her cheeks and answers, “From the university’s collection. I’ve done a lot of travelling, lots of excavations, lots of grave robbing—sometimes the university doesn’t miss the skulls of the not-so-recently deceased.”

“You’re very—“

“Creepy? Weird?”

She hopes that Chip is too stupid to hear the insecurity bleed through. That he’s too stupid to look at her the way he is. Instead, he squints as if he can’t risk choosing the wrong adjective, so the words inch through his brain. All carefully refined into his choice of, “…Intelligent.”

His takes her hand in his to accentuate his point. She nearly stops breathing.

“You’ve forgotten more this morning than I’ll ever know,” he whispers. She doesn’t know how to look at him without letting him see the hearts in her eyes. Her fingers tighten against his. “I’d never call you creepy.”

She swallows, fighting against the rock in her throat. It wasn’t often people paid her any compliments, especially after she’d let her mouth run for more than five minutes in a one-on-one conversation.

And as if she isn’t already trying to desperately clutch onto her frayed nerves, he confidently pulls a slightly creased business card from his shirt pocket. Offers it to her irritatedly hesitant fingers.

“I do home visits, you know,” he says, putting more weight into where their skin touches. “So, if you’re dishwasher breaks or something, give me—give me a call.”

Chip squeezes her fingers one more time, double checks she’s holding onto the business card, and walks back for his toolbox. Only when the classroom door is closing behind him does Reese shout out, “Oh-ho-ho! Professor’s getting some!”

“Get back to your skull before I use yours as a soup bowl,” she snaps, though she can’t hide the cherries in her cheeks as she thumbs over the business card. Chip Taylor. Whatever you need.

[rosebloodcat]

Toonkind Storyline Idea

Not too long ago, I got an interesting idea for a DnD storyline thanks to some interesting spells I found in the Player’s Handbook. I’ve also been listening to the Toonkind DnD recordings as well. So, as one would expect, the two have been slowly melding together into (what I think) is a fun/interesting story that could be played.

The only awkward thing about it is that I’m not actually in the Toonkind Discord (I’ve got my eye out for the next invite link and I’m praying I’ll be online and aware enough to join in then), so I can’t really share the idea and see if anyone would be up for it. This awkwardness is only increased by the fact that a character I want to see/use for it is one that isn’t mine.

Because of that, this idea has just been festering in the back of my head for several days now and I just- Need to talk about it now.

Like, the fear of possible embarrassment is being replaced by the pure need to talk about this. It’ll probably just sit in my posts/notes forever and not get used, but I want to have it down and out there. (Keeping hopes/expectations low on that front.) I mean, what are the chances that, even if I At’d the players here on Tumblr, they would actually read through the idea? Or want to talk with me about it? Pretty low as far as I can tell.

So honestly, there’s nothing actually stopping me from just rambling into the aether about this. Might as well go for it.

Anyways, let’s get into the meat of this.

I’ll start off by telling people that I had been curious about spells to revive/bring back the dead because I was curious about how many there actually were. 

Unsurprisingly, I found four spells that involved reviving/bringing back the dead.

Surprisingly, though, only three of those spells were necromancy spells! (Revivify, Resurrection, and True Resurrection.)

The Fourth spell was called Reincarnate and was a transmutation spell used/learnable by Druids. (If you’re curious about it, you can check out the exact details here! https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells/reincarnate )

A quick summary of it goes like this: If someone has been dead for less than 10 days, you can touch them (or a piece of them) and create a new body for that person and call their soul to it. The spell causes their race/subrace to change, and the new one can be decided by the DM or via Dice Roll. All their abilities and memories stay the same, but their racial stats/abilities are exchanged for ones matching their new race/subrace.

And I thought, “What if this spell (or a variant of it) was used on a character that died in one of the Toonkind games?”

(Also, I realize I should mention this before continuing, Spoiler Warning for anyone who’s never listened to the Taffy Train Saga and the Coup De Blues games? This involves characters from those.)

I can’t think of too many toonkind characters who are actually Dead-Dead, but I do have one that I have a little bit of a soft spot for. One who was killed in the very same game he was introduced in.

Victor Tim, the (very dead) accountant for Dodo Studios.

(Who has been played by both @modmad and @snailcomicz and I’m not sure which of them he actually belongs to, so I guess he just goes to both for now. I know he was presented as a tool/not very liked character, but I just found him weirdly charming. I can’t explain it if I tried.)

Thus, the seed of an idea was planted in my brain.

What if Victor Tim was brought back from the dead by someone using a variation of this spell? Either as someone experimenting with magic or something. Heck, it could even be done with a machine instead of a spellcaster. (I’m not opposed to the “Illegal or at least Unethical Science” route for a villain. Seeing if they can expand the limit for how soon the spell can be used.)

I mean, considering the chaos brought by Dora Z Scale after the Taffy Train, would it really be so crazy to say that someone took advantage of it?

Someone could have noticed Dora robbing graveyards, seeing that the reports on it were few and far between, and decided to piggyback off her and snatch up remains in her wake. Get some free test subjects that didn’t need to sign waivers whilst everyone was focused on the Engineer and later Dora drama in the papers. Of course, they could have also been a bit more careful and waited until after Dora was captured/arrested before starting their experiments. To give more time for people to forget about them (if they had been spotted during that time) and let their focus be taken up by the former actress instead.

And it probably took a while before they got around to Vic, likely from how little they had of him due to Dora drinking a large portion of him. The Perp probably took their time refining their materials/process since they didn’t want to lose what little they had of him.

All things considered, the extra grave robber probably wasn’t noticed for a long time thanks to the sorting that needed to be done with Dora’s undead army. After figuring out who came from where and sending them back to their proper graves, I’m sure the police were very surprised to find that there were still a number of graves that remained empty.

That lovely little problem was probably kept buried to prevent the public from panicking/getting the police in even more trouble. Especially if The Engineer or Mrs. Tim found out that Vic’s remains were among those missing.

(Not to mention the field day the press would have about it. Like that one, very intrepid young reporter. The one with the dog, you know who.)

I’d say that Vic, when brought back, is still a toonkind but probably a different subrace. (Maybe a Frankenalie? Or a Warne? Unless Mod or Snail see this and think of something that would be more fun/interesting.)

He also probably has no idea what’s going on. Just that he’s pretty sure he’s supposed to be dead but somehow he’s not and he’s stuck somewhere he doesn’t recognize and are both his eyes facing forward? And “Oh no this is bad. I’m pretty sure there is a bad thing happening and I’m alone with no help, oh no, oh no, oh no.”

Because definitely not-okay, illegal/unethical experiments tend to mean the “Subjects” are basically captives/prisoners of the person responsible and need to either be rescued or find a way to escape.

Both routes could go in fun/interesting directions.

Cause, on one hand, there’s the possibility of getting the info out and having Engie pulling/being part of a rescue mission, or at least someone from the studio/Taffy Train may want to check it out. (I mean, who fakes being a dead guy? That’s weird enough that someone would want to look into it.)

On the other hand, there’s also the fun of Vic managing to bust out with the help of other victims in the same situation. Which could actually be a cool set of stories/games to be played. (I’d- I’d actually love to make a character to play that out if I’m being completely honest here. I may have one slowly being drafted out in my head as I type this.)

There’s also the potential hitch of Vic having to try and convince people/prove that he really is Victor Tim, the guy who was murdered by Dora Z Scale. Or that Vic’s note/message really was from him. Even more so if Vic’s talking to people who actually knew him before. (Powerful potential Angst and feels right there if they don’t believe him. Or it could be really funny, depending on how it’s played.)

There are also some fun shenanigans that could happen too. Mostly from Vic trying to figure out how his new race/abilities work. Like (if he was a warne)  accidentally using Expeditious Retreat and yeeting himself into a wall. Or (if he was a frankenalie) getting into a heated argument with an animal via Speak With Animals but not knowing it.

(“Uh, Vic?” “Wha- Oh! Sorry,  I was caught up talking with this guy-” “Vic, you’re talking to a dog.” “...Oh. Suddenly this makes a lot more sense.”)

But- yeah. That’s my idea for a potential storyline for Toonkind DnD, Victor Tim brought back from the dead but not as a Yupyaen and all the possible chaos that could entail. 

Honestly, I have more thoughts on the story, but it’s one of those things that would probably go better if I was able to talk with others about it.

This will probably sit in my posts for who knows how long and never actually get used/played, but I have said my piece now. Who knows, maybe I’ll use the initial idea in something and just remove Vic from the equation.

(... It would be cool if I actually got to use/play this in Toonkind though.)

[where-s-all-blue]

Hopeless Heroes

Villain Pack

Akainu

High ranking government official.

Fakes being a good person infuriatingly well.

Is always spouting anti hero propaganda and claims that they're a safety hazard.

Literally had three dangerous people into the hold of the heroes in hopes of them causing enough bad rep to make people hate heroes.

To his dissatisfaction, the trio with questionable morals has been acting way better around the heroes than they did during their government surveillance.

Orchestrated the deaths of Dr Hiriluk, Roger and Rouge along with Ace, Chopper and Sabo becoming test subjects.

Loyal servant of EM.

Caused Corazon's accident and early retirement, the plan was to have him die, but the early retirement thanks to health complications was satisfying enough.

Is the reason why Law is also an orphan as his parents died with Dr Hiriluk.

Arlong

Rough neighbourhoof and discrimination against the animal hybrid mutants caused him to join a gang.

Shot officer Belle ere.

The bullets he favoured was also found from the skulls of Dr Hiriluk and his two assistants, however it is unknown whether or not he was the one who actively pulled the trigger.

Had Nami forcibly join his gang because of her cat burglar abilities and ability to chart buildings.

Was beaten by Rubber Man, Stealth Black and Hunter (Usopp's inventions included).

Big Mom/Charlotte Linlin

One of the more dangerous villains.

Runs her blood family like mafia, won't hesitate to execute her own kin.

Definitely has eaten someone.

Claims to be benevolent and kind, though her criminal record successfully contradicts that especially with the mention of her child abuse.

Megalomaniac, 100% megalomaniac.

Everyone on her turf has been successfully scared into submission.

Someone please save her children and their families.

Just like in canon, Linlin was originally a kind hearted girl who had been led astray by an evil person. In a way she never grew up.

There's some mental illness at play, but it doesn't excuse her behaviour.

Black Beard

This guy. This fucking guy.

Murdered Thatch who caught him red handed trying to break into the archives in order to find out the identities of the heroes.

Set up his own crime syndicate.

Plans to murder White Beard.

Wants Ace dead for some reason?

Power hungry fucker.

Give me a gun and I'll personally erase him from the existence and enjoy it.

Crocodile

Originally a cop who was forced to see his team be demolished by Kaidou.

As his team didn't get justice through legal ways, he decided to find it outside the law.

Sadly his methods were detestable and his lust for revenge drove him to become unhinged, public soon labelling him as a villain.

He believed himself to be doing the right thing and be just up until team ASL was sent to take him down.

During the fight, he managed to heavily injure both Fire Fist and Rubber Man, causing Chief to become an active fire power user.

After Sabo beat him, the blonde had a talk with him, which made Crocodile break down in tears as he finally understood the mistake he'd done and disbanded his group.

As of this moment, Crocodile is in rehab, overseen by Queen and Dragon, who are hoping him to join the vigilante group led by them.

Doflamingo Donquixote

Runs a mafia which is made of disowned people, orphans and former royalty.

He himself is a former royal.

Tried to shoot his own brother, but the aim was off slightly.

Doflamingo's wish is to live forever, which is why his target is the Surgeon of Death, whom he knows to be capable of such feat.

Rosinante's final act as a hero was to have Doflamingo be arrested though he's since then broken out of the prison (with the help of Akainu) while Rosinante himself is hiding and retired.

EM

Shadow King, puppeteer of the UN.

Wishes to destroy the heroes to ensure that nobody stands between them and their plan to rule the world.

Can't stand the fact that there are three nations who would never bow down to them (these being Irish, Scottish and Finnish because everyone knows how stubborn these damned people are).

Honestly there isn't much info.

Probably immortal, the dick.

