#feels like he Has to look at all the awful details where the occult and the grotesque human intersect because no one else will

[talentforlying]

man i love hellblazer. i write ten words about how this man grieves / breaks down emotionally and immediately want to crack my hyoid like a glowstick.

[bisexualklausmikaelson]

and all the magic we made (12/20)

a/n: well i had another mental breakdown :/ so here's another sporadic update for you all :) thanks for sticking through with this story!

-

Rebekah runs around, from store to store, touching and feeling every item of clothing that catches her eye.

Sparkles, sequins, furs, silks -

Kol quickly realizes how grave of a mistake this shopping trip with his sister has suddenly become.

The length of his stay in his hometown still remain indefinite - last night was a surprise, seeing his niece and not to mention his brother’s infamous Hayley Marshall was certainly something he wasn’t expecting.

If anything, their interactions serve as inspiration for his next move.

Hence the dress shopping, of course.

“So tell me, brother,” Rebekah hums, fingers grasping at a white dress, holding it against her body as she stares at herself in the mirror. “Why are we here anyway? Are we shopping for a special someone? A girl, perhaps?” She stammers on.

“Bekah,” Kol chides. “Such curiosity will bite you in the arse,” he remarks, snatching the dress away from her and placing it back on the shopping rack.

She rolls her eyes, sighing as she follows him down towards the aisle of more colourful textures and fabrics. “Oh c’mon,” she breathes. “You know how starved I am for some hot gossip.”

He doesn’t answer her until she grabs his sleeve and starts whining.

Tell meeeee!!

“Fine-” Kol huffs, shrugging her hand away.

Then suddenly, the perfect dress catches his attention.

It’s a gorgeous purple gown with a mermaid tail flair at the bottom, the sleeves are adorned with pink pearls and with dark lace details.

“It is for a girl,” he confirms, grabbing a hold of the garment. “I like her, I wanna show her how much she means to me, there, satisfied?” He holds the dress up to show it to his sister.

Rebekah smiles, admiring the beauty of the outfit. “Very much,” she nods.

After that, he takes her through even more stores - a purse, jewelry and shoes is a must for a girl so special.

“Okay,” he sighs, grabbing a matching set of pearl earrings and a necklace. “Now it’s your turn,” he comments. “You and Marcel, is this thing happening again?”

She takes her time, taking a deep breath before proceeding to offer him an answer. “I don’t know,” Rebekah tells him. “I care for him, deeply, I always have. I’m just not sure he feels the same for me.”

The look on his sister’s face brings him no joy - he’s used to teasing her about her crushes, even embarrassing her about them. But, this time, Kol feels sorry for her, she loved so honestly and so carelessly.

It filled him with both admiration and pity.

“So, you’re looking for closure?” He wonders.

She raises a brow, thinking of his words carefully. “I am not sure,” Rebekah admits. “Maybe,” she whispers softly.

Kol doesn’t say anything else for a bit - he picks out a pair of heels, a small clutch to complete the outfit. His sister approves of his every choice, it comes so easily to him, almost as if he didn’t need her guidance anymore.

“If you ask me,” he finally says. “I always thought you deserved much better than a man who is too afraid to love you.”

His sentence hits deeper than she can ever imagine.

She finds herself asking when exactly did her troublesome little brother decide to become all grown up.

-

Hayley’s weekends are often spent alone with her daughter.

Normally, other girls her age are busy studying for college exams, hitting up a club or party, going on dates -

Being with Hope Marshall beats all of that, she thinks.

Even when she wants to hang out with Klaus Mikaelson.

“Ready to go, sweetheart?” He smiles widely as he’s at the door - reaching over to pick up his daughter.

“Yep!” Hope cheers.

Now, her weekends are spent with him. Sandalwood scented cologne, old books in the backseat, a picture of his siblings hanging from the rear view mirror of his car -

“So this gallery,” Hayley says, sitting beside him as he begins to drive them towards their destination. Hope is all settled in her car seat, distracted by her toys. “Is this the type of date the old Klaus would take me out on?” Hayley adds on.

Klaus offers her a confused look. “Old Klaus? A date?” He asks.

She doesn’t offer him much - she simply presses her lips together until they become a thin white line. “C’mon,” she shrugs. “Don’t beat around the bush. Old Klaus did that a lot, I wanna know what this new Klaus is like.”

He hasn’t heard this allegory from her before - he supposes that it’s how she’s rationalizing their whole relationship.

You see, in Hayley’s head, there are two Klaus’.

Old Klaus was aloof, a rule-breaker, the type to get high with her on her couch, to cut class on the school rooftop, to leave without a kiss goodbye in the morning.

And then, there’s new Klaus. New Klaus is…different. He’s more determined, more direct about what he wants.

He’s kind - kinder than she last remembers him.

“Well,” at last, he stops the car, arriving at the gallery. “New Klaus likes to keep you on your toes,” he smirks, leading Hope and Hayley inside the paintings section.

“Ah,” she hums, looking around the large room. “So not much has changed,” she realizes, looking back and seeing the strangest smile on his face.

They both follow Hope into another inter-connected room where only one single portrait is hung up on the wall.

It’s a forest of wolves, tall trees, greenery - and a young Hayley Marshall sitting amongst them.

She stares at it awe, Hope freaks out, screaming and jumping up and down.

Mommy! It’s you! You’re in the painting!!

“New Klaus still likes to surprise you,” he reveals, allowing her to take it all in.

-

By the time Kol finishes his shopping, it’s basically evening.

Rebekah had gone home for a rest while he still continued his way down the street.

The trip there is quiet - his head is filled with thoughts, how he’s gunna see the girl of his dreams again, how she’s probably just eagerly waiting for him.

So eager in fact, that she opens the door for him before he can even knock on it.

“You,” Davina releases, with her hair in a messy bun, bunny pyjamas and slippers still on. “Came back,” she completes.

“That I did, darling,” Kol tells her, smiling. “Just as I had promised you, all those years ago,” he offers.

Davina thought she’d be more upset at him.

Their relationship had been a strange one - meeting per chance at the local occult club, unexpected encounters at the music store, catching each other reading Edgar Allan Poe by the marina -

They started dating soon after, and connected on every single level.

For the longest time, their relationship felt like fate.

Until, that is, Kol Mikaelson, along with all the other Mikaelsons, mysteriously left town.

(Although, granted, he did still keep contact with his lover, unlike the rest of his siblings, who were so far deep in self-hatred that they denied themselves of this).

“What do you have there?” Davina asks, noticing the large shopping bag in Kol’s hands.

He pulls out the gorgeous gown he had gotten. “It’s for you,” he informs her. “A present, if you will,” Kol specifies.

She admires the shimmering fabric, in awe of the very romance of this gesture. “It’s beautiful,” Davina releases. “Thank you,” she smiles, grabbing a hold of the garment.

“Don’t thank me just yet,” he says, as fireworks go up in the sky.

They spell out the words

Will you have this dance with me?

-

The painting itself displays incredible technique - the composition, the brushstrokes, everything is so crisp and clear. Klaus’s talent has always been undeniable but, Hayley’s opinion of it has been…

“What do you think?”

A mystery.

“I’m guessing,” she starts, once she realizes exactly what she’s looking at. “This was made by old Klaus?” She presumes, looking at the date inscribed at the corner of the painting.

She stares at herself, immersed in the perfect image he had created of her.

“So it seems,” Klaus says. “However, new Klaus is the one who is brave enough to put it up in a gallery,” he informs her, taking a step closer so that he is right next to her.

Hayley looks and looks - passed the greenery of the scene, the tracks of dirt he had carefully painted on her arms and legs, big brown eyes burning a stare into her own.

“I always knew your work would go far,” she finally releases, realizing how carefully he had captured her loneliness in this painting.

And almost immediately, Klaus begins to laugh uncontrollably. “You said it was hideous,” he recalls, shaking his head.

She wonders why he made her look so sad in this piece - as if she had lost everything. And maybe, that’s how he saw it all, his betrayal and departure was written all over her face.

It’s the most honest thing she’s ever seen.

“Except this one,” she notes. “This piece is…”

“Nothing,” he intercepts, bravely placing a hand on her shoulder, catching her off guard. “Nothing, compared to the real thing.”

-

The drive home is quiet.

Hope is fast asleep in the backseat, little snores and soft breaths escaping her lips. Hayley looks back with a caring and loving gaze. Her daughter truly is an angel, she thinks.

“So then,” he whispers. “This new Klaus, is he up to your standards, as of yet?”

She pauses, catching his eye from the corner of hers. “Maybe,” Hayley remarks. “He certainly became a better driver, over the passed years,” she smiles.

He doesn’t push her any further, he knows he can get more out of her if he did but, this smile of hers was enough for now. He can deal with it - he can deal with her taking her time.

“Well, you’re home now,” he tells her, pulling over by her apartment complex.

She reaches over to shake Hope awake, she refuses though, still deep in slumber. “Looks like it,” Hayley shrugs, pulling away from her daughter. She strangely feels safer now, having the chance to speak more intimately with Klaus. “What do you think new Klaus would do if I tried to ask him to come upstairs?”

He thought that this moment would never come and, that, if it ever did - he would be in disbelief.

But oddly enough, Klaus isn’t in shock at all.

This is expected - he is, after all, charming as hell.

“I think he’d say,” he starts, and right then, he notices little Hope in the rear view mirror, opening one eye to sneak a peek. “You’ve got a restless little girl still listening in on our conversation,” he smirks.

Hayley turns to catch her daughter spying on them and pretending to go back sleep. “Hope,” she scolds. “C’mon, let’s get you to bed,” she sighs, finally exiting the car and taking her daughter into her arms.

Well, no use acting now, Hope thinks.

“Goodnight, little one,” Klaus tells her, ruffling her hair. “And you too, Hayley,” he lets her know, before he begins to drive off.

She watches him disappear into the night - her heart feels heavy and sinking as she notices how much she longs to see him again.

But, she is a mother first, and as much as the old Hayley would leave all her responsibilities behind and run after that speeding car - she’s not that girl anymore. The new Hayley takes her daughter, and all her old love and passion, and she walks back up to their room.

Of course, right before she enters her home, she notices a carefully placed envelope on her door.

It reads the words - Invitation for Hayley and Hope Marshall.

-

[some-cookie-crumbz]

BNHA, MomoJirou?

Prompts 25. "I know this looks bad, but I swear, it's not."

So many ways this could go~! Hopefully the route I took was a fun one!

Minor Trigger Warning: Mentions of Blood

Momo considered herself to be a rather fortunate woman. She had a financially successful family, a great relationship with her father and was working on things with her mother, a close-knit group of friends she loved dearly, and had started a paid internship just a few weeks back for a designing agency run by The Kayama Nemuri. She knew that she was an incredibly lucky person, that there were those who would kill for the opportunities she had been given, and made sure to wear her gratitude on her sleeve to everyone she knew. She put all her effort and energy into being a good daughter, a good friend, and a good employee, doing whatever she could through action to help emphasize the depth and sincerity of her gratitude. After all, actions were a great indicator of the merit of one's words!

But sadly… Her love life hadn’t seen nearly as many returns as the rest of her life had.

She’d had three relationships in the past and they’d all been… lackluster, to put it mildly. Her first relationship had been a situation where she agreed to date the guy more out of obligation than anything. He had been incredibly nice to her and her then-friends had insisted that meant she at least owed him a chance to prove himself as a boyfriend. The relationship had only lasted three months of her first year of high school and ended so horribly that her father had transferred her to a new school at the conclusion of her first semester.

The school she transferred to was a girls-only boarding school and where she grew into her sexual identity as a pansexual woman. She had a longer relationship with one of her classmates that started in the winter of her second year and ended in the spring of their third year, with her ex immediately jumping to date another of their peers within a week of the break up. It had been painful to watch and, for about a year after, she had avoided relationships for a while.

Her relationship after that had been even worse. She didn’t like to dwell on that ex too much simply because… Well, how incredibly awful it had been. The relationship had felt much more like the two of them getting together because they were afraid of being single in their group of friends. The two of them had nearly no common interests and her ex had always seemed to find her passion for fashion design to be a waste of time, frequently inquiring why she didn’t study something more “practical”. Momo herself, however, thought that her degree plan had been more than practical, considering her minor had been in business.

That relationship lasted ten months and ended when she learned of an affair.

She’d taken a two year break from dating after that, focusing instead on her friend and family and school. All of her friends had rallied around her after that break up, helping to lift her back up, and she had been incredibly grateful for it. They reminded her to never settle for less than she was worth, to wait until someone who deserved her commitment came around.

And then, one day, she met Jirou Kyouka.

Their first meeting had been an impromptu sort of thing. Momo’s dear friend Mina had to take her new puppy, Floofles, to the vet for vaccines and spaying. It was an overnight situation with a designated pick-up time, but Mina had to be at work during the time. She has begged Momo if, since she was free that day, she could pick Floofles up and monitor her until she herself was home. And not one to let a friend in need down, Momo had agreed.

In the lobby of the little vet clinic had sat a young woman in dark colors, with short cut indigo hair, and a snarling mass of hay colored fur in her lap. Momo had been a few minutes early and was urged to take a seat while she waited, causing her to settle into the vacancy next to the stranger and her displeased pet. Upon closer examination she realized that it was a cat, with a front paw that looked to be at an odd angle, which seemed to explain the attitude. “Oh, the poor little dear,” she murmured quietly, not thinking as the words left her mouth.

Dark eyes flickered up to her, the gleam of disinterest fading to a light of interest. Her lips twitched up in a small smile. “Thank you, but he did this to himself,” she hummed, reaching out to set one hand on the cat’s head. He responded by growling audibly and jerking his head out from under her touch. “Leave the patio door open unsupervised for one minute, and he leaps out to chase a bird. Eats shit and ends up hurting his paw.”

The cat let out a displeased hiss at his dirty laundry being aired, but it only resulted in both women laughing. The next few minutes waiting for Floofles had passed in the blink of an eye as she chatted up the cat owner, learning that the cat was named Dynamight and was just a grumpy old man trapped in the body of a young cat. Once Floofles was brought out to her, Momo asked for the other’s number, explaining she wanted to see how Dynamight was doing once his paw got looked at. And while there was genuine care about the cat’s well being involved, there had also been a selfish motivation behind it, too. Her companion seemed to know as much but didn’t draw attention to it as they exchanged numbers.

That was eleven months ago, with she and Jirou’s nine month anniversary as an official couple just on the horizon. And Momo couldn’t help but smile whenever she thought about it. Jirou was unlike her past partners in so many ways. She encouraged and supported Momo’s designing works, they shared a secret love of true crime love documentaries, and she was incredibly laid back. With her, Momo could feel her walls fall down and she felt genuinely secure about it. There was something naturally calming about Jirou’s presence and approach to life - of going with the flow and taking things as they came - that was refreshing and exhilarating. So much of Momo’s own life had been slotted around by activity start and end times, of living up to expectations both real and imagined, that the idea of simply letting things be and dealing with them as they came up was incredibly freeing.

The thought occurred to her as she stepped out of the elevator at Jirou’s apartment complex and started to make her way to her door. Normally, she made sure to reach out before dropping by. Part of it was because she didn’t like just showing up unannounced, but another reason was because of her girlfriend’s erratic work schedule. The other woman did freelance work of some kind - the details were vague and confidential - so her hours tended to shift depending on the needs of her client. Sometimes, she’d be free for a good three or four days, while other times she’d be engrossed in her projects for hours at a time. Things had been pretty quiet from what little she remembered last time they talked about work, though, so she felt things would be fine this one time.

She opened the door to the front door, unsurprised to find it unlocked. Jirou tended to leave the door unlocked in case her neighbor, a bedraggled single father, ever needed to ask for an impromptu baby-sitter. His daughter liked cats and Dynamight, as Momo herself had seen, was surprisingly agreeable with the young girl when she came by. She half expected to see young Eri settled on the couch, a Disney movie playing on the television, while Jirou prepared dinner or worked on something for a client, when she stepped in.

Only to stop just a few steps through the threshold.

A map of the city was spread across the coffee table, two large pillar candles set up at the far corners of the table, while Jirou was kneeling in front of it. She was cutting open what seemed to be a small blood donation bag with some scissors, a small wooden box to her left with what seemed to be crystals inside. After a moment, Jirou reached towards the box and pulled one out, a thin strand of yarn wrapped around the crystal. She released a slow breath. “Okay, Kyouka… This shouldn’t be too hard. You haven’t exactly used this combination before but it should work out fine,” she mumbled to herself, moving the crystal to dangle over the open lip of the bag.

Momo couldn’t help it; she gasped, loud and horrified. She was completely stunned. What was all of this? What purpose did it serve? It all seemed incredibly occult. Jirou had never seemed like the type to have such interests. Hearing her gasp, Jirou jerked to stare at her with a horrified stare of her own. She opened her mouth twice, clearly scrambling to find words to string together, before she clamped it shut with a soft click of her jaw.

They stared at one another for a long moment, eyes wide and their heart beats seeming to echo in the tiny space.

"I know this looks bad, but I swear, it's not!" Jirou yelped, finally cutting through the silence, dropping the blood bag in her hands and letting it hit the ground with a sickening splat sound. Momo felt her whole body shudder with the sound and her stomach flipped uneasily. She shifted her weight back on the heels of her feet while keeping her eyes fixated on Jirou.

“Tch! She’s gonna try and make a break for it if you don’t seal the door off, ya idiot!” For a moment, Momo was befuddled by the new voice she heard. She swore she could hear quiet, cat-like growls between their words, but… That wouldn’t make sense, right? Who does cat impressionations while speaking? Slowly she turned her head in the directions of the voice, her eyes landing on the familiar fluffy form of Dynamight sitting on the kitchen counter. His pupils shrunk to slimmer slits before he curled his lips back, the voice from before sneering, “Oh, looks like she’s starting to put shit together! Get your head back in the fucking game!”

Dynamight… Her cat… Was talking? But then… Talking cats were common of…

Momo whipped around and moved to rush for the apartment door, heart beating erratically in her chest. If this was all really happening, she needed to get out! Before a hex of some kind could be placed on her, or even worse! “Wait, Yaomomo! Please hear me out!” Jirou called out after her.

Just as her hands made to grab for the handle, it shriveled and withered into the door itself like a rotten fruit being reclaimed by its tree. A startled shriek left her as she scrambled backwards, watching with wide eyes as the rest of the door melted into the frame, the seam separating the two disappearing completely. She felt herself drop to her knees and wrap her arms tight around herself. “Oh God,” she breathed shakily, closing her eyes tightly as she heard soft footfalls approaching her. “I promise I won’t tell anyone about this! J-Just please! D-Don’t hu-hurt me! L-Let me go!”

There was a quiet swishing of wind and fabric before she felt herself being lifted slightly. Then, there was a soft and warm hand gently cupping her cheek. “I would never hurt you, Momo. Please… Even if you aren’t sure how to feel about the rest of this, please know that much is the truth,” The other woman’s voice hitched with pain as she spoke, clearly wounded by the suggestion. She peeked her eyes open to see she was floating just a few feet above the ground so that she was able to meet the other’s dark eyes. Those same eyes were pleading and vulnerable.

Momo swallowed thickly before timidly nodding her head. “I’m sorry,” she breathed softly.

“No, I understand. This… Isn’t what you were anticipating to walk into,” Jirou said with a small sigh before glancing over at the sacrificial site set up on her coffee table. “Just let me clean that up real fast, put on some tea and then I’ll explain.” Momo nodded with a bit more certainty before she was carefully floated over and set delicately on the couch.

She sat and watched in quiet bemusement as the other skittered to and fro, using what Momo could only assume was magic to help her. The longer she observed, the more relaxed she gradually became. While she worked at getting the blood cleaned up off the wood paneling, Dynamight actually rummaged through the kitchen cabinets to fish out the kettle and start filling it up. It was a little impressive to watch how he did it with his paws and teeth, though she could still hear the quiet grumbled swears he released as he did. Once all the summoning stuff and blood were cleaned up, Jirou prepared them each a cup of tea and settled into the couch seat a space away from Momo, giving her a good amount of breathing room.

She handed the cup over carefully with one hand. “I went with that citrus one you brought a while back. I remembered that one having a nice little zing to it,” she explained.

“Thank you,” Momo took a quick sip of her own cup, disregarding how it scalded her tongue just a smidge. “So… You’re a witch, I take it.” she said evenly.

Jirou nodded. “Yes, I am,”

“And Dynamight-!”

“Bakugo,”

“Huh?”

“His actual name is Bakugo Katsuki. Dynamight is just his… um.. Common cat name. Easier than explaining the logistics of a familiar,” she explained with a small nervous laugh.

“So he is your familiar,” she mused, taking another sip. The other nodded as she took a sip from her own cup as well, setting it on the coaster on the coffee table when she was done. 

Jirou’s hands clutched at her knees, eyes skirting down to stare at them instead. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I’ve wanted to but… I was worried. There’s a lot of paperwork and hoops to jump through to get that kind of clearance. And even then… There’s no guarantee that you’d want to keep that knowledge. And if that happened, your memories would have to be wiped and I couldn’t see you anymore.”

Momo blinked in surprise. “Wait, what?”

“It’s a safety protocol that the higher ups implement to keep the general public safe, as well as those of us in the bureau,” she sighed, lifting her head to peek up at her worriedly. It was clear she was uneasy but was also being transparent. “Though, I suppose I should actually… Well, explain what’s going on here, huh?”

She nodded. “So… Is this related to your work?”

“Yes, actually. See, I’m aligned with what’s called the I.B.O.M.O., which is abbreviated further to I-Boom, and is short for International Bureau of Magical Events. As a representative, I have the ability to travel between this realm - the mortal plane - and the realm of magical creatures - the magical plane. As such, it is my responsibility to keep instances of magical creatures and mortal interactions limited. Part of that is tracking down rogue magicals that come into the mortal plane without the proper permissions and, if they encounter a mortal, wiping memories and issuing out punishments,” she explained, picking her cup back up and taking a sip.

“So what you were doing… Was that related to something like that?” Momo asked with a tilt of her head.

Jirou nodded. “Yes. I was trying to scry. My current assignment is to track down the heir of a noble warlock family who has apparently fled to this plane. He is apparently somewhere in this city but.. Well, since he hails from a high ranking family, his magical skills have been well-honed so trying to find him has been a struggle. I’d been hoping that by combining my scrying technique and a powerful conjuring technique using the bird blood I could… Well… Try to get some idea as to where he might be,” she sighed, letting her shoulders slump. “This is the longest I’ve ever taken on an assignment and it’s.. Well, it’s difficult.”

Momo stared at her before glancing back down at her cup. Her thumb traced along the rim of the cup thoughtfully, an idea turning about in her head. “Could… Could I help you find him?”

“Huh?”

“The fuck can a human like you do to help?” Dynamight - erh, Bakugo? - chimed in, hopping down from the breakfast nook and trotting over. He scrambled up and sat on the table, glaring her down with his ears back and fluffy tail lashing. “If a witch with as many accomplishments as Earlobes is having a hard time, what fucking chance does a mere human like you have?”

“Well, if you have an idea of around when he appeared, I can ask around,” Momo said, tone a little petulant. The sheer lunacy that she was arguing with a cat wasn’t lost on her completely - and she made note to ask Jirou later how, exactly, it was she could hear his voice - but she still felt the need to, as immature as it was. “I have a lot of connections around the city. I might be able to get you a list of suspects, since there is the chance he could do… Um… What is it called? Glamour?”

Jirou giggled a bit. “You’re right. Glamour is the tool magical creatures use to disguise their true forms,” She lightly tapped her chin in thought. “Hmm. That’s not a bad idea, actually. He could be using glamour to disguise his appearance since it’s so unique. Make himself harder to find.” Momo smiled at Jirou’s words, her heart fluttering a bit at the prospect of being about to help her girlfriend. “But… If you’re going to get involved, I’ll need to file the proper paperwork and make a protection charm for you. I want you to be safe. I don’t think the nobleman would harm you but… I don’t know the specifics of why he left the magical plan unannounced. I’d rather air on the side of caution.”

Momo nodded as she took another sip of her tea. A part of her told her she shouldn’t get this invested. It was Jirou’s work and she herself wasn’t a witch. She shouldn’t be getting involved too heavily. But… If she could help her girlfriend, wasn’t it worth it? If it gave her a chance to show how much she appreciated how good Jirou was to her, it had to be worth it.

[big-oof-bi-goof]

So there’s this meme going around with TMA fans, the whole “hello Jon” thing, but it kind of disappoints me. We, as a fandom, are capable of more. We can do better than this. We just need to Hello Jon. Apologies for the deception, but I wanted to make sure you started reading, so I thought it best not to announce myself.

I’m assuming you’re alone; you always did prefer to read your statements in private. I wouldn’t try too hard to stop reading; there’s every likelihood you’ll just hurt yourself. So just listen.

Now, shall we turn the page and try again?

Statement of Jonah Magnus regarding Jonathan Sims, The Archivist.

Statement begins.

I hope you’ll forgive me the self-indulgence, but I have worked so very hard for this moment, a culmination of two centuries of work. It’s rare that you get the chance to monologue through another, and you can’t tell me you’re not curious.

Why does a man seek to destroy the world?

It’s a simple enough answer: for immortality and power. Uninspired, perhaps, but – my god. The discovery, not simply of the dark and horrible reality of the world in which you live, but that you would quite willingly doom that world and confine the billions in it to an eternity of terror and suffering, all to ensure your own happiness, to place yourself beyond pain and death and fear.

It is an awful thing to know about yourself, but the freedom, Jon, the freedom of it all. I have dedicated my life to handing the world to these Dread Powers all for my own gain, and I feel… nothing but satisfaction in that choice.

I am to be a king of a ruined world, and I shall never die.

I believe there are far more people in this world that would take that bargain than you would ever guess. And I have beaten all of them.

Of course, this desire did not manifest overnight. When Smirke first gathered our little band – Lukas, Scott, and the rest – to discuss and hypothesize on the nature of the things he had learned from Rayner, I felt what I believe we all felt: curiosity, and fear.

But as he compiled his taxonomy and codified his theories on the grand rituals, I began to develop a very specific concern. Smirke was so obsessed with his ideas on balance, even as our fellows began to experiment and fall to the service of our patrons.

I began to worry that if one of them successfully attempted their ritual, then I would be as much a victim as any, trapped in the nightmare landscape of a twisted world.

At first, I attempted prevention, but the cause seemed hopeless. The only way to ensure I did not suffer the tribulations of what I believed to be an inevitable transformation was to bring it about myself. So what began as an experiment soon became a race.

Beyond that, I was getting older, and mortality began to weigh more heavily on my mind. How much in this world is done because we fear death, the last and greatest terror?

I convinced Smirke to work on Millbank, leading him to design it as a temple to all the Fears in equilibrium, such that my own modifications to the design of the Panopticon went… unremarked.

It. Took. Years, for the dread of the prisoners to fully suffuse the place, and I was an old man before I made my first attempt at the Watcher’s Crown, sat in the center of that colossal eye, the great ring of cells encircling me like a coronet.

It was… flawed, of course, as all Smirke’s rituals were, and none of the inmates survived as the power I attempted to harness shook the building almost to pieces, and the murky swamp upon which the prison was built consumed it.

But it left me a gift: For sat in that watchtower, I could see everything I turned my mind to.

It was a dizzying power, and one I discovered I maintained even as I found vessels to extend my life. Of course, I had to make sure the location was kept under my control while I worked on revising my plans, and so I moved the organization I had founded to assist in my research down to London, and the Institute as you know it was born.

I’ll not bore you with details of my bodies and failures through those intervening years. Suffice to say I kept busy, both planning my own next attempt, and doing my best to stymie those others who tried versions of their own.

Surely my interpretation of the Watcher’s Crown had been incomplete; there had been some element of the ritual I had overlooked.

It was not until I met Gertrude Robinson that things began to really come into focus.

You see, the role of Archivist has been part of the Beholding for as far back as my research can go. This isn’t uncommon for the Powers; most of the beliefs around them are guesswork and fallible human interpretation, but there are certain throughlines and consistencies that can be spotted, regardless of the trappings.

But Gertrude was unlike any other Archivist. She simply did not care about compiling experiences or collecting the fears of others. She was driven to stop those who served the Powers.

More than once I thought she must secretly be of the Hunt – but there was never that sick joy in her, that thrill of predator and prey. She had simply decided that this was her position in life, and went about it with a practicality that even I found disconcerting at times.

I once asked her what drove her, what had started her down that path. She told me the Desolation had killed her cat.

I don’t know if she was joking, and, to be honest, I could never bring myself to look into her mind and find out for sure.

In any case, Gertrude’s ruthless efficiency in derailing and collapsing rituals threw into stark relief a question that had been bothering me for almost a hundred and fifty years: In the whole span of humanity, why had nobody ever succeeded?

Perhaps there were a long line of Gertrude Robinsons throughout history, but I found that hard to credit. Could it be, then, that there was something in the very concept of the rituals that meant they couldn’t succeed?

She was clearly having similar thoughts in that last year, all of which culminated with the People’s Church.

When I saw that she was making no preparations whatsoever to stop it, I realized she was putting into practice a theory, and one she couldn’t afford to be wrong. She was going to wait, and see if the unopposed ritual succeeded, or if it collapsed under its own strain as mine had all hose years ago.

Knowing Gertrude, I’m sure she had a backup plan if she had miscalculated – but she had not. The ritual failed. And all at once, I realized what had to be done.

You see, the thing about the Fears is that they can never be truly separated from each other. When does the fear of sudden violence transition into the fear of hunted prey? When does the mask of the Stranger become the deception of the Spiral?

Even those that seem to exist in direct opposition rely on each other for their definition as much as up relies on down.

To try and create a world with only the Buried makes as much sense as trying to conceive a world with only down.

Every ritual tied itself so closely to a single power as to render itself impossible. They could bring their patron close, but never sever it from the others, and eventually it would be violently pulled back into the place next to reality where they dwell.

The solution, then, is simple: A new ritual must be devised which will bring through all the Powers at once. All fourteen, as I had hoped I could complete it before any new powers such as Extinction were able to fully emerge. All under the Eye’s auspices, of course. We mustn’t forget our roots.

And there was only one being that could possibly serve as a lynchpin for this new ritual: The Archivist. A position that had so recently become vacant, thanks to Gertrude’s ill-timed retirement plans.

Because the thing about the Archivist is that – well, it’s a bit of a misnomer.

It might, perhaps, be better named: The Archive.

Because you do not administer and preserve the records of fear, Jon. You are a record of fear, both in mind as you walk the shuddering record of each statement, and in body as the Powers each leave their mark upon you.

You are a living chronicle of terror.

Perhaps, then, if I could find an Archivist and have each Power mark them, have them confront each one and each in turn instill in them a powerful and acute fear for their life, they could be turned into a conduit for the coming of this – nightmare kingdom.

Do you see where I’m going, Jon?

It does tickle me, that in this world of would-be occult dynasties and ageless monsters, the Chosen One is simply that – someone I chose. It’s not in your blood, or your soul, or your destiny. It’s just in your own, rotten luck.

I’ll admit, my options were somewhat limited, but My God, when you came to me already marked by the Web, I knew it had to be you. I even held out some small hope you had been sent by the Spider as some sort of implicit blessing on the whole project, and, do you know what, I think it was.

Of course, I had to bide my time, get a measure of you before I began to push, learn how you worked – So I decided I would wait until something came for you, and see how you reacted. Attacks upon the Archives were not uncommon during Gertrude’s tenure, and, while she was always prepared, I made sure you would not be.

I reasoned if you couldn’t survive a single encounter, you were unlikely to make it through all fourteen. So, when Jane Prentiss attacked, I watched eagerly, one hand on the gas release from the start.

You acquitted yourself well enough, so I decided to see how far you would get, though I waited until the worms were in you before I pulled the lever. I needed to make sure you felt that fear all the way to your bones.

The discovery that one of the Stranger’s minions had infiltrated the Institute in the aftermath was certainly a pleasant bonus. Even if that sliver of paranoia, that vague wrongness you couldn’t quite place wouldn’t count as a mark, it was only a matter of time before it confronted you in a far more direct and affecting matter.

Admittedly, given the advent of the Unknowing, I needn’t have bothered. But what’s the old saying about hindsight?

More important to me was Sasha’s encounter with the Distortion. If it had taken an interest, then I very much wanted it to cross your path.

So I found one of its current victims and convinced her to make a statement.

Poor Helen. I actually had to put her in a taxi myself, she was getting so lost in those narrow London side streets.

It worked, though.

Between the stabbing and at least two desperate flights into its doors – you’re marked very deeply by the Spiral.

Jurgen Leitner was a surprise, of course, and I was forced to improvise. I had no idea how much Gertrude would have told him, and he could very easily have derailed everything if you learned too much too fast.

I… justified it to myself saying I was going to have to send you out into the world anyway, if you were to encounter more of the Powers, but I can’t honestly pretend it wasn’t a… rather rash move.

Still. I’d requested Detective Tonner be assigned to the case when they found Gertrude’s body in the hope that having a Hunter in the mix would eventually lead to a confrontation, and setting you up as a killer certainly hastened that.

Then it was just a matter of feeding you statements to lead you to a few Avatars I thought were likely to harm you – but probably would stop short of actually killing you.

