#danny: why make a jack o lantern when you can BE the jack o lantern

[reanimatedgh0ul]

🎃

danny would possess a pumpkin in order to win a jack o lantern contest

[thenightling]

Why do I love Halloween so much?

Why do I love Halloween so much?

Well, it's similar to why so many people love Christmas. For me, I have always loved all things spooky. The first two books I ever read were Tiggy went to the Hospital and In a Dark, Dark Room by Alvin Schwartz (author of the Scary Stories to Tell in the dark trilogy). As far back as I can remember I associate my happiest memories with things spooky, gothic, and yet wholesome and sweet. All through the 1990s my mother, little brother, and I would watch "Are you Afraid of the Dark?" on Saturday Night Nickelodeon (Snick) and my mother would make "malteds" (actually milkshakes) for us. And after "Are you Afraid of the Dark?" for many years Tales from the Crypt was on HBO (when we had HBO. I was seven-years-old when Tales from the Crypt TV series started and i was eight-years-old when "Are you afraid of the Dark?" started. At age eleven I was obsessed with Tim Burton's Nightmare before Christmas. My little brother loved The Halloween Tree (animated movie) and we'd watch that any time of year. At age fourteen I was very into Anne Rice's The vampire Chronicles. Any time it rained and especially if there was a thunder storm my mother would say it was a perfect time to watch a scary movie so Jeff and I would pick a scary movie to watch while Mom would get excited at the loud claps of thunder. She loved storms. She often told me she once wanted to be a storm chaser. Everything I love and loved seemed touched by Halloween. Even when I got into Neil Gaiman's The Sandman Morpheus is a Goth, king of dreams and Nightmares, with a seeming favortism for his Nightmares. His familiar with a raven created from the ghost of a deceased human. The Sandman features sorcerers, ghosts, werewolves, Nightmares, demons, goblins, and even a Jack-o-lantern headed character. Almost all of my favorite, happy, childhood memories are tied to Halloween. I think of my mother teaching Jeff and I how to use pillow cases to go Trick or Treating, going back to the apartment, pouring out the pillow cases, and going back out to collect more candy. The smell of carving pumpkins. Mom roasting pumpkin seeds (and always getting them a bit too chewy.) Years later I found I preferred pepitas (The small, darker pumpkin seeds that get nice and crispy when roasted). Pepitas taste excellent as a topping for Panara's Autumn Squash Soup. The last Halloween with my mother (only days before she passed) we carved pumpkins together and put them out on the balcony. That night I went out for a walk in the black cloak with the attached scarf that my mother had given me for Easter. I wasn't wearing it because it was Halloween (after all, she gave it to me back on Easter). I was wearing it because it was warm and comfortable. I went for a walk around the neighborhood watching the kids trick or treat and admiring the decorations and Halloween party music playing everywhere (including my favorite, Danny Elfman). And when I came back to the apartment, my mother was sitting there waiting for me. She complimented how I looked in the cloak and we just hung out together. I miss that. And since I always loved Halloween my Birthday became like a second Halloween where many gifts were often Halloween decorations or goodies. Often horror films were released near my birthday (less than two weeks after Halloween). So Child's Play 2, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Interview with The Vampire, and Sleepy Hollow were all Birthday movies for me. I guess, in the end I'm just one of the Autumn people or as an online radio station DJ would play when discretely flirting with me...

Halloween Girl. I'd call myself the Pumpkin Queen but there's already someone on Facebook using that handle so I guess I'm still The Nightling. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ky_FHY8BpYg

[five-rivers]

Jack-o-Lantern

Exhumed was the second winner of my poll, so here's a fairly short, fluffy piece for it!

Warning: mentions of dead bodies and past violence, none actually shown 'on screen.'

.

“Detective Patterson,” said Danny, “why did you leave five messages on my phone on a school day?” After the whole ‘I’ve been sort of dead for a couple years and also I get into massive amounts of trouble all the time through no fault of my own’ revelation, his parents had gotten the whole family cell phones.

Danny still generally preferred talking to people face to face, but he was definitely developing a slight addiction to cell phone charms.

“You didn’t listen to any of them?”

“Why would I do that when I can just call you?”

He heard a loud groan from the other side of the line.

“Oh, is Detective Collins there, too?”

“You heard that?” asked Patterson. “That’s- Okay, Collins. I’m getting there. I know we’re in a hurry. Look, how fast can you get here, Fenton?”

“That depends entirely on where you are and which one of me you want. Also, can Sam and Tucker come? We were going to hang out.”

There was a sort of staticky blaat from the other side, and the skritch skritch cha of a phone being moved, accompanied by unintelligible arguing. “Did you really just ask if you can bring your friends to what might be a crime scene?”

“Is it a crime scene?” asked Danny.

“Not yet,” said Collins.

“So?” prompted Danny. “Can I bring them?”

“You don’t respect us at all anymore, do you?”

“I respect you plenty,” said Danny, “but I like hanging out with my friends, I’m doing this for free, and there aren’t any explosions where you are.”

“You tell him, Danny,” said Sam, giving him a little fist bump, even though she was mostly watching Tucker play bootleg Tetris on his PDA.

“Just because there aren’t explosions doesn’t mean there isn’t anything dangerous,” argued Collins.

“Sure,” said Danny. “But it isn’t like they aren’t in danger all the time anyway. Ghosts attack the school, like, daily.”

“That is a terrible argument.”

“But true,” countered Danny.

“Fine, they can come. Just get here quickly.”

“I would, but you know, you still haven’t told me where you are.”

.

Danny, when touching down in a nearby alleyway, didn’t see anything particularly out of the usual. For Amity Park, that was. Except that no one was out on the streets, and there were several police cars. Still, that could be for anything. Normal things, even.

Except, they had called him.

“You don’t think it’s a dead body, do you?” he asked. “I mean, I don’t really want to see a dead body…”

“If there’s a dead body, I’ll be throwing up on you,” said Tucker, who had, as a matter of fact, been icy calm when faced with Danny’s body the first time around, and had only had a breakdown the next day. “Just, you know, as revenge. Between friends.”

“They did say it wasn’t a crime scene, right?” asked Sam.

“Yeah,” said Danny. He returned to human form. This way, he didn’t have to worry as much about people connecting Sam and Tucker to Phantom… although, that might be a lost cause. He had seen that ‘who is the ghost boy dating’ article a while back.

“So, there probably aren’t any bodies,” she said, reasonably.

“Right,” said Danny. “That makes sense. I think they were this way.”

The street they walked onto was heavily decorated for Halloween. There were skeletons and streamers, blow up monsters, orange and purple lights, spiderwebs, black cat statuettes, blood splatters, houses that almost looked really abandoned, except for the neat lawns… The neighborhood had really gone to town, especially given that this particular town was Amity Park.

Of course, there were also dozens upon dozens of jack-o-lanterns. They were lit, too, which was odd in the daytime, flickering with rainbow colors. Maybe someone was doing a Pride event?

His core chilled slightly, and a thin stream of mist emerged from between his lips. “Oh,” he said, delighted.

“Hi, Danny,” said Patterson, briskly walking over to him from where she and Collins had been observing the street. “We got the call a few hours ago, apparently a bunch of little ghosts have infes- Uh. Gone into all the Halloween decorations here.”

“Were you about to say ‘infested?’”

“Maybe,” said Patterson. “Sorry.”

“Apology accepted, please continue.”

“Anyway, after the whole ghost invasion thing where we got sent to the shadow realm-”

“Nightmare Realm,” corrected Tucker. “The Shadow Realm is completely different.”

“I was making a Yu Gi Oh reference,” said Patterson. “But people are sensitive to this kind of thing.”

“Have they done anything yet?” asked Danny.

“No, but we’ve issued an advisory,” said Collins, finally joining them. “Do you know why they’re here? Or how to get rid of them?”

“There’s not really any reason to get rid of them,” said Danny. “Wisps are mostly harmless. Here, I’ll show you.” He jogged over to the nearest jack-o-lantern and waved the others over.

“Hey, is this the best idea?” asked Tucker. “Aren’t these the guys who accidentally drugged you?”

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” said Danny. “We’ve moved past that.” He knocked on the top of the pumpkin, and several wisps flew out, happily whirling around Danny. “See? They’re just little guys.”

“Great,” said Collins, “why are they here?”

“Uh, because they were invited, basically?” said Danny. “They’re will-o-the-wisps. And these are jack-o-lanterns. They’re, uh, originally, both of those were names for the same thing, and jack-o-lanterns are supposed to ward off evil spirits and represent good spirits, or house good spirits, and stuff, so…” Danny gestured vaguely.

“This is going to be a city wide thing, isn’t it?” asked Collins.

“Probably,” said Danny. “I mean, wisps are basically all over the place. They’re good little guys.”

Collins placed his hands in front of his face like he was praying. “And if the GIW come after them?”

That would be bad. Danny felt himself bristling.

“The GIW are dumb enough that we could convince them they’re just candles, as long as no one told them otherwise,” said Sam.

“Maybe sow the idea a little bit beforehand,” said Tucker. “Put an ad out for rainbow tealights, maybe?”

Collins looked at them, unamused. “And we’re going to be the ones doing most of that ‘convincing,’ aren’t we?”

“You are the adults,” said Sam, shrugging.

Danny felt himself tearing up. “You guys are the best friends,” he said.

“Oh no,” said Tucker, eyes wide. “It’s happening again.”

“What, what’s happening?” asked Patterson.

Sam pulled Danny away from the wisps. “Wisps are great,” she said, “but they can overcharge other ghosts.”

“In other words, they make Danny high,” explained Tucker.

“I’m not high this time,” protested Danny. “I can’t be grateful for good friends?”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” said Danny.

“Right,” said Collins. “Well, we’re going to give you a ride home. Patterson, you get to explain to the Fentons what happened.”

“What, why do I have to tell them that ghost drugs are a thing?”

“Because I had to tell them about the time his arm came off.”

“I still don’t get why you’re so upset about that,” said Danny, “I put it back on, like, a minute later.”

“That is, in fact, part of why we’re upset.”

“I don’t get you guys.”

[aggressivelyclueless]

blessing

in which valerie does not go to the dance with danny

contains: soft rejection

Valerie thought Danny was a blessing.

Sometimes, the thought of him didn't linger too long in her mind, but it was on frigid and stiff Friday nights like these that it floated in, and it seemed to make itself a little more permanent each time.  Maybe the two of them would be snorting with laughter at terrible old movies or splitting a bite at the mall or even just sitting in the grass at the park and watching clouds go by; every time, she felt a little more at home with him, even if home was miles away.

On this particular Friday night, home was with him.  The sun was trying, but the onslaught of night was relentless and dusk saw the two of them on the streets.  They were halfway back to Danny's place when the jacket in the storefront window caught her eye, and she nudged him gently to get his attention.  "What about that one?  For Christmas, maybe.  I could see you in it."

Danny paused a half-step ahead of her on the sidewalk, considering it.  "The blue one?"

"It'd go with your eyes," said Valerie, as if that was justification enough.  She slid her hand into his, dismissing the number of paychecks she'd need to save up for a thing like that.  Seeing him turn one shade pink, and feeling the little squeeze he gave her hand, and the hopeless grin playing at the corners of his mouth - that made it all worth it.  She could feel her own grin coming on too, and she didn't fight it.  "Come on.  We were still going to catch that werewolf movie, right?"

"Yeah.  Dad picked up that kettlecorn you like, and I swear Jazz won't interrupt this time."  He swung his hand a little, feeling the weight of hers follow along.  Hers was warm; he supposed his must have felt like ice.

Valerie kept close to him for the last four blocks until they reached FentonWorks.  The spiderweb in the front window was plugged in, blinking on-and-off in a hokey orange, and places had already been marked on the step for the jack-o-lanterns to come.

On the step, she paused.  Danny opened the door for her but she hesitated, keeping hold of his hand and prompting him to turn back to her.

"Val?"

"Can I ask you something?" said Valerie, trying to figure out why the butterflies in her stomach had taken flight all of a sudden.  She couldn't be nervous - that was stupid.  For all the time that she'd spent with him, and as comfortable as he felt, she shouldn't have been so hesitant.  And yet, she doubted herself before she opened up her mouth again.  Would this make it official?  Is that why you're nervous now?  "It's just that I was thinking - well, you know the Halloween dance at school's coming up, and I guess I was hoping we'd go together.  I could get us tickets."  She wanted to feel better then, wanted to see him smile and say of course, sounds fun.

But he didn't.  He stood motionless in the doorway, his face suddenly unreadable, and the butterflies turned to a hard knot in her gut.

"I can't," he said finally, "I'd love to, trust me, I really would.  But I can't."

She was suddenly acutely aware of how cold his hand felt in hers.  He was usually cold but she could have sworn he'd turned to ice just then.  "Why not?"

Danny's shoulders slumped.  "There's some stuff I have to do.  I promise it's not your fault, it's just - well.  Ghost stuff.  You know how Mom and Dad get, and they think every house in town is going to be haunted that night, and they think I'm supposed to be helping them this year.  Stupid Fenton stuff."

Valerie almost believed him.  She wanted to; she'd met Mister and Missus Fenton enough times to know the seriousness with which they took their work, and she could wholeheartedly believe that Danny didn't want a part in it.

But something was off, maybe the way he froze up, if only for a moment, or maybe the way he spoke, almost as if he was voicing an excuse as it was coming to him.  If he didn't want to go out with her, surely he could just say so?

What wasn't he telling her?  Did he even trust her after all?

But the, just like that, he'd softened up again.  He was looking down at her and now he was smiling, and the stiffness in his fingers was gone.  "Hey, maybe we can do something fun the night after.  I heard there's a new bowling alley open by the park.  We could go and check it out, if you wanted."

"Sure," said Valerie, and she smiled back.  Maybe she was overthinking it.  Maybe, but when it came down to it she trusted her gut more than she trusted Danny, and her gut was telling her not to let on.  She'd bring it up if she got the feeling again, she decided.  She wanted to think she wouldn't.  She wanted to think that Danny was a blessing.

And, for the most part, he was.

[goliath-de-senfina-sango]

Stingy Jack

Ectober 12,021, Human Era, ao3

“Ok, well, putting the whole flower power thing that might be happening on hold, because I really don’t wanna deal with that right now. We’re carving pumpkins right now, right?” Sam raised a brow at Danny and Tucker snorted, shaking his head. “Hey, maybe I’ll stimulate the pumpkins and you’ll have a whole patch in your yard!”

“Fine,” Sam said with a shrug. “But if you damage any of my plants, Danny, I’ll carve you up like a jack o lantern.”

“Yeah yeah, I know.” Danny transformed back into Fenton and sighed. “Here’s hoping that we don’t have to deal with Stingy Jack along with the Fright Knight this year, one of em is bad enough.”

Tucker laughed, putting on his helmet, and they all got onto their skateboards. “Man, where’d you hear that name? Last time you said it, I had to look it up.”

“My folks like to use the weirdest names for things, and if I say ‘I hope we don’t have to fight Jack o’lantern himself’ then we honestly probably will.”

“Oh please, Danny-“

“Don’t you say it, Bad Luck Tuck. If you do, our pumpkins will come to life and you know it.”

“So we stab em with Soul Shredder, no big deal.”

“I don’t think it’s meant for pumpkin carving. Oh hey, think if we save the pumpkin guts we can make some pie?”

“Danny, please don’t call them guts, that’s disgusting.” Sam wrinkled her nose at the image of Undergrowth affected pumpkins getting gored like animals. “I am haunted by unwanted visions because of you, and I shall now plot my revenge.”

“No you won’t, because if you were actually gonna plot revenge you wouldn't tell us.”

“I can tell you because there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”

Tucker narrowed his eyes at Sam, trying to tell if this was a trick or not. He couldn’t tell, so he decided to drop it rather than let her maybe-trick leave him worried. “I’m still gonna beat you in pumpkin carving!”

“Why does it have to be a competition? Just so that you can lose again? This is unhealthy, Tucker.”

“Excuse you, who did Mrs. Manson say had the scariest jack o lantern in 7th grade? Oh, that’s right, me!”