Hogback

Self declared genius, probably doesn't even know how to operate a good damn lift.

Tried to create an artificial superhuman.

Would cause a zombie apocalypse.

Robbed a grave of an actress he was obsessed with (IT'S NOT LOVE IT'S A FUCKING OBSESSION AND IT'S NOT OKAY! IF YOU LOVE SOMEONE YOU DON'T ROBB THEIR GRAVE AND TRY TO ZOMBIFY THEM).

Needs to be put behind the bars permanently or executed publicly. Please proceed with the execution option.

Just no. This man isn't a scientist. He's a poor excuse of a human being and I REFUSE TO ACKNOWLEDGE HIM AS A SCIENTIST HE'S A DIRTY GRAVE ROBBER AND A CREEP!

Kaidou

There's a high chance that he was born drunk.

Somehow, he's the most powerful villain and he's not even sober when he does shit.

If he is this powerful when drunk, I don't want to see him sober because that'd suck.

Took part in the scheme that resulted in deaths of Roger and Rogue.

Has no issue with killing his own men either.

Nobody can say for sure where he is located, but he did help overthrow a dynasty to place a puppet emperor to rule some country.

If you don't stop me, I can and will attempt to kill him.

[setaripendragon]

Trapped in the Amber - 1x06

Book 1 :: 01 - 02 - 03 - 04 - 05 - 06 This is the shortest chapter of this I’ve written to date. Meira just... didn’t have much to do, this episode, I guess. (It’s about... a quarter of the length of my longest chapter so far, so, there’s that. I may end up splitting that one in two, depending...) (This part is dedicated to @spideypoolalways; you’re awesome.)

Ankeny, Iowa – Tuesday 14th March 2006

The spot under the bridge where the kid died isn’t very informative. At least, Meira thinks, combing over the area for the third time and finding no tracks, they can probably rule out something corporeal. The only thing that’s even a little bit odd is the vandalised sign at the top of the turn off, which doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with the attack.

Giving up, Meira ambles back up to the main road and drops down to sit on the kerb. She texts Dean to let him know the site is a bust, and then entertains herself texting Charlie about the validity of the more modern urban legends versus the reliability of ancient lore until the Impala pulls up. Meira feels kind of proud of herself for not resenting, too much, that she needs to be picked up at all. “So, where to next?” She asks as she throws herself into the back seat.

“We’re going to church.” Dean declares with a heavy sense of irony.

Meira makes a reluctant noise and slides down in her seat, staying there right up until they arrive. “Do I have to?” She whines.

Sam looks over the back of his seat, eyebrows all the way up to his hairline. Dean snorts and gives her an amused look in the rear view mirror. “No, you can always stay here and sulk like a whiny bitch if you really want.” He says magnanimously.

Meira grins despite herself, because that’s classic Dad. He means it, too, she thinks, which has always been the best part about her dad’s response to that sort of thing. He’d be quite happy to leave her in the car, if she’d rather, but they both know she wouldn’t rather, because she’d be bored out of her mind in the first five minutes. And it’s just nice, to see the shades of her dad in this younger version, instead of seeing all the places where he’s not, yet, what he will be.

“That sounds boring. Church it is.” Meira replies, and gets out of the car.

“You don’t like churches?” Sam asks, unfolding himself from the passenger seat and looking bewildered by the notion. Meira gives him a quizzical look, because when has she ever suggested that she does? “I thought you were religious.” Sam explains. “You quote the bible when you’re pissed, and you know exorcisms in a holy language.”

Meira tips her head to give him that one. “I have faith, I’m not really religious.” She corrects thoughtfully, considering the church. It’s not giving her any bad vibes, but then, it wouldn’t. She can’t feel when what is supposed to be a holy space has been violated anymore, so the church is just a building to her senses. A pretty building, admittedly, but still just a building, without either the glow of sanctity or the cloying of corruption.

“What’s the difference?” Sam asks as Dean joins them and they head for the door.

“Faith is in here,” Meira begins, tapping on her chest, “not out there,” she finishes, hushed, gesturing pointedly around at the building as they step into the church. Sam pulls a thoughtful, accepting face, and then winces when the forgotten door bangs shut behind them. They pick seats near the back, and Meira slumps down in hers out of habit, and just barely reigns in the urge to stick her boots up on the back of the pew in front. She knows Granddad wouldn’t care, but people can get pissy about it, and this is a job, so she can’t really afford to make people hostile for no good reason.

Meira can’t help but roll her eyes at the invitation to pray. God already gave humanity the power to protect their children, and peace is something they have to make for themselves. Sam tries to glare her into doing it anyway, but Meira just stares back, a little incredulous, and after a couple of seconds, he gives up with a roll of his own eyes.

After the service, they manage to talk to the only witness and her father, and given Sam and Dean’s proposed ruse of being students, Meira decides to flirt a little while asking Lori about what it’s like to live in a sorority, after Sam’s done subtly interrogating her. It makes Dean, who caught the tail end of the conversation, laugh all the way to the library, much to Sam’s irritation.

They find a suspect in the dusty arrest records, and a possible connection in the location that Dean wants to check out. “There’s nothing out there, though.” Meira points out. “I checked.”

“Maybe he only comes out a night.” Dean retorts.

“But he’d still need something to anchor himself.” Meira counters.

“He could be anchored to the place itself.” Sam suggests.

Meira stops to consider that. “If he were, that would make him more of a poltergeist than a spirit, with nothing to identify him as more than a mass of violent energy. We’d need a purification ritual. Which won’t do anything except free him from that location if there’s anything still holding him here, like his bones.” Meira muses. “So we should burn those first, and then purify the place.”

Dean makes a disgruntled noise, running a hand over his face. “We still don’t actually know that this guy is the ghost. We don’t even know if it is a ghost. Can we maybe go see if we can get an ID on this fucker before we go to all the effort of grave robbing, huh?” He asks impatiently.

Meira echoes his groan with one of her own. “You two have fun with that, then. I’ve spent enough time under that damned bridge, so I’ll dig into Karns, instead, see if there’s any other compelling connections.” She pulls a face at the thought of more proof. “Man, this is why I hate preachers. Like making a career out of bringing people pleasure is a greater sin than self-righteous murder.”

Sam snorts. “They’re not all like that.” He points out reasonably.

“Not all politicians are fucking liars, either, but no one complains when someone says ‘I hate politicians’.” Meira retorts grumpily. Then she sighs. “Maybe I’ll look into death records, too. See if there have been any other hook-man-like deaths. Maybe a pattern will help.”

“Alright.” Dean snorts. “We’ll pick you up once we’re done.”

Since the library is closing, Meira takes Sam’s laptop to an all-night café and goes through what records the town has online, and the ones the library let her borrow, which isn’t as much as she’d like, but it’s still enough to get lost in for hours.

Ankeny, Iowa – Wednesday 15th March 2006

By the time Meira looks up from her frustrating research, it’s after midnight, and Sam and Dean still haven’t shown up or called or anything. Ignoring the little trickle of anxiety that bleeds into her gut at the thought, she pulls out her phone and rings Dean, only to find out they’ve been arrested. Not for long, Dean somehow managed to talk them down to just keeping them overnight, but it’s a hassle. Meira resigns herself to a long walk, and goes to fetch the Impala.

“Did you hotwire my baby?” is the first thing out of Dean’s mouth when he sees Meira leaning against the Impala’s hood.

“No, I teleported.” Meira replies, giving him a look. “Yes, I hotwired her, what did you expect me to do without the keys?”

Dean is in the middle of ostentatiously checking the car over for so much as a scratch when a couple of police cars screech out of the station, sirens wailing. They all three of them share a look, and then get into the car and follow. “Guess that’s a no on being bound to the location?” Meira says as they drive past the sorority house.

“Yeah.” Dean agrees. “We should check out the crime scene.”

“I should check out the crime scene.” Meira corrects. “You two just got un-arrested, let’s not test your good luck, huh?” She challenges with a laugh. Dean makes a disgruntled face, but nods, so Meira hops out of the car and waltzes in through the front door when no one’s paying too much attention. The scent of ozone is detectable even out in the hall, where Meira spots a scratch dug deep into the wall and on into the door jamb that reminds her of the mutilated signs out on Nine Mile Road. And then there’s the message, and the symbol that she spent half the night staring at, on and off, through her research.

She heads back out to update Sam and Dean. “Well, that seems like enough of an ID to me.” Sam says, looking to Dean, who nods.

“Alright, well, let’s find the dude’s grave, salt and burn his bones, and put him down.”

Meira sighs. “Jacob Karns was buried in an unmarked grave.” She tells them wearily. “I was going to go see if I could find it last night, but then you got arrested.”

“Are you ever going to let that go?” Sam asks, resigned.

“In a couple days, probably.” Meira capitulates with a grin. Sam gives her the bitch-face. “I also found, last night, a couple of other instances of ‘invisible killings’. 1932 and 1967. First one was a one-off, second one was a mass murder. Both were blamed on self-righteous religious douchebags who claimed that the murders had actually been committed by some invisible force.”

“So maybe the spirit isn’t haunting the place of its murders, but people who resonate with it somehow?” Sam suggests. “Poltergeists have been known to latch onto people instead of places.”

Meira whines. “Purification rituals on people are annoying.”

“It might still be a ghost.” Dean reassures her, and Meira clings to hope. “My guess is it’s haunting Lori this time around.” He adds.

Sam frowns at him. “Lori doesn’t exactly seem like the type to resonate with this guy.” He challenges, and then his expression turns thoughtful. “Her dad, though… He’s a Reverend, and he’s been preaching against immorality.” He glances over at Meira in amusement. “Is that enough to count as a ‘self-righteous religious douchebag’?” He wonders mockingly.

“Yes.” Meira confirms, crossing her arms defensively.

Sam snorts. “So maybe Reverend Sorenson wants to protect his daughter, and that’s why the ghost is going after the people around her.”

“In that case, you should keep an eye on her, in case this guy shows up again.” Dean instructs, and Sam nods.

“What about you two?” Sam asks, looking between them.

Dean tips his head back with a groan of reluctance. “We’re going to have to go and see if we can figure out which unmarked grave is Karns’s.” He explains unhappily. Meira thinks, ruefully, that this would be so much easier if she could use her grace to do the searching, but no, they’re going to have to go off guesswork.

“Worst comes to worst, we can just dig up the lot and torch them all?” Meira offers.

Dean looks at her in horror. “That’d take us all week! Grave digging ain’t easy!” Oh, yeah. Can’t use grace for that either. Meira slumps. “Christ, come on.” Dean sighs, and they all get back in the car. They drop Sam off a street away from Lori’s house, and then drive to the cemetery, pack a bag with everything they’ll need, and start searching.

“You know,” Dean begins suddenly, his tone nonchalant enough that it sets a warning bell ringing in Meira’s head, “it occurred to me that you haven’t really been brought up to speed on the whole ‘looking for our dad’ thing, even though you offered to help.” Meira blinks in surprise, which Dean catches, because he raises an eyebrow at her. “You haven’t even been asking questions.”

Because she already knows this story, but she can’t say that, so instead, she offers him a wry smile and says; “I was returning the favour.”

Dean snorts. “You return the favour on the background check, too?” He asks dryly.

Meira figures that’s as good an excuse as any for knowing the bare basics. “I read about what happened to your mom. I’m sorry.” She says quietly. She doesn’t know what it’s like to have a parent die on you, but she’s starting to become familiar with loss, and it sucks.

Dean nods, but otherwise ignores her sympathy. “Dad’s been hunting the thing that did it ever since.” He explains, using the excuse of looking for the grave to avoid looking at her. “He dropped off the grid a couple weeks before we ran into you. Right before the same thing that killed our mom up and killed Sam’s girlfriend the same damn way.”

Meira winces. “Ouch.” She thinks back, to when Sam lost his temper with the demon for taunting him about Jessica. “It was a demon that did it, wasn’t it?” She asks, as if she doesn’t already know exactly which demon it was. At Dean’s surprised look, she raises her eyebrows. “The plane crash demon said it knew what happened to her. Demons don’t really mess about talking to ‘lesser evils’, as far as I know, so…” She shrugs.