Jude served her purpose exactly as I had hoped, as did our dearly departed Mr Crew, marking you for the Desolation and the Vast.

Honestly, I had – nothing to do with Melanie and her Slaughter adventure, but when I saw the situation, I made sure to trap her here, so when her rage bubbled over you would be right there, a ready target.

I didn’t foresee the mark coming from surgery gone wrong, but it was a very pleasant surprise.

The Unknowing was a distraction, but not an unwelcome one. For this to work, you needed more than just the marks; you needed power. And that was something the Unknowing served to test, though it posed no actual danger in the grand scheme of things.

And it did serve another purpose, of course. It inadvertently pushed you to confront death, a mark I had been very worried about trying to orchestrate. If I tried too early, you’d just die. Too late, and you might be powerful enough to see the attempt coming, and maybe even understand why.

As it was, it was just right, and once again, you came through with flying colors.

By this point, your abilities were coming along in leaps and bounds, and I was concerned that meeting face-to-face might end up with you Knowing something you shouldn’t.

I had initially planned to go into hiding, but when your colleagues surprised me with the police, well. It was simple enough to cut a deal.

All that remained, then, were the Dark, the Flesh, the Buried, and the Lonely.

I was a little put out when that idiot Jared Hopworth misinterpreted my letters and attacked the Institute too soon, before you were even out of the hospital, but then – Ho, you should have see my face when you voluntarily went to him.

I couldn’t see what happened in there, of course, but given how you came out, I’m very sure it counts as a mark.

I suspected the coffin might turn up again, and once it did, it was simply a matter of getting any, uh… restraining factors you might have had flying off on a wild goose chase, and waiting.

Honestly, Detective Tonner has been proving invaluable through this process. I’d been racking my brains for months about what I could use to lure you in.

And, of course, I knew the Dark Sun was just sitting there waiting. So when it came time, I just whipped up another apocalypse and sent you on your merry way.

Then all that remained was the Lonely.

Poor Peter. He really should have left well enough alone. Or just done what I’d asked in the first place.

Ah well. He knew what I was attempting, and was very unwilling to cooperate until I made him a little wager about Martin.

Of course, he had no way of knowing that, in addition to setting you up for the final mark, he was giving you all the tools you needed to escape from it.

How is Martin, by the way? He looks well. You will keep an eye on him when all this is over, won’t you? He’s earned that.

And there, I think, we are brought just about up to date. I have enjoyed our little trip down memory lane, but past here lies only impatience.

You are prepared. You are ready. You are marked. The power of the Ceaseless Watcher flows through you, and the time of our victory is here.

Don’t worry, Jon. You’ll get used to it here, in the world that we have made.

Now. Repeat after me.

You who watch and know and understand none. You who listen and hear and will not comprehend. You who wait and wait and drink in all that is not yours by right.

Come to us in your wholeness.

Come to us in your perfection.

Bring all that is fear and all that is terror and all that is the awful dread that crawls and chokes and blinds and falls and twists and leaves and hides and weaves and burns and hunts and rips and leads and dies!

Come to us.

I – OPEN – THE DOOR!

[commander-yinello]

Guardian (Jumin x Zen)

Happy Birthday @maniart1o9​!!! For you, I wrote some JuminZen with one of your favorite themes (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧ I hope you will enjoy it! Read more under the cut ♥♥ ~_^

Word Count: 1945 Warnings: Mild swearing, smoking, references to a car accident

Jumin knows he’s seen him.

Even upside down, with the airbag so closely pressed to his chest that he couldn’t move, his vision spinning, and the overwhelming scent of gasoline making him dizzy, he sees Zen outside the front window. And he’s glowing, so bright his eyes water. Then, as someone pulls him out of the car, he’s gone.

That’s not possible, assistant Kang insists next to the hospital bed he’s sitting in, both waiting for the doctor to come back. Zen was nowhere near C&R International, and she only just warned the RFA 5 seconds ago of the crash. He could not have possibly arrived here that fast.

Ah. The crash. The car crash. The one Jumin was in because Driver Kim had his day off, and Jumin saw no issue driving to the client himself. The one where Jumin had to swerve to dodge another car cutting off his lane, and caused his own car to topple over and crash against a tree.

She’s right, Jumin thinks, there’s no way Zen could have been at the crash. Most likely stress from the crash, a concussion, his panicked imagination going in overdrive.

Yet, not a minute later, the doctor tells him he doesn’t even have a bruise. As if he never was in a car accident. That should not be possible, the doctor says, and assistant Kang is equally confused. Jumin however, is not.

He is certain now, he’s seen Zen.

And he has a suspicion why.

~~~~

Jumin Han:

Do you sometimes find yourself in places you weren’t before when you travel?

ZEN: Dude it’s 1 AM why are you messaging me

Also wtf are you going on about

Are you high???

Jumin Han: You still replied.

ZEN: Go to sleep and leave me alone, asshole

~~~~

He’s always wondered what was up about Zen. He knows about albinos, they often took great care of themselves when going outside, and sometimes had other health issues. Not Zen, who is so handsome, not that Jumin would admit it out loud. Who is so fit, he jogged daily. Who has no problem taking selfies in broad daylight with no sunscreen or sunglasses in sight. It had been only after Jumin made the last comment, a year ago, that Zen suddenly mentioned jogging at night, or an extensive skincare routine.

Back then, he stopped caring very quickly. It wasn’t any of his business, of course, what the narcissistic man did.

Now he cares again. He remembers how Zen had gotten into an accident, and V told him in full detail how Zen had healed insanely fast.

A handsome albino with super fast healing skills. How very strange, he tells Elizabeth, and she meows in agreement. He pets her while leaning an elbow on his mahogany desk, laptop showing a website of occult creatures.

Maybe he is a vampire. The ones in that one teenage movie sparkle. Which is not a glow, his brain reminds him. Plus the whole sun thing would still be an issue.

He entertains the sexy albino vampire idea a bit too long, before he realizes and cuts his thoughts off on purpose.

Maybe he is too paranoid. Maybe Zen is human. Zen’s allergy for cats seems real, at least. Even though Zen is an actor, Jumin thinks, he hides his emotions poorly.

And then Zen mentions that, sometimes, he has prophetic dreams.

Strange. Very, very strange.

Too many things don't add up for Zen to be human. And Jumin wants to know who he truly is - very much so.

~~~~

Jumin Han: Do you often glow?

ZEN: Of course I do, my beauty is radiant Blessed by the Gods themselves

Jumin Han: Gods. Interesting. Tell me all about them.

ZEN: What? What do you mean? You’re creeping me out Also why are you messaging me again what the hell

Jumin Han: You always reply to me.

ZEN: No I don’t, stupid jerk

Jumin Han: And yet you did it again.

ZEN: Argh! I can’t with you! Screw you!

~~~~ 

Zen is calling him a weirdo in the chat again. Jerk. Freak. The words have never mattered to him, but now Jumin wonders if it’s a smokescreen. He’s paid very close attention to all of the chatrooms with Zen in it, to the point it felt like stalking. It’s interesting how often Zen brings him up as a topic, even when it’s completely unnecessary.

He starts to understand why Luciel thinks Zen is obsessed with him. Perhaps because there is more than Zen shows.

But Zen denies everything he asks. He denies whatever screenshots Jumin sends him. He insults and denies and rants, and Jumin doesn't get any closer to the truth. At some point, Zen mentions that his behavior is akin to his older brother, but it comes over as an excuse to make Jumin shut up.

To the outside world, it seems that Zen truly despises him. Jumin is just not convinced.

There’s only a few things Jumin knows for sure. Zen was there when he crashed. And it had to be connected to the fact that Jumin came out of the crash completely unharmed. That’s it.

It drives him mad that he is denied more knowledge.

So he makes a decision. He tells assistant Kang to watch over Elizabeth. Heads down to the garage. Opens the car door. Takes a deep breath and wonders if he’s gone insane.