“Well I could win, ya know.” Danny grinned, doing a kickflip before their turn. “I’m the actual artist between us all.” When his friends chuckled, Danny pouted, reducing the hold of gravity on his body to speed up.

“Wait, Danny, you realize that you couldn’t make a scary haunted house on your own while being an actual, literal ghost, right? I’m not sure you’re gonna hit spooky with your jack-o-lantern this year if you forgot any pumpkins in your haunted house last year.”

“Thanks, Tucker, you have such a way with words.”

[haikyunicorn]

halloween with kuroo, iwa, asahi and suga

@mer92​ asked “Hiiii I've just started to follow you! Would it be possible to request HC for Kuroo, Iwa, Asahi and Suga on a Halloween date with their S/O? like what kind of costumes will they wear if they will be wearing matching costumes... Or if they would go to Halloween parties or just stay home? Thank you if you decide to write it down! 😊”

Hi, lovely! Thank you for following and requesting<3 it was very fun writing this! this is less plot-filled than my other hcs, i hope that’s ok with you

kuroo tetsurou

Kuroo likes Halloween

He’s not super hyped up about it, but he loves playing scary pranks on his friends and then using Halloween as an excuse :)

He tells Lev and Inuoka that the boy’s toilet on the 2nd floor is haunted and do they believe him?? Absolutely, yes. 

He doesn’t mind going on spooky dates, either!

In fact, he’ll drag you to watch a horror film or stay up all night exchanging scary stories

He would also probably take you and the team “ghost hunting” around the school after volleyball practice when it’s dark and no one’s around

Nerd boy with his nerd costumes

He doesn’t want to spend too much effort or money in a costume he’s only going to wear once this year, but he doesn’t want a lame costume, either

He’d love to get matching costumes with you!!

But all his suggestions will be either memey or nerdy costumes

The firsts that come to mind are the ‘woman screaming at cat’ (he’ll be the cat) or he’ll get you both matching t-shirts with the elements copper (Cu) and tellurium (Te) printed on them “so when we stand next to each other, everyone can see how CuTe we are”

He is also not opposed to character costumes like Rick and Morty or Hogwarts wizards/witches

Kuroo will go to a party with you and slip away for a while the second you both get there with no explanation and then very unsuspiciously hang around you all night

Later you find out he has signed you both up for the costume contest

The both of you are definitely not the best dressed ((read below: suga and his s/o)) but strut on the stage like it’s a fashion show

Or if you refuse to go up and participate because you were involuntarily signed up, Kuroo will still go up alone, pick up a microphone with a deadpan face and say “this is supposed to be a matching costume but there were some technical difficulties” you brought this on yourself, kuroo

Haunted houses and horror films are definitely his favourite things about Halloween!

I feel like Kuroo isn’t afraid of the ghosts and stuff, but he doesn’t handle being jumpscared well

When he gets shocked while in a haunted house or during a movie, he’ll yelp out a bunch of swears lmao

But he loves the temporary adrenaline rush and 10/10 will do it again

If you tease him and call him a scaredy cat, he’ll pout

And you can expect him trying to sneak up on you and scare you the next day

iwaizumi hajime

Iwa doesn’t care much for Halloween

He gets a little annoyed at all the Halloween-themed products that stores come out with because he thinks it’s just a marketing scheme to sell some overpriced shit (it is)

But if you want to go try out pumpkin desserts or visit a haunted house, he’ll indulge you just because he loves spending time with you no matter what you two end up doing

He’s usually not one to dress up for Halloween

The most he’s done is put on a t-shirt with a superhero logo on it 🙄

Oikawa has tried multiple years to get him in “matching best friend costumes” but Iwa has never once agreed

But if you pout a little a few weeks before Halloween, bribe him with some kisses, catch him in a good mood, he’ll say yes (make sure to say no takebacks)

Deciding on a costume consists of you giving suggestions and Iwa saying yes or no to them

He doesn’t want to do something very costume-y, he prefers to wear an outfit that can pass as a regular outfit but it’s based on a character from a movie or series

E.g. Kim and Ron from Kim Possible, Ash/Misty and Brock from Pokemon (Iwa would be perfect as Brock??? he’s already got the hair down fdkjs), Sandy and Danny from Grease (show off his arms yes)

Iwaizumi will go to a Halloween party because all his friends are going lol

Oikawa will be devastated when he sees Iwa wearing matching costumes with you and this is partly why he agreed to do it with you

He’ll keep you by his side or follow you around for most of the party because “the costume won’t make sense if he’s standing alone” or whatever sir just say you’re too shy to do it alone

If you want to stay home, he’s fine with it too

Whether you want to have a movie marathon, bake something, carve pumpkins, anything really, he’ll do it with you

Lowkey wants to watch scary films so he can “protect you” if you get scared

Like if you’re squeezing his arm during a scary scene he’ll be like “it’s not that scary, you wimp” but also he’s pulling you closer and putting his arm around you and his heart is fluttering-

so in conclusion: iwa is a simp for you

Bonus: one time you came over to his house and his mom showed you a picture of 6-year-old Iwaizumi dressed up as godzilla for Halloween💖

azumane asahi

Halloween isn't his favourite holiday for um.. personal reasons

Once October comes around, Asahi is already being tormented by some of his friends (it’s suga) scaring him

He doesn’t despise everything about Halloween, though - in fact, there are some things he really loves about Halloween

Like going to a pumpkin festival, baking sweet treats together, enjoying a walk in the park with the pretty autumn scenery, or choosing and DIY-ing costumes

Asahi loves the costume planning with you!!

The both of you will take days or even weeks in advance finding the perfect costume and figuring out how to make them

He definitely prefers the cute costumes over gory costumes

Some of the costume ideas are Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf, Cheshire Cat/Alice and the Mad Hatter/White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland, or characters from the Wizard of Oz

i don’t know why all of these are from children’s fantasy stories im sorry-

You and Asahi will take turns going to each other’s houses after school or on weekends and working on your costumes together (It’s his favourite part (´▽`ʃ♡ƪ))

If he goes to a Halloween party, it’ll probably be a small gathering, such as a potluck with the Karasuno volleyball team

Everyone will be in awe of how cute you two look!!

If the team decides to switch off the lights and leave a flashlight on, gather around and tell spooky stories, he’ll want you next to him and you two will be holding onto each other

the first and second years are so jealous of their senpai and his cute s/o

Haunted houses are a no-no, sorry

Asahi doesn’t mind staying in either!

If you have a movie marathon, you guys binge Harry Potter or Studio Ghibli movies (they have magic so they’re Halloween movies right?)

Though if you’re a horror movie fanatic, he’ll try to watch a scary film with you

He will also have a lot of snacks! And the best hot chocolate you will ever have

I can also imagine Asahi doing your nails? And maybe he’ll let you do his nails too

You two make cute designs of little ghosts and pumpkins but don’t let each other see until it’s finished so it’s a surprise

You share lots of cuddles and kisses afterwards, and Asahi can’t wait to spend another sweet Halloween with you🥺🥰

Bonus: Kageyama showed up in his volleyball uniform and said his costume is a volleyball player :)?

sugawara koushi

Suga loves Halloween!!

It’s an excuse to have fun, cute dates under the guise of “keeping up the tradition”

Even before Halloween, he’ll take you on cafe dates to a different place each week to try out the pumpkin specials

You two will make jack-o-lanterns and then compare to see who did a better job, which could potentially end up in a tickle fight

This boy is going all out with the costumes!!

Maybe it’s the mom instincts, but he’s not settling on some cheap online/store-bought costume and he’ll DIY for both his s/o and himself

It’ll be an iconic couple and something very chic

Like you know Neil Patrick Harris and David Burtka‘s family halloween costumes? That’s the vibes you two have

Examples of your costumes include: Morticia & Gomez from The Addams Family, Jack and Sally from The Nightmare Before Christmas, Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask (plss)

You help each other put on each other’s costumes and make-up <333

Both of you will go to a halloween party, even if it’s just a few close friends gathering, and you two are gonna be the IT couple

your outfits and makeup will be on point all through the night and everyone will be so jealous💖

He’d probably take you trick or treating to a few houses for fun tbh HAHA

Your neighbours open up their front door to see.. Two grown ass children?? With costumes looking like they were professionally made??? Grinning and holding out their trick or treat bags?????

They’ll be so confused they end up giving you guys candy anyway

Suga is also a horror fanatic!

If you let him, he’ll drag you to a haunted house attraction

He’s the type to laugh at the scares :)

But he’ll hold your hand and let you cling to his arm if you’re scared, trying to reassure you

He’ll also arrange a horror movie marathon + sleepover!

After you get back, clean up and change into your comfiest pyjamas, Suga has already set up the living room

The couch is stacked with pillows and blankets, some of the lights are switched off, there’s a large bowl of popcorn and your trick-or-treat loot on the table and the movies are already queued on the TV 

If you’re not a big fan of horror movies, he’ll opt for less scary but still Halloween-themed movies like Corpse Bride, The Nightmare Before Christmas or Coraline (coraline’s kinda creepy but so good), or the “horror/thriller” movies that are just bad so you both can laugh at them

You and Suga snuggle under the blankets with pillows all around, munching on your snacks and watching the movies until you both fall asleep together

thank you for reading! hope you enjoyed~

[verythewriter]

I’m pissed beyond belief, and Detective Johnson knows it.

“Wow,” I say, feeling my nails dig crescent-shaped divots into the flesh of my palms. “Wow. Let me get this straight. It wasn’t a ‘good enough story’ for you while I was on trial, but now you believe me? Now you want my help?”

He’s sweating slightly, but his face remains cool and impassive as he nods.

“We’re close,” he says. “We know we are. We’re just missing a crucial piece of information, and if your...skillset...is truly as accurate as you claim, we might be able to stop this monster from—”

I cut him off with a bitter laugh. “Funny. Isn’t that what you called me?”

He stares blankly. “What do you mean?”

“‘Monster.’ That’s what you called me, up on the stand. You called me a deranged monster, you said I was a cold-blooded killer that deserved the death penalty.” I glare at him harder. “Did you honestly think I’d forget?”

Johnson sighs and runs a hand through his hair.

“He’s killing kids,” he says quietly. “Kids. Just put aside our history for one second, and—”

I slam my handcuffed fists on the table, and he flinches. “Our history, Detective? You mean, locking me up while my son’s killer is still out there? That history?” My voice has raised to a shout, and I know that behind the one-way mirror, officers are getting antsy. “If I’m the murderer you think I am, why should I give a damn about saving some kids?”

He’s silent for a moment.

“We’re willing to reduce your sentence,” he finally says.

“Go to hell.”

“And we’ll consider reopening your case.”

That gives me pause.

I don’t want to help them. God knows I don’t want to help them. Not after what they did to me. I still can’t believe Johnson has the balls to come begging me for help when he testified so adamantly against me.

But deep down, I think some part of me knows that it’s not his fault. Not his fault my son was killed, not his fault for walking in on something he couldn’t possibly understand.

And Danny’s never going to get the justice he deserves, not as long as that case is closed.

So, with a long-suffering sigh, I nod.

“Fine. When do I start?”

------------

The answer is, apparently, right away.

I’m escorted from the prison immediately, the jeers and shouts from my fellow inmates following me all the way out the doors.

They never liked me much. I suppose I wouldn’t either, if I’d heard the same things they had.

The drive to the morgue is uneventful. I make no attempts at conversation, and neither does Detective Johnson or the officer in the driver’s seat. I get the feeling that, despite the amount of officers coming to witness the “investigation,” none of them—besides Johnson—really want me there.

I don’t want me there.

“Do we need to have some sort of contract in writing before I do this?” I ask as I’m led down a cold, sterile-smelling corridor. The Police Chief snorts.

“If your intel is good...and that’s a bigass if...we’ll figure out an agreement.”

His tone makes it sound less like a promise and more like a threat. I figure it’s the best I’m going to get, at this point. Johnson pushes open the doors.

A body lays on a slab, covered by a sheet. My pulse quickens, and I try my best to steady my breathing.

Come on. You can do this. Do it for Danny.

The sheet is pulled back to reveal a young child’s face...or, what’s left of it, at least. Broken and bloody, resembling a jack o’ lantern that’s been left on the porch too long more than anything else. The arms and torso are covered in deliberate-looking lacerations, and though the worst of them have already been cleaned and stitched up by the coroner, it hardly makes the sight any easier to look at. I turn away, eyes squeezed shut.

“Well?” the Chief asks. I open my eyes to see him gesturing to the body impatiently. Half a dozen officers crowd in the doorway, unwilling to enter the room but horrifyingly fascinated enough to watch. Johnson has his arms folded and is studying me with an indiscernible expression.

“Just a minute,” I say quietly. “Just—just give me a minute.”

“Do you...need anything?” Johnson asks after a brief silence. I shake my head, even though my brain is screaming that, yes, I do need something, I need to leave, I need to get as far away from here as possible, away from the prying eyes and the smell of blood and the too-small body on the table—

I lean down and sink my teeth into the child’s shoulder.

Distantly, I hear gasps and retching behind me as I chew. Tears spring to my eyes at the horrible coppery taste in my mouth, bile rising to the back of my throat as raw flesh squelches between my teeth...but I swallow, hoping that the single bite was enough and that I won’t have to take another.

And then the vision comes.

A wave of disorienting, foreign senses, bits of sight and sound and smell that aren’t my own and nearly send me to my knees. I grip the edge of the steel table for support and gasp. And then I know. I can’t explain how, only that it must be similar to the way dogs can tell a million things with their noses alone. I just know.

“Caucasian male,” I say, blood dripping from my lips and landing in fat droplets on the floor. I stare at them, head swimming. “Mid-thirties. Dark hair, 5’9’’, drives a Ford Explorer. Works in...I don’t know. Some fast food joint. It was around eight o’ clock when he killed him, and they were in a forested area. That’s—that’s all I got.”

I glance up to see Johnson scribbling the information down in a small notepad. Beside him, the Chief watches me, expression a mixture of astonishment and disgust. I hold his gaze for a moment.

Then, I bend over and puke.

------------

“We got him,” Johnson says, case file in hand, closing the door of the interrogation room behind him. I breathe an involuntary sigh of relief and slump in my chair. I’d been worried that they would make me try again, if they didn’t catch the killer fast enough.

Johnson sits down across from me, steepling his fingers. All of the fire that’d been coursing through my veins during our first visit is gone, replaced with a bone-deep guilt that I haven’t felt since...well, that I haven’t felt in a while.

“This lends credence to your testimony,” he says. “It should be enough for us to reopen your case.”

I start to nod, then stop, furrowing my brow. “...Should be?”

Johnson sighs. “Chief wants to hold off on any investigations just yet. Says there’s no conclusive proof that this wasn’t just a lucky coincidence.”

I groan and put my head in my hands. Figures.

“But,” Johnson continues, “he says that if you lend us your assistance on some cold cases, he might be able to...speed things up.” He slides the case file across the table.

I stare down at it. A sinking feeling weighs in my gut. Despair. Guilt. Exhaustion. Grief. It’s a hundred things all rolled into one, and it’s nothing new.

But now, it’s accompanied by something else. Something that feels a little like hope.

I look up, meeting Johnson’s eyes. I think of the trial, of cuffed wrists, of justice. I think of red droplets on a white floor, and bodies too small for an autopsy table. I think of my son.

I lick my lips.

“When do I start?”

[bounce-a-coin-off-your-witcher]

Ho for Halloween

oh my god they were roommates

feat. Danny Gonzalez “Spooky Ho”.

---

Geralt peers around the corner of the bannister and sees his roommate dancing rather suggestively to the goofiest rap he’s ever heard in his life. He’s sinking into deep squats and doing the bend-and-snap from Legally Blonde like it’s nobody’s business while a few golden-brown pancakes bubble away on the griddle. He must not know I had the day off, Geralt thinks.

Jaskier continues to dance and sing while he makes his breakfast.

“Now make that ass shake like that ass is scared of me;

All you other spooky dudes can’t compare to me!

October thirty-first, bitch, you know what I’mma be,

Baby, bust down, I’mma be a ho for Halloween!