“Yeah, probably.” Dean grits out. “Anyway. I figured you should know what we’re doing.”

Meira nods, and they walk on in silence for a while. She thinks about just letting it lie, but she kind of feels bad that Dean is offering her this explanation she doesn’t actually need, because they’re really not the sketchy ones that just popped into her life and attached themselves to her for no real explanation. No, that’s her, and she doesn’t want to have to be secretive and evasive with them. “I don’t actually know what happened to my family.” She says finally.

Dean startles, and then raises his eyebrows at her. Meira looks away, shoulders hunched, and focuses on the graves. “My family pissed off loads of people.” She begins.

“Took on the devil, huh?” Dean asks.

Meira glances at him sharply, and then smiles bitterly at the sceptical look on his face. “Yeah. Dunno if you could say they won, exactly, but… they survived, which is pretty kick-ass all on its own if you ask me.” She points out, and Dean tips his head in acknowledgement. “Well, I got… accosted on my way home. Didn’t see what it was, but something made me crash, and…” Meira hesitates, trying to work out how to phrase it to make it sound plausible without adding in time-travel. “I don’t know why they didn’t kill me, but I figured I wasn’t safe, so I tried to get home.” She swallows hard.

“What’d you find?” Dean asks solemnly.

“No one was there. They were just… gone. Then-” Well, time to make some shit up wholesale to explain her inexplicable knowledge. “Then Pabbi called. Told me to run, to get away. That something had got to them all, and that he was going to hide and I should do the same, and-” Meira stops talking for a moment, and breathes, not even wanting to imagine a world where what she’s implying were true. “You have no idea how much the idea of something that could take on my dads and win scares the shit out of me. So I ran.” She explains, and then shrugs. “And that’s when you found me.”

“Huh.” Dean grunts, nodding slowly. Then he side-eyes her. “You don’t want to find the son of a bitch that did it? Get revenge?”

“Want to? Sure.” Meira laughs bitterly. “I want to find the little shit-stain and rip its spine out of its ass. Think I can?” She snorts derisively. “Not a chance in hell.” Not as she is now, anyway. She swallows again. “Pabbi wanted me to survive, so that’s what I’m going to do. This bitch wants my whole family dead? Well, good fucking luck to it, because I’m going to live forever just to spite it.”

That makes Dean grin a little, like maybe he’s proud of her for that sentiment, and it makes Meira’s eyes sting with tears for no good god damned reason. “Well, that’s a sentiment I can get behind.” He agrees, and then lets the subject drop. “You ever do the college thing?” He wonders instead.

Meira smiles. “Yeah. Got a Bachelors in Anthropology.” Dean looks reluctantly impressed, and a little bitter. Meira remembers what the shapeshifter had said about some of the things he’s been thinking. She knows it was putting a negative twist on things, but the things it had said about the inside of her head had been true, too. “Also got in a fistfight with one of my professors, once.” She adds, which has the desired effect of making Dean laugh out loud.

“What about?” He asks, delighted. Meira cheerfully recounts the story for him, and then Dean tells her a story of his own from his high school days, but stops mid-word as his focus shifts to something one row of headstones over. “There we go.” He says, and deviates from their methodical search pattern. Meira follows him, and sees the gravestone with the symbol from Karns’s hook on it.

“Helpful.” Meira says blandly, and Dean snorts. He drops the bag off his shoulder and pulls out two shovels. With a sigh, Meira takes one, and they get to work in the gathering dusk. By the time they reach the coffin, Meira’s back is sore, and her hands are stiff and aching. She’s used her grace to ease the worst of it, but she doesn’t want to look like it’s not affecting her at all, so she suffers through some of it.

“Next time, I get to watch the cute girl’s house.” Dean complains, taking a moment to lean against the side of the hole and stretch his aching arms.

“I’ll fight you for it.” Meira agrees wistfully.

Dean snorts. “No way. You had your turn.” Meira blinks. “You got to go on a dinner date while me and Sam dug up a ghost’s bike and nearly drowned.” Dean reminds her, and Meira nods because, yeah, okay, she definitely got off easy on that one.

“Fair enough.” She agrees, and then they go back to breaking open the coffin. They pour in the salt and the gasoline, then Dean drops the match. It’s remarkably satisfying to watch the bones burn after that much hard work to get to them.

Ankeny, Iowa – Thursday 16th March 2006

They meet up with Sam at the hospital the next morning. They’d been on their way to pick him up when he’d rung to tell them not to bother, because he was going to the hospital with Lori. Once he’d been assured that Sam was okay, Dean drove them back to the frat house where he and Sam had mooched beds. It had been kind of awkward, knowing what all the frat boys had been assuming she was there for, but it did at least get the ‘room mate’ out of the room, and let Meira get some sleep in an actual bed, instead of in the Impala’s back seat like last night.

Meira waits in the car while Dean heads in to fetch Sam, and she’s surprised to see the grim looks on their faces when they come out. “What’s wrong?” She asks as they climb into the car. This time, Sam’s in the back seat, since Meira’s already occupying the passenger seat.

“Hook Man’s not gone.” Dean summarises. “Cause he’s using the hook as an anchor.”

“Great.” Meira sighs.

“And Dean was right. It’s latched onto Lori, not the Reverend.” Sam adds with a grimace.

He explains his reasoning again, and Meira pulls a face. “This is why I hate religion. Fucking semantics.” She grouses. Sam makes a confused noise. “People heard ‘your choices will have consequences’ as ‘if you do something wrong, you get punished’, when it’s not. If you drop a glass and it shatters, you don’t say you’re being punished for dropping it. It’s just cause and effect.”

Sam huffs. “What about Hell, then?”

“Metaphysical cause and effect.” Meira replies. “God doesn’t send people to Hell for being bad, we send ourselves there.” When she glances over her shoulder, she sees Sam looking thoughtful. She bites back the rest of the explanation, because she’s not sure she could give it in a way that makes it sound like it’s just what she believes rather than what she knows to be true.

They pull up outside the library, and get back to work researching what the hell happened to Jacob Karns’s hook. It takes them half the damned day to find out that the blasted thing was donated to the church and then melted down, no record of what. They go grab an early dinner and wait until it’s dark to go raid, purify, and burn the church’s entire collection of silver. Meira’s practically bouncing in her seat on the drive over.

“Dibs on the church!” She crows as they pull to a stop behind the church.

Sam snorts. “I’ll take the house, then.” He says, and looks over at Dean. “You go with her, make sure she doesn’t vandalise anything else.” Dean laughs his agreement, and they split up. They raid the church, make a fire in the furnace in the basement, toss a load of salt on it, and Meira adds a blessing over the flames as well, just in case. After all, being melted down hadn’t worked the first time around.

Sam brings the stuff from the house, and then they’re interrupted by footsteps above their heads. It turns out they belong to Lori, and after a beat, Sam goes to talk to her. “Not going to steal her out from under him?” Dean asks Meira as they head back downstairs to mind the fire.

Meira makes an exaggeratedly mournful face. “I’m pretty sure she’s straight. Possibly also mildly homophobic. She was giving me that sort of look when I flirted with her before. Religion.” She spits, and Dean just laughs at her.

It’s barely been a couple of minutes before they hear yelling and banging upstairs. They share a look, and then they bolt back up the stairs, following a trail of destruction through the church to find Sam and Lori being accosted by Karns. Meira takes the necklace when Sam tosses it to her, and leaves Dean to stand guard over his brother while she burns the necklace. Once it’s melted, she jogs back upstairs yet again, and checks in with the others. “Did that finally get him?” She asks.

“Yeah, definitely.” Dean confirms, and Meira slumps against the wall in relief.

Ankeny, Iowa – Friday 17th March 2006

Meira goes to find Lori after the police are done with them and have moved on to interrogating Dean and Sam. She sits down beside her on the edge of the grass, and ignores the faintly nervous looks Lori keeps shooting her. “I hope you know this wasn’t your fault.” Meira tells her without looking at her.

Lori sucks in a sharp breath. “How did you…?”

Meira glances over with a wry smile. “You had the ghost’s anchor. The only reason it would have gone after you was if you felt you deserved to be punished for some reason.” She explains gently.

Lori frowns at her. “Then it is my fault.” She says, and at Meira’s prompting look, explains. “It was my feelings that made that thing kill Rich and Taylor. That made it go after my dad. If I hadn’t- hadn’t judged them like that-”

“Like you’re judging yourself?” Meira asks, and Lori looks away sharply and nods once. “Lori… Did you kill them?” She asks pointedly. Lori frowns and opens her mouth, but doesn’t quite manage words. “Did you pick up a weapon and decide to kill them?”

“…No.” Lori says slowly. “But-”

“Did you, with full awareness and malice aforethought, ask or instruct the ghost of Jacob Karns to kill them?” Meira asks.

Lori sighs. “No.” She confirms.

“Then this isn’t your burden to bear.” Meira insists. “No one can control how they feel, Lori, and no one should be judged for the things they think. It’s what you choose to do with those things that matter.” Lori bites her lip, looking like she’s a second away from crying. “Personally, I think it’s fair of you to judge the hell out of a guy who won’t take no for an answer, or a girl who tries to peer-pressure you into things you’re not sure you want to do, or someone who has an affair with a married person. Do I think they deserved to die for those sins? No, probably not. But then, neither did you. That’s on Jacob Karns.”

Lori takes a deep breath, and nods her acceptance. “So… so it really was a ghost?” She asks quietly.

“Yeah. That charm you wore was part of his prosthetic in life, so his spirit clung to it after he died. Whether that was because of unfinished business, or because he was just afraid to move on? Who knows.” Meira shrugs fatalistically.

“Ghosts are real.” Lori says, as though saying it out loud might help her accept it.

“Of course they are.” Meira says, amused. “If you believe in souls, you kind of have to believe in ghosts.” Lori nods slowly, still lost in thought or possibly dazed by the revelation. “So, hey. Can I have your number?” Meira asks into the silence. Lori startles, and then gives her a wary, side-ways look. Meira snorts. “That wasn’t a come on, I promise.” She says, before Lori can try to find a polite way of saying ‘ew, no’. “It’s just for emergencies, I promise. In case you run into anything like this again, you can call for help.”

“Oh.” Lori says. “Okay.” She gets out her phone, and they exchange numbers. “I’m sorry.” Lori blurts out suddenly, looking pained. “I just learned this lesson about judging people.” She huffs, frustrated with herself.

Meira laughs. “It’s not an easy mindset to get out of.” She acknowledges. “For the record, unlike the rest of your judgement, I don’t actually think it’s fair to judge consenting adults for what they do with their own bodies, or for who they love.” Lori cringes a little, grimacing in acknowledgement. Meira’s heart goes out to her, struggling so hard to be good and not knowing how. “But I forgive you.” She adds, serious, but with a touch of humour. The humour fades as she adds. “And God does, too.”

Lori smiles wryly. “I hope so.”

“I know so.” Meira retorts, which earns her a grin.

[yetanotherbuffyblog]

WTK

What the hell did I just watch

Buffy breaks into the Trio’s lair, but finds it abandoned. She gets out with some papers and a book, but buzzsaws start ripping the place apart before she can investigate much further. The Trio get their shiz together, or at least Warren does, getting a couple of magical orbs that make him invincible and super strong.

Everyone’s kind of worked up about the Spike and Buffy thing. Buffy and Xander even have an argument--where Buffy points out that he has no idea what she’s going through, and Xander tells her that she totally should have told them what was going on, and also that Spike’s not to be trusted and is a creep.

Which is proven when Spike tries to rape Buffy.

WHAT

She fends him off, and Spike, realizing what he’s done, is absolutely horrified by what he’s done and skips town, but let’s not forget that SPIKE TRIED TO RAPE BUFFY WHAT THE HELL

Xander finds out, but Buffy stops him from going after Spike because they have to go after the Trio. Willow and Tara, when they’re not boinking because they’re happy to be back together now, have gone through a lot of the documents that Buffy brought back and worked out that they’re planning on robbing several places--one of them tonight because it’s a local amusement park thing that’s delivering their money and they have to go TONIGHT if they want to hit it.