He gets behind the wheel again.

~~~~ Yoosung☆: Hi Zen!!

Jaehee Kang: Hello Zen, good to see you!

ZEN: Hey guys Where’s Jerkmin?

707: Lololol why do you ask~ Could it be.... You miss him??! (~˘▾˘)~

ZEN: What?! Of course not Why would you say that I’m glad he’s not around to spoil the mood! I just find it suspicious he’s not here

Jaehee Kang: Mr. Han said he had something important to do Now I have c-fur on my suit again T_T

Yoosung☆: Poor Jaehee, hopefully you’ll be free soon - Zen has left the chatroom -

Yoosung☆: Ehhhh????

707: Zen suddenly leaving? Now that’s suspicious ರ_ರ

Jaehee Kang: I hope nothing happened to him. ~~~~

Jumin never crashes. The moment he turns on the engine, Zen is there, in front of the car lights, scaring the hell out of him. In a split second, the lamps in the garage flicker, and Jumin swears he sees a faint glowing outline of feathers behind Zen. 

Zen is wearing his trademark turtleneck and holds a cigarette in his hand. He takes a drag and blows out the smoke, looking bored, as if he had been waiting.

“You're such a jerk, you know that?” Zen’s voice echoes in the large garage. They are alone. He hears nothing in the background, as if time stands still.

Jumin is too stunned to reply. Zen sighs, and walks to the side of the car, opens the door and takes his place in the passenger seat. He grabs the key from Jumin’s fingers and turns the engine off. The smell of tobacco and cologne fill Jumin’s nose, yet he doesn’t find the will to tell Zen not to smoke in his car.

“If me sitting here will stop you from killing yourself, then so be it,” Zen says, and takes another drag after closing the door.

Jumin realizes his hands still grip the wheel, and he slowly lowers them to his lap.

“What… what are you?” he asks.

“I can’t answer that. You already know way too much because I fucked up. Don't worry, nothing will happen to you,” Zen replies, and the smoke surrounding him makes him look more human.

“And to you?”

Zen looks out the open window instead. “It’s fine,” he finally replies.

That isn’t what he wants to hear. But if nothing would happen to him, then possibly Zen’s punishment wouldn’t be too severe.

Zen’s words do confirm other things - there is some higher power at work keeping Zen in check. And Zen did protect him, he’s sure of it now, from dying. So much so that Zen is in trouble for it.

“You protected me… too much. I should have had some damage,” Jumin says, inadvertently licking his lips. He’s nervous, because the bratty vain actor had been the one standing between life and death for him.

Zen runs a hand through his hair. Maybe Jumin is projecting, but he feels Zen is nervous too.

"I know that, trust fund. I just… couldn’t deal with… that." Zen waves his cigarette-free hand at the air in front of them, trying to stay as cryptic as possible.

He cares too much, Jumin instantly realizes. He watches Zen cross his legs - a defensive stance, Jumin notes - and wonders how much Zen has said in the chatroom is real.

“For someone like you, you aren’t exactly good at keeping it a secret.”

Zen chuckles. “You’d be surprised how much people accept. In fact, the stranger you seem, the less likely they suspect.”

Jumin hates to admit that it made sense. “Are you always fighting me because you have to distance yourself from me on purpose?”

“I can't answer that.”

Can't or shouldn't? Either way, Jumin is content with the answer. Yet, he can’t stop asking questions.

“Does everyone have… someone like you?”

“Not me specifically.”

Jumin makes a mental note to check all sun-loving albinos in the country. “Do you know who else is like you?”

Zen shook his head. “I know there are others. No idea who.”

“Sounds… lonely.”

“...It is.”

Jumin knows all about loneliness. He imagines Elizabeth on his lap, and sees the photo of V, Rika and him on his desk, and hears his father’s voicemail on his phone. So many days he’s convinced only Elizabeth would be there to catch him, when he comes home tired from work and falls down the abyss in his mind. Awful, lonely thoughts.

He wants to ask more. Menial questions like is Zen truly allergic, or deeper ones asking about the forces unknown. Jumin decides that he doesn’t want to push it.

“So… what now?”

“You,” Zen points at Jumin’s chest, “Will stop trying to drive, you menace. I actually like it here, so don’t make it worse.”

Jumin grins. “You like it here? Even with me?”

“Yeah, I know, must suck being guarded by someone you hate.” Zen rolls his eyes.

“I never hated you.”

Zen whips his head towards Jumin, eyes wide. 

“Never. Not even when you tried your worst. And now, knowing it is you watching over me… It is a blessing. Thank you, Zen.”

He means it. There is a happy light feeling in his chest, knowing there’s a very logical reason for Zen to act so irrationally towards him. And he knows that he’ll have to act irrational back in order to keep up the facade, so Zen can stay.

He wants Zen to stay.

Zen blushes, and tries to hide it poorly by looking out of the window again. Jumin can’t help but find it endearing. “When you say things like that, people will think you’ve gone crazy.”

Jumin smirks. He doesn’t care what people think of him. Wasn’t there still that rumor of him floating around?

Zen flicks his cigarette stub away and sighs. “Well, I need to go. Take care.”

“Should I, when I have you?” Jumin sasses. It’s too close to flirting to be misconstrued otherwise.

“Wh- N- Whatever, just don’t drive!” he yells. His cheeks are redder, and Jumin notices before the car is filled with a bright light.

Once again, Zen is gone. A very typically Zen to do. Jumin smiles, and sits in the car for a while.

He still has no good excuse when Assistant Kang finally finds him there.

[darks-ink]

Rewind - Ectoberweek 2020

Acknowledging canon episodes? In my fanfic? It’s more likely than you think. Also I’m experimenting by adding the links onto this post so lemme know whether this shows up in the tag or not.

Rating: Gen Warnings: - Genre: Hurt/Comfort Words: 2,834 Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Masters of All Time, Families of choice/Found family

[AO3] [FFN]

---

“What do you mean, you can’t?” Danny darted around Clockwork, refusing to let him turn away. “Clockwork!”

The ghost sighed, heavily and wearily, and looked down at Danny. “I cannot. It is that simple.”

“But that’s— that’s nonsense,” Danny insisted, gesturing wildly. “You’re the ghost of time! How can you not rewind this and fix it?!”

“I warned you, Daniel, that this would be a permanent change.” Clockwork blinked slowly, as if trying to convey some sort of emotion with his empty red eyes. “You did not heed my warning, or considered yourself above it. Now, you must live with the consequences.”

“But you’re—”

“Not all-powerful, no matter what you might think,” Clockwork cut in, narrowing his eyes. “You have altered the past, despite my warning not to. To travel back again would risk the stability of the timeline entirely. Would you rather see all of reality destroyed?”

Clockwork hummed before Danny could answer. “I would not, therefore I will not allow it to be so. The past has been set in stone, but the future is still malleable. Make it into something you can live with.”

“But…” Danny bit back his automatic response. There was no point. He’d tried fighting Clockwork before, and gotten his ass handed to him as a result. He sighed instead. “Can you at least take me back to Mom and Dad, then? The Portal looked like it blew up after I flew through it, and I don’t know where to find another.”

At that, Clockwork smiled. Or, Danny though it was a smile, at least. A small twitch of the ghost’s lips. “That, I can do.”

“Thanks, Clockwork.” Danny watched as the ghost swung his staff, a portal opening in its wake. “And… sorry, I guess.”

“Apology accepted.” Clockwork floated aside, waving a hand towards the portal. “Goodbye, Daniel.”

Danny nodded back, before flying through the portal. Welp. Time to face the music.

The portal spat him out in Amity Park, near his house. For a moment, Danny paused, considering the possibility that it brought him here because he consider Amity to be his home, no matter what. But then he realized that there was a car parked in front of the garage, one far too fancy for the neighborhood. His parents must’ve come this way, taking one of Vlad’s cars.

Thus satisfied, he flew down, phasing through the front door. No need to be secretive—both Jack and Maddie knew his secret already.

Still, he was surprised to find them both in the living room, apparently trying to clean up the place. Maddie saw him first, her body stilling. And how strange was it, that he found it comforting to see her here, in her cyan jumpsuit, with red goggles over her eyes? (That was weird, right? Danny felt like it should be weird.)

“Danny,” she said, quiet with surprise. “What are you doing here?”

At her words, Jack also looked up from where he was standing. He, too, looked almost exactly like his counterpart from Danny’s own timeline. Except with ecto-acne, of course.

“I, uh.” Danny shrugged, unsure. He felt thrown off by seeing his parents like this. It was almost right, but just slightly off. “Clockwork couldn’t undo it. Apparently the timeline is too unstable, or something. So I have to… stay in this world, I guess.”

“Oh, honey, I’m so sorry.” She straightened up from her crouch, walking closer to him. “I— It probably won’t be easy, but you can stay with us for as long as you need to. Right, Jack?”

“Of course!” his dad immediately responded, nodding vigorously. “We’re… figuring stuff out, of course. But it’s thanks to you that we reunited in the first place. And you’re our kid!” He grinned, wide and loving, in that typical Jack Fenton way. “Even if the way you got here is a little weird, you’re still our family!”

“I…” He landed, noiselessly. Hesitated for a moment. Then closed the space between him and Maddie, wrapping his arms around her. “Thanks. Both of you. I’m sorry.”

The enormous warm arms of Jack Fenton came up around them. “Don’t be, kiddo. You have nothing to be sorry for,” he rumbled, underlined with an almost audible buzz of his core. It emitted a palpable feeling of family.

“No, but, I…” Danny sighed, crushing his head against Maddie’s shoulder. “It’s my fault. All of this is! I tried going back in time to change the past, to make it so Vlad wouldn’t get ecto-acne so he couldn’t infect my friends with it, but instead you became half-ghost.”

Danny drew a shaky breath, trying to fight past the emotions welling in his throat. They needed to understand. “It’s all my fault! Without my meddling, none of this would’ve happened!”

“Sounds to me,” his mom began, her thin fingers gently combing through his hair, “like you tried to help your friends, Danny.” She clicked her tongue. “Maybe not in the best way possible, but the intention was good.”

“I can’t imagine that Vlad would’ve dealt with being half-ghost much better than I,” Jack added, faint laughter in his voice. “Never mind the ecto-acne. But, of course! That’s how you recognized it!”

“Yeah, um.” Danny drew back from the hug a little. “I can… tell you guys, I guess? About my timeline. The differences, at least.”

“That’d be nice,” Maddie agreed, as Jack’s arms released them. She looked around, and Danny could read the reluctance in her body language, even despite the goggles. “We might have to clear some more stuff before we have the space to sit.”

“We could always sit on the floor?” Jack suggested, shrugging at her look. “Or Danny and I can float as ghosts.”

“Right.” Maddie shook her head, wandering over to the single chair not covered in debris and trash and reaching up to her hood. “If that works for you two, that might be the most convenient.” She paused, frowning at Danny, hood pulled off but still in hand. “But… if Vlad was the one who became half-ghost in your timeline, why are you half-ghost as well, Danny?”

“I, uh.” He shrugged, lifting his feet off of the ground to sit in mid-air. “Became half-ghost in an accident of my own.”

The frown he received from both parents very clearly asked for him to elaborate, so he did. “Okay, so. The point of divergence is the accident in college, obviously. In my timeline, Vlad got hit by the explosion, not Jack, so he becomes half-ghost and stuff. You two, Jack and Maddie, get together, especially since Vlad was cutting contact. You decide to become ghost researchers together and move to Amity Park.”

He paused to gesture to the house around them. “Specifically, you move here, to this specific house. You make it your place of business as well, called FentonWorks. Big neon sign on the front of the building, the basement downstairs becomes a lab, and at some point you two built the Ops Center at the top, which can also be used for inventing stuff. I’m… obviously not very informed of the details, since I was the second kid and you two talked very little about the past. Only,” here he made a face, “ghosts. Everything was always about ghosts.

“Anyway,” he continued, after a short pause to take a breath. “You two have Jazz first, and then me two years later. At some point after that, you start working on a new Portal, full scale, down in the lab. It takes forever to build, because you’re trying to be careful about it, I guess? But you finish it, eventually, when Jazz is sixteen and I fourteen.”

Maddie narrowed her eyes, darting them over his body. The question is clear as day: isn’t he basically fourteen?

“So,” Danny trumped on, ignoring the silent question, “After years of work, their Portal was finally finished! The ultimate proof that ghosts were real! And then it didn’t turn on.”

“It didn’t?” Jack gasped, clearly startled. Danny realized that, somehow, he’d missed the man shifting into his ghost form. “But—”

“It didn’t,” Danny interrupted, holding up a hand. “Because apparently, someone had built a secondary power switch inside the Portal, and they had forgotten to turn it on. So when they plugged in the power, the Portal didn’t turn on.”

There was clear calculation in the eyes of both of his parents, now. Danny continued his explanation before they could figure it out. Needed to tell his story to his parents, for once. He didn’t think he would ever get a chance to tell his actual parents, after all.

“Later that day, after Jazz convinced you two to take a break, my friends talked me into checking out the Portal. Just the three of us, since Tucker was interested in technology and Sam was interested in all things goth and occult.” He shrugged, almost fatalistically. “Sam suggested I take a closer look, and I did. Only, I didn’t realize that the power was still plugged in, so when I accidentally hit the power switch inside…”

“Oh!” Maddie gasped. “Oh, how terrible!”

“That must’ve hurt like hell,” Jack agreed, a painful grimace on his face. It looked strange, the genuine emotional expression with the blue skin, the pointed fangs poking out of his mouth. “Your parents must’ve felt awful, to know that they put their kid in such danger!”

“Well…” Danny made a face. “They kinda… didn’t know? They were both avid ghost hunters, both full of hate towards ghosts. I considered telling them, at first, but then they saw their first ghosts and…” Danny sighed. “I guess I was just scared that I’d be just a ghost to them. That they wouldn’t believe me.”

“That’s… That’s awful.” Jack floated over to nudge Danny. “Kiddo, if your dad was anything like me, I promise you, he would’ve cared.”

“I know.” Danny shook his head dismissively. “I know. That wasn’t why I was worried. I was afraid that they wouldn’t believe that I was me, that I was their son. That they would think that I had hurt or replaced their own kid.”

Maddie touched his shoulder, and Danny jerked, surprised. When had she stood up? Walked over? “Well… At least it is of no concern anymore, right? You’re here now, with us, and we believe you.”

It felt like something had crawled into his gut and died. “Yeah,” he said, with terribly faked enthusiasm. “Yeah, right.”

“It’s not much of a comfort, is it?” Maddie made a face. “I’m sorry. I guess I have very little parenting experience, compared to your actual mother.”

“Honestly?” He snorted. “It makes very little difference. Like I said, she and Dad spent most of the time in the lab, or otherwise occupied with ghost research.”

Maddie clicked her tongue, distaste clear on her face. “Well, isn’t that a waste. They have such a lovely son, and they don’t even enjoy his presence?”

“Well, y’know.” Danny shrugged, trying to ignore the pleased whirring of his core. “They try, now, but with all the ghosts we’re all kinda distracted. Them with trying to catch some for their research, and I with trying to protect the townspeople from the ghosts.”

Jack’s expression visibly brightened—as did the glow around his body. “You’re a ghost hunter! A ghost-fighting superhero! Just like I tried to be!”

“Uh.” Danny felt his brain skip over, then remembered. Somewhere in the blathering when he first arrived, Jack had mentioned that he’d tried using his powers for good. “Yeah, I guess so. But I had a little more success with it.” He grinned sheepishly.

“We should team up!” Jack exclaimed, wrapping an arm around Danny’s shoulders. “The two of us, and Maddie, if she wants to! We’d be a fantastic team!”

Danny laughed, a little uncertain. “Well, maybe. But we’ll need a Thermos to catch the ghosts, and a Portal to dump them back into the Ghost Zone, first. Those were kind of my major tools in managing. And Sam and Tucker, of course.”

“Oh?” Maddie asked, perking up. “Sam and Tucker? You mentioned them before, I think. Are those your friends?”

“Yeah, they… I guess they don’t know me, here.” He sighed, feeling himself drift down closer to the floor, away from his dad’s arm. “They… We were best friends, to the absolute end. Even after the stuff in the lab, the half-ghost stuff, the constant attacking ghosts and hunting them down, they stuck by my side.”

“I’m sorry, kiddo.” Jack landed as well, although unlike Danny, he landed on his feet. “But they’ll be around, right? It might not be the same, but they’re not gone.”

“Might as well be,” Danny huffed. He shook his head. “It won’t be the same. Without the years of shared experiences…”

Maddie and Jack shared a look—not quite as conversational as the ones his parents shared, but a good enough substitute—before apparently deciding to change the topic altogether.

“Why don’t we see if we can clear some rooms upstairs?” Maddie asked, clapping her hands together. “We’ll need at least two rooms clear enough for use, preferably three.”

“Three?” Danny echoed, frowning at them. “You’re not sharing?”

“We haven’t seen each other in years, Danny,” she pointed out, getting up from the chair. “We’re still reconnecting, never mind actually getting together.”

“Right,” he agreed, following her to the stairs. “But you are moving in?”

“Friends can share a house,” Jack pointed out, shifting back to his human form in a flash of white light, and reminding Danny to do the same. “And this way she won’t have to worry about getting kicked out of Vlad’s mansion while all the paperwork and stuff is happening.”

“And I never liked the mansion much,” Maddie admitted with a wry smile. “I liked the Vlad I knew, way back when, but over time it became clear that that wasn’t the real Vlad. I’d been thinking about divorcing him for longer, but… I don’t know. There was no one else I knew, nowhere I could go.”

“Not even to Aunt Alicia? I mean, she’s divorced as well, isn’t she?”

“I… didn’t realize she had married in the first place.” Maddie’s steps faltered for a moment before she continued up the stairs. “I guess I was afraid that she would judge me for marrying Vlad in the first place. I don’t know… It seems rather illogical, now, but I figured I could put up with Vlad well enough. And with his money I could afford my research, even if I had to do it behind his back.”

They stopped in the hallway upstairs, looking around. Danny resisted the urge to grimace. Somehow upstairs was even more of a mess than downstairs had been.

“Which room was yours, in your timeline?” Jack asked, sidling up to Danny.

“Uh.” He carefully stepped past the mess, stopping in front of his door. Or the door that belonged to the room that was his, in his own timeline. “This one. And Jazz had that one,” he pointed over to the room that his sister used. “The one next to mine was a guest room.”

Jack nodded. “Right, that makes sense! You can take that room if you want, Danny. Mads, you can take the other room if you want. The one next to here I used as a lab for a while, so cleaning…”

“Won’t be easy, got it.” She nodded as well. “I’ll take the other one. Let’s start with clearing out this one, shall we?”

“Let’s.” Danny pushed open the door, bracing himself mentally for the whiplash of seeing his room without it being his room.

As a result, he was almost toppled over by the cat that rushed past his legs.

“Jasmine!” Jack cheered, crouching down to pick up the fluffy white thing. “Is this where you’ve been hiding, honey?”

“Well,” Danny said, then stopped. He had no clue what to say. He didn’t even know what he thought of this.

“Well,” he tried again. “At least now I know who picked the name for Jazz, and who picked mine.”

Maddie snorted, gently pushing him into the room. “Personally, I think Danny is a great name, honey.”

“Thanks,” he retorted, eyes darting over the room. It was dark—the curtains were closed despite the time of day—but his night vision was pretty solid. “It’s short for Daniel.”

“And Jazz for Jasmine, then? That’s cute.” She ruffled his hair as she stepped past him, drawing open the curtains. “Hm. we certainly have our work cut out for us.”

“Yeah,” Danny agreed, looking at the piles of he-didn’t-know-what lying around. There was a bed buried in one of the piles, which suggested it might’ve been a guest room at some point. Or used by someone else, before Jack moved in. “And we still need to clear yours, too.”

“Better get working then,” Maddie decided, shaking her head as she crouched down. “Things won’t get better on their own, after all.”

[les-mooserables]

Hello, John

[AS SOON AS HE BEGINS SPEAKING, A WHIZZING STATIC KICKS IN FROM THE BACKGROUND.]

ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT)

Apologies for the deception, but I wanted to make sure you started reading, so I thought it best not to announce myself.

I’m assuming you’re alone; you always did prefer to read your statements in private. (slightly strained) I wouldn’t try too hard to stop reading; there’s every likelihood you’ll just hurt yourself. So just listen.

Now, shall we turn the page and try again?

[THE ARCHIVIST MAKES A PAINED COUPLE OF SOUNDS OUT-OF-STATEMENT-CHARACTER, AS IF HE’S TRYING TO TEAR HIMSELF AWAY FROM THE STATEMENT AND PHYSICALLY CANNOT.][WHEN HE PICKS THE STATEMENT BACK UP, THE WORDS SOUND LIKE THEY’RE BEING TORN FROM HIS LIPS.]ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT)

Statement of Jonah Magnus regarding Jonathan Sims, The Archivist.

Statement begins.

[A SLAP ON THE TABLE – OR A CRACK? SPOOKY.]

I hope you’ll forgive me the self-indulgence, but I have worked so very hard for this moment, a culmination of two centuries of work. It’s rare that you get the chance to monologue through another, and you can’t tell me you’re not curious.

Why does a man seek to destroy the world?

It’s a simple enough answer: for immortality and power. Uninspired, perhaps, but – my god. The discovery, not simply of the dark and horrible reality of the world in which you live, but that you would quite willingly doom that world and confine the billions in it to an eternity of terror and suffering, all to ensure your own happiness, to place yourself beyond pain and death and fear.

It is an awful thing to know about yourself, but the freedom, John, the freedom of it all. I have dedicated my life to handing the world to these Dread Powers all for my own gain, and I feel… nothing but satisfaction in that choice.

I am to be a king of a ruined world, and I shall never die.

I believe there are far more people in this world that would take that bargain than you would ever guess. And I have beaten all of them.

Of course, this desire did not manifest overnight. When Smirke first gathered our little band – Lukas, Scott, and the rest – to discuss and hypothesize on the nature of the things he had learned from Rayner, I felt what I believe we all felt: curiosity, and fear.

But as he compiled his taxonomy and codified his theories on the grand rituals, I began to develop a very specific concern. Smirke was so obsessed with his ideas on balance, even as our fellows began to experiment and fall to the service of our patrons.

I began to worry that if one of them successfully attempted their ritual, then I would be as much a victim as any, trapped in the nightmare landscape of a twisted world.

At first, I attempted prevention, but the cause seemed hopeless. The only way to ensure I did not suffer the tribulations of what I believed to be an inevitable transformation was to bring it about myself. So what began as an experiment soon became a race.

Beyond that, I was getting older, and mortality began to weigh more heavily on my mind. How much in this world is done because we fear death, the last and greatest terror?

I convinced Smirke to work on Millbank, leading him to design it as a temple to all the Fears in equilibrium, such that my own modifications to the design of the Panopticon went… unremarked.

It. Took. Years, for the dread of the prisoners to fully suffuse the place, and I was an old man before I made my first attempt at the Watcher’s Crown, sat in the center of that colossal eye, the great ring of cells encircling me like a coronet.

It was… flawed, of course, as all Smirke’s rituals were, and none of the inmates survived as the power I attempted to harness shook the building almost to pieces, and the murky swamp upon which the prison was built consumed it.

But it left me a gift: For sat in that watchtower, I could see everything I turned my mind to.

It was a dizzying power, and one I discovered I maintained even as I found vessels to extend my life. Of course, I had to make sure the location was kept under my control while I worked on revising my plans, and so I moved the organization I had founded to assist in my research down to London, and the Institute as you know it was born.

I’ll not bore you with details of my bodies and failures through those intervening years. Suffice to say I kept busy, both planning my own next attempt, and doing my best to stymie those others who tried versions of their own.

Surely my interpretation of the Watcher’s Crown had been incomplete; there had been some element of the ritual I had overlooked.

It was not until I met Gertrude Robinson that things began to really come into focus.

You see, the role of Archivist has been part of the Beholding for as far back as my research can go. This isn’t uncommon for the Powers; most of the beliefs around them are guesswork and fallible human interpretation, but there are certain throughlines and consistencies that can be spotted, regardless of the trappings.

But Gertrude was unlike any other Archivist. She simply did not care about compiling experiences or collecting the fears of others. She was driven to stop those who served the Powers.

More than once I thought she must secretly be of the Hunt – but there was never that sick joy in her, that thrill of predator and prey. She had simply decided that this was her position in life, and went about it with a practicality that even I found disconcerting at times.

I once asked her what drove her, what had started her down that path. She told me the Desolation had killed her cat.

I don’t know if she was joking, and, to be honest, I could never bring myself to look into her mind and find out for sure.

In any case, Gertrude’s ruthless efficiency in derailing and collapsing rituals threw into stark relief a question that had been bothering me for almost a hundred and fifty years: In the whole span of humanity, why had nobody ever succeeded?

Perhaps there were a long line of Gertrude Robinsons throughout history, but I found that hard to credit. Could it be, then, that there was something in the very concept of the rituals that meant they couldn’t succeed?

She was clearly having similar thoughts in that last year, all of which culminated with the People’s Church.

When I saw that she was making no preparations whatsoever to stop it, I realized she was putting into practice a theory, and one she couldn’t afford to be wrong. She was going to wait, and see if the unopposed ritual succeeded, or if it collapsed under its own strain as mine had all those years ago.

Knowing Gertrude, I’m sure she had a backup plan if she had miscalculated – but she had not. The ritual failed. And all at once, I realized what had to be done.

You see, the thing about the Fears is that they can never be truly separated from each other. When does the fear of sudden violence transition into the fear of hunted prey? When does the mask of the Stranger become the deception of the Spiral?

Even those that seem to exist in direct opposition rely on each other for their definition as much as up relies on down.

To try and create a world with only the Buried makes as much sense as trying to conceive a world with only down.

Every ritual tied itself so closely to a single power as to render itself impossible. They could bring their patron close, but never sever it from the others, and eventually it would be violently pulled back into the place next to reality where they dwell.

The solution, then, is simple: A new ritual must be devised which will bring through all the Powers at once. All fourteen, as I had hoped I could complete it before any new powers such as Extinction were able to fully emerge. All under the Eye’s auspices, of course. We mustn’t forget our roots.

And there was only one being that could possibly serve as a lynchpin for this new ritual: The Archivist. A position that had so recently become vacant, thanks to Gertrude’s ill-timed retirement plans.

Because the thing about the Archivist is that – well, it’s a bit of a misnomer.

It might, perhaps, be better named: The Archive.

Because you do not administer and preserve the records of fear, John. You are a record of fear, both in mind as you walk the shuddering record of each statement, and in body as the Powers each leave their mark upon you.

You are a living chronicle of terror.

Perhaps, then, if I could find an Archivist and have each Power mark them, have them confront each one and each in turn instill in them a powerful and acute fear for their life, they could be turned into a conduit for the coming of this – nightmare kingdom.

Do you see where I’m going, John?

It does tickle me, that in this world of would-be occult dynasties and ageless monsters, the Chosen One is simply that – someone I chose. It’s not in your blood, or your soul, or your destiny. It’s just in your own, rotten luck.

[THUNDERCLAPS.]

I’ll admit, my options were somewhat limited, but My God, when you came to me already marked by the Web, I knew it had to be you. I even held out some small hope you had been sent by the Spider as some sort of implicit blessing on the whole project, and, do you know what, I think it was.

Of course, I had to bide my time, get a measure of you before I began to push, learn how you worked – So I decided I would wait until something came for you, and see how you reacted. Attacks upon the Archives were not uncommon during Gertrude’s tenure, and, while she was always prepared, I made sure you would not be.

I reasoned if you couldn’t survive a single encounter, you were unlikely to make it through all fourteen. So, when Jane Prentiss attacked, I watched eagerly, one hand on the gas release from the start.

You acquitted yourself well enough, so I decided to see how far you would get, though I waited until the worms were in you before I pulled the lever. I needed to make sure you felt that fear all the way to your bones.

The discovery that one of the Stranger’s minions had infiltrated the Institute in the aftermath was certainly a pleasant bonus. Even if that sliver of paranoia, that vague wrongness you couldn’t quite place wouldn’t count as a mark, it was only a matter of time before it confronted you in a far more direct and affecting matter.

Admittedly, given the advent of the Unknowing, I needn’t have bothered. But what’s the old saying about hindsight?

More important to me was Sasha’s encounter with the Distortion. If it had taken an interest, then I very much wanted it to cross your path.

[THUNDER CONTINUES AS HE GOES ON.]

So I found one of its current victims and convinced her to make a statement.

Poor Helen. I actually had to put her in a taxi myself, she was getting so lost in those narrow London side streets.

It worked, though.

[SOMETHING CREAKS. ANOTHER LOUD SNAP/CRACKLE.]

Between the stabbing and at least two desperate flights into its doors – you’re marked very deeply by the Spiral.

Jurgen Leitner was a surprise, of course, and I was forced to improvise. I had no idea how much Gertrude would have told him, and he could very easily have derailed everything if you learned too much too fast.

I… justified it to myself saying I was going to have to send you out into the world anyway, if you were to encounter more of the Powers, but I can’t honestly pretend it wasn’t a… rather rash move.

Still. I’d requested Detective Tonner be assigned to the case when they found Gertrude’s body in the hope that having a Hunter in the mix would eventually lead to a confrontation, and setting you up as a killer certainly hastened that.

Then it was just a matter of feeding you statements to lead you to a few Avatars I thought were likely to harm you – but probably would stop short of actually killing you.

Jude served her purpose exactly as I had hoped, as did our dearly departed Mr. Crew, marking you for the Desolation and the Vast.

Honestly, I had – nothing to do with Melanie and her Slaughter adventure, but when I saw the situation, I made sure to trap her here, so when her rage bubbled over you would be right there, a ready target.

I didn’t foresee the mark coming from surgery gone wrong, but it was a very pleasant surprise.

The Unknowing was a distraction, but not an unwelcome one. For this to work, you needed more than just the marks; you needed power. And that was something the Unknowing served to test, though it posed no actual danger in the grand scheme of things.

And it did serve another purpose, of course. It inadvertently pushed you to confront death, a mark I had been very worried about trying to orchestrate. If I tried too early, you’d just die. Too late, and you might be powerful enough to see the attempt coming, and maybe even understand why.

As it was, it was just right, and once again, you came through with flying colors.

By this point, your abilities were coming along in leaps and bounds, and I was concerned that meeting face-to-face might end up with you – (sigh) – Knowing something you shouldn’t.

I had initially planned to go into hiding, but when your colleagues surprised me with the police, well. It was simple enough to cut a deal.

All that remained, then, were the Dark, the Flesh, the Buried, and the Lonely.

I was a little put out when that idiot Jared Hopworth misinterpreted my letters and attacked the Institute too soon, before you were even out of the hospital, but then – Ho, you should have see my face when you voluntarily went to him.

I couldn’t see what happened in there, of course, but given how you came out, I’m very sure it counts as a mark.

I suspected the coffin might turn up again, and once it did, it was simply a matter of getting any, uh… restraining factors you might have had flying off on a wild goose chase, and waiting.

Honestly, Detective Tonner has been proving invaluable through this process. I’d been racking my brains for months about what I could use to lure you in.

And, of course, I knew the Dark Sun was just sitting there waiting. So when it came time, I just whipped up another apocalypse and sent you on your merry way.

Then all that remained was the Lonely.

Poor Peter. He really should have left well enough alone. (cruel laugh) Or just done what I’d asked in the first place.

Ah well. He knew what I was attempting, and was very unwilling to cooperate until I made him a little wager about Martin.

Of course, he had no way of knowing that, in addition to setting you up for the final mark, he was giving you all the tools you needed to escape from it.

How is Martin, by the way? He looks well. You will keep an eye on him when all this is over, won’t you? He’s earned that.

And there, I think, we are brought just about up to date. I have enjoyed our little trip down memory lane, but past here lies only impatience.

You are prepared. You are ready. You are marked. The power of the Ceaseless Watcher flows through you, and the time of our victory is here.

Don’t worry, John. You’ll get used to it here, in the world that we have made.

Now. (cruel, cruel laugh) Repeat after me.

[WHEN THE ARCHIVIST BEGINS TO READ THE INCANTATION, A HEAVY, DENSE STATIC RETURNS AND BEGINS TO BUILD, ADDING IN HIGHER PITCHES AS IT DOES SO.]

You who watch and know and understand none. You who listen and hear and will not comprehend. You who wait and wait and drink in all that is not yours by right.

Come to us in your wholeness.

Come to us in your perfection.

Bring all that is fear and all that is terror and all that is the awful dread that crawls and chokes and blinds and falls and twists and leaves and hides and weaves and burns and hunts and rips and bleeds and dies!

Come to us.

I – OPEN – THE DOOR!

[argumentl]

The Freedom of Expression Ep 6 - 'Antrum', the most cursed movie in history.

K: Hi this is Dir en grey's Kaoru, and The Freedom of Expression..Joe san, Tasai san..

J: Yep

K: I think the viewers already realise this, but we're shooting four epidodes at once. (note:* the covid episodes were aired at short notice after ep 3*).

J: Yes, four.

T: Our clothes havn't changed.

K: Is our positioning ok like this? Wouldn't it be better with you in the middle, Kaoru?

K: Well, next time we could change seats if we want? But, I havn't seen you two in a long time, I thought it would be better to look at you from over here.

J: Ah, yes. If you are in the middle you have to keep looking from side to side..

K: Yeah, so..we could change seats next time...We might even change our filming location?

J: For sure

K: I don't know though...we can carry on without making too many set plans.

J: I see.

K: He's not coming out today, is he?

J: He's not. Let's leave him alone.

K: Well, shall we get started?... Oh, actually, when we finished recording the last epidode, my boss came here, and said 'that was a lie, thats wrong'.

J: Oh, what was it again? He took offense to something written in a magazine.

T:...and stormed over there.

K: He didn't actually angrily storm over there, he apparently went there, not to tell them to write nice stuff, but to get them to write what his band was really like, and he was fine with it then *1

J: Ahh, to stand out?

K: He was quite agitated. *T laughs*

J: No, but its a bit worrying isn't it? From the listeners point of view, you hear that type of story and interpret it as something amusing, the story gets communicated on in that way.

K: Well, theres no fire without smoke..

J: You mean, theres no smoke without fire.

K: Yeh.. Its because he's just a bit scary *the others laugh*, thats why that type of gossip appears.

J: Of course

K: Right?

T: I see

J: Well, we don't know what he was really like back then...

K: I don't either.

J: But he surely wasn't one of those cuddly, happy people?

K: People in bands were just kinda scary back then, right?

J: They were scary, yeah. But they were also really cool, weren't they?

K: *nods*

J: ..in reality....I think they were.

K: We're (Dir en grey) not scary though, are we?

J, T: Uhh... *K laughs*

J: You are not scary, but...

K: We're not THAT scary right? *laughing*

J: You have an incredible aura..

K: Well, lets leave it..

J: Fow now, lets just say your boss wasn't trying to make excuses..

K: Excuses? *laughs*

J: ..he was just trying to tell us that the stuff we said was not true. Right, well lets introduce today's topic.

' "You watch it, you die", Antrum - The most cursed movie in history.'

'Unbelievablely, its to be released in Japan, this incredible movie is to be screened. Filmed in California, America in 1970, the movie 'Antrum'. Rumored to be excessively scary, and to bring about misfortune to those who watch it, it was said that this movie should not be released, but buried and restricted. However, in 1988, it was screened for the first time in Budapest, Hungary, and during its screening, a fire broke out in the theatre and it burnt to the ground. 56 people died in this incident. Since then, whenever this movie is screened, the people involved have suffered mysterious deaths, one after the other. It became a work of art that no-one wanted to touch. Then, we arrive at the present day. After a long search, documentary movie makers Michael Licini and David Amito discovered the 35mm film reel of 'Antrum'. They have decided to screen it with the warning that viewers must take personal responsibility for anything that happens. The movie will be screened this year in venues across the country from Friday.'

K: Ahh, is it okay?...if this kind of incident occurs?

J: It says, if you watch it you die!

T: Its spooky.

K: Whether it lives up to expectations or not, theres trouble either way.

J,T: Thats right.

J: If people die, they're in trouble, and if people don't die, and they get sued for misrepresentation, they'll be like 'What? Arn't you glad you didn't die?!'

T: I wonder what will happen.

J: They say everyone has to take personal responsibility.

K: Well, I'm slightly interested.

J: Would you go and watch it?

K: Hmm, I want to see it, yeh.

J: You're attracted to it?

K: Um, Horror is...

Kami: Nononono! You must not go to see this, you must not go to see this!

J: Ahh, Kami says you musn't, he's worried suddenly....Its not okay, Kami?

Kami: No no, its not. I was quiet so far because I didn't want to have anything to do with this topic.

J: Oh, with this topic?

Kami: Yeh, its really scary.

J: Is this type of thing not good?

Kami: Its not good. I have to work nights..

J: Ah, night shifts? *the others laugh*

Kami: and I work alone.

J: Yeh.

K: Well, yeh, thats scary.

Kami: They say you'll die, I don't wanna die on my night shift.

J: Yeh, but gods can't die can they?

T: Right.

Kami: Well, outwardly.

J: What does that mean? Outwardly?? *laughing*

Kami: We don't die completely..

J: Oh, but from the human perspective you appear to die?

Kami: Yeah, I appear to die, but then am reborn.  *J, T laugh*

K: He doesn't need to be scared.

T: Pretty interesting.

Kami: No no, the bit where I appear to be dead..its kinda troublsome.

J: Its trouble? You're a bit nervous about that?

Kami: Yeh, im nervous. Its not good.

J: Its not good?

Kami: Yeah, going to see this movie is not good.

J: But, there is a certain attraction by people to these kind of supernatural, occult things isn't there?

K, T: Yeah, yeah.

J: You know, things that science can't prove.

Kami: Yeah, I know about all of it though.

J: You do?

Kami: Yes, I do. Because, god created everything on earth.

T: Well, yeah.

J: I see.

T: So, he shouldn't really be scared of this, should he?

K: Really, that makes this situation here part of the occult too, doesn't it?

J: This is the occult. *T laughs* Us talking to a god..*K laughing*  Talking to a god about movies even!

Kami: Well, there are many types of god aren't there?

J: Ahh, there are many types, yeh.

Kami: Yeh yeh, there are all knowing-all powerful gods...and gods like this one here. *the others laugh*

J: This god isn't very 'all knowing-all powerful'?

Kami: No, im probably in the lower orders.

J: *laughing* Yeh, we know that!

