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"it's cozy"
#omgcp#zimbits#omgcheckplease#omgcp fanart#eric bittle#jack zimmermann#or The Snuggle as I like to call it#decided to explore shading it instead of leaving on plain colors#ended up just using 2 colors each which is rare for me but that was fun :>#yes they're using the baggiest clothes they have coziness is their main goal here#myart#thinking on parv tags and yes them cuddling after a Bad Time ;0;#Jack being treated so kindly and with so much love
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✶⋆.˚ 𝚑𝚘𝚖𝚎
>> xiao x adeptus!reader
>> reader and xiao are old friends
though adeptus xiao maintains a semi-permanent residence in the attic room of the wangshu inn, he spends most of his time abroad hunting monsters. the room itself is plain in nature, only bearing a small bed, straw mat, a nightstand, and a small table in the corner. the basic necessities for living—though with the bareness of the room it’s hard to tell anyone does stay there.
xiao does not have any true home. wangshu inn is merely a place he goes to rest once he’s done his job.
xiao has grown used to his solitude—so much so that when you show up on the roof of wangshu inn he’s surprised. he’d forgotten his existence wasn’t null to everyone.
he’s flooded with memories as you hug him and smile so brightly, just as greetings with an old and dear friend should go. it takes a moment for xiao to even muster up a hello. after all, it’s been decades since he’s even seen you. but every time you smile it feels as though no time has passed at all.
you need a place to stay, you explain, since the mountains became too stuffy and you decided to explore the world on your own. you'd ended up in the plains of liyue and sensed an incredibly familiar presence. upon your questioning of locals and being told of ‘some mysterious figure who lives in the attic’ and ‘a spirit who fights monsters in the hills’ you knew it was xiao and had come to see him.
the first few days are a little odd. you come and go as you please, leaving xiao’s things untouched and spending most of your time down in the inn or out and about in liyue. xiao maintains his normal schedule of hunting and fighting monsters. he only returns at night (sometimes not even then), and by then you’re fast asleep in his bed. it makes it a little easier for him to crawl in beside you, knowing you can’t see his burning red cheeks.
but slowly, things begin to change.
xiao comes back one night, and his bed is made. strange, because verr goldet ensures no one go up in the attic to clean or any other such task. his bed is never made unless xiao himself makes it (which he never does).
upon further inspection, the covers on the bed are not even his. in place of the plain white sheets is a fluffy white comforter and pale blue throw blanket. there’s two pillows instead of one.
it’s your doing—that much is clear. but when he’d agreed to let you stay, he didn’t think you would seem so comfortable in his space. with him. and he didn’t think he would be so content to allow it.
the changes don’t stop at the covers. in fact, the entire bed is replaced with a larger, more comfortable one the next time he’s home. when confronted, you just shrug and smile a devious little smile, telling him that it’s easier to upgrade the bed to fit both of you than to go out and find yourself a whole separate bed. your eyes gleam with satisfaction at the red dusting his cheeks.
after the bed, there’s a rug. an ornamental rug with swirling patterns in your favorite color. xiao nearly scoffs when he sees it. you could never resist buying anything in that color. that much is proved when a tea set painted with that same shade appears on his little corner table. he just sighs a little. tea would go well with almond tofu, at least.
other things begin to appear in the little room. despite it filling up, the room actually feels bigger. cozier, maybe is the word he’s searching for. strange, because ‘cozy’ is a foreign word and feeling to the mighty adeptus xiao.
a mirror in the shape of a heart, a set of candles, a ‘prettier’ nightstand. curtains, more rugs, paintings, calligraphy.
things you’d picked up at the market, or while you were at the harbor. each addition always came bearing some kind of funny story or anecdote that you're all too happy to recount over almond tofu and sweet tea.
you don’t mind, do you? you always ask, big eyes fluttering and lips pouting. and xiao always says no. and strangely, he means it.
over the span of just a few weeks, the room is practically unrecognizable. it looked like a nice liyue apartment instead of the attic of an inn. it looked like a home.
and xiao finds himself coming home every night, no longer staying out in the plains so late. taking days to rest at your insistence. having evening tea with you on the roof.
you travel together now, xiao ever so hesitantly agreeing to go to the harbor with you. just this once, he says. only at night, and in the least crowded parts. and you agree with a smile.
you’re sitting on the docks, legs swinging over the edge and watching the moon reflect off the water and ships disappear over the horizon.
xiao looks over at you for a moment, and his breath hitches at how breathtaking you look in the moonlight.
eyes shining and reflecting the glowing sea, hair dancing in the slight breeze, lips settled into a soft smile.
xiao comes to a realization that night, as you drag him around by the hand as you laugh, taking him to all of your favorite spots.
it’s not the attic that feels like home, cozy as it may be. it’s you.
#xiao#adeptus xiao#xiao x reader#xiao x you#genshin impact#genshin x reader#genshin fluff#xiao fluff#genshin xiao
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meeting the prince
- a royalty au for the @bnhabookclub event
pairing: prince! shouto todoroki x maid! reader
context: where a lowly maid cross paths with a prince unintentionally
author's note(if any): oh my gosh fey @k-atsukidayo thank you so much for beta reading this fic and editing it as well! i really appreciate it
"Remember to keep your heads low while attending to the guests at Prince Shouto’s birthday party today. Do not communicate with each other while you’re working or you will be sent to the queen, as usual."
A low buzz reverberates around the room as the maids begin to whisper amongst each other, drowning out the silence that was present just moments ago.
You glance at the girl next to you, who is kneeling on the bumpy floor, just like you. You don’t know who she is, what her name even is, since maids are not supposed to communicate on the job and are expected to just work and attend to the needs of the royal family.
There was a time a young lady had been too talkative during the queen's celebratory banquet. An electrifying wave runs through your spine as you recall how she had been exiled to another kingdom. Your eyes close for a second, remembering how the poor girl's parents were begging the queen to spare her, since she was, after all, still young and had so much life to explore and learn.
However, the queen had refused immediately. After that, the parents of the girl went missing. There were many rumours as to what had happened to her parents. But the queen had sent soldiers patrolling the village and whoever who spoke about the girl or their parents were, once again, banished to another kingdom.
Your eyes flutter open and you clench your fists, and you can't help but feel that justice was not carried out promptly for her. But your thoughts are soon gone, since now you have to listen to the lecture that the head maid, Reina, has to present or it’s off to the queen you go.
The talk has lasted for so long that your knees are starting to ache, the rough floor scratching your knees from the friction. The color of your skin becoming flushed, the pressure of gravity on your body and the density of the floor being too much as you bite your lip, an attempt to lessen the growing pain.
You then try to move, hoping that it will bring you some form of relief. You wince. It is clearly a bad idea and you glance at your delicate knees, promptly deciding to ignore what else Reina has to say.
The warm sunlight shines in from the tiny square hole at the corner of the room, flickering deliriously right onto you. You squint, the bright beam beam of light beginning to hurt your eyes and you brush a calloused thumb over your knee.
Though your thumb is already quite rough, your knees are worse. The scabs from the previous time you had from a previous meeting, that also lasted for too long, had peeled off a little too early, and red flesh stares right back at you. You then try to tug your skirt down further, hoping that it will give your knee at least a little bit of protection, ignoring the intolerable feeling of exposed flesh the more you tug at it.
You could always just change your skirt, though, you simply don’t want to. Your eyes dart from maid to maid, and you notice that all their skirts cover their knees well. It's just you, the black sheep amongst the others.
You don’t want to bow every time you see someone important; you just don’t understand the concept behind it. Sincerity always seems to ooze out of the others when they bow a perfect ninety degrees, and it disgusts you.
You don’t like how the guests at the parties look down at you, knowing their place and asserting their dominance through eye contact. Especially when some of them would purposefully spill a cup of tea on the floor, and you would have to clean it up, though you don't usually attend to them.
But, unfortunately, you have to simply bite your tongue and hold back. For without the title as a maid, you would be known as nothing but a lowly peasant. You'd rather settle for a maid than being nothing but a peasant.
Your hands slowly move from your skirt to your pocket, gripping the lock of hair that your mother had briefly given to you before passing away because of an incurable illness. Your fingertips caress the smooth chunk, treating it with utmost care, careful to let it not tangle up.
The skirt belongs to your mother, from when she was a just maid, like you, until she met your father, a humble cobbler, and decided to resign from her job and had you.
Your heart aches at the thought of your deceased mother and tears soon threaten to spill from the corners of your eyes. Bile rises to your throat, causing you to splutter and choke.
Silence.
You realise that all of the maids, including Reina, are staring at you incredulously. Some shake their heads and click their tongues at you. Irritation begins to replace what once was sorrow, and you are about to give them a piece of your mind when-
"Y/n, we've talked about your attitude multiple times. Anymore of these nonsense coming from your mouth and I will definitely send you to the queen and you will be dealt with. Understand?"
Your large eyes meet Reina’s beady ones, which have a dangerous undertone to them. And, you break off the eye contact immediately, biting your lips instead. You know better than to say anything rebellious now, and you subtly nod. It seems to satisfy the head maid, and she promptly dismisses the group.
Soon, one by one, the maids begin to return to their housing quarters to change into a new set of clothes, nothing too fancy, just plain, brown, cotton covering their thin bodies and they begin to part ways.
You are assigned to the ballroom, as usual, where you have to attend to all the guest's needs at all times and give out the champagne to newly arrived ones, while maintaining eye contact with the ground, to exude ‘submission’, or so you’ve been told.
Before you could even take any steps further, a sharp voice calls out to you.
“Y/n, where do you think you’re going? I have told you just now haven’t I? You will be training our new addition. Guide her, ensure that she will not cause trouble for the royal family.”
Your eyebrows raise inwardly. As you turn your head around ever so slightly, you catch sight of a girl hiding behind the head maid.
She watches you with uncertainty in her eyes. She can’t be much older than eighteen. You look at her suspiciously. What is a young girl like her doing here? Her gaze wavers and she looks down, taking a handful of her skirt in her hands.
You force a warm smile and step towards her, while asking her to follow you. She scurries over to you, glancing over her shoulder in the process, as if to look at the head maid for assurance. The head maid nods and leaves.
You bring her to your room, a small place, your haven, you call it. The familiar, musty smell fills your nose and you take a deep breath and sigh. It does sound gross, but you had been living in this room for a few years now, and have gotten used to the scent. You’ve come to like it.
The brick walls are crumbling off, covering the floor with a thin layer of dirt. You observe the girl for her reaction. She scrunches her nose in disdain and fans her nose, perhaps hoping that the smell will go away.
The room has a sleeping bag and a tiny wooden closet. It is livable in there, though, quite limited to necessities. You crack open your closet door, getting a fresh change of clothes for you and the girl.
“So, uh, why’re you here?”
You ask, hoping to get some knowledge about her, to know what to expect while training her. However, she keeps quiet, hands clasped together and placed delicately in front of her hips and head looking downward.
Waiting a few seconds, you and her soon fall into an uncomfortable silence. You briefly close your eyes and look up, irritated at her. This was why you hate to train anyone here.
She takes a step forward, which catches you off guard, and you take a step back. Unsure of what else to do, you look at her, taking in her facial features.
Her golden brown hair is messily tied up in a loose bun, and her eyes. Her eyes are a rare shade of grey, seeming so much like marble under the moonlight, drawing attention to you. They seem to glow under the moonlight, her orbs are wobbling with emotions with emotion and you feel the need to envelop her in a hug. You don’t know why, you just feel the need to. You control yourself, shaking your head slightly, an attempt to control yourself.
She has a birthmark surrounding her lips, another interesting feature that you caught on now and didn't when you first met her.
Before you can admire her face any further, the bells at the castle ring. You freeze instantly. The bells signify that the guests from other kingdoms are arriving, which means that the maids should be at their positions at this moment.
You curse under your breath and toss her the dress, telling her to wear it. You, too, unbutton the fabric of your clothes and change quickly, enjoying the new soft fabric touching your skin. Then, you carefully grab the lock of hair and transfer it into your pocket.
You proceed to turn around, hoping to at least give her some basic respect and privacy. Staring out of the stained glass from your room, you watch as ships begin to paint the once calm ocean with dots of color.
A small smile creeps onto your face. How would it be like to be on one of those ships? you wonder, a faraway look in your eyes, the girl in your room long forgotten. You itch to gently caress the fabric with your rough hands, feeling the soft delicate fabric on your skin. You feel like a completely different person. It’s almost as if you have a new persona. Your eyes slowly take in the sight, enjoying this new outfit. Then, you turn to look at yourself in your small mirror next to the window, wanting to see how it appears on your body.
You have a plain brown attire, far different compared to the guests’ lavish colored ones. Your fingers find refuge in your pocket as you let out a self-deprecating laugh and frantically shake your head. This is your kismet, how could you stand a chance against it? You chide yourself internally. But, then, you jolt, suddenly remembering the ringing bells.
Glancing behind you, you are reminded of the apprenticeship of the girl, the dreaded task. Holding her dirty clothes in hand, she’s just standing beside you in silence, as if she doesn’t want to interrupt your thoughts. You silently take a mental note of that. She, unexpectedly, is rather considerate.
You then reach out a hand to her, and she takes it. Confused, you stare at her. You mean to take her dirty clothes, not her hand. You look at her, then at the clothes. Finally understanding, she slowly removes her hand from yours, her cheeks gradually glowing a shade of pink as she passes you her dress.
Pretending to disregard the previous ordeal, you throw the dirty clothing in the clothes basket and step out of your room, taking big steps at a time. You have completely lost track of time. This is the first time you’re late, and you have no idea what to expect upon arriving at the ballroom.
Quietly slipping into the ballroom, it seems that everyone is too preoccupied in their fun to notice you and the other girl arrive. Scurrying over to the bartender, you hand her a tray of champagne, and motion for her to give it out to guests. She gracefully nods, and moves into the crowd not long after.
Finally alone, you take a good look at your surroundings. The band is playing up an instrumental piece, reflecting off the four walls and ringing throughout the room. A chandelier hung proudly in the centre, radiating such warmth and joy to the atmosphere.
Your eyes trace over the walls, a glittering silver, so bright and shiny you feel the need to shield yourself from their glare. A group of women walk past you, with flowing, intricate designs on their gowns, beautiful shades of pastel. The faint scent of roses fill your senses and it brings you serenity.
Hearing their low chatter and occasional laughter, you felt incredibly out of place. Right, you never had a place here to begin with. The ambience around you makes you feel a little bit better. But you still couldn’t help but sigh.
Trying to get those negative thoughts out of your head, your hands reach out to a tray as well. As you ready yourself for the task, a cold hand touches your shoulder.
“Why are you late?”
You jump in shock, newfound adrenaline suddenly coursing through you as you gulp slowly and turn around. That high-pitched, piercing voice could only belong to one person: Reina. As you expected, it is her. Panicking internally, you tell her the first thing that comes to mind: your trainee had constipation and you had to wait for her.
Reina’s eyebrows rise in suspicion, and you pray that she wouldn’t see the small bead of cold sweat roll down your forehead.
Not telling you anything else, Reina walks away. Perhaps that is a good sign, since she didn’t rebuke you. Your chest heaves, a small sigh of relief leaving your lips. You heartbeat slowly returns to normal, that is, until you catch the sight of Reina speaking to the queen. Suddenly anxious, you worry about what Reina had told the queen. You hope it’s not your lack of punctuality.
You don’t know why. But at this pivotal moment, it did not matter. But you hurry toward the door of the ballroom impulsively, and instantly regret it. Small feet thumping the ground with a quick tempo, you contemplate to look behind you. And, after much thought, you do.. You watch in horror, as the queen’s gaze is seemingly fixed on you. You can feel her anger.
You know you should have said something when Reina instructed you to mentor the girl. Peeking at the scabs on your knees, you cringe as the pain soon begins to take over your body and lessens your speed. Muttering profanities under your breath, you still push on. From the corner of your eyes, you can see royal guards coming after you.
You know that if they caught you, your punishment wouldn't be just banishing to another kingdom. Shivering as you think of all sorts of gore, you see the door opening inch by inch. You tug at the door as it opened with a creak. Before closing it, you hear the queen scream in pure rage.
The fear completely paralyzes you, and the more you think about running away, or simply moving a bit, the more you feel discouraged and utterly terrified. You hear the queen yell “SHOUTOOOOOO,” and the ballroom becomes dead quiet. You don’t know whether to feel relieved or not since she isn’t calling for you. You think, maybe, something more important has her attention. It is the least of your worries for now, though.
Running along the dimly lit corridors, you find the need to squint, everything in front of you a complete blur. You have no idea where to go, or what you are supposed to do. You surprisingly feel...free.
With no one to control you at this moment, you could roam around the castle to your heart's desire, but you decide against it. You fumble around, placing a hand on the wall to guide you along the way. You then try to find ways to be able to see better. By rapidly blinking, you realize that doing so makes out the outline of your surroundings.
You then see light coming from a corner. You halt, peeking over the wall to see someone coming up with a flashlight. Palms clamming up, you lean against the wall, as if that would do anything. But anything to calm your pounding heart, right?
As you pray that it isn’t any royal guards, you wish fervently that you’d suddenly disappear or turn invisible. Streaks of red and white fill your vision and you frown, confused. Isn’t that…
“P-prince Shouto?” You whisper, almost hoping that he would not hear you.
His heterochromatic orbs widen as if he hadn’t been expecting anyone in these dark hallways. He shines the torchlight toward your face, and you squint from the exposure.
“I’m not going back.”
Tilting your head to the side, you raise an eyebrow. Your eyes flicker over his face, and you accidentally make eye contact with him. Averting your eyes away, it then hit you. You are of close proximity with the prince. Instinctively, you bow. Your hair falls over your head, coming undone. You are still in disbelief that you are face-to-face, less than five feet apart from the prince and-
“Stop with the act. I know Mother sent you after me.” Voice ice cold, he glares at you, with some degree of hatred in his eyes.
Eyes widening, you open your mouth, then quickly close it, not knowing what to say. Frantically neatening up your hair that had been messed from bowing, you whisper. You hope that it will convey your vulnerability.
“I really don't know what’s going on. I’m just a lowly maid who was late for my ballroom duty and the queen looked like she was about to kill me so I just left the ballroom fearing for my life and I’m still fearing for my life. Please don’t-”
Your hands fly to cover your mouth as you fearfully look at Shouto. Then, you mentally reprimand yourself for saying too much and wasting the prince’s time. Deciding that you should probably be on your way, you quickly bow and turn around, taking a step forward.
“Are you trying to run away?”
Shouto’s voice calls out to you a few seconds later. You freeze, not knowing how to answer his question. If you say yes, would he bring you to the queen? If you say no, would he tell the queen about you?
It then hits you. Perhaps… the prince was trying to run away too? Since you did hear the queen yell Shouto’s name. Slowly turning around with a panicked, crooked smile, you reply.
“Yes.”
With your job considered gone and reputation tainted, there is clearly no place for you here anymore.
“Well, great. Me too. Let’s run away together.”
“W-what? What would your mother think? Shouto, think-”
When you stopped yourself, Shouto raises an eyebrow, urging you to continue.
“I’m sorry for speaking to you informally, Prince Shouto.”
Bracing yourself for any scolding, you force your eyes shut. Nothing comes after that. You try to open your left eye, and Shouto is looking at you, rather amused.
“You have no idea how funny you look right now. Also, honestly speaking, I don't care much for the respect aspect. We’re about the same age, right? What’s there to respect?”
Opening your mouth to protest, you place a finger in the air.
“But I’m just a lowly maid and you’re a prince and I shouldn't be talking to you in this way because I’m kind of like a peasant and you’re like, so amazing and royal and high class and all that and-”
“Gosh, do you ever shut up?”
His ice cold expression is gone and is replaced by a warm smile. You never thought you would see him smile. Since, after all, whenever you had attended to him on any occasion, his eyes would be devoid of any emotion, lips awfully straight with a constant uninterested vibe.
“I guess not,” you respond playfully.
“Besides, this is fate isn’t it? Who would have thought that we’d meet each other here? Look at it as a fortunate stroke of serendipity, you can’t control your destiny you know?”
You are in a daze, still in shock, as Shouto half-drags you along with him, trying to find his way out of the castle with the torchlight lighting the way. No idea where he is going, you decide to trust Shouto wholeheartedly. It then hits you.
This isn’t right.
Both he and you know that you, a lowly maid, and him, a royal prince, together would be a force to be reckoned with. It may even cause all hell to break loose. But realistically speaking, what can you do in this situation?
It may be a mistake; but it’s going to be a beautiful one. You are going to make sure it is a beautiful one. Besides, Shouto is right.
What chance do you stand against kismet, really?
taglist: @bnha-homeroom
#bnhabookclub#shouto todoroki#shouto todoroki x reader#shouto todoroki royalty au#bnha#bnha fic#mha fic#mha#bnha royalty au
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So like...
I've been writing something. It was supposed to be a short little one-shot thing but it's gonna be a full-blown story now I guess. I don't have a title for it yet but I'm working on it. I started writing it two days ago. This is all I have but I'm working on more. But here it is.
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Words: 2,614
Summary: Deceit and Remus welcome a new side.
Prologue
Deceit and Remus have not been at their best as of late. They haven't felt like themselves, they haven't felt full, they haven't felt whole since Virgil left them. They had been completely crushed by the loss of their friend, and the fact that they are still considered evil and dark only makes things worse.
Thomas had not noticed the worsening depression stemming from the two sides, for it was not enough to impact his mental health directly. Despite this, the feelings still stewed and festered in the depths of his mind.