“Happy Halloweenie, my shorts lookin’ teeny!

My big, fat, pumpkin pie gone trampoline-y.

Her man wanna be me, she bad like a meanie;

I knew we’d get along cause she loves Frankenweenie!”

Jaskier rolls his hips suggestively and runs his hands down over his chest when he sings along to “cause she loves Frankenweenie” and Geralt almost giggles and gives himself away.

The younger man is wearing a pair of bright orange, smiling Jack-o-lantern bootie shorts and a black hoodie leftover from his high school’s production of Sweeney Todd. He’s clearly gotten in the mood for his absolutely favoritest holiday in the world. Apparently he hadn’t been kidding about his enthusiasm.

“Pull up to the party on a broomstick,

Bout to get bounced out the way cause I’m too thicc.

Crush a bunch of Smarties up” - he mimed taking a hit off a joint -”take two hits!

Costume got me Shinin’, aye, word to Stanley Kubrick, bitch!”

Geralt came further down the stairs and took a seat, watching openly now. Jaskier was still facing away from him, dancing suggestively and flipping the pancakes onto a plate. He poured more batter onto the griddle and sighed. “Geralt can have the leftovers.”

The silent voyeur almost spoke up but then Jaskier continued singing as if he hadn’t said anything to begin with.

“Trick or Treat and I’mma get the bag, aye.

Costume shoppin’ I’mma pop a tag, aye.

Half off when I make it crop top, bitch, I’m sexy Freddy Kreuger

I’m about to pop off!”

Jaskier spins dramatically and his eyes land on Geralt. He drops his spatula to the floor and screams. “Geralt!”

“Hey.”

“How much did you see?”

“Can I have some pancakes?”

Jaskier picks up the spatula from the floor and sets it in the sink. He gets out a clean one from the utensil drawer. He nods. Geralt comes down the rest of the stairs. He tentatively wraps his arms around the slightly shorter man’s waist. “It was cute.”

“...Oh. I’m glad you thought so. Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Because then you would have stopped,” Geralt pressed a kiss to the top of his head. “And like I said, it was cute.”

“Oh. Cool. Fake syrup or maple?”

“Maple, I’m not a cheap slut.”

“Fuck you!”

[mischiefandspirits]

Doppelgänger (17/19)

Previously on Doppelgänger ~ Masterlist ~ Next time on Doppelgänger

Danny, Sam, and Tucker were just 14 when they took a look inside the portal Danny’s parents had built. From there, everything changed. They woke up with white hair, green skin, and powers they could learn to control. They were hybrids, halfas.

They were the hero Doppelgänger.

{Reign Storm, Part 3}

“It’s like shooting skeleton fish in a barrel,” Doppelgänger chuckled as they flew up to Valerie’s side, blasting one of the skeleton’s harrowing her as their own crowd rushed into the football stadium after them.

“They don’t put up much of a fight, but there’s a lot of them,” she argued. “You going to duplicate?”

“Already did. We've got our own crowds.”

“It’d be nice if you could make yourself a crowd in return.”

“Sorry, we’re still working on making more than three of us.”

“Hello, son.”

Doppelgänger gave a long, drawn-out groan as Plasmius flew up to the two despite still firing on the skeletons. The older ghost tried to speak when they’d finished, only for the ghost kid to start right back up.

“Are you quite done?” Plasmius asked over the groaning.

Valerie turned to fire at him, but he dodged to the side. He stopped with Doppelgänger between her and him.

The younger ghost stopped their groaning to say, “You know, a human shield only works if the shield’s both bigger than you and someone that the person you’re hiding from won’t shoot. We are neither of those.”

“You’re also not human,” Valerie pointed out.

“I think that’s debatable, but we’ll add it to the list,” they said and fired a blast at Plasmius.

“Calm down, son! I didn't come here to fight you! You have other things to worry about!”

“Okay, even if we were your kid -- which we aren’t because gross -- we’re nonbinary, so still not your son. So get lost. We have this under control!”

A blur of black barreled into them and rose up to reveal a knight in black armor atop a pegasus. The knight had Doppelgänger by the throat and pointed his sword at them. “You are the one who destroyed the King’s ring.”

“We’re not one, but we have destroyed a ring recently. Not sure if it was a king’s, though. Can we get a description?” Doppelgänger said before a swirl of comets wrapped around them and they disappeared.

Another swirl appeared behind the knight, leaving behind the ghost kid. They cheered and shot a blast that unseated the knight. “Yes, it worked. Still not as far as we’d meant to go, but we’ll take it.”

“If you would allow me to trai-” Plasmius started.

“Not interested. Now make yourself useful.” Doppelgänger pointed at the knight, who was pulling himself to his feet.

The knight’s eyes locked onto Valerie and narrowed. “You also carry the ring’s mark.”

She leveled her rifle at him, but a pair of blasts knocked him away before she could fire.

“Right on time,” Doppelgänger said as their two copies flew into the stadium. “Wait a second, is that the Fright Knight? Who? He’s the age-old spirit of Halloween.” The trio began to casually blast the knight back and forth across the field as they spoke together. “Legend has it that if his sword The Soul Shredder cuts through you, you get teleported to a dimension where you live out your worst fear. We read about him in the book we got for Halloween. Did the book have any way to defeat him? We think there was something about a pumpkin, but we can’t remember. We’ll go check.”

One of the ghost kids shot off, giving the knight a chance to finally dodge a blast. “Fools! All I wanted to do was retrieve those who destroyed the ring and return to Pariah's Keep, but now, you give me no choice.” He knelt and held up his sword, point down. “By the authority vested in me by my Lord and Liege…” The sword began to glow and he drove it into the ground, causing a wave of energy to roll outwards across the ground. “I claim this town now and forever under the banner of Lord Pariah, the King of All Ghosts!”

Energy shot up from the sword high into the air before rolling outwards to form a green dome across the city.

Both remaining Doppelgängers fired at the knight, but he ducked away. “The sword has sunk, your die now cast, The sword removed shall signal fast. Surrender your-”

He was cut off as a blast knocked him rolling across the ground.

“We hate rhymes. Did we find a pumpkin?”

The third Doppelgänger flew up with a smirk and pulled a fake jack-o'-lantern out of thin air.

“Found it in the boxes of old Halloween decorations like we said.”

They landed next to the sword and dropped the decoration at their feet.

“Gotta move fast. Cover us. Red, Plasmius, keep the skeleton’s back. We’ll handle tall, dark, and fashionable. Fashionable? Really? Yes, we love that aesthetic.”

Val nodded and pulled out her grenade launcher as the other two placed themselves between their third and the knight, but Plasmius’s attention was on the ghost kid.

“What are you planning?”

The ghost kid smirked and wrapped their hand around the sword’s grip.

“To cease the storm…”

“No,” the knight yelled, but the ghost kid’s copies kept him back.

“To end the fear…”

“Wait!” Plasmius yelled as the ghost kid began to draw the sword from the ground.

“The sword must sheathe…”

As soon as the blade left the ground, the energy feeding into the dome cut off and it began to crack. Instead of the sky being behind it, Valerie saw the endless green of the ghost zone.

“In pumpkin near!”

Doppelgänger sank the sword into the fake pumpkin and everything froze. Then the sky returned.

White and green light began to pour from the decoration as the dome shuddered then began to rise up and flow back into the sword in a reverse of how it had just formed.

“No, NO!” the knight shouted as a vortex formed above the sword and began to draw him in.

Valerie only had a second to feel victorious before the vortex began to pull at her as well. She lost her footing on her board, but the ghost kid flew in to help her. Two of them grabbed her and the last grabbed her board before they all flew to the bleachers and grabbed hold. Once she was sure she was safe, she looked over the field.

Plasmius had taken refuge on a goal post, but many of the skeletons were being sucked up. The knight was clawing at the ground, but soon lost his grip and disappeared into the swirling green. Once he was gone, the vortex slowed and dissipated while the pumpkin holding the sword -- now looking like an actual jack-o'-lantern, if purple with a green glow -- vanished in a flash.

“Well, that’s one down,” Doppelgänger said.

“You idiot! The sword was a signal!” Plasmius yelled, brushing himself off.

“Yeah, we heard. That’s why we got rid of it!”

“Not soon enough.”

The teens looked up to see a large ghost floating over them.

After a second, one of the ghost kids pointed at him.

“You know, we expected more from the King of All Ghosts. He’s just a guy. A tall guy, but still.”

Another nodded, looking disappointed.

“Yeah, what is this Odin wannabe nonsense? We thought we’d be facing some beautiful Lovecraftian horror. We feel ripped off.”

The third tilted their head.

“He’s not even that big. Like ten feet, maybe. The dragon made a more impressive sight, and she was literally just a fairytale princess. You’d think a king could do better.”

“Are you done ticking him off?” Valerie asked, watching Dark get angrier and angrier.

They shrugged. “We’re just saying. He doesn’t even have a crown.”

Then the one who’d tilted their head shot to the side, the one who’d nodded stepped in front of Valerie and raised a shield, and the one who’d pointed braced for impact as Dark sent a massive blast towards them.

The shield held, but the ghost kid was forced to a knee as they poured their strength into it and it shattered apart as soon as it wasn’t needed. Once it was down, Valerie could see that the one who’d taken the blast head-on had created a crater in the bleachers that they were pulling themself out of. Meanwhile, the one who’d avoided it was zipping around the field, keeping Dark’s attention. They fired upon the king while bobbing and weaving around the return fire.

It didn’t look like the attacks were doing much damage.

“That hurt,” they said as the one limped towards her and their kneeling copy turned to her. “You should get clear.”

“We should all fall back,” Plasmius said, appearing next to them.

“Even if we could, he’d destroy the town trying to chase us down. You can run if you want to,” they said then they shot towards the field.

One landed and held their hands out. Thick wires shot out of the ground and grabbed Dark’s legs, electrocuting him in the process. At the same time, the other ghost kid shot towards the fight. They engaged the king as the one that had been fighting him backed off. They reached to the side and plucked a pot holding a glowing spider-like plant out of nowhere. They chucked the plant at Dark’s head then re-engaged him as their copy pulled back to command the plant to wrap around the king’s eyes and neck.

“The boy has Chlorokinesis?” Plasmius said.

“You didn’t know that?” Valerie said, checking her rifle and calling her board to her.

“He’s never used it against me. He’s only even used the Technokinesis recently.”

“They’ve had both for as long as I’ve known them. They’ve tried to use it on me, but I’m usually too high for the plants and my gear’s protected against their control.”

“ENOUGH!”

The two looked up to see Dark snatch the plant-controlling ghost kid from the air and throw them. The other flying one tried to catch them, but they both ended up crashing to the ground. The third flew over to them as the king tore off the wires and burned away the plant.

“Our baby,” the ghost kid whined, one staring at the plant’s burning remains with fury.

“Surrender, children! You can't possibly win!”

“Surrender isn’t in our vocabulary. And we can’t possibly let you loose on our city.” The one that had been controlling the wires helped the one that had been thrown to their feet, letting them lean against them, as the other placed themself in front of the two. “Besides, we don't have to win. we just have to make sure that you lose.”

Dark scowled and shot a blast at them. The one in front summoned a shield, but it shattered almost immediately and the three took most of the blast.

Valerie leveled her rifle at Dark, but Plasmius yanked it away.

“Don’t be foolish, girl. He will kill you.”

“Like you care.

“Considering you’re my only help, I do. We need a plan.”

“Face it, children, it's over.”

Valerie turned back to the field to see Dark walking towards the trio as they slowly got up onto their knees.

“No,” they growled. “No!”

Shaking with pain, the trio looked up. 

Their goggles glowed with black energy and then three things happened at once.

The one on the left threw their head back and screamed. Black sonic waves tore through the field and slammed into the king.

The one in the middle doubled over, hands clawing at the ground as they keened. Thick black vines wove in and out of the ground in front of them until they could latch onto the king, wrapping around his arms and legs to tear deep gashes into his skin with their thorns.

The one on the right wrapped their arms around themselves and sobbed. Black tears flowed down their face and formed a void beneath them that stretched out underneath the king.

The vines held him still, the rings drained his power, and the void drew him in.

Dark thrashed against his bindings, but they held and he was soon consumed by the darkness.

The trio collapsed.

The field went silent, the vines shriveled into nothing, and the darkness faded.

Consciousness clearly fading, the trio latched hands and fell through the ground.

Oddly though, they didn’t seem to go intangible and Valerie swore she saw the faintest hint of a white-blue-purple light just before they completely disappeared.

Slowly, she turned to Plasmius to see him gaping at the now empty field. “Did you know they had that kind of power?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Danny stared out at the stars as Blobena nuzzled up against his cheek.

“My everything hurts,” Tucker croaked, the first sound any of them had made since Danny had dropped them into the Space Fold then promptly passed out. He’s not sure how long they’ve been in there now, but he’s been awake for at least an hour and he knew the others woke before him.

“Sh!” Sam moaned.

It was quiet for a few moments, then Sam asked, “Danny. Why are your blobs in here? More importantly, why is one trying to eat my hair?”

With a sigh, Danny turned to see Sam and the blob in question. “I think Blobson likes the taste of your shampoo. He did the same thing to me two weeks ago when you let me shower at your place after the fight with Garbage Manster.”

“Wait, you seriously named them all? And with blob puns?” Tucker said, pinwheeling slowly near Sam’s feet. “I thought that was just a joke you and Valerie were telling.”

“We had a lot of time in that cage, okay?”

“Danny, get this thing off my hair or I’m smashing it.”

The boy pouted, but reached over to scoop up the blob. He set him on his shoulder next to Bloberick.

“Now again, what are they doing here?”

“In my defense, I just meant to hide them in here for a second because my mom was coming down the stairs and I didn’t have time to get them all back through the portal. I’ve tried to get them to leave, but they won’t.”

“You keep my ghost plants in here!” she huffed, gesturing to the quartet of pots holding plants she’d gathered from the ghost zone.

“They don’t bother them, promise!”

“Speaking of which, how dare you throw Arachne at that jerk!”

“Our ecto-beams weren’t doing much! I thought the poison on her fronds would help!”

“We can get you a new one, Sam,” Tucker said. “It’s not like it was sentient like Audrey II.”

“We can get you a new phone, Tucker,” she shot back. “It’s not like it’s sentient like Audrey II.”

“She’s as good as!” Tucker gasped, pulling his phone out to clutch it to his chest. “Talk to me, baby.”

“Hello, Tuck-man. The time is 9:34 p.m.”

Danny snickered. “Tuck-man.”

“Shut it, Danny Blobton,” Tucker said, grabbing one of the blobs floating near him and tossing it at Danny.

If anything, the blob seemed to be pleased by the action, even as it squished against his forehead. It gave a singing buzz and nuzzled further against him.

“Great, now Blobnessa is never going to let go.”

“Dude, you’ve got issues.”

“Wait, did your phone say it was after nine at night?” Sam asked, turning to Tucker.

“Yeah, it said… Oh man, how long have we been gone for?”

“My parents are probably tearing the town apart looking for me,” Danny groaned.

“Not to mention your girlfriend. I’m sure my parents are already blaming you. Crud, I’m going to have to wear their stupid dresses for a week if they’re ever going to let me see you again,” Sam said, grabbing Danny’s arm and tugging him to her.

“I swear, if my parents try to take me on one of those tech-free relaxation getaways because of this, I’m moving into the fold. Blobs or not,” Tucker muttered, hooking his ankle around Sam’s.

Danny gently shooed and brushed all the blobs off himself then turned all three of them invisible and dropped them onto the football field.

Thankfully no one was around so they turned visible and climbed to their feet.

“We’re going to need alibis,” Sam said.

“Got cornered by some skeletons in an abandoned building?” Tucker offered. “Only came out when we were sure it was safe, but then didn’t recognize where we were and stumbled about until we found somewhere familiar.”

“Sounds good enough for me,” Danny yawned. “Can either of you transform?”

They shook their heads.

“Guess we’re walking.”

They only made it a block before the Fenton RV came roaring up and a hysterical Maddie Fenton tackled Danny to the ground.