T: He sounds like a salaryman.

J: A hierarchy of gods..

Kami: Well, the middle-lower orders.

J: The middle-lower oders? *laughing*

T: Thats quite low, right? *J laughing*

J: It might just not be limited to recent times, but isn't there quite an occult boom going on now? How do you see it Kaoru?

Kami: An occult boom?

J: An occult boom.

Kami: Well, maybe its because a lot of things have already been solved. As science progresses, we know more...like the Higgs particle, you know it?

J: I've heard the name, but I don't know the details.

Kami: Its kinda like how the source of gravity was discovered. They spin it round really fast and crash it, right?

J: What a simple explanation!

Kami: Its in Switzerland!

T: In Switzerland...

J: They have the equipment to spin it and crash it powerfully, right?

Kami: Yes, yes. Atoms, they crash atoms into one another..and when they crash, the atoms break apart, and various particles have been discovered....and they saw a black hole forming and such. These kinds of mysterious things are really happening. *2.

T: Ehh, Kami, thats impressive.

Kami: So it could be just because of these solved mysteries, peoples' imaginations are swelling and giving them wild ideas?

J: I see.

K: Well, there must be people who like this stuff.

Kami: Wasn't my explanation easy to understand?

J: Yes, it was very well explained.

Kami: Spinning it around and bashing really hard, and then a kind of mysterious feeling...

*everyone laughs*

J: Thst is super easy to understand. Explained in simple terms.

T: Exactly

J: Only by a god..*3

T: Hey Joe, is that okay? *laughs*

J: Kami's awful aspects have transfered to me. *T laughs* The hopless parts. Those parts are showing in me.

Kami: Don't say hopeless!

K *laughs*

J: Oh did you hear that bit?

Kami: I heard it.

J: Of course, Kami hears everything (direct translation: hell ears)

K: This is awful!

Kami: Not hell, heaven.

T: Isn't this fourth time getting tiring?

*laughing*

J: Of course not

T: Actually, ive been to an event before where a spirit appeared.

J: Ehh?

T: When I say spirit, I mean Lincoln. There was a movie about the American president, Lincoln. So I went as a reporter to a weird movie event about it. And there was a medium there who could channel Lincoln so we could ask anything.

J: Wow...so, Lincoln spoke to you in person?

T: The medium started going 'Mmmghh mmmghh' and then 'Ready', so we all thought Lincoln had come to us, and we were told to ask anything, so someone asked 'Mr Lincoln, Mr Lincoln, what did you think of the movie? ..and after about three seconds the medium suddenly dropped down and said, 'Lincoln has left us'.

J: Ehh?! He didn't say anything?!

T: No, Lincoln didn't say anything.

J: Just 'Mmgh, mmgh'?

T: Yeah, and then he fell straight down..and was finished in three seconds. The whole venue had been waiting so eagarly...

J: What kind of article did Tokyo Sports write?

T: About how the venue was....*4

*laughing*

K: That fits well with this show!

J: This kind of chaos. So you were there, Tasai san?

T: Yes, I was reporting on it.

J: Oh really?

T: Yeh, that type of thing happened.

J: I wonder how the medium was after that, after Lincoln left.

T: She's getting paid for nothing.

K: Well, maybe some more accidents happened...

J: Oh yeah, she felt the danger. She didn't research enough before calling him.

T: She should have studied.

J: Maybe she didn't expect that many reporters?

K: Oh, maybe, she thought 'oh no..'

J: Maybe she was shocked to see so many people when she turned up. But the movie company paid her to promote the movie like this right?

T: Yes

J: Ahh, but people will probably go to see this movie right, Kami?

Kami: As for Lincoln coming down, he probably didn't say anything because he planned to speak in English.

J, T: Oh yeah.

K: Maybe

Kami: They forgot how to speak English?

J: I see..he hasn't been called in a long time, so even he forgot how to speak English?

Kami: No no, the medium.

J: Ah, the medium? Ah, I see.

Kami: Even I forget what to say sometimes, as soon as I think about it, and when im listening, you're like 'oh he's gone'

J: Isn't that dementia? Kami, can you speak to dead people like a medium can, can gods do it?

Kami: Gods? There are gods who can do that.

K: But you can't.

J: But you can't? 

Kami: No, I can't do anything *J laughs*

J: We can only pray to you?

Kami: Yes, only pray.

J: I reckon I could be a god then too.

K: Yeh, yeh.

J: Its pretty interesting, no matter what your capacity, you could be a god, right? *laughing*

Kami: No, being a god is not about your capacity...

J: Oh, its not, im wrong?

Kami: Are you making fun of me?

J: No, im not! Im just too naive.

Kami: Being a god is something you're born with.

T: Ahh, its deep.

Kami: Being a god is something you are born with.

K: He just said that.

J: Im kinda imagining him with a smug face right now. *K laughs*

J: I havn't met him so I don't know though.

Kami: Even though I can't do anything, Im different from you guys.

J: Ah, you are born different?

Kami: Yes, yes, yes.

J: You exist differently from regular humans?

Kami: Yes, yes, yes.

J: I see.

K: We're right back to the occult now, aren't we?

J: Yeh, this is almost like a Tokyo Sports kind of issue.

Kami: No, you mustn't doubt the existence of god!

J: Oh, you musn't?

Kami: You mustn't! If you do, and you watch this movie, you will die.

J: We'll die?

T: Scary!

K: I wonder if we'll really die?

Kami: So believe in god!

K: Oh, if you believe in god, you won't die if you watch this movie?

Kami: Yeh, you can increase your shrine donation or something..

J: It ends up with money again *K laughs* He always ends up talking about money.

T: Whats up with him? *K laughing*

J: He doesn't have anything nice to say. Its always down to money in the end. With Ghosn he was the same.

T: He was, yeh *laughing*

Kami: Thats right

J: This has nothing to do with the movie 'Antrum'...

K: So there is a subscribe option on youtube right?

J: Yes, if you subscribe for us...

K: I think I should say 'please subscribe', I havn't said it yet * T laughs*

J: Please subscribe, everyone.

T: Please.

K: If we get more subscribers, we can do more things.

J: Right

Kami: Yes, please subscribe.

J: Subscribers will probably...

*sound cuts out*

On screen message :The sound cut out for some reason. We'll let you know what they said. For now, this episode has ended .

*1 - Not 100% sure I understood this story right.

*2 Translating quantum physics isn't my strong point.

*3 Im fairly sure i've missed some nuance here.

*4 Couldn't catch this.

[artycloudpop]

1hey are u bored at home, wanna chill and netflix....... but just can’t find some thing nice to watch? here’s a list of movies for u watch

A Ghost Story (2017)

Director David Lowery (Pete's Dragon) conceived this dazzling, dreamy meditation on the afterlife during the off-hours on a Disney blockbuster, making the revelations within even more awe-inspiring. After a fatal accident, a musician (Casey Affleck) finds himself as a sheet-draped spirit, wandering the halls of his former home, haunting/longing for his widowed wife (Rooney Mara). With stylistic quirks, enough winks to resist pretension (a scene where Mara devours a pie in one five-minute, uncut take is both tragic and cheeky), and a soundscape culled from the space-time continuum, A Ghost Story connects the dots between romantic love, the places we call home, and time -- a ghost's worst enemy.

Airplane! (1980)

This is one of the funniest movie of all time. Devised by the jokesters behind The Naked Gun, this disaster movie spoof stuffs every second of runtime with a physical gag (The nun slapping a hysterical woman!), dimwitted wordplay ("Don't call me, Shirley"), an uncomfortable moment of odd behavior ("Joey, have you ever seen a grown man naked?"), or some other asinine bit. The rare comedy that demands repeat viewings, just to catch every micro-sized joke and memorize every line.

A24

American Honey (2016)

Writer/director Andrea Arnold lets you sit shotgun for the travels of a group of wayward youth in American Honey, a seductive drama about a "mag crew" selling subscriptions and falling in and out of love with each other on the road. Seen through the eyes of Star, played by Sasha Lane, life on the Midwest highway proves to be directionless, filled with a stream of partying and steamy hookups in the backs of cars and on the side of the road, especially when she starts to develop feelings for Shia LaBeouf’s rebellious Jake. It’s an honest look at a group of disenfranchised young people who are often cast aside, and it’s blazing with energy. You’ll buy what they're selling.

Anna Karenina (2012)

Adapted by renowned playwright Tom Stoppard, this take on Leo Tolstoy's classic Russian novel is anything but stuffy, historical drama. Keira Knightley, Jude Law, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Domhnall Gleeson, Alicia Vikander are all overflowing with passion and desire, heating up the chilly backdrop of St. Petersburg. But it's director Joe Wright's unique staging -- full of dance, lush costuming, fourth-wall-breaking antics, and other theatrical touches -- that reinvent the story for more daring audiences.

NETFLIX

Apostle (2018)

For his follow-up to his two action epics, The Raid and The Raid 2, director Gareth Evans dials back the hand-to-hand combat but still keeps a few buckets of blood handy in this grisly supernatural horror tale. Dan Stevens stars as Thomas Richardson, an early 20th century opium addict traveling to a cloudy island controlled by a secretive cult that's fallen on hard times. The religious group is led by a bearded scold named Father Malcolm (Michael Sheen) who may or may not be leading his people astray. Beyond a few bursts of kinetic violence and some crank-filled torture sequences, Evans plays this story relatively down-the-middle, allowing the performances, the lofty themes, and the windswept vistas to do the talking. It's a cult movie that earns your devotion slowly, then all at once.

Back to the Future (1985)

Buckle into Doc's DeLorean and head to the 1950s by way of 1985 with the seminal time-travel series that made Michael J. Fox a household name. It's always a joy watching Marty McFly's race against the clock way-back-when to ensure history runs its course and he can get back to the present. Netflix also has follow-up Parts II and III, which all add up to a perfect rainy afternoon marathon.

NETFLIX

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018)

The Coen brothers gave some big-name-director cred to Netflix by releasing their six-part Western anthology on the streaming service, and while it's not necessarily their best work, Buster Scruggs is clearly a cut above most Netflix originals. Featuring star turns from Liam Neeson, Tom Waits, Zoe Kazan, and more, the film takes advantage of Netflix's willingness to experiment by composing a sort of death fugue that unfolds across the harsh realities of life in Manifest Destiny America. Not only does it revel in the massive, sweeping landscapes of the American West, but it's a thoughtful meditation on death that will reveal layer after layer long after you finish.

Barbershop (2002)

If you've been sleeping on the merits of the Barbershop movies, the good news is it's never too late to get caught up. Revisit the 2002 installment that started Ice Cube's smack-talking franchise so you can bask in Cedric the Entertainer's hilarious wisdom, enjoy Eve's acting debut, and admire this joyful ode to community.

NETFLIX

Barry (2016)

In 1981, Barack Obama touched down in New York City to begin work at Columbia University. As Barry imagines, just days after settling into his civics class, a white classmate confronts the Barry with an argument one will find in the future president's Twitter @-mentions: "Why does everything always got to be about slavery?" Exaltation is cinematic danger, especially when bringing the life of a then-sitting president to screen. Barry avoids hagiography by staying in the moment, weighing race issues of a modern age and quieting down for the audience to draw its own conclusions. Devon Terrell is key, steadying his character as smooth-operating, socially active, contemplative fellow stuck in an interracial divide. Barry could be any half-black, half-white kid from the '80s. But in this case, he's haunted by past, present, and future.

Being John Malkovich (1999)

You can't doubt the audacity of screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Anomalisa), whose first produced screenplay hinged on attracting the title actor to a script that has office drones discovering a portal into his mind. John Cusack, Catherine Keener, and Cameron Diaz combine to create an atmosphere of desperate, egomaniacal darkness, and by the end you'll feel confused and maybe a little slimy about the times you've participated in celebrity gawking.

A24

The Blackcoat's Daughter (2017)

Two young women are left behind at school during break... and all sorts of hell breaks loose. This cool, stylish thriller goes off in some strange directions (and even offers a seemingly unrelated subplot about a mysterious hitchhiker) but it all pays off in the end, thanks in large part to the three leads -- Emma Roberts, Lucy Boynton, and Kiernan Shipka -- and director Oz Perkins' artful approach to what could have been just another occult-based gore-fest.

Bloodsport (1988)

Jean-Claude Van Damme made a career out of good-not-great fluff. Universal Soldier is serviceable spectacle, Hard Target is a living cartoon, Lionheart is his half-baked take on On the Waterfront. Bloodsport, which owes everything to the legacy of Bruce Lee, edges out his Die Hard riff Sudden Death for his best effort, thanks to muscles-on-top-of-muscles-on-top-of-muscles fighting and Stan Bush's "Fight to Survive." Magic Mike has nothing on Van Damme's chiseled backside in Bloodsport, which flexes its way through a slow-motion karate-chop gauntlet. In his final face-off, Van Damme, blinded by arena dust, rage-screams his way to victory. The amount of adrenaline bursting out of Bloodsport demands a splash zone.

Blue Ruin (2013)

Before he went punk with 2016's siege thriller Green Room, director Jeremy Saulnier delivered this low-budget, darkly comic hillbilly noir. When Dwight Evans (Macon Blair) discovers that the man who killed his parents is being released from prison, he returns home to Virginia to claims his revenge and things quickly spin out of control. Like the Coen Brothers' Blood Simple, this wise-ass morality tale will make you squirm.

WELL GO USA ENTERTAINMEN

Burning (2018)

Some mysteries simmer; this one smolders. In his adaptation of a Haruki Murakami short story, writer and director Lee Chang-dong includes many elements of the acclaimed author's slyly mischievous style -- cats, jazz, cooking, and an alienated male writer protagonist all pop up -- but he also invests the material with his own dark humor, stray references to contemporary news, and an unyielding sense of curiosity. We follow aimless aspiring novelist Lee Jong-su (Yoo Ah-in) as he reconnects with Shin Hae-mi (Jeon Jong-seo), a young woman he grew up with, but the movie never lets you get too comfortable in one scene or setting. When Steven Yeun's Ben, a handsome rich guy with a beautiful apartment and a passion for burning down greenhouses, appears, the film shifts to an even more tremulous register. Can Ben be trusted? Yeun's performance is perfectly calibrated to entice and confuse, like he's a suave, pyromaniac version of Tyler Durden. Each frame keeps you guessing.

Cam (2018)

Unlike the Unfriended films or this summer's indie hit Searching, this web thriller from director Daniel Goldhaber and screenwriter Isa Mazzei isn't locked into the visual confines of a computer screen. Though there's plenty of online screen time, allowing for subtle bits of commentary and satire, the looser style allows the filmmakers to really explore the life and work conditions of their protagonist, rising cam girl Alice (Madeline Brewer). We meet her friends, her family, and her customers. That type of immersion in the granular details makes the scarier bits -- like an unnerving confrontation in the finale between Alice and her evil doppelganger -- pop even more.

THE ORCHARD

Creep (2014)

Patrick Brice's found-footage movie is a no-budget answer to a certain brand of horror, but saying more would give away its sinister turns. Just know that the man behind the camera answered a Craigslist ad to create a "day in the life" video diary for Josef (Mark Duplass), who really loves life. Creep proves that found footage, the indie world's no-budget genre solution, still has life, as long as you have a performer like Duplass willing to go all the way.

The Death of Stalin (2017)

Armando Iannucci, the brilliant Veep creator, set his sights on Russia with this savage political satire. Based on a graphic novel, the film dramatizes the madcap, maniacal plots of the men jostling for power after their leader, Joseph Stalin, keels over. From there, backstabbing, furious insults, and general chaos unfolds. Anchored by performances from Shakespearean great Simon Russell Beale and American icon Steve Buscemi, it's a pleasure to see what the rest of the cast -- from Star Trek: Discovery's Jason Isaacs to Homeland's Rupert Friend -- do with Iannucci's eloquently brittle text.

Den of Thieves (2018)

If there's one thing you've probably heard about this often ridiculous bank robbery epic, it's that it steals shamelessly from Michael Mann's crime saga Heat. The broad plot elements are similar: There's a team of highly-efficient criminals led by a former Marine (Pablo Schreiber) and they must contend with a obsessive, possibly unhinged cop (Gerard Butler) over the movie's lengthy 140 minute runtime.  A screenwriter helming a feature for the first time, director Christian Gudegast is not in the same league as Mann as a filmmaker and Butler, sporting unflattering tattoos and a barrel-like gut, is hardly Al Pacino. But everyone is really going for it here, attempting to squeeze every ounce of Muscle Milk from the bottle.

NETFLIX

Divines (2016)

Thrillers don't come much more propulsive or elegant than Houda Benyamina's Divines, a heartwarming French drama about female friendship that spirals into a pulse-pounding crime saga. Rambunctious teenager Dounia (Oulaya Amamra) and her best friend Maimouna (Déborah Lukumuena) begin the film as low-level shoplifters and thieves, but once they fall into the orbit of a slightly older, seasoned drug dealer named Rebecca (Jisca Kalvanda), they're on a Goodfellas-like trajectory. Benyamina offsets the violent, gritty genre elements with lyrical passages where Dounia watches her ballet-dancer crush rehearse his routines from afar, and kinetic scenes of the young girls goofing off on social media. It's a cautionary tale told with joy, empathy, and an eye for beauty.

Dolemite Is My Name (2019)

Eddie Murphy has been waiting years to get this movie about comedian and blaxploitation star Rudy Ray Moore made, and you can feel his joy in finally getting to play this role every second he's on screen. The film, directed by Hustle & Flow's Craig Brewer, charts how Moore rose from record store employee, to successful underground comedian, to making his now-cult classic feature Dolemite by sheer force of passion. It's thrilling (and hilarious) to watch Murphy adopt Moore's Dolemite persona, a swaggering pimp, but it's just as satisfying to see the former SNL star capture his character at his lowest points. He's surrounded by an ensemble that matches his infectious energy.

The Edge of Seventeen (2016)

As romanticized as adolescence can be, it’s hard being young. Following the high school experience of troubled, overdramatic Nadine (Hailee Steinfeld), The Edge of Seventeen portrays the woes of adolescence with a tender, yet appropriately cheeky tone. As if junior year isn’t hellish enough, the universe essentially bursts into flames when Nadine finds out her best friend is dating her brother; their friendship begins to dissolve, and she finds the only return on young love is embarrassment and pain. That may all sound like a miserable premise for a young-adult movie, except it’s all painfully accurate, making it endearingly hilarious -- and there’s so much to love about Steinfeld’s self-aware performance.

FOCUS FEATURES

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

Romance and love are nothing without the potential for loss and pain, but most of us would probably still consider cutting away all the worst memories of the latter. Given the option to eradicate memories of their busted relationship, Jim Carrey's Joel and Kate Winslet's Clementine go through with the procedure, only to find themselves unable to totally let go. Science fiction naturally lends itself to clockwork mechanisms, but director Michel Gondry and screenwriter Charlie Kaufman never lose the human touch as they toy with the kaleidoscope of their characters' hearts and minds.

The Evil Dead (1981)

Before Bruce Campbell's Ash was wielding his chainsaw-arm in Army of Darkness and on Starz's Ash Vs. Evil Dead, he was just a good looking guy hoping to spend a nice, quiet vacation in a cabin with some friends. Unfortunately, the book of the dead had other plans for him. With this low-budget horror classic, director Sam Raimi brings a surprising degree of technical ingenuity to bear on the splatter-film, sending his camera zooming around the woods with wonder and glee. While the sequels double-downed on laughs, the original Evil Dead still knows how to scare.

The Firm (1993)

The '90s were a golden era of sleek, movie-star-packed legal thrillers, and they don't get much better than director Sydney Pollack's The Firm. This John Grisham adaptation has a little bit of everything -- tax paperwork, sneering mobsters, and Garey Busey, for starters -- but there's one reason to watch this movie: the weirdness of Tom Cruise. He does a backflip in this movie. What else do you need to know?

A24

The Florida Project (2017)

Sean Baker's The Florida Project nuzzles into the swirling, sunny, strapped-for-cash populace of a mauve motel just within orbit of Walt Disney World. His eyes are Moonee, a 6-year-old who adventures through abandoned condos, along strip mall-encrusted highway, and across verdant fields of overgrown brush like Max in Where the Wild Things Are. But as gorgeous as the everything appears -- and The Florida Project looks stunning -- the world around here is falling apart, beginning with her mother, an ex-stripper turning to prostitution. The juxtaposition, and down-to-earth style, reconsiders modern America in the most electrifying way imaginable.

Frances Ha (2012)

Before winning hearts and Oscar nominations with her coming-of-age comedy Lady Bird, Greta Gerwig starred in the perfect companion film, about an aimless 27-year-old who hops from New York City to her hometown of Sacramento to Paris to Poughkeepsie and eventually back to New York in hopes of stumbling into the perfect job, the perfect relationship, and the perfect life. Directed by Noah Baumbach (The Meyerowitz Stories), and co-written by both, Frances Ha is a measured look at adult-ish life captured the kind of intoxicating black and white world we dream of living in.

NETFLIX

Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened (2019)

Everyone's favorite disaster of a festival received not one, but two streaming documentaries in the same week. Netflix's version has rightly faced some criticism over its willingness to let marketing company Fuck Jerry off the hook (Jerry Media produced the doc), but that doesn't take away from the overall picture it portrays of the festival's haphazard planning and the addiction to grift from which Fyre's founder, Billy McFarland, apparently suffers. It's schadenfreude at its best.

Gerald's Game (2017)

Like his previous low-budget Netflix-released horror release, Hush, a captivity thriller about a deaf woman fighting off a masked intruder, Mike Flanagan's Stephen King adaptation of Gerald's Game wrings big scares from a small location. Sticking close to the grisly plot details of King's seemingly "unfilmable" novel, the movie chronicles the painstaking struggles of Jessie Burlingame (Carla Gugino) after she finds herself handcuffed to a bed in an isolated vacation home when her husband, the titular Gerald, dies from a heart attack while enacting his kinky sexual fantasies. She's trapped -- and that's it. The premise is clearly challenging to sustain for a whole movie, but Flanagan and Gugino turn the potentially one-note set-up into a forceful, thoughtful meditation on trauma, memory, and resilience in the face of near-certain doom.

A24

Good Time (2017)

In this greasy, cruel thriller from Uncut Gems directors the Safdie brothers, Robert Pattinson stars as Connie, a bank robber who races through Queens to find enough money to bail out his mentally disabled brother, who's locked up for their last botched job. Each suffocating second of Good Time, blistered by the neon backgrounds of Queens, New York and propelled by warped heartbeat of Oneothrix Point Never's synth score, finds Connie evading authorities by tripping into an even stickier situation.

Green Room (2015)

Green Room is a throaty, thrashing, spit-slinging punk tune belted through an invasion-movie microphone at max volume. It's nasty -- and near-perfect. As a band of 20-something rockstars recklessly defend against a neo-Nazi battalion equipped with machetes, shotguns, and snarling guard dogs, the movie blossoms into a savage coming-of-age tale, an Almost Famous for John Carpenter nuts. Anyone looking for similar mayhem should check out director Jeremy Saulnier's previous movie, the low-budget, darkly comic hillbilly noir, Blue Ruin, also streaming on Netflix.

The Guest (2014)

After writer-director Adam Wingard notched a semi-sleeper horror hit with 2011's You're Next, he'd earned a certain degree of goodwill among genre faithful and, apparently, with studio brass. How else to explain distribution for his atypical thriller The Guest through Time Warner subsidiary Picturehouse? Headlined by soon-to-be megastar Dan Stevens and kindred flick It Follows' lead scream queen Maika Monroe, The Guest introduces itself as a subtextual impostor drama, abruptly spins through a blender of '80s teen tropes, and ultimately reveals its true identity as an expertly self-conscious straight-to-video shoot 'em up, before finally circling back on itself with a well-earned wink. To say anymore about the hell that Stevens' "David" unleashes on a small New Mexico town would not only spoil the fun, but possibly get you killed.

THE WEINSTEIN COMPANY

The Hateful Eight (2015)

Quentin Tarantino has something to say about race, violence, and American life, and it's going to ruffle feathers. Like Django Unchained, the writer-director reflects modern times on the Old West, but with more scalpel-sliced dialogue, profane poetry, and gore. Stewed from bits of Agatha Christie, David Mamet, and Sam Peckinpah, The Hateful Eight traps a cast of blowhards (including Samuel L. Jackson as a Civil War veteran, Kurt Russell as a bounty hunter known as "The Hangman," and Jennifer Jason Leigh as a psychopathic gang member) in a blizzard-enveloped supply station. Tarantino ups the tension by shooting his suffocating space in "glorious 70mm." Treachery and moral compromise never looked so good.

High Flying Bird (2019)

High Flying Bird is a basketball film that has little to do with the sport itself, instead focusing on the behind-the-scenes power dynamics that play out during an NBA lockout. At the center of the Steven Soderbergh movie -- shot on an iPhone, because that's what he does now -- is André Holland's Ray Burke, a sports agent trying to protect his client's interests while also disrupting a corrupt system. It's not an easy tightrope to walk, and, as you might expect, the conditions of the labor stoppage constantly change the playing field. With his iPhone mirroring the NBA's social media-heavy culture, and appearances from actual NBA stars lending the narrative heft, Soderbergh experiments with Netflix's carte blanche and produces a unique film that adds to the streaming service's growing list of original critical hits.

PARAMOUNT PICTURES

Hugo (2011)

Martin Scorsese hit pause on mob violence and Rolling Stones singles to deliver one of the greatest kid-centric films in eons. Following Hugo (Asa Butterfield) as he traces his own origin story through cryptic automaton clues and early 20th-century movie history, the grand vision wowed in 3-D and still packs a punch at home.

I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House (2016)

A meditative horror flick that's more unsettling than outright frightening, I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House follows the demise of Lily, a live-in nurse (Ruth Wilson) who's caring for an ailing horror author. As Lily discovers the truth about the writer's fiction and home, the lines between the physical realm and the afterlife blur. The movie's slow pacing and muted escalation might frustrate viewers craving showy jump-scares, but writer-director Oz Perkins is worth keeping tabs on. He brings a beautiful eeriness to every scene, and his story will captivate patient streamers. Fans should be sure to check out his directorial debut, The Blackcoat's Daughter.

NETFLIX

I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore (2017)

In this maniacal mystery, Ruth (Melanie Lynskey), a nurse, and her rattail-sporting, weapon-obsessed neighbor Tony (Elijah Wood) hunt down a local burglar. Part Cormac McCarthy thriller, part wacky, Will Ferrell-esque comedy, I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore is a cathartic neo-noir about everyday troubles. Director Macon Blair's not the first person to find existential enlightenment at the end of an amateur detective tale, but he might be the first to piece one together from cussing octogenarians, ninja stars, Google montages, gallons of Big Red soda, upper-deckers, friendly raccoons, exploding body parts, and the idiocy of humanity.

Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

With a bullwhip, a leather jacket, and an "only Harrison Ford can pull this off" fedora, director Steven Spielberg invented the modern Hollywood action film by doing what he does best: looking backward. As obsessed as his movie-brat pal and collaborator George Lucas with the action movie serials of their youth, the director mined James Bond, Humphrey Bogart, Westerns, and his hatred of Nazis to create an adventure classic. To watch Raiders of the Lost Ark now is to marvel at the ingenuity of specific sequences (the boulder! The truck scene! The face-melting!) and simply groove to the self-deprecating comic tone (snakes! Karen Allen! That swordsman Indy shoots!). The past has never felt so alive.

Inside Man (2006)

Denzel Washington is at his wily, sharp, and sharply dressed best as he teams up once again with Spike Lee for this wildly entertaining heist thriller. He's an NYPD hostage negotiator who discovers a whole bunch of drama when a crew of robbers (led by Clive Owen) takes a bank hostage during a 24-hour period. Jodie Foster also appears as an interested party with uncertain motivations. You'll have to figure out what's going on several times over before the truth outs.

DRAFTHOUSE FILMS

The Invitation (2015)

This slow-burn horror-thriller preys on your social anxiety. The film's first half-hour, which finds Quarry's Logan Marshall-Green arriving at his ex-wife's house to meet her new husband, plays like a Sundance dramedy about 30-something yuppies and their relationship woes. As the minutes go by, director Karyn Kusama (Jennifer's Body) burrows deeper into the awkward dinner party, finding tension in unwelcome glances, miscommunication, and the possibility that Marshall-Green's character might be misreading a bizarre situation as a dangerous one. We won't spoil what happens, but let's just say this is a party you'll be telling your friends about.

Ip Man (2008)

There aren't many biopics that also pass for decent action movies. Somehow, Hong Kong action star Donnie Yen and director Wilson Yip made Ip Man (and three sequels!) based on the life of Chinese martial arts master Yip Kai-man, who famously trained Bruce Lee. What's their trick to keeping this series fresh? Play fast and loose with the facts, up the melodrama with each film, and, when in doubt, cast Mike Tyson as an evil property developer. The fights are incredible, and Yen's portrayal of the aging master still has the power to draw a few tears from even the most grizzled tough guy.

NETFLIX

The Irishman (2019)

Opening with a tracking shot through the halls of a drab nursing home, where we meet a feeble old man telling tall tales from his wheelchair, The Irishman delights in undercutting its own grandiosity. All the pageantry a $150 million check from Netflix can buy -- the digital de-aging effects, the massive crowd scenes, the shiny rings passed between men -- is on full display. Everything looks tremendous. But, like with 2013's The Wolf of Wall Street, the characters can't escape the fundamental spiritual emptiness of their pursuits. In telling the story of Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro), a World War II veteran and truck driver turned mob enforcer and friend to labor leader Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino), director Martin Scorsese and screenwriter Steven Zaillian construct an underworld-set counter-narrative of late 20th century American life. Even with a 209 minute runtime, every second counts.

It Comes at Night (2017)

In this post-apocalyptic nightmare-and-a-half, the horrors of humanity, the strain of chaotic emotions pent up in the name of survival, bleed out through wary eyes and weathered hands. The setup is blockbuster-sized -- reverts mankind to the days of the American frontier, every sole survivor fights to protect their families and themselves -- but the drama is mano-a-mano. Barricaded in a haunted-house-worthy cabin in the woods, Paul (Edgerton) takes in Will (Abbott) and his family, knowing full well they could threaten his family's existence. All the while, Paul's son, Trevor, battles bloody visions of (or induced by?) the contagion. Shults directs the hell out of every slow-push frame of this psychological thriller, and the less we know, the more confusion feels like a noose around our necks, the scarier his observations become.

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Jupiter Ascending (2015)

Jupiter Ascending is one of those "bad" movies that might genuinely be quite good. Yes, Channing Tatum is a man-wolf and Mila Kunis is the princess of space and bees don't sting space royalty and Eddie Redmayne hollers his little head off about "harvesting" people -- but what makes this movie great is how all of those things make total, absolute sense in the context of the story. The world the Wachowskis (yes, the Wachowskis!) created is so vibrant and strange and exciting, you almost can't help but get drawn in, even when Redmayne vamps so hard you're afraid he's about to pull a muscle. (And if you're a ballet fan, we have some good news for you.)

Jurassic Park (1993)

Perhaps the only movie that ever truly deserved a conversion to a theme-park ride, Steven Spielberg's thrilling adaptation of the Michael Crichton novel brought long-extinct creatures back to life in more ways than one. Benevolent Netflix gives us more than just the franchise starter, too: The Lost World and JP3 sequels are also available, so you can make a marathon of it.

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Killing Them Softly (2012)

Brad Pitt doesn't make conventional blockbusters anymore -- even World War Z had epidemic-movie ambitions -- so it's not surprising that this crime thriller is a little out there. Set during the financial crisis and presidential election of 2008, the film follows Pitt's hitman character as he makes sense of a poker heist gone wrong, leaving a trail of bodies and one-liners along the way. Mixed in with the carnage, you get lots of musings about the economy and American exceptionalism. It's not subtle -- there's a scene where Scoot McNairy and Ben Mendelsohn do heroin while the Velvet Underground's "Heroin" plays -- but, like a blunt object to the head, it gets the job done.

Lady Bird (2017)

The dizzying, frustrating, exhilarating rite of passage that is senior year of high school is the focus of actress Greta Gerwig's first directorial effort, the story of girl named Lady Bird (her given name, in that "it’s given to me, by me") who rebels against everyday Sacramento, California life to obtain whatever it is "freedom" turns out to be. Laurie Metcalf is an understated powerhouse as Lady Bird's mother, a constant source of contention who doggedly pushes her daughter to be successful in the face of the family's dwindling economic resources. It's a tragic note in total complement to Gerwig's hysterical love letter to home, high school, and the history of ourselves.

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The Lobster (2016)

Greek style master Yorgos Lanthimos' dystopian allegory against romance sees Colin Farrell forced to choose a partner in 45 days or he'll be turned into an animal of his choice, which is a lobster. Stuck in a group home with similarly unlucky singles, Farrell's David decides to bust out and join other renegades in a kind of anti-love terror cell that lives in the woods. It's part comedy of manners, part futuristic thriller, and it looks absolutely beautiful -- Lanthimos handles the bizarre premise with grace and a naturalistic eye that reminds the viewer that humans remain one of the most interesting animals to exist on this planet.

Mad Max (1979)

Before Tom Hardy was grunting his way through the desert and crushing tiny two-headed reptiles as Max Rockatansky, there was Mel Gibson. George Miller's 1979 original introduces the iconic character and paints the maximum force of his dystopian mythology in a somewhat more grounded light -- Australian police factions, communities, and glimmers of hope still in existence. Badass homemade vehicles and chase scenes abound in this taut, 88-minute romp. It's aged just fine.

Magic Mike (2012)

Steven Soderbergh's story of a Tampa exotic dancer with a heart of gold (Channing Tatum) has body-rolled its way to Netflix. Sexy dance routines aside, Mike's story is just gritty enough to be subversive. Did we mention Matthew McConaughey shows up in a pair of ass-less chaps?

The Master (2012)

Loosely inspired by the life of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard -- Dianetics buffs, we strongly recommend Alex Gibney's Going Clear documentary as a companion piece -- The Master boasts one of the late Philip Seymour Hoffman’s finest performances, as the enigmatic cult leader Lancaster Dodd. Joaquin Phoenix burns just as brightly as his emotionally stunted, loose-cannon protege Freddie Quell, who has a taste for homemade liquor. Paul Thomas Anderson’s cerebral epic lends itself to many different readings; it’s a cult story, it's a love story, it's a story about post-war disillusionment and the American dream, it's a story of individualism and the desire to belong. But the auteur's popping visuals and heady thematic currents will still sweep you away, even if you’re not quite sure where the tide is taking you.

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The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) (2017)

When Danny (Adam Sandler), Matthew (Ben Stiller) and Jean (Elizabeth Marvel), three half-siblings from three different mothers, gather at their family brownstone in New York to tend to their ailing father (Dustin Hoffman), a lifetime of familial politics explode out of every minute of conversation. Their narcissistic sculptor dad didn't have time for Danny. Matthew was the golden child. Jean was weird… or maybe disturbed by memories no one ever knew. Expertly sketched by writer-director Noah Baumbach (The Squid and the Whale) this memoir-like portrait of lives half-lived is the kind of bittersweet, dimensional character comedy we're now used to seeing told in three seasons of prestige television. Baumbach gives us the whole package in two hours.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)

The legendary British comedy troupe took the legend of King Arthur and offered a characteristically irreverent take on it in their second feature film. It's rare for comedy to hold up this well, but the timelessness of lines like, "I fart in your general direction!" "It's just a flesh wound," and "Run away!" makes this a movie worth watching again and again.

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Moonlight (2016)

Chronicling the boyhood years, teenage stretch, and muted adult life of Chiron, a black gay man making it in Miami, this triptych altarpiece is at once hyper-specific and cosmically universal. Director Barry Jenkins roots each moment in the last; Chiron's desire for a lost lover can't burn in a diner booth over a bottle of wine without his beachside identity crisis years prior, blurred and violent, or encounters from deeper in his past, when glimpses of his mother's drug addiction, or the mentoring acts of her crack supplier, felt like secrets delivered in code. Panging colors, sounds, and the delicate movements of its perfect cast like the notes of a symphony, Moonlight is the real deal, a movie that will only grow and complicate as you wrestle with it.

Mudbound (2017)

The South's post-slavery existence is, for Hollywood, mostly uncharted territory. Rees rectifies the overlooked stretch of history with this novelistic drama about two Mississippi families working a rain-drenched farm in 1941. The white McAllans settle on a muddy patch of land to realize their dreams. The Jacksons, a family of black sharecroppers working the land, have their own hopes, which their neighbors manage to nurture and curtail. To capture a multitude of perspectives, Mudbound weaves together specific scenes of daily life, vivid and memory-like, with family member reflections, recorded in whispered voice-over. The epic patchwork stretches from the Jackson family dinner table, where the youngest daughter dreams of becoming a stenographer, to the vistas of Mississippi, where incoming storms threaten an essential batch of crops, to the battlefields of World War II Germany, a harrowing scene that will affect both families. Confronting race, class, war, and the possibility of unity, Mudbound spellbinding drama reckons with the past to understand the present.

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My Happy Family (2017)

At 52, Manana (Ia Shughliashvili) packs a bag and walks out on her husband, son, daughter, daughter's live-in boyfriend, and elderly mother and father, all of whom live together in a single apartment. The family is cantankerous and blustery, asking everything of Manana, who spends her days teaching better-behaved teenagers about literature. But as Nana Ekvtimishvili and Simon Groß's striking character study unfolds, the motivation behind Manana's departure is a deeper strain of frustration, despite what her brother, aunts, uncles, and anyone else who can cram themselves into the situation would like us to think. Anchored by Ia Shughliashvili's stunningly internal performance, and punctured by a dark sense of humor akin to Darren Aronofsky's mother! (which would have been the perfect alternate title), My Happy Family is both delicate and brutal in its portrayal of independence, and should get under the skin of anyone with their own family drama.

The Naked Gun (1988)