Thomas was alright up until now. With his recent realizations of his own selfishness and his intrusive thoughts, paired with ever-approaching wedding, his mental health has plummeted faster than a plane falling from the sky. The days seem to get longer and drag on more the closer they come to the dreaded wedding. The closer it gets, the more Thomas thinks about the callback and how amazing it would be just to be there. He also thinks about the court case and how differently things could have gone. He thinks about other possible ways that whole scenario could have played out. All of these different thoughts send him into a deep depression, spiralling deeper than ever before.
His spiralling depression, mixed with the long-festering feelings of the two remaining "dark" sides, is enough for the manifestation of a new side.
This new side has begun to form in the living room of the "dark" sides. It had been a long time since the manifestation of a new side, so Deceit and Remus were understandably shocked to see the colored energy swirling and circling right before their very eyes. It's like magic.
Once the energy has dissipated and the smoke has cleared, the figure that had manifested could be seen. They are at least four inches shorter than all the other sides. They have curly brown hair that is swooped to the left instead of the right. They have dull brown eyes and skin as pale as ivory. They wear all dark gray from head to toe. They wear an oversized dark gray hoodie, dark gray jeans with a hole in the right knee, and dark gray shoes. The only color they have is rainbow shoelaces. They have a chubby build and appear...female?
Deceit and Remus stare at the figure before them in awe. The figure stares back, seeming somewhat confused. Deceit steps forward and begins to speak, even though he has almost no idea what to say. "Hello. I'm Deceit, and this is Remus." He gestures a hand in Remus' direction. Remus only waves a hello, afraid he might scare them off if he says anything. The figure waves back and speaks in a high pitched, female-sounding voice. "Hi. I'm uhh...Depression."
Deceit and Remus look at each other with hope and a small amount of confusion. They finally have another "dark" side, another family member, someone who they hope won't abandon them. However, they are confused by the new side appearing to be a girl. They have some questions, to say the least. Deceit speaks again. "Do you mind if we ask you some questions?"
"Not if you don't mind me asking some of my own," Depression responds.
"Not at all. Please, sit." Deceit and Remus sit on either side of the couch, making room for their new guest to sit between them. As Depression gets comfortable on the surprisingly soft couch, Deceit starts asking his questions. "I...we don't want to be disrespectful to you but umm...are you female?"
"Yes, I am. And before you ask why, I'll tell you. Along with representing depression, I also represent a lot of Thomas' insecurities. One of them being overtly feminine. So yes, please use she/her pronouns when you refer to me." Deceit and Remus nod at her explanation and wait for her to ask them a question. "So, I suppose my only question is....whaaat happened? Like how and/or why am I here now? As an actual person and not just floating...brain energy?" The two look taken aback at the phrase 'floating brain energy,' but Deceit answers the question to the best of his ability.
"You're here in a physical form now because Thomas' depression has affected him so much that it has become a part of his personality. Us sides are all aspects of his personality, thus you manifesting into a new side." Depression nods at his answer and is then struck with a realization. "Ohhhhhh, okay."
Before Deceit can say anything else, Remus speaks for the first time in at least ten minutes. "Floating brain energy?" There is as much enthusiasm as there is confusion in his voice. He seems to like the phrase.
"Yeah. It was kinda like I could see and hear everything like I was in the room, but I couldn't interact with anything or anyone. I could go through everything. I was kinda like a...formless ghost." She explains her experience the best she can. Deceit seems intrigued and Remus looks...inspired? She's not quite sure, but it looks like he liked the way she described it. Deceit clears his throat. "Do you have a name?"
"Do YOU have a name?" she retorts. She seems slightly uncomfortable at the mention of names; Deceit understands.
"Fair point." He glances off towards the stairs, as if searching for more questions, when he notices the glow of more energy coming from the upstairs hallway. "I think your bedroom is forming. We should check it out."
"I wanna see what it looks like!" Remus exclaims with child-like enthusiasm. He's definitely excited by their new arrival; he's practically beaming. He skips all the way up the stairs, Deceit and Depression trailing behind.
As they walk through the hallway, Deceit stops the group at two doors across the hall from each other. He turns to his left and says, "This is my room. If I'm not around, I'm most likely in here. Feel free to knock if you ever need anything." It was a solid black door with yellow trim, a yellow door knob, and a yellow two-headed snake on the front. Depression nods as she examines the door.
Remus turns to the right and exclaims, "This is my room! Come in anytime, I'm not shy!" The door is solid black with green trim, door knob, and octopus on the front.
"I would suggest knocking before you even think about going in there," Deceit whispers to Depression. She nods with a small chuckle. "Oh, trust me, I already know all about that." She shivers and Deceit knows she's seen a thing or two.
They continue their trek down the hallway until they reach two more doors. "This must be your room," Deceit says, turning to the left again. There was a plain dark gray door with a silver door knob, no color, and no animal depicted on the front. Depression turns to the door on the other side of the hallway. It's a solid black door with purple trim, door knob, and spider on the front. She notices a pattern with the doors. She also notices a strip of caution tape covering the entrance.
"Whose room was that?" She asks curiously, although she feels as if she already knows the answer.
Deceit and Remus look at each other sadly. "The room of an old friend," Remus' voice is soft and filled with sorrow. "He uhh...moved out a while back," Deceit finishes Remus' thought while trying not to sound crushed. Depression nods understandingly.
She changes the subject, trying to lighten the mood. She hates to see people as depressed as she is. "You guys wanted to see my room, right? Well," she chuckles lightly, "I do too. I have no idea what's in here." She turns the knob and pushes the door open, the three of them stepping inside.
The room is dimly lit, seeming to only have a bed, a desk with a phone sitting on it, and a wall clock that moves much slower than real time. "That's it?" Depression and Remus speak in surprised unison and look at each other.
"The more you become a defined personality trait, the more you and the things around you will develop. You're practically a newborn baby. Give it time. Come on, Remus. Let's let her settle in." Deceit says, waving Remus out of the room. They close the door behind them as they exit, leaving Depression alone in the now completely dark room. She stumbles her way to the desk and picks up the phone. She turns it on and sees that it's brand new. She sits on the desk and spends the next twenty minutes setting up the phone and fiddling with its settings. Once she's finished, she stretches out her arms and flinches when her hand softly strikes something. She slowly reaches for it and finds it's a desk lamp. She flicks it on, causing the entire room to light up. She looks around, finally able to see the details of the room.
The walls are a neutral gray with dark wood trim along the bottom. The carpet is slightly shaggy with several different shades of gray. The bed has white sheets, a gray plaid blanket and pillow cases, and a dark wood frame that matches the wall trim. The desk and the desk lamp are both black. It's beautiful, in its own way.
As she looks around, she notices another dark gray door with a silver door knob. She hops off the desk and makes her way over to it. She opens the door to reveal a decent sized closet. The only thing in it is a silver bar and some empty hangers hanging from it. She sighs at the emptiness of her room, but takes solace at the quietness of it.
She decides to explore more of the mindscape and goes back downstairs. Deceit and Remus are watching TV on the couch, although they seem to not be paying the slightest bit of attention to it. They're too busy talking. She quietly passes them as she heads for the kitchen. She checks the time on her phone, 9:28 pm, way too late for dinner. She grabs a glass of water and moves behind the couch, leaning over the back and looking at the TV.
"Whatcha guys watchin?" Her voice startles the two men, causing them to jump and look at her. She sips her water, seeming unamused. "You guys weren't watching the TV." She states matter-of-factly. "You were talking about me, weren't you?" She stares at them dully.
Deceit sighs. "Yes, we were. We're so happy to finally have someone here with us again. It's kind of lonely here with just the two of us. We were just talking about all the things we could do together, kind of like a family." He seems afraid that they may have upset her.
"Y-yeah! We didn't mean anything by it! W-we were just wondering how you'd develop!" Remus stutters. He seems nervous. They seem sincere and for the first time, Depression cracks a small smile. Deceit looks at her in awe as Remus gives a small squeal. This causes her to smile even more. Remus covers his mouth as Deceit squeaks. She can't help but giggle a little and smile fully. "So cute!" Deceit and Remus squeal out in unison.
She giggles more. "Shut up! I'm not that cute." She covers her blush with a sleeve covered hand. The two stop squealing and compose themselves. "Sorry. I-it's been a long time," Deceit says. They both look embarrassed. She squeezes between them on the couch. "Tell me about yourselves and what goes on here. I need to know."
She listens to them talk about themselves and tell stories about the other sides for the next two hours. They were both so excited to have a fresh pair of ears to tell all their stories to. They both seemed genuinely happy for the first time in a long while, and Depression could tell. It made her happy to see others happy. Not only did she have fun listening to their stories, she got to know a lot about who they are and what they're all about. She sees the ups and downs they both deal with and she accepts them fully, trying to understand as best as she can. She's content with her placement in the mindscape.
After all the stories had been told, it was time for bed. The trio headed to their rooms, wishing each other goodnight. Deceit and Remus fell asleep quickly. Depression stayed up. After forty five minutes of silence, she sneaks into the hallway. She heads for the door across the hall, ducks the caution tape and, as slowly and quietly as she can, opens the door. She leaves the door cracked the tiniest bit and heads for the desk, turning on the desk lamp. She looks around the room. The walls are a light shade purple with band and movie posters, a clock going much faster than real time, and cobwebs hanging on them. The carpet is black and there are Halloween type decorations all around the room. The desk and lamp are black. The bed has black sheets, dark purple plaid blanket, a case-less pillow, and a black frame. The closet door is half open and the room is a mess. As if there were a fight, or someone was trying to leave in a hurry. Everything is covered in a layer of dust.
She carefully makes her way towards the closet where she can see an intact box. Once she reaches the closet, she opens the door and kneels so she can better examine the box and it's contents. The box is small, and has less dust than anything else does. She takes a deep breath and open the box. The only thing in it is a fluffy, black, plaid, zip up jacket. She looks at it confused and examines it closely. She squishes it and tugs it, feels the fluff, follows the lines with her finger, plays with hood, pulls the strings, zips and unzips it... She does everything she can think of. Then she's smacked with a realization. Virgil. The purple one. The edgy one. Anxiety. This is his old room. He use to live with Deceit and Remus. It all makes sense to her now. She feels bad for her two new friends, but can't be mad at Virgil either. She understands it must've been hard for him, and things are nice up with the "light" sides. She sighs. This is all she wanted to know, so it's time for her to leave. She goes to fold the jacket but stops as she looks at it. Something about it is very alluring. She decides to take it with her. She places the box back in the corner, turns off the lamp, and exits the room. She shuts the door as quietly as possible, turning the knob to soften the thunk, and ducks the caution tape again.
As she enters her room, she notices a dresser and a nightstand, both in the same dark wood as the bedframe. There's an alarm clock on the nightstand.
She makes her way to the dresser and opens the bottom drawer, tucking the jacket inside. She notices a set of pajamas and takes them out, shutting the drawer. She puts on her pajamas, a blue-gray shirt with rain clouds on it and a pair black pants. She turns off her lamp and lays in her bed, watching YouTube for a few more hours. She goes to sleep at 4 am.
#sanders sides#thomas sanders#deceit sanders#ts deceit#virgil sanders#ts virgil#ts remus#tw remus#tw deceit#remus sanders#my writing#writing#my work
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Zymphadora “Zym” Purpura CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT QUESTIONNAIRE
BASICS
1. Height?
5’4
2. Eye color, skin color, hair and horn color?
Completely, moonish white with no visible pupils.
Her skin is light purple like lilacs and her horns darken to near black-purple and lighten as they get longer, however the remaining sections of her horns are mostly dark.
Her hair is a darker shade of purple than her skin.
3. Do they need glasses?
No.
4. Scars and birthmark?
Zym has thin scars on her fingers and knuckles. Her knees and shins are also pock-marked from less than graceful falls from trees and stairwells while exploring her father’s estate.
Her broken horns are still jagged beneath the metal caps.
5. Tattoos and piercings?
Zym’s ears have several piercings, though they aren’t particularly dramatic or gaudy. She has two piercings on each lobe and two in the cartilage of her right ear where a small chain connects the two silver studs.
Delicate tattoos of her her favorite flowers drape across Zym’s shoulders and tumble down her sternum and across her collarbones. They flood down her left arm and across the back of her hand, but her right arm has yet to receive the same treatment and the flowers are limited to her shoulder on that side. Sunflowers, violets, lupins, cornflowers, trilliums, irises, and many more are all carved into her skin.
On the inside of her right upper arm, normally only visible when her arms are raised, is the symbol of her bandit crew, the Lurkers. The crudely drawn symbol itself is of a set of scales with a cartoonish eye sitting in both sides. The black, harsh lines are incongruent and ugly beside the flowers. Next to that is a small, equally crude bird in reference to Zym’s nickname within the gang. They called her their Larker rather than Lurker because larks always sing at daybreak and even while they’re flying unlike most other birds. The sight of a meadowlark is meant to signify abundance and good harvest as is the case when Zym reappeared after a heist.
FLOWER TATTOO REFERENCE
6. Right or left handed?
Ambidextrous.
7. Any disabilities? Physical or mental.
None.
8. Do they have any allergies?
Ironically, she has seasonal allergies and her favorite flowers make her nose stuffy.
9. Favorite color?
All of them, but pink especially.
10. Typical outfits?
Day-to-day Zym wears gathered white shirts that, while occasionally billowing or lacey, can be tucked into her waist or tightened to remove risks of it getting caught during her sneakier deeds. She rarely, if ever, bothers to button them up all the way and the tattoos down her chest and dancing on her clavicle are always in view. Pale rainbows of color, suggestions of what lies beneath the fabric, peek through the white as she moves.
She wears plain, often black or brown pants that are gathered and tucked into her laced boots. Both are unremarkable, but functional. Atop her pants she ties a shin-length skirt of light, breezy, and layered fabric of whatever color she decides on that day. Most often it will be pink, pale blue, or ivory. The skirt itself is not a full circle skirt and instead is much like a cape and ties secure around her waist with a ribbon. There’s always a slit up the side, but the fabric is bushy enough that the slit isn’t easily visible and it acts like a normal, full skirt. She can easily pull her skirt free if she needs to flee or climb, but she’s nearly always wearing it and it’s light enough not to encumber her. The layers of the skirt also hide the large number of small pockets and sheaths strapped along her thighs where she keeps her keys, trinkets, daggers, and her thieve’s tools all secure and easily accessible.
When cold, she wears thicker pants and a jacket that fits snugly to her frame. Alternatively she’ll wear billowing cloaks that are easy to throw off and leave behind. She wears no jewelry other than her earrings.
11. Do they wear any makeup?
She rarely bothers with makeup and her skills begin and end with lining her eyes in black kohl. When she wants to feel festive, or pretty, she’ll apply some.
12. What weapon do they use, if any?
She carries a short sword, a shortbow with a quiver of arrows, two daggers, and her thieves tools. The latter pieces of equipment are secured to her thighs beneath her skirt while the former hang from her waist or her pack.
PERSONALITY
13. Are they more optimistic or pessimistic?
She’s utterly, irrevocably, impossibly optimistic. Really, it should be rather concerning how hopeful she is and how enduringly cheerful.
14. Are they introverted or extroverted?
Extroverted, but not always in her excitable, hyperactive way; she desires to be near people and adores being in people’s silent presences as much as she does the bustling, loud atmosphere of a tavern or party.
15. What are their pet peeves?
People who are needlessly negative or who go out of their way to try and make others feel the same.
Squirrels. They’re always better climbers than she is and she doesn’t like it.
16. What bad habits do they have?
She bites the tips of her fingers when she’s nervous and is unable to sit still for long if she doesn’t have something specific to focus on. If she’s laying in wait and preparing to rob someone, she can stay still and silent for hours at a time. Similarly if she’s having an interesting conversation she won’t fidget. If not, she bounces on the balls of her feet, swings her arms back and forth, hums, spins or dances in place, and swooshes her skirt back and forth.
17. Do they have any phobias?
She’s scared of the dark, but it’s not quite a phobia as she can still function in darkness. It’s one of the many reasons she adores cities: their lights never dim. If she’s forced out into the wilds, she’ll refuse to leave the safe net of light from the campfires or insist on carrying the lantern or torch. If someone knows the Light cantrip that’s the person she’ll stick close to.
18. How do they display affection?
Zym is incredibly tactile and if given permission, or not outright refusal, she’ll hold anyone’s hand, link arms with them, hug, and kiss them freely. When given the opportunity, she’ll often show her affection for someone by merely pressing into their side and resting her head on their shoulders or lap.
She’s always enamored by one thing or another. An activity, a book, a performance and she’ll always want to share whatever neat thing she’s fixated on with people.
19. How competitive are they?
Extraordinarily. If she’s in the competition, she wants to win, but the moment it becomes too serious, or the fun is lost, she likewise loses her competitiveness as well as interest.
20. If they could change one thing about themselves, what would it be?
She’d want her horns back. She knows her personality is pretty great, and so is her smile, and she’s a great thief and all, but her horns were always part of her. She’s an even better thief and burglar because of their absence and she no longer runs the risk of the long, curling protrusions catching on something or stopping her from fitting into small spaces, but she feels like she’s lost her crown and will be self-conscious about them.
21. Do they have any obscure hobbies or routines?
She loves to find academics and experts and ask them as many questions as possible. She’s both truly curious about anything and everything, finding art as well as plants endlessly fascinating, but she also wants to see how many questions it takes for them to become irritated with her. The better professors take several hundred questions, but the stuffiest, haughtiest ones only take three or four of her truest inquiries.
She then steals from the mean professors.
Before she joined the crew of thieves she would change her name every few weeks. Not for any particular reason, but they all got boring after awhile. Her name is from a very old, silly tale of adventure she read only a few weeks before joining the crew and it’s stuck for many years.
BACKSTORY
22. What are the names and ages of their close family members? Parents, siblings, etc.
Father [human]: Lord Argus Encrois, 67
Father’s wife [human]: Lady Gisella Encrois, 52
Their four legitimate daughters: Heather, 27; Holly, 25; Merilla and Jonie, both 20.
Too many bastard siblings to name: Aged 16-40s. She isn’t in contact with any of them, but fears the worst for some of the bastards left behind in Itresa and knows her father wouldn’t do anything to protect them or keep them from going to the plantations or into the slave army. They never cared for her, but she still wishes them the best.
She never knew her mother, but she knows she’s a tiefling. She likes to think that she’s a grand adventurer or thrill seeker, but also never wants to meet her because she might not like the truth.
23. Is their family alive and are they still in contact with them?
Yes. Definitely not. A few of the bastards she hadn’t minded, but they all acted as a hivemind and scorned her.
24. Where are they from? City, nation?
She was born and raised in Itresa.
25. Did they have a childhood best friend?
No.
26. Have they had any pets?
No. She wants a monkey, though. Especially the species that look like they have mustaches (Emperor tamarins).
27. Did they grow up rich or poor? What were their living conditions like?
Sort of rich, but mostly poor. She was raised as the ignored bastard daughter of a low-ranking, yet rich merchant noble and wanted for nothing but attention until her early teen years. Living on the streets she was technically homeless and often times penniless, but it never felt like poverty to her.
28. What is their educational background?
Tutored by the best and the adequate until she was fourteen and was thrown from the estate. Any other skills she has she picked up from people she met in Itresa, from being taught by members of the crew, and by harassing academics. She has fun facts about nearly any body of research, but very little technical or applicable knowledge.
29. As a child, what did they want to be when they grew up?
She wanted to be an adventurer and a treasure hunter. She still entertains herself with fantasies of far-fetched heists and journeys to the center of the world or to the depths of the sea in search for gold and magic. In a way she is a treasure hunter… she just happens to hunt for it in people’s houses. And pockets.
30. What advice would they give to their younger self?
Run away sooner and look back a little more.
31. Growing up, were they ever bullied or were they the bully?
Her half-siblings, the legitimate ones and her fellow bastards, all bullied her. She stared too much, she was too quiet, she moved too much, she spoke too much, her horns were funny, her eyes were scary, she was dumb, she was too smart, she was too fast, she was disrespectful, she was a know-it-all and a teacher’s pet. She could never do anything just right for them so she stopped doing anything for them at all and avoided them whenever possible.
32. Who do they look up to/who is their role model?
She used to say Garriss, the unquestionable leader of the Lurker crew, but now she has no one.
PRESENT
33. Do they currently have a place of residence?
Nope.
34. What is their most treasured possession?
She has a gilded, ever-sharp dagger she stole from someone her first week free and loose in Itresa. It’s never failed her and has a habit of always returning to her even when she thought it lost.
35. What is their drink of choice?
She hates bitter drinks, but anything else she likes. If offered coffee she has to put at least a pound of sugar in to enjoy it.
36. Which king/queen are they loyal to, if any?
None.
37. Have they ever killed anyone?
Never and she doesn’t want to.
38. What was their last promise and did they keep it?
She promised Garriss to keep her theft from the other crewmembers a secret. She kept it and technically has continued to keep it as no one gave her the opportunity to reveal the truth.
LOVE
39. What was their first kiss like, if they’ve had one?
She kissed a fellow street rat after they successfully upturned a market stall to avoid the raging guards and the tavern keep they’d stolen a bottle of mead from. She and the girl were street partners and hellions together for many months, but one day the girl left without a word and never returned.
40. Are they in a relationship/have a love interest?
No and beyond casual flirtation she’s never had an actual relationship.
41. Have they ever been in love?
Never, but she really wants to fall in love. She’s read about it and it sounds very nice.
42. Have they ever had their heart broken?
Only by her family, but not by a lover.
SPIRITUALITY
43. Do they follow a god, if so who?
No, but Mask and Sune intrigue her and she prays to them when she’s bored or needs guidance.
44. What do they think happens to them after death?
A sparkling void of something-something.