[silverstudios]

Thanksgiving special (Watcher Wednesday)

Danny smiled as she pulled up the metal tin, containing the wonderful smelling creation within. The house smelled even more of pumpkin than it had a second ago, and she was certain she would have to make a pot of coffee just so she wouldn't drown in the smells. She glanced around her home as she set the pie down, and smiled. A mixture of fairy lights that glittered like dim stars and pumpkin shaped paper cutouts from this year's Halloween decorated her staircase, a plush jack o lantern she won from the fair sat on her couch and her half decorated tree stood tall in the corner where the first floor met the second. 

This time of year has to be her favorite, the changing from fall to winter always made her smile and got her in a more chirper mode than she normally chooses. She looked back at the pie, which had Not exploded this year, and chuckled happily. A shiver ran up her spin, her heart skipped a beat and she heard a water droplet hit a pond. Danny spun around despite her mind begging to run, and smiled. “Hi Panoptos!” She said quickly as the original watcher had paused and looked around her home before setting those ever moving eyes on her. “Danielle…” He gave a wave, but whatever snark he would have had vanished at the sight of her. “.......Are you aware of your...Current situation?” “The fact that I’m covered from head to toe in baking soda and flour? Yes.” She laughed, and ran her hands on the poor unfortunate apron she grabbed this year. “I was baking, and unlike my mum, I am Not graceful at this art.” 

“........Why?” “Because I try to make a pie every thanksgiving. I can never reach the market fast enough for a turkey and all the good sides are always gone, so I make a pie every year to celebrate.” She shrugged. “It didn’t explode this time, so it’s a win in my book!” Panoptos cautiously entered the kitchen, looking at the room like the scene of a murder before coming over to Danny. “I see…” “I would offer you a slice, but that thing is Really hot at the moment.” She hummed and looked into her fridge. “Hm……. Chicken or steak?” “What?” “Pick one.” “......Chicken????” Danny blinked and looked up at him, just about to make a remark when she bit her tongue. Panoptos, Honest to whatever god there was, looked confused. “...Do you guys not cook? Or like, have big feast days or stuff? Holidays?” “.....I am aware that Angels and Demons do, but for us? No.” He had pointed a clawed hand at himself for that last part. “And truth be told, us watchers don’t even Need to eat. Since it is not needed for our survival, we don’t. I have only eaten a handful of times.” Danny had stood up fully, watching him as he explained. Her brows had almost reached her Eyes with how down they had gone, and she had bitten her lip. She had almost forgotten what Panoptos was, but this had reminded her of it quickly. “It-....Why are you upset?” He quickly came over to her, looking around her. Danny took a breath and made a sound into her hands. “If I thought I could get away with it I would do something stupid.” “....Do you think you could?” Panoptos gently held her shoulder, though he seemed hesitant to touch anywhere with a layer of white flour. “Strife couldn’t, there’s no way in creation I could.” Danny sighed and gently reached up to pull her hair. “.....I do, however, think I could do something else. Wanna help?” She smirked as she glanced over at him. “...Is it going to be messy?” “Considering you’re doing it with me, yes. But also, The Council does want you to learn more about Human customs, yes?” Panoptos blinked all of his eyes, and Danny was certain he smirked. 

- The watchers were confused as to why they all had been called to the hive. As far as they were all aware, nothing of importance was happening in any of the realms, it was quite boring currently in comparison to the excitement of the last couple months. No demons breaking free from shackles and running amok in the Council's realm, no threats to the treaty and no threats to the balance. It wasn’t until Panoptos himself showed up did they all blink. Panoptos, who was normally the one who shined his chains and avoided every dust particle he could, was covered in a white flaky substance; and he was laughing about it. 

Next to him was Danny, in a state very similar. She looked at them, and beamed brightly. “Hey guys!!! I’m Sharing a human Custom, feel free to take notes!!” 

“....What did you do?” One finally snickered, a hand going to cover its face as a laugh bubbled up. From this one small laugh the whole cavern was filled with giggling, laughing and snickering watchers as they swarmed the two. Danny was quick to give them a piece of what she called “Pumpkin Pie” and gave them a wish for a good year. 

“How many did you make?” One of the last ones asked, full heartedly, as he got a slice. “Let’s just say, I am going to have to make One hell of a grocery run later.” Danny beamed. “And  you’re gonna need a hose to clean up the kitchen.” Panoptos piped up with a snicker. “Yeah well, We had fun. That’s all that matters to me!” The human smiled and gently bopped him, and Panoptos could only sighed with a nod. “It was certainly a learning experience, I’ll say that.” He huffed, but based on his wings, Danny could tell he was having a good time. For that, she was thankful. 

[cecilspeaks]

176 - The Autumn Specter

Lips are the toes of the face. Welcome to Night Vale.

[spooky theme song]

It’s Halloween again, Night Vale, my favorite day of the year. As a kid, my mother used to dress my sister Abby and I in homemade costumes and take us door to door, vaguely threatening our neighbors until they gave us candy. When I was a teenager, I got a little old for trick-or-treating, so I started going to haunted houses with my friends. A lot of those haunted houses were kind of predictable with all their chain saw killers and Victorian ghost children singing nursery rhymes, who would follow you home and sing by your bed for months afterwards, but they always got to me. I loved the emotional rush of being scared. I still do. Of course, I don’t go out much to haunted houses, but I still love good old fashioned scary stories. I thought today would be a great day to share some of my favorites with you. I had my new intern, James, put together a few spooky tales that are perfect for putting you into Halloween mood.

But first, let’s have a look at the Community Calendar. This Saturday night at the New Old Night Vale Opera House, is the annual costume gala. This event is the Opera House’s largest fundraiser and one of the most prestigious costume contests in the region. A panel of judges will be on hand to determine the best costume at the ball. Last year’s winners were Joel Eisenberg and his partner Danny Jimenez, who dressed in a tandem outfit of a stegosaurus. I was there, listeners, and it was impressive! The creature was so realistic-looking. The craftsmanship of the costume was top notch, but listen, I have to confess I’m always more into high concept creativity rather than realistic details when it comes to costumes. Like I remember the 2015 gala, when Amal Shamun came dressed up as the concept of ennui. She made herself 12 feet tall, dressed in a taupe long coat, and created a constant drizzling rain inside the ball room. Anyone who looked at her got super sad and wanted a hug. But Joel and Danny’s stegosaurus was fine.

Sunday afternoon is the fall craft sale in Old Town Night Vale. An inscrutable maze of stalls showcasing the finest products from our town’s artisans. There will be cultural events for children, like finger painting classes, puppet shows, and a visit from the Autumn Specter. The Autumn Specter returns. It comes to collect its crops, with its great and sharp sickle. [creepily] It will harvest every ripe soul in Night Vale, the Autumn Specter is hungryyyy! It is Octoberr and it is timme to feeeeeee-duh.

Hey James, this Community Calendar doesn’t seem right, it’s just a bunch of stuff about the Autumn Specter. Also this font size, what-what is this 32 point? That’s just much too large. And it’s printed in red ink and that is a waste of our color toner, James. Eww, eww! This red ink is still really damp. OK, plus there’s nothing about start and end times of the craft fair, or anything about the food trucks, like if the Autumn Specter is hungry, surely it wants some falafel or Korean barbeque or tacos. James, could you just redo this story? James? James? [clears throat] Well, listeners, I don’t know where James went. Um, I can hear him breathing, but I don’t see him anywhere. Yeah, it’s fine, let’s just get onto our first spooky story.

[static, old-fashioned music] One quiet moonless night, not long ago and not so far away, a teenage girl sat in a house that was not her own. It was the home of Tony and Sheila McDowell. The girl was their babysitter, and she had just put the two young McDowell children down to sleep. The girl watched TV alone in the dark living room, only the bluish flicker of a scary movie illuminating her face. The phone rang abrupt and loud, startling her. She raised the receiver to her ear. “Hello?” she said with a slight quiver. “Have you checked on the children?” came a raspy voice. The babysitter ran quickly upstairs, opening the door of the kids’ bedroom. She flicked on the light, and there they were, fast asleep. She went back to her movie, but the phone rang again. “Haave youuu checked on the childrennn?” came the same voice, only more sinister. The babysitter again hurried upstairs, opened the door, turned on the light, and saw the children still asleep. The caller called again and again and again. “Have you checked on the children?” The babysitter, so scared, barely able to move, hung up the phone before the voice could finish its repeated query. When the phone rang once again, she answered and shouted: “Stop calling me!” But this time, it was a different voice. The person on this occasion said: “Ma’am, this is the police. We’ve traced the call. The call is coming from inside the house. Get out, get out!” The babysitter panicked and started to run, but then she remembered: she never called the police! How would they know to even trace the call? So she crept fearfully upstairs to the children’s room, and the phone was ringing again, the clamoring bell igniting her fright. And she cracked open the door and she saw- She saw the young McDowell boy and his little brother hunched over a phone and giggling! They were pranking her, and she felt relieved but embarrassed. And she told them to stop fooling around and go to sleep. And they all shared a good laugh.

Let’s have a look now at traffic. [papers rustling] Um.. OK, well I don’t seem to have a traffic report from intern James. Also James isn’t here right now, because I sent him out to go pick up lunch a few m- Oh, hey James, James, James, James – wait, why are you standing in the control booth? You were supposed to go get lunch and also I’ve asked you a couple of times not to wear that burlap bag over your head. I mean yes it looks great, with the Jack o’ Lantern face drawn onto it, I mean the mouth is a bit lopsided and the eyes are a tad uneven,  you know kinda flat and emotionless, but all in all it’s a cool look, but it’s decidedly not allowed in Station Management’s dress code. Oh, you’re holing a knife, too! So did you get- did you already get that lunch then? Well if that- if that’s the case, you don’t need to cut my sandwich in half, I’ll-I’ll take it whole. And also I need that traffic report, thanks. James? What are you waiting for, the Autumn Specter to do it for you? [chuckles] Hop to it! James?

[clears throat] Well, while James is working on that, let’s get back to my favorite spooky Halloween stories. This one isn’t a story so much as a fun Halloween game. The legend of Bloody Mary.

According to the lore, if you turn off all the lights, and stare into a mirror, repeating “Bloody Mary” three times in a row, she will appear and tear your face off! I’ve never tried this because I don’t own any mirrors, but my husband Carlos conducted this very experiment in his science lab. He said he darkened the room and repeated the name and nothing happened for a long time. But then a figure of a woman appeared, silvery gray and shimmering, and she approached Carlos slowly, her hollow white eyes never blinking. She brought her face only inches from Carlos and said: “Are you for real?” And Carlos said yes, he was indeed – real. And Bloody Mary said: “OK because this time of year, I just get a bunch of giggling, screaming teenagers, and I’m really tired of ripping off their faces for no pay whatsoever!” And Carlos gave her some resources for starting a union and she thanked him and she offered to tear his face off in exchange for the consulting, but Carlos said no, he liked his face, and wisher her luck. Night Vale, pay your malevolent spirits! They’re overworked especially around Halloween. And a 20 per cent gratuity for poltergeists, phantasms, revenants, and ghosts is standard.

And now for t- what the, oh you- [papers rustling] Wait, OK. You know, I thought intern James had handed the traffic report to me, but this is just a piece of parchment with a 9-pointed star seemingly drawn by a finger dripped in blood. And then there are a series of ancient runes scrawled around the outer edges. Now I took runic in college. I mean, most of my friends took Spanish as their language, but I thought living here in the American Southwest, it would be more useful to study ancient Scandinavian and Germanic alphabets. And from what I can make out, these are a message about the return of the Autumn Specter. Ugh, alright. OK. I love that intern James loooves Halloween and whatever this the Autumn Specter is. In fact, James is still in the break room right now construction a sacred totem out of ash tree branches and twine. He’s been muttering to himself all day in a language that I don’t recognize, and the only words I can understand are “Autumn Specter”. But I still have neither my traffic report nor my lunch! Wait, do you think James is… Naah, put it out or you mind, Cecil.

Let’s tell another spooky Halloween story. There once was a beautiful young woman who wore a green ribbon around her neck. She won the affection of a handsome young man. They fell in love and one day the boy asked the girl why she always wore a green ribbon around her neck. She would not tell him. One day the man and the woman were to become husband and wife. In her white bridal dress, the woman still wore her green ribbon. The man asked her on their wedding night if he could untie the green ribbon, but even on the  most intimate of evenings, she said no, and he respected her answer. But he longed to know what she was hiding behind the ribbon. Through the years, the man asked the wife again about the ribbon, but she never removed it, nor answered his questions about it. She only warned him that he would not like what he saw if she were to remove it. He asked less and less, but his curiosity grew and grew. And they became old, very old, and they knew their time left was short. The man asked one more time: “My dearest wife, love of my life, tell me that I may remove the green ribbon from around your neck.” And the old woman said: “My adoring groom, here in our room after all these many years, yes you may. But I caution you, as I have many times before, that you shall not like what your eyes behold.” The man hesitated, but finally reached his weakened, wrinkled fingers to the green bow along her nape. And he tentatively pulled the ribbon, and suddenly it unfurled, falling from her neck, and the man gasped. Upon her neck was a series of ornate letters spelling out “GOTH LIFE”. The woman said: “I got this tattoo in high school but kind of outgrew it and it’s super embarrassing.” And the man replied: “It is for sure weird, but also pretty cool. I like it.” And she never wore the green ribbon again.

You know, listeners, I’d love to bring you that traffic report, but right now, um, I’m facing something much more urgent and more dire. My studio door has opened on its own, and as I turned around, I could see down the long faintly lit corridor of our offices. And at the end of the hallway stands a figure, and he wears a Jack o’ Lantern mask, his head crooked to one side like a dog asking a question or like a hanged man, or both. And it is intern James, and he holds a long knife and he walks, he walks slowly toward me. And he is speaking at first in a mutter, but now louder, a strange shout in an obscure tongue like a magician casting a wicked spell, and he is moving much faster toward me, like a limping run, and his blade is raised high, and James is not an intern, Night Vale, bu the Autumn Specter itself come to reap my soul!

But before he does that, Let me take you to the weather.

[“Welterweight” by Nels Andrews. https://nelsandrews.bandcamp.com/]

So. During the weather, I went to human resources and requested a file on intern James. Oh I’m fine, by the way, and James is not the Autumn Specter, but I’ll get to that. So I found a copy of James’ résumé and cover letter for the position of radio station intern. His application was originally submitted in 1845. “That’s almost two centuries ago!” I exclaimed, but according to HR, they’re pretty backlogged on the intern apps. “What are you gonna do, we get to them when we get to them,” they said from the bottom of their abandoned well. Paperclipped to James’ application was a wrinkled and yellowed news clipping from the Night Vale °Daily Journal, and the article says that James died on Halloween night in 1849 when he was hit by a train. I then went to the hall of public records and found that our radio station was built in 1950, atop the very train tracks where James met hi send. James’ soul has been wandering the halls and offices of our radio station ever since. For all James ever wanted was to be a radio intern. To serve the listening community, to lift high the voice of journalistic truth. And it was his death that led to the shutdown of those train tracks and the eventual construction of a new station home, and the building we still use now. So I was wrong about James. He was an intern, after all, and not a malevolent Halloween spirit.

But I was right that the Autumn Specter had come for me. For when I turned to see James running down the hill, I did not notice the Autumn Specter behind me, with its bony hands and scarecrow mouth, and I did not notice its soul reaping sickle, which it had raised high above its oversized head and stick thin body. And James had given his life for the building of our radio station, and in death, gave his soul for the very same cause. And James threw himself upon the Autumn Specter, and he tried to stab the Specter’s neck and chest, but it-it- it did nothing. And the Spectre pushed James aside and then turned its black coal eyes upon me. And it raised its curved blade once again and swung! I tried to duck, but was too slow. And just as the sickle’s edge reached my face, James dove in front of it and vanished in a burst of white flame, as he was struck. And the room was empty and the Autumn Specter was gone too.

To the family and friends of intern James, he was… an OK intern. Not always on  top of his writing deadlines, but he literally sacrificed his soul for our radio station. I can’t bring you a traffic report today, but I will live to bring you one tomorrow.  If we find a new intern. And HR tells me that we have hundreds of candidates, although  most of them are not yet aware that they are candidates.