The short-lived Dragnet TV spoof Police Squad! found a second life as The Naked Gun action-comedy movie franchise, and the first installment goes all in on Airplane! co-star Leslie Nielsen's brand of straight-laced dementia. Trying to explain The Naked Gun only makes the stupid sound stupider, but keen viewers will find jokes on top of jokes on top of jokes. It's the kind of movie that can crack "nice beaver," then pass a stuffed beaver through the frame and actually get away with it. Nielsen has everything to do with it; his Frank Drebin continues the grand Inspector Clouseau tradition in oh-so-'80s style.

The Notebook (2004)

"If you’re a bird, I’m a bird." It's a simple statement and a declaration of devotion that captures the staying power of this Nicholas Sparks classic. The film made Ryan Gosling a certified heartthrob, charting his working class character Noah's lovelorn romance with Rachel McAdam's wealthy character Allie. The star-crossed lovers narrative is enough to make even the most cynical among us swoon, but given that their story is told through an elderly man reading (you guessed it!) a notebook to a woman with dementia, it hits all of the tragic romance benchmarks to make you melt. Noah's commitment to following his heart -- and that passionate kiss in the rain -- make this a love story for the ages.

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Okja (2017)

This wild ride, part action heist, part Miyazaki-like travelogue, and part scathing satire, is fueled by fairy tale whimsy -- but the Grimm kind, where there are smiles and spilled blood. Ahn Seo-hyun plays Mija, the young keeper of a "super-pig," bred by a food manufacturer to be the next step in human-consumption evolution. When the corporate overlords come for her roly-poly pal, Mija hightails it from the farm to the big city to break him out, crossing environmental terrorists, a zany Steve Irwin-type (Gyllenhaal), and the icy psychos at the top of the food chain (including Swinton's childlike CEO) along the way. Okja won't pluck your heartstrings like E.T., but there's grandeur in its frenzy, and the film's cross-species friendship will strike up every other emotion with its empathetic, eco-friendly, and eccentric observations.

On Body and Soul (2017)

This Hungarian film earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Film, and it's easy to see why. The sparse love story begins when two slaughterhouse employees discover they have the same dream at night, in which they're both deer searching the winter forest for food. Endre, a longtime executive at the slaughterhouse, has a physically damaged arm, whereas Maria is a temporary replacement who seems to be on the autism spectrum. If the setup sounds a bit on-the-nose, the moving performances and the unflinching direction save On Body and Soul from turning into a Thomas Aquinas 101 class, resulting in the kind of bleak beauty you can find in a dead winter forest.

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The Other Side of the Wind (2018)

Don't go into Orson Welles' final film expecting it to be an easy watch. The Other Side of the Wind, which follows fictional veteran Hollywood director Jake Hannaford (tooootally not modeled after Welles himself) and his protegé (also tooootally not a surrogate for Welles' own friend and mentee Peter Bogdanovich, who also plays the character) as they attend a party in celebration of Hannaford's latest film and are beset on all sides by Hannaford's friends, enemies, and everyone in between. The film, which Welles hoped would be his big comeback to Hollywood, was left famously unfinished for decades after his death in 1985. Thanks to Bogdanovich and producer Frank Marshall, it was finally completed in 2018, and the result is a vibrant and bizarre throwback to Welles' own experimental 1970s style, made even more resonant if you know how intertwined the movie is with its own backstory. If you want to dive even deeper, Netflix also released a documentary about the restoration and completion of the film, They'll Love Me When I'm Dead, which delves into Welles' own complicated and tragic relationship with Hollywood and the craft of moviemaking.

Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)

Guillermo Del Toro’s dark odyssey Pan’s Labyrinth takes a fantasy setting to mirror the horrible political realities of the human realm. Set in 1940s Falangist Spain, the film documents the hero’s journey of a young girl and stepdaughter of a ruthless Spanish army officer as she seeks an escape from her war-occupied world. When a fairy informs her that her true destiny may be as the princess of the underworld, she seizes her chance. Like Alice in Wonderland if Alice had gone to Hell instead of down the rabbit hole, the Academy Award-winning film is a wondrous, frightening fairy tale where that depicts how perilous the human-created monster of war can be.

Paranormal Activity (2007)

This documentary-style film budgeted at a mere $15,000 made millions at the box office and went on to inspire a number of sequels, all because of how well its scrappiness lent to capturing what feels like a terrifying haunted reality. Centered on a young couple who is convinced an evil spirit is lurking in their home, the two attempt to capture its activity on camera, which, obviously, only makes their supernatural matters worse. It leans on found footage horror tropes made popular by The Blair Witch Project and as it tessellates between showing the viewer what’s captured on their camcorders and the characters’ perspectives, it’s easy to get lost in this disorienting supernatural thriller.

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Poltergeist (1982)

If you saw Poltergeist growing up, chances are you’re probably equally as haunted by Heather O’Rourke as she is in the film, playing a little girl tormented by ghosts in her family home. This Steven Spielberg-penned, Tobe Hooper-directed (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) paranormal flick is a certified cult classic and one of the best horror films of all time, coming from a simple premise about a couple whose home is infested with spirits obsessed with reclaiming the space and kidnapping their daughter. Poltergeist made rearranged furniture freaky, and you may remember a particularly iconic scene with a fuzzed out vintage television set. It’s may be nearly 40 years old, but the creepiness holds up.

Pride & Prejudice (2005)

Taking Jane Austen's literary classic and tricking it out with gorgeous long takes, director Joe Wright turns this tale of manners into a visceral, luminescent portrait of passion and desire. While Succession's Matthew MacFadyen might not make you forget Colin Firth from 1995's BBC adaptation, Keira Knightley is a revelation as the tough, nervy Lizzie Bennett. With fun supporting turns from Donald Sutherland, Rosamund Pike, and Judi Dench, it's a sumptuous period romance that transports you from the couch to the ballroom of your dreams -- without changing out of sweatpants.

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Private Life (2018)

Over a decade since the release of her last dark comedy, The Savages, writer and director Tamara Jenkins returned with a sprawling movie in the same vein: more hyper-verbal jerks you can't help but love. Richard (Paul Giamatti) and Rachel (Kathryn Hahn) are a Manhattan-dwelling couple who have spent the last few years attempting to have a baby with little success. When we meet them, they're already in the grips of fertility mania, willing to try almost anything to secure the offspring they think they desire. With all the details about injections, side effects, and pricey medical procedures, the movie functions as a taxonomy of modern pregnancy anxieties, and Hahn brings each part of the process to glorious life.

The Ritual (2018)

The Ritual, a horror film where a group of middle-aged men embark on a hiking trip in honor of a dead friend, understands the tension between natural beauty of the outdoors and the unsettling panic of the unknown. The group's de facto leader Luke (an understated Rafe Spall) attempts to keep the adventure from spiralling out of control, but the forest has other plans. (Maybe brush up on your Scandinavian mythology before viewing.) Like a backpacking variation on Neil Marshall's 2005 cave spelunking classic The Descent, The Ritual deftly explores inter-personal dynamics while delivering jolts of other-worldly terror. It'll have you rethinking that weekend getaway on your calendar.

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Roma (2018)

All those billions Netflix spent paid off in the form of several Oscar nominations for Roma, including one for Best Picture and a win for Best Director. Whether experienced in the hushed reverence of a theater, watched on the glowing screen of a laptop, or, as Netflix executive Ted Sarandos has suggested, binged on the perilous surface of a phone, Alfonso Cuarón's black-and-white passion project seeks to stun. A technical craftsman of the highest order, the Children of Men and Gravity director has an aesthetic that aims to overwhelm -- with the amount of extras, the sense of despair, and the constant whir of exhilaration -- and this autobiographical portrait of kind-hearted maid Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio) caring for a family in the early 1970s has been staged on a staggering, mind-boggling scale.

Schindler's List (1993)

A passion project for Steven Spielberg, who shot it back-to-back with another masterpiece, Jurassic Park, Schindler's List tells the story of Oskar Schindler, a German businessman who reportedly saved over 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust. Frank, honest, and stark in its depiction of Nazi violence, the three-hour historical drama is a haunting reminder of the world's past, every frame a relic, every lost voice channeled through Itzhak Perlman's mourning violin.

A Serious Man (2009)

This dramedy from the Coen brothers stars Michael Stuhlbarg as Larry Gopnik, a Midwestern physics professor who just can't catch a break, whether it's with his wife, his boss, or his rabbi. (Seriously, if you're having a bad day, this airy flick gives you ample time to brood and then come to the realization that your life isn't as shitty as you think.) Meditating on the spiritual and the temporal, Gopnik's improbable run of bad luck is a smart modern retelling of the Book of Job, with more irony and fewer plagues and pestilences. But not much fewer.

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Shadow (2019)

In Shadow, the visually stunning action epic from Hero and House of Flying Daggers wuxia master Zhang Yimou, parasols are more than helpful sun-blockers: They can be turned into deadly weapons, shooting boomerang-like blades of steel at oncoming attackers and transforming into protective sleds for traveling through the slick streets. These devices are one of many imaginative leaps made in telling this Shakespearean saga of palace intrigue, vengeance, and secret doppelgangers set in China's Three Kingdoms period. This is a martial arts epic where the dense plotting is as tricky as the often balletic fight scenes. If the battles in Game of Thrones left you frustrated, Shadow provides a thrilling alternative.

She's Gotta Have It (1986)

Before checking out Spike Lee's Netflix original series of the same name, be sure to catch up with where it all began. Nola (Tracy Camilla Johns) juggles three men during her sexual pinnacle, and it's all working out until they discover one another. She's Gotta Have It takes some dark turns, but each revelation speaks volumes about what real romantic independence is all about.

The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

The late director Jonathan Demme's 1991 film is the touchstone for virtually every serial killer film and television show that came after. The iconic closeup shots of an icy, confident Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) as he and FBI newbie Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) engage in their "quid pro quo" interrogation sessions create almost unbearable tension as Buffalo Bill (Ted Levine) remains on the loose, killing more victims. Hopkins delivers the more memorable lines, and Buffalo Bill's dance is the stuff of nerve-wracking anxiety nightmares, but it's Foster's nuanced performance as a scared, determined, smart-yet-hesitant agent that sets Silence of the Lambs apart from the rest of the serial killer pack.

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Silver Linings Playbook (2012)

Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper, and David O. Russell’s first collaboration -- and the film that turned J-Law into a bona fide golden girl -- is a romantic comedy/dramedy/dance-flick that bounces across its tonal shifts. A love story between Pat (Cooper), a man struggling with bipolar disease and a history of violent outbursts, and Tiffany (Lawrence), a widow grappling with depression, who come together while rehearsing for an amateur dance competition, Silver Linings balances an emotionally realistic depiction of mental illness with some of the best twirls and dips this side of Step Up. Even if you're allergic to rom-coms, Lawrence and Cooper’s winning chemistry will win you over, as will this sweet little gem of a film: a feel-good, affecting love story that doesn’t feel contrived or treacly.

Sin City (2005)

Frank Miller enlisted Robert Rodriguez as co-director to translate the former's wildly popular series of the same name to the big screen, and with some added directorial work from Quentin Tarantino, the result became a watershed moment in the visual history of film. The signature black-and-white palette with splashes of color provided a grim backdrop to the sensational violence of the miniaturized plotlines -- this is perhaps the movie that feels more like a comic than any other movie you'll ever see.

Sinister (2012)

Horror-movie lesson #32: If you move into a creepy new house, do not read the dusty book, listen to the decaying cassette tapes, or watch the Super 8 reels you find in the attic -- they will inevitably lead to your demise. In Sinister, a true-crime author (played by Ethan Hawke) makes the final mistake, losing his mind to home movies haunted by the "Bughuul."

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Small Crimes (2017)

It's always a little discombobulating to see your favorite Game of Thrones actors in movies that don't call on them to fight dragons, swing swords, or at least wear some armor. But that shouldn't stop you from checking out Small Crimes, a carefully paced thriller starring the Kingslayer Jaime Lannister himself, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau. As Joe Denton, a crooked cop turned ex-con, Coster-Waldau plays yet another character with a twisted moral compass, but here he's not part of some mythical narrative. He's just another conniving, scheming dirtbag in director E.L. Katz's Coen brothers-like moral universe. While some of the plot details are confusing -- Katz and co-writer Macon Blair skimp on the exposition so much that some of the dialogue can feel incomprehensible -- the mood of Midwestern dread and Coster-Waldau's patient, lived-in performance make this one worth checking out. Despite the lack of dragons.

Snowpiercer (2013)

Did people go overboard in praising Snowpiercer when it came out? Maybe. But it's important to remember that the movie arrived in the sweaty dog days of summer, hitting critics and sci-fi lovers like a welcome blast of icy water from a hose. The film's simple, almost video game-like plot -- get to the front of the train, or die trying -- allowed visionary South Korean director Bong Joon-ho to fill the screen with excitement, absurdity, and radical politics. Chris Evans never looked more alive, Tilda Swinton never stole more scenes, and mainstream blockbuster filmmaking never felt so tepid in comparison. Come on, ride the train!

The Social Network (2010)

After making films like Seven, The Game, Fight Club, Panic Room, and Zodiac, director David Fincher left behind the world of scumbags and crime for a fantastical, historical epic in 2008's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. The Social Network was another swerve, but yielded his greatest film. There's no murder on screen, but Fincher treats Jesse Eisenberg's Mark Zuckerberg like a dorky, socially awkward mob boss operating on an operatic scale. Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin's rapid-fire, screwball-like dialogue burns with a moral indignation that Fincher's watchful, steady-handed camera chills with an icy distance. It's the rare biopic that's not begging you to smash the "like" button.

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Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)

In this shrewd twist on the superhero genre, the audience's familiarity with the origin story of your friendly neighborhood web-slinger -- the character has already starred in three different blockbuster franchises, in addition to countless comics and cartoon TV adaptations -- is used as an asset instead of a liability. The relatively straight-forward coming-of-age tale of Miles Morales (Shameik Moore), a Brooklyn teenager who takes on the powers and responsibilities of Spider-Man following the death of Peter Parker, gets a remix built around an increasingly absurd parallel dimension plotline that introduces a cast of other Spider-Heroes like Spider-Woman (Hailee Steinfeld), Spider-Man Noir (Nicolas Cage), Peni Parker (Kimiko Glen), and, most ridiculously, Spider-Ham (John Mulaney), a talking pig in a Spider-Suit. The convoluted set-up is mostly an excuse to cram the movie with rapid-fire jokes, comic book allusions, and dream-like imagery that puts the rubbery CGI of most contemporary animated films to shame.

Spotlight (2015)

Tom McCarthy stretches the drama taut as he renders Boston Globe's 2000 Catholic Church sex scandal investigation into a Hollywood vehicle. McCarthy's notable cast members crank like gears as they uncover evidence and reflect on a horrifying discovery of which they shoulder partial blame. Spotlight was the cardigan of 2015's Oscar nominees, but even cardigans look sharp when Mark Ruffalo is involved.

The Squid and the Whale (2005)

No movie captures the prolonged pain of divorce quite like Noah Baumbach's brutal Brooklyn-based comedy The Squid and the Whale. While the performances from Jeff Daniels and Laura Linney as bitter writers going through a separation are top-notch, the film truly belongs to the kids, played by Jesse Eisenberg and Owen Kline, who you watch struggle in the face of their parents' mounting immaturity and pettiness. That Baumbach is able to wring big, cathartic laughs from such emotionally raw material is a testament to his gifts as a writer -- and an observer of human cruelty.

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Starship Troopers (1997)

Paul Verhoeven is undoubtedly the master of the sly sci-fi satire. With RoboCop, he laid waste to the police state with wicked, trigger-happy glee. He took on evil corporations with Total Recall. And with Starship Troopers, a bouncy, bloody war picture, he skewered the chest-thumping theatrics of pro-military propaganda, offering up a pitch-perfect parody of the post-9/11 Bush presidency years before troops set foot in Iraq or Afghanistan. Come for the exploding alien guts, but stay for the winking comedy -- or stay for both! Bug guts have their charms, too.

Swiss Army Man (2016)

You might think a movie that opens with a suicidal man riding a farting corpse like a Jet Ski wears thin after the fourth or fifth flatulence gag. You would be wrong. Brimming with imagination and expression, the directorial debut of Adult Swim auteurs "The Daniels" wields sophomoric humor to speak to friendship. As Radcliffe's dead body springs back to life -- through karate-chopping, water-vomiting, and wind-breaking -- he becomes the id to Dano's struggling everyman, who is also lost in the woods. If your childhood backyard adventures took the shape of The Revenant, it would look something like Swiss Army Man, and be pure bliss.

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Tallulah (2016)

From Orange Is the New Black writer Sian Heder, Tallulah follows the title character (played by Ellen Page) after she inadvertently "kidnaps" a toddler from an alcoholic rich woman and passes the child off as her own to appeal to her run-out boyfriend's mother (Allison Janney). A messy knot of familial woes and wayward instincts, Heder's directorial debut achieves the same kind of balancing act as her hit Netflix series -- frank social drama with just the right amount of humorous hijinks. As Tallulah grows into a mother figure, her on-the-lam parenting course only makes her more and more of a criminal in the eyes of... just about everyone. You want to root for her, but that would be too easy.

Taxi Driver (1976)

Travis Bickle (a young Bobby De Niro) comes back from the Vietnam War and, having some trouble acclimating to daily life, slowly unravels while fending off brutal insomnia by picking up work as a... taxi driver... in New York City. Eventually he snaps, shaves his hair into a mohawk and goes on a murderous rampage while still managing to squeeze in one of the most New York lines ever captured on film ("You talkin' to me?"). It's not exactly a heartwarmer -- Jodie Foster plays a 12-year-old prostitute -- but Martin Scorsese's 1976 Taxi Driver is a movie in the cinematic canon that you'd be legitimately missing out on if you didn't watch it.

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The Theory of Everything (2014)

In his Oscar-winning performance, Eddie Redmayne portrays famed physicist Stephen Hawking -- though The Theory of Everything is less of a biopic than it is a beautiful, sweet film about his lifelong relationship with his wife, Jane (Felicity Jones). Covering his days as a young cosmology student ahead of his diagnosis of ALS at 21, through his struggle with the illness and rise as a theoretical scientist, this film illustrates the trying romance through it all. While it may be written in the cosmos, this James Marsh-directed film that weaves in and out of love will have you experience everything there is to feel.

There Will Be Blood (2007)

Paul Thomas Anderson found modern American greed in the pages of Upton Sinclair's depression-era novel, Oil!. Daniel Day-Lewis found the role of a lifetime behind the bushy mustache of Daniel Plainview, thunderous entrepreneur. Paul Dano found his milkshake drunk up. Their discoveries are our reward -- There Will Be Blood is a stark vision of tycoon terror.

Time to Hunt (2020)

Unrelenting in its pursuit of scenarios where guys point big guns at each other in sparsely lit empty hallways, the South Korean thriller Time to Hunt knows exactly what stylistic register it's playing in. A group of four friends, including Parasite and Train to Busan break-out Choi Woo-shik, knock over a gambling house, stealing a hefty bag of money and a set of even more valuable hard-drives, and then find themselves targeted by a ruthless contract killer (Park Hae-soo) who moves like the T-1000 and shoots like a henchmen in a Michael Mann movie. There are dystopian elements to the world -- protests play out in the streets, the police wage a tech-savvy war on citizens, automatic rifles are readily available to all potential buyers -- but they all serve the simmering tension and elevate the pounding set-pieces instead of feeling like unnecessary allegorical padding. Even with its long runtime, this movie moves.

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Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)

If a season of 24 took place in the smoky, well-tailored underground of British intelligence crica 1973, it might look a little like this precision-made John le Carré adaptation from Let the Right One In director Tomas Alfredson. Even if you can't follow terse and tightly-woven mystery, the search for Soviet mole led by retired operative George Smiley (Gary Oldman), the ice-cold frames and stellar cast will suck you into the intrigue. It's very possible Oldman, Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, John Hurt, Toby Jones, Mark Strong, and Benedict Cumberbatch are reading pages of the British phone book, but egad, it's absorbing. A movie that rewards your full concentration.

To All the Boys I've Loved Before (2018)

Of all the entries in the rom-com revival, this one is heavier on the rom than the com. But even though it won't make your sides hurt, it will make your heart flutter. The plot is ripe with high school movie hijinks that arise when the love letters of Lara Jean Covey (the wonderful Lana Condor) accidentally get mailed to her crushes, namely the contractual faux relationship she starts with heartthrob Peter Kavinsky (Noah Centineo). Like its heroine, it's big-hearted but skeptical in all the right places.

Total Recall (1990)

Skip the completely forgettable Colin Farrell remake from 2012. This Arnold Schwarzenegger-powered, action-filled sci-fi movie is the one to go with. Working from a short story by writer Philip K. Dick, director Paul Verhoeven (Robocop) uses a brain-teasing premise -- you can buy "fake" vacation memories from a mysterious company called Rekall -- to stage one of his hyper-violent, winkingly absurd cartoons. The bizarre images of life on Mars and silly one-liners from Arnold fly so fast that you'll begin to think the whole movie was designed to be implanted in your mind.

NETFLIX

Tramps (2017)

There are heists pulled off by slick gentlemen in suits, then there are heists pulled off by two wayward 20-somethings rambling along on a steamy, summer day in New York City. This dog-day crime-romance stages the latter, pairing a lanky Russian kid (Callum Tanner) who ditches his fast-food register job for a one-off thieving gig, with his driver, an aloof strip club waitress (Grace Van Patten) looking for the cash to restart her life. When a briefcase handoff goes awry, the pair head upstate to track down the missing package, where train rides and curbside walks force them to open up. With a laid-back, '70s soul, Tramps is the rare doe-eyed relationship movie where playing third-wheel is a joy.

Uncut Gems (2019)

In Uncut Gems, the immersive crime film from sibling director duo Josh and Benny Safdie, gambling is a matter of faith. Whether he's placing a bet on the Boston Celtics, attempting to rig an auction, or outrunning debt-collecting goons at his daughter's high school play, the movie's jeweler protagonist Howard Ratner (Adam Sandler) believes in his ability to beat the odds. Does that mean he always succeeds? No, that would be absurd, undercutting the character's Job-like status, which Sandler imbues with an endearing weariness that holds the story together. But every financial setback, emotional humbling, and spiritual humiliation he suffers gets interpreted by Howard as a sign that his circumstances might be turning around. After all, a big score could be right around the corner.

Velvet Buzzsaw (2018)

Nightcrawler filmmaker Dan Gilroy teams up with Jake Gyllenhaal again to create another piece of cinematic art, this time a satirical horror film about the exclusive, over-the-top LA art scene. The movie centers around a greedy group of art buyers who come into the possession of stolen paintings that, unbeknownst to them, turn out to be haunted, making their luxurious lives of wheeling and dealing overpriced paintings a living hell. Also featuring the likes of John Malkovich, Toni Collette, Billy Magnussen, and others, Velvet Buzzsaw looks like Netflix’s next great original.

COLUMBIA PICTURES

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (2007)

Oscar-baiting, musician biopics became so cookie-cutter by the mid-'00s that it was easy for John C. Reilly, Judd Apatow, and writer-director Jake Kasdan (Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle) to knot them all together for the ultimate spoof. Dewey Cox is part Johnny Cash, part Bob Dylan, part Ray Charles, part John Lennon, part anyone-you-can-think-of, rising with hit singles, rubbing shoulders with greats of many eras, stumbling with eight-too-many drug addictions, then rising once again. When it comes to relentless wisecracking, Walk Hard is like a Greatest Hits compilation -- every second is gold.

The Witch (2015)

The Witch delivers everything we don't see in horror today. The backdrop, a farm in 17th-century New England, is pure misty, macabre mood. The circumstance, a Puritanical family making it on the fringe of society because they're too religious, bubbles with terror. And the question, whether devil-worshipping is hocus pocus or true black magic, keeps each character on their toes, and begging God for answers. The Witch tests its audience with its (nearly impenetrable) old English dialogue and the (anxiety-inducing) trials of early American life, but the payoff will keep your mind racing, and your face hiding under the covers, for days.

Y Tu Mamá También (2001)

Before taking us to space with Gravity, director Alfonso Cuarón steamed up screens with this provocative, comedic drama about two teenage boys (Diego Luna and Gael García Bernal) road-trippin' it with an older woman. Like a sunbaked Jules and Jim, the movie makes nimble use of its central love triangle, setting up conflicts between the characters as they move through the complicated political and social realities of Mexican life. It's a confident, relaxed film that's got an equal amount of brains and sex appeal. Watch this one with a friend -- or two.

PARAMOUNT PICTURES

Zodiac (2007)

David Fincher's period drama is for obsessives. In telling the story of the Zodiac Killer, a serial murderer who captured the public imagination by sending letters and puzzles to the Bay Area press, the famously meticulous director zeroes in on the cops, journalists, and amateur code-breakers who made identifying the criminal their life's work. With Jake Gyllenhaal's cartoonist-turned-gumshoe Robert Graysmith at the center, and Robert Downey Jr.'s barfly reporter Paul Avery stumbling around the margins, the film stretches across time and space, becoming a rich study of how people search for meaning in life. Zodiac is a procedural thriller that makes digging through old manilla folders feel like a cosmic quest.

13th (2016)

Selma director Ava DuVernay snuck away from the Hollywood spotlight to direct this sweeping documentary on the state of race in America. DuVernay's focus is the country's growing incarceration rates and an imbalance in the way black men and women are sentenced based on their crimes. Throughout the exploration, 13th dives into post-Emancipation migration, systemic racism that built in the early 20th century, and moments of modern political history that continue to spin a broken gear in our well-oiled national machine. You'll be blown away by what DuVernay uncovers in her interview-heavy research.

20th Century Women (2016)

If there's such thing as an epistolary movie, 20th Century Women is it. Touring 1970s Santa Barbara through a living flipbook, Mike Mills's semi-autobiographical film transcends documentation with a cast of wayward souls and Jamie (Lucas Jade Zumann), an impressionable young teenager. Annette Bening plays his mother, and the matriarch of a ragtag family, who gather together for safety, dance to music when the moment strikes, and teach Jamie the important lesson of What Women Want, which ranges from feminist theory to love-making techniques. The kid soaks it up like a sponge. Through Mills's caring direction, and characters we feel extending infinitely through past and present, so do we.

for more cool stuff life this, follow my page an send me a message for suggestions and queries

[bonesandpoemsandflowers]

Hey! I am asking for advice. I fucked up a few years ago at the telling apart ghosts and gods and would rather not go through that again. Could you help me out? I really want to get back into it but that was a very bad experience so I'm anxious. Thank you!!

Anon, I love this question and if you're willing to drop some more details in my inbox, anon or not, please do. I'm sorry that you had such a bad experience, but take heart, maybe, that everybody does this at SOME point, and taking a few years off to process is actually a pretty snappy turnaround time.

(spooky occult people only pls)

(scroll along, the rest of you)

It IS a tricky question, though.

Tough love up front: there is no entirely safe, entirely pleasant way to do magic. Fundamentally magic is transformative and therefore often uncomfortable. There's fears and negative emotions to work through, and there's also just some straight up tedium and drudgery, and no matter how cool you are, no matter how sure you feel about your place in the grand scheme of the universe, you will eventually question everything and get some things wrong. There will not only always be risk: sooner or later there will be pain.

But! Is it worth it? ABSOLUTELY, anon, and I'm not gonna try to persuade you because if you're asking, you've already made up your mind. You just want to not make the same mistakes over again. You want to make brand new mistakes! It is the only way to move forward.

There is a difference between the merely uncomfortable and the truly dangerous, so ultimately it's a game of knowing when fear is a just a trial to get through versus when fear is a warning keeping you safe. The first time I tried to answer this question I made a quick list of protections, but that's not really the issue. You're wiser than that. You're asking about something diagnostic.

Discernment is the greatest occult skill and one that’s difficult to quantify. It's one of those paradoxes of inexperience, nigh impossible to hone without practice, yet a skill you need in order to get out there and practice.

whatever your prior experience was: what did you learn from it? what was the point where you started to feel something went wrong? identifying that moment, how it felt, how you felt it, will help you more than anything I or anyone else can tell you.

I am, honestly, not the best person to describe how to increase your psychic sensitivity or whatever. The good news, maybe, is that you don't have to be great at discernment before you start. Yes, you can put all your effort into sharpening your senses before you even go out there, which is a noble way of doing it and maybe it will eventually even work, OR—you can put on some safety gear and wade out into the swamp wearing your little floaties so that you don't sink.

Your metaphorical swimming wings here are protections and banishments and the preemptive assistance of something bigger than you on your side. This answer is mostly going to focus on that last part, because "ghosts and gods" implies, I think, that you are ready to work with gods, or at least eager, which is, like, at least half of the process.

However, even then, I do wanna say—while I don't want to discount your negative experiences at all! I don't know anything about them, but I'm sure it was awful!—you, all by yourself, can probably banish most ghostly things you're likely to run into. There's a lotta bark, and usually not that much bite. I wrote up some less formal banishing methods and posted them here on ye old witch blogge, but really, you can mostly just yell at stuff to leave.

(there is a fair amount of repetition between this post and that one! I apologize. I mostly typed these late at night over the course of several days)

Now! Assistance. An ounce of prevention vs a pound of cure and it’s good to pack light.

So much of magic across time and cultures is about negotiating with spirits of some flavor or another. Maybe it's worship or maybe it's bindings or maybe it's strictly transactional, but as beings made of flesh we are forever making pacts with beings made of something else, and hey, it usually works.

The complication here is that the distinction between ghosts and gods maybe isn't that simple. Mess with the wording a little and Catholic saints are basically both. And so are some orisha, some loa, and so on. Baron Samedi (lord of the cemetery, best bang since the big one, etc etc etc) in particular, out of the vodou pantheon, may or may not have been human once, depending on who you ask.

Further: the most readily available spooky occult forces you have are your ancestors. So you'd file that under ghosts, maybe, except that with ancestral veneration practices and all, we inch closer to god territory, in a sense. At least—the rituals start looking the same from an outside perspective. Santeria, Vodou, Epiritismo and many more practices that the ones I'm familiar with involve working with your ancestors to accomplish your worldly goals. We don't consider them ghosts when we work with them; that's not the word we use. But arguably—why not?

So the trick here isn't necessarily how to sort ghosts from gods as much as it is to hang out with some NICE (to you) ghosts and/or gods.

How do you do that?

If you have a good relationship with your ancestors, then you start there. If you, like me, or lots of other long disowned and disinherited magicians, have a disconnect there, then—welp. Consider getting over it by going back further in the family tree (this is what you will inevitably eventually do). Somewhere in there you have someone kind, I promise. But that's not advice I could have followed ten years ago, so I'll get to the alternative in a minute. Let's assume, for the moment, that you accept the logic that your ancestors have a vested interest in protecting their line, and in fact having an active magic user willing to work with them probably makes their afterlives much easier.

There's tons of guides online about how to work with your ancestors. I think sincere, unstructured prayer and a glass of water are the simplest and most powerful of offerings. A candle, if you have one. Just flipping on a lamp or a light switch if you don't.

(I travel with a little LED tealight and a mala made of skull beads carved from ox bone, but I am unnecessarily spooky and dramatic. If anything, my ancestors prefer the plain obsidian mala I first started with. But the aesthetic.)

I'm very, very informal in my ancestral practice. It still works.

Tell them you want to establish a working connection, talk to them about what's going on in your life. Keep it short and don't worry about whether or not you feel anything yet. It might take weeks before you feel something, and that's okay—discernment is, like I've said, the most important but also hardest skill, and it usually takes time and repetition. Offer them something—anything, really, and honestly the plain glass of water is traditional—and ask for their protection. They will almost certainly give it to you.

"But Flowers," you might say. "Fuck that and fuck 'em. I'm not ready to fuck with my family yet."

Alright, little one! I feel ya. It took me ages to warm up to the idea. I promise that it's worth it when you're ready, but having covered ghosts, let's move on to

GODS

Step one: ask yourself if you need to fuck around with gods in the first place.

Step two: fuck around and find out.

Step three varies depending on who you're looking for. There is a great deal of anxiety about this in occult circles, especially among people who use the term "baby witch." People are terrified of making the wrong choice. They want it to be PERFECT. They want to be correct. "Who is calling me?" ask a thousand seekers, across forums and places. "I saw a butterfly the other day. IS IT A SIGN?"

(shit, dude, I dunno, probably not, but potentially maybe. Nobody can know but you. just keep in mind that butterflies etc exist on their own and go around doing their own thing and this has absolutely nothing to do with you the vast majority of the time)

You don't need to be wait to be called by a god to offer worship and/or develop a working relationship. I would argue that most people aren't really called, and if you are, you will KNOW. Tumblr likes to say gods need consent and I think that's fucking hilarious. There is no folkloric precedent for that. If you are Called, capital letter Called, you will know, and whatever happens next is between you whatever bizarre shamanic experience you end up having, because you WILL have it, good luck.

But probably that's not the issue here! Moving on with our hypothetical.

You're not waiting around for divine intervention. You're being proactive. You're not waiting for The Call, or even a mild call. How do you choose what god you're petitioning for protection? I doubt you're entirely neutral about it. You probably have a god you identify with or just find really friggin cool. That's a fine and dandy place to start.

The working relationship need not be forever.

Which brings me to my next point. If you are absolutely undecided about what direction to go in, consider going to one of the liminal gods. Your crossroads gods, your messenger gods, often trickster gods. Your between spaces gods. Your portal opening gods.

In Santeria and Vodou, which I keep on referring back to because those are the systems I was raised in, your messenger gods get called very early on in the ritual. Why? To open the way for everybody else. There's a suggestion here that certain gods are closer or more easily reached, so if you want an opener—ask somebody with keys, yeah?

(also technically there's spirits called before then like the rhythm/dance/drums but let's not complicate things. Broadly speaking: key holding gods first)

Catholic saints wise, you've got Saint Peter, right? Santeria has Elegua. Vodou has Legba. Vodou also has the Baron as a crossroads god and yer liminal spaces god and sometimes he also has keys and hey by the way, he's really great, but where was I?

Hermes is another option. Mercury.

There's a bunch of American indigenous options I don't know enough about to confidently say.

SPEAKING of indigenous american, right, there's always Quetzalcoatl—technically—sky god, wind god, messenger god.

There's Odin and I'm actually a big fan, but the Norse magic community is often kind of garbage these days because we've got too many nazis running around, which is a shame.

My point is: there's gonna be somebody who feels close, either because of your cultural background or your aesthetic, and you might as well ask.

Settle down. Call their name. Offer water and a prayer and ask for protection, tell them what it is you want to do, ask for their help on this new life journey.

Worship isn't really complicated unless you want it to be.

Again, don't worry about "feeling" anything. Don't expect anything dramatic. Just offer something, every day or every week or whenever you have the time and headspace for it. Do the motions and mean it even a little bit and with time the rest shall come.

Because EVENTUALLY, you will feel something. It will probably be a mild sense of peace. The ritual feels calming. Something about it feels cozy. Presence is often subtle, but that counts.

Once you feel solidly good about your ritual, I would say that means you have at least some degree of protection, and it's time to wade around the swamp and see what's up. What do you do next? I dunno! I don't know what your goals are! But you have your ancestors at your back, or you're on a god team, or maybe BOTH—go explore!

Confidence isn't everything. But confidence, my friend, is a LOT. There's more to it, of course, but especially early on: fake it till you make it and dream it and you'll be it.

Best of luck, anon. <3

[tighnaurri]

Cloudtop pt. 3 // Mark & Jaemin

Part 1 // Part 2 // NCT as Angels and Demons

Angel! Mark X Reader X Jaemin

Rating: PG-13

Length: 2,482 words

Summary:  Every morning you wake up with small wounds; just little scrapes and bruises you attribute to flailing in your sleep. This morning, you woke up with a huge cut across your hip, a glowing golden dagger plunged into the wall, and what looks an awful lot like a dead angel on your floor.

Masterlist

-

Jaemin came sprinting to your door the moment he heard you scream.

“Y/N?” he called through your bedroom door, voice worried. When you didn’t respond, he cracked the door open, eyes wide.