45. What is their spirit animal?
Sugarglider.
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Down the Rabbit Hole to the Emerald City - Chapter 02
Here’s the next chapter of this little story! It was honestly quite the delight to write and I had more fun than I thought I would with it!
Summary: Dorothy Gale was twelve-years-old when a twister flew her away to a magical land that she realized too late had become a home to her. She was fourteen when she was sent off to spend the summer with her cousin who she had never heard of. Dorothy had expected a summer of boredom and longing, but instead she may have found her way back home.
Alice Liddell was seven-years-old when she had a very curious dream that showed her a world she’s been craving since. She was fourteen when she was finally allowed back home from her “hospital” and allowed to spend the summer with an unknown cousin. She expected the need to hide and put on a fake smile, but instead she may have found the one person to believe her.
There are countless stories of little girls who find their way into magical worlds before wandering back out as if they had never been there before, but this is a story of how two young women found their way back.
Word Count: 3,320 Transaction Amount: $24 (USD)
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Chapter Two
Cousin Lorna, Alice’s older sister who was quite the lovely person, from what Dorothy had discovered, was giving both her and Alice odd, searching looks over their breakfast and the table itself, always just out of sight from their mother. It wasn’t until the older woman left, busy with work of her own, that Lorna spoke up, looking to Dorothy and asking a gentle, “Are you alright? You seem rather… distant. Did you have trouble sleeping?”
“I did, I’m afraid,” Dorothy admitted before giving an apologetic smile, trying not to show how the question had startled her. “The room you’ve given to me for the summer is lovely, I suppose Toto and I are still just adjusting, is all.” Toto gave a little snuffled sneeze from where he was tucked down against Dorothy’s ankles and eating his own breakfast, manners impeccable as always as he refused to beg for any table scraps. Dorothy snuck him one or two, anyways, when she was sure Lorna and Aunt Helen weren’t looking. Alice, who was sitting right beside her, looked to have been doing the same.
“No doubt you’re homesick, as well.” Lorna had the picture of sisterly concern to the point that Dorothy almost thought it faked, but there was something too sincere in the eyes that could only be real. “Well, take all the time you need to settle, Dorothy, and let me know if there’s anything we can get you to make your stay a good one.”
Dorothy settled for giving a little nod, looking down to her plate that she had only picked at, so far. She was never one for a large breakfast in the mornings to begin with, and after last night, all her thoughts seemed to be swirling with what she and her cousin had talked about in the late hours of the night.
Both had been too wary to discuss too much, frightened as if someone would be listening in and ready to reprimand them for telling stories, and so Dorothy had retreated to her room with a promise from Alice of talking more tomorrow. She had planned to sleep, however uneasy it might be, but Dorothy had instead stayed up for hours and carefully recounted every detail she could remember about Oz until her exhausted body had finally given out on her.
It had been too long since she had thought good and hard about Oz and the friends she left behind, and Dorothy had mourned in secrecy as she had realized she could not remember the shade of color of Lion’s eyes, or the exact cadence of Tin Man’s voice, or the way in which Scarecrow had walked. She had forgotten how many wrinkles were on the face of Oz the Wizard, and she could not remember, no matter how hard she tried, on which side Glinda’s smile had tilted up when she was pleased with something.
Her whispered recounting had led to mourning and tears which had led to a very brief and exhausted sleep; if one could call tossing and turning sleep.
“I suppose it’s about time I start on my own tasks for the day.” Lorna’s words broke Dorothy out of her tangled thoughts, Lorna already standing up and gathering her dishes to take into the kitchen. “Make sure to set the dishes in the kitchen when you’re done, girls, and to stay indoors, today. There’s supposed to be quite the storm rolling in, and I don’t want you two caught up in it.”
Alice, who had been quiet and still for the entire time Aunt Helen had been in the room, laughed as life seemed to seep back into her, voice quiet in a way it hadn’t been last night as she said a soft, “We’ll be careful, Lorna. I think we’ll be in the library most of the day, if anything. Dorothy was curious about some of the books?”
“Oh, yes,” Dorothy agreed at once, giving her best smile at Lorna and trying not to show her own surprise at the sudden plans. She supposed they did need to talk about, well, everything. The library was as good a place as any for that conversation. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen so many books.”
“Then you girls have fun.” Lorna was nothing except warm and fond as she kissed both of them on the head before disappearing into the kitchen with a soft hum, Alice’s expression showing that same warmth and fondness.
Dorothy was about to tell Alice how wonderful a sister she had before the table shook and echoed with a mighty thump, Dorothy jumping in her seat with a shocked little, “Oh!” as she stared down at one of the largest cats she had ever seen.
“Dinah,” Alice scolded, reaching up to drag the cat over to her before lifting her off the table with a punched out, breathless noise. “Have you been sneaking away with treats, you naughty thing?”
Dorothy watched as Dinah escaped Alice’s arms with a pitiful yowling sound, landing on the floor hard enough to cause a few tremors, Toto giving a startled yelp and jumping into Dorothy’s lap in surprise, Dorothy catching him at once.
“Sorry about her,” Alice huffed a breathless little sound as she squared her shoulders and dusted her hands off. “She’s always so well behaved around Mother and Lorna, but then they disappear and she becomes the most curious of creatures. It’s like she lives a double life!”
Dinah and Alice, Dorothy decided, had a lot in common. The bright eyes and wide smile were nothing like the calm, collected expression Alice had been wearing for most of breakfast. This Alice seemed as wild and curious as her cat, eager to explore and unapologetic when, or perhaps if, she was caught.
“Now,” Alice said cheerfully, pulling Dorothy’s chair out with her still in it. “Let’s take care of these dishes and then, I believe, we have a library to get to, don’t we?”
That was how Dorothy soon found herself once again visiting her cousin’s own personal library, still in awe of the towering shelves, countless books, and polished wooden floors and tables and chairs that made the whole room look incredible. Dorothy was only able to appreciate it all for a moment before Alice was pulling them towards a back corner, tucked away behind shelves and hidden near a window that looked out over endless green hills, and pushing Dorothy down into a chair.
Cousin Alice, Dorothy had quickly discovered, was not as quiet and meek as her family had been led to believe, and instead the girl was full of unending energy and fierce resolve to accomplish her task of getting back to her home; a task that now, it seemed, involved Dorothy, as proven when Alice sat them down in the library and asked Dorothy to tell her how she had first reached Oz.
“It happened due to a twister,” Dorothy said, nervously running her fingers through Toto’s ruff as the dog sat in her lap as usual. A glance up showed Alice sitting in a chair across from her, staring at her without so much as a blink. “A twister came when I was twelve, about two years ago, and my dog Toto and I weren’t able to get into the storm cellar in time where my Aunt Em and Uncle Henry already were.”
Alice sat back in her chair, gaze never faltering, but something in her eyes telling Dorothy that she was now lost in her thoughts. “The twister took you both, then.”
“Oh, no,” Dorothy quickly shook her head. “It took the whole house!” The incredulous look she was given had Dorothy managing a laugh. “Yes, that was quite how I felt about it all. We climbed into bed to sleep, but when we left the house, well… We weren’t in Kansas anymore.”
Dorothy took a steady breath, trying to calm her erratic heart rate as she realized she was talking about Oz. When she and Toto had managed to arrive back to the house in Kansas, again, and Dorothy had seen the house rebuilt and the unending plains of her original home, she had thought it had all been a dream. Now, though, being able to speak about it and share the stories that she had kept close to her heart, well. How had she ever thought it was anything except real?
“I fell down a rabbit hole.” The words were silly enough to snap Dorothy out of her racing thoughts, her eyes wide as she looked over to where Alice was giving her a smile. “I followed a curious white rabbit with a pocket watch and fell down a very, very long way.”
“Well.” Dorothy laughed, covering her mouth until she managed to get her words back. “I suppose that’s no stranger than being carried away by a twister or by returning with a pair of silver shoes.”
“Silver shoes?” Alice looked at her with that unnerving gaze once more, but this time it was softer; it was curious. “How did a pair of silver shoes let you leave?”
“They were magical, of course.” Dorothy choked the words out more than she said them, feeling as if she admitted to magic and to Oz then someone would swoop in and accuse her of being a child or simply lying for attention. Alice, however, didn’t even flinch, only nodding and waiting for the rest. “They… I got them in very odd circumstances, but those shoes carried me all across Oz and, in the very end, I clicked them together three times, wished very hard, and appeared back home.”
“I simply woke up,” Alice confided, small words wrapped up in a wavering tone. Once again, Dorothy wondered what ‘hospital’ Alice had been confined to for so many years. “I thought it was all simply a dream, near the end, especially when I woke up with my head on my sister’s lap, as if I had just fallen asleep and hardly any time at all had passed.”
Dorothy had thought it was all a dream, too. Shoes had gotten her home and her time away had been noticed, but Alice, it seemed, had suffered much more doubt. It couldn’t be anything except real, however, Dorothy mused to herself. Seven odd years was a very long time to remember a single dream, after all.
Thinking on what she could say for a moment, Dorothy looked down to Toto, smiling at the wagging tail before looking back to Alice. “Who’s to say there aren’t worlds that must first be visited by dreaming?”
Alice’s gaze snapped to her as quick as a crack appearing in ice, eyes wide and startled before a brilliant smile took over her face. “I rather thought the same myself. Those shoes you mentioned. I don’t suppose…”
“They must fit in order to work,” Dorothy said softly, hugging Toto close and hiding in his fur for just a moment. “They fell off my feet when I first arrived back at my Aunt and Uncle’s. It took weeks to find them and weeks longer to work up the courage to try and use them again but, by that time, I had outgrown them.”
She carried them with her even now, though, wrapped in a dusty old shirt and tucked away at the bottom of her suitcase. She hid them well, but they were always on the front of her mind, Dorothy constantly wondering if there was some other way to make them work. As of yet, nothing had worked.
“Perhaps it’s good that none of this is so easy,” Alice said softly, Dorothy looking over to see the blue moth from last night, Altair, Dorothy had called him, fluttering around Alice’s hair before landing on her outstretched hand. “It would feel wrong, I think, if we didn’t have to fight our way back.”
Dorothy gave a small nod, looking at the brilliant blue wings and remember the kind witches she had met, and the cruel magic she had seen firsthand. There was nothing earthly about that moth; at least, not to someone who knew what unearthly things looked like.
“You know, Alice,” Dorothy said softly. “I think you might be right.” Toto gave a quiet, but vigorous bark of agreement, Alice hiding giggles behind her hand the same time as Dorothy.
Their laughter only stopped when there was a loud rumble of thunder, distant, at first, but growing ever closer. A tilt of her chair and strain of her neck showed Dorothy that the light from the window had near completely vanished during their talk, the sky covered in heavy, gray clouds that were fit to burst.
“It looks like the storm is here,” Dorothy said quietly, looking back to Alice and startled to see she had a wide, almost too wide, grin on her face. “Alice?”
Alice stood up from the table with a flounce of her dress, Altair fluttering up to rest on the top of her headband, as if he was a part of the band itself. “You know,” Alice said, grin turning sharp and mischievous. “There’s nothing quite like a good book when it storms like this.”
Alice, Dorothy decided, was certainly not what her family had been led to believe. Dorothy found that a very comforting thought.
εїз εїз εїз
Alice couldn’t help the burst of giggles that would slip past her lips as she darted through familiar halls that were the same as when she had left, only stopping when she reached a stretch of wall without any pictures or frames or important works of art hanging upon it. There was only ugly, off-white wallpaper with little red spade-like patterns that had long since been bleached by the sun. In the center of that stretch of wall, however, was an imprint of what could have been a door if one merely tilted their head and thought about it long enough. The small keyhole, however, was clear as day.
“Is that a door? With no knob?” Dorothy asked curiously, Alice looking down at seeing a blur of movement to see Toto was sniffing along the edges of the door, tail wagging. He really was a sweetheart and, Alice mused, very, very clever. “Why is it covered up like that?”
“It leads to an attic,” Alice explained, holding her hand up to her headband and smiling as she felt soft, skittering little feet crawling onto her hand. “It’s been like this for as long as I can remember, but Altair helped me open it not long before I… left.” Alice could see the burning questions in Dorothy’s eyes, as if to not ask would be a sentence of death, but she stayed silent. She didn’t ask. Alice loved her all the more for it. “I hid every piece of paper that I had ever written on that spoke about Wonderland, but I also found books that are quite different than the ones in our study.”
Lowering her hand to the lock, Alice watched, worried as always, as Altair folded his wings and climbed into the lock, becoming nearly half his size as he crawled inside. She knew he could take care of himself, but she was always worried about the possibility that he could get hurt. He was only so strong outside of Wonderland.
A tense minute passed before a click was heard and the door swung a few inches open, the seam it had left flawless and cut to perfection. Toto barked and ran his way around their feet as Altair crawled out, fluttered his wings as if huffing in distaste before he flew back to rest on Alice’s hand.
“Oh, wow.” Dorothy had her hands clasped together and looked delighted, smiling brightly at them. “That’s incredible.”
“He’s a very incredible moth.” Alice brushed a kiss against one of the wings, laughing when the wing batted at her cheek before Altair fluttered up to rest on her headband again. “Come on, then, and make sure to close the door behind you!”
Alice rushed up the shadowed, dust-covered stairs, searching out the lantern she had hidden away so long ago as she heard the door close and lock behind Dorothy and Toto. By the time her cousin reached the very top of the stairs and made it onto the landing, Alice had the lantern lit, lighting up the piles and piles of books that were stacked around them for what felt like miles.
“You neglected to mention that you have an entire library up here in your attic,” Dorothy said, more surprised than anything else as she looked around, fingertips trailing through layers of old, collected dust. From the floor, Alice heard Toto sneeze a few times, the dog sounding disgruntled by the time he reached his last one. “How many books are there?”
“I’ve never counted,” Alice hummed, walking over to an aged and wooden table with mismatched chairs that once would have been an eyesore if time hadn’t mellowed the colors. Alice set the lantern down carefully, taking a moment to enjoy the soft light as thunder rattled through the walls and floors in a muffled, distant way, the sharp, telling sound of splattering raindrops soon falling.
“It sounds as if the storm has really started,” Dorothy said quietly, bending down to inspect one of the books, Alice only straining her ears for the sound of the storm. They were so much closer to the storm and the sky while being in the attic, but with the massive size of the room they were in, it was as if the storm was a world away. ���You have quite the odd attic.”
“Not really, I don’t think.” Alice pushed up her sleeves, turning around three times before setting off towards the stack of books she needed. “I think that if you looked in the attic of every large house there is, you would find a sight much like this. Now, I did promise us a book, and I have just the one that I think you might enjoy.”
Tucked between a stack of books was a green, leather-bound journal that looked as if it had sailed the world five times over. It was weatherworn, sun bleached, and smelled of salt and brine. Alice retrieved it carefully, fingers tracing over the rose compass that was etched into the front cover, the entire book seeming to shimmer when tilted just right.
“I haven’t had the chance to read all of it, yet, but I think that this is a book that you’ll enjoy just as much as I do.” Alice turned around and walked back to the table, striding through the waves of dust and setting the book down within the lamp’s soft light.
Dorothy was drawing closer at once, mumbling out a soft, “It’s beautiful.” Alice agreed wholeheartedly as she carefully unwrapped the leather cord that kept it closed.
“It is, but… It’s beautiful for more than one reason.” Alice sat down and waved for Dorothy to do the same, Alice waiting until Dorothy was right beside her with Toto settled in her lap. “You were taken to your world on a twister and I found mine through dreaming.”
“Yes,” Dorothy said slowly, looking down at the book before her eyes started to widen. Alice beamed, opening the book in a way that pages flipped past them with a lazy grace, showing glimpses of maps and cities that were not in the world they sat in. “Is this…”
Alice grinned, bright and mad and utterly satisfied as she turned to her cousin. “You’ll find, Dorothy, that not all worlds are found on accident.”
Alice spread out the journal and let it settle on the first page, a date scratched into it that showed it was long before their time, but not far enough off to make it impossible. Not impossible, Alice knew, was all they needed.
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Ghosts of Suburbia, Chapter One
Description: Jessica expects exactly jack-shit when she moves to the far edge of the suburbs. Instead, she gets an abandoned church in the silent part of the woods, a hazy creature stalking her from out of the corn, and a secret she’s hidden from herself. On the bright side, she’s found exactly the group of idiots that won’t let her deal with it alone.
Relationships: Jessica/Amy, background Jay/Tim/Brian
Rating: Teen
Chapter Length: 2k
Chapter Warnings: minor mention of a gun
A/N: This is my first time posting fic to tumblr so??? Idk what I’m doing
Jessica’s exaggerating when she says that Cottonwood was the last place on Earth she wants to spend her summer, but only a little. The place is basically a wasteland of bizarre lawn ornaments, old white people, and houses that wouldn’t ever stop smelling like bad candles. Technically, it’s the suburbs, but not the movie suburbs where the houses are all the same, the lawns are all perfect, and there are house parties, those kind of suburbs would’ve sucked just slightly less. She’d moved in with her dad a day and a half ago and she can already tell that nothing ever happens.
It’s not just moving unexpectedly in the summer when none of her friends are around to say goodbye, or that her junior year will be at a completely new school where people genuinely care about football, but that it’s fucking Cottonwood. To put it simply, Jessica is trapped in a purgatory between pissed and bored out of her mind. And that’s in the middle of a “party”, too.
Hypothetically, it’s her dad’s way of celebrating her being there, except she has not a single memory of any of these distant relatives and all the food contains gelatin, cool whip, or both. She tries a vegetable tray, thinking that there’s no way to mess that up, just to find everything coated in sugar. One of her supposed uncles is wearing a MAGA hat, and it’s taking every ounce of her self control not to physically combust every time she has the misfortune of looking at him. She’s only holding herself back because her dad is really, really trying and she knows it, so she’ll have to just talk to him about it once everyone’s cleared out. Not that that’s a huge comfort. It was at least 90° out and humid, her phone was at 9%, and nobody’s showing any signs of slowing down.
She stares at the edge of the woods. Everyone’s clumped in the part of the backyard that’s under the shade of some very flimsy tents, the rest of the space made up of a plain of dried, cracking grass and a few kids climbers that she hadn’t even used when she was six, caked with dirt and falling apart in a corner. It looks post-apocalyptic, except for the group of aunts behind her talking about some gossip so boring that it fades into the background with everything else.
It would be easy, to just walk out into the trees, she thinks without meaning to and suddenly the idea won’t go away. They look cool, and quiet, and like she won’t be forced to eat bits of pretzel in watermelon jello once she’s in there. She can disappear into the woods for an hour or two. She can disappear.
Jessica grabs her boots, the heavy ones that have been caked in mud so much that she doesn’t remember what color they were when she bought them, lacing them up as tight as they’ll go. She leaves the tents and the strangers and the questions behind, walking across the crunching grass and into the trees. As the crab-grass fades into leaves and little plants, she thinks that she was right: it’s much cooler in here.
There isn’t a path, obviously, but as long as she just keeps walking straight, she’ll be fine. Stopping now doesn’t even seem like an option, not when there’s so much deeper to go, now that she’s taken the first steps. Moss clings to the sides of rocks and fungi grows from dead logs, sunlight falls from between the branches, tinted green and splattering over everything. She thinks that she can hear the burble of a stream from somewhere just a little farther, and Jessica wants to find it. Somehow, though there’s no difference between where her feet fall and the rest of the ground, it feels like she’s on a trail anyway, outlined between the trees.
So maybe she loses track of time, and badly, but time isn’t real during the summer anyway. But that doesn’t keep the sunlight from getting thinner and the woods grayer. Maybe she should’ve turned back way sooner, but Jessica swears, every time she pushes back a branch or climbs over a boulder that the creek must be behind it, over and over and over until, finally, it is. But the water isn’t alone.
She rounds a corner in the not-path and finds her feet at the edge of mud and, past that, a church. Or something that used to be a church. The wood is faded, some of it splintered and falling apart, with gaps in the walls and plaster-dust coating the floor in the parts of the inside she can see. It’s a big, ancient-looking building, like it’s rotted here in the woods as long as there have been trees, but really it probably isn’t more than 20 years old.
Jessica takes a few steps closer to the creek but doesn’t cross it, walking back and forth along the edge to see more instead. It looks like parts of it are burned, just odd patches crumbling into ash, the roof caved in over one part, and through a busted-up gap in the wall she can see a few plastic chairs scattered on their sides over a rotted carpet. There’s a cross above the door closest to her, the golden paint on it chipped around the center but still shiny in the slanted evening light. The building goes on and there’s plenty left to explore, but Jessica stops at the edge, her feet just starting to sink into the mud.
Look, she’s not a superstitious person, she considers herself down-to-earth and reasonable, but as much as she hates to say it, she’s got a feeling. Except it’s not really her feeling, but one that this place owns, hanging over everything; it’s something like dread but quieter. Silent. Nothing moves but her own lungs and ribs, a standstill between her and the empty church. But something, a presence or a feeling or terror, rises, looming like a wave coming from the inside out, about to crash, and for a half second there’s the feeling of light, a pinprick of it in her spine where her back meets her neck--
Fuck that, Jessica thinks, grabbing a solid branch from next to her and turning to sprint back into the woods. Of course there isn’t any real danger, the logical part of her brain reminds her, but there’s also no one around to see her running away. Not that booking it fixes the problem. It really just makes her feel like prey, and she holds onto her stick tighter.
Now time’s really gone sideways, and it feels like forever or just a moment before she’s at the edge of the trees again. It’s really dark now, her legs ache, and it takes a long, long time for breathing not to hurt, but it felt like just a few steps to get her here. She knows that it took hours to get that far in. Jessica also knows that she’s lost.