Buffy goes and stops the robbery, but Warren’s invisible because of his ball--I mean, orbs. Jonathan, pretending like he’s trying to strangle Buffy, manages to slip to her that if she breaks his orbs then he’ll lose his power, and she does it. But ohes noes! Warren has a jetpack, and uses that to escape. So does Andrew, but he hits his head and falls. Jonathan and Andrew are packed off to jail, with Andrew fuming that he couldn’t believe that Warren ditched them.

Scoobies are victorious, right? WRONG! Because just as Xander and Buffy make up and get over their argument, Warren shows up at the house with a gun and takes a few shots. One manages to hit Buffy in the chest, and another defies the rules of physics and hits Tara through a window. Buffy’s gravely injured, and Tara’s dead.

Warren runs off, Xander freaks out, Willow’s eyes go full-on Sith because HOLY SHIZ TARA’S DEAD.

Anyway.

WHAT THE HELL

-Andrew’s totally gay for Warren. There were kind of winks at it before, but this episode all but confirms it. It’s mostly played for laughs though.

-Spike tries to rape Buffy! This is… look, I’ve expressed a little puzzlement at why this ship is so popular with the fandom, but with this episode I’m just LOST guys. I’ve been told that Spike has something of a redemption arc coming up, and while I firmly believe that no one is beyond redemption, and that Spike can become better, the fact is that this ship is, for me, completely and totally sunk. I can’t think of anything that would happen in his character arc that would make me think that they should be an item after he tries to rape her. 

THIS IS NOT OKAY

-Warren’s also a creep. Which is not a new fact, but when he gets super strength and invincibility, the first thing he does with it is track down a guy who bullied him in high school, hit on his girlfriend, beat him and his friends up, then try to take that guy’s girlfriend by force. Xander interrupts and points out that Warren apparently can’t get a girl through anything other than force.

-Both Anya and Xander have scenes where they’re talking to someone, and ignore them and talk about their own breakup problems: Anya with a client who wants to get revenge on a cheating boyfriend, and Xander with a girl at a bar who is trying to hit on him.

-The bullet that kills Tara has to bend some physics to be able to go through her chest like that. Rule of Drama I suppose.

-Jonathan is just now picking up exactly how screwed he is with Warren in charge. Andrew seems shocked that Warren left him, while Jonathan, who has kind of been a butt monkey and more self-aware, realizes just what a dick Warren is and that he has to be stopped, doesn't even look surprised at finding himself under arrest, and pointedly does not answer Andrew’s questions about whether or not Warren will come back for them.

-Where did Warren even get a gun??? I suppose with everything else they’ve been doing, it’s not hard to get one.

-I had some commentary on the friendship between Dawn and Spike, but then THAT scene happened and I dropped it like a hot potato.

-But speaking of Dawn she seems to really ship Willow x Tara, and offers to go to the basement so they can keep having sex without her interrupting. Which is an oddly chill statement for a moody teenager to be making.

-I actually knew that Tara died because I’m streaming this on the official Facebook page, and the description of the next episode mentions that she’s dead. But still! WHAT THE FUDGE!

-James Marsters was apparently… less than thrilled with his character’s direction in this episode. Which is fair!

-The Trio apparently had a Klingon love poem among their notes. Probably something Andrew wrote.

[mobius-prime]

200. Sonic the Hedgehog #132

Can you believe it? We've reached the two hundredth issue, everyone! It seems like not that long ago that we had only reached one hundred, yet here we are! Of course, the actual comic itself is nowhere near two hundred yet, but we're counting total volume of issues here. We're over halfway done with reading the preboot by now, but we still have over a hundred left to go in front of us, so we'd better dive right in!

Home (Part 3 of 4): A.D.A.M. and Evil

Writer: Karl Bollers Pencils: Dave Manak Colors: Jensen

Eggman can't believe what he's seeing as Tails and Sonic fly overhead, having been certain that Sonic could never be fast enough to reach him in time to stop the missile launch. Sonic leaps down from the Tornado with a pair of handcuffs to arrest Eggman with, but Eggman isn't worried, as he has M to protect him… and as Tails hacks into Eggman's database to stop the missile launch countdown, he finds he has another problem to worry about.

Well that's worrying… Meanwhile at Fort Acorn, as General D'Coolette gets the soldiers under his command ready for battle, Julie-Su argues with Knuckles inside the fort. Knuckles apparently wants to take point in the fight, but Julie-Su is adamant that he not put himself in such direct danger, as now without the power of the Chaos Emeralds, the only power he can rely on is his natural strength, which while formidable pales in comparison. She's doubly worried since last time he put himself in direct danger like this he literally died, but he still insists that he can handle it, pointing to his backup.

Uhh… looks like Amy has seriously powered up since last we saw her! Vector is in charge of heading off the swatbots' first advance, which he does by blasting his music loudly enough that it literally blows all the robots apart before they can reach the fort. While this is going on, Sally, her parents, and Uncle Chuck monitor the situation from the Technolo-Tree, as now that A.D.A.M. has taken control of the Tornado Tails is in serious danger. However, Chuck reasons that with A.D.A.M.'s attention split three ways, he may not be able to properly concentrate on controlling the plane, the missile countdown, and the robot army at Robotropolis effectively. A.D.A.M. forces the controls of Tails' plane down, intending to make him impact with the water of the ocean to kill him, and with M attacking Sonic in revenge for hurting her "father," things look bleak. However, Tails, thinking fast, decides to test A.D.A.M.'s skills with riddles, asking him "Why does the chicken cross…"

I think you've found A.D.A.M.'s weakness, Tails! As he keeps the virus distracted with some more puzzles, Vector laments the destruction of his stereo equipment due to the sheer volume of noise he just unleashed on the swatbots. However, that's only the first wave - and Amy Rose is ready to take on the second wave single-handedly. M starts viciously beating up Sonic while Eggman gleefully "introduces" her to him, noting that unlike A.D.A.M., she was an intentional creation to act as his personal enforcer. She flings Sonic into the water nearby, and Sally, watching from home, is horrified, as she knows Sonic can't swim.

This is kind of the beginning of the era where the comic started to clip Sally's wings. A year spent thinking her closest friend was gone has robbed her of some of her usual fire, and though many people call it out of character for her, while to some degree I agree, in other ways I kind of don't. Sonic is in many ways the opposite of Sally - he rushes into things, acts first and asks questions later, while Sally is much more calculating and prefers to have a plan before jumping into action. With the wild attitude of Sonic gone from her life, she's had her parents in her ears for the past year, once again pushing her to act like a princess and not get involved the way she used to. Instead of being the general, the leader of the rebellion that she's always been, she's being pulled back, reined in, told that she must only direct her troops' movements from the safety of her home. While certainly Sally isn't the type to meekly listen to whatever her parents tell her to do, I think the trauma she's faced has affected her in more ways than even she's aware of, and she's not nearly as certain of herself anymore, leaving her more open to manipulation from her parents than she once would have been.

At Fort Knothole, Amy is only half-conscious after the battle due to exhaustion, but perks up when she's told that she managed to wipe out half the attacking swatbots… on her own. If there's one thing I love about the comics, it's that they never downplay Amy's immense strength. She's a one-woman army in her own right, as long as she has her hammer in hand, and ultimately the comics give her a lot of chances to shine as the badass she is. Everyone prepares to fight the rest of the bots, but a shadow above alerts them to the arrival of the special GUN team from Station Square, heralded by Rouge the Bat. In Old Megaopolis, Eggman tells M that he won't believe Sonic is dead until he sees a body, so she dives into the water, just as Sonic manages to pull himself from the water after finding a lucky ladder close by.

M's eyes begin to glow, glaring at Sonic as she prepares to attack…

Mobius 25 Years Later: The Unveiling

Writer: Ken Penders Pencils: Steven Butler Colors: Jensen

There isn't much teen interaction in this second installment of Mobius 25 Years Later, so there isn't as much to complain about compared to last issue, but there are still a few things to cover. For one, we get our first introduction to Kenders' weird attempts to include some diversity of sexual orientation in his work! We open at Lara-Su's Unveiling, as Julie-Su proudly watches her dance with her father in the middle of the festivities. An echidna named "Mace" arrives, and from his dialogue we can gather that he's Knuckles' half-brother, the one whom Lara-Le was pregnant with before Sonic's space adventures. Julie-Su questions his friendship with a friend of his, Demi-Na, but he insists that the two of them are just friends and it's "nothing serious." She then warns him away from flirting with any of the other people present, as they're all already married. Apparently, Kenders' intention here was to indicate that Mace is in fact gay - that he's not interested in Demi-Na because he's not into women, and that Julie-Su never specified the gender of the people he shouldn't be flirting with. However, there's not even the slightest hint of any of this in the dialogue - y'all know how online fandoms will grasp onto any tiny hint of two same-gender individuals being cordial to one another as being true love and ship them accordingly, but I doubt even the gayest of fans would look at the dialogue surrounding Mace and think "Oh, he's definitely A Fellow Gay!" I do get that at the time this comic was released, acceptance of LGBT individuals wasn't nearly as widespread as it is now, which would actually make Kenders a bit ahead of the curve of society as a whole in terms of acceptance, but this is still a really, really weak attempt at including a gay character in his work - and it's not even the weirdest example yet.

See, even here, something that could have been an opportunity for gentle ribbing from father to daughter is instead used as an excuse to essentially pull a "well, other people have it worse" on Lara-Su. The dress really doesn't suit her personality-wise, making me wonder who even decided that was what she should wear in the first place. Meanwhile, we finally get to meet Cobar, Rotor's old friend, as the two meet up and discuss a very serious matter.

Okay, this is definitely the most interesting thing we've seen so far in this world. This is a problem much more reminiscent of the types of conflicts we see in the main storyline of the comic. However, we're already facing another weird "LGBT inclusion" scenario! Go ahead and take a look at the way Rotor and Cobar interact with one another. Seem shippable to you guys? Well, despite the fact that they seem no closer to each other than two ordinary scientists with a polite working relationship, Cobar is basically supposed to be Rotor's husband! That's right, Kenders apparently always saw Rotor as gay, and while I'm 1000% on board with that interpretation… well first of all Cobar looks like he has one foot in the grave while Rotor would barely be like forty-something in this timeline, but also, again, there is no noticeable hint they they're even slightly into each other, let alone in a long-term relationship. Frankly, Rotor deserves better if we're looking to set him up with a nice man.

Meanwhile, back at the Unveiling, Vector and his son Argyle arrive fashionably late to the party, and Vector and Knuckles step aside to have a chat while Argyle moves in to dance with Lara-Su. Vector frets, thinking that Argyle essentially isn't cool enough to know how to charm a lady, but his fears are totally unfounded.

Hmm, seems serious, Knuckles… I'm sure this interesting part of the plot isn't going to get sidetracked by trite teenage drama and a bunch of adults yakking at each other about Adult Stuff, right?

[calliecat93]

Happy 2020 everyone! Hope that everyone had a great holiday! I did, but man the week break for the show left such a void. But we’re back on track now! SO last time we got Schnee drama, Weiss getting the clue to bury her father, and Watts dooming the city of Mantle to die in the cold. With all of that and us nearing the climax of the volume, what will CRWBY serve us this time? Well, let's find out!

Overview

The people of Mantle and understandably confused and upset about the heating going off. They think that Atlas did it, wondering if they still have heating and if they really would just turn it off. Pietro and Maria are also there, clearly concerned. Back at the Dinner Party as the Council continues their questioning of Ironwood’s actions, one of Jaques’ staff informs him of the recent developments and that it happened under his authorization. Jaques is shocked, but of course, he doesn’t tell the rest of the council this. Asshole. The Council is done… but Robyn isn’t. She wants to know what kind of secret Ironwood is hiding that he won’t share with even the Council. She suggests settling things then and now, offering her hand to Ironwood to use her lie detector Semblance.