You covered your wound with one hand and your mouth with the other, stifling another cry. Upon seeing your shaking figure, Jaemin rushed over, wrapping you in his arms.

“Hey,” he whispered, rubbing your back. “It’ll be okay.”

You cried, cursing internally.

I thought the pain was over, you thought. I thought Mark would protect me.

“What happened?” He asked, pulling back slightly to look at your neck. “Blood…?”

You tried pushing him away, clamping your hand harder over the wound despite the pain. Jaemin wrestled with you, pulling your hand away from the bloody cut. He frowned as you tried to wiggle away.

“God…” He muttered, pulling away to hold you at arms length. He gently pushed you onto the bed, forcing you sit.

As his hands moved across you, inspecting the cut, you felt a prickle up your spine. Something felt off about Jaemin. He felt familiar – and in a bad way.

He leaned down, brushing the hair out of your eyes as he gave you a wide smile. “It’ll be okay. I’ll go get the bandages.” He leaned forward, pressing a kiss to your cheek. As he did so, the bad feeling passed. You nodded, rasping out your thanks.

-

“What happened to your neck?” Jungwoo asked the following day at work.

You had hoped no one was going to ask.

Your hand immediately went up to touch the white bandages, fingertips trailing over them in reflex to his question. “This? Oh, it was just a little accident in the kitchen.”

Jungwoo tilted his head, “Really?”

“Yeah,” your voice cracked. “I was, um, reaching for a glass and it fell. Shattered everywhere.” You gestured to your neck, turning away from Jungwoo’s analytical eyes, “One of the shards flew and…” Your voice cracked again, and you backed up a step, unconsciously retreating.

Jungwoo frowned, “Y/N…”

“It’s fine.”

He put down the wires he had been organizing, walking closer to you. You couldn’t find it in yourself to move away, as much as you wished you could. Your legs were rooted to the spot as he wrapped you in his arms.

He was so warm and familiar that you couldn’t resist laying your head down on his shoulder. He rubbed his hands up and down your back, whispering that it was okay, and that you were safe. It struck a cord inside you, forcing the repressed emotions to the surface.

You had been pretending that the return of the dark entity was not happening, but it very much was, and you were terrified.

You sobbed on his shoulder, tears streaming down your face as you cried into the crook of his neck.

“I’m so scared Jungwoo,” you cried. “I don’t know what to do.”

“It’s okay,” he placated. “I don’t know what’s happening, and you probably don’t feel comfortable talking about it, so I’m going to make you an offer. Tonight, or any day that works for you, you can come home with me and tell me what’s been going on. I promise I’ll take care of you.”

“Jungwoo…” your hands gripped his shirt so tightly that you had bundles of fabric in your fists.

“If you think you’re being a bother, you’re not. You are my friend. I want to help.” He rocked the two of you side to side, making you laugh through the slowing tears. You continued to cry lightly until you felt better, Jungwoo cracking jokes until the frown on your lips was replaced with a broad grin and smiling eyes.

-

That evening, you went home with Jungwoo. He lived in a different part of the city than you did. It was within the same radius of the college as your apartment with Jaemin, just on the southside. It looked less suited for shifty college students and more for long term residents.

His apartment was on the ground level, a “closed” side displayed in the street facing window. Your eyebrow quirked, wondering if it was some edgy decoration or if he genuinely ran a shop out of his home.

Jungwoo welcomed you in, holding the door open and gesturing for you to take a seat on his couch, shoes off. You took a seat as he headed to the open kitchen to brew the both of you some tea, claiming it was “part of the help.”

You curled your feet up under yourself, grabbing a throw pillow to lean on. The couch seemed to suck you in, like a fluffy chasm. You struggled to sit up when Jungwoo returned with two cups of tea, one for himself and one for you.

“Drink up,” he said, voice as soft as the couch that currently trying to eat you. You thanked him for it, glancing around his apartment as you sipped.

Instead of having overhead lights, he simply had a lot of lamps strewn throughout the room, creating a gentle, comforting ambience. Books lined the shelves, the mantle above the fireplace, and even the windowsill. Looking closely, you saw that a good bit of them were on herbology, but the rest were on more unusual topics, ranging from astrology to tasseography to books that weren’t even in English – the spines adorned with Latin instead. Those looked the oldest.

“I didn’t know you were so into the occult,” you marveled, eying the taxidermy cat in the corner next to what looked like a bowl of small animal bones.

“Ah, yeah,” Jungwoo smiled lightly and nodded, “I hope you don’t find it disturbing. I don’t talk about it too often.”

“It’s fine,” you said, although looking at the bones made your skin feel itchy. “So…”

“So…” Jungwoo mirrored, sitting back in his chair. You snorted at his copy-cat ways and he gave you a little grin, “Are you finished with your tea?”

You took your last sip, leaving a little liquid in the fine china to avoid slurping up any of the loose tea leaves. You set it on the table, “Now I am.”

“Good,” Jungwoo set down his own cup of tea, despite it being unfinished, and picked up yours. “Then we can get started.”

You frowned in confusion as he swished your cup of tea before you realized he was reading your tea leaves. You tried to keep an open mind as he inspected the leaves, reminding yourself that if angels were real, wiccan practices sure as hell had a chance to be real as well.

Jungwoo set down the teacup and looked at you. “Tell me about your situation.”

“You’re not going to tell me what all that swishing was about?”

He shook his head. “No, or at least not yet. I just wanted to confirm something, so you needn’t hold back any details.”

You raised your eyebrows.

Talk about cryptic…

“Well, you know how I was coming into work tired all the time?” Jungwoo nodded. “This is related to that.” You paused, taking a deep breath. When you though about it, you had never said any of this aloud, even to yourself. “I had been waking up with cuts and bruises nearly every morning for a little over a month. It wasn’t bad, until one day it just… it got bad quick. Like, a ‘bleed out in 10 minutes’ kinda bad.”

You took a deep breath, voice wavering. “I’m… you’re going to think I’m crazy.”

“I promise I won’t. There’s very little you could ever say to me that’ll make me think that.” He reached down and took a sip of his tea, gesturing for you to continue.

“I, uh…” your voice squeaked as you blinked back stressed tears. No more crying. “An angle – my guardian angel – saved me, um, that night. And now he happens to be my neighbor. And last night the injuries resumed, which is why I have the cut on my neck, and now I’m just… I’m freaking out. I legitimately don’t know what to do. I’ve tried everything.”

“Do you know what’s harming you?”

“No,” you said, voice dropping to a whisper. “I have no idea.”

“Has anyone been rubbing you the wrong way these past few weeks? Any odd behavior?”

Your thoughts went back to the strange vibe you got from Jaemin yesterday before he fixed up your cut, “No, why?”

“What if this thing harming you is like Mark?”

“An angel?”

“No,” Jungwoo shook his head, “It is definitely not an angel. Those violent pigeons have strict laws to follow – but it could be something that could disguise itself as a normal human.”

You paused, “… Hyuck, maybe? He’s the most demonic little shit I know.”

“Ha!” Jungwoo tossed his head back with a laugh. “As much as that kid can poke his nose where it’s unwarranted, he isn’t your demon.”

“How do you know?” You were genuinely curious.

“Lets just say the boy has some problems of his own.” Jungwoo said, “You’re not the only one in town with this kind of problem. Blackwater is practically a magnet for this sort of thing.”

You frowned, glaring at him, “Gee, that’s comforting.”

The conversation relaxed after that, the older male letting you continue filling in the details of your story – including the night time footage, meeting and talking with the flustered angel (which he found highly amusing), and, eventually, the odd feeling Jaemin had given you, even if it was brief.

“So let me get this straight – the entity appeared as black smoke on camera, the angel seemed to be familiar with it (although that could be from the previous fights), and the incidents stopped when you moved in with Jaemin.”

“Yes,” you sighed. “Anything else you need to know?”

Jungwoo shook his head, “I do not believe so, but…”

“But what?”

He shook his head again, biting his lip. “You need to be careful.” He stood up, sifting through a small bowl next to the black cat you had been looking at earlier. He untangled a chain from the mess, grabbing a small black stone pendant off the windowsill. He looped it on to the chain, circumventing the coffee table to clasp it around your neck.

“Here, this should help.”

You gripped the stone in your hand, marveling at it. It was black as night and cut into the shape of a cube. “What is it?”

“Black Tourmaline,” he answered. “Demons hate it.”

“What if what’s hunting me isn’t a demon?”

“Than I’d hope to god it’s at least allergic.”

-

The pendant was a comforting weight on your neck that night, especially as you fell asleep. You never took it off, even when you showered, opting instead to keep it on you at all times – you could never be too careful, after all that had happened.

On top of that, you had been spending more time with Mark. You had heeded Jungwoo’s advice by keeping a close eye on those around you – including Jaemin. He seemed to be fine for now, despite the feeling he had given you last week.

Currently, you were chilling in Mark’s living room and attempting to read a 17th century book he had from his time in England. It was the first volume of Paradise Lost by some old white dude – fittingly about a war between heaven and hell. You stumbled over the words, understanding none of it.

“How do you read this?” You asked Mark, raising your voice just enough so he could hear you over the chopping of his knife.

“Read what?” He called back. The chopping stopped, and he came around the corner with some rough looking bell pepper slices.

You tipped the book to peek at its cover, “John Milton?”

Mark hummed, clicking his tongue. He slid the haphazardly chopped vegetables over to you, which you gladly took. “I haven’t actually read it.”

“Really?” you plucked a piece of bell pepper from the plate and crunched it. “How many of these books have you read? Or do you just collect?”

“Collect,” he answered. “I don’t have the time to read, although I wish I did.”

You opened the book again, reading a line of the complicated text, “I have to say, I don’t recommend John Milton, especially if you have a lot of reading to catch up on.”

Mark laughed, plucking the book from your hands. “It can’t be that bad.” He mused, opening the book. Upon reading a single word, he put it back down.

“Nevermind.”

-

“You’ve been spending a lot of time with Mark.” Jaemin stated.

The two of you were heading to the flower shop, Jaemin having decided he was going to walk you there.

“Yeah,” you smiled, “He’s much livelier than I remember. It’s fun to be around him.” You had fallen into the rhythm of your lie, easily creating details that flowed with your story. Jaemin nodded, glancing at you out of the corner of his eye.

“There’s nothing… going on between you, right?”

Your pace faltered as you looked at Jaemin, making a noise akin to a sputter mixed with a disbelieving laugh, “No! I mean, we’re friends? Just friends.” You picked back up the speed, walking ahead of Jaemin as you waved off the notion.

Did I give him the impression something was going on between me and Mark?

You thought back to all the times you’d come home from Mark’s smiling like you’d won the lottery. Your face flushed.

Is there something going on between me and Mark?

You shivered at the thought, remembering his stupidly loud laugh and terrible cooking. How his wings felt under your fingertips. How his hugs felt when you had a bad day at college and needed someone to vent to.

Holy shit, I like Mark.

“Hey, slow your roll,” Jaemin laughed, catching your hand in his. He turned you around, stopping you just feet from the entrance of the flower shop. “I’m glad?”

“You’re glad?” You parroted. Jaemin smiled.

“Yeah,” he grabbed your other hand and pulled it to his mouth, placing a kiss on the knuckles. “Because that means I can ask you out.”

Ah, fuck.

“Oh,” your face flushed immediately. Your hands felt hot, like his skin was burning you simply by touching it. Jaemin let go, letting you drop your hands to your side.

“Y/N, do you want to go out on a date with me?” He asked, his tone dropping his natural flirty vibe and picking up something more serious. You took a deep breath, thoughts racing.

Jaemin was normal. Jaemin was human. It was not okay to be in love with Mark. Maybe this could be good for you, and maybe it could help you bury the budding romance in your heart for the unattainable angel. Jaemin could be good for you, so you smiled, answering.

“Yes.”

-

MC is getting into deep shit, y’all. Thank you for reading! As usual, feedback is very much appreciated :)

Masterlist

[antiquery]

Randolph Carter?

Good afternoon. Thank you for the coffee. I know you must be busy, so I’ll do my best to make this quick. Feel free to stop me if anything I say is unclear or requires further explanation, but be warned that I do have a tendency to ramble. Old habits die hard, it seems.

I enlisted in the war on the day I turned forty. Before you ask— yes, the identification I provided you with states my age as twenty-seven, and yes, that is accurate. I can see you’re thinking that one of the things I have just told you must be false, but I assure you that they are both quite true. It’s a longer and stranger story than you probably have time for, so I do hope that for the moment you will take my word for it. And the word of the Massachusetts Department of Motor Vehicles, I suppose.

Anyway. I joined the French Foreign Legion in 1914, well before America became involved in the war. My friends looked at me askance, when I told them, and I can see why. I don’t exactly look— or act, for that matter— the part of a soldier. [Laughs.] But I had just lost a very dear friend of mine to a terrible accident for which I was partially to blame, and I was consequently in a rather volatile emotional state, so on the kind of wild whim that drives braver men to braver acts I went to the recruitment station in Back Bay and signed the requisite papers. It was barely a week before I shipped off to Europe.

I remained in France for two years. I will not bore you with a laundry list of the battles in which I participated, or the campaigns on which I marched. Those events have all been recorded many times over, and I do not particularly care to relive them. I will say, however, that I first saw combat in the early summer of 1915, at what I believe is now termed the Battle of Artois. Strange to hear it referred to like that, even in my own voice— it is an ill-fitting name, almost heroic on the tongue, but then I don’t think that even a mind so great as dear Wilfred’s could come up with a name that did fit.

What? No, I didn’t know Wilfred Owen personally, though I often feel as though I did. I’m not as intimately familiar with his history as I am with his writing, so it’s entirely possible that we fought at some of the same battles— even that we saw one another, though at the time I obviously wouldn’t have recognized him. What’s that line from Longfellow? “Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing.” Rather. 

I apologize, I’m a bit off topic. Feel free to omit this section of the recording, if you like, it’s just— Wilfred had a way of speaking of the war that I’ve never heard anyone else quite match in visceral accuracy. There is a kind of knowing in it that I’ve come to believe can only be obtained by the experience of what it was. There’s been much written about the war since his time, but nothing that really…captures is the wrong word, you can’t capture a thing like that. Expresses, maybe. I remember the first time I read his poetry I had the odd thought that it sounded as though the war itself were speaking, with Wilfred as its mouthpiece, or perhaps its translator.

I’m rambling. This isn’t what you asked me in here for. I should describe the battle to you, such as I am able. I say that because, in the vein of the above, I have more often than not found myself lacking the words to express the things I experienced in those two years. In my former years I fancied myself a poet, but now…

But I will try my best. I can start, at least, by setting the scene. It was early May, a lovely time of year in the north of France; the winter had been harsh but short, and as we marched through the countryside we were all awed by the beauty of our surroundings. Being from New England, I was not at all used to the sort of gentle blooming that constitutes late spring in much of Europe; I associated the season with mud and slush and fervid, feverish warmth. I vividly recall the sight of the trees that dotted the field that would become the scene of such carnage positively bursting into flower. Even when we had dug ourselves into the trenches, and all the misery that comes from life within them, there was the not insignificant consolation of the world outside. 

I have forgotten— or blocked out, perhaps— the tactical details of the battle that I was privy to. I knew what I needed to know at the time, and nothing more; I have no interest in improving my knowledge now. And anyway, in the thick of the fray, there is no such thing as tactics, because there is no such thing as consciousness. You momentarily go mad with fear, and it is a mercy, for if you had to witness the savagery taking place before and within you as a thinking and feeling man, I am confident that something essential within you would be as surely murdered as the fellow soldier speared on the end of your bayonet.

I apologize for the grisliness of my language, but you must understand that I am only trying to convey to you a sliver of a fragment of a fraction of what it was truly like. I cannot show you the fullness of it, of course, nor would I want to. I would never wish such a thing on anyone. But— your aim, as I am told, is to know as much as you can about this particular moment, and so I will try and provide you with that knowledge at as little cost to your sanity as possible.

And I do mean sanity. I am not unlearned in the occult (as you may have come to suspect granted the discrepancy between my appearance, my true age, and the story I am telling you) and in my time studying those strange arts I have been privy to a great number of secrets one might consider maddening. You are an institute devoted to the study of the paranormal, so you will know the gravity of what I am saying when I tell you that there is nothing in Prinn or Chambers or even Al-Hazred that so much as holds a candle to what it was like to fight in the Great War. 

The battle waged on for what felt like years, but in fact were only days— about two weeks, all told. I remember very little of the specifics; all of it blurs together in a haze of mud and blood and screams and gore, violent and unceasing death on every side, and fear that filled me with such icy coldness that I thought I would freeze solid on the spot. Such utter and infinite horror, and all of it enacted on that pastoral field, beneath a beautiful spring sky, around trees so delicate and fragrant I sometimes thought I was hallucinating them. I wonder if all the blood in the soil changed the color of those lovely white flowers.

Eventually it was over, though I felt as though I had lived a thousand lifetimes before that day came. When my commander told the regiment that the Germans had surrendered, or that we had, or that the random and reignless turning of the war had rendered us a stalemate, I felt as though I might die with relief. Temporary as it was.

The dead were everywhere. That’s what I mostly remember, about the days after the battle— the sheer plenitude of bodies, and the weak-kneed gratefulness that I was not among them, that I had escaped with nothing but a bullet wound to the upper arm and a bayonet scar that cut from the corner of my mouth to my ear and always made me look as though I were half-smiling in polite concern. [Gestures to upper lip, though no such wound is visible.] They filled the abandoned trenches and the open field of no-man’s-land, of course, but also the places in which we living made our salvaged lives— makeshift field hospitals, filthy messes, even the pitiful “rooms” where we slept. It was like living in a cemetery, but instead of clean graven headstones the markers of the dead were their bodies, slowly beginning to stink in the spring air. I remember— thinking of that line in Eliot, in The Waste Land, where he quotes Dante. “So many, I had not thought that death had undone so many.” But for months and months there was no burial of the dead, none at all.

It was not as bad as the battle itself, this living amongst the dead, but because we were fully conscious and thinking while going about our days it was much more— impactful, I suppose. Before I had always thought of the deceased as relics to be treated with respect, but seeing them lying where they died and dying where they lay, bloated and pale and so unnameably numerous, drove home to me the unimaginable insignificance of us, all of us, you and I and Wilfred and every other human being that is or was or ever shall be. (Isn’t that the phrase? I was raised Episcopalian, but that was so very long ago.) We are such ephemeral creatures, meat and spark, flickers in a howling void. Or, at least, it is hard not to conclude such things.

It must be strange for you, hearing sentiments so bitter from the lips of a young man. By now, though, you ought to have realized that I am not fully what I seem to be, and the face I wear is not wholly my own. “Life is very long,” to pull from dear Thomas again, and mine more than most. I have known so much, and seen so much, and yet— nothing I have seen or known has touched those days among the dead, those hours underneath the spring sky, looking into the faces of men I knew that know me no longer.

I met a god once, many years ago. Not one of the petty gods, mind you, but— whatever it is that is the proper term for the ones above them. (Perhaps it’s misleading to call them gods— they’re more like forces of nature, as fundamental and ineffable as gravity. The Norse have a term for their type: “they who sit beyond the shadow.”) In my youth I was an adventurer in more lands than our world knows, and I was…reckless. Foolhardy, and often too skilled in the ways of dreaming for my own good. I got it into my head to challenge a divine mandate that had been set down before me, and spent months and months questing after a desire I had only the vaguest idea of. Eventually my seeking led me to a mountain a thousand times greater than any on this planet, atop which I met— well. I probably shouldn’t say his name out loud. 

He tried to kill me, of course, because he was— is— cruel. Though that word, too, is misleading; would you call a human cruel for crushing a particularly noisome fly between his fingers? I can hardly blame him, really. Before that, though, he strode up to me and took my face in his hands and kissed me, which I found absurd at the time and still do now. What could possibly motivate such a being to focus his attention on me? I didn’t know. Still don’t, and I’m not sure I want to be given the answer.

But that isn’t the point. The point is that during the time I spent in his presence, with what must have been an infinitesimal sliver of his full attention focused on me, I felt as though I were— there’s no simile I could use to describe it. The closest I can come is that it was what an ant must feel, caught in a concentrated sunbeam reflected by a magnifying glass, at the moment just before it burns up. The term “under the microscope” is a pale shadow of what it was like, but it conveys the general sense. I couldn’t think or speak or move; I’ve been hypnotized before, and this was a thousand times more intense. I thought— to the extent that I could— that I was going to die, right there; I thought I would turn to ash in an instant, like Semele at the sight of Zeus. To this day I believe that if I had spent one more instant in his presence I would have been vaporized. His nearly killing me was a mercy.

That was how the war felt. That sense of ultimate, final, finitive insignificance in the face of something for which you have no name, something for which there is no name. The god I saw, the god who kissed me, he was the war made a brilliant mockery of flesh, and behind his golden eyes I saw the carnage I knew so well writ large across the whole of the cosmos. It is what this universe is made of. It is all that there is, and was, and ever shall be.

I nearly died a year and a half later, at Belloy-en-terre during the Battle of the Somme. A shell hit the ground directly behind me and flung me into the air as if I were a doll, scarring my back with shrapnel and nearly snapping my spine. As I lay there on my stomach in the mud of no-man’s-land, ears ringing and mind woozy, I could have sworn I felt a familiar hand on the nape of my neck.

After that I was too badly shell-shocked to fight. Once my wounds had been seen to, they sent me back stateside, and I finished recuperating in Boston— my cousin Ernest had graciously (for once) taken over the maintenance of my house in Beacon Hill during my absence, and I was welcomed back warmly by those of my friends who had not also gone off to war, willingly or not. And life went on, as it has a tendency to do in the world of the living. My life, strange and wondrous as it has been, continued on its course.

I dream often. Mostly of the war, sometimes of the god, frequently of both. I wonder how much of those latter dreams are my doing, and how much are his— I had a lover once who jokingly told me that I was “supernatural catnip,” and I’d thought it funny at the time. But I have a feeling I’m not being left entirely alone with my memories, such as they are.

[nijiryuu]

Devil May Cry - Before the Nightmare Novel Translation

@sevi007 @wingsofthenight @devilmaycry-headcanons

Version 1.0 (4th March 2019)

What is Devil May Cry Before the Nightmare?

Devil May Cry Before the Nightmare is the official prequel novel to Devil May Cry 5. It was published on March 1st 2019 by Kadokawa.

This novel is in Japanese only, and there are currently no announced plans to translate it. This means that only Japanese audiences get the full story behind Devil May Cry 5. With this in mind, Platinum, DMC5Info’s translator/co-admin, worked tirelessly to translate this 260 page book before Devil May Cry 5’s release.

It was no easy task and required a lot of coffee. If you would like to help replenish her coffee supply, Plat’s Ko-Fi account can be found at https://ko-fi.com/platinumparagon. Any spelling mistakes or errors will be corrected ASAP and will be reflected in the version number. If you are reading this via PDF, please consider checking DMC5Info for any issued corrections or updates.

Please note that everything before Nico Chapter 2 is safe to read regarding spoilers for Devil May Cry 5. After this chapter, some scenes from the game’s prologue begin to be retold and we are granted access to inner monologues. We particularly recommend skipping the second last chapter, V Chapter 3, if you do not want spoilers or hints for Devil May Cry 5.

Thank you and we hope you enjoy!

Prologue Chapter

● Nico is meeting an occult journalist named Jeffrey Turner in a bar. Jeffrey works for the ‘Occult Times’ magazine.

● Nico’s drink of choice is a boiler maker with beer and bourbon.

● Nico tells Jeffrey to call her Miss Goldstein and produces a copy of ‘Occult Times’ from five years ago. Jeffrey gets nostalgic about this issue as it contains the first feature that he ever wrote – how The Saviour attacked Fortuna. Nico bluntly tells him she doesn’t care about his nostalgia.

● Jeffrey is curious about how she knows about Fortuna as it is one of the most secluded regions of the world and its citizens are quite antiquated. He tells Nico that he didn’t witness the event for himself, but he heard that the city was destroyed by a white giant.

● Nico tells Jeffrey that while the magazine may exaggerate the truth or mix in a few falsehoods, those events did happen.

● Jeffrey tried to investigate The Order of the Sword as best as he could, but the locals would not speak to outsiders and it seemed that all key members of The Order (the leader, high members etc.) had disappeared. While general members remained, they became sceptical of the Order’s creed. Jeffrey speculates that the white giant was a result of some sort of failed summoning ritual that destroyed the city.

● Nico says she tried to investigate Fortuna herself, but most places have a ‘No Entry’ sign and she stood out among the citizens as an outsider.

● Jeffrey tries to make a toast with Nico and picks up his glass, but she ignores him and goes back to the magazine. He sighs and puts his glass down.

● Nico goes back to the magazine where she shows Jeffrey a picture of Fortuna covered in rubble. In this picture is a young man whose face is concealed. Nico asks about the young man and Jeffrey says that this is ‘N’. He was like a point of contact with Jeffrey about the story, but he didn’t give a lot of helpful information. Nico asks if N seemed like a member of The Order and Jeffrey said he did, but he had departed from them.

● Nico wants to know N’s name, but Jeffrey is apprehensive. He asks why she wants to know N’s name, and Nico immediately replies that she wants to meet N. Jeffrey would usually forget people's names, but this case was special to him as it was his first overseas reporting and he was so enthusiastic. Now his career his dwindling, so he outright tells her that his name is Nero. Nico also asks if he has a surname, but Jeffrey says he doesn’t know.

● Jeffrey asks Nico why she’s going to Fortuna. She replies – „I’m aiming high“ (as in aiming for the stars). She drops her bourbon in her beer glass, sinks it in one drink, gives a big smile and leaves. She leaves behind her copy of Occult Times and tells Jeffrey to keep it as a memento.

● Jeffrey wonders if he’s heard the name Goldstein before, but he’s too drunk to remember.

 Nero Chapter 1

● The chapter begins with Nero working in his garage as he struggles to get Red Queen to rev properly. Nero playfully speaks to the sword and asks if it’s pouting.

● While tidying in the garage, Julio, an orphan that Nero helps Kyrie take care of, says that there is a strange woman outside. Nero asks what makes her so strange – does she have three eyes and no nose? Julio replies that it’s not her appearance that’s weird, it’s the fact that she says she’s searching for Nero.

● After the Order of the Sword incident, Nero is wary of strangers as occult reporters, novelists etc. come to the city for details, but he can’t tell them the truth.

● Julio says that the woman has dark skin and glasses. Believing this woman to be Gloria, Nero asks Julio if her hair is white. Julio says that her hair is black and frizzy. Overhearing this, Nico yells „Who has black frizzy hair, you stupid brat!?“ and barges to the front of the garage. Julio then points to her and Nico says, „It’s rude to point, brat“.

● Julio would normally retort, but Nero tells him to go to Kyrie with a serious face, so he listens.

● Nero asks what business Nico has while making sure to hide his Devil Bringer from her. He feels that the Devil Bringer bestowed him with great demonic power and he uses it to protect the person that he loves. While he used to be sick of its ugly appearance, he is now grateful for it.

● It is stated that Nero uses his arm to judge whether someone is a demon or not. If they are a demon, his arm has some sort of reaction. As his arm does not react, he believes she is either a human or a demon with minimal powers.

● Nico asks him if he’s Nero. Nero insists that she stop smoking before asking any more questions as he hates smoking and the garage is filled with combustible items.

● Nico basically tells him that he should save the lectures for the bratty kid from earlier. Nero starts to get irritated by her rudeness and tells her to put the cigarette out or get out. She drops the cigarette on the floor, squashes it with her boot and says „Is this okay, No Smoking Boy?“. Nero thinks she’s an unpleasant woman.

● Nero estimates that they are the same age, maybe she’s a little younger, but she acts like she’s older than him (a senpai).

● As Nico enters the garage, she keeps both arms in the air. She teases him by saying „Are you going to hit me, a frail woman?“ As she approaches him, she sees the Devil Bringer. Nero is afraid of what might happen from her seeing it. However, she sits on a box in the corner and says „What, have a complex about it? Don’t worry, it’s part of who you are.“ She then introduces herself as Nicoletta Goldstein and says that she has a favor to ask Nero.

● Nico is looking for missing Order of the Sword demonic research documents. She says that she has no choice but to ask surviving members of The Order for help finding them. While talking to Nico, Nero notes that there is no ill will in her eyes, more like child-like curiosity.

● Nero asks how Nico knew about The Order researching demons as this wasn’t public knowledge. She says that she researched this information from a range of people, from demon hunters to a chain-smoking, gossip-loving old lady.

● As Nico shows knowledge of demons and demon hunters, Nero reflects that this is the first time that someone with a genuine connection to demons (besides cheesy occult magazines) has found him. Because of this, he rejects her request to help her find Order documents.

● After being told no, Nico doesn’t leave. Instead, she asks how Agnus is now. This shocks Nero and he tells Nico that he was killed. Nico, with an air of loneliness, says that she’d heard about that rumor. Nero asks how she knows ‘that asshole’ and Nico says that he’s her biological father.

● Nero is in disbelief and can’t stop questioning Nico about it. Her response is simply „Yeah, what bad luck“.

● During the ‘You’re his daughter!?’ exchange, Nico notices Red Queen and instantly picks it up. Nero scolds her for touching his stuff without permission.

● Nico begins examining Red Queen and gets so excited at its design that she begins to stutter. Nero keeps trying to snatch it from her, but eventually stops and watches in awe as she quickly identifies what’s wrong with Red Queen and begins to repair it.

● As she fixes it, she scolds Nero and calls him an idiot for not keeping up with Red Queen’s regular maintenance. He then begins to accept that this is Agnus’s daughter as they both share the same love of research and even have a similar skin color.

● Nico repairs Red Queen and says to it „Baby, how’re you doing?“. She tests it out by revving it, but its power knocks her to the floor. While Nero thought she’d get angry, she smiles and dusts herself off. She says that Red Queen is ‘very rowdy, but a cutie’.

● After repairing Red Queen, Nero is indebted to Nico. He decides to show her The Order’s documents, and this makes her smile from ear to ear. She tells him that from now on, he’s allowed to call her Nico. The chapter ends with Nero thinking about the man who killed her father – Dante.

 Dante Chapter 1

● The chapter begins with Dante reaching Dumary Island and speaking with Matier on the harbor. He struggles to recall her name and asks if her name is Matia, which she then corrects to Matier. She says that Sparda would forget her and other women’s names as well.

● Sparda is described as Mundus’s right-hand man who betrayed him due to feeling compassion towards humans. Before meeting Eva, Sparda would travel the world and that is how he met Matier.

● Dante doesn’t have many memories of Sparda, but recalls receiving sword-fighting lessons with Vergil. At this time, he had no idea that his father was a demon and didn’t know about the legend of Sparda.

● Matier calls Dante cruel for not returning to the island after the incident around ten years ago. Dante says he couldn’t help it because he was stuck in ‘a garbage dump’ (hell) and travelling between the human world and demon world isn’t easy.

● Matier asks how he was able to escape hell and he says that a hole unexpectedly opened up and he travelled through it. Sometimes holes connecting to the demon world will suddenly appear. These holes seem to be why Dumary Island requires guardians to protect it.

● It seems that ‘small port cities’ have a higher likelihood of holes appearing, which is used to explain why Dumary Island and Fortuna have demons appearing.

● The novel states that when demons enter the human world, they only project their consciousness into another physical entity. If a demon wants to enter with its physical body, the hole has to be massive. Dante feels like it wasn’t a coincidence that there was a hole large enough for him to pass through. When he went to Fortuna and saw the Hell Gate, he suddenly understood that perhaps his escape from hell was related to Yamato.

● Dante describes Yamato as a memento from their father that has the ability to cut away the boundary between the human world and the demon world.

● Matier says that Lucia objected to calling Dante back to Dumary Island, but there aren’t many ‘young men’ left on the island. Dante says that he’s not exactly a young man anymore. He contemplates his own lifespan in relation to Sparda’s and wonders when he’ll be considered an old man.

● Lucia waited for Dante to return from hell and made several round trips to the office and back to see if he returned. When Dante did return, they hugged and she cried. However, Dante had to leave shortly after as he received a call with the password.

● Dante has a rule where he tries to keep his focus solely on a job. Matier scolds him and says that it’s not like she’s asking Dante to marry Lucia for life, he just wants him to give her one happy memory. He says, „My bad, I have my reasons“, then Matier scolds him again for his subpar apology and says that Sparda had a better way with words. Dante says that he likes to think he’s a better man than his father, causing Matier to jab him with her cane. She says if that’s the case, he needs to stop being rude to Lucia. Tired of getting lectured, Dante changes the subject to why Matier asked him to come.

● Matier asks him if he remembers the demon that brought him to the island last time. Dante says that he killed things like a big monkey (Orangguerra), but Matier has to remind him that he killed Argosax. Dante considers remembering the names of all the demons he’s defeated a waste of his brain. However, there’s one name he always remembers – Mundus, the demon who brought harm to his mother.

● Matier says that the demon that has appeared was Argosax’s right-hand man. Dante jokes that he dealt with the number one guy, now he has to deal with the number two guy. Dante starts to  remember Argosax, but also remembers that he wasn’t much of a threat to him.

● According to Matier, around half of hell have rallied around this right-hand man and he has been saving his strength for the past decade to come through to the human world. Because of this demon’s size, Matier doesn’t think it could just slip through a hole. Instead, she reckons that a human is summoning it through a ritual, but she doesn’t think that would happen easily on the island with her and Lucia protecting it.

● Dante asks if she knows who is summoning the demon, but she can’t find any evidence of who it is, particularly as Arius is no longer alive. Dante asks the name of the demon and Matier laughs, saying, „Aren’t you going to forget it tomorrow? The demon’s name is Balrog. According to legend, he’s a ferocious fire demon. Be careful.“ Hearing this warning makes Dante smile.

 Nero Chapter 2

● The chapter begins with Nico and Nero in the basement of Fortuna Castle, the location of Agnus’s research facility. Nico is elated by the modern equipment in the facility, looking at and touching everything. She strokes the round cylinders that once housed demons and once again stutters with excitement.

● Nero asks Nico what she plans to do with Agnus’s research documents. He fears that Agnus’s daughter will continue his malicious work and once again bring demons to the world. While he asks this question, he keeps a concealed hand on Blue Rose as he may have to kill her depending on her answer.

● Nico tells him that she wants to be an artist. Nero becomes confused by her answer and takes his finger away from Blue Rose’s trigger. He asks if she wants to draw pictures of demons and this makes her burst into laughter. She says she’s not interested in pictures, she wants to become a first-class weapons/arms artist. Nero recalls how skillfully she disassembled Red Queen.

● Nico asks if Nero’s heard of her grandmother, the .45 Calibre Artist. Nero shakes his head, and this infuriates Nico as she makes a gesture with her head like she is spitting. She yells at him, „You don’t know anything, boy!“ Nero manages to keep his cool despite being insulted. He attributes this to spending time taking care of orphans, building his patience and resistance to insults from younger people.

● Nero explains that he probably hasn’t heard of her because guns aren’t very popular in Fortuna. He says that in his past, people looked down on him for using a gun. This raises Nico’s interest, asking him if he has a gun. Nero hesitates for a bit and then takes his concealed Blue Rose from his pocket. Nico runs up to it and fixates her gaze on it, once again stuttering with excitement. Her mannerisms remind him of Agnus.

● Nico asks if she can touch the gun and Nero allows it. Nico geeks out over the gun and Blue Rose’s design is explained: a double-barrel revolver that shoots two bullets with a slight time delay on each shot. One bullet penetrates while the other explodes.

● Nero’s impressed that she can identify the two different types of bullets from looking at them as they are nearly identical. Nico says, „Who do you think I am!?“.

● Nico says that Blue Rose’s concept could be thought of, but it would be difficult to execute and would require someone who’s very skilled. Because of a language pun in Japanese, Nero reflects on how Agnus certainly was the crazy type.

● Nero then reflects on his own life circumstances. While he feels his morality is questionable, he was raised in a home with honesty and integrity. He looked up to Credo, the person who was like an older brother to him. But now, he had Kyrie as his lover.

● Nico talks about how her grandmother’s guns were simple and beautiful. She says the final pair of guns that she made were very, very beautiful. Nico talks on and on about them which Nero is not interested in. However, she says, „They’re called ‘Ebony and Ivory’, one’s black and one’s white. Appropriate names for such fine art!“. The names raise Nero’s interest and she continues to describe

the guns, detailing how one is for rapid fire and one is for destructive power. The guns were designed with demon hunting in mind, and she believes that the guns are currently being used by a demon hunter. While trying to remember the name, Nero says it instead – „Dante“.

● Nico says that he is correct and asks if he is a celebrity in the demon hunting world. However, Nero is too dumbfounded to reply as he realizes the connection – Nico’s grandmother designed the guns that shot her father in the head.