It’s definitely not her dad’s, cramped, badly-painted house in front of her, but something much bigger and much nicer, something that doesn’t remotely belong in her neighborhood. Shit, shit, shit. She’ll just have to find out where she is and call her dad to pick her up, she thinks, heading towards the street--
“Who’s there?” Comes a hesitant voice from in front of her, towards the house, and she freezes, watching a flashlight beam dance over the ground.
The grass here is actually green and well kept, too, so definitely not anywhere close to her street. But she’s in Alabama, rich neighborhood or not, so there’s probably someone around here keeps a shotgun for the sole purpose of anyone on their property. Jessica crosses her fingers.
“Uh, hey, I think I’m lost?” She calls, still holding onto her stick because she’s not stupid.
The beam of light approaches, revealing everything around it, and she immediately decides that she’s safe because she can totally take the guy holding the flashlight. He looks right around her age, scrawny and kinda pale, with big eyes looking at her cautiously out from under a hat. She lets the stick hang down by her side.
“Why--what were you doing in the woods? I thought you were a murderer,” Not-a-Threat explains, and she raises an eyebrow.
“You thought a murderer was coming out of the woods and you go towards them?” He looks guilty, scratching at the back of his neck and failing to come up with a good explanation, so she plows on.
“I just got lost and came out at the wrong spot and my dad’s probably totally worried about me, can you drive?” Her phone is completely dead, so the sooner she gets home the less grounded she’ll be.
“Uhhh, not really, but I have a friend who can?” Jessica sighs, more exasperated now than actually shaken, and nods.
She stands in the dark grass while Not-a-Threat calls his friend who can drive, looking up at the light leaking out from the windows of the big house and listening to the roar of the cicadas. As they go around to the street to wait, she feels stupid. Not just for getting lost in the woods but for genuinely getting scared enough to run out of them like that, like there’s anything to worry about. Sure, an abandoned church in the woods at night is something only an idiot in a horror movie would explore, but she could’ve just walked back and maybe then actually gotten back to her own house.
“So uh, I’m Jay,” says the guy, shifting the flashlight to his other hand so he can offer the right one, and she takes it.
“Jessica.” They stand under the streetlight for a long time after that until an old, beat-up van pulls up, the edges faded purple, a guy waving out the window at them. He’s looks a little bit scruffy but mostly just tired, with the most actual sideburns she’s ever seen on a teenager in her life, but her first instinct is that he’s good. Still, she brings her stick with her into the back of the car, and borrows Jay’s phone so she can call her dad and let her know the situation. He’s kind of mad but mostly relieved, and guilt tangles in her stomach.
Jay’s friend is named Tim and he is in fact a good guy, clearly making an effort to chat with her as the streetlights come in and out of view beside them. He doesn’t seem surprised when Jessica explains that Jay was going to try and talk to a stranger shuffling out of the woods at night, just laughs and shakes his head. She explains that she’s just moved from Montgomery and gets an adequate amount of sympathy for her situation, and it turns out that they’re going to the same high school in the fall, though, thankfully, neither Jay nor Tim seem like they care about football even a little bit. They give her pointers for which teachers are incompetent and which classmates to avoid, and rehash some of last year’s drama to someone who hasn’t heard it all a billion times.
It’s the usual stuff that comes with stupid horny teenagers getting stuck with each other for nine months, and by the time they’re pulling into her driveway, Jay’s finishing up a rambling story of two seniors who went at it in the teacher’s lounge and their literature teacher’s dramatic tale of her walking in on it, and she feels more like a real person again. Through the window, she sees her dad stop pacing, running his hands through his hair, and she hurries to get out before the car’s even fully stopped.
“Jessie, you’re okay!” He’s hugging her, too tightly, but she doesn’t mind. Still, she untangles him after a moment, hyper-aware of Jay and Tim still in the car.
“I’m sorry dad, I uh, I just wanted to go for a hike and I got lost?” It sounds pathetic as far as excuses go, even if it’s actually what happened, but her dad seems content to chew her out later.
“You’re back in one piece, that’s what matters. Just never, ever do that again. Now, who helped you get here?” He asks, and she immediately knows, dreads, what’s coming.
“You boys, come on out here, I need to thank you.”They awkwardly get out of the car and stand in front of her dad, Jay picking at a loose thread in his jacket and Tim standing up way too straight, like he’s expecting to be judged on his posture. Instead, her dad just ruffles their hair in the most dad-like and embarrassing way possible, beaming.
“Thank you so much for bringing my daughter home safely. I worry a lot about these younger generations, but you’re two fine young gentlemen, thank you for proving me wrong. Would you like to come over for lunch tomorrow as a reward?” He offers, and they share a look, mumbling and eventually sort of agreeing out of obligation, but by that point she’s got a hand over her eyes in exasperation.
She looks up, though, when she hears Tim scrambling around in the back of the car for something, coming back out with the stick she’d left there.“Uh, you want this?” He drawls, and she laughs, taking it. Her dad insists that they come over one more time before letting them go and hugs he one more time before letting her stumble back into the house and up to the bedroom that had been hers when she visited as a kid but is still unfamiliar, and she’s suddenly exhausted.
Jessica forgets all about the little church in the woods, for now.
#jessica/amy#jemy#mh fic#my fic#jessica locke#amy walters#marble hornets#mh#jay merrick#jay/tim/brian#I'm. very nervous to post this just cause it's very different from ao3 and idk!!!!!#but like. tbh I think I wanna keep writing this regardless of response because I really like just teens being friends and hunting ghosts#that being said even just taking the time to read this means a lot!!!
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Confound
Confound
con·foundkənˈfound/
verb
1.cause surprise or confusion in (someone), especially by acting against their expectations.
(A Gaster/Grillby centric ficlet. As always, if you have any suggestions or critique, let me know! Drabble under ‘read more’. Warning for NSFW allusions, I suppose?)
Confounding.
His presence was one that simultaneously invoked total frustration and interest. There was no sign of the other having a mental deficiency that would cause his near silence. When needled into one of his brief responses, he displayed no verbal inconsistencies; or rather, if he did, he did not speak enough for them to be evident. His quiet nature was one of choice.
And, what a distasteful choice that was.
One of many actually. It was certainly one of the worst, perhaps second only to the act of abandoning his admirable position in the King’s Army. Had he not witnessed the shocking depth of the elemental’s gift in magic, he wouldn’t have believed the simple, old, plain bartender was capable of anything past shaking a cocktail tin. The diligence behind every motion, the cutting ribbons of fire, the remarkable control over something so oft considered as ‘wild’ was astounding. The few papers regarding a 'Mr. Grillby’ and his former rank did not give proper weight to his underlying abilities. Oh, it definitely hinted somewhat, but otherwise, the talent was hidden, buried underneath layer upon layer of stubborn muteness and impassive features.
Little seemed to impact the other. This he could not decide if it was intentional or not. Internal ire suggested the former. When not in direct contact with the elemental, he’d noted the creature crack a wry grin in response to an associate’s simple joke. Not only was the man capable of smiling, he simply didn’t around Doctor Gaster. It was a gesture to spite him, surely. No monster could be that incapable of emoting. Select few stimuli could strike a blatant shift in demeanor. Pain, particularly in the form of water, and…Certain touches did the task.
Really, to risk his career over such an irritating participant was laughable. Had he been told he’d permit an “arrangement” to form between he and the overgrown matchstick a few months prior, he would have offered a few tests to tell exactly what sort of neurological damage the soul was so obviously plagued with.
Ivory fingertips reached out then. The dancing roll of flames that made the individual’s form never wavered. What he lacked in forthright character, Grillby made up for in other aspects. To watch the spectacle of reds and faded yellows and fierce oranges burn was a private favorite of his. The heat was pleasant too, a delightful contrast to the cutting cold of Snowdin. Strange how something that looked so unrestrained managed to be so very mild in this moment. Bony digits trailed down the other’s chest, touch light as the monster slept on. Breaths were slow, measured. How this soul could fall asleep so quickly after was almost unnerving. Understandable, yes. Unnerving still. Though his position as a local server was a disappointment to the crown itself, at least it had the single benefit of letting Grillby maintain his physique. It wasn’t quite impressive as his combative spellcasting, but the precision behind his flair bartending was praiseworthy.
The regulars over in Hotland would agree to such a sentiment.
Fingers idly press into the firm flesh of fire, the pressure remaining soft. Yet another wonder; how did he exist? How was he touchable? What exact components assembled the monster’s core to where he could have a solid body but the light tangibility of hair come the flames crowning his head? The oddity of all was near maddening. Questions were never an issue. To question something was the very basis to learning.
Having no answers, or worse, be granted answers with little, useless information was what drove one inevitably insane.
Titian skin was further explored. Lines of definition were drawn with tired fervor. Shades may have varied in vivacity, indicating the folds and shifts of his form, but there were no clear edges. Why would there be? Grillby consisted of fire, not compact components. There was nothing distinct about the man anywhere. The only possible, clear feature was his mouth, when the elemental would actually open it, and his eyes. The latter of which was a far better gauge of his emotions. The slant of a gaze was a sign of discomfort, or in select few cases, lust. A squint was an obvious show of agitation. On rare occasions, he’d managed to elicit such a terse glance. If neither cast down or thin with distaste, his eyes remained wide, unmoved.
Now THAT was a look he held too often.
Regardless of the material mentioned, he handled it with aggravating stoicism. Honestly, he’d presume brain damage if it wasn’t for, well, the lack of a brain. Curious caresses trailed upward. Knuckles brushed along the curve of his throat. Again. The warmth radiating from the fellow was just that: warmth. It did not burn to touch him in the slightest.
Questions, questions—
“...................you’re poking me.”
Gaster’s hand jerked back, eyesockets widening as his gaze fell on the monster’s features. His eyes, a sharp white that contrasted the ginger of his face, were open. With the lack of glasses, his ogling was made even more blatant. A touch of confusion colors his expression, the dregs of sleep since disappearing in lieu of quiet alertness. There’s no tension. Not even in the slightest. How his touch, as lax as it was, awoke the other so quick was beyond him. Considering how heavy the torch seemed to sleep, he would have thought it’d taken borderline strangulation to rouse him; truly, how many evenings had been spent trying to regain lost covers from the elemental? Simple.
Too many.
A deep breath rattled through the skeleton’s teeth. The lights of his own eyes rolled as he replied, tone hushed.
“I was not poking you. Go back to sleep.”
“ You’ve...got cold hands.”
“Funny. I didn’t hear any complaints earlier. Moving past the obvious question as to how you can even register such a sensation, I dare say I might have to save future testing for this late hour. After all, a reply that’s more than three words? You’re rather chatty tonight, Grillby.”
Though it is different in sound, the sigh that leaves Grillby is unmistakable. He does not respond any further. At least, not in any verbal sense. Instead, he shifts to his side, fixing Gaster with a look all the while, and brings a hand up to the other’s. Heated fingertips entwine with ones of bone. Clasped hands are brought to rest on the covers between the two. There’s an odd feeling of intimacy right then. The physicality of it felt close, personal. Pointed silence aside, there’s no other indication of the elemental being displeased. Perhaps there was a vague notion of the monster being annoying, what with the nonexistent response, but there was no genuine annoyance in his own stare. Settling down, the Royal Scientist permitted the hold, letting idle inquiries fester as the other dozed off once more.
…..Confounding. Grillby was absolutely, positively, and alluringly confounding.
#grillster#grillby x gaster#gaster x grillby#sfw#myfics#(.#this one is only 1.5 yrs old#repost from a lost undertale blog of mine lmao#.)#queued post#undertale fanfic#ut fanfic#shipping
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I did a thing!
I tried to post a different peice from this, but also like
That one sucked. So you get this instead.
Words: 1613 of 60405
A little fantasy piece I’ve been working on, still in the first round of edits, so it’s not close to done yet.
(Also the ‘Once upon a time’ thing is part of an on going theme)
Enjoy!
Once upon a time…
When the sun had burned my face this badly I’d been on Gran’s farm. I’d kept my head to the plants, pulling weeds in the sweltering heat there. It had been nicer, though, with Gran’s lemonade nearby rather than a water bottle.
Lou usually made far better conversation than my cousins at the very least.
“Yeah, so, anyway,” She shifted, setting herself back on her palms so that she was staring up to the masterpiece building. A few seconds later her hands were back up in the air to help add emphasis to her story. “Brie, tripped and fell, right in the middle of the site, foot caught a root or somethin’.”
I let out a little laugh, half focused pulling the plants we’d already made a note of aside.
“Landed right in front of another ribbon, just like that one.” She gestured to the fading yellow one we found tattered and tangled amongst the plants.
I nodded. “Orchid.”
I cupped the bud in my hand, getting the best look I could before pulling back more weeds..
“Ah!” Lou made a quick note on her pad and plopped it right back down beside her. “But yeah!”
“Bromeliads.”
“Ribbon here, a ribbon there” She threw her hands in the air before grabbing her pen again. “I swear this place in infected with them.”
“Odd.” I pushed myself up to my feet, letting my hiking bag hang off my shoulder. “That should be it. “ I shrugged a shoulder at the overgrown planter box.
Each species had been arranged in a neat row. Each row had grown up and up, taking over all the others. I could almost imaging how neat each bright flower must have looked, what? A month ago. Two? It couldn’t have been far too long considering the only seeds that had filled in between the others were barely a sprout.
Three months at most. But that didn’t quite seem right. That would have meant someone was here to maintain it only that long ago.
There was that girl of course. But she could have been anyone. Someone from far away. Maybe not even that much, who’d just came by to check out the place. My eye caught a mountain. There had been a town there, right? I’d seen it on the way in. Around ten miles from the countryside.
That’s where she’d come from. I decided. She came here to explore. If she left the building, maybe I’d have the chance to ask about what she’d seen.
“Earth to Aria.” Lou waved a hand out in front of my face.
I shook my head, pulling myself back into reality. “Oh right, sorry.”
“I asked you, Where we should go next.” Lou clicked her heels together, getting a good look around the place. She pointed out to the market area. “Ooh!”
She gripped my wrist pulling me forward.
The shade in the market place was beyond nice. It must have been unbearable at some point because not only had it been tucked under a building, but each individual stand had been covered with a striped cloth.
Vibrant colors stretched throughout the place. Perhaps to combat the darkness from the heavy shade. There was a courtyard in the middle with another dried up fountain, I could barely make out the stone beneath the layer of algae that covered it.
Between stands there was a rickety staircase up to the building. I wouldn’t have trusted it to hold up a feather the wood had rotten through so badly.
“Well.” Lou held herself over a stack of fruit that had been left out. “I hope you weren’t looking for anything to eat.”
I gagged. Each one was sinking in on itself, overtaken by insects and mold. Both still found homes across the stack.
“That’s disgusting.” I held a hand over my mouth to keep the bile from rising any father in my throat. Disgusting was certainly the truth. Disgusting but there. Fruit idn’t have that long of a life span.
Lou gave a short nod before skipping onto the next stand. She acted like a small kid in an actual, surviving market, excited by every little thing but bored the next second. “Another ribbon! Infested I tell you!”
Lou yelled out, picking it up off the stand. White this time and the only thing on the stall. Not even the visor was still hanging.
“Huh. Can I look at it?”
“Not sure there’s much to look at!” Lou dropped it in my palm, off to the next thing. She was right. A plain white ribbon, frayed at the end.
I tucked it in my bag. “Hey, I’mma go check around the other side. We can meet in the middle, that good for you?”
She shot me an absent thumbs up, studying something or another that had been left out on the table.
The other side of the market looked much the same. Run-down stalls, rotten fruit. Rickety staircase. I held my breath. A slight disturbance in the rules wouldn’t hurt anybody.
Except me. A voice chimed, noting exactly how poorly the steps had been kept. These looked worse than the ones on the exact opposite end of the market.
Mostly just stalling, I glanced back over towards what could see of Lou through the courtyard. She had moved over a stall or two, studying some sort of painting. I doubted she’d fully come up for air in a while.
One step. Two step. Three.
Each let out a horrible gut wrenching creak but stayed in place. I doubted how long they would. Well I had to get it over with.
I dashed up each one quickly as I could I heard Lou call my name but didn’t allow myself to stop. My foot hit the sandstone. Solid, safe stone.
I pressed a hand against my chest, trying to regain some air.
The upstairs to the market was similar to the bottom, in the since of all the goods had rotted or spoiled long ago. A barrel of decayed mangoes had spilled out near my feet.
“Tali? What’re you do…” The girl I’d seen in the square trailed off , A dumbfounded expression on her heart-shaped face. “Doing here, What’re you doing here?!”
“Hello! Mostly just looking around.” I gave her a little wave. “The name’s Aria though.”
“Right.” She pushed her dark hair over her shoulder. I waited for her to say something but she just sat there, deep blue eyes wide, caught in a deer-in-the-headlights look.
“And you?”
She hesitated a moment, cocking her head to the side as if she didn’t quite understand the question. “Sayan.” She decided after a long moment.
“Oh! That’s pretty!” I pressed my notebook against my knees, flashing her the friendliest smile I could muster.
“Thank you.” Her cheeks dimpled in not quite a smile.
“So, I’m going to assume you’re not from my group.” The most obvious of the many giveaways was the fact that she was still wearing her nightgown, too big for her and flowy. It was pretty nice actually. I’d seen far worse at the supermarkets near home.
She’d even tied cyan ribbons around her waist and wrists to make the fit better. They perfectly matched the one the was using to hold up her wavy hair in a half-up style. Maybe she was the one ‘infecting’ Encantado.
“Are you from that village place? Over the mountain or something?”
Sayan seemed offended at the very notion. She reared back, having to pick her white skirt up off the ground to keep from tripping.
“I’m from here in Bolorma, born and raised!” It sounded like something that should have sounded prideful or full of venom but her voice was too high and sweet for the effect to be carried over.
“I’m sorry, what?” I pursed my lips together. “You’re from here?”
She nodded sharply, absently adjusting the woven basket on her arm.
“Like here? The abandoned city? The one that’s abandoned?” Even if the flowers and fruit had showed recent activity but it still showed a few months gap.
“It’s not abandoned.” She decided after a long silence, her hand tracing a path up and down her opposite arm.
“Is there anyone else here then.”
Her eyes fluttered shut, head tilted ever so slightly to the ground. For a moment she looked almost dreamlike, ashen and forlorn. Like if I were to close my eyes, when they opened again she’d be gone forever, a faded memory of a once great civilization.
“No.” Her voice was barely audible. She wrapped a finger around a dark strand of hair. “Please go, I’d like to be alone for a while.”
“I would but,” I nodded my head towards the boards of rotted wood. “The stairs.”
“They look worse than they are.” She gave me a half hearted shrug, casting a glance out of the window.
“Right.” I made to leave but at the horrible creak the knot in my throat grew to big to take another step so I took asked another question. “Hey, I- um, What, uhm, what happened to this place I mean.”
She gnawed hard on her lower lip. “Come here.”
I smiled grateful for the opportunity to get off of those deathtraps. She’d placed herself next to the window, button nose pressed ever so slightly against the glass. I didn’t really want anyone out there to see me but my curiosity was piqued.
“There.” She pointed out towards the giant building. I knit my brow at her but she only shook her head. “I’m not going to say more.”
And with that she turned on her heel and marched out of sight.
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SERIES: HALLOWEEN BETWEEN MIDNIGHTS
Chapter 7.2
On October 1st, you attend a Halloween party in an abandoned house rented by some friends. As scary as the idea of cult owners is, nothing could have prepared you and BTS(regular people) for the mayhem and terror that follows until October 31st.
This is an INTERACTIVE fic. At the end of each part, readers will be able to vote to decide what happens next. Analyze everything(except the time) carefully. Choices decide romance, friendship, and deaths; and yes, ANYONE can die.
In other words, please read at your own risk; anything goes in this story.
Start here | Previous part | Next part
Looking through the dark metal fencing surrounding the property, you thought about the distance it truly was from the sidewalk to the house itself. Not a minute to walk over to it, but still a good hundred feet. Sighing at this, you glanced off towards the direction of the university. Fingers fiddled mindlessly with your phone. No new notifications.
You turned on your head to lean your back against the railing, watching the tree behind you cast a shadow on the ground with its leaves fluttering. You shoved your hands into the expanse of Jeongguk’s large hoodie, toying with the fuzz of fabric within.
Jimin went to explore the house-- maybe the property as well. You never saw him last night, and since you knew he arrived with Taehyung and Jeongguk, you knew it was practically certain he never ingested alcohol. With that in mind, what reason could he have for sleeping in late? None. If he had come from wherever he went to see everyone abandoning the house, or even if the party was already completely gone, he would’ve texted one of you to complain about ditching him. He talked to all of you, he was friends with all of you-- he would’ve contacted you by now.
A hand quickly escaped the hoodie’s pouch to rub at your eyes, shoving back the panic heating behind them. You sighed, nibbling on your lip as they came back together.
And then Yoongi.
What reason did he have to go to the party, if he had? Hoseok had no reason to lie about seeing him, and even admitted to perhaps being wrong about it being Yoongi in the first place. But heading towards the barricading hallway and then away in it. Why would anyone do that? Were the chances of someone on campus looking similar to Yoongi doing that high? You doubted it. What if Jimin had texted him that something was wrong, but then also why wouldn’t he have texted anyone at the party of that?
Groaning, you stepped off the fencing, turning around to glare at that stupid house. Eyes closed shut as sunlight blinded them from between branches above. Shifting better into the cover of shade, you looked up towards the tree.
Your heartbeat startled.
