#goth girl i dreamt about one time

[shempimite]

various one-off bullshit drawings from 2017-2020ish

[kooktrash]

romantic dreams | jeon jungkook [teaser]

summary: he’s always dreamt of finding his soulmate in some romantic way, bells ringing, birds chirping, maybe even a shine of light over their head. he never imagined to find them living next door to him with absolutely no clue to the extent of the growing infatuation he has toward you until it’s a little too late. hypnotized by your entire existence he finds his dreams and delusions of love to be a little too intense for anyone to bear.

➣ genre/au: yandere jungkook x reader [she/her, female anatomy], neighbors au, smut, angst

STORY POSTED

➣ 1.4k words

warnings: yandere. smut. jk is obsessed and a stalker. toxic. manipulation. gaslighting. he’s a gym rat who listens to deftones, nirvana, korn, pierce the veil, etc. he watches y/n through cameras. delusional jk. he’s intimidating and a huge asshole to everyone but y/n—like genuinely not a good person lol but he has nipple piercings and a six pack. goth jk. calvin klein jk. y/n is strong minded and a bit cruel at times. dom/sub/switch themes but not intense. rough, passionate sëx. mornings to come. no dubcon/noncon, fully consensual

song inspo: tempest — deftones, and i love her — kurt cobain, blvd. nights — team sleep, new magic wand — tyler, the creator [highly recommend listening so you can get what kind of character Jungkook is]

jungkook’s moodboard | y/n’s moodboard

There was a quickening pace to his heart. Sweat dripped down his forehead that he wiped away with his forearm as he looked at his friend through the mirrored wall. Just behind them he had a clear view of some woman looking at them. His friend noticed her too, “She’s had her eye on you for a while now.”

Jungkook didn’t say anything as he switched with Namjoon and laid down. Namjoon made sure to spot him as he began to bench press, muscles bulging with each set he did.

“I’m serious, man, and she’s hot,” Namjoon looked behind him to catch the girl running on the treadmill as her gaze shifted shyly at being caught. He was getting a little pissed that his friend does not care that he’s being eye fucked at the gym.

This was just like Jungkook too, he never showed any sign of interest in anything. He always had a bored expression on his face like he was waiting for something worth his while to happen. Namjoon’s learned to get over it because if Jungkook didn’t like hanging out with him then they wouldn’t be friends. Jungkook isn’t the type to waste his breath reassuring things like that and he definitely does not waste his time thinking of someone.

If Namjoon got half as many women checking him out as Jungkook does, he would find a girlfriend in no time—but no, he has to stand to aside and watch his friend pay absolutely no attention to any woman who expressed even the slightest hint of interest in him. Maybe he has to applaud Jungkook for this, he seems to have standards and sticks to them because in their years long friendship he’s only met one of his girlfriend’s before. He was extremely private about his sex life too so they never shared any locker room talk and Namjoon has just learned that’s how he is.

“Should we do one more?” Jungkook asked as he placed the dumbbell back into its holders and sat up panting. He looked behind him just slightly and caught sight of the bleached blond on the treadmill. She hasn’t taken his eyes off since she got here and it’s really starting to piss him off.

“Sure,” Namjoon said, switching Jungkook, “I don’t get how you seem to just ignore every woman who looks at you.”

Jungkook looked down at him as Namjoon caught a good grip on the dumbbell, “I wouldn’t disrespect the person I’m seeing by entertaining someone else.”

Namjoon nearly dropped the dumbbell on himself as he jumped up to a sitting position and looked at his friend dumbfounded, “You’re seeing someone?”

That made the corners of Jungkook’s lips turn upward and he tried to bite back a smile, his dimples still showed. Namjoon was no longer sitting and it seemed like the end of their workout so he began to clean the equipment. Jungkook cleared his throat, “Sort of.”

Wordlessly, they began to leave toward the locker room and Jungkook walked right past the blond without sparing her a single glance. He smiled, “Y/n.”

“Huh?” Namjoon asked, “Is that who you’re sort of seeing?”

“Mhm,” Jungkook nodded with a smile that had Namjoon surprised. He very rarely sees this much emotion from Jungkook and compared to his usual cool exterior, this was a bit unsettling. The two went straight for their lockers as they took their gym bags out and got ready to leave. Namjoon cleared his throat, “Do you have a picture? I need a visual of who this person is.”

It was just so sudden after he had these thoughts of how Jungkook showed absolutely no interest in anyone and kept his sex life extremely private. Namjoon always thought it was just because he was a womanizer and didn’t feel like bragging about all the women he’s seeing. It is just surprising that all of a sudden Jungkook would show so much emotion bringing someone up.

Jungkook didn’t give him an answer aside from fishing his phone out of his pocket and immediately showing him his lock screen. Namjoon looked at the picture clearly.

“Wow,” Namjoon said with, “Now I see why you don’t bat an eye at anyone else.”

It was a good candid photo of you, like you didn’t even know it was being taken of you. You were sitting outside having dinner and it was a perfect snapshot of your smile. You were looking at something off camera but Namjoon did have to admit that you were very attractive.

He missed the way Jungkook’s eyes darkened the longer Namjoon looked at your picture and decided to lock his phone and put it away, “Ready?”

“Yeah,” Namjoon said as he grabbed his car keys while Jungkook grabbed his and his helmet, “So why haven’t I met this Y/n, yet?”

Jungkook wasn’t smiling anymore but Namjoon couldn’t see it as he walked behind him, “You know I like things kept private.”

“I mean yeah but… I don’t know, you’ve never brought her up before. When did you start seeing her?” Namjoon asked just trying to have a casual conversation with Jungkook before they split up.

“I said sort of.”

“What?”

“Earlier you asked me if I was seeing Y/n and I said sort of,” Jungkook said with a tightened smile, “No need to bring anyone around yet.”

Namjoon didn’t have a chance to say much after that, Jungkook got on his motorcycle and left with a little wave. This felt like news of the century, Jungkook very rarely smiles the way he smiled when he first brought you up.

Who were you exactly?

You took a deep breath as you unlocked your front door and walked into a pitch black apartment. The light flickered on behind you and a small fluff curled around legs the second you were inside.

“Armani!” Your friend said with a soft gasp as he bent down to pick up the gray Siberian feline. Your cat let Taehyung pick him up and walk him around your living room as you put your things away.

“Looks like your neighbor’s home,” Taehyung pointed out as he stood near the window of your apartment. Armani hopped out of his arms and onto his scratching post where he usually lounged in for naps. “You think he watches you sleep?”

“Shut up,” you told him with a roll of your eyes, “Do you want a drink?”

“Soju?” Taehyung asked with a cheeky grin before looking back to the window, “And you know I’m joking… I’m just saying though, he always has his curtains drawn and sometimes I catch him looking over here.”

“All that’s telling me is that I need to stop inviting you over,” you said as you grabbed a bottle of Soju and a bowl of chips. You couldn’t help but look out your window.

Your neighbor was an attractive man. He had a sleeve of tattoos and a broad chest, a six pack and… nipple piercings. It’s not you’re a creep or anything but he likes to lounge around his living room and bedroom without a shirt on and his curtains open. Sometimes he would step out of the shower with only a tattoo around his small waist as he looked for clothes in his bedroom and you would have to immediately close your curtains so you weren’t a peeping Tom.

He moved in a few weeks ago and since then you’ve found yourself battling over the fact that you’ll never attract a man as gorgeous as him no matter what Taehyung says. Since the beginning Taehyung has believed that your neighbor seems to have a liking toward you.

Your best friend is over at your place more often than not and he’s noticed some things. For instance, the day he moved in Taehyung was over and like the nosy neighbor you were, the two of you stared out the window and watched him unload boxes. Taehyung swears he saw a look in your neighbor’s eyes that immediately disappeared when he saw he was there too.