● Nico demands an answer from Nero. „I want to know what type of guy is using my grandmother’s best work. Wait, don’t tell me he’s a piece of shit!?“ Nero asks her to be patient while he processes all of this information.

● Nero thinks about how Dante is an important person to him. Dante saved him from the chaos ensuing in Fortuna, but in the process he killed Agnus. Now Agnus’s daughter is in front of him asking what he’s like. Nero says aloud „Shit, how am I gonna explain this?“, causing Nico to raise her eyebrows.

 Dante Chapter 2

● The chapter begins with Dante killing monkey-looking demons on the way to fight Balrog. While killing them, he reflects on how great Ebony and Ivory are and how they were Nell Goldstein’s magnum opus.

● While disposing of the demons, Dante hears a heavy French accent behind him say „As usual, your guns are wonderful“. He turns his head and replies with, „Long time no see, Lucia“. Lucia asks him if he’s aged a little and he gives her a bitter smile, telling her she’s just imagining it. Dante tells her she hasn’t changed at all, and Lucia reminds him that she can’t change no matter how much time passes.

● Dante tries to comfort Lucia by telling her that women pay large amounts of money to try to look youthful, but this isn’t a comfort to her.

● Lucia’s origin story as an artificial demon is repeated. Dante notes that she has a lonely face.

● Dante starts cracking wise with Lucia and says that compared to the horror around them, he’s like something that came from heaven. This gets a faint smile from Lucia and she thanks him for coming while putting out her hand to him.

● This is a surprise to Dante as he heard from Matier that Lucia wasn’t happy with him coming. Lucia says that Balrog is a bit too difficult for one person, so she would appreciate help dealing with him to finish it quicker. Dante smiles as he thinks this is a thinly-veiled ‘I can’t do this on my own’, but he’s fine with it as she appears more confident.

● Dante and Lucia walk shoulder to shoulder to go fight Balrog. He reflects that it’s been a long time since they’ve been together, but they walked together like old partners. There is a mutual trust between the pair.

● The pair fight their way to Balrog, and Balrog simply looks at them. Dante asks if he’s shy and Balrog replies with „So you finally came“. Dante asks if he was waiting for them to appear, and Balrog indeed says that he believed that if he waited here, eventually a person of strength would come to him. Balrog takes a step towards them which is enough to shake the ground. During this conversation, Dante experiences a familiar sensation nearby.

● Balrog says that after losing his partner Argosax, he has grown bored. But now, he has a new power. Dante sees something glimmering in his fist and he recognizes it – it is a shard of Yamato. It seems that when parts of Yamato scattered, a part remained in hell. It seems that Balrog used a shard of Yamato to enter the human world.

● Dante deduces that Balrog had been using the shard to travel to the human world. Dante was able to escape hell using one of these holes left by Balrog, believing his escape to be a coincidence.

● Dante says „Yamato...“ out loud. Yamato was once used to seal demons away, now it is helping demons escape from it. The Order of the Sword collected fragments of Yamato to fuel their ambitions, and that is how the Fortuna incident occurred.

● In response, Dante grabs Rebellion and readies himself for battle. Balrog lets out a massive yell, but Dante is unphased by it. He tells Lucia that this is his job and jumps at Balrog, attacking him in his fist.

 Nico Chapter 1

● The chapter opens with Nico meeting Kyrie for the first time. As Agnus amassed a lot of research documents, Nico must stay for a little while in Fortuna with Nero and Kyrie.

● Nico doesn’t really consider people to be beautiful, she thinks well-made guns and swords are beautiful. However, she believes that Kyrie is so beautiful that it’s a rare sight. The way that Kyrie looks at Nico reminds her of her mother Alyssa who died when she was very young.

● Kyrie asks if it’s okay to call her Nico. Nico immediately nods and says „You can call me whatever you want! ‘Nico’, ‘Nicoletta’, even ‘Bitch’!“. In response, Nero stomps on her foot under the table, points at her and yells „Hey! Don’t use dirty words in front of Kyrie!“.

● Nico heard that Kyrie was Nero’s girlfriend, but she couldn’t imagine just how special Kyrie was to Nero. Nico apologizes to Kyrie for her foul mouth and says that her father is to blame; Nero lets out a small sigh. Kyrie smiles at them like she’s watching two children bicker, which puts Nico at ease.

● Kyrie invites Nico to eat with them as there’s plenty to go around. Kyrie asks Nico if there’s any food that she doesn’t like and Nico responds with, „If you cooked a tyre then I’d eat it!“, making Kyrie laugh.

● When Kyrie goes to the kitchen, Nico tries to get a rise from Nero by saying „Lovely woman, she’s too good for you“. Instead of a snarky rebuttal, Nero says „Yeah, I think so too“.

● As Agnus abandoned Nico and her mother when she was very young, she has complex feelings regarding him. While reflecting on this, Nico takes out a box of cigarettes which Nero promptly snatches away from her. He tells her that she can’t smoke in the house, and Nico asks if she can at least smoke in the garage as she can’t work if she doesn’t smoke. In the garage, kids won’t see her and she won’t be chased out of town for being an outsider.

● Nico was told by her mother that Fortuna was her father’s home town. She read about the town’s feature in Folklore Times, resulting in her starting to collect information concerning demons.

● After this segue, Nero still orders her to smoke outside. As she stands up to go smoke, she asks Nero if she wants any of her technology. He neither nodded nor objected, but Nico felt that there was an implicit acceptance of the offer. Nico says, „It’s fine, it’s give-and-take. I get to make fine art and you get to use it to kill demons. We’ll be like business partners“.

● Nero asks if this is really okay as he was an accomplice in her father’s murder. Nico reflects on the story Nero told her about how the man who wields her grandmother’s masterpiece used them to kill her father. Even Nico with her vivid imagination would struggle to think of something like that. However, she concludes that she has no emotional attachment to her father. As he abandoned her when she was around two or three, she didn’t even have memories of him.

● Nico tells him that the incident is in the past, then asks to make a phone call when she’s done smoking. Nero asks who she’s calling, and she says, „My dad, I want him to send me a package“. Realizing how confusing her words were, she corrects herself and says „Not Agnus, my current dad. He’s a blood relative – my uncle“. Nero heard this explanation with his mouth wide open.

 Lucia Chapter 1

● Lucia is watching Balrog and Dante fight. Balrog seems to be enjoying himself and doesn’t even get angry when Dante dodges his attacks.

● While watching Dante fight, Lucia clenches her fist. She committed herself to her studies and to getting stronger not only so she would never have to rely on Dante again, but so that she could one day repay the favor to him. While watching Dante fight, she felt powerless.

● Lucia wonders if his battle prowess is due to his experience, or whether it is simply because he has the blood of Sparda.

● The fight between Dante and Balrog heats up (literally) as Balrog’s fire causes trees and abandoned houses to catch on fire. Dante asks why Balrog likes fire so much since it’s so commonly used. Balrog says that his fire is unprecedented and goes to punch Dante with a burning hot fist.

● The punch collides with the ground and causes a cloud of dust to appear. Lucia reflexively calls out Dante’s name, but as the cloud of dust disappears, she sees that he is protected by a transparent wall. Lucia sees him holding a three-pronged nunchaku.

● „It’s been a long time since I’ve used these, I’m not good with heat“, says Dante as the wall of ice shatters. This tactic infuriates Balrog and he readies his fist once more. In response, Dante makes an exaggerated pose with Cerberus like a protagonist in a kung-fu movie.

● During the pose, Cerberus starts emitting cool air. Dante comments that he hasn’t used it in a while, so he thinks it’s pouting with him. Upon seeing it, Balrog says „That shape, that ability...did you tame Cerberus?“

● Lucia remembers what Matier taught her about Devil Arms. She says that there are two ways for Devil Arms to be created. A demon will turn into a weapon of overwhelming power if it has been defeated and becomes submissive, or a demon will change into a weapon if there is a strong emotional bond present.

● Dante talks to Cerberus again, saying „C’mon puppy, it’s not like I got rid of you“. Dante and Balrog resume fighting, with Dante throwing some mad shapes with Cerberus.

● Dante lands a big blow against Balrog and he staggers, but it turns out Balrog’s stagger was a bait for Dante to lower his guard. He fires up his right hand (the one with the Yamato fragment) and goes to attack Dante. Dante surrounds himself with Cerberus’s ice, but Balrog punches him so hard that Cerberus itself shatters.

● However, this was a bait from Dante. The force of the dual attack shattered the Yamato fragment that Balrog had. Both the Yamato fragment and Cerberus fragments are said to be granular-sized and they dissipate. After Cerberus breaks, Dante takes out Rebellion.

● Upon seeing Rebellion, Balrog asks if he is Sparda’s son. Dante replies „What’re you gonna do if I am?“. Balrog says that he heard the rumors of him defeating Mundus and Argosax. At this point, Balrog has either used up most of his strength or is losing his will to fight.

● Balrog says he understands the difference in their strength and accepts that Dante won. Dante is suddenly surrounded by a whirlwind of flame.

● Balrog says that he will allow Dante to use him as a Devil Arm. He says that fighting with Dante will allow him to power up, and then one day they can have a rematch. This seems to be the lore explanation for Balrog’s Ignition mechanic.

● The whirlwind disappears and Dante is standing with Balrog equipped. He replies, „Jeez, what a selfish guy. Didn’t even wait for my reply“. Lucia asks if he’s okay, he shrugs and says, „These things happen to me“.

● Balrog starts talking which immediately annoys Dante. Dante tells him that it’s one thing to hitch a ride with him, but if he keeps talking then it’s going to drive him mad. Lucia can’t help but smile at the exchange.

● Lucia becomes lonely at the thought of the job ending. She realizes that Matier saw through her all along. The reason why she didn’t want to see Dante again was because her heart longed for him. Lucia calls Matier a meddler out loud. Dante replies that she’s a good mother irrespective of there being no blood link.

● Dante says Lucia’s name out loud and she becomes excited, but he begins talking about the fragment of Yamato in Balrog’s hand which disappoints her.

● Dante explains how the fragment allowed demons to travel through. He tells her that if an incident like this happens again, she can call him. Lucia tries not to read too deeply into it and nods. She recognizes that the fragment Dante destroyed must have been important to him.

● She tells Dante that he is a cruel man and he gives her a puzzled look. She says that they should return separately and she bids him farewell. Dante tells Lucia to take care of herself.

 Intermission Chapter

● Please note that there is a lot of reminiscing in this scene, so that is why it can jump from scene to scene.

● Rock Goldstein is taking a collect call from Nico in his gun shop, Rock’s Guns and Ammo. As she is staying in Fortuna for a while, she wants him to send her clothes, tools, and an issue of Folklore Times from her bedroom. Rock calls it a third-rate magazine and Nico yells at him to just send it, then hangs up. Rock rubs his hair which is covering the eye-patch on his right eye.

● Rock Goldstein is the son of Nell Goldstein and Roy Martin, a wealthy man. He wasn’t sure what sparked their romance, but he thinks it may have been guns due to Roy’s love of hunting.

● Rock was brought up in a gun-loving home, but he was never allowed near them unsupervised and wasn’t allowed into Nell’s workshop without permission. When Rock was seven, he snuck into Nell’s workshop and played with a gun that she was building. His carelessness resulted in him losing most of the sight in his right eye.

● Roy blamed Nell for Rock’s incident and the two argued more. Eventually, Roy told Nell that she needed to stop making guns. To Nell, that was like a death sentence.

● That night, Rock goes to Nell’s workshop and apologizes as he blames himself for what happened. Nell is moved to tears and she soothes him, telling him it’s her fault.

● Rock slips her a piece of paper. He has drawn her a medal to recognize her greatness as a .45 calibre artist. Due to Rock’s age, it is misspelled – ‘.45 ART WARKS’. Nell begins to sob and hugs Rock tightly, saying „sorry“ and „thank you“ repeatedly. Rock says, „Mommy, please don’t stop making guns – I’m okay“. Nell decides to continue making guns, resulting in the end of her relationship with Roy.

● While Rock wanted to go with his mother, she didn’t have anywhere to go or anyone to rely on. In contrast, Roy was wealthy and had property. Rock was forbidden from seeing his mother and had to run up to his bedroom window to see her leave. While she didn’t look back, Rock saw that she was walking with his medal in her hand.

● After divorcing Nell, it didn’t take long for Roy to re-marry. Rock couldn’t accept Roy’s new wife and became rebellious. When Alyssa was born, Roy focused his attention on her, leaving Rock to become more estranged from the family.

● Rock got a job at Uroboros in the weapons development department. He learned of his mother’s whereabouts, but due to the company’s strict working conditions, he wasn’t able to get a day off for a year. By the time he went to see her, she had been dead for six months.

● From that day, Rock abandoned his father’s surname of Martin and became Rock Goldstein. He quit Uroboros and opened a small gun shop named Rock’s Guns and Ammo in an attempt to be Nell’s successor.

● Rock’s father was furious that he quit his job at Uroboros as he helped him get that job. In response, Rock says that he is proud to be Nell Goldstein’s son.

● While looking for the key to Nico’s bedroom, Rock comes across failed and abandoned creations of his. He reflects that while he wanted to be Nell’s successor, he didn’t have her abilities. He wonders what he would be capable of if he was trained by her.

● Rock remembers a time he was made fun of by a woman who spent the night with him. „I thought you were a tough guy, but it looks like you have an Oedipus complex. You kept saying ‘Mommy! Mommy!’ in your sleep“.

● Shortly after Rock started his business, his father and step-mother died. Rock suspects that it was due to suicide as Roy accrued a considerable amount of debt after a failed investment. The mansion was repossessed and they had no savings left, so Alyssa was left with nothing. Although Rock’s business wasn’t doing too well, he couldn’t stand to see a blood relative left out in the cold, so he brought her to the shop and let her live there.

● Alyssa got an office job at Uroboros. They could live more comfortably thanks to Alyssa’s income, and Rock’s shop got more trade thanks to his improving skills.

● One day, Alyssa asks if it is okay to bring someone home. When Rock asks who it is, Alyssa blushes. Rock says, „Huh, a lover? Where did you two meet?“. Alyssa tells him it’s a company employee, and he replies, „What does he work as? Don’t tell me it’s a researcher. Uroboros researchers are beyond weird“. Alyssa clears her throat and tells him it’s a researcher.

● Rock couldn’t understand what Alyssa saw in Agnus. When he asked, she’d just say „He’s cute!!“. Rock thought she was too lovesick to understand what cute meant.

● Rock reflects on how Agnus didn’t look like other researchers as he was large and burly. Rock says to Agnus, „Nice monocle, a lil’ antiquated“, to which Agnus proudly replies, „It’s c-custom-made“. Rock smiles at Agnus not understanding sarcasm.

● Alyssa became pregnant and she left her job at Uroboros. Rock feels that the following two years were the happiest of his life. He got to see little Nicoletta grow and eat Alyssa’s delicious food.

● After these two years, Agnus tells Alyssa that he needs to return to Fortuna on his own due to His Holiness’s orders. They knew that he belonged to a religious organisation known as The Order of the Sword, but they didn’t mind as he didn’t do anything weird like sacrifice pigs.

● Alyssa asks why she can’t go to Fortuna with him, and Agnus says that only believers can live there. She says that she can become a believer, but Agnus says it’s impossible as she’d never understand their creed. A few days later, Agnus disappeared.

● Alyssa planned to follow Agnus to Fortuna, but she collapsed and went to hospital. She was diagnosed with an incurable disease, but her focus always remained on going to Fortuna. A few years later, Alyssa died without being able to go.

● After Alyssa’s death, Rock legally adopted Nico and raised her into adulthood. He didn’t intentionally raise her to become a gunsmith – she became interested herself.

● One day in the shop, Nico exclaimed, „W-w-what’s this!? It’s so b-beautiful!“. She was holding a photograph of two guns that were brought to Rock’s shop several months ago. He replies, „Momm- my mother made those, we took a photo of them“. Nico responds, „Your mother? My g-granny? She’s awesome!“.

● These guns were Ebony and Ivory. A man named Dante brought them to Rock, and he found it suspicious that the engraving read ‘Tony Redgrave’. Dante explains that it is the name that he told the old woman who made them. It was common for people to give excuses like that if they robbed a gun from someone, but Rock didn’t suspect Dante. He could tell from examining the guns that they were designed to hunt the occult, and he could tell there was something abnormal about Dante.

● While in the shop, Dante points to the engraving on the gun barrel and asks Rock to fix it. Rock gasps at seeing ‘.45 ART WARKS’ on the gun and says „Mommy“ out loud.

● Dante explains that he eventually wanted the spelling mistake corrected, but he didn’t want any old garbage gunsmith to touch the old lady’s masterpiece. „If anyone should correct it then it should be you. Don’t you think, Rock Goldstein?“

● While fighting back tears, Rock replies, „Guns this beautiful shouldn’t have a spelling mistake on them“. After fixing the mistake, he gets the feeling that he’ll never see Dante again.

● Rock packs a box to send to Nico. Rock feels that Nico didn’t choose to stay in Fortuna simply because of Agnus, she must be doing something else there.

● Before leaving on her travels, Nico told Rock that she is giving up on becoming a gunsmith – she doesn’t think she can surpass Nell just by making guns. This surprises Rock, and he asks her what she plans to make instead. Nico replies, „I don’t know what weapons I’m gonna make yet, but I know they’re gonna be art“.

● Rock and Nico are connected through blood by his half-sister Alyssa, but there is no blood connection between Nico and Nell. Despite this, Nico always calls Nell ‘Grandmother’. When she speaks to Rock, she doesn’t even call him ‘Dad’.

● Before Nico leaves, Rock says, „Do your best Nico. I know you’ll surpass Momm...Mother“. He knows that one day Nico will be an artisan of arms, and when that day comes, he’ll get to say ‘My daughter made that!’. The thought makes him smile.

Nico Chapter 2

● The chapter begins with Nico and Nero in the garage as she installs the Devil May Cry neon sign that Dante sent in the previous novel. Nico says she finds a name about devils crying weird, but Nero didn’t think much of it since Dante told him it was the name of his business.

● Nico jokes that it should be ‘Devils May Cry’ since Nero is working with him. Nero says he thought about it, but it doesn’t sound cool.

● At this point, Nico has been living in Fortuna for around a year.

● The conception of the Devil May Cry van is explained. Basically, Kyrie and Nero don’t have a lot of money and there’s not a lot of work in Fortuna. Kyrie asks Nero to help the locals which he struggles to say no to, but when it comes to payment she usually refuses. If they do get paid, it’s in meat and vegetables and other items. Kyrie wears the same clothes, but she makes clothes for Nero and the orphans. With a work van, Nero can travel outside Fortuna and make money for Kyrie and the orphans.

● Because they don’t have a lot of money, the van they purchased was near the end of its life and they are working together to refurbish it. Due to always helping out, Nico hasn’t been able to advance any of her research in the time she’s been in Fortuna. Just as she’s about to air her grievances, Kyrie says it’s time for dinner. Nero tells Nico to go on ahead while he finishes up.

● Nico is eating dinner with Kyrie and three orphans: Julio, Kyle and Carlo. The orphanage in Fortuna hasn’t been rebuilt after the incident, so it’s up to people like Kyrie and Nero to take care of orphans for now. Nico calls Kyrie’s cooking unprecedented and ponders how Nero was able to have such a goddess as his girlfriend.

● Kyrie wonders what’s keeping Nero. She places the youngest orphan Carlo on Nico’s lap and goes to check on Nero. She calls to Nero that his dinner’s getting cold, but Nero yells at her from the garage not to come. She stands there stunned.

● Sensing danger, Nico passes Carlo off to Julio. After hearing an anguished cry from the garage, Kyrie runs towards it and Nico chases after her.

● The scene in the garage sends shivers down Nico’s spine. The garage is covered in blood and Kyrie is screaming Nero’s name while holding him. Nico then notices that Nero’s right arm is severed. She yells at him that she only left him alone for a few minutes, but he didn’t reply. The man who usually returned her insults was staring at her with vacant eyes.

● Nico tells Kyrie to call a doctor. Realizing that the culprit could still be around, Nico pulls Blue Rose from Nero to protect them. Nico takes a wire from the toolbox and wraps it around Nero’s stump to try to stop the bleeding. While doing this, she threatens whoever did this out loud, saying she’ll crack their skull like a walnut.

● Nico thinks about who could have done this. She wonders if it’s possible for a human to sever Nero’s arm as quickly as it was. She struggles to imagine why someone would quickly enter, sever Nero’s arm and disappear again, particularly if they had no intention to kill Nero.

● Suddenly, Nico recalls reading about Yamato in Agnus’s research documents. Agnus recovered fragments of Yamato on a coast on the outskirts of Fortuna. She recalls talking about Yamato with Nero and Nero tells her it belonged to Dante’s older brother. She asks where it is now since it must be powerful – she’d love to research it.

● Nero asks her if she’d like to see a magic trick and makes Yamato appear from his arm. Seeing Yamato makes her stutter with excitement. Nico asks how he did that, and he says he doesn’t really understand, but it’s stored in his arm. He tells her that she can’t research it because it’s too dangerous.

● Nico deduces that the aim of the person who attacked Nero was to take Yamato rather than kill him. The chapter ends with the doctor arriving at the garage.

 Morrison Chapter 1

● Morrison is walking down a street holding a bouquet of gerberas. He walks to Bobby’s Cellar, the bar from the very first Devil May Cry novel. Morrison hasn’t been in the bar for more than ten years; he used it to get information on jobs.

● He sees that the bar has been renamed to Grue’s Cellar, the same Grue from the first novel. Inside the bar is Grue’s surviving daughters, Tiki and Nesty.

● Morrison shares a warm greeting with the sisters and gives them flowers to congratulate them for taking over the bar. The three of them, plus a woman named Sally, make a champagne toast.

● Morrison and Sally apparently watched over the sisters after their father’s death. Morrison reflects on the events of the first Devil May Cry novel, including the deaths in Bobby’s Cellar, Nell Goldstein’s death, and the demon invasion of the hospital where Grue’s now deceased daughter Jessica was a patient.

● Nesty asks Morrison how Tony (Dante) is doing and what he’s up to. Sally replies, „Hopefully he’s dead. If he’s alive, I’d love to stick a shotgun up his ass“. The sisters defend Dante as he sent them money many times. Sally doesn’t budge on her hatred of Dante, considering him to be an ill omen. As a note, former patrons of Bobby’s Cellar and those in the mercenary world dislike Dante as they blame him for the deaths in Bobby’s Cellar, Grue’s death, and the hospital massacre.

● While the four of them celebrate, a man enters the bar. He is covered in tattoos, uses a cane, and is described as having a pale and lifeless face. He is holding a discolored book with the letter V on it. Morrison considers the possibility that he may not even be human.

● The party try to explain to the man that it is a private celebration, but he ignores this and asks, „Are you Morrison?“. Morrison nods and asks what he wants. The man says, „Let me meet Dante“. Morrison asks if it is a ‘special request’ and V nods. Morrison accepts this to mean that this client needs help with demons. Morrison apologizes to the sisters and tells them that he has some business to take care of.

● Morrison and V leave the bar and talk outside. He asks V if he has any money. While Dante will take jobs regarding demons even with no payment, having money would be beneficial as business hasn’t been booming. In response, V casually hands him dozens of paper bills. Some of the bills appear to have blood stains on them.

● Morrison hears a groan behind him. He turns around and sees a man lying in an alleyway surrounded by blood. It appears that he has been attacked by a large bird.

● V stretches out his right arm and the bird rests on it. Morrison asks V if that’s his bird, and the bird itself replies that he’s his own bird. Morrison notices that this isn’t like a parrot repeating speech, the bird appears to be able to talk on its own.

● The bird jokes with Morrison that money is money, but if he’s a clean-freak then they’ll go to the bank and swap them for cleaner notes.

● V tells Morrison that if he’s dissatisfied with the amount, they can collect more. Morrison has a feeling that more people would need to be hurt to get the money, so he says this amount is fine. After all, it’s enough to help his friend living in poverty.

● Morrison, V and Griffon make their way to Dante’s office, but Morrison has two or three places to go first.

 Dante Chapter 3

● The Devil May Cry office has no water, gas, electricity or phone connection due to a lack of work in the past few months. In comes Morrison, who Dante is happy to see as he has a history of providing jobs when Dante needs it.

● Morrison asks him if he wants to hear good news or bad news. Dante says whichever, and Morrison gives him the bad news – Miss Patty, the girl Dante took care of ten years ago, is very angry: she wants to invite him to her birthday party, but his phone line isn’t working. While Dante doesn’t hate Patty, he shudders at the idea of spending time at a party with people even more ‘normal’ than she is.

● Morrison’s good news is that he has a big job for him, cash up front. Morrison used this money to pay Dante’s bills, which Dante is a little sad at as he wanted to treat himself to a strawberry sundae.

● As he’s mourning his lost sundae, the lights come on and the telephone rings. Patty is on the phone inviting him to her party – he hangs up. She won’t stop calling him, so he pulls out the telephone cord.

● Morrison tells Dante to speak to the client while he goes to talk to Lady and Trish. Dante says „Hey, I can do this myself“, but Morrison reminds him that he said it was a ‘big job’.

● Dante eyes up the client leaning against the wall. He thinks he is a strange man. Dante asks his name and V replies with, „I have no name, I am but two days old“. V closes his book and smiles at Dante. „Just kidding. You can call me V“. While it’s clearly an alias, Dante doesn’t mind as he’s used to people using pseudonyms in his shop.

● V approaches him while walking with the cane, but Dante thinks his way of walking might be an act. Either way, he doesn’t look like a normal person.

● V tells Dante that a powerful demon is about to resurrect and he needs Dante’s help. Dante doubts the strength of this demon as people approach him about the ‘strongest demon’ and ‘worst demon’, but they turn out to be disappointments. Dante begins to think that termite extermination might be more challenging. Still, Dante feels that he has no choice but to hunt demons as he doesn’t want them throwing their weight around in the human world.

● V tells Dante that this time is different as this demon is his reason for fighting. Dante stares at V and his intuition tells him that V is not a demon. But if he’s not, how does he know this?

● Dante asks the name of the demon, but if it truly is his reason for fighting, he already knows the name. V says the demon’s name, but the chapter ends without stating it.

 Lady Chapter 1

● Morrison visits Lady in her motel room. Together, they watch a television broadcast about a large tree appearing in a city. Lady speculates that while it looks like a tree, it could be an enormous living being.

● Morrison tells Lady that if they defeat the ‘boss’, the tree should disappear.

● Lady asks Morrison why he’s contacting her about it. Dante alone should be able to handle it, and even partnering with Trish should be more than enough. Morrison admits that he has a bad feeling about this job. Lady believes he is serious as it’s rare for him to meet with her so suddenly. Usually to get in touch with Lady, you need to schedule an exact time and meeting place in advance.

● Lady asks what makes the job so dangerous, is it a self-proclaimed demon emperor? Morrison tells her that the job relates to the demon emperor trying to resurrect. Lady replies, „If it’s the actual demon emperor then Dante already beat him once before“. Lady recalls Trish telling her that Mundus’s army killed Dante’s mother and he was barely able to escape the attack. Twenty years later, he avenged her death.

● Morrison says that he’s aware of Dante’s previous success, but he’s taking precautionary measures. Lady asks why Morrison’s so anxious, and he leaves while saying „The city’s name“.

● Lady turns to the television and sees ‘The Mysterious Phenomenon in Red Grave City’ on the news broadcast. The same name as on Dante’s guns.

● Lady recalls asking Dante if Nell Goldstein made his guns. The reason she asked is because the name ‘Goldstein’ is on her own guns. But this is from Rock Goldstein, Nico’s uncle. Dante asks about Rock’s skills and she says he’s not bad. Lady reflects on how his ‘daughter’ Nico might be more skilled than him. Lately, she has been going to Nico with her requests instead.

● Dante takes out Ebony and Ivory and asks Lady to tell him where Rock’s shop is. This is when she notices the ‘Redgrave’ name on his gun. She ponders whether the name on the guns and the name of the city are connected to Dante’s past.

 V Chapter 1

● V feels that Morrison is an excellent man for recruiting Dante, Lady and Trish along with a helicopter to take them to Red Grave City. Thanks to Morrison’s quick work, V, Lady, Trish and Dante are now inside the tree. Inside the tree is said to have a disgusting smell.

● While in the tree, they hear an ominous roar and the ground begins to shake. V believes this to be the aftermath of the demon emperor resurrecting. V’s original plan was for the four of them to attack before he had awoken, now this plan seemed overly optimistic.

● Dante tells V to escape as V is dead weight. V reflects on how his former self would have been irritated by those words, but he does as Dante says and begins to leave.

● Griffon flies after him in shock and asks if he’s seriously leaving. V’s demon familiars don’t always share his demeanor at a given time as V is described as extremely calm. V is said to no longer have the excessive pride that he once had.

● V tells Griffon he is going to get the youngster (Nero) as insurance. Griffon replies, „Youngster? You mean that brat Nero? Don’t be ridiculous! That guy stole his right arm, how’s he going to fight?“. V replies that it’s better than nothing. He feels that getting a blood descendent of Sparda could help improve their odds of defeating the demon emperor even by a single hair. As V is quite familiar with the demon emperor, he isn’t prepared to take any chances.

● V emerges from the tree and uses the helicopter to travel to Fortuna. Uncharacteristically nervous, Griffon asks V if he gets the feeling that this is risky. V silently nods in response.

 Trish Chapter 1

● Trish reflects on being a creation of Mundus’s in the image of Sparda’s wife. Mundus sent his army to kill Sparda’s wife and sons. While they killed Eva, Dante and Vergil escaped. This unsettled Mundus as they would naturally grow up and want to take revenge.

● Mundus found Vergil first as Vergil didn’t assume a fake identity like Dante did. However, Vergil had inherited Yamato from an early age and was able to defeat the minions Mundus sent to kill him.

● Ten years after Eva’s death, Mundus found Dante assuming the identity of Tony Redgrave. Mundus sent demons to Tony and he dealt with them easily, confirming to him that it was Dante.

● Mundus decided to create a demon for the sake of revenge. Mundus created black knights using battle data from Sparda, Dante and Vergil. These knights were clad in strong black armor made by Machiavelli, a craftsman from hell. Mundus experimented with black knight prototypes, but their imperfect nature and the power limit of artificial demons meant that they were not enough to kill Dante and Vergil.

● It was around this time that Dante and Vergil began to fight. While travelling around the world, Vergil learned about Sparda’s seal and wanted that power for himself. Dante had a strong disdain for Vergil’s lust for power.

● When Mundus was told of the fighting, he decided to sit back and watch – the brothers’ in-fighting would only benefit him. Vergil’s defeated and wounded state was indeed a benefit to Mundus. As Mundus had not been fully revived yet, he felt that Vergil in perfect condition would have been able to beat him. However, Mundus was able to overpower Vergil in his weakened state.

● Mundus captured Vergil and used him in his black knight experiments. This resulted in a knight so powerful that it was incomparable with the others. Mundus named this knight Nelo Angelo, but Mundus did not yet have perfect control over this knight. Mundus was able to win Vergil’s obedience by returning his amulet to him, a symbol of the power that he so desired.

● Mundus had the perfect revenge demon, but he wanted to bring Dante to the demon world rather than send Nelo Angelo to the human world. For this purpose, he created Trish. She was deliberately made in his mother’s image to take advantage of Dante’s strong affection for his mother and bring him to Mallet Island.

● While thinking of the first time she met Dante, Trish wakes up in the demon tree. While breathing heavily, Lady asks her if she’s just woken up. Trish apologizes for her carelessness and stands up. Lady asks if she can still fight and Trish replies with „Just about“.

● Despite thinking this would be an easy job, they are struggling in their fight with Urizen. Urizen barely acknowledges them and remains sitting on what appears to be a throne.

● Trish and Lady begin to attack Urizen, but it is useless – a strange object floating beside Urizen is blocking the attacks. Trish begins strategizing how to land a blow with the Sparda sword, but before she can, Urizen unleashes a wave that sends the ladies backwards.

● Trish concentrates on her right arm and summons Artemis, Dante’s former Devil Arm and a creation of Machiavelli’s. Trish scatters multiple shots in the air, hoping that the multi-direction attack will catch Urizen. However, Urizen summons a wave to blow them away. Trish says out loud, „This is impossible...such power“.

● Trish thinks about how she has heard many rumours about demons. Even if she’s never seen or fought a demon, she has typically heard of them. When it comes to Urizen however, she has never heard anything about him.

● Trish says „Dante...“ out loud and passes out while contemplating Urizen’s identity.

 Nero Chapter 3

● Nero wakes up after being in a coma for several days. When he does, V is standing beside him. Nero immediately raises his guard after what happened to him, but V smiles at him. V admits that he came in through the windows and tells him that his name is V.

● Nero would usually rely on the Devil Bringer to tell whether someone was a demon or not, but what remained of his arm was wrapped in bandages. Still trying to process what happened, Nero scowls at V and asks who he is.

● V tells Nero that he knows the demon who stole his arm. The demon acquired the power of Yamato from stealing Nero’s arm and now Dante is on his way to face him.

● Nero asks how V knows this, and he says that he is pursuing the same demon as Dante – the one who stole Nero’s arm. V says he can’t possibly beat this demon alone, so he enlisted Dante’s help. V then invites Nero to come with him as he doesn’t think Dante can beat this enemy alone.

● Nero is incredibly doubtful that there is an enemy alive that Dante can’t beat. Nero sticks out his bandaged arm as if to say ‘What am I supposed to do?’. Suddenly, the tattoos on V’s arm begin to wriggle and a bird emerges from them.

● Griffon calls him a slowpoke and tells him to hurry up and get a move on as there’s not much time left. Nero thinks that this is coming from V, but V chimes in with his own words. He asks Nero if he doesn’t feel confident that he can beat the demon that stole his pride and his right arm.

● In response, Nero grinds his teeth. He acknowledges that V looks suspicious, but he wants to take back what was stolen from him. Following V and the trail of this demon may be his only opportunity to do so.

● He notes that he has experience fighting one-handed as he used to hide the Devil Bringer. The only problem was Kyrie – he didn’t think she would permit him to go demon hunting in his current condition.

● Nero asks V if he can wait a little while so that he can retrieve Blue Rose and Red Queen; he plans to sneak into the garage and retrieve them so as not to alert Kyrie and Nico. Griffon and V tell Nero to hurry at the same time.

 Dante Chapter 4

● Note: So far, I have been referring to Mundus as ‘the demon emperor’ in accordance with the kanji (魔界の帝王). In this chapter, Urizen is referred to using separate kanji – ‘the demon king’ (魔王). If I say ‘demon king’ from this point onward, it is due to this kanji.

● The chapter begins with Dante asking Urizen if he’s the king of the garbage dump. Dante has arrived at the location of Urizen’s throne and notices that Lady and Trish are unconscious. He tells Urizen that he’s surprised as they are the two most terrifying women on the planet.

● Dante aims Ebony and Ivory at Urizen and says that it seems like he’s hit the jackpot. Dante had his doubts about the legitimacy of V’s words, but after seeing Trish and Lady defeated, it was enough evidence for Dante for who this was – and he wasn’t going to let him resurrect.

● Urizen finally speaks and says „Dante...“. This is further evidence for Dante that this is the demon that V described as ‘your reason for fighting’.

● Dante says it’s a pity that he didn’t die and that he’ll send him back to hell. He begins firing Ebony and Ivory, but the strange object near Urizen stops the bullets from reaching him. Instead, he pulls out Rebellion and swings at Urizen. However, the object prevents even this attack.

● Dante reflects on how it is hard to tell who it is from the muffled voice, but there is only one person who could deflect his blows. Dante asks the demon if he’s tougher than last time. In response, the demon lets out a faint laugh.

● Dante says it’s been a while since he’s gone all out and then devil triggers. He tells Urizen to make it quick as, while he’s a day late, he has someone’s birthday that he wants to celebrate.

 Morrison Chapter 2

● Morrison is observing the tree from Red Grave City’s central plaza. It has been a few days since the tree appeared, and citizens are doing things like taking pictures and praying to it.

● It has been three hours since Dante, Lady and Trish entered the tree, and it has been 30 minutes since V returned with the young man Nero.

● Morrison thinks about how the name Red Grave City and Dante’s alias Tony Redgrave can’t be a coincidence. Morrison thinks about Dante’s/Tony’s ill omen reputation from the first Morrison chapter. Other mercenaries would refuse to work with him because those who did died.

● Morrison theorizes that because Dante is a son of Sparda, he is the natural enemy of demons. For his safety, he adopted the Tony Redgrave persona to hide from demons. Tony’s ill omen reputation began when demons found him and began to attack him. While this is his speculation, it is strengthened by the appearance of the demon king in Red Grave City.

● Dante is usually able to finish his jobs in a few minutes, an hour at most. With Dante gone for three hours, Morrison begins to worry.

● „We’ve known each other a long time. You’ve never had this much trouble, you gonna make it through this?“

 Nero Chapter 4

● Nero and V are inside the demon tree, and Nero sees Dante fighting Urizen in the distance. Seeing Dante alive and fighting, Nero questions why he’s even here. V tells him not to underestimate the demon: he stole Nero’s right arm and gained a mighty power.

● V tells Nero that he will go on ahead and not to be late. With this, V floats off using Shadow’s ability. Nero says out loud how V is undoubtedly suspicious.

● Nero mentally rhymes off the reasons why V is suspicious: clearly using a pseudonym, looks suspicious, never says more than what’s necessary, and possesses strange abilities. However, he wants to believe that V is telling the truth. Whether it’s V’s voice, his gaze or even his appearance, there’s something about him that makes Nero want to follow him without reason.

● Nero says he’ll do as V says, then holds his right shoulder. „I’ve got a score to settle with that son of a bitch“.

● He thinks about the idea of an enemy even Dante can’t beat. Despite knowing that he’d have no prospect of winning, he marches forward. He can’t forgive the demon who stole his arm and wants to retrieve Yamato with his own hand.

● Nero thinks about how he was given Yamato. Dante originally made it his mission to retrieve Yamato, then he let Nero have it like he was just giving candy to a child. He didn’t understand why, but the fact that Yamato was so powerful meant that Dante really trusted Nero. Losing Yamato felt like a betrayal of Dante’s trust which Nero felt guilty about.

● Fly and mantis-like demons block Nero’s path to Urizen. Nero says, „What, feeling motivated? Let’s go“ and revs up Red Queen.

 V Chapter 2

● V went ahead to deal with some demons for Nero, making things easier for him to reach Urizen as quickly as possible. As the demon tree Qliphoth served as a hole to the demon world, countless demons were breaking through in search of human blood.

● Despite clearing obstacles for him, Nero still hasn’t arrived. Griffon remarks that he’s late, and Shadow gives a small howl at V’s feet. Griffon translates for Shadow – „The kitty thinks so too“.