High up, mixed between the cover of shaking leaves, perched on a thick branch. The owl. It’s huddled body swayed easily with the waves of the branch. Those talons wrapped around the wood with a strong grip. The fire you recalled in its eyes were hidden by closed lids. It slept contently.
Your feet took you another step backwards. Swallowing thickly, your hands balled on your sides into fists. You shook your head of wild delusions of it following you, and walked the small distance to the open entryway. Jeongguk wouldn’t like it, but you could just start around the property without him; it didn’t seem to be the worst idea, like standing here to wait for him felt like.
“Y/N,” You nearly jumped from the person in question speaking from down the sidewalk. “You were gonna just go, huh?” He sighed, meeting you with a heaving chest. His eyebrows were fixed into frustrated lines, and you had the feeling it wasn’t entirely aimed at you.
“I,” Your lips pursed, looking from the house, and then turning to see if that owl was still up there. It was. “I just don’t want to waste time, okay?”
“I know we’re both worried, Y/N,” His own eyes trailed towards the abode he wished he never even found in the first place. “But you need to calm down. I know that sounds stupid of me to ask, I know, but you’re worrying me too.”
“Jeongguk, last night worries me, and everything about me today is still just freaked out by it all. I’m not going crazy.”
“I didn’t say you were, and I don’t think you are.” He frowned at you, glancing at your still balled fists. He took one in his hands, unstressing it to take hold of, “I don’t want either of us to get panicked though.” His thumb soothed the agitation built up between your knuckles, eyes lifting from the sight to your eyes, “Let’s not split up from each other.”
You nodded your head, unconsciously gripping tight against his hand when you heard shuffling from the tree above. Huddling closer to Jeongguk, your eyes scanned the tree.
“What’s wrong?”
“That owl-- the one from last night was up in that tree.” Jeongguk’s eyes narrowed towards the branches, trying to find sight of it as he stepped himself closer to the tree than you. “It must’ve flown off.” Your gaze fell, wondering shortly about how hysterical you felt, “It was there, though, Guk. Really.”
“I believe you.” His hand squeezed yours, speaking as casually as ever, “Probably lives around here.”
Stepping up the three steps of the front porch, you examined the exterior of the house that you never got around to do yesterday. You found it odd that the inside had been relatively modern, and as you looked at the well-kept paneling, and clean windows you still thought the same. It would make sense for whatever owner of this property to manage it decently, but the lack of a real estate sign, or any indicators that people inhabited it regularly had you wondering why.
Jeongguk groaned beside you, crouched on the floor as he searched beneath the welcome mat, “I was hoping Namjoon left the key easy to find but-”
You both stood rigid at the sound of the door handle revolving. Taking a step back to avoid the revolution should the door open, you unconsciously took hold of Jeongguk’s shirt sleeve as his arm rose as a border. Sliding back to an abrupt stop, the door bumped into the foot of person standing in the open space,
“Can I help you both?” A man, perhaps thirty or so, questioned with an eyebrow raising. Dark hair fell against his forehead, stopping just above the creases created from the stare.
“Oh, are you the owner?” Jeongguk answered after hesitation. Both of you entirely unaware of the idea that someone else would be in the abode. “I was one of the two that rented the place out for a party-- uh, well,” His arm remained suspended in the air, a fact you tried to hide the appearance of by guiding it downwards. “We think we may have left something inside. Do you think there’s any way to look around?”
You looked at the skin free of imperfections, the relaxed posture covered by joggers and a plain grey t-shirt. He looked average. But his appearance contradicted the surroundings-- contradicted the ownership of this property to you. Why would he have this place, and what was he doing hanging out here?
You paused. Ignoring Jeongguk’s mindless chatter with the guy, you tuned in deeper. Eyes tried to search between the frame of the door and the man, as if it could help you hear the smallest sound. You could be wrong and have heard nothing, but it sounded like another voice somewhere. It sounded like words you couldn’t make out. Somewhere passed him.
“So I’ll give you a call once the cleaning service gets through. If they find something I’ll let you know.”
Jeongguk ignored the sudden grip your hand found on the back of his shirt, mustering instead a polite nod, “Yeah, thank you for that-”
“I’m actually quite busy today, so I’d appreciate it if you both be on your way. I’ll let you know about the item.” Your fingers dug wrinkles against his back, not able to shake away the idea of a voice echoing somewhere in that house-- down that hallway. “Actually,” What if it was Jimin- “Miss.” Your gaze snapped up at the eyes of the man staring right back at you. His lips pressed together in a fine line, studying, “Have we met before?”
“No.” Your voice barely existed. Jeongguk held a breath, muscles tensed for movement.
“No?” His head cocked, the hair on his head tossling from a breeze, your own flowing a lock loose in front of your face. “You seem familiar though.” Your lips stayed shut, unaware of Jeongguk’s own parting to break in. “Ah,” You both felt your heartbeats stumble. “Forgive me then. Must’ve been the color behind your eyes.” He smiled at you, then to Jeongguk, “Well then, I hope you have good days. This month is special; having two full moons, that is.”
As you stepped onto the sidewalk off the property did you exhale in a gasp. Jeongguk cursed below his breath, furling and unfurling his hands as his head shook,
“That guy was fucking weird.”
“Jeongguk,” He glared at his shoes, mouth filling thickly with nerves as you continued, “Did you hear anyone else in there?” You paused hoping for him to affirm your question, but instead silence. You continued. “I did.”
A vibration in his pocket sent Jeongguk into a worldless mutter of surprise, digging out the device to check it.
“Jeongguk, listen to me-”
“Yoongi’s at his dorm.” You stared up at him, silenced by the news. He was safe. Hoseok was wrong. “He just woke up to answer Namjoon.”
“Jeongguk, I think Jimin’s in there still.” He didn’t answer, instead staring blankly at his phone.
“Cops won’t believe us-”
“And they’ll take too long.” He drew in as much air as he could through his nose, but it still didn’t feel like enough. Resigned, you connected a grip onto his forearm, ignoring the goosebumps he didn't want you to know existed. “We need to get in there.”
feel free to send me comments, predictions, thoughts, etc. uwu
#bts#bts imagines#bts fanfiction#bts fake texts#bts thriller#bts suspense#bts horror#bts supernatural#bts au#bts x reader#jeon jungkook#kim seokjin#min yoongi#park jimin#jung hoseok#kim taehyung#kim namjoon#all#series halloween between midnights
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DID SHE REGRET IT?
My sweet grandbaby... My, how you’ve grown so much all these years. You know, your brother Lark asked me whether I regretted anything in my life, Starla. Your daddy shushed him and made him apologise - but it got me thinking. And I figured that I should tell you and your girlfriend a secret. You can’t tell anyone any of this; not your mom, not your dad, nobody. Especially not your grandaddy dear. You aren’t the first woman in this family to prefer female companionship. You aren’t the first girl in your lineage to fall in love with another woman.
When I was a young girl, about 13, I noticed differences in me and the other girls I played and worked with. While they were quiet, polite, yet a bit petty - I was energetic. When I had time to myself - which wasn’t often as anyone who grew up on a farm knew - I would sneak off to the forest, a knife my father had long forgotten he’d lost in my skirt, and when I got to a certain tree I’d marked - about a half a mile from my home - I’d tuck my dress into my bloomers and climb up to the first branch large enough to hold my weight, and there I would find a pair of trousers I’d sewn with scraps. Some parts were leather, some linen, but it was a comfortable pair of pants nonetheless. I’d change into them, and twist my braid into a knot, and from there I would scale the trees. I’d made a makeshift slingshot, and would pick up the acorns on the floor of the forest and shoot at the squirrels and birds. I’d have such fun by myself, playing and running through the leaves. I’d eat the blueberries that grew fat and juicy on the bushes, and found an excellent cover for myself; I’d tell my family that I was going to go and pick blueberries! I’d bring back an entire basketfull, and my mother would make such delicious tarts and pies from them.
She’d share them with the neighboring farms on Sundays, when everyone trekked two miles to the little wooden Catholic church, and enjoyed a lunch together before returning home. There was such a lack of sweet things around, it made us quite popular. She’d always give me credit for finding such delicious berries, and I’d stand next to her beaming with my lips still tinted purple - then the Reverend would scold me for my lack of humility and gesture to his own daughter, Gloria, and - hypocritically - point out how ladylike and humble she was standing by her own mother and holding her youngest brother while her mother and older brother ladled venison stew into bowls.
Gloria was very much a lady, even at 13. She was very pretty too. She had angelic golden curls that trailed down to her back should she let it fall out of her bun or her braid, and skin like a porcelain doll. And her eyes… The most beautiful eyes I have ever known. Even though it was the hot, heavy summer, when you looked into her eyes you couldn’t help but feel as if you were floating in a cool pond. They were a greenish-blue, and sparkled like sunlight on a brook at midday. Even her voice - when you heard her in church or when she worked away at her milking and sewing and churning - was so majestic and sweet that every time I heard it I would swoon and try desperately to not let the others notice.
That was when I realized that I was not quite like the other girls. They would gasp and envy Gloria’s beauty, but none of them adored it in the way I did. I did not dare tell anyone my thoughts of Gloria, and when a young man in the town began to make excuses to be around her and paid attentions to her, I became incredibly jealous. And one day, he gave her a wooden rabbit he’d whittled himself, I became so jealous that at the first opportunity I ran to my tree and - in my jealousy - whittled an army of rabbits. I must have made about twenty of them! And the next day I decided that I wanted to be her closest, dearest friend, then I should do something about it!
So in the following weeks I made sure to speak with her and work with her and play with her as often as possible. It wasn’t particularly difficult to do; she was the Reverend’s daughter, and those who weren’t intimidated by the possibility of making a mistake in front of him were too intimidated by Gloria’s skill and beauty. But I wasn’t afraid; I was inspired by her. And by the following year, we were the best of friends.
I found that Gloria wasn’t as angelic as I’d previously thought - but also that she was even better than I’d imagined. She chewed her nails, snuck kittens into her room, and every once in awhile, when we were sure that we were alone, we’d curse and giggle as we did so. And one day, I decided we were close enough that I would show her my tree.
She was impressed when I introduced her to my tall, strong, oaken friend, and she smiled with wide eyes when I whispered to her that I’d been storing a pair of trousers I’d made myself up on the first branch. But something odd happened when I bashfully showed her my wooden rabbits.
She blushed.
She blushed so much that I feared she’d gotten sunsick.
But with a trembling hand she plucked a wooden bunny from my hand and clasped it against her chest, looking down at it with her mouth agape.
I myself found my own mouth to be dry and warm, and my hands shaky, and my eyes unable to blink or close.
“You… You made this for me?”, she asked quietly, “All of these?”
I nodded, my breath coming out shaky and my chest feeling like I’d been squeezed between two walls.
She threw her arm around me in a tight hug, one hand still firmly grasping the rabbit, and nestled her chin in the crook of my neck. Despite the shock and glee, I somehow managed to lift my arms and hug her back.
And Starla?
I kissed the Reverend’s daughter. And I don’t regret it at all.
We snuck away as often as we could without arousing suspicion, and as we grew older, we fell in love. We knew there was no way for us to be together, nor stay together, so we held onto each other for as long as we could.
The boy who’d paid such attention to Gloria this whole time, James, eventually proposed to her when we were about 18. She smiled and accepted graciously, as she’d always been taught to do, and within the year he had whisked her away to a city in the East. Boston, I was told by her mother and father.
And when my dear Theodore came for me, we did the same. He brought me to New York, and it was full of exciting things I’d never thought of before. Everything was plain and bright color and flavor and sights were very seldom seen when I was from, and I was enraptured by this beautiful city. Theo had a job at a bank, and we held an apartment on the fifth floor of a building near his firm. I swear to you honey that I have loved - and still do love - my husband. I love him just as I loved Gloria, I tell you truthfully. When I was 19 we had our first child, a boy we named Harold - your daddy. We began to search for a house. We not-so-swiftly found a fairly nice, almost affordable house by the shore, close enough that our boy - and in the future, the rest of our children - could play in the water and build sandcastles and chase seagulls. It would be a grand place to raise our family. And it was there that I found something I feel guilty for finding, but am not ashamed of.
As I sat on the beach with my Harry in my arms and in my bathing suit, a coat draped over my legs, who should appear other than a golden-curled woman about the same age as myself, with a pair of little twin girls in a stroller. I stared at her, unsure of what I was seeing. She laid out a blanket and set her cooing children down upon up, and held them up and she sat between them.
We sat in silence for what felt like years. The cool sea spray and the salty air felt heavy, and when the tide touched the bottoms of my feet it felt like rust raking at me. And in that wilting ageless moment, it occurred to me that she was trying to speak to me - but the words would not come out. She pressed her babies to her side, and I my son to my chest, and finally she forced out a sentence in one fluid, viscous pop.
“Hello, Pearl”, she said with a shaky, nervous voice.
She was afraid. Afraid to talk to me. And I of course, knew why.
We hadn’t forgotten each other. How could we? We were our first loves! We explored the forest together! We rebelled against the tight societal grip of our fathers and families together!
And yet, despite all that, it was an ugly moment. The bright sunny day on the beach turned into a cold and grey one. The soothing wash of the water and the calls of the seagulls turned into something out of a Mary Shelley novel. There was no comfort here but the glowing warmth of my baby. Even Gloria seemed to be terrifying in that moment. Golden curls, now shorn to the fashionable length of the day and pinned carefully under a cashmere cap, were green by the dim light of the glowering ocean. The pink flowers embroidered on her cardigan looked more like bloody spots to me, and even her trim figure held fearful thoughts for me; not because something about her body held the same imagery as the rest of her adornments, but because she was still - despite the ghastly visions - so very lovely and soft, and my hand ached to caress her shoulder once more.
But I did not move. I clung to my child and held back tears.
“Hello, Gloria”, I replied, a globule of agitation mucking up the words and coming out as if it were my father’s tobacco-worn voice instead of mine.
We sat in more silence, and instead of the grey-shaded appearance fading, I simply became numb to all sensation except my hands crossed over Harry.
I looked down at my son, sitting there upon my knee. He was my world now, and what a wondrous and beautiful world it was. I had a new love, a true absolute love; a love that I could show the rest of New York and hang on his arm and smile and wave to his coworkers at parties and in restaurants. I could never do that with Gloria.
And despite my mind and heart screaming at me to pick up my little world and leave, I stayed. And eventually, the darkness did fade.
Only when Gloria turned her head to me, the locks of gold that fell from under her cap bouncing with the same youth they’d had when we were children, and she smiled at me.
I melted.
The beach’s color returned, and the air felt good and comforting, and the tide tickled instead of burning.
“Your son is just as beautiful as I would expect from you, Pearl”, she said with a bell-like laugh.
I can’t say what caused the sudden change in her mood, but that made my stomach flood with joy, and I laughed with her.
“Oh, Gloria; Harold looks much more like his father, Theodore, to me! Why, just look at those cute little freckles”, I giggled.
“Come now Pearlie, look at your son’s face; he’s got the same warm, friendly, chocolate-colored eyes. His hair is just like yours, too! He can’t be more than - what, four months old? Yet he’s got a thick and full head of soft, dark, brown hair!”, Gloria replied, apparently bemused.
Then she put a twin in the middle of her legs and when she was sure she was situated so as to be held up by her mother’s stomach, Gloria reached a hand out and stroked my hair, which i’d pinned my bangs back with a seashell barrette, and traced the lines of the shell with her finger.
“I do so wish you’d kept your hair long; it was so beautiful…”, Gloria said, trailing off.
My heart skipped a beat.
“I-I changed it with the times. Long hair isn’t exactly in chic these days”, I replied, trying to hide how flustered I was. I imagine my bright red cheeks were giving me away.
Gloria retracted her hand and smoothed the daughter on her lap’s head with it instead.
“This is Lisette, and this”, she gestured to the twin sitting on the blanket with her arm propping her up,”is Claire”, she said proudly but a bit sadly.
“Oh my, what beautiful girls you have! They look just like you, right down to the curls!”, I exclaimed.
She smiled humbly.
“Not quite. They’ve got their father’s hair; he’s a bit more of a redhead than I am. I hope they don’t get teased too much when they’re older…”, she explained.
“I’m sure they won’t, dear. They’re lovely girls”, I replied.
We went on like this for an hour, and did a grand job of ignoring our past for the most part. To passers by, I am sure were simply looked like a pair of close friends catching up on each other.
But five minutes later our lives would change forever.
Gloria invited me and Harold to her home for lunch. It wasn’t far, we could even walk there instead of hailing a cab - which, at lunch hour, would be nearly impossible. So I threw on my sundress, and Gloria buttoned her cardigan and pulled up her skirt, and we plucked up our babies and walked down to the East Village. I was surprised to see that she had also gotten married to a successful businessman, but not surprised to see that she had married well. Gloria was no fool, and the Reverend would never give her away to someone who wouldn’t be 100% sure to provide for her and their family.
Teddy and I ourselves lived - and still live - in a smaller yet still very beautiful estate by the water. When we’d moved out of the apartment - Teddy had been promoted and given a substantial bonus - it was hard to sleep with all the noise from the boats, though Harold had no problems at all funnily enough. We’d gotten a maid to clean, but I insisted upon cooking and gardening, and absolutely refused to agree to getting a nanny for our son. No one was going to raise my children but me and my husband. We lived very well, never wanted for much, never went to bed hungry - until the Depression of course - but all of that paled in comparison to Gloria.
Her home was enormous, and absolutely beautiful. From the Roman-revival style skylight in the den, to the luxurious pool-styled bath, to the five bedrooms with plush beds and the pleasant scent of Gloria’s perfume in each room, floating through the air and settling on everything in them. If you held the comforters, you could almost imagine you holding her herself.
Gorgeous flowers and exotic plants grew in stone pots around the house, and in the middle of the den was a handsome pale pink rhododendron in a white marble planter box.
“I haven’t planned much for lunch, I’m afraid. Please, sit down in the dining room, and I’ll find us something to eat”, Gloria said with a wave of her wrist as she headed off to the kitchen after placing her babies in a pair of highchairs.
I held onto Harold with wide eyes as he gurgled unabashedly and clapped his fat little hands. I was afraid to so much as touch the chair I sat upon. It all looked so expensive and lavish!
Yet when she came back, all she brought was a tray of cucumber finger-sandwiches and a pot of tea.
The placed a cup and saucer in front of me and tipped the pot almost to the point of pouring and turned her face to me.
“Would you like some tea with your sandwiches? It’s jasmine - all the way from China!”, she asked gleefully.
I simply nodded, still shocked.
She sat down at the head of the table and poured herself a cup of tea before taking a cheese sandwich.
She sighed heavily.
“Pearl, do you remember when we were girls?”, she asked me, her face growing serious.
“Which part do you mean?”, I asked, trying my best to be nonchalant and taking another bite of my sandwich.
“Well… You know… All the fun we used to have?”
“You mean like the tree?”, I said teasingly.
“No… I mean… Oh come on, you know!”
I sighed.
“Yes, Gloria; I know. I could never forget. It meant too much to me… You meant too much to me.”
The room fell silent aside from the quiet sound of the china tapping together.
“We can’t go back, Gloria. We have families. Husbands. I’m happy with Theodore; I’m in love with Theodore.”
“Well, I’m happy for you Pearl; but I’m miserable”, Gloria replied with a shaky voice.
I set my cup back on the saucer.
“Oh Gloria… Don’t say that… Look at your girls! Don’t you love them?”, I asked her, seconds from reaching for her and holding her tight.
“Of course I love them; but I don’t love my husband!”, she replied in a hushed tone. I quickly looked about the room in fear of someone overhearing our conversation.
“What do you mean you don’t love your husband?! You married him; you conceived two children with him-”
“And I’ve conceived one more, too”, she said grimly.
An involuntary smile crossed my face.
“Oh Gloria! You’re pregnant? That’s wonderful!”, I told her out of reflex.
“Oh Pearl… I’m trying to tell you that it’s not wonderful”, Gloria sighed and pushed herself away from the table, standing up and turning towards the window in the sunroom,”I don’t want to have any more babies. I don’t want to be married to my husband. I don’t want this life”, she said wistfully, holding onto the pale daffodil-colored curtains and threading her fingers through the holes in the lace of it.
I sat silently, not looking at her, but staring at the swirling tea in my cup. How could I know what to say? I was happy. It was different of course than when I was with her, but it was just as good and warm and happy.
So I sighed. I looked up at her and took a deep breath and tried to talk sense into her.
“Gloria…”, I started with a voice we had always described as “the be reasonable”-tone, setting my cup back on the saucer again.
But - without warning - just as the ceramic cup settled back on its little plate with a gentle ‘tink’, Gloria ripped the curtain from its rod with a sudden burst of unfiltered loathing.
Her hand still threaded through the curtain, she sunk to the ground with it, and began to cry.
I immediately shot up in my chair and my mouth went dry. Even though I’d known her for nearly 15 years, I had no foggy notions as to what to do about this juncture; A grown woman, married almost 5 years, 25 years of age, laying on the ground after an explosive malfunction of mind and character like a young Hollywoodland starlet - imagine!
So I began by calling out to the maids to hurry to us and repair the curtain, asked that someone look after the children and let them play with each other in the twins’ room, and helped the sobbing Gloria to the master bedroom.
After setting her down on the ottoman and shutting the door - taking care to lock it, just in case there were any busybodies employed in the house - I rushed back to her and sat on my knees and grabbed her right hand with my left and pulled the handkerchief from my brassier with my right.
“Please Gloria, oh please don’t cry”, I pleaded with her.
But her tears did not cease, not that I expected them to.
“I just don’t know what to do!”, Gloria blubbered in between gasps for air.