Then, there was that time when you were having dinner with your friends. Taehyung pointed out seeing your neighbor and how close he was sitting outside and you just brushed it off. He lives in your neighborhood now, that means he mostly frequented the same restaurants as you. He also notes every time your neighbor seems to glance out the window toward your place but you don’t think anything of it. These apartments have poor lighting and the only way you get natural light is by having the windows open. In truth, Taehyung has watched way too many true crime documentaries and has gotten a bit paranoid.

“Whatever,” Taehyung sighed, “I’m just saying, it wouldn’t hurt you to give him a little show and see if you’ll get laid.”

::.

okok im in the mood for a somewhat yandere Jk bc im still obsessed with his calvin klein shoot. idk this probs isn’t everyone’s cup of tea but it’s mine so 🤭

RELEASE DATE TO BE DETERMINED

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[tamakiamajikistentacles]

Two Ghosts (part 2) {Dabi}

A/N: Please be sure to reblog, comment, review, and like if you enjoy! Feedback is what keeps me motivated! Click to read Part 1 and Part 3

Shoto Todoroki was observant—as a future pro hero, he would have to be.

He had observed the small idiosyncrasies of his classmates and committed them to memory for no other reason than to catalog his observations. That meant knowing of things like Ashido’s 3am laundry room trips with American pop music playing from her phone just slightly too loud for the time of night or Tokoyami’s habit of stirring his morning coffee three times to the left and then three times to the right despite drinking it black.

Above all, he prided himself on observing those he was against in battle, be it his classmates during training or villains determined to end his life.

During the attack on their training camp, he had his chance to observe the villains sent to retrieve Bakugo. He’d been able to give fairly detailed descriptions to the authorities and pros who had come to speak with the classes once the attack had ceased and his classmate had been taken. It had helped in identifying them he later learned, but there were two individuals whose names were never retrieved despite his information.

One was the tall, thin man with burn-scarred skin held together with staples and piercings around turquoise eyes and jet-black hair, his blue fire burning hotter than his own and even hotter still than Endeavor’s. The other was a woman who stood almost as tall as the burned man with her heeled boots, her golden eyes and facial piercings framed by long tendrils of dark, inky purple hair that floated around her when her wind quirk was in use.

He could remember being hesitant to look away from her eyes as she stood to the left of the burned man whose hand had been around Bakugo’s neck when the warpgate consumed them. She was pretty, but he stared because of the warmth that her eyes held, a warmth he couldn’t explain the familiarity of.

His brain had tried to justify that the color was similar to Kaminari’s and that’s where he was getting a sense of ‘I know that look’ but it wasn’t right. He felt that her eyes were almost misplaced in the rest of her appearance, like she should have looked… lighter? brighter? It didn’t make sense.

There were more glimpses of her warmth that revealed themselves as time went on, and each one served to confuse him further.

When they had gone to retrieve Bakugo, he had seen her there on the battlefield in Kamino, but she didn’t fight. Two of the villains, the black mist who opened the warpgates and the man with the blue flames, had been knocked out cold, and she wouldn’t leave the side of the burned man. The look in those golden eyes had been feral as they darted around protectively, her hands never leaving him. Even as Midoriya, Iida, and Kirishima had taken to the sky to put the plan in motion, she didn’t move.

“Who can do distance?!” one of the villains called out as Bakugo had reached their classmates, Kirishima’s hand tightly clasping his own.

“Kurogiri and Dabi, but they’re down!” another answered, casting a look back at them. “Kazane, you’re able to do distance with Dabi’s flames but can you do it on your own?”

“No,” she bit out, the wide neck of her shirt falling down her left shoulder to reveal a purple burn scar. “I can do ten meters on my own but they’re beyond that at this point. Even if they weren’t, I won’t leave Dabi.”

Another plan was formulated by the rest of the villains, and Shoto watched on until it was deemed safe enough for he and Yaoyorozu to make their exit. As they did, he mulled over the new information he had been granted.

The golden eyed woman was named Kazane, and the man with the blue fire was Dabi. They were a team, that much was obvious, but he wondered how far teamwork went in their partnership. Admittedly, he had no baseline with his parents for what a healthy, loving relationship looked like, but his instincts told him that in some odd way, that was what he had witnessed that night in Kamino when Kazane wouldn’t leave Dabi’s side to try and complete their mission to take Bakugo. She’d said it was because ten meters was her distance limit but compared to what he had seen at the training camp, her distance could easily reach three or four times that much.

More information was revealed by Bakugo when he had been questioned by police, his recounting of his time spent in the bar headquarters provided in hopes of tracking the League down once again.

Shoto overheard him talking about it with Kirishima and the rest of their small group of friends one night in the dorm common room as he made tea.

“The two goths were practically attached at the damn hip,” he growled. “The scarred motherfucker who took me through the warpgate at camp, Dabi, he was like a damn teenager puttin’ his hands all over the chick. Kazane, that was her name. Always fuckin’ touching each other and him pullin’ her into his lap. Gross.”

‘As I suspected,’ Shoto thought to himself. The partnership went far beyond working as a team on the battlefield.

But that confirmation was still not enough to sate his curiosity of the villains, golden eyes still haunting him whenever the subject was brought up. There were even times when he dreamt of training camp and either replayed what had happened or even imagined how a quirk confrontation would have gone down between them.

When he did dream of fighting them, no matter what he himself said in provocation, Dabi would only ever give one command—request?—to Kazane when they advanced on him, voice distorted as if he were underwater.

“Take him, Peach.”

He hated how familiar he became with the phrase in his dreams, and how familiar the soft words seemed even when the dream had been new.

Months passed with occasional distractions from the phrase and the dreams that held it; moving into the dorms, taking and failing his provisional license exam, enrolling in remedial courses with Bakugo to finally earn his license, another internship with Endeavor, and even an attempt by his father to rebuild their family after his misdeeds provided more to think of than golden eyes and blue flames.

Until Endeavor began moving Shoto, Natsuo, and Fuyumi into their own home away from the compound they had grown up in, he could almost say he had forgotten about the phrase the dreams had tried to sear into his mind.

He had been helping Fuyumi pack away the last of her things before they would take them to the new house when she turned to him from where she had been inspecting an old box that had been buried in her closet.

“Oh, Shoto, do you remember making these when you were little?” she asked, small, semi-smushed paper cranes in her palms. “You used to love coming in to make these with us when T- when we could get you away from training for a little while.”

He knelt down beside her and took a pale yellow one into his hand gently. “I knew you liked making them, but I don’t remember making them with Natsuo.”

“Natsuo never bothered with them really,” she said with a laugh. “It was usually what Raila and I would do to distract you when… well, when Touya would argue with Father and we didn’t want you to hear or see anything. You used to love when she would make them fly around, too. I might have a video of you giggling when she’d have them land on your head!”

“Who is Raila?” he asked, head cocked to the side as she scooped more cranes out of the box.

Fuyumi smiled wistfully, one orangey-pink crane delicately balanced in her palm. “Raila was Touya’s girlfriend from the time they were fourteen up until he passed. She was there when he did, but the heat and the smoke made her faint and by the time responders had arrived, she’d been burned and Touya was… gone.”

“Why don’t I know her?” Shoto asked hoarsely. It was rare that Touya was discussed, and rarer still that his death was spoken of. “Is she still here in the city?”

“A few weeks after Touya passed, she vanished. Some of her things were missing like she had run away but after about two days the police found evidence that she had committed suicide by jumping from one of the bridges closer to the countryside. That part of the river went right out to the ocean and they always expected to recover her body, but they never did. I think they said one or two of her things washed ashore after they declared her deceased, but it was so long ago that I can’t tell you for sure,” his sister explained sadly.

He hated that he couldn’t even conjure an image of this girl in his mind, someone who had apparently been in his life for nearly three years and had treated him to a type of normalcy he so rarely experienced as a child.