Stay tuned next for our new cooking competition show, “Flay Bobby Flay”.

And as always, Good night, Night Vale, Good night.

Today’s proverb: The road to hell is paved with cobblestone. It’s super bumpy, not at all comfortable, and really bad for your car’s suspension.

[reanimatedgh0ul]

I picture Val and Danny going on dates to pumpkin patches or haunted houses something about those two have such a fall vibe

it's funny you mention that bc i actually had plans to draw them going to a pumpkin patch inspired by this oc art an artist i rlly like did one time

[darks-ink]

Got My Reasons

“Doing the right thing for the wrong reason doesn’t make it good!” His glow flickered wildly, coalescing and twirling like flames. His eyes burned bright like a jack-’o-lantern’s. “Just because you helped me doesn’t make you the better person!” “You practically served yourself up to us,” she retorted, her voice flat. “What else did you expect, a heavily injured ghost unconscious in the vehicle of ghost hunters?”

Prompt: After being seriously wounded in a fight, Danny collapses inside the Fenton GAV to recoup. When his parents are called to the ghost sighting a few minutes later, however, they don’t notice who they’ve brought along for the ride Prompt by: @sapphireswimming Word count: 7,625

[AO3] [FFN] [more Phic Phight fics]

Content warning: descriptions of serious injuries, kinda terrible medical practice. The usual. But it’s all okay in the end!

---

The GAV screeched to a sudden halt, Maddie already half out the door before it had stopped. The ghost on the road in front of them roared, baring oversized fangs at the vehicle.

She rushed around the car, pulling open the doors in the back with force. A weapon. That’s all she needed. A weapon, ASAP.

The thought distracted her enough that she stumbled, almost falling over something out of place in the GAV. She barely caught herself on one of the shelves, already turning to scold Jack, when she saw—

“Phantom,” she whispered, feeling her brain grind to a halt.

Because it was, without a doubt, Phantom. The ghost seemed to be severely injured, splattered in green ectoplasm. It dripped over Phantom’s side, staining the wall of the GAV that he leaned against. One hand was pressed loosely against his side, but the ghost’s eyes were closed, and he hadn’t responded to her tripping over him, either. Passed out? But that wasn’t possible, was it?

She bit her lip. The ghost outside was a bigger threat. Maddie knew she had to focus on that one, first. Phantom was clearly in no state to leave, but…

Her hand touched the familiar metal curve of a Fenton Thermos.

Without another thought, she uncapped the device. Phantom was dragged in without another movement, not even stirring in the slightest. This was a perfect opportunity to study him, and the Thermos would preserve him until the right time.

With that settled, Maddie turned to grab a gun. Jack needed her. Phantom would come later.

---

“Uh, Maddie?” Jack’s voice rang from the back of the car, and she paused. “Why is there ectoplasm splattered all over the inside of the GAV?”

She blinked for a moment before realization struck. “It’s Phantom!” she yelled back, already turning to walk back. “I found him seriously injured and passed out in the back of the van, but we had to go deal with that attacking ghost.”

Now next to her husband, she clambered inside. The Thermos was still where she had left it, and she grabbed it. Let’s not get that one confused with the others. “I caught him in this Thermos. Not sure how bad his injuries really are, but this way he would be stable until we could look at him.”

“Good thinking!” Jack grinned, climbing into the GAV next to her to stow their weapons. “Passed out, though?”

“He didn’t move, not even when I tripped on him.” She frowned at the Thermos in her hand. “It was… strange. He was completely unresponsive, but he was still together. Leaking ectoplasm, but only from his injuries. Not destabilized.”

“Odd,” her husband agreed, clicking the last gun into its place. “I guess we have our work cut out for us!”

“Indeed.” She turned the Thermos, slowly, gazing at the meter in its side. It was startlingly full, a measure not just of mass but also of a ghost’s strength. Considering that Phantom was the only one in the Thermos… “Why don’t you drive us back, honey?”

His excitement would turn him in an even more reckless driver than usual, she guessed, but… she didn’t want to risk Phantom escaping.

Briefly, she considered clipping the Thermos onto her belt, but no. It felt safer in her hands, even as she had to take one off of the device to climb into the passenger’s seat of the GAV.

Their drive back home was… well. It was certainly fast.

Before she knew it, Maddie was clambering out of the GAV with one hand, the Thermos clenched in her other. “I’ll go prep the lab. Jack, bring in the spent weaponry and the other ghost, please?”

“Gotcha!” He bounded away to the back of the GAV while Maddie walked to their front door, quickly unlocking it. The house was empty inside—Danny was off with his friends, and Jazz away to the library—but that had become rather common these days.

At least she wouldn’t have to worry about either of them protesting their capture of Phantom. She didn’t understand it, the youth’s insistence that the ghost was good, but she certainly didn’t understand how her own children had fallen for Phantom’s tricks.

Well, it would be a problem no longer. Once she and Jack were done with their studies of Phantom, the ghost would no longer trick anybody.

Maddie left the Thermos on one of the mostly empty tables, quickly putting away the few things that were on it. She rolled a trolley over, paused. Rolled her eyes and emptied that, too.

By the time Jack had made it downstairs, their used weaponry stacked in a pile to the side—she made a quick mental note to make sure those were taken care of later—Maddie had finished preparing the table and the trolley. She had stalled out a large assortment of tools they might want or need for their inspection of Phantom.

There were no straps on the table—they had removed them due to the diversity in ghosts’ bodies—but she didn’t think they would need them, anyway. Phantom had been so weakened… He hadn’t even fought back when she’d tripped over him, when she’d captured him.

“Ready, Jack?” she asked, picking up the Thermos again. “We won’t know how he’ll act.”

“Ready,” her husband confirmed. He flexed his fingers, the metal ghost-proof gauntlets shifting with the movement. “I’ll hold him if he tries to escape.”

Maddie nodded, twisting the cap off of the Thermos. With a whir, it unloaded its contents, spitting Phantom onto the table.

The ghost groaned as he hit the surface, his limbs twitching slightly. He seemed slightly more awake than in the GAV, but not much. Didn’t even try to leave the table.

Ectoplasm gushed from several injuries all over Phantom’s body, the liquid spilling onto the table already.

“Not looking good, Phantom,” Jack commented, disengaging the gauntlets. Clearly they wouldn’t need them to restrain Phantom.

Phantom groaned again, a warble of sound that might’ve been intended as an answer. Definitely awake, then, but in poor condition.

She moved to roll him onto his back. Frowned at the deep slice in his side, right where the ribs would be on a human. The inside of the injury glimmered with fresh ectoplasm but it didn’t spill, not nearly as freely as she would’ve expected. No, the surface-level ectoplasm seemed… almost crystallized, a solid instead of a liquid.

Frowning, with one hand bracing Phantom, she reached in. The ectoplasm certainly felt solid under her probing finger.

Phantom groaned again, his left arm shifting slightly, like a weak attempt at batting her away.

“He seems to have some form of ectoplasmic bones,” she reported to Jack, finally rolling Phantom over all the way. The ghost twitched, his left hand wandering back to the slice. His eyes, he kept closed. “But his injuries are severe. He might destabilize before we finish our research.”

“That’d be a waste.” Jack frowned at the ghost on their table, too. “We’ll have to stabilize him. This is the first ghost with those kind of traits we’ve seen. We can’t risk losing him.”

That, at least, they agreed on. “We’ll need to close the injuries, stop him from losing too much ectoplasm. Can you get a needle and thread?” She looked back at Phantom, his complexion seeming to pale. “Fishing line if you can find it, but normal thread might be enough to tide him over for now.”

Phantom muttered something again, a whining noise that didn’t quite make it to words. It was odd. Maddie had been sure the ghost always spoke in perfect English, yet he seemed to be conversing in something else now. She was almost tempted to consider it a ghostly language of sorts, but why would such a thing exist? Ghosts weren’t intelligent enough for a society, let alone a language that drove such a thing.

“I found some fishing line, but not nearly enough for all his injuries.” Jack handed her the first aid kit, a sterile needle and clean thread, as well as a ball of tangled phase-proof wire. “… and I’ll have to untangle it first,” he added on, sheepishly.

“We’ll have to risk the normal thread.” She reached for the needle, then paused. Looked at Phantom. “It… His structure seems far more complicated than that of other ghosts. Should we see if he has a layer of skin underneath the jumpsuit? Stitching the two together might cause harm.”

Jack nodded, already grabbing Phantom’s right hand—the one not pressed against an injury. He hooked his fingers underneath the edge of Phantom’s white glove, carefully peeling it off.

As she had half expected, the glove came off entirely, damaged but not destabilizing even when removed from the ghost it belonged to. And underneath it, Phantom’s hand was… almost normal. The skin was the same cool tone as his face, a thousand small details she never would’ve expected a ghost to have, especially on a surface not usually exposed to sight.

“Let’s strip the rest, too,” Jack said, dropping the glove next to Phantom’s side. He reached for Phantom’s left hand, but hesitated. “The jumpsuit, at least. But, Maddie, what detail.”

“He’s unlike every other ghost we’ve tested so far,” she agreed. From this close, she could see the exquisite detail in Phantom’s clothing, too. A zipper hidden in the edge of his collar, which she tugged down to unzip the front of his suit. “And you couldn’t even tell from the way he acted! I wonder how many more are like this? Is it related to their strength?”

Phantom’s jumpsuit peeled apart to reveal a pale chest. Several smaller cuts littered his front, previously unnoticed due to the splatters of ectoplasm. The structure of it was, again, oddly detailed and human like.

Jack whistled, low. “What a scar, Mads! I wonder if it’s related to his death?”

“Why would he have scars of an event he doesn’t remember?” She zipped the jumpsuit down to his belt, working his right arm out of the sleeve. “I’d consider it more likely that it’s an old injury he got in a ghost fight. Maybe he kept it for intimidation purposes, to show that he won from a ghost with a certain level of power.”

“But then, why not show it off?” Jack asked, helping her by lifting Phantom up slightly. The ghost groaned, quietly, but didn’t try to stop them. “Why hide it under his suit?”

“He might’ve changed his appearance to appear more tame towards Amity Park’s citizens.” She rolled the right side of the jumpsuit down to Phantom’s hips, but that left the other side. “Jack, why don’t you keep pressure on that cut, and I’ll take off the rest of the jumpsuit?”

Her husband nodded, bustling over to press his hands against Phantom’s side. The ghost hissed, a strange warble and click to the sound, like a layer of audible static. His left hand batted at Jack’s hand, weakly, but it stilled quickly. The ghost went limp against the table.

“Did he pass out?” Jack asked, leaning over Phantom without taking his hands off of the injury. “Well, that’ll make our job easier, at least.”

She hummed as she peeled off Phantom’s left glove, slick with ectoplasm. His hand was sturdier than she would’ve expected of a ghost, a clear sign that his bone-like constructions extended into his hands. The skin was… surprisingly human-like, too cool but not as icy cold as ghosts usually were.

Maddie dropped the glove with the one already on the table, turning to lay down Phantom’s hand, when she noticed its appearance.

“Jack, look.” She held up the hand, her fingers tracing the extensive scarring. Its texture differed from the rest of the skin, rough and ragged like an actual scar. It seemed to originate in the palm, branching outwards from there, all the way down his wrist and into the cuff of his jumpsuit. It glowed, faintly, brightest at the palm. “Do you think it’s the same scar as on his chest?”

“Only one way to find out, huh?” Jack twisted his head to nod at Phantom’s face. “He has some kind of bruising on his throat, somehow. Green instead of purple, but you can’t mistake that kind of splotching.”

“At least we won’t have to worry about a crushed windpipe.” She twisted his arm out of the sleeve, feeling the bones in his shoulder shift with the movement. Definitely a human-like skeleton. How odd. “There we go. Definitely one large electrical scar, with the extremes in the palm of his hand and on his chest.”

Jack shifted his hands, allowing her to push the jumpsuit down to Phantom’s hips entirely. Now, they could see the ragged edges of the injury, the way it had torn Phantom’s… skin, for lack of better word, apart.

“Whoever, or whatever, he fought must’ve been something vicious,” Jack commented. Green ectoplasm continued to bubble up around his black gloves.

“Loathe as I am to say it, it was a good thing that Phantom dealt with it.” She looked over Phantom’s other injuries, but none seemed as threatening as the one on his side. “Something like this would’ve killed a human almost instantly.”

She picked up the needle, taking it out of its packaging. Using sterile tools might not be necessary, but Phantom was already defying what they knew of ghosts. Better not risk it.

“He must’ve caught it, at least,” Jack said as she threaded the needle. “If he was in the back of our GAV, the fight must’ve ended. Not sure where the Thermos went, though.”

Maddie gestured, and Jack shifted, pinching the injury closed instead of covering it up. She stuck the needle through, swiftly, but Phantom didn’t move.

“Definitely passed out,” she commented, moving to pinch the injury closed herself. “I’ve got this, Jack. Can you go look over the rest of his injuries?”

“Well, he has those bruises on his neck.” Jack paused, placing his fingers against the bare throat. “They seem… finger-like? Like someone tried to strangle him. A ghost my size, maybe?”

She threaded the needle through Phantom’s side again. “But why try to choke him out? That’d do nothing to him, he’s a ghost!”

“Maybe they were trying to snap his neck, instead?” Jack made an uncertain noise, moving up to Phantom’s head. “If he has something like bones, they gotta serve some purpose, right? So maybe breaking his spine would’ve disabled him, like with a human?”

“But as a ghost, his most important part is the core in his chest, not the brain.” She was making steady progress on Phantom’s side. The ghost still hadn’t stirred. He’d better not destabilize, not after all the effort they put into preserving him. “Unless he needs his head for some kind of offensive power, snapping his neck wouldn’t have done them any good.”

“There might not be any logic behind it, anyway,” Jack pointed out. “We’re talking about ghosts, after all. Maybe this wasn’t an attempt at strangling at all, but just the most convenient part for the other ghost to grab.”

He paused, gently probing Phantom’s head. “He definitely has some sort of skull, too. Very human-like, barely any flesh—or ectoplasm—over it. A cut on his temple, kind of deep. Looks like it bled badly, but it’s got some sort of crust over it, now.”

“Normal ectoplasm doesn’t crust… But normal ectoplasm also doesn’t form bone-like structures.” Halfway through the slice on his sides. The ribs still glinted crystalline against a backdrop of green so dark it appeared black. “No other injuries on his head?”

“None that I can see.” Jack hesitated, then ran his fingers through Phantom’s hair. The black of his gloves contrasted starkly against the white of Phantom’s hair. “There’s some dried ectoplasm in here, but I think it all came from that cut on his temple.”

“That’s good, at least. I’m not sure how his head injuries would compare to a human’s.” A few more stitches went into Phantom’s side. “None of the cuts on his chest seemed severe when I checked them out earlier, and I don’t think he has any on his arms, either.”

Jack hummed, walking past her to the other end of the table. “I’ll check out his legs, then.”

As she continued to stitch of Phantom’s side, Jack’s humming paused. His hands wrapped around Phantom’s left leg, gently probing the limb.

“I… think he has a broken leg,” Jack said, abruptly. “It feels like the bone-like structure doesn’t line up right. It’s not that way on the other leg.”

“We might have to set it, then.” Another stitch as she thought it over. “If his flesh injuries heal, his bones probably do as well. He probably doesn’t need his legs to walk, but having the bone grow wrong might stop him from forming his spectral tail.”

She paused, her hands stilling. “How does he form a spectral tail if he has bones?”

“I…” Jack halted too. “I honestly don’t know. He doesn’t move that thing like there’s any bones in it.”

“Maybe…” She continued her work again, pulling the needle through Phantom’s false flesh. “Maybe he can form and dissolve the crystal structures by will? To form bones and then make them go away when they’re a hindrance?”

“In which case we wouldn’t need to set his leg, because he can just reform it properly,” Jack pointed out. It was quiet for a moment as he, presumably, felt out the bones. “It feels like a clean break, at least. We can try waiting it out and offer him a splint if he needs it.”