Before Ironwood can do anything, Weiss bursts in. She reveals that she knows who the true criminal is… and that her father worked with him. She shows WIllow’s Scroll, revealing Watts much to everyone’s shock. The footage is played and reveals everything. Watts wanting revenge for being disgraced despite all the work he did for Ironwood. How he offered to rig the election if Jaques caused chaos for Mantle. How Jaques full-heartedly agreed to it, even laughing at it. Jaques has been exposed, and he has no way to defend himself. He tries to run for it, only to be blocked by Weiss’ Knight. The same Knight that he used on her when she tried to earn her right into Beacon. The same armor used by Nicholas Schnee, the man that Jaques essentially robbed the company from. Jaques has nowhere to run nor hide, and Weiss places him under arrest.

As things worsen in Mantle, the people using Fire Dust to create a giant bonfire and another riot breaking out, Ironwood and the Council question Jaques on his crimes. They’ve pieced together that Watts, along with Tyrian, were the ones responsible for the murders at Robyn’s rally and he has access to both Mantle and Atlas’ systems. The latter all thanks to Jaques giving him the access one he got his Council seat. Jaques is charged with Treason and Accessory to Murder as the asshole denies his involvement in all of it, claiming that he had no idea of Watts’ plans. This may be true, but he still allowed it to happen, so the blood is very much on his hands. Watts has access due to him and given time, he’ll be able to do what he wants, placing the Kingdom is grave danger.

It’s at this point that the Council is alerted to the growing crisis. Jaques immediately tries to again to defend himself, but Winter shuts him up and orders him to get the heat back on. But… he can’t. Watts used Jaques authorization and proceeded to lock everyone out. Ruby questions how bad this is as Ironwood tracks down Watts’ activity, specifically Amity. So far, Watts hasn’t unlocked the secrets there, but if he finds out then… yeah. With no way to trace him and hm already locking out more people, it looks bad. At this point, Robyn is even more curious about what the heck is going on and questions Ironwood about the Communications Tower. Something that Ironwood is shocked to find out that she knows of. In Mantle, the citizens have lost it as they attack the Atlesian robots, and with all this negativity, the Grimm are coming in. Saybers, and even worse, Goliaths, attack and all with the giant gaping hole in Mantle’s walls. Ho boy…

Back up above, Robyn reasons with Ironwood, having realized that whatever is going on is much bigger than the Kingdom or even Remnant. She knows that Ironwood is scared, but he needs to talk to her and the others. However, Clover and Oscar barge in, telling Ironwood of the Grimm attacks. Hearing this and with everything else, Ironwood is upset and unsure of what to do. Oscar goes to him, encouraging him to tell the truth and to work with everyone with Ruby saying that he isn’t alone. Ironwood gets into General mode, telling Oscar to go back to the Academy as RWBYJNRQ and Ace-Ops go down to Mantle to save the people. As they head out, Ruby and Oscar talk and agree that it’s time to reveal the truth. Oscar agrees to do so, allowing Ruby to go and do her duty.

Everyone heads out, Clover stressing that their duty is to get the people out, not fight the Grimm. Ironwood has revealed the truth to the Council and Robyn, all clearly stunned especially the latter. But Oscar has now told Ironwood the truth about Salem’s immortality, and he is stunned. He questions why Oz would hide this, with Oscar guessing so that they wouldn’t lose hope. But he says that Oz would be proud of Ironwood and that he’s fulfilling Atlas’ intent of being a  place to inspire hope. Ironwood starts to point out that Oscar talks like he was there, but he gets informed that the transports have arrived so for now they have to save it. Needless to say, Ironwood’s not exactly up for any more surprises.

The gang’s transport is attacked by a pterodactyl Grimm, one that Harriet can’t shake off. As such, they’re forced to jump for it as it takes a wing. Meanwhile, Jaques is carted off by the military as Willow and Whitley watch. Whitley is quiet, sitting on the stairs, before running off. But there’s someone else also there… a black-haired, green-eyed waitress who skips away. She enters some room where there’s a full view of Atlas Academy. She is greeted by… CInder. Yep, after hearing nothing of her since the end of V6, she’s back folks. And the girl? You guessed it, Neo in disguise. Cinder asks if Neo found what they were looking for, and the girl gives a devilish smirk as the chapter ends.

Review

So… this chapter is… okay. It’s not good. It’s not bad. It’s only okay. And that is all due to the execution. It was… pretty flimsy, unfortunately. I’m not gonna say bad because there are still four chapters to go, so anything can happen. But from how things are shaping up… I have concerns, to say the least,

Let’s talk about the good parts, FIrst, Weiss arresting Jaques. Perfect. Absolutely perfect. We have been waiting for this day for a long, long time. It never even crossed my mind that once she got hard evidence, Weiss would go straight to the council to expose her father then and there. Admittedly it feels… kinda easy? Like Jaques only just got elected, and he’s been de-powered this soon? But really? Jaques is a minor antagonist compared to Watts and Tyrian and is just a pawn in their game. He served his purpose and after his atrocities in this volume alone, he got what he deserved. It was also so great to see Weiss be the one to bring him down, showing that she has broken free of her father once and the girl that he tried to imprison send him to live out that fate.

So is this the end for Jaques? Maybe. Again, a lot depends on how the end of Volume 7 goes. I wouldn’t be surprised if he comes back into the future if we stay in Atlas. After all, the SDC has lost its leader, and this is going to cause problems. They can improve themselves, or become so much worse. IDK if Whitley will by default become the new Head or if he has to wait until he’s of age, but if he does… that is bad. Not just because he’s still a kid with no experience, but chances are Jaques still has power over him. He likely has ways to manipulate even behind bars, and Whitley was clearly not happy to see his dad be carted off. Whitley still has hope, and maybe this will help him cut the line, but I doubt that’s going to happen for a while. But for now, Jaques is where he belongs and hopefully, he stays there until he dies.

So let’s get into the iffier bits. So all of the truth is out now. Ironwood reveals Salem and the Amity plans to the Council and Robyn. Okay, good. Oscar, with permission from Ruby, reveals Salem’s immortality to Ironwood. Okay, good. We see Ren and Nora getting along at least for now as they go into battle. Okay, good. Robyn accepts that Ironwood isn’t a bad person and that Atlas isn’t to blame for Mantle. Okay, good. Everyone is acting overall mature with Ironwood taking the truth overall well. This is… a problem for me. A BIG problem.

Don’t get me wrong I’m glad that everyone is acting mature right now, especially with the current crisis. That is more important. But… do you seriously expect me to believe that it was this easy to resolve all of this? That Ironwood, after how his paranoia and shoving away his humanity was built up, was able to be briefly distressed and then accept the truth like that? That Robyn could look past Ironwood endangering and mistreating Mantle and a Grimm attack now underway because he refused the proper resources without any resentment? That the Council is going to trust Ironwood’s horrible decisions after this? That Ruby just suddenly decided that it was time and suffer no consequences or allow us to see her thought process regarding it? Really guys? REALLY?

No. This was too clear cut. Too easy. RWBY is an idealistic show, but you cannot build all of this up and just drop it because of a few revelations. Ironwood still caused most of the Mantle problems even before the framing. He still left Mantle vulnerable and unable to repair the wall, which leaves them open to the Grimm. He was still a borderline tyrant and no matter the intention, that is inexcusable. Same with the heroes. There was so much fracturing/built-up between them. Ren and Nora’s vastly different viewpoints coming in between them. Blake and Yang making decisions outside the rest of the group. Which great that they suffered no consequences for that even though it should have been discussed at least. We don’t see the gang talk about these things. We have Yang question Ruby once, and nothing after from anyone else. We don’t see Ruby struggle with her decision aside from being uncertain, and she is again not allowed to talk about her feelings outside a one minute talk with Qrow about it. I thought that we got over this ‘don’t show Ruby’s development’ issue in V6. I’m just… disappointed because it feels like all of this build-up, all of this struggle between right and wrong got a slap on the wrist and now it’s okay with NO ONE suffering ANY consequences!

Now again, the volume is not over. Something could go very, very wrong. And if we stay in Atlas at the end, we have Volume 8 where these choices can come back to haunt them. But judging this on it’s own with the rest of the volume, it’s really flimsy. Again, I am glad because there is a crisis going on. This isn't the time to argue amongst themselves. But why not have the show acknowledge that while still showing that these issues aren’t being dropped? V6 did it in just the first chapter. If the remainder of the chapters proves me wrong, I’ll re-asess for the Full Volume Review. But for now, it is the weakest chapter of the volume with only Weiss’ scenes and a few bits I’ll get into in a second saving it. This was far too contrived.

Okay, let’s talk about the other stuff. The Mantle scenes were brutal. But the people’s actions make perfect sense. Their anger and hatred for Ironwood and Atlas ave been built-up all Volume and now that they’ve been practically sentenced to death? Yeah, I’d snap in rage too. It’s gonna be brutal, and not just due to the Grimm. Are the people even going to accept the heroes' help? As far as they know, the Ace-Ops are Ironwood’s personal attack dogs and Penny is still a murderer. They’re not gonna believe any word to the contrary now. So not only do the heroes have to deal with the Grimm, but they have to try and save citizens that don’t want their help and are likely gonna fight back. Needless to say, Mantle is in big, BIG trouble. Upside, maybe we’ll FINALLY get the Robyn and Qrow vs Tyrian fight!

There’s also Oscar. Oh golly, Oscar. The merger is for sure happening. He’s talking, as Ironwood said, like he was there in the past. He’s giving advice that goes beyond his years. He clearly has Oz’s wisdom, but still his own viewpoint. Like he said, Oz would have likely kept the secret but Oscar goes the opposite route. It shows that he’s getting the memories and experience, but he’s still him. Will it stay that way? IDK. But it’s good to see more of the signs being there. Oh and the Rose Garden tease... I don’t care. Moving on.

We now come to the ending. Not gonna lie, they got me. I was NOT expecting Cinder and Neo until maybe the tailend of the volume. Like… right before the credits or even the stinger tailend. This… is bad. Oh don’t get me wrong, I’m glad to see them. Unlike many others, I love CInder as a villain. I hate her as a human being, but she’s a good villain. Neo… I’m indifferent over, but she’s getting to show more of her stuff now and I’m always open to that. If I really had to guess… Cinder is likely gonna attack the Academy. Why? To get at Oscar. She doesn't know where the Maiden Powers are, so she might as well get the Relic that she failed to get last time. IDK if Neo will follow or go at Ruby, but either way things just got a lot more complicated. Pray for our heroes guys, they’re in for a world of trouble…

Chapter Ten Predictions

Honestly? I have zero idea. I assume that we’re gonna get some Grimm fights… and if I‘m right citizen fights. Also kinda scared that if he’s able, this will be the point where Watts hacks into Penny to turn her against the heroes. Hey, he’s already copying CInder’s plan, might as well go the ‘take over the robots’ part. Then we have Oscar at the Academy, and if I’m right about Cinder… well… hopefully, someone like Winter is there also. If she’s not busy getting the Maiden Powers, in which case keep her far away from Cinder please. Either way, it’s gonna be brutal I think.

Episode Stats

Favorite Character: Weiss Schnee and Oscar Pine Favorite Scene: Weiss exposing/arresting Jaques Least Favorite Scene: All scenes involving the secrets because again, way too easy and contrived. Favorite Voice Actor: Aaron Dismuke (Oscar Pine) Favorite Animation: Grimm vs Airplane Rating: 7/10

Final Thoughts

I complained quite a bit here… well okay, a lot. But at the end of the day, what matters is if in spite of the flaws, I am still able to enjoy the final product. And when I look back… I did so. Are the contrivances distracting? Sure. But at least I can see what they’re doing and can follow along. Things are still moving forward, and I remained excited about the next episode. Scenes like Weiss arresting Jaques, CInder and Neo’s return, and the Mantle scenes were very well done and left an impact on me as a viewer. So yeah, I’m not 100% happy with the chapter. But I was still able to enjoy myself and it addressed what it needed to. So I’ll call this chapter okay. Not the best, not the worse, just okay. 

[douxreviews]

American Gods - ‘Head Full of Snow’ Review

"You believe in nothing, so you have nothing."

American Gods goes on a bank heist, in an episode that neatly balances touching sidebar stories with Shadow finally getting some empowerment, both figuratively and literally. Maybe.