“Tell me more about her?” he requested softly. “More about her and Touya?”

“Well, like I said, they had been together since they were fourteen but had known one another since probably elementary school I think,” she said after a moment of careful hesitance, continuing to sift through the box’s contents. “Touya always said he couldn’t wait to be of age so that they could get married and move in together because Raila was the only girl he could ever see a future with since they worked so well together. She was the one who helped him keep his hair dyed properly which was good. The first time he ever let it grow out by accident he looked like he had a spiky Santa hat on from the white lining his scalp.”

Shoto cocked his head to the side. “He dyed his hair red? I… I can’t ever remember him with white hair.”

“He started dying it when you were probably about three and half, maybe four. Once he did, he looked like a small version of Father but with Mother’s face. You two always favored Mother’s features, really.”

“Why did he dye it when he disagreed with Father so much?”

Fuyumi frowned. “He had wanted to tame his fire on his own and was attempting to convince Father to train him again instead of you. The dye was so that he could make himself look more like Father and establish an image that, if chosen to train again, meant he could be marketed as Endeavor’s successor in every sense as he took over All Might’s number one ranking. It’s what they usually fought about that would lead to Raila bringing you in here with me to make cranes. There’s a few pictures in here if you want to see them.”

He nodded, not trusting his own voice at the revelation that his oldest brother had torn himself apart in so many ways just to protect him. It had cost him his life, and what did he have to show for it other than maybe a few pictures hidden in the depths of the house and rarely spoken stories of his short seventeen years?

Pulling the box closer to himself, he saw the small pile of pictures amongst a few more smashed and half-unfolded paper cranes and several other cheap trinkets. Taking the pictures into his hand he noticed that he was trembling slightly, this glimpse into the past something he was wholly unprepared to do. He pushed himself, though, and began looking through the photos.

The first was of himself, young and bright-eyed with no scar painted over his left eye, only smooth baby skin that was crinkled in delight from the pastel blue crane sitting atop his head. It was strange to see himself unblemished and so happy, the wide smile on his face looking foreign. It stirred within him an odd sense of nostalgia for the moments he didn’t remember experiencing.

In the next picture, Fuyumi was sitting cross-legged on the same floor they currently occupied and the tiny version of him was sat on her lap, little brows furrowed in concentration as he focused down on the paper he was folding. Fuyumi’s hands hovered near his as if ready to jump in if he asked for help and she had a content look on her face. Shoto wished that she had that expression more often, and he hoped that this move would make that happen.

Flipping to the next picture, he became confused at the blurry, low quality. He could make out part of Fuyumi’s face which may have been laughing, and a pinkish blob next to her that was half cut-off by the photo’s edge. If anything, the floor was taking up more of the picture.

“What was this kept for?” he asked his sister, holding it out to face her.

She laughed. “You took that, Shoto. It’s the first picture you ever took so I kept it to look back on, I guess. That pink blob is supposed to be Raila.”

He glanced at the picture again before moving to the next. That one was another of him, his arms extended out as he stood in the middle of the room amongst floating paper cranes, the wonder in his eyes and chubbiness of his cheeks from smiling was twisting his heart painfully. He wished that this sort of thing was more prominent in his memories of childhood. He looked so happy, and while he was working on experiencing that feeling more often thanks to his friends at UA, he never should have lost that feeling as he grew up.

With a sigh he brought out the last picture and looked it over, finally seeing what Raila looked like. She was sat on the floor too, her hands cupped in front of her green sweater-clad chest as one crane floated above them. Her peachy-pink hair was cut short and reminded him of Uraraka’s but without the longer pieces on either side of her smiling face. The one thing he spent the most time observing in the picture, though, were her eyes. Her warm, gold eyes.

The golden eyes that had haunted him for over half a year were looking back at him from a decade old photo taken in the very room he was sitting in. He really had known those eyes, he just didn’t remember until he was holding the evidence in his hand. Raila was warmth and safety when he was with her, he knew that just from hearing about her from Fuyumi and seeing the joy she had helped to bring him when he was small. She was buried so far down in his memories, but now that he knew who to picture, he remembered more.

“Take him, Peach.”

Touya had told her that once, when he confronted their father in the training room. Did he mean take him to Fuyumi to make these paper cranes? He had to, of course he had to.

But it wasn’t Touya who had spoken those words in his countless dreams of battle with two villains, it was Dabi.

Dabi, who was tall and thin and burned and able to produce flames so much hotter than even Endeavor’s and had those blue eyes that looked just like his father’s and his left one. Dabi, who was unable to be identified along with Kazane even with all of the details given by both Shoto and Bakugo. Dabi, who was fretted over by Kazane who he now knew was truly Raila and shared a burn scar that looked identical to all of his.

It was Dabi, who had to be Touya.

“Fuyumi, what was Raila’s quirk?”

He had to be sure.

“It was called Whirlwind. She could manipulate wind in a cylindrical pattern that could mimic a tornado or a hurricane, but on a smaller scale. She didn’t have much precision in the movements, but I always thought she would’ve made a great hero if that was what she wanted.”

Or one hell of a villain.

A/N: Please be sure to reblog, comment, review, and like if you enjoy! Feedback is what keeps me motivated! Click here to read Part 1 and Part 3

[thenightling]

Horror movie Tag Game

I got this survey from another page and copied and pasted it.

Favorite:   This changes based on my mood.  I’ll list ten right now.   The order and titles are subject to change on my whim.  Trick r Treat, Fright Night (1985) Fright Night: Part 2 (1988)  Dracula (1979), Frankenstein (2004 version starring Luke Goss, not the other 2004 version), The Company of Wolves.  The Raven (1963) Sleepy Hollow (1999) Crimson Peak  Faust (1926)  

Least favorite: Low budget: Bonnie and Clyde vs. Dracula. Mainstream: Frailty.  

Scene(s) that scared you the most:

The first time I saw Lestat come back from the swamp in Interview with the vampire it made me jump even though I knew it was coming. When Louis hears the doorbell and thinks it’s the carriage.  I knew it was not the carriage and when no one was there I knew the jump scare was coming, but I somehow still jumped.  

While watching a documentary about Dracula on the History Channel many years ago they talked about how at the real castle Dracula (Poenari castle, not Bran) some priests were sent up to bless the place since the locals heard strange noises and claimed to see lights up there.  But as the priests neared the castle a storm broke out so they had to do the blessing from a distance and I remember thinking “Conjuring storms is supposed to be one of the vampire Dracula’s powers.” and as I was thinking this, that’s when the door creaked open and I practically jumped out of my skin.   

While watching Let the Right One In it was at the scene where Eli was climbing up the side of the hospital and I remember thinking “Ah, this isn’t so scary.” but then the power went out, and it just happened to be snowing heavily out side and it was the middle of the night so for a split second I thought “Oh, crap.  Child vampire is coming for me!” I don’t really count gross-out as scary but I always used to have to look away at the face ripping scene in Night Breed. 

When I was little I had a major fear of skeletons so anything with skeletons in it used to scare me when I was little, like that pool scene in Poltergeist.   I once had a 1941 Wolf Man inspired Nightmare where I dreamt I woke up after having slaughtered people I care about as a werewolf.  I couldn’t remember doing it but I knew I had done it and I remember the guilt I felt in the dream.  Scene(s) that made you laugh hardest:   I know it’s not really horror but the scene in Ghostbusters 2 when The Titanic comes to dock. “Well, better late than never...” Best soundtrack:  Anything by Danny Elfman.  Best plot twist:   My favorite horror plot twist is actually from a TV show but my favorite plot twist is in Penny Dreadful when after you get used to the cliche, simple minded, child-like Frankenstein Monster with the shaved head suddenly the real Frankenstein Monster, based on the literary version with the long black hair and yellow eyes, turns up and rips apart the zeitgeist version.  “Your first born has returned, Father.”