“That might work.” She finished another stitch, looking over her work. Tied off the thread. “There, this should keep him stable for now. Let’s hope he doesn’t immediately rip it or phase it out when he wakes up.”

Which was baffling her, still. Ghosts don’t pass out; they don’t black out or sleep or go unconscious in any way. Even if Phantom had bones of some sort, what benefit could passing out give him?

“I’ll get a bucket and some cloth.” Jack had wandered off already, having finished his inspection. “We better clean all that ectoplasm off of him, make sure he’s not hiding anything more severe.”

She nodded, placing the needle back in its wrapper. It would have to be thrown out and replaced later; there was no sterilizing a needle so heavily stained with ectoplasm. Speaking of which…

Maddie stripped off her gloves, dropping them on a nearby table, and wandered over to the lab’s closet. It always paid to have a few jumpsuits on hand. One of the bins contained spare gloves, and she quickly pulled a clean pair on.

“I got the stuff!” Jack announced, bustling down the stairs. He had replaced his gloves with clean ones too, at some point. Hopefully before he left the lab and smeared ectoplasm on everything.

“Let’s get him cleaned up, then.” She took one of the cloths out of the water—warm, but not too hot—and pressed it against Phantom’s chest. The ghost made a soft noise, a staticky whine, his fingers twitching.

No further movement came.

They carefully cleaned the ectoplasm off of Phantom’s body; his scars seemed to glow even brighter when they were wet. As Jack finished cleaning off Phantom’s torso, Maddie moved over to his head.

Phantom still had his eyes closed, but they were no longer clenched as tightly. Thick globs of ectoplasm trailed down the side of his face, smeared through his hair.

Gently, she pressed the cloth against his head, just underneath the injury. If it had scabbed over, she didn’t want to reopen it. Phantom moaned, his eyes moving underneath the lids.

It wasn’t a sound, not a human one, but… Maddie could’ve sworn that Phantom called her ‘Mom’.

“Those noises are strange, aren’t they, Jack?” she asked, trying to distract herself from the not-word. Ghosts didn’t do parents; the concept of a mother should be completely foreign to Phantom. “I’ve never heard him speak anything but perfect English.”

“They’re so inhuman!” he agreed, as excited as ever. “The warbling, the almost static sound of them! It must be something lower than true speech, for Phantom to fall back into it when injured.”

Jack tapped on Phantom’s chest, right in the center of the glowing scar. “It’s almost like it comes from his core, sometimes, instead of his mouth. Fascinating, isn’t it?”

“But why would ghosts have a basal language of their own?” She rubbed the ectoplasm stains off of Phantom’s cheek, the ghost’s nose twitching when she brushed too close past it. For just a brief moment, she could see green gums, sharp teeth. “They’re not sentient, not even like animals. Right? They would have no need to communicate with each other.”

“Well, if they can learn human languages, I don’t see why they couldn’t have their own.” He shrugged, coming closer to Phantom’s head as well. “They clearly have some form of intelligence, even if it’s limited. They can conceptualize and plan, after all.”

He lifted Phantom’s head, and she started cleaning the ectoplasm out of the ghost’s hair. It was odd, the texture of it just off. A little too slick, too smooth. Not heavy enough, as it seemed to stir even when neither of them touched it.

“I suppose you’re right,” she eventually said. Phantom’s head laid limply in Jack’s hand, the other braced under the ghost’s shoulders. “They must go out of their way to avoid using it around humans, then. I can’t think of a single ghost using it before, not even the animals.”

“It’s definitely weird,” Jack agreed. “And, I was thinking… It doesn’t seem the echo the same way as their voices either, does it?”

She paused, the wet cloth pressed against Phantom’s head. No. No, it certainly hadn’t. “Huh.”

“Maybe they do always speak in it,” Jack continued. “Maybe they just layer actual speech on top of it, usually. Maybe that’s what causes the echo? A voice from their core, for ghosts, and a voice from their throat?”

“I suppose it might be possible.” The clumps of green had mostly been washed out of Phantom’s hair, now, leaving just faint green stains. “I think this is as good as we’ll get it, Jack.”

He nodded, lowering Phantom’s head back onto the table. The ghost stirred again, a little, eyelids clenching and relaxing again. It sniffled, oddly enough, face contorting.

Maddie dropped the cloth back into the bucket of water. They’d definitely need to get rid of all that, too. Ugh. The disadvantages of working with ectoplasm.

Phantom warbled something again. His fingers twitched against the surface of the table.

“Look who’s waking up!” Jack grinned at her, from Phantom’s other side. “About time, Phantom!”

The ghost jerked, suddenly, like a full-body flinch. He hissed, a sound filled with static and pain.

And then he was sitting up, fingers clawing against the surface of the table.

“No you don’t!” she told him, pressing a hand against his chest. Pushed him back against the table. “You’re not tearing those stitches I just put into you.”

His eyes moved to stare at her, the green dull and glassy compared to their usual brightness. He frowned, warbling something at her.

‘why’ her mind told her it meant.

“Down, Phantom.” She pressed harder, and he collapsed back against the table. There was more tension in his body, now. In his false muscles.

Or were they false?

“We found you passed out in the GAV,” Jack explained, tone dropping into something comforting. “You looked close to destabilizing.”

Phantom’s eyes seemed to sharpen, finally, as they darted from her to Jack and back. His left hand wandered to his side.

“Don’t mess with those stitches,” she told him, sharply. He flinched, but dropped the hand. “We didn’t clean you up just so you can wreck all our hard work, you know?”

He licked his lips, tongue vivid green against his pale skin. “Why?” he croaked out, layered so thickly in static she could barely make out the word.

“Why?” she repeated, quirking an eyebrow at him. “Well, you were too interesting a subject to pass up, of course. None of the ghosts we’ve studied so far had bodies as complex as yours. What a waste it would be, to let you melt away like that!”

Phantom pressed flatter against the table. His hands wandered, like he was looking for something. “Now what?”

“Well, there’s no straps on this table, if that’s what you’re looking for,” Jack said, looking down at Phantom. The ghost stilled immediately. Huh. Odd. Why would he know to look for those? “For now, you appear weakened enough that there’s no risk of your escape, but you’re awake enough to answer some questions. Mads?”

“Sounds like a good start,” she agreed. This was probably the most pliable they would get Phantom. “Let’s start easy, shall we? Your leg is broken. Lower left. Do you want a splint for that?”

“I…” Phantom blinked, apparently caught off-guard by her question. “Um. I think I’ll be okay.”

She nodded, watching him carefully. His eyes seemed to brighten, slowly, becoming greener and greener by the second. Even his complexion seemed to gain some color back.

“Did you catch the ghost who roughed you up so badly?” Jack asked, crouching a little so he didn’t tower over Phantom as badly. “Wouldn’t want them to try the same on any humans, after all.”

“No, he’s… He’s not a concern anymore.” Phantom tried to push himself up again, but paused when she glared at him. “He’s… He only has it out for me. Doesn’t really care about the humans.”

Well, that was good, at least. “Is there any risk of him breaking in to chase you?”

“No, I took care of it.” Phantom shook his head, slowly, wobbling a little. “He needs his suit to be a real threat, and I destroyed that.”

A ghost wearing a suit? Something mechanical, then. Maybe like that annoying electric one, which controlled technology, but he didn’t seem all that interested in Phantom.

Must be an unknown ghost. That was… worrisome. The possibility that there was such a dangerous ghost out there that they knew nothing about, running loose in Amity Park.

Phantom seemed uncomfortable, pinned down flat against the table. She supposed that she and Jack were kind of looming over him.

“You can sit up, if you want, but be careful.” She tried to ease her posture, to soften her glare. Phantom was just a ghost, yes, but he was voluntarily giving them information. No point in shutting him down so soon.

The ghost nodded, sliding his hands underneath himself. Slowly, he pushed himself up. Cautiously. His face strained as he did so, briefly, hand sliding closer to the stitches in his side.

Curious. A pain reaction. Could be faked, of course, but it seemed… it seemed genuine. The barely-there hiss of static through his clenched teeth, layered over an almost physical sense of pain.

Maybe that was Phantom’s big trick all along. The ability to make others feel emotions. To somehow convey emotions and feelings that he, himself, did not feel.

“Do you want painkillers for that?” Jack asked, also watching the ghost grimace, hands hovering over the stitches. “Or, uh… Some ghost equivalent?”

Phantom’s eyes slid back to Jack, then Maddie, and back to Jack. “I… If you’ve got some. I need more than a human, though.”

“You want some water to help that go down?” Jack grabbed the first aid kit, digging through its contents for the painkillers. “Or food?”

“Um. Water would be nice. Food…” The oddly mundane sound of a growling stomach. Phantom flushed bright green. “I’d like food, yeah. Um. Thanks.”

Jack handed her the painkillers, already turning towards the stairs. “I’ll be right back with a glass and something to eat. Maddie, you figure out how much to give him.”

She turned the bottle in her hand, searching for the instructions. How did Phantom compare to a human? Was his metabolizing faster? Stronger? Did his ectoplasm somehow form organs, as well as bones? Some sort of non-crystallized solid?

“Um. I probably know how much I’ll need if you tell me what kind that is,” Phantom said, interrupting her train of thought. Her eyes snapped from the bottle to him. His shoulders were drawn up, tense.

“What?” she asked, still working through the sentence. “Oh, it’s… paracetamol. We don’t usually need painkillers for this sort of stuff.”

He nodded understandingly, and Maddie wondered how much of it he really did understand. His structure was definitely more complicated than that of most ghosts. He had bones, musculature, apparently even organs. Was it really that far-fetched to think that he might have something like nerves, too? That he might feel pain, or at least understand it?

“The teen portion, but up it by half, then.” He opened his hand, and only then seemed to realize that he wasn’t wearing his gloves, because he froze up. Stared down at his bare, heavily scarred hand. “Wh— Why am I not wearing my jumpsuit anymore?”

“We had to take it off to check your injuries.” She uncapped the bottle of painkillers, keeping Phantom in her peripherals. “And you seemed to have a structure underneath the jumpsuit, unlike most ghosts. We didn’t want to risk damage by sewing the two together.”

Phantom hummed at that. “I… thanks. I don’t think that that’d be good, yeah.”

“Well, it would be a shame to let you destabilize just like that, wouldn’t it?” She shook out a few pills into his hand. This was just… a study. An ordinary ghost wouldn’t have any desire for painkillers, and it definitely wouldn’t be able to process them. But would Phantom be any different?

“Yeah…” He made a face, hand curling closed around the painkillers like she might take them away again. “Well, thanks anyway, I suppose.”

Jack’s thudding footsteps sounded, and he appeared down the stairs. In one hand, he held a glass of water. In the other, a plate with a few sandwiches. “Sorry, we didn’t have anything quicker.”

He walked up closer, handing the glass to Phantom first. The ghost took it in his empty hand, fingers carefully wrapping around it, slick with condensation.

“Thanks.” The ghost raised the hand with pills to his mouth first, dropping them all in before chasing them with a big gulp of water. He made a face, following it with several smaller sips of water. “Eugh. That stuff never tastes good, does it?”

“It’s not supposed to taste good,” she pointed out, quirking an eyebrow. “You realize that, right?”

“Of course I do, I’m not an idiot.” He leaned backwards slightly, emptying the rest of the glass in one go. “Doesn’t mean I gotta like it.”

He handed the glass back to Jack, exchanging it for one of the sandwiches. Didn’t even try to grab the whole plate.

“Are you sure you don’t want more?” Jack asked, gesturing the plate at Phantom. “Those are some serious injuries to heal from.”

“Yeah, I guess, but…” Phantom shrugged, taking another bite of the sandwich before continuing. “It’s getting late. Wouldn’t want to ruin my appetite.”

Maddie could feel her eyebrow raising. “Dinner plans, Phantom?”

“I… uh.” His shoulders came up, suddenly, as he seemed to remember where he was. “Kinda, yeah…”

He took another bite of the sandwich, dropping his eyes down to his loosely folded legs.

Phantom looked like a scolded kid. It was the only thing she could think off. The way he curled up on himself, the tension in his shoulders. It just reminded her so, so much of Danny, whenever she scolded him.

Her heart stuttered in her chest, and she cursed herself. She couldn’t feel sorry for him. He was just a ghost! He was— he was doing it on purpose, to make her feel bad! To make them let him go!

The ghost continued eating in complete silence. His hair hung down over his face, barely moving anymore. The lines of his shoulders taught.

“Look, Phantom…” She paused, looking over at Jack. He shrugged back, looking equally unsure of himself. “We’re ghost hunters. We can’t just… let a ghost go.”

“Especially not one as fascinating as I am?” he sneered back, bitterly. He looked up, suddenly, venomous green meeting her eyes. “That’s all I am in the end, huh? No matter how hard I try, no matter how much I let myself get hurt just so no one else has to! In the end I’m just some ghost, to cut up and experiment on!”

She flinched back, involuntarily. The glow around his body, barely visible before, had flared out with his temper.

“It’s not like that,” Jack tried, feebly.

“No?” Phantom hissed back, the warble of static layered heavily over his voice once more. “Then what is this, huh?”

“We’re helping you.” She straightened her back, her fists balling automatically. “We’ve stitched you up, given you painkillers, fed you.”

“Because you didn’t want to lose me,” he countered. His lips curled, showing her once more those green gums and vicious teeth. Fangs. He’d had fangs all along, and she had never noticed until he bared them at her. “Because I was such a precious study object! And the painkillers, the food—”

He flung out an arm. “I bet that all that was just a test, to see if I was faking any of it! Could I really process food? Do painkillers really work on me? Wow!”

“Would you have preferred it if we hadn’t done any of that?” she snapped back. “That we’d left you smearing ectoplasm all over the place until you destabilized?”

“Doing the right thing for the wrong reason doesn’t make it good!” His glow flickered wildly, coalescing and twirling like flames. His eyes burned bright like a jack-’o-lantern’s. “Just because you helped me doesn’t make you the better person!”

“You are the one who broke into our vehicle.” She took a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down. Getting into a shouting match would accomplish nothing. “You passed out in the back of the Ghost Assault Vehicle.”

That seemed to take all the wind out of his sails. Phantom spluttered, but his glow dimmed significantly already. “I— That’s not what we were talking about!”

“You practically served yourself up to us,” she continued, her voice flat. “What else did you expect, a heavily injured ghost unconscious in the vehicle of ghost hunters?”

His shoulders came up again, Phantom halfway through curling up in a ball. He muttered venomously, some ghost-speak noise again.

And, again, Maddie somehow understood exactly what he said.

‘parents,’ he had hissed, from the very center of his being. An almost sardonic tone to it, somehow.

“Look, Phantom,” Jack said, picking up Maddie’s slack. “We’re ghost hunters. Supposedly, so are you. We found a potentially dangerous ghost in our vehicle without our knowledge, and we made the decision to patch you up. Regardless of the reasoning behind it, what else would you have wanted us to do? What would you have done, in this situation?”

“I…” Phantom sighed, blowing the hair out of his face. “I would’ve patched them up, too. But I definitely wouldn’t have told them that I saved them just because they were so fascinating, because I wanted nothing more than to experiment on them.”

“Would you have rather had us lie to you?” Jack asked, bluntly. “Would you rather have had us tell you that we patched you up out of the goodness of our hearts?”

“I… no.” Phantom shook his head, wrapped his arms around his bare chest. The picture of uncertainty. “No, because I know you would’ve been lying. You’ve been hunting ghosts for research for ages. Me, especially. There’s no way you would’ve patched me up out of kindness.”

“So then what do you want from us?” Maddie asked, shoving her thoughts to the back of her mind for now. “You didn’t want us to let you dissipate in our van. You didn’t want us to lie about why we helped you, but you don’t want us to tell you truth about that, either. What option does that leave?”

Phantom gritted his teeth, his glow suddenly brightening and immediately dimming again. “I don’t know! I just— Can’t you just be nice! Couldn’t you just fix me up out of the goodness of your hearts and mean it?!”

His fingers clawed in his hair as he curled even further into a ball, only the broken leg staying in its place. His shoulders were taught with tension, shaking lightly.