● V returns Shadow to its quick movement form and goes to find Nero. He reflects on how Shadow helps him to move beyond his current capabilities. At that moment, V is said to only have a little power as he is on the verge of death.

● V finds Nero fighting demons. Nero insists that he doesn’t need help, but a large number of demons appear which Griffon begins to attack. Griffon says to Nero, „Don’t you get it, hero? Get a move on, we’ll handle these guys“. Griffon then yells at V to hurry up and finish off the enemies as they are unable to.

● A description is given for why V must be the one to deliver the finishing blow. V describes Shadow and Griffon’s abilities as ‘dream-like’. He explains that while things can suffer because of their dreams, their dreams cannot kill them. In the same way, the beasts can inflict pain, but they cannot kill. It is V’s duty to kill demons that have been afflicted by the dream. V finishes off the demons while calling them trash.

 Nico Chapter 3

● Kyrie is distraught after hearing the news that Nero has escaped from hospital. She shakily asks Nico what they should do, and Nico fights back the urge to hug Kyrie. She tells Kyrie that they can’t do anything but wait, but Nero will return soon.

● Nico notices that Blue Rose and Red Queen are missing from the garage. Nico believes that he has gone to fight the person who stole his arm.

● She feels that it’s not like Nero to make Kyrie worry so much, but it’s understandable – there’s no way she would be happy with him going in his current state. She also wonders how Nero knew who to pursue and how to find them.

● Julio enters the garage. Nico tries to dismiss him as it’s not time to eat yet. However, he tells the ladies that he saw a helicopter last night.

● Nico begins quizzing Julio about the helicopter. He says that it landed in the outskirts of the city and then took off again. As it is rare for helicopters to be cited in Fortuna, Nico believes the helicopter and Nero’s disappearance are linked.

● Kyrie is worried by this, and Nico tries to comfort her. „Like I said, we can’t do anything but wait. Don’t worry, Nero’s a tough guy – he won’t kick the bucket easily“. Kyrie nods in agreement.

● Nico determines that Kyrie can’t leave because she needs to look after the orphans, but it would be reckless for her to leave as she had no clue where Nero was.

● Nico tells Kyrie that she won’t be eating for a while and to keep the orphans away from the garage. Kyrie asks her why, and Nico replies that she will be designing all night and wants to concentrate as much as possible.

● She wants to make Nero a prosthetic arm. But she didn’t want to make just a regular prosthesis, she wanted to create one that was imbued with power to help Nero. She could use Agnus’s research to create powerful and demon-infused artificial arms.

● While smoking outside, Nico blows smoke into the air and hopes that Nero returns safely.

 Nero Chapter 5

● Nero arrives at the Urizen battle as Dante is blown back. He calls out to Dante, but Dante is lying limp. Nero also sees Trish and Lady knocked unconscious.

● A tentacle reaches for Dante, but Nero fires Blue Rose at it and it retracts itself. Nero smiles at saving Dante as Dante was his own lifesaver; it’s because of him that Fortuna’s citizens and Kyrie are safe. Nero always wanted to repay Dante’s help, and he is determined to protect Dante in this fight.

● Nero says to the demon, „Hey asshole, didn’t your mother tell you it’s not nice to steal?“. Urizen does not respond. Nero takes out Red Queen and revs it while saying „Sorry Dante, I’m bagging this bitch“.

● Nero swings at him with Red Queen, but the strange floating object is preventing his attacks from landing. He tries to break the barrier by revving Red Queen more. While doing this, a tentacle attacks him. He is unable to fire Blue Rose at it due to only having one arm, so the tentacle knocks him back. Afterwards, the ground shakes ominously.

● Nero hears Griffon behind him yelling „It’s no good! This is the end!“. Griffon and V are approaching behind him.

● Nero theorizes that if he keeps attacking the object, he should be able to destroy it. However, he doesn’t feel he has the strength to execute his theory as he is struggling to regain his breath.

● Urizen raises his hand. Nero believes that this is to deliver the finishing blow, but he doesn’t have the energy to move. Suddenly, a gunshot is fired at Urizen’s hand that stops it moving.

● Dante, while aiming Ebony and Ivory at Urizen, says „Round 2“. Dante devil triggers and rushes towards Urizen, but Urizen is easily able to stop the blow. After this, the ground shakes again.

● Dante tells V to take Nero and run. In response, Nero yells „You gotta be shitting me! I can still fight!“ as he feels he hasn’t received any mortal wounds. Dante turns his head to Nero and yells back, „Nero, go! You’re just dead weight“.

● Nero stops in shock as he never imagined Dante would say something like that to him. He came to help Dante as he was told that there was a chance Dante couldn’t do this on his own. Knowing this, he didn’t want to leave. V grabs his shoulder and tells him that he needs to leave, but Nero shrugs him off and tries to rush to Urizen.

● Afterwards, debris falls from the ceiling and the ground shakes. Nero stumbles backwards and debris lands on the ground, blocking the path to Urizen.

● Nero tries to climb over the debris to get to Dante, but V holds him back. V tells him that he needs to escape as the demon’s power is beyond imagination. Nero eventually stops trying to push V back, but he yells out to Dante. „You think I’m dead weight!? Don’t bullshit me!“. Nero reflects on how he came here to save Dante, but he didn’t expect to be treated like worthless trash.

● V tells him that if he is frustrated, he should think of ways to get stronger – if Dante loses, it’s up to Nero to beat Urizen. Nero asks if that is the demon’s name and V nods. V reiterates that Urizen is the demon that stole Nero’s arm. Nero tries to look at Urizen, but their line of sight is completely blocked by debris.

● V tells Nero to hurry up and escape, to which Nero complies.

 Morrison Chapter 3

● Outside the tree, someone points to a part of the tree and says „Huh, what’s that?“. Part of the tree starts to wriggle, then Nero and V burst forth from it. They immediately head for Morrison.

● Morrison asks them what happened and what’s happened to Dante. V tells him that Dante’s buying them time and they don’t have much time left. At this point, tentacles begin breaking through the road. These tentacles begin to pierce people, causing mass hysteria.

● Morrison replies, „No way, Dante lost?“. Nero goes to attack the tentacles, but V stops him and tells him that he needs to retreat.

● Morrison asks V if they have a plan. V says while they don’t necessarily have a plan, they know that they need one thing – power. Morrison asks if that will be easy, and V says that they have no choice. V says that they have about a month left, but the world will end after that.

● Morrison sighs. There have been world-ending prophecies before, and Dante has always dealt with them. With his voice trembling, Morrison asks, „Hey, did Dante really lose?“. In response, V says „It is likely“.

● Morrison says, „What the hell!“ out loud. He feels useless as there is no one else to recruit who could help. V replies with, „Don’t give up. Humans don’t give up, that is their saving grace“.

● Nero, who was silent until now, asks if there really is a month until the world ends. V tells him to obtain as much power as possible as he is their only hope, besides Dante, to defeat Urizen.

● Nero asks Morrison to take him back to Fortuna and he will return in a month.

Morrison respects Nero’s tenacity and notes that it is probably because he is young, but great power can be born from youth.

● Several years ago, Dante told Morrison about an interesting young man that lived in Fortuna. He had demonic power similar to Dante’s, and Dante seemed to take a liking to his brash nature. This was evidenced by Dante asking Morrison to order and send a Devil May Cry neon sign to him.

● V tells them that he will stay in Red Grave City. As he cannot gain power, he will stay and collect information. Nero says that he will see him a month; V nods and walks away.

 Nico Chapter 4

● When Nero returns to Fortuna, he asks Nico to make him a prosthetic arm. Nico, being one step ahead of him, discusses her idea with him. Her initial idea was an enhanced prosthesis with a creation time of six months. Nero tells her that he needs a new powerful arm without one month. She finds this time frame absurd.

● After pulling a second all-nighter, Nero asks if she’s started making it yet and she snaps at him – it’s not like she’s just making a plastic model.

● Nero volunteers to ask Morrison for help and Nico rejects it. She regrets not being able to meet Morrison as she’s sure that he’d have great stories to tell about Dante.

● It’s said that she was too busy working in the garage to even notice that Nero was home.

● Nero asks how work is proceeding and she tells them that she has ideas floating around. He says to her, „You’ve worked two all-nighters and have nothing to show for it?“.

● This irritates Nico. „Amateur! The most important part is the planning stage! Do you want to end up with an arm like a pirate hook?“. Nero looks at her apologetically and admits that he’s getting impatient as they don’t have much time.

● Nico says she’s getting impatient too because she wants to go help Dante, see Ebony and Ivory, and hear stories about her grandmother. She jokes about making him a shitty arm that’ll help him eat pasta.

● Nero apologizes and says he’ll wait a bit longer. Nico thinks about how her brain can’t produce the best ideas when the fate of the world might rest on her.

● Julio runs to them and tells them that demons have appeared in Mitis Forest. Nero asks if there are any injured people, and Julio says he doesn’t think so as people are hiding at home. Nero pats Julio on the head and says he did a good job telling him.

● While Nero is heading out, he asks Nico if she wants to come. Although there have been a number of demon sightings during her time in Fortuna, she was too busy reading over her father’s research material to accompany Nero. This time, she thinks she could benefit from watching Nero and demons fight.

● Nero gives her a bunch of instructions to keep her safe (e.g. don’t get too close to demons). Nico says she’s not too interested in demons themselves anyway, so he doesn’t need to worry.

 Nero Chapter 6

● Nero enters Mitis Forest, but he can’t see anything. He wonders if people may have simply seen a bear. Nico says that she doubts the residents of Fortuna would confuse a bear with a demon.

● Nero reflects on how Mitis Forest was mainly used as a training ground for The Order. People rarely use it now except for things like obtaining timber.

● Nero deduces that if a demon is here, it’s probably hiding at the back of the forest. Nico gets exhausted easily as desk work is her speciality and she’s just worked two consecutive all-nighters. Instead of leaving her behind or telling her to go home alone, Nero leads her by the hand through the forest.

● Nero suddenly gets covered in shadow, and he determines that it’s an overhead attack. Nero kicks Nico out of danger and begins fighting the demon – a Blitz.

● During the fight, Nero takes a quick glance at Nico. While looking petrified, she stands absolutely still. He realizes that she knows from Agnus’s research documents that Blitzes cannot see, so she’s making sure not to make any noise to alert it to her presence.

● Nero tries to distract Blitz enough to give Nico an opportunity to escape. Nero executes a perfect bait to let Nico escape. However, instead of escaping, Nico scribbles something on a memo pad. She then shows it to Nero – „I got one! I got one! I got an idea! I’m a genius!“. Nero yells „Are you serious!?“ at her.

● As Nico didn’t use her opportunity to escape, Nero feels he has no choice but to start attacking using Red Queen as its revs create more noise for distraction. Nero attacks Blitz with Red Queen and electricity surges through his body. He groans in pain but continues attacking, and it is enough to kill the Blitz.

● As Nero goes to return home, Nico points to Blitz’s corpse and says that she needs to take it home. She came up with a special design for an arm, but she needs a demon organ capable of producing electricity.

● While picking up the Blitz corpse, Nero asks if she plans to use parts from it to create an arm. Nico says that the Blitz parts aren’t going to feature in the arms, they are simply for reference. Instead, she wants to research how Blitz is able to generate electricity, and she will use those findings to create an arm.

● Nero says that it’ll be a good idea for her to come on future hunts so that she can get inspiration. She pulls out a cigarette and says, „Roger that“.

 V Chapter 3

● In Red Grave City, the Qliphoth continues to grow and the hole allowing passage between the human and demon world grows larger.

● Griffon asks V if the situation would be better if they evacuated people from the city in advance. If people and their blood were kept away from the Qliphoth, it would not have grown so quickly.

● V replies that nobody would believe him if he tried to warn them. It was also not possible for him to negotiate with politicians as he didn’t have that type of authority or that much time. V tried his best with what he could do, but his heart was still dominated by indescribable regret.

● Griffon asks V if he’s worried, and he says he is. It won’t be long until armies are dispatched to Red Grave City, but it’s useless as they too will become sacrifices to the Qliphoth.

● Griffon asks if he thinks Nero will return. V replies, „He’ll come back. He’s not the type of guy to accept a losing streak“. Griffon laughs and says, „And who does he get that from?“. V simply replies, „No idea“.

● V looks at the book in his hands, an old collection of poems. V treasured this book when he was a young boy. When you turn the page, each psalm is eye-catching.

● ‘And it grew both day and night till it bore an apple bright’. The title of the psalm this line originates from is ‘Poison Tree’ – the psalm that predicted the Qliphoth. Remembering the delusions of his former self, V grimaces and closes the book.

● V begins to move and Griffon asks where he is going. V says he is going to help the humans who are being attacked by the Qliphoth. In response, Griffon says, „Help!? You!? The humans!? Seriously? Did you hit your head or something?“.

● V told Nero that he was staying in Red Grave City to gather information, but that was a lie. V already knew everything. He knew why the tragedy was unfolding in this city. He knew Urizen’s identity. He knew everything down to its very origin.

● While remaining in this town, he wanted to avoid too much movement as his body was eroding away. But still, V wanted to help the people of the city.

● Griffon flies after him while saying, „Hey V, wait! Are you seriously doing this? You don’t have to, but I’ll help!“.

● V knew that saving one or two people wouldn’t stop the Qliphoth, but if it bought one or two seconds more, he was still willing to do it. V’s soul told him he was obligated to do it.

● V says out loud, „I’ll do what I can“. He vows to minimize the damage in the city until Nero returns in a month.

 Epilogue

● Nero is preparing to return to Red Grave City. Kyrie tells him that she will stay inside taking care of the orphans. Nero says Morrison may bring people to Fortuna to help protect it.

● Nico beeps the horn and tells Nero to get a move on. Nero replies, „I got it, shut up“.

● Nico gets out of the van and tells Kyrie not to worry, Nero won’t die while using the work of the ‘heavenly artist’. Instead of continuing the banter, they decide it’s best to get a move on as Nero made a promise to meet V.

● Nico and Nero drive off together. Nero chides Nico for her rough driving, but Nico insists she’s trying to tame the van.

● Nico looks at Nero’s artificial arm and the arm holster she designed. She reflects on how it was necessary to prepare a holster because, while the arm she designed is incredibly powerful, a problem it has is that it breaks easily. She believes this is a result of concentrating so much power in such a small thing.

● Nico asks Nero if he likes the Devil Breaker, and Nero replies „Devil Breaker?“. She tells him that is the name that she came up with. Her reasoning is that it is a powerful tool to break demons, and Nero replies, „Is it not because it breaks easily?“.

● Nico pouts and reiterates that it’s because so much power is in such a small and light thing. However, it means that several can be carried at once to offset this.

● Nero decides to go easy on Nico and says, „Well, you did your best. I didn’t think you’d be able to design two different arms in the time limit“.

● Nico created Overture several days after Nero fought the Blitz. While watching Nero fight demons, she was inspired to make Gerbera after looking at some gerbera flowers. Nero wasn’t sure if this was true, but he supposed it was possible that Nico likes flowers.

● Nico says she had a few more ideas for Devil Breakers, but she wasn’t able to make them due to time and resources. Nero says that he can source things locally for her. She says that if he brings her back demon corpses, even fragments, she can make him new Devil Breakers.

● Nero reflects on how he never imagined he and Nico would be work partners as she was the daughter of his former enemy. He wondered what Dante would think of this.

● He hadn’t heard any news about Dante during the month. He murmurs „Dante, wait for me...“.

● For Nero, the upcoming battle isn’t just to save Dante and it’s not just to save the world. For him, it’s a battle of pride.

[everything-tony-feared]

Bucky Barnes/James Barnes/The Winter Soldier imagines

Hi all! This is a pretty long list of possible situations for you and our darlin' Plum. Feel free to use them however, and if possible, tag me! I love reading Bucky x Reader (or Bucky x Tony, ikik..) and there's just never enough of it around.

I'm thinking about doing some of these so let me know if you're interested in reading one!

You are a consultant on cultural behavior, which means you detail the best appearance, attitude, and quirks for an undercover agent to have. Given your indepth knowledge, Fury assigns you the arduous task of bringing Steve Rogers and James Barnes up to speed on history post-1949.

You have known Tony for 15 years. You were born on August 1st, 1980, and attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. After the war, you found yourself numb and detached from life, with your only surviving close friends and family being Harry James Potter and Ron Weasley. After suffering through apathy and depression for five years, at the age of 23, you throw yourself through the Veil. Unsure if you will encounter a blissful void, screeching hellfire and your righteous maker, or some other world, you put all your belongings in an extended bag and welcome the final step. Funnily enough, you fell face-forward into a gutter. 15 years later, Tony calls on you to consult on the portals opening at random. Unsure what to expect, seeing as you are the last magical being on this earthly realm, you agree. What you find brings back memories of parseltongue, bloodquils, and man with 7 lives. Bucky x Reader.

Born into an impoverished family, Y/N Y/L/N is the last in a long line of witch-hunters. Your father was already well into his 60s when you were born, so when he passed, it was just your mother left to instill the family doctrine in you. Despite this all, you eventually turn to a life of normalcy, and become a historian specializing in occult artifacts (that's normal, right?). Stephen Strange is a close friend, and eventually asks you to help him in his research kickstarted by Jane Foster. You come into contact with all of the Avengers although you've barely held a conversation past "Hi, how ya doin'?". With Darcy as your new best friend, and her ridiculous affair with the God of Lies, you find yourself reciting the words your father had carved into his flesh. "For our King, our God, and the Righteousness of Divinity, may God have Mercy upon your Filthy Soul." Would be very interesting with a fictional twist on a religion or faith of your choosing. Bucky x Reader where eventually Reader is the only person in the tower/compound who can successfully defend herself against attacks by the supernatural without heavy firepower- Bucky being the exception of course. Horror!theme?

It had been a nice sunny day in Manhattan. You thought to yourself, "You know what, this is gelato weather. I deserve gelato." And instead you get shot by some asshole with a red star on his shirt, kidnapped by a blonde man with a shield, and then told it was your fault for telling the red star asshole to leave your landlord alone.

Peter thinks he's sly- that you don't know about his spandex-wearing cobwebby bullshit. Ha! You'd lived next door all your life. Your WINDOW faces his. Who does he think he's fooling? Doesn't matter, he got you into a Stark Expo VIP tour. But hey, that tall brooding dude looks like he needs a laugh. Wait, what do you mean you can't say "Who pissed in your cornflakes?" to the Winter Soldier? He's not the Winter Soldier, he- oh. Shit. Haaa..haha.. "PETER!!"

As Tony Stark's assistant, you've seen a lot of stuff. You've seen him butt naked, you've seen him so drunk he thought you were Rhodey (somehow), and you've even had your heart in his chest. You and he trust each other completely. One day, you get a call and it's a hospital in Y/Home/Town. They say your grandpa had a heart attack. And so you're on leave for 2 months making sure he's okay. Ol' Dirty Dugan doesn't go down easy. When you return, there is a strange split in the team. Tony spends even more time in his lab, he smells awful, and there's bags under his eyes. The team doesn't mention him and you notice they don't call him out for missions anymore. Wtf? After some digging you find out that Clint, Natasha, Steve, Sam, and Wanda are convinced Tony is a piece of shit. They think he's selfish, a coward, and a pervert, all because of misinformation and his public image. Hell fucking no. Thank god they thawed Barnes out, at least he isn't partaking in Bully-Tony-Tuesday. In fact.. he seems to be just as distant and despondent as Tony. You have a lot of work to do.

Bucky is your best friend. In the sense that, you don't have any real friends, and he doesn't let people close. But you bring him coffee, he shares his protein bars, and sometimes you two watch youtube together. Then one day an office clerk slaps your ass. What does Bucky do? He fractures the guys jaw.

"Happy Birthday to me. Happy birthday to me.. Happy Birthday, dear (Y/N), happy..birthday..to me.." Nobody remembered. Again. Your parents didn't call. Your sister didn't call. Your old friends didn't call. Nobody on the team said anything, but then again, they probably didn't know.. you are just a lab assistant anyway. Oh, well, Jarvis 2.0 did say Happy Birthday. That was nice. Bucky overheard Jarvis, though. So he goes out and buys some flowers, a bottle of sake, and a cheesecake. And then you cry and doesn't know why. Happy birthday to me. Oneshot. Fluffy angst.

They didn't know you were sick. None of them. You were conveniently out of town when the medical check ups took place, and never allowed the pain to show on your face. But one day at work you collapse, and they can't wake you up. Cho discovers you have kidney disease. You're dying and have been for a while. Tony pays top dollar for an immediate transplant, but it will still take a month or two. You used to have morning chats with Barnes after his run. You always were an early bird. But now he's on assignment somewhere secret, and you feel even more numb. Bucky couldn't handle the thought that you'd die (you won't but he doesn't know that), so he runs. He runs and immerses himself in a mission, believing you'd never feel the same way.

You came home and discovered your boyfriend of eight years in bed with a woman you'd never seen before. Turns out they'd been having a secret affair for nearly 5 years. You are arrested for punching him in the face- not that you remember, you blacked out in rage- and humourously enough, Barnes is the one who collects you from the station. It's okay, you hadn't been in love with Jerry for a long time, but it still hurt. So when you see Jerry with his 'side chick' three months later, you also discover Bucky had a sense of humour. Apparently you're now married to James Barnes, have been for a while, and are pregnant. Of course you're not but somehow Bucky knew just what to say and do to piss Jerry right off.

[drv3imagines]

Yikes!

Rantaro Amami * The first word that comes to Rantaro’s mind is not a nice one, and I’ll give you a hint, it starts with an F. * But he knows that if he panics, he will miss crucial details of where the heck he put his wedding band. * If you’re in the house, he’s very casual about the ordeal, acting as chill as he usually does, while his mind is frantic to find it before he loses his sanity. * You don’t notice his secret glances, or casual tossing of an item, but you are the first one to find it before he does. * When you inquire him about it, this guy almost dies from relief, explaining that he had taken it off so it wouldn’t get damaged while he was doing some light cleaning. * He’s grateful to have your keen eye, and takes a light note that if this ever happens again he’ll just ask you…then again he wouldn’t wanna make this a habit.

Korekiyo Shinguuji * Nothing soothed Kore more than a nice relaxing mid afternoon bath. * The setting was stress alleviating and calm. * Even though he loved you dearly, he did relish the moments when he had time to drift off in his own thoughts. * He won’t lie though, spending too much time in the bath aroused his neediness and desire for you company. * Oh great, now he’s made himself lonely…his mind pondered to you, curious if you shared his loneliness at the time. Hmm, perhaps that will be a question for when you return. * Once he was satisfied with the amount of time he spent in the bath (that and the water turned freezing), he got out and wrapped himself in a towel, getting ready for the rest of the day. * But… * He was certain he put his ring on the counter?!? * He wouldn’t have been careless enough to bathe with his ring right?!?!? * Even though he already knew what he’d done, he glanced at the tub anyway, hoping that maybe he hadn’t let out the water… * For the next two hours, Kore desperately contacted as many plumbers in the area who could appear on such notice.

Kaito Momota * He always takes his ring off before a work out, y'know? * Once the blood gets pumping, and the sweat starts to roll, there’s no way he could keep up with it when he was totally focused on cardio. * He always placed it in the same spot every time so he wouldn’t forget it, side right pocket of his gym bag….uh…side left pocket of his gym bag??? Front pouch? Inner pouch??? Maybe it was in his wallet???????? * At this point Kaito was in a frenzy trying to figure out where he’d left his ring, his extra clothes were tossed about carelessly, as he emptied out his entire bag. * Okay Momota, maybe s/o won’t freak out because of this. That’s why you got the warranty right??? You didn’t forget to put the warranty on your rings did you? Son of a b- * He couldn’t even say he was disappointed, sure the ring mattered, but it wasn’t some sort of symbolism that he’d lose you right (unless the occult had something to do with this…) * Kaito was far too deep in his thoughts to even care about changing back, and instead stuffed all his things back in his bag and prepared to head out. * Just as he was about to leave, one of the gym attendants stopped him at the door. * “Sir, you dropped this!”

Kokichi Ouma * Let’s face it, the guy is going to lose his ring more times than he can count. But it’s not on purpose. * While he is careful not to get it damaged, he is usually too into whatever he’s doing to remember to remove it so he doesn’t lose it. * He never in his entire life would have counted on losing his ring in the worst place imaginable. * An amusement park. * … * Even worse, you were with him when he felt the article slip off his finger during the ride. * Don'tpanicdont'tpanicdon'tpanicdon'tpanic! * No task was ever too large for the great King! Especially when he’s got eyes and ears everywhere! * He’d simply have one of his super elite team members find the ring while he kept you distracted. * “Aw, but I wanted to take a break.” * “Nishishishi~ S/o don’t be lame~ There’s so much we still haven’t done yet~” * He hoped that by doing this he’d also wear you out and eventually he could slip away himself and look for his precious wedding band. * It was near closing time in the park and still no luck. * At this point Kokichi was on the verge of real tears, mainly because it was his fault, but also at the fact that he can never keep up with his ring! * He could easily lie to you, but what good would that be if he- * Wait a second– * Interrupting his sulky mood, Kokichi noticed a familiar glinting ring on a ring stand of a carnie booth. * Ditching you for a moment, Ouma, the expert liar, was able to win his ring back with his smooth talking, 100$, and his s/o’s skill at carnival booth games.

Shuuichi Saihara * Whoever said detectives never had to do dirty work, obviously hasn’t observed the fields a detective works in. * To say the least, Shuuichi is fully aware of how his job can cause damage to his wedding ring. * That’s why during a ‘field day’ he never wears it, in fear of what messy situation could damage the band. * Of course he always puts it right back on when he returns to his office, especially when the poor boy has been exposed to something particularly gruesome. * The ring is a symbol of your love for one another, and that love protects his heart from the shattered- OH MY GOSH WHERE IS IT?!? * It seems like today the guy can’t catch a break. One moment he’s investigating for a culprit of a literal bloodbath, now he’s gotta worry about his own (for lack of word) security blanket being lost. * Maybe he could just call you to make himself feel better. * Probably not, the guilt of losing his ring would eat him up if he did that. * Quick to retrace his steps from earlier that morning, Saihara reached an inconclusive investigation. The last place he put his ring was in face the ring stand in his desk?! * He hated the idea of accusing one of his team mates of stealing his ring…but did anyone clean his office while he was out? * Just as he thought it, he noticed the office janitor making his way to the elevator to the next floor to clean.

Kiibo * Can robots…wear rings? * Let’s just say they can (for the sake of this ask) * Kiibo was doing some heavy house chores, hoping to surprise his lovely human spouse when they returned home from work. * They work so hard, it was the least Kiibo could do for them! * He’d read on the Internet somewhere that wearing your wedding ring while cleaning, could damage it, so Kiibo kept from doing so whenever he did do some heavy cleaning like this. * And a big clean like this required an apron, even if it wasn’t particularly his taste, he preferred not to get his own armor messed up. * Checking the pockets for his ring, he prepped the apron to be washed with the final load of laundry…only… * He was sure he placed the ring in the pocket??? He could have sworn that…the hole in the bottom of the apron’s pocket mocked him as he stared into the empty pouch. * He made a mental note to ask you how to sew as soon as possible, but first… * He retraced his steps, moving aside furniture, books, picture frames, and other items in the house in search of the ring. * He was determined not to give up, even when he ended up making a bigger mess than before he cleaned up. * “Ah-HA!” He shouted joyfully holding up his ring proudly, oblivious to you walking in through the front door. * “Kiibo?! What happened in here?!”

Gonta Gokuhara * Gonta was really careful. * Super duper careful. * He wasn’t sure how this could have happened????? * One moment he was out and about observing bee growth, the next he comes home, following his normal routine…nothing out of the ordinary, until he heads to bed. * If it were up to him he’d sleep with his ring on, but you warned him that in his sleep he had no way to keep up with it, so it was best to remove it. * When he goes to remove his ring, that’s when he notices it’s gone. * But…Gonta was sure that… * You tell him not to worry about it, the ring could always be replace- * But Gonta does not see that as responsible for a gentleman to replace the original gift from him s/o. * So it’s near midnight when Gonta goes out to the field near your house to look for his ring.

Ryoma Hoshi * If he lost it that obviously meant he didn’t deserve it right? * Grrr, now wasn’t the time to self-loathe! * Now was the time to find that wedding ring your s/o worked so hard for. Then you can spend all afternoon self-loathing! * He wasn’t even sure how he could have lost it, he’d come home today completely worn out for some reason and just crashed out on the couch. * Now his ring was gone… * Lame, right? * Probably the dumbest thing he’s ever done so far, unless you’re counting- * Focus Ryoma! Find the ring first! * Okay, compromise. We do the loathing thing and look for the ring. * While he’s tossing aside couch cushions and pillows, he’s cursing himself out for being such a loser. * “Ridiculous-” *tosses pillow* “-irresponsible-” *moves aside furniture* “-brainless!” * At this time, you walk in on the complete war zone he’s created. Ryoma’s practically lost his sense of surrounding, forgetting that you were even home at this time. * He pauses, simply staring at you, hoping you would just let him do what he needed and forget this whole thing even happened. * But you just spent almost five minutes just staring at one another, until you broke contact, picking up his ring on the side table. * “Oh, were you looking for-” * “Yes, thanks you.” * He knows it’ll be impossible to just grab his ring and go be awkward somewhere else, so he figured it was best to just do the latter and try to collect some confidence to reclaim his band.

[gavinhalm]

A Discussion of Tom Gunning's “Phantom Images and Modern Manifestations”

Phantom Images and Modern Manifestations: Spirit Photography, Magic Theatre, Trick Films, and Photography's Uncanny.

In one of his more famous essays on photography, Phantom Images and Modern Manifestations, Tom Gunning describes the medium as being fraught with a double existence as both an icon, or bearer of resemblance, as well as an index, which points to the photograph as a literal, empirical trace of past-time. Also essential to this view is the fact that photography is inherently a kind of scientific, chemical/mechanical machine free from the "unreliability of human discourse" (i.e., an image making medium far different than drawing or painting). But, the most striking aspect of photography's early development and mass consumption were the feelings of discomfort experienced by many when viewing this new technology, along with its association with the occult.

The Uncanny and the Double

To describe the startling, “uncanny” experience felt by 19th century viewers of photography, Gunning begins with a fascinating quote from Balzac's novel Cousin Pons, where the author states, in a narrative digression shot-through with notions gleaned from Spiritualist metaphysics, that the figure or thing represented in a photograph exists as a kind of specter or ghost that is constantly producing, shedding, or radiating images of itself outward towards the camera in order to be recorded. In essence, the sensitized photographic plate, via the camera's lens, captures moments of a kind of spiritual singularity emanating from the Real World, and Real Things, and freezes them all forever, in a kind of half-religious and proto-quantum mechanical matrix of psychology, observation, recording, and iconographic image making not far removed, for Gunning, from any number of Christian panel and canvas paintings executed over the previous millennium.

Next, Gunning steers the discussion towards another famous author of the 19th century, Sigmund Freud, who locates the feeling of the uncanny through a personal story in which he found himself walking in circles through a shady part of town filled with prostitutes, thus experiencing repetitively strange and uncomfortable feelings and perceptions while in orbit around this urban space.

Without getting into the peculiar erotic connotations (for Freud himself) implicit within this story, or the refined way Gunning links Freud’s own complex theory of the “Return of the Repressed” to his walkabout, it is enough to say that the uncanny, spooky, deja-vu feeling Freud describes was the impetus for his important concept of the “Double”: Doubling refers to the representation/projection of the ego outward that can assume various forms outside the physical self of the subject (twins, mirroring, reflections, self/portraiture, etc), and has no small connection to aspects of primitive animism as well as the mythological story of Narcissus, and, of course, to photography as a medium. 

What photography does, according to Gunning, is to provide a technology which could summon feelings of the uncanny through a visual-empirical doubling of reality, thus grounding Spiritualism in science/technology and helping to give it quasi-rational justification for proliferating its beliefs.

He also relates other pseudo-empirical methods of communication with the dead to his discussion, such as the example of the Fox sisters who became famous for their seances whereby they rapped out messages from the beyond (Morse Code-like, and in an empirical auditory way that could also be “directly” sensed)–Even famous public figures of the time, such as Thomas Watson of Alexander Graham Bell's laboratory, often fell into believing the efficacy of the sisters’ contacts with the otherworldly. Spiritualism now becomes, according to Gunning, intertwined with the development of early forms of mass communication and the scientific/technological in general.

Doubling of the Double Through the Photographic Mirror of American Spiritualism

A whole host of optical methods were used by spirit photographers to prove the existence of the Spirit Realm, the most successful of which was the sandwiching of different negatives in order to reveal the sought-for ghostly figures in a final photographic object–From President Lincoln's towering ghost standing behind his seated widow (complete with his hands upon her shoulders), to multiple exposures of dead children's faces next to their mothers, to strangely arranged circular galleries of ghostly heads, all were examples of the different arrangements spirit photographers executed in order to display the other-worldly beings and loved ones from the beyond. 

Often appearing within these photographs were, incredibly for their early viewers, images people had seen elsewhere–Recognizable public images lurking both out in the Real World, and within in the dark recesses of the secret archives each spirit photographer possessed, were somehow (re)appearing. In order to rationalize these doubly-doubled images’ inclusion, a spirit photographer would argue that, in order for people to recognize the spirits, they themselves must use common, understandable imagery for communicative reasons. So, in short, the spirits were also producing photographs, which is a profoundly revelatory thesis that had deep metaphysical implications for both the realms of the living and the dead.

Photography also engaged in a fascinating alliance with another aspect of Spiritualism in which entranced mediums would throw up, evacuate, or generally excrete "materializations" of some uncertain gelatinous substance (in this case, not of a silver halide nature) that often included yet more images of the dead. Also, Spiritualists claimed that by merely holding a piece of photographic material, without the aid of a camera, one could produce images of ghosts, or, even more incredibly, a ghost in its entirety could be materialized via (any) photographic methods and then be touched, and even smelled.

One of Gunning’s most impressive examples during this discussion uses the instance of the ghost of one Katie King, whose supposed conjuring famously fooled one of the finest British scientists of the era, William Cookes, and would end up giving more than a little credence to the beliefs of the Spiritualists through his association–Though it was later shown that the medium who conjured Ms. King looked identical to the ghost she was purportedly summoning, thus conjuring a spirit that was, in essence as well as literally, a living double of a dead double (perhaps the most truly astonishing instance where photographic material begat the very thing it represented).

All of these meta/physical mechanizations involving photographic technology take us in one direction or another from the material, to the immaterial, and back to the material again, providing the structure for an infinite empirical/spiritual feedback loop. What could be more uncanny, or more to the point, what could provide more exemplary evidence for the existence of the Spirit Realm, then a new technology being able to not only open the doors of perception, but to actively enable communication with the Other Side? 

Indeed, in Spirit Photography the mediating technology itself takes over the human medium's role, and the most profound connection between photography and Spiritualist manifestation lies in the concept of the sensitive medium (literally and figuratively, as both the sensitive medium that conjures up the ghosts, as well as the sensitive plate that captures them)–This double figuration of a sensitive, doubling medium is the ultimate medium-as-message.

--

What Gunning does throughout his essay is weave a very subtle, very detailed socio-historical analysis which provides an exceptional lens through which to observe one of the final sociocultural waves in the 19th century that shifted the larger focus from the religiously-subjective, to the near complete domination of the empirical/visual in our own present culture, and his analysis convincingly fuses together issues relating to period gender bias, economics, legal issues concerning fraud and quackery, the spectacles of magic shows, and showmanship itself. †

In the end, Gunning returns to the idea that Balzac found so compelling in which photography didn't simply capture the trace of something, but that this something was involved in a nearly endless series of self-referential image production. Therefore, what we end up having during this time in Western history is a situation in which the feeling of the uncanny, the idea of the Double, the fear of death, along with a new technology, engenders a metaphysics that would have the spirits on the other side creating infinitely reproducible photographs of themselves in order to communicate with the living. 

We have, in short, a model of the universe where things reproduce themselves through a never ending re-production of images, but have no real, “original” existence outside of these images. Sounds uncannily familiar, doesn't it?

Notes:

† Cf. the film The Spiritualist Photographer, by the great 19th/20th century contemporary filmmaker-magician Méliès, which exposed the entire farcical display of Spiritualist photography's practice in order to produce a film that disrobes the specious, tenuous ties Spiritualism had to the scientific, and unveiled it as being all novel spectacle and showman-like trickery rather than an awe inspiring event.