Legend of Hell House. I started watching Legend of Hell House because Roddy McDowell was in it.  Roddy’s character was such a cliche sort of character to die in those sort of Haunted House movies.   He had survived it before. He was timid.  He was meek.  He wore glasses. He was withdrawn.   He was practically a check list of “dead character walking” but instead he became the hero.  It was a pleasant surprise.   Best directed:  Anything by Guillermo del Toro.  

Most unique characters:   Human:  Peter Vincent in Fright Night (1985).  A loving homage to both Peter Cushing and Vincent Price you get to see the has-been actor evolve and grow into the hero he always pretended to be.  Peter Vincent is the first character I can think of who fits this description. Non-human:   Possibly the faun in Pan’s Labyrinth. Most underrated:  The Company of Wolves.

Most stress-inducing:   Pretty much every suspense thriller made by USA network or Lifetime.   They got very frustrating.

Most overrated:  Most H. P. Lovecraft related things.

Favorite to rewatch: Depends on my mood.   See the top 10 list at the top.  

Funniest:  Gremlins 2.

Greatest inspiration: Really tough call.   At the moment I’ll say Tales of Terror since that was inspired by the works of Edgar Allan Poe and who hasn’t been inspired by Poe in some level?   

Guilty pleasure:  If it brings you pleasure it should never make you guilty.  However... Films that I know to be bad but I watch anyway and like incude  I, Frankenstein, Van Helsing, and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.   I, Frankenstein is at the top of this list.  

Fell asleep watching:  Lust for a vampire.   Somehow that film was very boring.  

Deserves a sequel:  The original Fright Night franchise (not remake.)

Coolest makeup:   American werewolf in London, and pretty much anything Doug Jones has been made to wear by Guillermo del Toro.    

Prohibited to watch growing up:  My mother never forbid anything.   

Left the biggest impression:   Bram Stoker’s Dracula.  What 90s Goth teen wasn’t inspired, at least, somewhat, by this?

Tagging:  @sorry-for-the-chocolate @endlessemptynight @lamb90 @treebrooke79 @thesaramonster @unnecessaryhorns @mrgoldsshopofhorrors  @jr4cats @winterbirdybuddy @a-m-automaton @kaimaciel  @drawing-down-th3-moon  @good-times-bad-food @sunagirl @everthewildeone  @syra-syara @theartofthecover @artwinsdraws   @girl-with-cat-eyes @mentallydisturbedllama221b  @thegreatvampirekiller  @theimpossiblescheme  @iknowwheremytowelis

If there’s anyone who wants to do this who I forgot to tag, by all means, feel free to do it.   

Note: If you want to do this but feel unqualified because you don’t know enough horror, feel free to use Supernatural / Gothic fantasy / even PG spooky kid friendly Halloween films.  You don’t have to do the survey if you don’t want to but know I am laid back on the criteria of what counts as horror.

[dadadaemoved]

“Why am I always so mean to you in your dreams?” ↳ THINGS SAID BETWEEN ME & MY PARTNER ※ acc. ※

@gothsic

         “You expect me to know? You really expect I’m gonna have an answer for that.” Cherry was fine looking anywhere but him. Whatever he was getting at, she was sure she didn’t approve. “I can’t control my dreams. If I did, you’d be way different.” A centaur maybe. A centaur she could ride. “If you’re trying to psychoanalyze me, better luck next time. I already know I’m delightfully wacky. That’s my diagnosis, actually. I’m terminally delightful and clinically wacky.”

           She crossed her arms, weight shifting from one leg to the other. “I’m not a masochist. It’s just not my thing. Now if you were dressed as a nun, maybe my Dream Self would be hot for teacher. Maybe she’d get excited by the idea of Nun You ready with a ruler to thwap her with when her designs and drafts are way off base. The thing is—and this is the most important part—that girl isn’t me. I’m me. I choose what I wanna see, and I don’t think a habit would be flattering on you.” Her eyes dragged up and down his figure to emphasize her point. “Not enough curves.” But that was getting away from the subject.

            “I dunno, maybe that’s what I expect from you. Maybe I think you’re gonna be a regular ass, and my dream cranks it up to eleven. If I had the answers, Goth Bomb, I’d give ’em. There’s no point in lying. The real question on my mind right now is what I’m like in your dreams.” Her head tipped back, eyes half-lidded in thought. “There’s no way you haven’t dreamt about me. Say otherwise, and that’s a lie. Probably.”

[antagonistchanremade]

So, another two things that make Stellar Grievances very similar to Log Horizon are respawning, and a physical difference between player characters and NPCs that is sometimes waived.

As for respawning, lots of Isekai stories use the concept, most notably Re;Zero is pretty much all about respawning, but Stellar Grievances treats it basically the same way Log Horizon treats it- dying if you’re a player character is a mere annoyance, but that’s kinda horrifying in its own way, since a lack of real stakes in your life can drain you of your determination. It does not, however, do the thing Log Horizon does where there’s a plot twist that, oh no, it turns out that every time you die you lose some of your memories from the real world. However, it’s otherwise mechanically the same as Log Horizon’s- when you die, you respawn at the last hospital you visited after a certain waiting period. How long you have to wait to respawn is dependent on a number of factors, but it can range anywhere from almost immediate to half a day. Players don’t generally remember anything from this respawn period, from their perspective it generally feels like they respawned immediately even if they got the maximum waiting period, but on occasion a player will describe having dreamt during the waiting period.

Now, for the real juicy thing, the physical differences between player characters and NPCs.

In Log Horizon, you have your Adventurers (player characters) and your People of the Land (NPCs). The People of the Land are just normal people; Adventurers have heightened abilities and the power to respawn. At the start of the series, this is just the way it is; however, towards the end of the first season, it’s discovered that one of the protagonists is actually a Person of the Land posing as an Adventurer, and he ends up taking a fatal blow; the protagonists save his life by doing some complex exploits to turn him into an Adventurer, which allows him to respawn after he dies, and he ends up joining the main party. Let me say, Log Horizon was already awesome, but that moment it what solidified it as one of my favorite anime ever.

Meanwhile, in Stellar Grievances, you have three initial groups: the Natives (NPCs), the Specialists (player characters), and the Naturals (the people from our world who didn’t play the game, since remember, in SG the entire population of Earth is trapped in the game world). There’s a pretty similar separation of power: the Naturals are just normal people, the Natives are mostly normal but they have limited access to the game menu (which grants them things like their own Inventory, whereas Naturals have to physically carry all of their belongings); and Specialists have full access to the game menu, a number of special abilities, heightened physical traits, and the power to respawn.

However, it’s revealed pretty quickly that there’s actually a fourth group that’s been around since before the game launched, and they were in fact a sort of prototype for the Specialists. They are the Awoken Agents. The Awoken Agents, like the Natives, are NPCs, but unlike the Natives, they’re almost as good as Specialists, and better than them in a few rare cases. The Agents have their own unique abilities that are useless most of the time but absolutely crucial in certain operations, but more importantly, they can do everything the Specialists can... except respawn. Well, with one exception.

See, there are seven Agents. Similarly, there are six Classes. Six of the Agents correspond to the various classes, being “prototypes” for them; but the seventh, Buttercup, was instead a prototype for the respawn system. The remaining six had a different ability: when they died, they could pass on all of their abilities to another Agent.

Also, each Agent corresponded to a color, and they each had an associated name. Agent Yellow (Respawning) was Buttercup. Agent Green (Assassin) was Phyll (like chlorophyll, but also like Phillip). Agent Purple (Marine) was Violet. Agent Black (Scout) was Shadow. Agent Blue (Knight) was, well, Blue. Agent Red (Medic) was Aika (Aika’s a Japanese name, but it also sounds similar to Aka, which is Japanese for red). And finally- and this name I’m really proud of- Agent White (Technician) was Canvas.