The more you dig into an episode of American Gods, the more impressive it becomes just how densely layered the whole thing is. How exactly would one quickly describe this episode? Is it 'The One Where Mr. Wednesday and Shadow Rob a Bank?' Is it 'The One That Separately Introduces Salim and Anubis?' Or maybe 'The One Where Shadow (Possibly) Gets Superpowers'? The answer of course is, 'yes'. It's all of those, deftly interwoven with a number of thoughtful pauses where we contemplate the cultural meaning of Jesus(es), get a glimpse of the afterlife, and discover that Mad Sweeney should keep a better eye on his things.

That's a lot going on, and yet somehow the episode doesn't feel overcrowded, which is as neat a trick as Mr. Wednesday has ever pulled.

So, let's pull it a part a little bit and see how the pieces work. To begin with, we start where we ended last week, with Shadow having lost his head, literally, in a checkers match. Since the beginning of the series Shadow has been a victim of the various forces around him that are influencing his life, and has only been able to roll with the punches as they come at him. But that all changes in the opening sequences here through his dream encounter on the roof with Zorya Polunochnaya, the Midnight Star. Neil Gaiman has always written dream dialogue well, no pun intended, and most of the conversation they have here is lifted directly from the book to great effect. One of the most necessary skills for anyone adapting a written text into visual media is knowing what they need to change to make it work and what they should leave unchanged. Fuller, Green and company made the right call in this case.

The midnight star, a virgin as she herself points out, is about rebirth and renewal, and in that spirit she absolutely gives Shadow the fresh re-start he needs. After this he's able to outwit Czernobog by playing on his vanity and his fear of growing weak into playing a second game of checkers and beats him. Czernobog still gets to bash in his brain with his hammer, but not until after Czernobog comes along with them on Mr. Wednesday's journey. So, there's that hanging over our heads until later on in the story, then.

This metaphorical empowerment then gets a little more literal when Mr. Wednesday repeatedly urges Shadow to make it snow by thinking about snow, and then it snows. Metaphorically, structurally, and possibly literally, Shadow is learning how to affect the world around him, and there's something more than a little insidious about how Wednesday seems to be manipulating things around them to make it happen. It was nice though that both the show and Wednesday chose to leave it an open question as to whether Shadow had really made the snow or whether is was a coincidence. It's about your personal choice as to what you believe, both of them seem to be saying, and as Wednesday explicitly points out, 'First you don't believe and then you do believe, and the world changes because you do.' It's admittedly a little precious as ruminations on belief go, but the show is really drilling down into the way belief affects the shape of the world, so it works in this case. Let's just all agree not to push things by cross stitching it on a pillow.

As for the bank robbery itself, well, robbery is probably a bit of an overstatement. Although I'm sure that would technically by the charge were they arrested for it. Realistically, it's more a case of conning people out of their overnight deposits when they come to put them in the ATM. The sequence works for what it's setting out to do for a couple of reasons. First, it demonstrates that Mr. Wednesday really is a devious and manipulative con artist who's good at playing people. Second, and more surprisingly, it shows us just how smoothly and easily Shadow can roll with a situation and con people himself. What it doesn't do however is show us a way of feasibly robbing a bank, as the plan we see wouldn't have worked, even at the time of the book being published, for three major reasons. 1: Night deposits in bags like that don't go in ATMs, they go in night deposit drop slots. Or they did at the time, I confess to having been out of retail for a long time, but I think that's still the same situation. 2: Even when closed, banks have security guards, particularly a bank in Chicago on a busy street like that. At the very least they would have video monitoring that would have investigated the guy sitting in front of their ATM. 3: Most importantly, in that situation the police would call the bank, not the number on a business card they were handed by the man they were suspicious of. I'm just saying; good scene for the purposes of plot and drama, bad scene if you're trying to teach yourself how to rob banks.

We hadn't seen Mad Sweeney since the first episode, and it turns out the reason why is that he's been passed out in a public toilet all this time. We've all been there. What's more interesting is that we gradually learn that his luck appears to have left him with the gold coin he gave Shadow back in that episode. His escalating bad luck while he works that out is pretty amusing, but it's hard not to feel a little bad for guest star Scott Thompson, who takes a pipe first through his windshield and then his face solely for having tried to help out someone staggering down the road. And for a guy with that much bad luck, Sweeney certainly puts on some miles here. He starts at the Crocodile bar somewhere in Missouri-ish, gets to Chicago to find Shadow, and then has to get all the way back to Indiana. That's a lot of travel for a guy who seems to be doing most of it on foot. Did he leave behind a trail of Scott Thompson's, all ghoulishly killed in one manner of bad luck traffic accident or another?

Then we have the Somewhere in America sequences, both of which are beautiful in their own way. Mrs. Fadil, dying alone only to have Anubis stop by and kindly taste her dinner before escorting her to a gorgeously filmed afterlife was just lovely. But the longer sequence of Salim, the lonely salesman and an equally lonely Jinn who unexpectedly find a loving connection to one another was one of the most profoundly moving love stories I've ever seen in film or television. Also, wow that was a lot of graphic sex. I appreciated that the way it was filmed was neither exploitative nor apologetic about it being a same sex couple. The beauty of the interactions between Sadim and the Jinn, two beings so lonely that they've given up on even the concept of finding a connection or love, can be summed up in one exchange:

Sadim: "I wish you could see what I see." Jinn: "I do not grant wishes." Sadim: "But you do."

Just beautiful.

Quotes:

Anubis: "Your Assaf will marry in a year and name his daughter for you." Mrs. Fadil: "A Bullshit middle name?" Anubis: "A bullshit middle name."

Zorya Polunochnaya: "Kissing is disgusting, but it a nice way. Like Blue Cheese, or Brandy."

Czernobog: "All right, I’ll go with Wotan to his Wisconsin. Then I’m gonna kill you. Is good?" Shadow: "Is good."

Shadow: "Storm died." Wednesday: "No it hasn’t. We’re gonna rob a bank. Want some coffee?"

Jinn: "You try and sell shit?" Salesman: "I sell Shit yes." Jinn: "And they will not buy it?" Salesman: "No." Jinn: "Strange. Cause when you look in the stores here, that’s all they sell."

Jinn: "They know nothing about my people here. They think all we do is grant wishes. If I could grant a wish, do you think I’d be driving a cab?"

Wednesday: "Come on, learn. It’ll be fun."

Bits and Pieces:

-- If you are reading this later on, or are not from the Midwest, we just spent a week at thirty below zero. Before the windchill. This was not a great week to think 'snow'.

-- I'm not very clear whether Mrs. Fadil's skinless cat was actually Bast, or if Bast is just part of all cats and so that's why the cat got to go with to the afterlife's foyer.

-- Lots of climbing up balconies this week.

-- Zorya Polunochnaya is entirely a creation of Neil Gaiman's. I'm fairly certain she's the only instance of that in the entire book, but I might be wrong. Feel free to correct me in the comments if so, it's the only way I'll learn.

-- When Zorya P. referred to the constellation as 'Odin's Wain', I misheard it as 'Odin's Wang.' That's a very different constellation.

-- I could watch Ian McShane seduce Cloris Leachman all day. Now there's a sentence I didn't expect to be typing today.

-- I have a great anecdote about Scott Thompson, but it's not relevant to the show, so I'll throw it in the comments if anyone's interested.

-- Despite the fact that Mr. Wednesday uses them interchangeably, hot chocolate and hot cocoa are categorically not the exact same thing. This is important.

-- What was the deal with the wolf they almost hit?

-- So apparently the inference is that Mad Sweeney's lucky coin brought Laura back to life, and that's how she ended up in Shadow's motel room at the end. The bigger question to me is how did she get out of her grave without disturbing the ground? And is that the most poorly monitored cemetery in the world, or what?

-- No sign this week of Media, Technical Boy, or Bilquis. Also, three episodes in and still no sign of Crispin Glover's Mr. World

-- This week's amusing behind the scenes story; Both the actor who plays Salim and the actor who plays the Jinn are heterosexual.  As, apparently, was all of the film crew in the unit that recorded their love scene.  This, the legend goes, led to Bryan Fuller receiving the rushes for their love scene and having to tell everyone involved, 'Yeah... That's not how that works...'  After which they had to stage a remount.  That last part was not intended to be a joke, but I can't bring myself to erase it.  Let's all just be adults and move on.

A solid episode with a lot of good stuff in it, but it still suffers a bit from feeling like it's all setup for more important stuff later on.

Three out of four ATM deposits

Mikey Heinrich is, among other things, a freelance writer, volunteer firefighter, and roughly 78% water.

[jays1n]

here's the original thing i wrote, i forgot i still had it and found it after i already rewrote stuff but it's still good: 

gtav campaign au where steven and cib go way back, back up in canada and had a little crew together robbing tiny banks out in small towns. some shit goes down, and one of their original members (honestly maybe like gizzygazza, only one i remember from their combined pasts) dies horribly but their never tell cib like they didn't tell trevor. fast forward in time (i'll say maybe 5 years rather than ten), cib's living out in the grand senora for one reason or another and steven's actually like. 1%er, or 1%-adjacent and reminiscing. then his car's stolen by some asshole (read: james) that brings him back into the old life when he remembers the fun (and the money) of doing jobs like that. and then cib comes back and it goes about as well as you'd think

and i love the idea of a trevor-like cib, unstable as hell because all of his impulse control got buried 6 feet deep 5 years ago or left to live in the city, but now back with steven and james it's his chance to make stuff happen again that isn't just mutilating dudes out in the desert or making drugs in an old building. steven, knowing the truth of what happened 5 years ago (they never told cib gizzy died, said he got locked up so cib's been obsessed with breaking in ever since. getting back with steven is his chance to break his friend out, get it back to how things used to be!) is extremely afraid. cib is... he's dangerous at best, unthinkable at worst, and so there's a lot of light stepping around the subject

also, devin is lamar and fuckin, elliot as their FIB contact

-

talked about this before i left/deleted them, but i'd really like a GTA V story au; i dunno how many people on here have played it or care about gtav's plot but i do so 

like before, steven as michael; the tired and now rich los santos businessman in witness protection because of the shit that went down years ago. cib as trevor; the dangerous guy from steven's past currently living out in the grand senora desert making money on drug trade and murder (but doing so in a fun, happy way. it's all good. for him, i mean). then, james as franklin; kid doing odd jobs with his buddy (devin as lamar) gets roped into the life by steven after he tried to repo his car and it ended badly. they become 'friends' and work together, though extremely begrudgingly and only for the money.

it's.. been a while since i've fully played the campaign (played it mainly 2015-2016, pc's too shit to play for more than 10 mins now so rip) but i remember most of the stuff near the end as i did it more recently

steven and cib used to run jobs together in their early 20s, maybe really late teens. up in ludendorf north yankton, a cold as shit border town half in canada half in the states, they steal and kill and run drugs, yknow, like all young adults do. their final job as that crew ends up being at an old bank on the farside of ludendorf. shit went wrong on the way out, someone snitched and the cops were already their; gizzy (brad) and steven both got shot by a sniper, cib getting run out of the area by the cops closing in. cib thought steven died and gizzy got arrested (the only body that got buried was steven's, so it was a natural assumption).

what really happened though, was the FIB (elliot as davey) take a chance and save steven. steven got a chance to live out in los santos under witness protection, while elliot gets the glory of having taken down their crew and has steven under him to do any jobs elliot needs done. gizzy died and was the body lowered in steven's grave, but cib doesn't know that

five years go by. now i'll probably divert canon just a bit; idk if i want steven to have a family, but i like to imagine maybe living with parker (or, hey, if you wanna throw ships in then steven/parker as the unhappy married couple only staying together because they've been through it all together. he moved with steven to los santos). they fight a lot but it somehow works. maybe andrew's there too, idk

i dunno. just really into the idea of it, especially the confrontation scene near the end of the game where they go back up to north yankton. cib's angry because he's finally realized who is really in the grave, flies back up there (followed by steven) and digs the body back up. when the body's brought up and cib gets confirmation its who he thought it was, there's a standoff and neither really want to shoot (cib does and will, but) then they get interrupted by a gang (idk, mayb funhaus or smthn. idk who to compare the chengs to) who kidnap steven after cib runs away (cib and them have beef, and he told them that steven was his boyfriend so they capture him as a hostage. threaten to kill steven but cibs like oh no.... aw man thatd suck....... lmao jk bye and hangs up on the gang). james won't stand for it though, gets pissed and kicks cib's ass into gear and they save him from i think getting thrown into a meat grinder? something weird like that