It sounded like… like he was sniffling.

Crying?

She grimaced, turning to look at Jack. He, too, seemed completely thrown off by the display.

It was just…

It was so genuine.

The shaking of the shoulders, the soft sounds of muffled crying, the barely visible glint of tears, the hitch in his breath, the soft keening of his core.

The hitch of his breath?

Hesitantly, Jack reached out. Placed one of his hands on Phantom’s shoulders—so big it almost covered the entire area. “Shh, kiddo.”

Phantom shook harder, but didn’t try to throw off Jack’s hand. The hitching of his breath was clearly audible now.

And Maddie…

Maddie didn’t know what to do. She knew how to comfort kids, and her heart clenched, demanded she help this teen, too. This kid that reminded her so much of her Danny.

But she didn’t know what to do. Phantom was supposed to be just another ghost. An ectoplasmic abomination that had lied and faked its way into everyone’s hearts.

Not this.

Not a teen, warbling “mom” at a stranger who cleaned his wounds. Not a teen who had hidden in their car when he’d gotten too injured to get away, searching for something that reminded him of his parents. For someone who’d keep him safe like his parents would’ve, should’ve.

“Oh, Phantom,” she said, threading her fingers through his hair. It was soft, still wet where she’d cleaned it. Still stained faintly green from his own ectoplasm. “Oh, honey… Why have you hidden this for so long? You are so… so human.”

He keened again, shaking harder under their hands. And in the sound, she heard ‘love acceptance warmth caring’ and ‘not me not mine not for ghosts’.

And for once, Maddie Fenton ignored her curiosity to focus on the crying ghost in their lab.

“Shh,” she told him, soothingly combing her fingers through his messy hair. “It’ll be alright, Phantom. We… It was our mistake. We were wrong.”

“We were so wrong,” Jack chimed in, rubbing circles on Phantom’s back. “We… You’re just a kid. How long have you been dead, kiddo? How old are you really?”

Phantom sniffled, and, voice warbling with emotion, said, “Two years. I— Sixteen.”

“Oh, sweetie.” He was so human, so young. He could’ve been her own son. “We’ve been so wrong. We never should’ve shot at you, never should’ve threatened you.”

“We let our assumptions lead us,” Jack agreed, quiet. Soft. “Phantom, we’re so sorry. Hey, shh. It’ll be alright.”

The ghost, so human and yet not, shook his head. Only slightly, just enough that Maddie’s hand didn’t dislodge.

“We’ll make it alright,” Maddie promised him, instead. Fierce, sharp. Determined. “Let us make it up, Phantom. Let us pay for our mistakes.”

“Don’t wanna,” he mumbled back, so quiet she could barely hear him. “Lemme leave.”

“Of course you can,” Jack assured him, still rubbing circles on Phantom’s back. “We won’t stop you, kiddo. We just want you to be safe.”

Phantom sniffled again. Slowly turned his head, until a single vivid green eye looked up at Maddie.

It was ringed with red, green-tinted tears still tracking down over his cheek.

“Do you?” he asked. He sounded… shattered. The echo of ghost-speak behind his voice wavered like glass in a storm.

“You’re just some kid in way over your head.” Maddie let her hand drop from his head, instead trying to convey her genuineness through her gaze. “You’re… barely a teenager. No one can—no one should—blame you for any of the damages you’ve caused, trying to help.”

“You’ve tried so hard, despite your death,” Jack chimed in, his hand stilling too. “You’ve died, and you’re still so good.”

“You’re so good, Phantom. I wish you were one of ours.” Maddie reached forward, slowly, wiping the tears off of his cheek. “If you ever need us, for anything, please don’t hesitate to come by.”

“I—” Phantom’s voice crackled, and he sniffled again. Wiped his own hand past the other eye. “I don’t— I can’t—”

“Please just promise us that.” Jack let his hand slip off of Phantom’s back, placing it on the edge of the table instead. He, too, stared pleadingly at Phantom. “We won’t force you to do anything, kiddo, we’re just asking. Let us help.”

Maddie slid the stained gloves over towards Phantom. “Phantom, we obviously remind you of your parents.”

The ghost hunched up again, slightly. Green spread over his cheeks like a blush. She pushed on. “You called me Mom when I cleaned off your wounds. You hid in the GAV because you felt safe in it, because it reminded you of your parents. They’re obviously not here, because you’ve died or because they’ve died or because of some combination of those, but you’re still allowed to want that comfort. And we are willing to give you that. It’s the least we can do, to repay what we’ve done to you, what we’ve threatened you with.”

“I—” His breath hitched again. “I don’t… I’ll keep it in mind.”

Well, she supposed they could hardly push for more. She didn’t think she’d be so open to accepting help from them either, if she’d been in Phantom’s place.

“Please do,” she told him instead. Patted him on the right knee. “Whatever it is, whatever you’re struggling with. You’re always welcome at our place. Okay?”

“Okay,” he whispered back. He wiped over his face again. “I gotta… I gotta get going.”

“Dinner plans, right?” She stepped backwards to give him some space. “You’d better eat well, young man.”

Phantom grunted, a noise vaguely underlined with acceptance. He stuck his arms through his sleeves, carefully pulling the jumpsuit back up over his upper body.

“And be careful with your injuries.” Jack handed Phantom the gloves, having apparently scooped them off of the table at some point. “Those stitches in your side will need some time to heal before you take them out, and your broken leg… Well, you’d know better than us how it heals, but still.”

“I know how to take care of myself,” Phantom grumbled back, pulling on his gloves. He grimaced at the left one, more green than white with his spilled ectoplasm. It had dried, crackling uncomfortably as he moved his fingers. “Despite the evidence of the contrary.”

He pushed himself off of the table, suddenly. Maddie jerked forward automatically, but Phantom hovered above the ground, his leg held limply.

The ghost raised further up, until he floated at their eye level. “I… Thanks. For helping me. And… the apologies, I guess.”

“It was the least we could do,” she assured him, crossing her arms loosely. “Please, Phantom, come to us if you need anything.”

“I’ll… keep it in mind.” He shimmered, turning transparent. Then, suddenly, he dove upwards, and then he was gone.

“Well…” Jack cleared his throat. “That… That happened.”

“Yeah,” she agreed, looking at the empty table. It’s surface was stained green with Phantom’s ectoplasm, a small puddle left where he’d bled the worst. “God, Jack. What have we done?”

“Something we’ve learned from. Something we won’t ever do again.” He looked up, meeting her eyes. “That’s all we can do, Mads. Make amends to the best of our abilities.”

She nodded, slowly. “We’d better get working on cleaning the lab. We’ll need to go through all our research on ghosts, strip it down to the base observations. Start over from scratch.”

“Yeah.” He rubbed a thumb over the edge of the stain on the table, absentmindedly. “But first, we should focus on our own kids, I think.”

Maddie paused. Turned to look at the clock. “Oh lord, you’re right. I’d better get started on dinner.”

“I’ll start on cleaning the lab.” Jack nodded at the stairs. “You go take care of the wonderful kids we already have, instead of worrying about Phantom.”

“Thanks, honey.” She pressed a kiss against his cheek, before turning to rush up the stairs.

He was right. They already had two wonderful kids. Worrying about Phantom would do them no good, not unless the ghost would accept their help.

The door to the kitchen swung open, and Maddie stared in the startled blue eyes of her son, the lingering sounds of the conversation she’d just cut short between him and his sister.

“Oh, kids, I’m so sorry. I’ll get started on dinner right away.”

“Something distracting in the lab?” Jazz asked, getting out of her chair. “Can I help?”

“If you could help me peel these potatoes, that’d be wonderful…” She passed a pan and a knife to Jazz. “And, yes, I suppose you could say as much.”

Danny laughed. She turned to look at him, at his cautious grin. “Must be something big.”

“Yeah,” she answered, watching him angle his head slightly. Letting his black hair slide down his face, parting just right for her to see a flash of dark red against pale skin. A scab on his temple, right where… right where Phantom had had a scab, too.

But… surely that couldn’t be?

No, it was just her mind playing things off.

Right?

[artemismoon12writes]

Title: Robin, Prince Eric, and Two Zombies Walk into a Pizzeria

Daltonfic Big Bang; Week 4, Day 4; Halloween 

“I thought we weren’t supposed to wear costumes to Avery’s party?” “I told you, you should have dressed up.”  “We’re not going to the party.”

---

“We are far too old to go trick or treating!”

“Come on, it’ll be fun!” Wes said, dragging Danny behind him.

Wes’ Robin costume was something he’d worn before, but it still fit so he’d pulled it on. Danny was protesting, pulling down the arms on the Prince Eric costume Wes had forced him into. He hadn’t wanted to dress up, he’d just wanted to go to the alumni party, eat a bowl of chips, and forget about how badly he’d messed up in front of the whole NYU swim team yesterday.

Wes didn’t accept those excuses, shoving him into whatever he’d had in his closet until something came out of it.  

“Why do you even own a flute?” Danny asked, trying hard not to drop the instrument which Wes had tucked into the wide blue sash at his waist.

“It was my sisters- actually so is that scarf, so we can’t get it dirty.” Wes said in way of explanation, pulling him down the road.

“How about we just put it all back? Avery said it isn’t a costume party.”

“I told you, we don’t care about Sanchez, or Avery, or Justin, or whoever is throwing the alumni party this year. I’m taking you trick or treating!”

Danny groaned, “We’re just a block away. Can we just go there instead?”

“Hey Danny.”

Wes and Danny turned to see their fellow alumni- who Wes was constantly forgetting still lurked around New York- on the other side of the car-logged sideroad. Logan stopped mid wave, concerned. Derek was with Logan, presumably both heading to the Dalton party.

“You okay?”

“He’s fine Logan!” Wes said, rolling his eyes. Danny elbowed him, he liked Logan- besides, that was all high school drama, they were college kids now.

Logan crossed the street anyways, definitely not in the Halloween spirit; though Derek made an effort by smearing his face with zombie paint and just wearing his old soccer uniform.

“I thought we weren’t supposed to wear costumes to Avery’s party?” Logan asked.

“I told you, you should have dressed up.” Derek told his tall friend.

Wes frowned. “We’re not going to the party.”

“Then why are you out?” Derek asked. “I mean, Avery’s got the whole 23rd floor of the Augustine booked for this.”

Danny saw his chance. “Because Wes says he wants to take me trick or treating. It’s so stupid right?”

“You’ve never been! I can’t let this continue!” Wes exclaimed, waving the pillowcase he’d grabbed in his optimism.

Danny looked over to Derek and Logan, hoping for support from reasonable adults, but only found shocked expressions.

“Never?”

“Not even once?” Logan asked.

“God, I went every year, and then just got more candy until Amanda was too old for me to babysit her.” Derek said. “Trick or treating is the shit. Were your parents religious or something?”

Danny shrugged, feeling self conscious. He’d already had the same argument with Wes. “They just, never saw the point? Isn’t it a little weird to run around asking for candy?”

“It’s free candy!” Derek insisted, “It’s a tradition. Shit, I’ve wanted an excuse since I was a kid- Logan we have-”

Logan was ahead of him, pulling a tie out of his pocket to wrap around his head and wiping some of Derek’s zombie makeup on his thumb to smear haphazardly on his own cheek. “Hughes, we’re helping. Avery can deal for one night. You cannot go an entire life without trick or treating.”

Danny looked at Logan like he was nuts. “It’s not a big deal!”

“No it is! And I’m glad Hughes got you dressed up, two blocks up is a whole line of brownstones and they’ll be perfect.”

“You don’t even have a bag!”

“We’ll share!” Wes insisted, confused but elated that he now had allies in this- even if they were unexpected. “It’s not really about the candy, but the experience.”

“How often can you say you can just walk around, knocking on people’s doors, and they welcome- no- encourage it!” Derek said, jogging ahead of them backwards because he already knew where Logan was suggesting.

“This is insane.” Danny said, almost stumbling over a pile of soggy leaves from the park beside them. “We should just go to Aver-“

“He will understand!” Wes insisted, shoving Danny forward with the bag in hand. “Hell, Logan, text him- maybe we can get a whole convoy going.”

“Nah, I’m cutting it close already. You can’t go trick or treating without a costume, and he definitely won’t be wearing one.”

“Because we’re adults-”

“If it makes you feel better,” Wes said as they rounded the corner, “we can give the candy away afterwards.”

Danny wasn’t convinced; but the line of brownstones in front of them did seem to be much more fun than a crowded, stuffy lounge party at the Augustine would have been. Plastic skeletons hung up on the bannisters, softly glowing jack-o-lanterns, and fake spiderwebs strung like candy floss between each townhouse. Little kids swarmed, dressed as what were probably cartoon characters Danny was too old to understand- mixed with the classic horror monsters that endured across the ages.

“Come on- wait no, not that one. The light’s off.” Derek said.

“They have a pumpkin though.” Wes pointed out.

“God, you guys just go to the next house. The lady’s in a witch outfit

Danny found himself pushed in front of a woman in a tattered, but incredibly clean, dress wearing a black, pointed hat on her green wig.

“Uh trick or treat?” He said hesitantly.

She gave a high pitched laugh. Danny jumped, startled at the sound. She then laughed more softly, looking up from under her hat with a smile.

“Hey, you’re a little older than I expected.”

Danny’s little chorus piped up: “It’s his first time!” “His parents never took him!” “It’s unfair!”

She raised her eyebrows, examining the group. “Well, I have to agree. How old are you now?”

“20.” Danny admitted, embarrassed to be standing on the stairs of a brownstone with this lady judging him and his parents. They weren’t perfect, but he still felt compelled to defend them.

“Well this is long overdue.” She said, digging into the bowl in her lap and dumping a huge handful of fun-sized Kit Kats into the pillow case. “Hey were is everyone else’s bags?”

Logan shrugged. “It’s more about Danny.”

Wes elbowed him out of the way. “We thought we’d share!”

“It was a spur of the moment thing.” Derek admitted.

“Okay, well since you’re all dressed up.” She threw three more into the bag.

“Happy Halloween!” She called, sending them scurrying down the stairs and onto the next house.”

“Happy Halloween!” The group called, even Danny.

Wes slung his arm around Danny, pulling him up the next stairs to ring the bell. “See that wasn’t so bad.”

“I just-”

“Trick or Treat!” The group chorused again; dissolving into laughter when the man at the door came out with a bushy beard, silky nightgown, and a sign on his chest saying ‘Freudian Slip’.

The night continued like that, with Danny getting more and more comfortable as they made their way down the block. Most at the door saw the humour, or if they even questioned the quartet, only clucked in sympathy and gave Danny an extra handful. If anything, it was Logan who got the most flack for his lack of preparedness. One woman made him recite the Monster Mash for candy because he didn’t ‘try hard enough’.

By the end, they had half a pillowcase and crashed into a pizzeria that may or may not be owned by Wes’ family.

“I told you you’d enjoy it!” Wes said, spreading their haul out on the table as Derek waited for the full pizza they’d worked up an appetite for.

Danny looked away, “I guess.”

“You guess?” Logan sat back on the chair; knocking everything without a ‘peanut-free’ symbol out of his pile. “It was fun, admit it.”

“Maybe it was.”

“Pizza’s here!” Derek announced, placing the box on the table. They forgot to specific it wasn’t for take-out, so Derek started playing with the plastic ‘table’ as they dug in.

“You glad you went?” Logan asked.

“Yeah.”

“Of course! Everyone got to do it at least once!”

“Just once.”

“Happy Halloween Danny. Next year we’ll hit up the bars, but this year, just pretend we’re not all decrepit old people.”

“I’ll try.”

[thelastspeecher]

13 with birb guck au?

Day 01   Day 02   Day 03   Day 04   Day 05   Day 06   Day 07   Day 08Day 09   Day 10   Day 11   Day 12   Day 13   Day 14   Day 15   Day 16Day 17   Day 18   Day 19   Day 20   Day 21   Day 22   Day 23   Day 24Day 25   Day 26   Day 27   Day 28   Day 29   Day 30

13. Halloween costumes

Yesterday I wasn’t able to post a write for NaNoWriMo, but here it is, my fourth NaNoWriMo entry.  Birb Guck AU Stangie and their babs doing costume stuff for Halloween.