Anyways, the main party of Stellar Grievances (which is a full team with each Class) is made up of five Specialists and one Awoken Agent. As for which one, well... when the party was still being formed, they ended up crossing paths with Buttercup and Phyll, and then some chaos happened and Phyll ended up dying and passing on his powers to Buttercup, making her basically a full Assassin since she had her own respawning and Phyll’s Assassin abilities. And at that point, she decided to change her name to Madison and join the party, becoming the secondary protagonist from that point onwards.

ALSO little tidbit, there’s a bit of a semi-Magical Girl thing going with Stellar Grievances. See, Specialists and Awoken Agents don’t usually have access to their full power- their dying abilities are always active, as is their full access to the game menu, but their unique powers and heightened abilities are only granted when they “Log In”. It’s also worth noting that when they Log In, the game menus stop calling them by their actual names and start calling them by their usernames from when SG was still just a game (or in the Agents’ case, by their color); Stella’s username is Mechaniisms, Madison’s is Agent Yellow, Lily’s is Yuyuriri (because Yuri was already taken, and she wanted Yuri because her name is Lily and also she’s a lesbian), Kyousuke’s is xX_Kyo_Xx (he’s kinda an edgelord), Travis’s is Explorer21, and James’s is Don1998 (he was born in 1998 and he liked roleplaying as some kind of mobster when it was still a game). And also, their appearance changes somewhat.

But another thing that makes the Awoken Agents unique is that their appearance change is more drastic. See, a Specialist’s appearance change can’t actually affect their body deep down. It can change their clothes, it can change their hairstyle (and dye their hair), and it can sort of change their eye color (their eye color doesn’t actually change, but since you can change your clothes, that includes colored contacts). But an Awoken Agent’s appearance change can alter their very body type.

Some Specialist transformations can get pretty drastic, but only due to creativity on the Specialist’s part, and it can only get so far; for instance, Stella’s is pretty drastic since her “Civilian” form is super femme while her “Logged In” form is super butch (specifically one of those elegant butches I really like making characters of). And the guys all look fairly normal in their Civilian forms, but in their Logged In forms, Kyousuke becomes this goth anime protagonist, Travis becomes a Persona 5 character, and James becomes, well, a 1920′s mobster. Lily is the odd one out, she goes for a more subtle different between her two forms, aside from her prosthetic arm (she has two of them- one of them serves as her right arm in civilian form and is just a robotic recreation of a normal hand, but in her Logged In state it twists around so that it’s on her back, and her new right arm is her MedTool prosthetic which is a lot bigger and clumsier (and since her left arm is busy with the shield, if she needs actual fine motor control she uses the arm on her back)).

Madison, however, visibly matures when she transforms, like Neptune from Neptunia. She’s visibly the youngest-looking of the main cast in civilian form (despite actually being the oldest by a significant margin, the rest of the cast is in their late teens and early twenties while she’s in her seventies), but when she logs in, she rapidly and temporarily matures to be more on par with everyone else, getting taller, curvier, and less babyfaced, with a deeper voice; though her personality and mannerisms don’t change in the slightest, and she’s very much the Cinnamon Roll of the team, so there is a bit of Gap Moe in seeing this very mature-looking woman behaving so childishly and innocently.

[comeondowntosouthparkrpg-blog]

Lola Thomas

Will she friend us on Facebook yet? Lola has been accepted! Send in your blog and faceclaim!

out of character info

Name/Alias: lexi (yeah im gonna try this again because looks like the negativity is GONE. BLESS.)

Pronouns: she/her

Age: 18

Join Our Discord: Yeaaaah

Timezone: central

Activity: 7 ( i do work so activity will prolly bump before 2pm and after 8pm lmao )

Triggers: nada

Password: jimmy can fast pass my ass ;))

Character that you’re applying for: Lola Thomas

Favourite ships for your character: going in this with a clean slate so try and give me a favorite ship? ’,:)

in character info

Full name: Lola Diane Thomas

Birthday: May 20th.

Sexuality, gender, pronouns: pansexual, female, she/her

Age and grade: 16 (almost 17) && senior.

Faceclaim: Taylor Hill

Appearance:

Head: Lola is what you call a tall glass of water. She’s refreshingly attractive. Her eyes are neither blue or green but a weird combination of the two colors, making them pop against her naturally darkened complexion. Her hair is soft and wavy and like to tangle near the ends by the time Lola is out of school and on the way to work. It’s color likes to change with the rare sunlight, meaning if she is outside in the sun all day every day natural highlights will appear in her honey chestnut tresses. Her nose is like a little button that deserves to be booped constantly. Her lips are full and plump- to that she owes genetics. Lola believes it is her only good trait.

Body: A natural looker. She stands at about 5'8, so be prepared if you’re tiny. She will tower you with her legs for DAYS.  She doesn’t have particularly large assets but they are there. And it’s a nice handful on either side of the equator. You just gotta look for them behind her non-stop barrage of sweaters. She likes to say she has a white girl booty- its cute && snooty. Her shoulders and cheeks are very, very, lightly dusted in freckles you can only see in the winter. Despiter her tall figure, Lola is NOT a bean pole, she’s slim thicccc weighing about 145 pounds and it’s not in her face.

Style: Lola dresses like she lives in Goodwill, trendy and thrifty. She would kill for knee socks and button up blouses. She aims to look like ‘The classic look of a teenager in the 90’s’. Her shoes will never don a heel for she believes she is 'too tall’ for them. She likes to keep a mellow color scheme for all her clothing items. Tan, green, white. Sometimes she looks like the first instagram post you see tagged * v i n t a g e. *

Personality: 

First off let’s get this straight, with Lola it’s not a personality but more of how she adopts a personality to fit each social clique she is suckered into that day. If you dig deeep deeeeeep down pass the meme references and pop culture shout outs- she’s awfully shy and hates making the first move in ANY kind of situation. She is sympathetic to most of the problems she hears- other than relationship ones. What’s a feeling for someone else other than your cat? She doesn’t get it. Skittish doesn’t even cover how much of a fraidy cat she is.. One little boo when she’s not expecting it is enough to get Lola to shriek and jump three feet into the air. She does have a nuturing instinct, finding it rather difficult to see anyone lonely or upset.

Once you get to know Lola, she is a sweetheart with a soul of gold. She would freeze in the frigid temperatures to keep her friend warm. She’s the girl who will sneak you into her house so you dont have to go home if you’re scared too or can’t. She is quite snarky however- as if a dam broke and every witty thought ever spun in her head rushes out. Once you get her talking about something she is personally interested in, good luck shutting her up. Lola is also a very superstitious person. Never one too step on a crack or split a pole. Her biggest quirk would have to be her need for reassurance that her jokes are funny. She thinks of herself as a comedian but is already sure everyone thinks she is trying too hard. She is a rather dull girl on the outside, moody and solemn. But if you can crack into her cold shell there’s an ooey gooey sweetness inside. Lola is often easily upset- movies to road kill make her tear up. Anytime she even gets mad the salry reminders if her lameness well up in her eyes. And that only pisses her off more.

Despite having a cool exterior she can and will snap- just push the right buttons. 

History:

Lola wouldnt deem herself an outcast yet she would always feel that way. Whether she was cheering with the girls or writing lists with Jenny, her feelings were uncontrollable. Her anxiety makes it impossible to determine if someone is being nice to her or if they have a plot to harm her. In middle school, Lola secretly dreamt of becoming a goth kid- going as far as painting her nails black for two years. But her fears never made her set out to do it. Plus everyone was a little then so isn’t that technically confirming? Her school work was the only thing Lola was ever certain in. Work was easy, you couldn’t fuck it up by being a complete oddball. It was practically memorization. After starting high school, Lola was practically a wallflower. Hell she was the wall and the flower all wrapped in one. She dropped every friendship and dedicated herself to her studies and her pets. After she got a job she was allowed to have them finally and her fur babies were the only things she cared about truly and deeply. For they could never hate their mother.