I did not know what to do either, I’m afraid. So I simply climbed up onto the ottoman myself, pressed beside her, and rested her head on my shoulder. I stroked her hair and waited for her to cry herself out. It’s a good thing I was at the beach earlier, or I’d have a hard time explaining the wet spots all over my sundress.
At long last Gloria went quiet, and her breathing - while still shaky and without rhythm - slowed to an almost predictable pace. She pulled her face away from my chest and looked into my eyes with an expression I can only describe as fear-based exhaustion.
Even though they were bleary and red from her episode, they were still such a breathtaking shade of aquamarine.
And so the Reverend’s daughter kissed me.
And I still don’t regret it.
I wouldn’t quite call what we had an affair. I made it clear to her that though she was my first love, my heart was my husband’s first and foremost. But we became close once more, and would spend the heavy afternoons that summer together with our children. Occasionally our husbands would join us - I suspect purely to see what on earth it was that we were doing that was so captivating that we were excited to spend the days with each other - and we did our best not to create an air of awkward tension; but it was largely just us.
And three years later, when our children were old enough to walk and talk, we made a discovery.
Well, to be completely honest, it was Gloria’s discovery. I was simply the second person to learn about it.
We discovered the poet Sappho.
Suddenly, our world bloomed with violets. We learned of the poetry of women in love with women, and that deep magic of something both societally wrong - in most folks eyes - but internally right blossomed in our stomachs as we realized with sparking glee that we weren’t alone. That other women - many other women - felt the way we did. I began to embroider all of my handkerchiefs with little violets. I planted a pot full of African violets the first opportunity I had to purchase a live plant. I even named the daughter I was pregnant with at the time just that - your auntie Violet. My perfume, my favorite pair of gloves, my spring jacket - I was obsessed! Grampa boiled it down to a new trend or me developing my own personal style. It was better that way, honestly.
But Gloria took it one step further. She began to look closely for violets on the women around her. High society women such as herself often had more distinguished, obscure tastes. She was certain that someone, somewhere in New York knew the meaning behind those lovely little purple flowers. And, indeed someone did. Six “someones”, as a matter of fact.
That was the beginning of the Sapphire Ladies Club.
Gloria wanted a place for us to talk safely about our innermost thoughts and secrets. She wanted a safe-haven for all women who felt as we did, lesbians and bisexuals alike.
It was 1924 when the first meeting came to order. Most of us were shaky, nervous about if we could trust the others or not. She’d rounded up any women she’d found at functions and parties and even strolling along the sidewalk displaying violets - which I thought was a bit dangerous to do. After all, not every woman wearing violets would know its hidden meaning. She’d ask “So, why violets dear?”, and if they seemed surprised or shy about it, she’d tell them she was putting together a little social club for women who simply adored flowers - specifically violets. She’d tell them that in addition to chatting about flowers and housekeeping, we’d do a bit of reading from poets like the Bard, Dickinson… Sappho. And sometimes their eyes would flicker with recognition at that. They’d say “I’ll consider it. Is there are set time and place for this? Oh, good! I’ll check my schedule and get back to you. What is your address may I ask? Your name is Gloria, correct?”, and she’d give them answers in her gentlest most lovely voice.
Of course, such a lovely woman talking to a woman with our kind of secret was sure to pull them in.
And so we had our little social club. The first meeting was awkward; we shook trembling hands, and tried desperately to stay warm and compassionate as we attempted to coax the ladies out of their shells. It was near impossible to convince them to talk - after all, we were practically strangers, and this could be a trap!
But finally, after Gloria told our story, one woman named Hannah spoke up. She was a fashionable woman about 28 in a green dress, her hair was a beautiful dark brown coiffed perfectly, and pinned into a curl was a barrette with a large cluster of violets.
“I’m Hannah Goldberg”, she started meekly.
Hers was the first story we learned. She’d always preferred the company of women to men, and while her friends had giggled and swooned over the boys in Hebrew class, she’d had her eyes set on a girl who always wore her hair in a long braid that was tied with a ribbon. When she’d met her husband, although for all intents and purposes they were courting, she thought of him more as a close friend than a potential spouse. She was pleased to learn that he was rather effeminate in his kisses and embraces, but it didn’t change the fact that he was no woman. By the time they got married, she admitted that she was very slowly falling in love with him - and soon after the birth of their first child - a son named Judah - she realized that her husband Jacob was completely different from the other men she knew. She revealed that her husband was gay, though he promised that he loved her.
It was quite the interesting, uplifting conversation that she divulged. He sat her down gently and confessed with a solemn, shameful expression that he was attracted to men, not women. And technically, not Hannah either.
But he grabbed her shoulders and swore up and down that he loved her, and not just familially - romantically. And as he waited with painful anxiety, beads of sweat climbing up and down locks of his thick hair, Hannah stared at him. She couldn’t tell if he was serious; she couldn’t tell if she should confess herself.
So she laughed.
She laughed and held his utterly confused face in her hands. She told him she felt the same way - only about women, not men - and that he was the only man she’s ever loved. They agreed that as long as they were being extremely careful about it, they could both fulfill that desire not accomplished by being with one another.
It was a good, happy ending for Hannah - but the next woman, Helen, was not so lucky.
Helen claimed attraction to both men and women, but due to the intensity of her family’s religion, and the strictness of her father, she was quite shy and quiet. She was a little wisp of a thing, with long, pale blonde hair that she let hang naturally about her shoulders. Her violet was a handmade broach, a single dried wild violet encased in enamel and placed in a plain, sterling silver frame.
She told us how she’d married young at 17, and though they tried, they simply could not get pregnant. Then, just a year ago, it finally happened. But two months before her due date, her husband died in a horrific accident at the construction yard he worked at. She had to support herself and her baby - she simply couldn’t go back to her family. She refused to have her child raised the same way she was. So she took a job as a live in maid and pinched pennies to saved up as much as she possibly could to support her daughter.
She was so much different than most of the women there. The lions’ share of us were well off, had husbands with good jobs, and could afford to go shopping whenever we pleased. Helen was obviously poor, even before she shared her story. She looked tired, with dark bags under her eyes that she tried to hide with makeup, and her hands were calloused and her nails trimmed short. Her dress was old and patched, and her shoes were the boots that we used to wear on the farm. Compared the the rest of us, we looked like we were in our Sunday best. She even had to bring her daughter, Lorelai, with her; there was no one else to take care of her.
Helen had come across Sappho when dusting off the library in her employer’s home. Something drew her to the book, whether it was the pleasing violet hue of the canvas cover, or the golden script across the binding, and she began to read it on her breaks. She connected with it on a spiritual level, and at that first hint of recognition, a feeling and thought she’d been pushing down deeply inside herself for so long began to rise again.
Over the course of five meetings, each woman told their story.
We learned to not be ashamed of ourselves, while also taking great care to be cautious and careful about it. They were the best group of friends I ever had, Starla. I miss them terribly. Some moved away, some lost touch, and some…
Remember that I said Gloria became obsessed with Sapphic imagery? Well. She also became obsessed with me.
Of course I loved her. But I loved my husband and my family more.
And then one day, while we enjoyed a pot of tea in her garden, she asked me to run away.
I simply stared at her, mouth agape.
“You can’t possibly be serious, Gloria!”, I gasped, perhaps a bit more rudely than I intended.
She frowned.
“Of course I am, Pearl; I love you, you love me. Let’s run away together. We can go to California - start a new life together. We can claim to be spinster sisters! We’ll live in a shack on the beach, and we’ll raise dogs for a living. You can collect sea shells, and I’ll make coffee every morning; and we’ll sit outside on the deck and watch the sun rise every day. It’ll be beautiful!”, she exclaimed with a starry look in her eye.
I froze. I didn’t know what to say, but I knew how I felt; and I felt horrible. With a gut-wrenching realization, I found that without meaning to, I’d led her on. I’d led her to believe that she was the one and only love of my life. I’d thought I’d made it clear that anything shared between us on a more than friendly basis was simply to satisfy her so she could live with her husband and children without going crazy. To scratch an itch if you will. But clearly, I wasn’t careful enough with her heart.
And that… That I regret.
“Gloria…”, I started, my voice cracking and breaking, unable to keep myself from letting my guilt turn to agonizing sorrow.
She must’ve realized what I was going to say, because she began to tear up.
“We can grow old together…”, she whispered.
“Gloria, I…”, I replied, matching her quiet, solemn tone.
“Please…”, she interrupted, almost whining like a dog.
“I… No”, I finally let out, unceremoniously.
“We can grow old together…”, she repeated.
“I can’t. I won’t.”
“We can grow old together!”, Gloria screamed.
I leaned back in my seat with a jolt.
“We can grow old together!”, she screamed again, shooting up and knocking her chair over, slamming her hands on the table with a bang.
I was terrified. I lifted my arm in front of myself in fear, and sure enough she struck me across my face. I lifted a hand to the slowly reddening patch on my cheek in shock, and looked at her with utter surprise. She had tears slithering like snakes down her scowling face. She was absolutely furious - not heartbroken, mind you. Furious.
And at that moment I realized something about Gloria. As beautiful and elegant as she was? She was not a good woman. She was selfish and spoiled and childish, and was never in love with me at all; she was simply attracted to the thought of gaining something forbidden and dangerous from me. She wanted me to run away with her to prove that I would do anything for her, and she drank devotion up like a coal miner does whiskey. She was addicted to the power being the object of someone’s affections - especially if that someone had something to lose from it. When we were children, she didn’t love me because I took the time to make her the herd of wooden rabbits; she loved that I made them despite the potential for risk it presented for me. She got angry when I said I wanted to spend time with my family - not simply spend time with my husband and children, but just my children. She became hysterical if I even mentioned wanting to do something for them instead of her. I took them to brunch on Sunday instead of her? She’d throw an absolute fit. She wasn’t a woman; she was a girl in a woman’s body.
All of these memories of her selfish reactions and anger and frustration at my wanting to spend time with anyone but her came rushing back to me with a sound like a hurricane in my ears, coming to a point as the red handprint on my cheek began to burn and sting.
She began to scream at me, but I couldn’t hear her. Everything moved in slow motion, from the curls on her head bouncing with every hysterically driven shake of her head, to the powerful jabbing motions she made with her pointer finger towards the door. Even as my body began to respond to her violent, frenzied demands for me to leave and get out of her sight, I still did not register what was happening. I was completely shocked, even when I returned home. Grandpa saw the handprint, which was now turning into a bright bruise she’d hit me that hard, and shouted for me to sit down on the davenport and he’d find me something cold to press against it. Your father stared at me with a face as pale as a ghost, and your aunt cried from the fuss. I simply sat without reacting, still in disbelief of what had happened.
I avoided the club for weeks after that. I avoided the beach, too. And the East Village. And the bookstore, the flower shop, even the grocery store - anywhere I thought Gloria might be.
Eventually, I ran into Hannah at a deli. It turned out that her father owned it, and Hannah had a job there on Mondays and Wednesdays. When she saw me, she didn’t smile, but her eyes widened. Not in disgust or any kind of fear or hatred, but rather the way one does when they’ve been gossiping about their misfortune, and have been caught doing so.
After I purchased my lunch, she yelled for someone to take over for her at the counter and untied her apron before walking over to me. She sat across from me at the little table, and I kept my eyes glued to the salami on a kaiser in the paper container in front of me.
“I’m so sorry Pearl…”, she said softly, her hand grasping my own with warm sympathy that melted the ice in my throat.
I was surprised; I expected to be met with disgust or betrayal. I expected Gloria to tell the club that what I’d done, with embellishments in her favor.
“What for?”, I asked, fearful of her answer.
Pearl seemed surprised at my ignorance.
“Haven’t you heard? Gloria was committed!”, she told me, the sympathy replaced by scandal.
The color drained from my lips, and it was my turn to be wide eyed. I covered my mouth with my free hand, afraid that all the breath in my lungs would escape with the blow to my chest that Hannah’s words carried.
“Committed?”, I said, half asking, half repeating.
“To the mental hospital on Roosevelt Island! Oh, it’s just awful. I’m so sorry”, she continued.
“What… What happened? Why was she committed?”, I asked her, my throat freezing over again and making my voice crack with icy horror.
“Apparently one day her husband returned to find that she’d… She’d done something simply awful. She’d taken up a knife and tried to kill one of the maids! Her children were home and everything! The police found them hiding in a cupboard together, trembling, and the twins hands covering the baby’s mouth so she wouldn’t cry! It’s just so unlike her to do something so monstrous!”, Hannah exclaimed, doing her best to keep her voice low so as to keep the conversation private.
I choked, my hand tightening over my mouth. My eyes watered as I imagined a frenzied Gloria going after a maid, her children crying in fear of their own mother.
“No… It’s just like her. She’s always had the temper of a beast. I never thought she’d do something… Something like this though”, I managed to squeeze through my tightened throat with a sob.
I needed to know though.
“What… What day did this happen, Hannah?”, I asked her through my gritted teeth.
“Ah… Tuesday last, I think”, she answered disheartenedly, catching on that I knew something about what happened I wasn’t telling.
I shivered. This was my fault. I drove her into her final descent into madness.
“Yes. Yes, I’m sure it was Tuesday, because when I told Helen, she burst into tears and started saying that this was all her fault”, Hannah finished.
I stopped crying, confused.
“What?”, I asked breathlessly.
“Yes. She said that Gloria had asked her to run away with her, and when she said no, Gloria started screaming and hitting her. She grabbed a candlestick, and Helen ran away. Gloria threw it at her, and barely missed her. She’d gone over for brunch around 3, she said, and Gloria was acting odd right from the start she said”, Hannah explained, confused.
A ball formed in my stomach, and pulled me towards the floor, doubling me over in my seat.
I wasn’t the only one she’d tried to run away with that day. Who knows if I was even her first choice. That portion of the ordeal stayed within the club; no one else found out. Not Gloria’s husband, not the press, and certainly not the police. It had turned out to be that Gloria was terrorizing most of the women of our little group, threatening them with exposure if they didn’t do what she wanted. Most of them lived in fear of her, the rest felt sorry for me - apparently they were under the impression that I was Gloria’s one and only, and that she was cheating on me.
Oh. Starla, it was just awful. They were some of the darkest days of my life!
We tried to keep the club going, but even though she was a crazy tyrant, Gloria was the lynchpin of our group. Without her we lacked leadership. We stayed friends for as long as we could, but most of us moved on.
Helen and I became very close because of the ordeal at least. Like sisters born in the same horrible experience. We kept in touch, right up until her death a few years ago. She was always involved in our family, and we even helped with her daughter’s expenses, even during the Depression when we all had to tighten our belt several notches.
As for what became of Gloria? Well, Roosevelt wasn’t known for being a good, healing place - especially so for mental cases. Gloria fell deeper into her hysteria, and eventually… Oh this is horrible dear, you don’t need to know about it.
Really, you don’t. It will only bring you two down.
Very well, darling; don’t say I didn’t prepare you.
Gloria was lobotomised. She couldn’t remember her own children’s names. What’s worse is she was lobotomised without her family’s consent. Her children grew up without their mother, even when she was deemed fit to return to them. She ended up falling off the third story balcony one autumn. Her husband was distraught, but he said that it was like she was dead already, and he was glad her suffering was over.
The story of Gloria and I is not a happy one, dear. Grandpa and I have a happy ending. But that doesn’t mean anything. You make your own story, Starla. You give yours a happy ending. I know for a fact that Heather is no Gloria. She’s just as beautiful as her heart - just like you my dear. You go to California. Live in San Francisco, in an apartment building with a pair of kittens. Live the dream that you both dream. It’s no good if you have separate dreams; that was Gloria and my problem. I wanted my children and New York, and she wanted solitude in California. But you’ve got the same dream, and it’s one you made together.
Don’t regret it.
( @genericforager and @tybalt-you-saucy-boi this is it!
As for anyone else, do not repost this, claim it as your own - anything in those veins or so help my god.)
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When Shadows Meet
Summary: Something follows Virgil back to his room from Roman’s kingdom
Pairings: None
Genres: Fantasy?
Warnings: none
Word Count: 1657
Author’s Note: This fic is just an excuse for me to write about my beloved monster and dear friend.
Virgil wasn't a fan of Roman's creativity kingdom. It was far too bright most of the time, it was dangerous and expansive, easy to get lost in. To make it worse, it was unpredictable for everyone but Roman. He didn't like going on adventures in there, but he was trying to humor Roman and the other sides since they'd accepted him... and it helped that Logan got dragged along too. At least he had someone to roll his eyes with and mutter about how extra everything was in there.
They'd been exploring in a covered wagon over the 'American plains' (Logan had spotted and quietly pointed out to Virgil several inaccuracies while Patton and Roman chatted away and enjoyed the adventure. It was kind of like that game, Oregon trail, only without anyone dying of dysentery, or dying at all. They'd been setting up camp for the 'night' when Virgil got a splitting headache and decided to duck out. He'd said his goodbyes to Roman, Logan, and Patton and left Roman's room, heading for his own room and his bed.
A shadow slipped through the door behind Virgil and followed him unnoticed.
The monster didn't like the loud one's creativity kingdom. For one thing, it was far too bright all the time. During the day the sun shone bright and hot in the sky, and the plains had little shade or places to hide from the blinding rays. Even at night, the stars shone too brightly, lighting up the world and leaving no spot untouched. The colors were too saturated and hurt his eyes to look at.
Then there was danger everywhere. The plains were full of predators and herd creatures, birds overhead and snakes below. None of the creatures liked him, being afraid of his size, his coloring, and his ability to change form at will. No matter how small and unthreatening he made himself, the animals, and certainly the humans out here knew he was different and feared him, often lashing out at the monster.
The loud one's kingdom was also too big. So much open space with no place to hide, it was terrifying. He often got lost, accidentally wandering into another creature's territory just trying to find someplace where he would be safe. It was scary and stressful and exhausting, and the poor monster felt hopeless.
Until he saw the shadowling. The shadowling and the cool one nearest him wore dark colors and weren't too loud or bright. They spoke softly and seemed almost as out of place here as he was. The loud one and his far-too-bright companion kept the monster from approaching, but he was intrigued. He turned himself into a little shadow and watched the strange group of humans set up a shelter for the night.
When the shadowling left the group and a door appeared before him, the monster followed. He wanted to be anywhere but the bright, loud, open place, and if the shadowling was going there, maybe it would be a good place for him too. The little shadow slipped through the door behind the shadowling just before it was closed behind him.
Virgil knew he was having a nightmare, but he couldn't make himself wake up. He could distantly feel his body lying in bed, but that didn't help him stop hearing and seeing and smelling the horror in his dream. He struggled, tossing and turning in his bed, running in his head, trying to escape. Then he felt something large, wet, and a bit rough on the side of his face, and Virgil woke with a start, sitting up in bed and turning to see a pair of wide-set yellow eyes looking back at him.
He gasped and rolled to the other side of the bed, sheets wrapping around him as the creature scurried back, stopping against the far wall. Virgil blinked, his eyes adjusting to the low-light of the room. The yellow eyes were attached to a creature about the size of an adult German Shepherd dog, but it didn't look like any dog he'd ever seen. It had horns for one thing, and dark green fur, long and rather soft looking. The creature still had a bit of its tongue sticking out, and Virgil could see the edges of a couple sharp teeth.
“Were you trying to eat me?” Virgil asked the monster.
The creature snorted and shook its large head, its tongue dripping spittle onto the carpet.
Virgil felt himself relax the tiniest bit. Waking up from a nightmare to a strange thing in his room still had him on edge, but the thing looked kind of cute and it wasn't attacking him. He took a better look at it and noticed the way it was backed against the opposite wall, hooves digging into the carpet like it wanted to get further away.
Virgil took a deep breath to calm down a little more, it was frightened of him too, and he needed to sort out what it was and why it was there. It could be lost.
“It's okay,” He said, in his most soothing voice, “I won't hurt you if you don't hurt me.”
The creature bowed its head in a nod.
“Can,” Virgil felt silly for asking, “Can you understand me?”
“Yes”
Virgil yelled and startled bad enough that he fell out of bed, sheets still tangled around him. He heard scuffling and a whine from the other side of the room, moving further away from him. Virgil struggled and fought his way free of the sheets around him. He took several calming breaths before he sat up slowly, noting lack of any serious injuries from his fall, and stood slowly. The monster was now trying to hide behind his desk.
“Sorry, I didn't think you could talk.” Virgil rubbed the back of his neck, “and your voice... startled me.”
The creature whined, much like a dog.
“I'm sorry, I don't like it when people yell either. I didn't mean to do it to you.” Virgil said, “You can come out, I won't hurt you, or yell again.”
The creature stayed where it was and shook its head.
Virgil sat on the bed, trying to look as non-threatening as he could.
“You can stay there for now if you want, but could you please tell me how you got here?”
The creature hesitated, his big yellow eyes on Virgil before letting out a small huff.
“I followed you from the bright place.”
Bright place, Virgil thought, trying to think of, oh, he got it.
“Roman's kingdom?”
“If that's what you call the loud one, yes.”
Virgil stifled a laugh at the thought of Roman being 'the loud one'. It suited him, but would make Roman upset to hear it.
“Why follow me?”
“You're quiet and dark. Nice. I thought you'd go someplace quiet and dark, where I could hide.”
Virgil thought about it, he had thousands of more questions, but he was tired. He needed to decide what to do about this and get back to sleep. Only a couple more questions then.
“Why did you lick me?”
“To wake you up. You were upset. Bad dream?” The creature cocked its head at an unnatural angle that, on another animal might have been terrifying, but on this creature was rather adorable.
“Yeah, bad dream,” Virgil agreed, scrubbing at his face. He couldn't remember details now, but he knew it wasn't one of his milder nightmares.