Word count: 1463

Send me a number for a fall-themed prompt!

              “Ow!”  Stan hissed in pain as he pricked himselfwith the needle.  Again.  His fingertips were raw and red from themultiple accidental stabs he’d given himself, but at least he was almost done.

              “You allright, darlin’?”  Stan looked up.  Angie had come into the living room at somepoint while Stan was sewing.  She bouncedtheir youngest child, eight-month-old Emmett, against her shoulder.  It was the only way that he could be soothedas of late.

              “Yeah,just stuck myself is all,” Stan said. Angie sat next to him on the couch, adjusting her hold on Emmett so thathe was sitting on her lap.  Stan pokedEmmett’s large nose playfully.  “Heythere, sport.”  Emmett snapped at Stan’sfinger, his tiny, sharp teeth catching on air. “Missed me.  Better luck nexttime, kiddo.”  Emmett warbled a series ofnotes eerily similar to the theme from CloseEncounters of the Third Kind.  Stanfrowned.  “When did he learn that?”

              “It wason TV the other day.”

              “But howdid he remember it?”

              “Guckscan remember songs like nobody’s business,” Angie said proudly.  She stroked the top of Emmett’s head, whichwas covered in a thin layer of gray down. Emmett closed his eyes, content.  “Whatare ya doin’ there?  Did the girlsaccidentally rip up yer clothes again or somethin’?”

              “Nah.  Just working on my Halloween costume.”

              “Wh- Stan,the kids have to stay inside!  They’re-”

              “Partalien, yeah.  But the girls can turnhuman now, and they’re going to kindergarten, and their friends have been askingabout trick-or-treating.”

              “We don’thave any Halloween costumes.”

              “Nope.  But the girls don’t need costumes,” Stansaid.  Angie cocked her head at him.  “All they gotta do is wear their feathers,and they can go shake down strangers for money like any other kid.”

              “Are- areyou suggestin’ that our half-alien children wander down the street withoutlookin’ human?” Angie asked.  Shewhistled a few notes in worry.  Stansmiled confidently at her.

              “Thepeople in this town are idiots.  Bigfootcould go knockin’ on their front door, asking to borrow a cup of sugar, andthey’d give it to him, thinking it was just a really hairy lumberjack.  And it’s Halloween, babe.  People will be expecting aliens.”

              “But-”  Angie whistled again.  Stan stifled a laugh at her admittedly cutenervous tic.  “But if we go out inpublic, and they have feathers, and then somehow, some way, someone sees me orTate or Fidds or the kids feathered later, they’ll know exactly who it is!  And the FBI will be breakin’ down our frontdoor!”

              “Babe, I’vegot this all figured out.”  Stan restedhis hand over Angie’s.  “If sometime,someone sees one of you Gucks in feathers, and it’s not during Halloween, they won’t think it’s you.  Why?  Because they saw you in feathers onHalloween!  Everybody knows that peoplewho have something to hide will keep it hidden. Only dumbasses would flaunt the things they want to keep secret.”  Emmett whistled three notes that sounded exactlylike Stan’s inflection on the word “dumbasses”. “See?  Even Emmett agrees.”

              “It- it is weirdly brilliant,” Angie saidsoftly.  She swallowed.  “But it- it goes against everything I’ve beentaught.”  She stroked Emmett’s headagain.  “Then again, our whole relationshipgoes against what I was taught as a Guckling.”

              “Exactly.”  Stan leaned over to kiss Angie on thenose.  She chuckled.  “And I’ll go out and buy some cheap chickencostumes or somethin’ for the boys.  Babycostumes pretty much cover everything, except for the eyes, but they have humaneyes anyways.  Trust me, I’ve got aplan.  No one’s gonna think that you orthe kids actually have feathers.”  Angie’sface was still drawn with worry.  “Iwouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t think it was a good idea.”

              “Youtried to feed Danny worms when she was a week old.”

              “Hey, I’vemade a lot stupider decisions than that,” Stan said firmly.  “That one made sense.  Baby birds eat worms.  I thought that one through.”

              “Did yathink this one through?”

              “I’vebeen planning this for two months.”

              “Thatlong, huh?”

              “Yeah.”  Stan looked down at the mass of fabric in hislap.  “I know you wanna keep the kidssafe, and I do too.  But we have to finda balance between keeping them safe and letting them be kids, y’know?  We can’t just keep ‘em inside all the time.  I figured that Halloween would be the big thingthat we can use to ease them into human interactions.”

              “They goto school.”

              “Thenstraight home, once they’re done with class for the day.”  Stan met Angie’s eyes.  In her natural state, they were pure black,as dark as obsidian.  But she was in herhuman form right now, and they were sky blue, churning with anxiety.  “I know that when you were a kid, you had tobe inside whenever any human was within spitting distance of the farm.  I wasn’t raised like that, though.  I grew up breaking curfew and bein’ a generalhoodlum.”  Angie managed a smallsmile.  “It’s good for kids to spend timeoutside with other kids, not in school.” After a moment, Angie nodded.

              “Okay.”  Her voice was soft.  “We’ll- we’ll take ‘em trick-or-treatin’.”

              “They’llbe over the moon.”  Angie noddedagain.  She rubbed her eyes.  “I promise, it’s gonna be fine.”

              “I’llhold ya to that promise.”  Loudscreeching emitted from the nursery.  “Emory’sup.”

              “Yep.”  Stan set down his costume and held out hishands.  Angie gently deposited Emmettinto his waiting arms.  Emmett looked upat Stan with wide eyes.  “Your old man isgonna hold you now.  You all right withthat?”  Emmett whistled the theme from Close Encounters of the Third Kindagain.  Stan whistled the themeback.  Emmett’s mouth dropped open inshock.  Angie chuckled.

              “I thinkyou just blew Emmett’s mind.”

              “Yeah.  I should whistle more.”

—– 

              “My mom’sgonna be happy we’re using the stroller she sent us,” Stan remarked as he buckledEmmett and his twin, Emory, into the stroller. Both infants were wearing bird costumes that covered their inhumanfeatures.

              “Daddy,you look so much like us,” Daisy said, stroking Stan’s costume.  Stan turned around and kissed the top ofDaisy’s head.

              “I’mpretty good at sewing, yeah.  And I usedfeathers I found laying around the house, which helped.”

              “That’swhat happened to all the shed feathers,” Angie remarked.  She was adjusting Danny’s coat so that it wasn’ttoo tight.  “I thought it was weird thatI didn’t need to vacuum last week.”  Shestraightened.  “Do you have your buckets,girls?”

              “Yep!”Danny and Daisy said together.  Daisythrust her jack-o-lantern-shaped basket in front of her proudly, hitting Stan’sknee.

              “Careful,honey,” Angie said.  “Don’t beat up yerfather.”

              “He cantake it,” Daisy said.  Stan laughed.  He ruffled Daisy’s head feathers.

              “That’smy girl.”  Stan looked over atAngie.  She gave off an anxious air, madeobvious by the way her canary-colored feathers were fluffed up.  “Ready to go trick-or-treating, Ang?”

              “As readyas I’ll ever be,” Angie replied, her voice shaking.  Stan moved over to her, dragging the strollerwith him.  Emory giggled and clapped hishands.  Stan put a comforting arm aroundAngie’s feather-covered shoulders.

              “It’sgonna go great, babe.  You know that,” hesaid softly.  Angie nodded.  “If it goes south, somehow, I’ll make adistraction so that you and the kids have time to get away.  But it won’t.”  Angie nodded again, this time moreconfidently.  “Hit the button, girls!”  Danny and Daisy jostled for the honor ofpressing the button by the door leading inside. Danny was successful; upon pressing it, the garage door creaked open.  Trick-or-treaters wandered the street withparents, running from house to house as they tried to collect the best possiblecandy.  One of the neighbors, theLawsons, stopped in front of the open garage.

              “Is thatthe McGucket-Pines family?” Mrs. Lawson asked.

              “Pines-McGucket,”Stan said.  Angie rolled her eyes.

              “Yourcostumes are great!” Mr. Lawson said.  “Wheredid you get them?”

              “Stanmade ‘em,” Angie answered.

              “Wow!  We should ask you to make our costumes nextyear, Stan,” Mrs. Lawson said.

              “It’llcost you,” Stan said.

              “Maybenot, then,” Mr. Lawson said.  Hechuckled.  “Have a fun Halloween!”

              “You too,”Angie said.  The Lawsons walkedaway.  Stan grinned at Angie.

              “I hateto say ‘I told you so’, but…”  Angieshoved Stan playfully.

              “Oh,please.  You never hate sayin’ that.”  Shegave him a peck on the cheek.  “Let’stake these lil buggers to get some free candy from strangers.”

              “Yeah!”Danny and Daisy shouted, running out of the garage.  “Free candy!”

              “God, Ilove those kids,” Stan said proudly.  “They’vegot their priorities straight.”

[astral-space-dragon]

My favorite Halloween films

I talked about my favorite Christmas films and thought I’d share my favorite Halloween films. Now keep in mind that these are in no particular order, just a list of Halloween films that I like. NOTE: I am excluding “Hocus Pocus”, “The Nightmare Before Christmas”, slasher films, and Stephen King films. That’d be too easy.

With that being said, here’s my favorite Halloween films.

1. Trick ‘r Treat

This 2009 film, takes place over the course of Halloween in the fictional town of Warren Valley, Ohio. Its story is told in a nonlinear narrative, with characters crossing paths with each other throughout the film. At the centre of the story is Sam, a peculiar trick-or-treater dressed in pajamas and a burlap sack, who appears to enforce the “rules” of Halloween.

This film was a hit in the box office, but for the few years, no one really talked about it. In recent years, it has gained a cult following and there have been talks of a possible sequel.

This films is perfect for Halloween. It’s riddled with the holiday: fallen leaves, trick-or-treating, jack o’ lanterns, all that good stuff. See it for yourself and join the following.

2. Mad Monster Party

Hey, remember those Christmas specials? Frosty the Snowman? Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer? Santa Claus is Coming to Town? Of course you do. Well, the same company (Rankin/Bass Productions) tried their hand at making a special for a different holiday: Halloween and “Mad Monster Party” was that final product. 

Baron Boris von Frankenstein (voiced by Boris Karloff [yes, I mean that]) achieves his ultimate ambition, the secret of total destruction. Having perfected and tested the formula, he sends out messenger bats to summon all monsters to the Isle of Evil in the Caribbean Sea. The Baron intends to inform them of his discovery and also to reveal his imminent retirement as head of the "Worldwide Organization of Monsters". Besides Frankenstein's Monster and the Monster's more intelligent mate who live in the island castle with Boris, the invites also include Count Dracula, the Mummy, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, the Werewolf, The Invisible Man, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and the Creature from the Black Lagoon.

The special did decently at the time of its release but since Rankin/Bass Productions was (and still is) known for their Christmas specials, the film flew under the radar and was pretty much forgotten.

Like “Trick ‘r Treat”, “Mad Monster Party” has gained a cult following in the recent years, but it’s still not talked about as much. Find the film for yourself and see why it should never be forgotten.

3. The Halloween Tree

“The Halloween Tree” is a 1993 Hanna-Barbera film based on the Ray Bradbury novel of the same name. The film tells the story of a group of trick-or-treating children who learn about the origins and influences of Halloween when one of their friends is spirited away by mysterious forces. The film stars Ray Bradbury as the narrator and the late Leonard Nimoy as the children's guide, Mr. Moundshroud.

I remember watching this film every year on Cartoon Network when it aired on the Halloween season (I don’t think they do anymore since it doesn’t fit their TTG agenda....), so it hold a special place in my heart. In the film, the children travel though time and witness ancient traditions that modern day Halloween takes inspiration from. From rituals carried out my Celtic Druids to Dia de los Muertos in Mexico; there’s something for everyone in this film.

4. Frankenweeinie (1984)

When I say “Frankenweenie”, I’m not talking about the 2012 stop-motion remake, I’m talking about the original 1984 film that got Tim Burton fired from Disney (yes, you read that right).

If you’ve seen the 2012 remake, then you already know the story. For those who don’t, allow me to give you a synopsis: The film is both a parody and homage to the 1931 film Frankenstein based on Mary Shelley's novel of the same name. The story goes as is: A young boy sets out to revive his dead pet using the power of science. It’s such a simple concept, a boy and his dog. But that concept, really never gets old. While I love the 2012 remake, I grew up watching this version and, call it a bias, I prefer this version.

5. Creature from the Black Lagoon

This 1954 monster flick is considered a landmark. It’s the film that inspired Guillermo Del Toro to make “The Shape of Water” (it’s true, I shit you not). It’s “The Creature from the Black Lagoon”. While this is not a film I grew up watching, I have fond memories of watching it in my honors biology class in high school. Yes, the film is cheesy as fuck and it at times leaves much to be desired. But, past all of that is a relic of the past and a film that helped paved the way for monster movies (and made monster fuckers dream come true).

So what’s the film about? A geology expedition in the Amazon uncovers fossilized evidence from the Devonian period that provides a direct link between land and sea animals. What follows is a return expedition to the Amazon to look for the remainder of the skeleton.

6. Freaks

Easily one of my favorite films. I could watch this anytime of the year. It’s an incredible film. The best part, the freaks in the films: all real. No make-up or special effects. You had Johnny Eck, Schlitzie, dwarf siblings Harry and Daisy Earles, and conjoined sisters  Daisy and Violet Hilton are just a few of the freaks that starred in this movie.

The film is about trapeze artist Cleopatra who learns that circus dwarf Hans has an inheritance, she marries the lovesick, diminutive performer, all the while planning to steal his fortune and run off with her lover, strong man Hercules. When Hans' friends and fellow performers discover what is going on, they band together and carry out a brutal revenge that leaves Hercules and Cleopatra knowing what it truly means to be a "freak."

“Freaks” is easily one of my favorite films of all time. I’ve always had a fascination with sideshow, freakshows and such; and to have this relic of the past is really something special.

7. The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad

While this film has two short stories, the one I want to focus on is “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”. This segment scared the piss out of me as a kid and I LOVED IT. The second segment is based on "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" by Washington Irving and it follows Ichabod Crane, a lanky, gluttonous, superstitious yet charming dandy arrives in Sleepy Hollow, New York to be the town's new schoolmaster.

I don’t want to give too much away but I assure you this segment is so much fun to watch. Both Ichabod’s and Mr. Toad’s segments are a lot of fun to watch. If you want to check it out for yourself, I highly recommend you do (research the production history as well, really interesting stuff).

8. Beetlejuice

You all know this film. Tim Burton. Michael Keaton. Young Winona Ryder. Danny Elfman. Geena Davis. The Banana Boat Song. What else is there to say?

9. Onibaba

I’ve only discovered this film this past year is it’s easily on my top 3 list. You may not know this, but I’m a huge sucker for Japanese folklore (thank my Japanese roots for that) and when I discover Onibaba, I already knew this film was up my alley. 

I don’t want to give anything away about this because I want you to go into this film blind like I did. Let me just say this: the two women in this film are badass.

10. Kakurenbo

This.... this is film that made every second count. “Kakurenbo” is only 25 minutes long and they made every second and every frame count. You may be thinking “That’s way to short to tell a full-fledged story!” The thing with Japanese storytelling is that they make 25 minutes as good as a two hour film and Kakurenbo is no exception.

The film entails a game of "Otokoyo", a version of hide and seek played by children, wearing fox masks, near the ruins of an abandoned old Kowloon-inspired city but there is a twist: children who play disappear, never to be seen again.

I first saw this film back in 2005 when it played on Cartoon’s Network’s adult-oriented nighttime programming, Adult Swim. 10 year old me was completely engrossed by this film. The story, the designs of the demons, everything about the film stuck to me. I recently got the my hands on the DVD (thanks mom) and I’m elated that I can enjoy “Kakurenbo” on any given day and not have to scour Youtube for a “decent” version.

I know I’ve said this throughout this list, but I STRONGLY urge all of you to check out “Kakurenbo” when you get the chance. You will not be disappointed.