Things were always tough for Lola, socially or economically, but that didn’t mean her childhood sucked. It just meant instead of a Barbie dreamhouse for Christmas she got the summer edition Barbie. Not a house. Just the doll. Jealousy is an emotion often clouding her anxieties and judgement on people. It caused her to lose her best friend since.. Well, as long as she could remember. Lola grew jealous and almost possessive over Jenny. She probably didn’t mean too but when she saw Jenny getting along with people when she couldnt caused a burning rage to settle in her chest. It got so bad Lola didnt even speak to anyone for a week before blowing up and ruining her only real friendship.

Just because she looks innocent doesn’t mean the brunette is. There are probably a few flat tires and keyed cars residing in South Park that are Lola’s own doing. Not to mention she is a total bystander. You wanna skip school? Cool, yeah I’ll watch for a teacher. You wanna smoke pot in the bathroom? It’s all good as long as she gets a hit. These are all childish 'bad behaviors’ but as Lola sees it, there’s no point in trying that hard to be bad. After all the one time she tried it, the poor thing almost died from hypothermia after blindly listening to a slumber party dare.

You aren’t supposed to sneak out in slumber parties. Or streak in Wal-Mart. Or jump of a bridge into negative temp waters. But these are all things Lola did too prove she was cool. And it ended up with her grounded, being hospitalised for pneumonia, and gaining a large fear of heights. And a hatred for party games.

Sample paragraph:

Of course, it was another cold blustery day. Chestnut tresses fluttered in front of her sight along the whole way home, it didn’t matter how many times she forcefully blew the bangs out of her face- they always flopped back down. Numbing fingers clutched tighter to the soft cloth lining of her jacket pockets. The index fingers and thumbs of both hands pinching at the materiel. Gosh- why is it always freezing? Dull orbs flittered around the blank scenery of the all too familiar path from her house to the school. The only sounds Lola could hear were the crunching of her flats against the snow and the wind whipping furiously around her. Boring. It was all white and boring. Lola was tired of being bored. She imagined that would be the only feeling she could muster for the rest of her life and it made the corners of her glossed lips tug down.

She shook her head as if to clear the thoughts instantly, humming a tune to distract herself as she continued on her trek.

One step, two step, three step…

…Sixteenth step-

Lola really needed a friend. A small sigh lifted her chest and as it billowed past her mouth she noticed movement in her peripherals. Was she really looking down this whole time like an idiot? How embarrassing! She clenched her hands into fists, further rumpling the jacket from its own pockets. Avoiding any kind of eye contact she swayed over to the side near the street and hurried her steps along. Too fast to count now. She passed the figure and her hands slowly unfurled. The blood rushing to her digits made them quite warm and her face flushed as well. God she was awkard.

Just as she thought she was in the clear, Lola felt a tap on her shoulder and her heart stuttered in its cavity as she stumbled to a stop. Fuck.

Headcanons:

🌟 owns a bike but rarely rides it.

🌟 has one cat- a black kitten named sparrow.

🌟 also two rats- yin and yang which are little chocolate colored sisters.

🌟 3.8 GPA

🌟 wants to learn french

🌟 owns a polaroid camera kinda girl

🌟 gardens in her free time

Anything else:

Im really insecure so if it takes me time to reply its cuz im demeaning myself and my baby and my words. 

[violets-silence]

Violet Had A Life

-cause I make fan fictions for myself. Imma have fun man-

You may think that after the great scandal of Violets many-greats grandmother, Meteora, being forcibly dethroned for a time being, that the MHC would reconsider their stance on monsters joining the Butterfly ranks.

In fact, they were incredibly happy to do so while Queen Star was pregnant with her firstborn. Upset, yes, that it was a boy and not a girl, but nonetheless happy. After all, she was married to a human, not a Mewman.

Yet it wasn’t too long after the birth that the MHC seemed to have changed their minds. Not wanting to be connected to yet another dethroning, or a murder, the entire MHC stepped down, only to replace themselves with a new, younger, and ruthless MHC.

The entire new group hated Prince River with a passion, making their dislike known. Star attempted to defend her son, but was severely shut down every time.

Star and Marco tried to live their lives; after all, it was supposed to be good times, only three months after the baby was born. Sure, he didn’t have cheekmarks yet, but hey, you win some you lose some.

That is...

Until River disappeared.

Star was openly distraught and grieving when he vanished, questioning every guard and every citizen, begging for her son back, with Marco being twice as bad as she was.

“You need to let him go. He is gone.”

The MHC warned them, their stance ever lasting.

Despite the Queens begging, nothing brought her son back into her arms. Not three months after Rivers disappearance, Queen Star made an announcement: she was pregnant again.

The MHC celebrated, especially when Star told them it was a girl, and she had cheekmarks from what Marco had told her during their ‘ultrasound’.

Everyone, except Marco, failed to notice the Queens emotions.

They ran wild, feelings of betrayl and horror filling Stars waking moments, along with her dreams. She dreamt of her son running away to someone she couldn’t see. No matter how loud she screamed for him to come back, he simply kept running.

By the time Star was eight months along, her son had vanished from her dreams. Instead, her life became filled with Violet.

Eclipsa was with her every step of the way, telling her she was sure the child would be fine in life and would even have a lively one.

Star wanted to smack her, but shoved every feeling deep down inside.

Star felt bitter when Violet was born.

Why was she born with cheekmarks and not River? Why was she the one with magic? Why was Violet the one approved and not her son? Why did violet have to come now? Why couldn’t she wait until a few years later? Why now when there were two deaths in the family, both so close to one another?

Star blamed Violet. It was all her fault.

Marco tried to change stars feelings when she told him, telling her that it was silly and unethical to hate a baby for being born.

Star agreed. In reality, she shoved the bitter feelings deeper.

It slipped out now and again. Of course it did.

Violet was only two when the first incident occurred. She had been innocently playing and had grabbed the hem of Stars dress, smiling up at her.

Instead of returning the smile as she normally would, Stars gaze instead hardened, eyes narrowing and mouth turning into a frown.

It had startled Violet, who ran off to her father instead. It was then on that Violet grew to be alone. Despite what Marco told Star, he understood her feelings all too well, and he created a rift between them and their daughter.

Violet has no way to understand what she did wrong. After all, there were plenty of good times! Like when Dad taught her to make nachos, and when Mom taught her to use the wand!

Yet...

She was alone far too often.

Deafening herself proved to be hardly a huge change in her life. Once it had been proved that the magical injury was not fatal or too scarring, Violet had returned to her daily activities.

Running around, singing to songs she couldn’t hear, coloring and dancing. It was normals

It was only when some village boys came around that impacted her greatly.

They stood nearby to her, and watched her babble about some thing or another. They seemed to be laughing, motioning to Violet a couple of times. Then one of them signed to her.

‘You sound funny when you talk. Like a monster with a mouth full of teeth.’

The boy then pulled at his lips and bared his teeth, laughing at her.

The others joined in, ‘telling’ her that her voice was funny, how she said words all funny, how it was hard to hear her, on and on.

For fifteen minutes, Violet stood and watched, shocked and confused. How could people she called friends tell her such horrible things?

It was only when Marco came out that they ran off. He attempted to comfort his daughter, but Violet shoved him away from her, running to the woods.

From then on, it was the place she remained the most. Days could go by with her not returning to the castle and no one would bat an eye. It was all too common that Violet would sleep out in the woods, making make-shift campsites, and eating food she found that she was aware of being edible.

She read hundreds of books, and even earned her dimensional scissors on her way down a strange path through the woods.

The rare times Violet saw her parents, they simply grew more distant from her. They couldn’t understand her reasoning for being in the woods, or her taste for the basics in life. Star didn’t understand why she wore a simple, Greek-like dress with little to no accessories, and she certainly didn’t understand Violets reasonings for not looking for a dare, even when she was approaching the age of 15.