Virgil blinked and his vision swam, he was too tired and needed to go back to sleep. He hesitated, weighing his options before speaking.
“You can stay here tonight if you would like,” Virgil saw something on the creatures head twitch, he assumed it was an ear, “and we can talk more in the morning.”
“Thank you,” the creature said sounding a little surprised, “Where should I sleep?”
“Wherever, I can get you a blanket if...” Virgil trailed off, a little stunned as the creature changed size and shape. It was the size and shape of a very fluffy house cat now, the only identifiers being the dark green fur and lack of visible pupils in its yellow eyes. The creature walked over to Virgil’s bed, slipping underneath it easily. Out of sight, the only evidence that it was there the abnormally loud purring coming from somewhere under the center of the bed frame.
“Okay then,” Virgil pulled up a blanket from the foot of his bed, not bothering with the sheet still on the floor. He closed his eyes and started to fall back asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. As he began to drift off, a persistent question floated to the forefront of his thoughts, preventing him from fully falling asleep.
“What is your name?” Virgil asked. The purring stopped.
The monster thought. It had been a while since anything had reminded him that he even had a name. He couldn't remember much from before the bright place, but snippets returned to him slowly as he thought. Smells returned to him, connected to a human who felt like home and a place that didn't. The sight of a splotchy red face covered in tears and partially hidden by thick dark curls. He remembered the sound of purring from above him and the cats that would occasionally sleep with him, instead of his human. A voice, sweet and warm and loving and rough through sniffles after crying, wishing him goodnight.
“My name is Frank,” he said, unsure if the shadowling heard him or not.
“Hey, Frank,” Virgil's sleepy voice came from above him, somewhat muffled, probably by a pillow, “I'm Virgil.”
They were both very tired, and Frank fell asleep, his tail curled around himself in a place that felt like home with a human who almost felt like home too.
Tag List: @not-so-innocent-bi-sander, @ashrain5 @sanders-trash-4ever @loverofpizzaandallthingssweet, @icecoldparadise, @sanspie122 @welcomebasketidiot @armageddonhascome, @whatthefeelsiswrongwithme, @irish-newzealand-idian-dutch, @aikogumi, @justanotherpurplebutterfly, @anxietyisahufflepuff, @tinysidestrashcaptain, @logan-must-be-serious, @myspace-anxiety, @andy-the-anon, @starving-for-stability
#When Shadows Meet#Sanders Sides Fanfiction#Virgil Sanders#Frank the monster#the monster under the bed#do not the creatures of darkness deserve love too?#my beloved monster#sidewritten
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part iv: might never make it out
story page | part v
Healing from his traumatic experience proved to be boring. Often, Niall ached to do something, anything, to end the monotony. He wanted to go to another reef and heal it, discover the range of his powers. He wanted to explore the oceans, maybe even see the corpse of the Titanic. But…he also wanted to do these things with Rose.
Something about the storm and their subsequent conversation had exhausted her. She slept longer than Niall had thought was possible. He didn’t dare disturb her, though. If she needed her rest, he wasn’t going to complain or begrudge her of it.
However, it did leave him with no one to talk to.
This was how Niall found himself swimming through the underwater palace alone, simply gazing about. He didn’t have much interest in heading up towards the surface any longer. He didn’t have much motivation to steal away in the night and head towards land to listen for any news reports. That was partly because he had no idea where he was, and where he would go to hear any news reports. It was mostly a selfish want anyway – he wanted to know about his ‘death’. If he was still being searched for.
He did realize that that kind of thinking was detrimental to healing, but occasionally, he couldn’t help it.
At any rate, Niall was so lost in his thoughts that he didn’t realize anyone was nearby.
“Hey,” a bright, tinkling voice called, and Niall flinched visibly, swiveling towards the voice. A pretty woman, a little older than himself, was floating by the abalone entranceway to the court room, where Triton would sometimes gather the sirens to check in (there were no guards today, which meant that Triton wasn’t here. Niall didn’t even know what he looked like; he hadn’t met the sea lord yet). Her hair was blonde, and twisted into a neat braid. Her eyes were startling – bright, attention-drawing. She looked…well, she looked a lot like Alannah, which wasn’t something he was entirely comfortable with.
And her tail…her tail was a deep, shocking blue, darker than his own tail of green. Different from Rose and Jeremy as well. He wondered what the shade meant, and if it was too rude to ask.
The stranger giggled, before swimming closer to him, halting only a few feet away. “Don’t you know it’s rude to stare at people? Especially their tails?”
Right. That answered that question, then. Niall shook his head, his cheeks turning a bit red. “I-I’m sorry. I just don’t know what all of the colors mean,” he told her, sheepishly scratching at the back of his neck. “’M name’s Niall.”
The woman considered him, her head tilted to the side. “My name is Gertie. Nice to meet you,” she offered her hand to him, and he hesitantly shook it. “And blue means that I killed myself, Niall.”
It felt like all of the oxygen had been sucked out of the water. Niall released her hand and stared at her, at a loss of words. It wasn’t every day that the person in front of you freely admitted she had killed herself. “Er…please, don’t take this the wrong way, but how? To become a siren, you have to die in the sea.”
Thankfully, Gertie took his perplexed state as inoffensive, and had no issue chatting about it. If anything, she seemed happy to talk to him. “Well, you see Niall, I drowned myself.” At his shocked and mildly uncomfortable look, she waved her hand. “Oh, don’t be like that. It was hundreds of years ago.”
Niall swallowed harshly. Jesus. It seemed that everyone here was incredibly old. “S-sorry,” he stuttered, and Gertie laughed softly.
“You’re cute, all unaware,” she giggled, batting her eyes at him. Niall blinked. Was she…flirting with him? Niall used to be a huge flirt himself, actually, though some would call him friendly instead. But since dying, he hadn’t felt the urge to; nor had he seen anyone he wanted to flirt with. He just wanted to hang out with Rose. When Niall didn’t respond, she sighed and continued to chat. “Well, I’ll just let you know what all of these colors mean. Now, as you’ve probably noticed, there’s not terribly many of us sirens here. There are more out in the ocean, but some of us group here. So I’m sure you’ve mostly seen green tails like yourself, am I right?”
Niall nodded, and she continued. “Green tends to mean that your death was accidental. The depth of the shade correlates with how broken your heart was.” It made sense. Niall looked down at his own tail and swished it, watching the muscles move. His wasn’t terribly dark, though it was definitely darker than others. “Blue, like mine, means the death was a suicide. And, as you can see, my tail is fairly dark. I was experiencing some awful heartache.” Gertie smiled bitterly to herself, gazing down at the shimmering scales. “It’s a wonderful reminder of my previous life.”
She seemed lost in her thoughts for a moment, but Niall pressed on, even if it was rude. “And red is…when you’re murdered, right?”
Gertie started, but then nodded her head. “Yes, it is. I know Rose is the one who found you,” she smiled softly to herself. “She’s a nice girl. I tried to help her out a bit when she first was found, but she preferred Jeremy instead.” She lifted her shoulder in a shrug. “Usually the bond between those that are saved and those that do the saving is strong.”
That also made sense. It explained why Niall felt a constant pull to Rose, why he wanted to be with her and talk to her all the time. Though it did not explain why he felt he would do just about anything she asked. Why he missed her so terribly while she slept.
Even now, with another person in front of him, he would rather be with Rose, even if it was simply watching her sleep. He made a face and shook his head, before realizing Gertie was watching him with a small smile. “Thanks for the information,” he stated, before offering her a small smile in return. An idea suddenly struck him, and he realized he had to leave. “I’ve…got to go.” He added, giving her a wave before swimming off. He knew that Rose had been murdered – she told him that. But her tail…her tail was such a dark, deep red. Jeremy’s was closer to pink, it was so light.
Who had broken Rose’s heart so deeply?
Rushing away from Gertie proved to do nothing for him. Rose was still sleeping, and when Niall poked his head through the curtain to check on her, she was breathing deeply and peacefully. He retreated back to his own room to wait. It was all he could do. So Niall remained at vigil, waiting for her to wake.
It was another day before Rose woke up. Niall was almost asleep himself when he heard the curtain over his doorway swish, and his eyes flew open instantly. He was met with a smile on Rose’s face, those brown eyes of hers twinkling. “Hey,” she said.
“Hi,” Niall replied, grinning. He couldn’t help it. He had missed her terribly. It was boring without Rose, and he had questions. “I wasn’t sure you were going to wake up.” Rose rolled her eyes playfully and swam inside, sitting on the bed beside him.
“Of course I was going to wake up. I wasn’t in a coma or anything, silly. I was resting.”
“You just needed your beauty sleep and didn’t want to bother with me.” They both laughed, and Niall smiled fondly at her. She still looked sleepy, her eyes a little glazed over still. Her hair was messy and a bit unkempt, but he found it endearing. It told him that instead of really waking up, her first priority was to see him, and that made Niall feel all warm inside.
“Listen. I’ve been thinking about things while you were sleeping, and I have some questions.” Niall started, looking at her. Rose blinked slowly and then nodded her head, gesturing for him to continue. ”You told me you were murdered. But you didn’t say how and you never…you never told me who broke your heart.”
It was silent for a few minutes. Niall didn’t push it, instead letting Rose think and decide on what she wanted to say, if anything at all. Finally, her shoulders dropped, and he heard her exhale. “You know that my mum died in World War I, when we were bombed.” Niall nodded, and she continued, her voice a bit shaky. “My papa…he was devastated. She was his shining star, his saving grace. Everything he did, he did to make her happy.” Rose smiled tremulously, her eyes distant. More than 89 years away from him.
“Papa decided to remarry, and he met another widow with two children, a boy and a girl. But she was snobbish, and wanted the best of everything. He didn’t have enough money so…he sent me to America to work for an old friend of his.” Her smile became sad. “He gave me up, and I had never felt more betrayed in my entire life. He broke my heart. I died on the trip overseas.”
Niall could hardly wrap his head around her story. He couldn’t imagine either of his parents sending him to a distant country to make money for their new spouse. And he couldn’t think of an excuse for the difference in the times, either. “You were murdered,” he pressed on, despite his head spinning. “Who killed you?”
Rose took in a shuddering breath, and Niall noticed her hands were shaking. Hesitantly, he set his hands over hers on her lap, watching for her reaction. She didn’t react, so he assumed it was okay. She was growing more comfortable around him; that was plain to see. “I told you my papa didn’t have a lot of money. He sent me on an ancient, rickety ship that was captained by a very old superstitious man. I was the only young woman on board, and he told me the second I set foot on the ship that he thought women caused bad luck for voyages. I should have turned back and left, Niall, the instant he said that to me.”
She was rocking back and forth now, and all Niall could feel was disgust and horror. Rose was a gentle flower, different from her namesake: beautiful, but without the thorns. He couldn’t imagine her harming a fly. He was sure she was crying, but he couldn’t see the tears in the water. Niall did the only thing he could think to do – he tucked her close and hugged her. Rose stilled for a minute, maybe aghast at the close contact, but then hugged him back with an almost reckless abandon. Her arms went around his neck and he could feel the stirrings of her breath pushing water against his neck. It made him shiver. His skin was tingling from the close proximity.
Rose tried to calm herself, and it took a few minutes. She pulled away from the hug, but left her hands on his shoulders. Her brown eyes gazed into Niall’s blue ones. “About halfway through the trip, a terrible storm struck the sea. The captain blamed me for it, because I was a woman; I had brought Poseidon’s wrath upon his ship, and the sea god demanded a sacrifice. He…he tied my feet to cinder blocks and threw me into the ocean, Niall. And I screamed and screamed as I hit the water. I don’t…I don’t even know if my papa learned what happened to me.”
Her body began to shake again, and Niall held her tightly and rode it out with her. It was all he could do. His mind was whirling, and he felt a surge of anger – at the captain who killed her, Rose’s father, and that she wound up here, forced to live with the trauma. She was too pure of a soul to have a past like this. It wasn’t right.
“Hey…I’m here for you.” Niall whispered into her ear as she cried, her body trembling against his. “I am so sorry, Rose. I am so sorry that this happened to you. You are too good to deserve this.” An idea popped into his head – he had forgotten what Rose had told him when they first met. “We’re going to get that second chance, together. We’ll become human again. You told me it was possible.”
That got her attention, and she let out a shaky laugh before rubbing at her face. “I also said it had never happened before.”
“Oh. Right. Who told you it was possible, then?”
“Triton.”
Niall thought about that. Triton was in the position to know things. “Did he say anything else?” he asked her, wracking his brain. It wasn’t a lot to go off of.
Rose shook her head. “No, he didn’t. Maybe next time he comes, we can ask him.”
Niall nodded his head, and then grabbed her hand, lacing their hands together. “Whatever it is, we’re going to find out together. I’m not going to lose you now, Rose. You deserve better.”
Rose smiled at that, before glancing down at their interlocked fingers and dipping her chin once.
“Together.”
#Niall Horan#mermaid au#siren au#Niall au#Niall Horan au#Niall Horan fanfiction#Niall fanfiction#1dff
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Showcase #73: The Coming of the Creeper! (Image Heavy)
The cover just says it all, doesn’t it? Everybody wants this guy. And by ‘wants’ I of course, mean ‘hates’. It’s not a bad cover; it has eye catching colors, it has no glaringly empty spaces, and it has our hero, doing something dynamic. That something being falling through the air, ripping up papers, while gunmen in wildly differing positions all over the city try to shoot him at this one, single moment.
Yeah, okay that’s a little goofy, but it looks cool.
The first page gives us some creepy imagery involving what becomes something of a theme in Ditko’s main Creeper story: Masks, false and hidden faces.
Our comic opens with a (literal) bang-
-As scientist Professor Yatz is kidnapped for ransom, and his assistant shot.
Smashcut to Jack Ryder destroying his own career on live television.
Two thoughts on this dialogue:
1. No Jack. Those two things are not the same at all.
2. As for police violence, well, my present-day self can see where this guy is coming from, but this was written in 1968. Let’s see, can we think of anything that might have been going on around that time that might get people looking more closely at the topic of police brutality?
...No, I couldn’t think of anything either.
So the network is rife with cronyism and Jack gets himself fired-wait, unemployment? Isn’t Ditko an Objectivist? Doesn’t he inject that into every single project he’s involved with? Aren’t they super not on board with social programs like that? Then again, even Ayn Rand had to get onto Social Security eventually, because it turns out the “If You’ve got Yours, Fuck Everybody Else” method of social policy is less solid than one might initially believe.
Well whatever. Jack does the No-Job Jig, while dumping what I assume is his contract and...throwing up the horns? Get used to this bizarre gesture because our pal Steve Ditko cannot get enough of it. It is used three times on the page this panel comes from alone.
However, luck is with Jack on this day!
Turns out the head of security for the network likes the cut of Jacks jib, as well as his constant hand signals for rockin’ out, and hires him for the security team right on the spot. I have no idea if that is legal or not, but opportunity knocks, when one door closes another opens, yaddadee, yaddadoo.
A quick side note- Even though every single other iteration of Ryder ever written has him as a talk show host/newscaster/journalist, that panel of him snarking at the pacifist is the only mention Ditko ever makes of him being in that position. For the rest of Steve Ditko’s body of work involving him, Jack has a job in security.
He gets offered a pretty important job right out the door. Especially for someone who hasn’t even read the employee’s handbook yet. Taking over for his unfortunate co-worker in an...investigation into ties between the underworld and foreign communists...involving the forced ‘repatriation’ of communist defectors...
...at the behest of the C.I.A.
Hold on a sec.
Why is the C.I.A. leaving this to a nobody security team of a nameless tv network, in an unspecified city?
Guess it doesn’t matter! There is never a second word said about this. Jack, with his thirty seconds of security experience, takes the job immediately. Tasked with scoping out a party thrown by one Angel Devlin (Really?) and Major Smej (Really???) he heads out, only to be deterred by one missing fact: It’s a costume party, and his costume of ‘White Man With Terrible Fashion Sense’ just isn’t going to cut it.
I’m a little confused as to how a special order, an order you make specially, can have odds and ends left over, but okay, let’s see what you can throw together, Jack!
This box of odds and ends seems to contain a yellow zentai suit, matching makeup, a green wig, a sheepskin rug with the longest and straightest wool I’ve ever seen, and stripperific gloves, underoos, and boots. Uh, what kind of “special adult order” was this? Not that I’m judging or anything. We all have needs!
Also, Ditko never shies away from ass shots of this character. Ever.
Cue instant mugging! Jack, you aren’t even the Creeper yet. You just now put that costume on. Why are you doing that?
Oh look, time for an intermission!
...Okay...
Meanwhile, back at the ranch...
Behold, our bad guys; Angel Devlin, and Major Smej. Further proof that if yor name sounds like anything (or is a tortured string of mostly consonants) you are destined for villainy.
Jack does attempt to snoop around, but he is wearing a huge sheepskin rug and man-panties, so he gets called out pretty quick.
Here’s a little bonus cameo of the pacifist and the ex-boss, seen here as a teletubby and Judge Claude Frollo. Hi guys, we really needed to see you again.
In his complete lack of subtlety, Jack as been found out by several of the costumed goons that are strewn about the party. He gets into a fight that no one notices, knocks one of them through a secret door that no one notices, and ends up stabbed by a second foe. Does anyone notice? No. It is so unnoticeable in fact, that we have to be told it has happened. Probably the good old CCA in action.
This secret tunnel is exactly what Jack has been looking for, so he goes exploring. With a knife wound in his side. He also has to fight a few thugs while he’s at it. With a knife wound in his side. Are we sure he was really stabbed, or was he maybe lying to us?
Nah we can absolutely take his word for it that he was totally stabbed. You see? By the time he locates the abducted Professor, his completely bloodless knife wound has left him slightly winded!
But the dastardly goon who stabbed him went and did the sensible thing: instead of chasing after his wounded prey, he went and told his boss! Unheard of! They, along with their henchmen, start trying to pry open the conveniently jammed secret door.
Totally unnoticed by anyone else, of course.
To be fair, we don’t get much of the layout of this house. They could just be far away from any of the other partygoers. It seems like, as far as most of them are concerned, this is just a legit party. Our villains are fairly secure in their assumptions that nobody suspects a thing.
Giving us this nicely creepy panel. Good job. Aside from a small color mishap around the eyes, this panel looks extra good.
But while our villains are posing like they are in a Looking Sinister contest, they are apparently giving Jack and the Professor about a years worth of time to do stuff.
Turns out the Professor isn’t wanted by the Reds just because he dared to leave home. He is a very talented scientist who has learned how to play, if not god, then certainly a demiurge with molecular physics, as explained(?) here:
Fearing that neither of them are getting out of this alive, the Professor decides tho burn his notes, inject Jack with an experimental serum that enhances strength, agility, stamina, and healing speed(which his captors didn’t confiscate for some reason), and implant his molecular rearrangement device into Jacks open wound.
Sure Prof! Just shove that right up into my perforated kidney! I’m sure everything will be juuuust fine.
They have enough time to do all of this without interruption, by the way. Not a single acknowledgement of pain from Jack in this entire time. This guy flies by the seat of his pants so hard that he has to wear his underwear on the outside.
Unfortunately, one of the goons Jack clocked on the way through the secret tunnel wakes up right about now.
Most unfortunate. Poor Professor Yatz was as good at bullet catching as he was at molecular physics. If only he’d had a device of some sort, something that could, I dunno, rearrange molecules to disguise him as one of those goons, so that he might escape. If only.
Jack re-clocks the murderous mook, and our villains, after eighty-four years of not being noticed, finally lever the hidden door open, only to be confronted with smoke and surprise fists as our hero escapes!
Behold! The quickest thinking henchman ever!
Somebody give that clown a raise!
The ruse works perfectly, especially since Jack manages to stomp on the pacifists head on his way out the window. Jeez Steve, we get it, you were pro-war. No need to rub it in.
Escaping into the yard isn’t much help for our hero, as he is still severely outnumbered, and, y’know, wearing one of the most saturated color schemes the Silver Age could offer. He does start to pull himself together though, noticing that his wound is practically gone, and that his appearance, as well as a few belts of cackling laughter seems to unsettle his opponents.
However, he gets a little too into the, uh, ‘swing’ of things...
...And accidentally pops a cop. Now, this gives plenty of setup for the police to have problems with him in later issues of the story-instead of the cops being corrupt, or disliking him for being a vigilante, or making them look bad, he full on assaults an officer of the law mere minutes after properly becoming the Creeper. He makes a very big mistake, and it mars his relationship with the police for the rest of his story.
Switching back to just plain Jack, he manages to throw the cops off his trail, but also overhears that they have been unable to locate our villains. This clearly will not stand. A man has died here! And that annoying pacifist is still pontificating about violence! Unacceptable! Something must be done!
So Jack goes right back into Creeper mode because let’s face it, Jack is boring. Thus we are given my favorite panel in the entire issue...
Heck yeah. I love high contrast shading you guys.
Creeper tracks the villains and their remaining gang into the garage, which also seems quite a lot bigger on the inside. and manages to ambush them while making the most noise that he possibly can.
Raucous laughter is sneaky!
What follows is roughly seven pages of pretty good fight sequence, before the police finally hear what’s going on and get their blue butts in gear.
There’s action!
Thrills!
Spills!
Ass shots!
And the witty banter the Silver Age is famous for!
Heh.
When the police finally arrive, they find the corpse of poor Yatz, the defeated villains, and a fleeing Creeper. Jack manages to escape once more by ducking out of the pursuing officers line of sight and switching back to himself.
He does this all the time. It becomes a kind of running gag.