ALSO. farid as that one FIB douchebag working with elliot who later gives james the ultimatum that someone will die and he has a choice to make. steven, cib, or james himself will die and he has to do it. the best end (the 'kill yourself' that ends up just being 'fuck everyone else we're all besties' end) is great because they all work together and become kinda a family again, locking the FIB dude up and throwing him over a cliff in a messed up car. the other endings, though, are sad as fuck? 

you've got either james going to kill steven (who, as he pulls up to the spot, gets really good news (and idk how id translate that into this au because ig michael gets a call that his daughter just got into a nice college after her struggling so much) and is so happy to see james because he thinks of him like a brother (or u could be shippy either way)). steven and james have an intense chase scene and james doesn't fully wanna do this. steven slips while they're at the top of a really tall water tower-type of thing, james grabs his arm and tries to pull him up but one of them lets go and steven drops to the concrete and it's... not pretty

or, there's steven going 'no.. no you're right cib's too dangerous to live in this world he's a liability' and being sad but thinking it's the right thing after james convinces him it is. they team up to go take him down and, understandably cib isn't having it. leads to a long car chase, ends in cib crashing into a gas tank. he doesn't die in the crash but steven shoots a bullet and ignites the gas and there's a long, loud death scene and steven and james go their separate ways. but that happy ending tho, hell yeah

additionally i want jeremy to be lester because hes fuckin Weird and maybe autumn works with him, split the role of lester with autumn as the tech side and jeremy as the weird dude with jobs and skills side

[falconedreams]

How I Started The Zombie Apocalypse

Trigger warnings: Death, Zombies, Desecration of Corpses.

So in this dream, one of my law friends, let’s call him W, he died. I think it was a car crash or something, but it left his body miraculously intact, which is important for what dream-me was about to do. Which was to drop out of school, dig up his body, drag it to an abandoned shack which I converted into my wildly illegal unregistered secret laboratory, and spend my days attempting to concoct The Potion Of Revival. Why I was doing that, instead of just crying like a regular person, I’m not sure. I think it was something to do with the fact that we’d drifted apart for a while already and I didn’t feel like I was “allowed” to be as affected as I actually was, so I couldn’t talk to anyone about it. This is why a healthy grieving process is important, because otherwise you’ll end up like me and cause a worldwide catastrophe.

None of my attempts worked, at least, not on him. But because I was throwing all my failed concoctions out the window, which was next to the graveyard, the potions soaked into the soil and combined with....something...to give disastrous results. And this is why proper laboratories have complex and highly secure hazardous waste disposal systems. So one morning, as I was setting up my workbench and chemicals as usual, I heard a news bulletin on the radio about zombies suddenly attacking cars on a highway, TellTales’s “Walking Dead” style. 

Shortly after that all the residents of the graveyard in which my “lab” was situated rose up and overran the place, forcing me to leave my experiments behind and escape. I lived on the run for a few days before getting arrested and made to stand trial for “crimes against humanity” and “grave robbing”. Apparently, as the zombie situation had been escalating, people had been doing some research and traced the whole thing back to me. I was found oh-so-unambiguously-guilty and sentenced to execution, but then the zombies overran the courthouse and I escaped - again. By that point the situation was really, really bad - I’m talking like, nearing the end of Season 1 of Walking Dead, where Lee is herding Clem through the zombie horde, mid-endgame point for Plague Inc, all major cities have shut off their airports and seaports, there is no established safezone, everyone’s panicking etc etc. But somehow I managed to snag a little boat (this seems to be a recurring thing in my dreams, my subconscious seems to think I’m cut out for a life at sea, and I tend to agree) and spent the next few months out at sea, eating the canned rations left in the boat by the original owner, and when that ran out, fishing. 

Eventually I washed up on the shores of Siberia. By then, it was like Walking Dead Season 3 (videogame), where everywhere is mostly overrun by zombies, but there are a few established safe camps, and shit has settled into a sort of routine. Well, there was one camp left, and conveniently happened to be in Siberia, where I washed up. It also conveniently happened to be a state of the art lab, in which the remaining survivors were working on The Cure. I begged them to let me help, since, well, I’m the creator, I’d be more familiar with the formulas I used; but they knew who I was and refused to have anything to do with me (unsurprisingly), even though I’d already given them my assurance that if The Cure succeeded and the zombies were no longer a threat I would face their judgment unhesitatingly and without complaint. I guess my word doesn’t mean much. Ouch. 

They were about to shoot me for a traitor to humanity, and one guy was actually leading me out to the backyard with a rifle at my back, when their electric fence failed and a horde of zombies breached their security, and overwhelmed the last of humanity’s surviving forces. By that point I was so overwhelmed with guilt and despair that I didn’t bother trying to run, just sat there while the zombies tore me to shreds. 

I guess the one silver lining was that at least the experiments never worked on W, and zombie bites can’t turn already-dead people, so at least he got to rest in peace. 

[hewhoplayswithfire]

So here’s what I understand about JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure after watching part 1

Short version: as muscles go down, the fashion sense gets more and more weird

Long version:

Some jackass named Dario Brando tried to grave rob some rich guy named George Joestar but apparently surviving a wagon crash off a fucking cliff is another tuesday for him. George mistakes Dario as a man who tried to save his life and says that he owes a life debt to him. Unfortunately, Mrs. Joestar dies

Fast forward several years and it turns out Dario and a little crotch spawn named Dio, who’s mom is dead due to anime tradition. Dario’s not doing so well, probably due to the fact that Dio has been poisoning him, and he tells his son to go visit the Joestar Estate and make it big. Dario bites the dust and Dio goes on to meet his new family that he totally will not try to kill later on because he’s a prick

George and his son, Jonathan, welcome Dio to their home and treat them as their own. Dio goes on to piss off Jonathan at every opportunity to make him snap and look bad before his dad, making Dio’s chances of succeeding him higher than Jonathan’s

Well as luck would have it, Dio managed to piss off Jonathan and all he had to do was force a kiss on the girl that Jonathan had a crush on. Dio then proceeds to get his shit kicked in mercilessly until George steps in a stops the fight. There’s also something about a stone mask that responds to blood touching it

Fast forward some more years and Dio is less of a dick in public, still as big as a dick in private though, and he has a plan involving that stone mask as a weapon. He firsts tests it on some drunk guys and finds out that the mask doesn’t kill, it turns its victims into vampires that have a rather admittedly awesome way of drinking blood (through their fingers). Well after nearly dying from that, Dio has other plans that just happen to coincide with Jonathan finding proof that Dio has been poisoning his dad too. The police show up to arrest Dio after good ol’ Jonathan confronts him about it. Then Dio shanks George and wipes the blood on the mask before being shot multiple times. Dio comes back as a vampire and starts killing people until they run away and Jonathan goes and reminds him that he kicked his shit in when they were younger by stabbing him as the mansion burns down around them.

Then there’s some stuff about magical sun energy, hunting Dio because the fucker won’t die, Jonathan gets a sword, some Italian guy dies, more people show up, one of them dies because Dio can shoot fucking liquid from his eyes like a goddamned water jet, and then Jonathan fucks up Dio so badly that he has to die this time. Except Dio makes the logical choice and chops off his own head before solar energy reaches it.

Jonathan gets married, it’s to the girl he had a crush on when he was younger, and they go on a cruise where professional dick Dio makes a cameo before zombies show up and ruin the honeymoon. Dio plans to take Jonathan’s body since he fucked up the last one and he wants to be a drama queen by taking his rival’s body. Jonathan fucks over Dio one last time by making the ship explode and his wife escapes with a baby who had just lost her mother and she herself has a bun in the oven, ensuring that the Joestar family lives on... and there being a sequel

[weirddemiwood]

(Shadow)hunter - Part 5

Mobile Masterlist, Masterlist

Tears formed in my eyes and I dropped my Machete. The boy turned around to face us and his eyes grew wide.

"Raphael"

"I thought you were dead" I told him with wide eyes. "I thought you were dead" he said with disbelief.

"You should know I'm not that easy to kill" I said and I walked over to him. Ignoring the confused Shadow-hunters. He chuckled slightly and then hugged me tight.

"Raph... I....need... air" I told him laughing and he let me go, then his smile fell and he looked confused "Why are you here?" Then he looked behind me "And why are you with them?"

I signed "After we got attacked I met two boys, Sam and Dean. Their Hunters and you won't like it. They are the Winchesters" Raphael flinched at the name of the famous Hunters bit said nothing so I continued.

"When I met them they weren't so famous yet, they were looking for their dad. But he died to save Dean. Well it's actually a really long story. The Thing is we accidentally started the Apocalypse and freed Lucifer, than he killed the Archangel Gabriel who I found out is my farther but then he took control of Sam and Sam jumped into hell with his half Brother Adam, where they still are."

Raphael looked at me with wide eyes "Oh and I'm here because a friend of them" I pointed with my thumb behind me where the Shadowhunters where "got turned into a rat and kidnapped by some vamps" I added.

Awkward silence.

"Well, come with me" Raphael said. I went and picked up my Machete that I had dropped and followed him. The Shadowhunters stared. "Come on" I said and they followed.

There was a human Simon hanging from the sealing and Clary freaked. With the help of Jace and Isabelle she got him down. "No, they don't want me, they want some cup thing" Simon said with a hoarse voice.

They ignored that and dragged him with them. Raphael lead us to an exit. "If Camille finds out I helped you, I'm screwed" Raphael said. "If she does, call me and I'll kill her" I told him, only half joking. He chuckled.

Before we left the building Raphael screamed "Jace Wayland, remember who your friends are!"

~Back at the Institute~ Phoebe is currently still at her car to put away some weapons and get her head sorted.

Third persons point of view

"What do you think we should do with her" Alec asked in the round. "Well, she helped with Simon" Clary said. "First, I didn't ask you, and second, she could have only helped to gain our trust. She clearly knew that Vampire."

"Then we should find out more over her past" Jace said and went to the big monitors. "She said her 'brothers' where the Winchesters, let's see who they are."

Jace tipped 'Winchester' and found a FBI file over the Winchester siblings.

Dean Winchester •Use of fake credit cards •Suspicious in case of missing person •Suspicious of murder •Use of fake ID •Escaped when transported to Saint Louis to get killed •Robbing a Museum with Brother and Sister, later escapes out of Prison •Over fifty grave robbings •Gets arrested with Brother and Sister, dies in Helicopter explosion •Confirmed living •Breaks into Motel

Samuel Winchester •Accomplice in Murder •Helps suspicious (Brother) to escape •Use of Fake ID •Robbing a Museum with Brother and Sister, later escapes prison •Over forty grave robbings •Gets arrested with Brother and Sister, dies in Helicopter explosion •Confirmed living •Breaks into Motel •Assault of Deputy

Phoebe Winchester •Suspicious of Murder •Accomplice in Murder •Robbing of civilians •Use of fake ID •Use of fake credit cards •Helps suspicious (Brother) to escape •Robbes a Museum with Brothers, later escapes prison •Over sixty grave robbings •Gets arrested with Brothers, dies in Helicopter explosion •Confirmed living •Breaks into Motel •Beating of two citizens in New York

"Well damn it" They heard Phoebe say. They turned towards her. "So, you and your Brothers are criminals?" Simon asked.