It all changed on the one day she chose to stay at home. To recharge, grab some good supplies, etc etc.

It wasn’t even something fun that she was doing, she was just walking and daydreaming when she’d smacked into someone, knocking them both down.

She’d sat up, red in the face and ready to demand an explanation-

When the stranger raised herself off the ground.

Violet, in all intents and purposes, adored those taller than her. Which is easy, since she’s a simple 5’0.

This person, however, was at least 5’6, 6’0 including the horns on her head. Her red eyes were gleaming with pain and anger, and her mouth twisted and opened, speaking.

Her hair was multicolored, somethin Violet found odd. And to top it all off, she was a demon, with the eyeliner, and the demon tail and the pointed ears.

The girl kept talking, before becoming aware that Violet wasn’t listening.

She said something again, this time with Violet reading the lips.

‘Who are you?’

She tilted her head a bit, then it seemed to click for this beautiful stranger.

She snagged a paper and a pen from her bag she had, handing them over to violet after scribbling a message onto it.

‘Your name?’

Violet took the offering, scrawling her name down.

‘Violet Rose Diaz-Butterfly’

The strangers eyes lit up in a strange way as she read the message.

‘My name is Victoria Lucitor. I believe I am in the wrong dimension.’

‘Do you need help getting back?’

‘No, I need help being shown around. Will you help me?’

Victoria smiled, offering a hand when Violet finished reading her offer. She beamed, nodding and taking Victoria’s hand.

For a good few years, everything was amazing for them.

Victoria seemed to come by every day. They’d go on dates (even if violet was clueless until the fourth one), but each other gifts, even shared a good many ‘firsts’ together.

Of course, when the goings good, something has to give.

The sickness Violet has grew worse. Make no mistake, she’d had it all her life and had figured out what caused it. She’d even expected it when her parents started fighting.

She didn’t have to hear them for her to pick up that they were arguing more and more. When they had a family dinner, the air would be thick with tension, making Violet nervous. The fighting would never occurr in front of her; no, that’s hurt her.

However, her parents failed to pick up on the fact that even when she was away, their relationship hurt her.

The more they fought, the more Violet coughed. The more Violet coughed, the more redstuff she coughed out. And the more red stuff that came out, the more sick she felt.

It was in too small of doses to kill her all at once, but her doctor gave her the ugly truth: she only had till the best case scenario of living til 42 years old before the sickness overcame her.

It broke her heart.

She thought of Victoria, and her plans of the future she’d told Violet all about. She thought of her parents. Maybe they’d be dead when she herself died? Unlikely, but probable.

What if she had kids? She’d leave them lonesome.

So she promised herself: I would rather die than let Victoria figure out what’s going on. All we need is happy memories.

Victoria thought Violet was trying to get over a flu. She thought that Violet starting to do more things with her was just her feeling better and celebrating.

Hell, Violet even got into pastel goth, and made Victoria happy time and time again.

She pushed the social anxiety away long enough to go to a club, and would return exhausted but happy.

They lived like this for years, dancing between the dimensions. Violet met her siblings, being doted on by a different pair of Marco and Star. They were much happier and loving.

Violet started vanishing for longer and longer amounts of time, slowly easing her parents into living without her for a full year. By now, she and Victoria were in their later 20s, with violet being 29.

Victoria sat on the throne now; her parents had passed it down with their blessings. Victoria was a wonderful Queen; three years had passed with no huge hiccups when it became apparent that something was changing.

Violet wasn’t feeling good anymore. She thought this was normal, but it got worse and worse. Even ‘talking’ with Victoria became too tiring to accomplish, and Violet retreated to their bedroom.

Victoria, ever so worried, sent a nurse to figure out what was wrong.

“She’s not eating enough.”

“But she eats, and just throws it back up again.” Victoria followed hurriedly, heels clacking on the floor. “She can’t eat any more unless she wants to throw up more.”

“She can eat just fine, it’s normal morning sickness that does that to you.”

Victoria nodded before realization dawned on her. “Wait what-“

“I know what you’re going to ask. Yes, she’s with child, Your Majesty. No, it shouldn’t be possible considering how babies are normally made. My best guess is that your bond was so deep, that your magic entwined together and chose one of you at random to carry this piece of mixed magic.”

“So we’re having a magic baby?”

“Yes. Now excuse me.” The nurse had left.

Five minutes passed. Then ten.

Victoria slowly took a deep breath before shrieking with joy and then panic.

“I’m gonna be a mom!... oh gods I’m gonna be a mom.”

While the pregnancy (or incubation, there’s no right answer) went smoothly in everyone else’s eyes, it was a horrible drain on Violet. The sickness was back full steam, and she could feel her life being shortened by decades.

Little Draven Lorenzo Lucitor was born on July 23rd, late into the night. He was a minute off from being born on the 24th.

They welcomed little Draven, and enjoyed his very exsistance.

At least... for a time. Then Victoria spoke with Violet.

“You have to talk to your parents, Vio. You have to let them know they have a grand baby.”

-cliffhanger lol-

@freaky-fan-art

[mystery-the-mother-of-harlots]

I Was The Only One Wearing A Facemask and Two Demons Locked Me Into A Pact

I dreamt I was at a mall. I was walking around with a facemask. Everyone else in the dream wasn't wearing one which concerned me. The mall was closing for the night and I was rushing to the exit. I got distracted when I saw a kiosk selling some Hot Topic clearance stuff. A lot of people were still looking.

I decided I didn't want anything and kept heading for the exit. Suddenly there's a line of people and we're moving around like a school of fish. I stood in line for maybe a minute and decide to leave. Still, there's people blocking my way. I noticed there two sets of twins. I yelled at them to, "MOVE!" and some of them parted to give me a path. I had to push against some. Eventually I got to the exit and ordered an Uber to pick me up.

I had a second dream. In this dream, one of my cats had gotten out. I panicked because I worried she would get lost or wouldn't come back. I opened the side door to my house, and I saw my cat and a tall black figure followed her. I open the glass door just enough for her to come in. She bolted inside and somehow I knew the black figure was a demon. I thought the demon would've harmed my cat.

The demon, because of its proximity to my home, locked me into a deal. Every day for a week, I would have to meet it at 6 pm. The first few meetings were a blur. I was afraid of meeting up with a black shadowy thing. On Thursday at 6:06 pm, I gathered up some snacks and met the demon at the door. This time, the demon appeared to me as a tall chubby man. By his side was a chubby goth girl about twenty. I was baked in the dream at this point, so I felt more relaxed around them.

I said, "Oh hey it's Thursday, the week's almost over". The week I was referring to wasn't the deal/pact.

I asked them if they wanted anything else. They looked surprised and the guy asked for spicy chips, while the girl had asked for milk. I had brought out cookies but forgotten the spicy chips in my room. I went back to get their stuff, but woke up before I could give them their stuff.

[mfmagazine]

Decadent Designs

Article by Diane Walsh

Simply put. Decadent Designs are downright, mouth-watering beautiful clothes.  This line—custom and handmade—by Toronto fashion-designer Olga Lipnitski—definitely, decadently designed. Featuring an exquisite collection of quality garments, quintessential Gothic style cocktail dress, evening gowns, seductive corsets, waist cinchers and bustiers—plus, PVC clubwear!

Olga’s design company is an impressive e-store, a website presenting a professional and artistic gallery of items that can bought, including unique, easy-to-use instructions on how to choose sizing and make custom requests.  I talked with Olga about design conception, her roots, and Goth.

I noticed Decadent Designs was recently featured in a video by musicians Jhevon-Paris-Ft. Girlicious and Pat K and I’ve seen your work on TV.  How does that make you feel?

It seems somewhat surreal to see my garments being shown on TV. I never imagined that something like this would happen. It is an amazing feeling, hard to describe, knowing that so many people are watching the video and seeing my work.