In the end, the cops bust that gang for good, the Creeper is given his eternal moniker, and both the underworld and the overworld finally agree on one thing.
They gotta, gotta have that man.
And so the comic comes to a close, with Jack cheekily declaring that he won’t let anybody know about Yatz’s revolutionary device, so that only a responsible person can use the power it holds.
Himself, of course.
Stay tuned, for as the comic promises, more Creeper is coming soon.
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[MF] Of Gods and Eagles
A little story by me, based off of a dream of mine. Enjoy
Eric had never been the most spiritual person. For most of his life he had been an atheist. He had also been relentlessly bullied most of his life for his meek ways and was desperately seeking something, anything, to have an escape. Little did he know that within him slept the heart of a lion.
He had discovered the topic of astral projection while browsing through his usual ghost stories on youtube and became fascinated with the idea. For hours he studied the subject, researching methods and techniques to induce projection, while also reading second hand accounts of those who had succeeded in doing so.
Apparently the first step to projecting is being able to flawlessly fall into the hypnagogic state after falling asleep. The hypnagogic state can be described as remaining mentally conscious while the body is falling asleep. It was supposed to be no easy task, but Eric decided to give it a try nonetheless that very night. As he restlessly attempted to fall asleep, he was filled with nothing but excitement.
Later on that night, Erik woke up. He looked around to gauge his surroundings, but was disappointed to see it was his same boring reality. Disappointed, he once again laid down and began to drift off. This time however, something was different. Right before complete unconsciousness, he felt he had reached that nexus point of the hypnagogic state. His body felt heavy and paralyzed, but his mind was still mostly lucid. Perhaps this was what was called sleep paralysis?
“Welp, its now or never.”, Eric thought to himself, “Time to see if there really is a thing that they call a soul.”
Beforehand, as stated earlier, Eric had researched ways to induce a projection. The one that stuck with him the most was as follows: Once reaching the hypnagogic state, you have to envision your astral ‘arms’, while also imagining an astral ‘rope’ hanging above yourself. One then needs to reach out with their ‘arms’ and then pull the astral body out.
Eric tried to relax in this uncomfortable state and envisioned his astral body, focusing on his ‘arms’. Almost within an instant, his entire body began to vibrate and pulsate with the force of a thousand suns. Swirling over and over, around and around, his energy seemed to take on a life of its own. The feeling was somewhat similar to your hand falling asleep, but thousands of times more enhanced and dancing to the rhythm of his heartbeat, which was all he could hear now, along with some indescribable white noise.
Fighting to remain calm, Eric then envisioned the ‘rope’ above him, and then proceeded to reach out his ‘arms’, grabbed the ‘rope’, and attempted to pull himself out. Before he knew it, all sensation ceased, and he was floating above his own body. As he looked around his room, he noted how everything seemed to be in a fog, as though a grey mist permeated this realm. He looked at his ‘hands’, but instead of five fingers and a palm on each ‘arm’, he was composed of a swirling grey energy. Looking down at his physical body, he noted how surreal the whole experience was, and was about to try and float away to explore this realm when something unexpected happened.
“STOP!”, The word was not heard, it was more like it reverberated throughout his very soul. The entire room seemed to vibrate, and a high pitched ringing proceeded to gnaw at his very being. Before he knew it, he was surrounded by darkness. He seemed to be in an infinite void. He began to panic and attempted to will himself back to his body, but to no avail.
“IT IS USELESS.”, The voice rang throughout his soul again. “YOU, HUMAN, WHY HAVE YOU COME HERE BEFORE YOUR TIME? THIS IS NOT YOUR REALM.”
All of a sudden a radiant white light blinded Eric, and when it died down he saw that he was surrounded by eight spiritual beings. They seemed to be made out of pure, blinding white energy, glowing orbs of corporeal radiance.
“Wh-who are you?”, Eric said, “What do you want? L-let me go please.”
“WHO AM I? WHO ARE WE? WE ARE ALL. WE ARE YOU. WE ARE GOD. WE ARE THE DEVIL. WE ARE THE HEROES. WE ARE THE VILLAINS. WE HAVE MANY NAMES, AND YET NO NAME. NOW ANSWER US HUMAN, WHY ARE YOU HERE? MY PATIENCE GROWS THIN”
“I-I ..uhh. I was just curious to see i-if all of this was-“
“I SEE. WE SEE. CURIOSITY IS THE FOLLY OF MAN. YOU SHOULD NOT BE HERE, IT IS NOT YOUR TIME. HERE RESTS THE AKSASHIC, THE KNOWLEDGE OF ALL THAT WILL BE AND ALL THAT HAS EVER BEEN, AND IT NOT MEANT FOR THE LIVING. HOWEVER, IF YOU PASS OUR TEST, WE WILL ALLOW YOU TO RETURN TO YOUR BODY. FAIL, AND YOUR SPIRIT WILL BE SEPERATED, AND IT WILL REMAIN HERE, AS IT SHOULD BE.”
“W-wait!”, Eric tried to protest, but before he knew it he was once again blinded by the radiant white light. When he could once again see, he looked around to gauge his surrounding once more.
He seemed to be seated on a stone seat in an arena that was not entirely unlike the one in Rome that he had seen online. All around him in the other seats were other astral bodies like his own, many of their auras had different colors than his own, and in the center of the arena were the same radiant orbs he had first run into.
“HUMANS”, the voice reverberated throughout him once more, “YOU HAVE STEPPED INTO THE REALM OF THE AKASHIC BEFORE YOUR TIME, AND FOR THIS YOU MUST BE PUNISHED. YOU WILL BE PAIRED OFF FOR BATTLE AT OUR INSTRUCTION, WHERE YOUR TRUE NATURE WILL BE TESTED. THOSE WHO SURVIVE WILL BE ALLOWED TO RETURN TO THEIR BODIES. THOSE WHO DO NOT WILL REMAIN HERE FOREVER, AS IT SHOULD BE. WHEN YOUR NAME IS-“
By this point, Eric had had enough. He was furious at the entities callous and casual threats of what was basically death. Something awoke within him at that point, and before he could stop himself he interrupted the entities.
“Fucking BULLSHIT!!”, Eric’s astral body took on a crimson glow that revealed his rage. “All I wanted to know was that there was something here!! You could have just told me to leave and I would have! If you are truly God or the Devil then this all your fault! If you were actually doing your job back on earth we wouldn’t have been curious in the first place. Now you’re punishing us for wanting to know the truth? What kind of backwards logic-“
“SILENCE!!!”, the angry word of the entities shook the entire arena, and a crimson light blasted forth from them, covering the entire arena in a sanguine mist. Where once they were a calm, radiant white, they were now pulsing like a furious unstable heartbeat, and they were a dark, sickening shade of red. Instead of radiating light, they almost seemed to be sucking it in now, not unlike a black hole.. a black hole of pure anger.
“A MERE HUMAN DARES TO QUESTION US? TO QUESTION ME? THIS IS ALL FOR A REASON, AS HAVE EVERY ACTION WE HAVE EVER TAKEN. YOUR FEEBLE MIND DOES NOT NEED TO, NOR COULD IT COMPREHEND WHY WE DO WHAT I DO, NOW SIT THERE IN SILENCE AND AWAIT YOUR TURN OR BE PUNISHED!!”
Eric scoffed scornfully. “You’re right, I don’t understand, nor do I need to. You call us feeble, you call us fools, but really, if I am you and you are me, what does that really make you? I think you have forgotten what it really means to be human. No wonder our world has turned to shit.”
The sanguine mist grew even thicker. The unstable pulsing of the crimson orbs grew even more erratic. Slowly, the eight orbs converged into each other, until they united into one. The moment the convergence was complete, the blood red orb shrank and shrank, and then it exploded and expanded with anger. The force blew away the arena and every other spirit except Eric and some other spirit. It seemed to be much larger than him and pulsed with a golden light. The giant, furiously pulsating blood red orb converged on them both, turning its attention toward Eric.
“INSOLENCE!! BLASPHEMY!! YOU DARE TO QUESTION I? TO QUESTION US?! YOU MUST WANT TO BE PUNISHED THEN. SO BE IT. THIS SPIRIT HERE WILL BE YOUR OPPONENT. TAKE A GOOD LOOK AT HIM. NOTICE A DIFFERENCE? HIS GOLDEN RADIANCE IS A SIGN THAT HE IS DESTINED TO BE A HERO, ONE TO MOVE MOUNTAINS AND SHAPE THE FATE OF THE FUTURE, WHILE YOUR DULL GRAY SIGNIFIES THAT OF ANOTHER COG IN THE WHEEL OF FATE. YOU WILL DO BATTLE, BUT BEFOREHAND I WILL CHANGE YOUR FORMS TO SIGNIFY YOUR TRUE NATURES, AND THEN I WILL SEND YOU TO A SUITABLE LOCATION TO DO BATTLE.”
Before Eric could protest, he started to violently tremble. The crimson orb enveloped him in its sanguine mist, and before he knew it a pain like no other took over his consciousness. Spiritual pain is apparently much deeper than physical pain. Eric looked to his right and noticed that the sanguine mist was also enveloping the golden spirit, which was slowly starting to transform it into the shape of what seemed to be some kind of bird.
While Eric watched on, everything around him seemed to grow larger and larger, until it seemed as if he had become microscopic. The pain and vibrations ceased, and the entities spoke up once more.
“HMPH”, the entities scoffed, “NOW DO YOU SEE THE FOLLY OF QUESTIONING US? I HAVE TRANFORMED YOU INTO WHAT YOU TRULY ARE, NOTHING MORE THAN AN ANT, WHILE YOUR OPPONENT HAS TAKEN THE FORM OF A MAGNIFICENT EAGLE.”
Eric tried to look at himself but found that he couldn’t see that well. On top of his head he could feel something wiggling around.. feelers?
“Oh gods..”, Eric thought, “This ain’t good. Shoulda just kept my mouth shut. Welp, hindsight is 20/20 I guess. Nothing to do now but do my best.”
“YOUR BATTLEFIELD WILL BE AN OPEN PLAIN. LAMENT YOUR ARROGANCE ERIC. YOU WILL HAVE PLENTY OF TIME TO BEG FOR FORGIVENESS WHEN YOU LOSE THIS BATTLE. I SUGGEST YOU START THINKING ABOUT WHAT TO SAY TO ME, TO US.”
Erik directed his thoughts to the entity. “It ain’t over till its over. I suggest you start thinking of your apology to me.” In reality Eric was shitting his pants at this point. He had no idea what he was going to do to win, but there was no way he was going to kiss up to this ‘god’ now.
The entity once again flashed crimson, and then with a flash of blinding white light, sent them to their battlefield.
Eric waited for himself to regain his senses. After a moment he could feel earth underneath his six legs. Looking around, he could barely see anything.
“I guess ants don’t have the greatest sense of sight. Shit..”, Eric thought to himself, “Im assuming at this point the eagle is flying somewhere above me. Nothing I can really do other than to run around I guess. Serpentine, serpentine.. there has to be something I can do.”
The eagle patiently watched the ant from above. Even for as high as he was in the sky, he could see him perfectly. Eagle vision was no joke. He thanked Eric for his foolishness. He was going to savor this moment, as flying was quite fun. In the end though, he knew what had to be done. He felt a little bad, but it was either him or Eric. He had also noted the words of the entities. He was destined to be a hero. He was determined to live up to those words. Steeling himself for what was to come, he unfolded his talons, angled himself into a divebomb, and let out a ferocious battle cry.
“SKREEEEEE!!”, Eric heard the ferocious cry of the eagle. Eric knew it was coming for him now. All he could do was run and hope for the best. He honestly felt that maybe his time had come, but he wasn’t going to give up yet. As he racked his brain for any kind of solution, it suddenly dawned on him like a bolt of lightning. He was ant. He had no chance on the surface, but the surface is soil.. he can dig!! He frantically let his insectoid instincts take over and quickly buried himself under the soil in record time. Now all he can do is wait.
The eagle was startled by the ant’s sudden decision to go underground. He was already too caught up in the momentum of the divebomb to pull out of it. He frantically tried to correct his position, but as he was unused to flying, he only ended up spiraling out of control. Corkscrewing towards the ground at a breakneck pace, he crashed beakfirst into the ground and quickly lost consciousness.
Sensing the eagle crashing into the ground above him, Eric thought that he was caught in the middle of an earthquake. After a moment, realization hit him, and he quickly surfaced. He came up right under the eagle. After taking a moment to think of what to do, he came up with a plan.
Using his feelers to find his way to the beak of the eagle, he crawled into the beak of the eagle, down into its airpipe and into its lungs. He didn’t know what type of ant he was, but he knew he had a venomous stinger and venom in his jaws. He quickly got to work, stinging and biting him over and over again without mercy. Luckily, the eagle didn’t wake up until he was well into the second lung.
The eagle awoke to a screaming pain in his chest like nothing else he had ever experienced. He could hardly breathe, but with the last of his strength managed a last mighty croak, expelling the ant just in time. He tried to take another breath but found that he could not. He tried again desperately but to no avail. His lungs had swelled up too much. He began to thrash about in pain, but as his strength left him, he collapsed onto the ground. As his vision was growing dark, he looked ahead of him one last time and took notice of the ant.
“Well played my friend.”, the eagle thought, “Well.. pl…”
A brilliant white light overtook them both. Eric was once again in astral form. The golden spirit was next to him. The orb was also there in front of them, except now instead of being a brilliant white or furious crimson, he was a dull shade of yellow, signifying his surprise and regret.
“..this was not supposed to happen..”, the entity exclaimed. Eric was surprised. Where once the entity trembled his very soul with a word, his words where now barely a whisper. “..how did you win? This is not detailed in the records.. did you change them somehow? That’s it, you must have cheated. Explain yourself.”
“Well..”, Eric said, “The only thing I can think of is that nothing is set in stone. Free will is a thing, and even if it seems like someone’s fate has been decided, it is never too late to change. I’m not saying that anyone can do whatever they want to do, but with enough willpower, who knows what is possible?”
The entity remained quiet for quite some time. It contemplated Eric’s words. He was amazed by the tenacity of this man, one who he once considered a mere ant. After some consideration, it split apart into eight again and its brilliant white glow returned.
Before Eric knew what was happening, the golden spirit was gone and it was just him and the entities again. They were in the infinite void once more, the spirits surrounding Eric.
“ERIC’, the entities boomed, “…YOU WERE RIGHT. PERHAPS WE HAVE FORGOTTEN WHAT IT MEANS TO BE HUMAN. FOR THE LONGEST TIME I HAVE CALLOUSLY GUARDED THE KNOWLEDGE HERE WITH NO REGARD FOR THE LIVING WORLD. PERHAPS IT IS TIME FOR A CHANGE OF PACE. PERHAPS IT IS TIME FOR A NEW PERSPECTIVE. I THINK WE WILL COME WITH YOU. PERHAPS VIEWING THE WORLD THROUGH YOUR EYES MIGHT HELP ME TO REGAIN MY SENSE OF HUMANITY, AND THROUGH ME, THROUGH US, YOU WILL HAVE ACCESS TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE AKASHIC. USE IT WELL, SHAPE THE WORLD, AND DO THE WORK THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN MINE FROM THE BEGINNING. BRING THIS WORLD INTO A NEW AGE OF PEACE.”
“Uhhh wait a minute.”, Eric spoke up, "With all of this knowledge.. will I know the ending to this anime I’ve just picked up? I’m really into it and id prefer not to have it-“
Before he could say another word, the entities once again combined into one and smashed into his being like a meteorite, fusing into his soul. With a start Eric awoke, the sun streaming through his window. For a second in his grogginess, he couldn’t recall what had just happened. Then, all of the knowledge of the universe flowed throughout his mind and very being, including the entirety of every anime in existence as well. For the first time since he had spoken out against the entities he felt a pang of regret. Maybe if he created his own anime he would feel a bit better? “Wait!!”, Eric thought, “Am I the friggin messiah?!” He mulled over this thought for a bit, then threw it out. The entity never said anything about Jesus. He then laughed at his own foolishness, got out of bed, and got ready to go change the world.
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Under the Influence - Group 2
My artist influence:
Joan Cornellà
Joan Cornellà is an artist and illustrator mostly known for his satirical, ironic and humorous comic panels and drawings. He uses dark humor and unexpected twists to stun the viewer, usually making the comics end in ways you wouldn’t expect. He utilizes dark humor, often making satirical comments on society and modern culture. For example in the bottom comics you can see him criticize child labor as well as the rampant consumerism in society. In the second comic he criticizes trump and the current political climate of america, with the child being born, seeing trump in power and then deciding he’d rather not live in a world where trump is one of the most powerful people. In the third Cornella may be criticizing modern relationships or perhaps the extent some people will go, loosing a part of themselves for someone else.
Cornella’s illustrations are quick, to the point and funny, while still holding an impact-full message, which often isn’t hard to understand or see, which helps to spread the message further. In terms of visual style, Cornella’s work is often very simplistic, he uses clean but soft line and bold block colors. His characters and environments are simplified down to their core elements, leaving only the essentials so the viewer can understand what is happening. This clinical bareness and vibrant colors draws the viewers attention inwards - he has an instantly recognizable art style which allows you to simply glance and say, ‘yep, that’s a joan Cornella piece’.
How does this influence me?
Joan Cornella’s works shows that simplicity can be extremely effective when presenting some kind of message or punchline. The simplicity of the illustrations makes the joke more effective and makes it more easily understandable. The simplicity of the illustrations, in combination to the bold color schemes and cartoon characters could lead the viewer to believe it is aimed at children, which makes the gory, twisted and adult humor of the comics even more impact-full and shocking. His work shows me that simplistic, clinical illustrations can be just as interesting and visually attractive as something more detailed and complex.
As well as this, Cornella’s painting is extremely clean and accurate, which is something i really like. Personally, i often find painting difficult and it can be quite messy, so his very clean work is very inspiring and influences me to try and improve on the quality of my painting skills so that i too can be more precise, accurate and professional.
My object influence:
Max Goldsmith frog character T-shirt
[insert image of t-shirt]
For my influential object i have chosen a T-shirt which was designed by my friend Max Goldsmith. The design features an over emphasized cartoon frog in a strange and funny pose, pulling his eye lids back to expose his eyeballs. The top is very absurd and this strangeness is only amplified bu the simplistic cartoon design. The style is quite reminiscent of traditional Disney characters from the 1920s - 1930s, featuring bold black lines, simplistic faces which only include the basic facial features, over-emphasized eyes and mouths and an overall simplicity.
The resemblance is there, however, Max has developed this traditional style and added his own spin on the work. Max has made the design more mature and modern by adding more of an adult appeal, with the design and character still being humorous to children and adults. He uses the classic simplicity of bold, black lines but also incorporates a higher level of detail to the piece, including simple hatching to portray shading and small dashes on the characters skin to portray natural creasing. I like how the influence is easily recognizable, however, instead of copying the original Disney style he has developed it to further suite his own taste and to make it more modern.
How does this influence me?
To create his designs Max uses the inbuilt brush system within adobe Photoshop, a program which i often use. however, i generally use Photoshop for photo manipulation and editing, rather then digital drawing, which is what Max uses it for. Digital drawing is a skill which i feel is becoming more and more important and prevalent in the art industry, it is used to create concepts for film, games and television very easily and the advantages of drawing/painting digitally are vast. I am not extremely confident with digital drawing and it isn’t a skill which i have really developed yet; Max’s digital designs inspire me to begin practicing and improving upon my own skill and to learn and practice more digital drawing techniques.
Also, i really enjoy the style of max’s work and the over exaggerated cartoon visuals are very appealing. I feel like this is a style i would like to explore more in the future and develop upon.
My peer influence:
Luke Booth
For my peer influence i have chosen my friend Luke Booth. Luke’s visual style is very different to my own, in fact they could be considered complete opposites. Where i like to cram in intricate details into my illustrations, Luke prefers to take a much cleaner, crisper approach; using bold outlines, minimal details and bright, naive colour scheme’s. Lukes art style has a global appeal; The simplistic style and cartoon aesthetic nature of Lukes work can be appreciated by everyone, no matter their location and i feel as if there is rarely any set audience for his work. Developing from this, i also think that Lukes illustrations can be appreciated by all ages, the designs utilize an innocent simplicity in the lines and colouring, but also include more mature themes and imagery. I think that having such a broad audience as Lukes illustrations can be extremely beneficial in the art industry, as the designs can suit and audience which is targeted, unlike other styles which may need to be designed specifically for the chosen audience.
The naive element of Lukes art is also a big source of inspiration: His use of bold outlines, vibrant colours and over simplified designs make his work stunningly eye catching and really help to draw the audiences attention to them. The lack of detail in the drawings leave the bright colours clean and exposed, which makes them pop against a plain and bland background. The is a technique which luke will often use to emphasize important areas of the illustration - he will colour the areas which he wants the audience to focus on in bright shades, while leaving the surroundings a bland white, which forces the audience to inadvertently focus on the area of interest while ignoring the rest.
How does this influence me?
The universal appeal of Lukes work is very inspiring and is a technique i would like to portray in my own work. His illustrations have no set language, cultural or social restraints meaning they can be enjoyed by everyone and anyone, which is a very important quality to have in art. As well as this, Luke’s use of composition is also very inspiring: As shown in the above image, Luke presents a different view point/shot in each panel, which builds up an image of the scene gradually, helping the viewer to piece together the scene, resulting in a greater pay off; Rather than simply showing the viewer all of the information immediately. This is a very interesting technique and is one i think can be applied to horror, a theme i would like to follow in my FMP, really well; Building suspense and gradually drip feeding information to the viewer is a key technique in creating tension and then a more dynamic and shocking pay off, when the horror is revealed.
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