"No, we just save People's asses, without them knowing. See, the first thing in my record: Suspicious of Murder, I killed a Werewolf who had left a trail of death bodies. Then Accomplish of Murder, I killed a bad ass Ghost who had killed people by letting them starting fight with others. Robbing of civilians, well I had to get something to eat after my family got killed. Use of fake ID, we were trying to solve deaths. Use of fake credit cards, we don't get paid for our job and that's better than stealing. Helps Suspicious (Brother) to Escape, they wanted to kill him because we where invastigating a murder, turns out that a ghost killed those people. Robbes a Museum with Brothers, that was actually funny. We got ourselves captured on purpose. The prison we got brought to was haunted. As to later escapes prison, we got help from inside because an old friend of their Dad wardens there. Grave robbings are in every Hunters Records. Gets arrested with Brothers, dies in Helicopter Explosion, puh-lease. As if the Winchesters get killed in a Helicopter explosion, a FBI agent told his Boss that. He owed us that after we helped him Kill and exorcise a whole Police station of Demons. Later Lilith came and blew the station up, we couldn't help. After the Apocalypse started we where confirmed living and the Motel thing wasn't really big, the guy even let us go. Oh and the Beating of two citizens in New York where your so called demons that attacked me. I have no idea how they found out about that."

Now they just stared in disbelief. Great.

[factoryrestart]

roygaybiv:

i knew a guy who got arrested for grave robbing and was forced to live with his father un till he died so i don't know if you want to get caught like that.

It’s a damn good job I ain’t gotta worry about that, then. 

[marymosley]

Mukesh and Anrs. Vs NCT Delhi (Nirbhaya Case)(2017) 6 SCC 1- Case Comment

Court Name-SUPREME COURT OF INDIA

Date of Judgment– 5 MAY 2017

Citation– 

Bench Name- DIPAK MISHRA, R.BANUMATHI AND ASHOK BHUSHAN,JJ.

 SUMMARY OF FACTS –

A twenty-three-year-old woman, a para-medical student, who had gone with her companion to watch a film at PVR Select City Walk Mall, Saket, on a breaking cold night got into a means of transport at Munirka transport stand to be dropped at a specific spot; One of accused persuaded them to get on a vacant transport with colored/tinted windows. Where they were attacked by six guys, one of whom was a minor, aged 17. The companion, when he attempted to secure Nirbhaya (“Nirbhaya” is the pseudonym used for the rape victim)., was pummeled and beaten by the culprits. Nirbhaya was explicitly damaged and sexually violated, her body was mutilated, and private parts were ruptured to give vent to their degenerate sexual appetite. Her intestinal tracts were pulled out, and private parts were ruined and mutilated and she became a prey to the lust of gang of six and brutal assault. The companion of the young lady was able to survive regardless of being tossed outside the transport alongside the young lady and the endeavor of the charged appellants to run over them got vain as Nirbhaya and her companion, by their slight movement, could escape from being squashed under the transport, and the appellants left them believing that they were not anymore alive. Lying exposed, as the garments were expelled from their bodies, they yelled for help and as favorable luck would have it, the late evening patrolling vehicle, a motorcycle, showed up and the said man, Raj Kumar, gave the shirt to her companion and reached the control room from which a Bolero watch van came and they brought a bed sheet and torn it in two sections and gave a piece to each so that they could cover themselves and feel civil. The PCR van took the victims to the Safdarjung Hospital where treatment initiated. Later, Nirbhaya died of various organ failure, internalbleeding, and cardiac arrest on the 29th December, at a hospital in Singapore where she had been taken to with the expectation that her life could be saved. There was a great deal of social shock because of the gruesome occurrence. There was a great deal of candlelight march, solidarity movements, and protests. The shock was not confined to India, the entire world had formed an opinion about India.

ISSUES RAISED- 

Whether rape as defined under section 375 of the IPC covers the offence entirely?

Whether death penalty can be given to the convicts as punishment for such heinous crime?

Whether a juvenile committing the offence should get punishment equivalent to the adult?

Whether public outrage can influence the judgement in a case?

Whether the sexual offences against women is tried appositely in India?

 CONTENTIONS FROM BOTH THE SIDES

The contention of the defense counsel was that the DNA report was deficient and contended that DNA test can’t be treated as precise as the victim had experienced blood transfusion during the treatment and when there was a transfusion of blood, DNA profiling was probably going to vary. The contentions of the defense counsel that the bite marks were stage-managed.The contention of Defense counsel was that the victim could not have given any dying declaration because of her health condition. The defense counsel and amicus curiae were reproachful of the withering announcements, saying they ought not to be considered as they do not rouse certainty due to irregularities and enhancements in them. They also argued that the third dying declaration made through signals needs believability and it ought to have been video-charted, needs substance. Convicts Pawan Kumar Gupta and Vinay Sharma had asserted that on the night of December 16, 2012, they were in the DDA District Park in Hauz Khas territory of South Delhi viewing a melodic occasion sorted out regarding Christmas festivity and they were not in the transport and had not committed any offence with the lady or her companion. Third convict Akshay Kumar Singh alias Thakur had guaranteed that he was not in Delhi the evening of the episode and left for his town in a train a day prior on the ticket of his sibling Abhay, alongside his sister-in-law and nephew. The defense witnesses brought by him were his family members including his significant other and, as saw by the preliminary court and high court, they attempted to wriggle him out of the chaotic circumstance, similar to the regular impulse of the family members. The seat saw that the DNA profile created from the bloodstains acquired from the iron poles was predictable with the DNA of the person in question. The defense counsel had asserted that the police had created the tale about utilization of iron poles, as neither the casualty nor her companion, who was likewise ambushed inside the transport, had referenced about it in their first proclamations and were not mentioned in the  FIR. The contentions of the defense counsel that utilization of iron poles was not referenced in the FIR, the convicts claimed that their names were not at first referenced in the FIR.They argued that Batla house blamed got life; was let off because of governmental issues, why death for this assault accused at this point? The counsel asked that Why Parliamentarians charged in dacoity, assault and murder are not attempted by fast track courts?  they mentioned that Poor get imprisoned as they cannot employ great legal advisors. in their defense, they argued that Convict Vinay Sharma is a decent student and has applied for the Air Force and did not commit the crime.Akshay is liable for his evil guardians, spouse, and youngster. He ought to be indicated benevolence. Invoking Mahatma Gandhi’s name, legal advisor A P Singh says, “God gives life and only he can take it and not man-made courts” Life imprisonment is the standard, and death punishment is a special case.  Death is irreversible; the purpose of justice is reconciliation and reform. All the arguments of the defense counsel were rejected by the supreme court and the prosecution has made it very clear that it needs death punishment for all the four convicts. The prosecution has contended that there is no motivation to show the convict’s benevolence. The prosecutor says they have killed a vulnerable young lady when even she asked for mercy. The prosecutor says there ought to be ‘no benevolence for cruel convicts’. The crime committed by them was against the society.

JUDGMENT OF THE CASE

The court held that there should be consideration of both mitigating and aggravating factor and there should be a balance between the two. In this case there were mitigating factors like the dependent and ailing parents, the age of the convicts, behavior in jail, no criminal antecedents, post-crime remorse but the aggravating factors outweighed them. The court held that the conspiracy involving gang rape and murder inside moving bus was brutal, barbaric, and diabolic and the victim’s companion was assaulted and brutally beaten and robbed. Moreover, they tried to run the bus over her after throwing them out of the bus naked on a wintery night.  The evidence clearly displayed that the victim’s internal organs were perforated and slayed open due to repeated insertion of iron rods and hands and caused grave injuries to the victim who later succumbed to her injuries. The convicts had also tried to destroy evidence by washing the bus and burning the clothes of the deceased after that they distributed the loot among themselves which confirms death sentence. A committee was formed and criminal law (amendment) act, 2013 was enacted to tackle sexual offences effectively. The court mentions that the mitigating circumstances were not enough to take the case out of the category of rarest of the rare case and hence, affirmed death sentence.

COMMENTS ON THE CASE

After increasing huge amounts of national and worldwide attention, Delhi’s “Nirbhaya” rape case turned into an urgent defining moment and a turning point for India’s women’s activist and the feminist movement. In the time since this case, India’s administration has found a way to propel laws and policies with respect to violence against ladies. Her case started a momentous movement, known as the “Nirbhaya Movement,” which caused to notice the prevalence of sexual viciousness against women in India. Fights, protests, and public pressure, both nationwide and global, pressurized the Indian government to make a move. They made an elevated high-level committee; run by the previous Chief of Justice of India, Justice Verma, called the Verma Committee. Their key suggestions were to enlarge the meaning of “rape” to incorporate non-penetrative sex, make new offenses for acts, for example, acid attacks and sexual harassment, and increment punishments for those sentenced for rape. These proposals were completely brought into the Indian Penal Code (IPC) through the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 2013 likewise called the anti-rape act. The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) came out with an announcement saying that rape reports had risen, while conviction rates had diminished, the National Commission for Women finished up a need to redesign provisions for sexual assault in the IPC. These provisions included reclassifying consent, rape, and molestation. 

There was the inclusion of Section 166A which covers the offense of Disobedience of law by a servant of the public, after the amendment Act 2013, where the punishment would be thorough detainment for a half year to 2 years and liable to fine. 

Inclusion of Section 326A and B which spread the issue of Acid attack. The amendment Act has made it a Specific Offense under the Act, punishable with 10 years Imprisonment extendable to life detainment or fine or both. Inclusion of Section 354A, that deals with Sexual harassment and punishment for the same. Inclusion of Section 354B, that deals with the offense of compelling a lady to take off her garments. Inclusion of Section 354C, which covers the offense of Voyeurism- which is viewing a lady when she is occupied with some private demonstration including sexual acts or when her sexual organs are uncovered. Inclusion of Section 354D, which covers the offense of stalking. The Age of consent has been increased from sixteen years to eighteen years. 

The meaning of rape has been broadened after the Nirbhaya Case. The Amendment Act has included more activities under the domain of what comprises rape, for example, unconsented penetration of mouth, urethra, vagina, anus with the penis or different items by anybody and unconsented application of mouth to vagina, urethra, and anus. Inclusion of Section 376 (2) (c), which covers the offense of Rape by personnel of the armed force. Inclusion of Section 376A, which deals with the offence of Rape which can result in death or vegetative state. Insertion of Section 376D, which deals with the offence of gang rape. Repetition of offences is punishable with life detainment or death. Employment of a trafficked person can pull in penal provisions also. It has additionally been explained that penetration signifies “penetration to any extent”, and the absence of physical resistance or such different resistances is unimportant for comprising the offense of rape. 

The Government of Karnataka announced the dispatch of an all day, every day committed helpline (1091) to help ladies in enrolling any grievance against any type of sexual maltreatment. The setting up of fast track courts to dispose of pending cases and provide immediate help to victims. The government of Tamil Nadu likewise declared a 13-point action plan to ensure the wellbeing of ladies in Tamil Nadu. The Jammu and Kashmir government launched plans to amend the state’s laws against sexual offenses as the level of wrongdoing against ladies has been overhauled nowadays. The Himachal Pradesh government chose to set up state and region level committees to check the assaults committed against women in the state. The National Council of Education Research and Training has since created course readings/ textbooks and lesson plans concentrated on “gender sanitization,” which intend to bring issues to light of gender issues among school-going children. After the Nirbhaya movement, gender sanitization turned out to be popular and was carried out through various projects and workshops. Delhi’s taxi drivers and rickshaw drivers are currently required to take a gender sanitization course so as to renew their business license. These two-hour classes focus around showing the drivers how to respect and ensure the security of women travelers.

It is no uncertainty that administration is finding a way to decrease assault/sexual offenses, notwithstanding, no tough safeguard moves are made to stop the event of such offenses. The very underlying foundations of the law should be made more grounded before hopping over onto the branches. remedial activities may dispose of the non-conformities in-laws by deterring the accused from perpetrating such wrongdoings. Anyway, to those hardened lawbreakers or psychopaths who discover no blame in overlooking the laws, taking preventive activities would wipe out the reason for potential wrongdoing itself. It is much the same as we have standards of State Policy and fundamental rights together, we ought to have both the Act and preventive strategies of acting carefully to stop the commission of such wrongdoings. The significant ill-defined situation in the Nirbhaya case is that it does not recommends steps or strategies to be followed by police to forestall the event of the violations against the ladies. The preventive activity remembers cautious activities by police for connecting with the victim on time and sparing her from turning into a substitute in the possession of wild creatures.

  Author: Swati Anand

Legal Intern (June 2020)

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