Your pieces have a sensual elegance to them.  A sensuality—as if built into the ‘coutume’.  Is this a conscious art? Tell us what’s taken you there?

I admit that the sensuality is not deliberate. The style and feel of my creations is an extension of how I feel and—through my work—I tend to project my personality and emotions. I love the sensation of walking into a room, knowing that your look is unique and eye-catching without being scandalous. I have always believed that there is an elegant and sophisticated way to portray sensuality. When I first began designing clothing, it was only for me.  To be able to dress the way I wanted to and to create my individual style. As my hobby evolved, into a full time career, I applied these same principles to my designs—imagining a young woman who is getting ready to go out, trying to decide what she is going to wear; she wants to make a strong statement and be noticed, but not for all the wrong reasons.

The clothing is eclectic and exquisitely original.  Lots of black—satins—some white, a spot of red—but no other rainbow-type colours. What’s the leading inspiration for the unique exclusion of colour (or lack thereof)?

Thank you Diane, the exclusion of color is not a completely conscious choice; I personally prefer dramatic, moody hues. Considering the style and esthetic of my work it seems only natural to maintain the darker look. I think that if some of the pieces were made in say, a floral fabric for example, it would not quite have the desired affect. I feel that the somber shades I chose to work with better reflect the mood I am going for with my designs.

Original, daring, seductive—runway caliber—created for a variety of clients. Yes? Mostly whom though?

I do not have a specific person in mind when I am working on new looks.  My clients range from a woman who is very Goth to a girl next door who is looking for a unique, one of a kind outfit for a special occasion. My market is very diverse but one thing these women have in common is that they are not afraid to be different and have a very strong sense of individuality when it comes to their personal style. There’s a European quality to the designs—have your roots influenced your fashion sense?

Yes, I would have to agree with you, being Eastern European myself; the style favored in Europe appeals the most to me. I find it to be more elaborate and daring than anywhere else in the world.

What got you into being a designer? (By the way, even your name is chic!) Olga Lipnitski. Do you think it’s an accident of birth or do you think you were destined to be a fab fashion designer?

Ah, thank you for the compliment! I am very flattered and flushing. My creative side started developing early on in life. As a little girl, I used to spend a lot of time with my grandmother who taught me how to make stuffed toys and dresses for dolls. She always encouraged me to try new crafts and hobbies.

Also as a young girl I was fascinated with the styles of Victorian era.  I found them so elegant and mesmerizing. When most girls that age dream about their wedding dresses, I dreamt about owning a Victorian dress and how amazing it would be to wear one. When I was a teenager, I became involved in the Goth scene and in my town there were no stores where one could shop for the appropriate attire. Instead of going to the local sex store and buying a cheaply made bustier, I decided to get a book that would teach me how to make my own clothes. And that is when it all began!

I was learning and improving my skills… until I was able to put together a decent garment that was good enough to be worn in public. Everything else was time and practice. Other girls began to ask me where I bought my clothing and not before long I was designing and sewing custom-made outfits for other people!

I am not sure if I was destined to be a designer. But I have worked very hard to make sure that my career has turned out to be this way.

Custom-made clothing is all the rage—(yours—alternative to boot)—and for women.  What made you decide on this combination? (And on the edgy side…)

Well, it was not so much deciding on it, rather the way it came to be from the beginning. I don’t believe in the one size fits all theory, women’s figures are different and unique, and there is no one perfect size for any of us. Since all my garments are made from scratch, I thought; why not offer a custom option? That way a perfect fit is ensured and there is not guessing. I strongly recommend going for this option when ordering garments from me.

Goth for fashion’s sake and Goth as a form of political expression… where do you feel you fit?

Myself—personally, I like it for the fashion as well as for, self expression, political and other. Goth means different things to different people. To me it is a way to express my emotions—how I feel about life and the world in general. It is way to stand out, to be an individual, not conforming to the norm; basically saying that I am different and unique in my own way. I could probably go on and on about this, but this is it, in short.

To you, what is Goth? What inspires you to design Goth clothing and serve the Goth subculture community in the way that you do? Goth to me is a form of surreal, almost fairy tale beauty, something intangible, like a dream or a vision.  It is a fantasy that I live to get away from the reality of life. My inspiration stems from my fascination with the Gothic sub culture and its many facets. My purpose as far as gothic fashion goes is to offer girls and women something unique.  As you might know there are many of the same looks out there and I feel that my line fills the gap between the mass produced stagnant looks and the mainstream. I would not say that my work is strictly Goth; I surely started out that way a few years ago, but since then, my esthetic has evolved into something else. I think that women from different walks of life can appreciate what I am doing.

Yes, the clothing you feature does have a Gothic quality but undoubtedly—it’s more than that:  Juxtaposed in there seems to be, Victorian styles weaved together with collections reminiscent of the 1910-20’s.  Especially the cocktail dresses and evening gowns… but also—corsets, waist cinchers and bustiers so loved by LGBTQs—and that takes us into the Fetish community in today’s culture.  And you’ve got the currently-popular PVC club wear—how do you feel this knits together in your overall philosophy and inspirational system?

Yes, that is true; I do have some PVC garment and a few pieces that are a combination of PVC and other fabrics. I would have to say that it fits in nicely into my overall style, the more fetish-looking pieces in my collection still project elegance and sophistication, as opposed to regular belief associated with the scene. I feel that almost any fabric can be turned into a piece of art if done right. The same goes for PVC.

Do you think “Fetish” is becoming more mainstream?  Is that a good or bad thing from your point of view?

Right now it seems that it is becoming more mainstream due to celebrities dressing up in latex and PVC for their music videos and public appearance, but I also think that it might just be a passing trend, like any other. I think it is a good thing, because it makes the public realize that this style of clothing is not freaky or scary, to be worn to some underground club, but a legitimate look that is fashionable and tasteful

[resmarted]

we are eight years old when we have our first lovers’ quarrel. for being second graders, we are very darla and alfalfa, sitting together in the sandbox during our recess period because it is considered something for little kids and we are supposed to be too old for it now. we aren’t. it’s the only place we can seem to be alone, and that’s where all the trouble starts. my friends are sick of me trading them out for a girl, and i’m never sure if their jealousy is over you or me, mainly because we are all nerds and it’s weird if anyone even talks to us let alone a girl. we talk about all kinds of stuff though. you tell me what you dreamt of the night before and i dig piles of sand for you to sculpt things out of, and then we discuss what we had for lunch earlier. we don’t eat lunch together, that’s just too much. i sit with my friends and you with yours and we both hang out by the monkey bars with all our other friends at first, but slowly migrate to the sandbox and that’s when the ooh’s and ahh’s and kissy noises start. we think nothing of it at first, but the tension builds over time. one day i can be heard from across the blacktop screaming, no you’re mean! i slam a rock down when i say it in a frustrated angst and sand blows up into your eyes. you start to cry but i drop to my knees like no no, i’m so sorry, stop. i didn’t mean to, i’m so sorry! hold still and look at me and try not to blink. you do begrudgingly and suddenly i am blowing softly into them and asking if it’s helping. it’s too late though and the teacher on yard duty has been alerted, and before we know it both of our parents have been called in and i’m being suspended and have to see a therapist about my anger issues. i keep saying i didn’t hit her, it wasn’t even on purpose, but it doesn’t matter because it was an act of aggression and now i’m a problem child. you’re too scared to say anything because your parents are there and we are all in the principal’s office and the room is swelling up with pressure, everyone’s eyes are on you. i can’t even remember what we fought about, but i think it had to do with how my friends wanted to hang out that day and i figured just this once i could throw them a bone. i’ve barely seen them since our love blossomed from being randomly paired as fingerpainting buddies. ever since we’ve been inseparable and i was just trying to be fair, you know? my parents tell me to leave you alone and yours forbid you to talk to me. the teachers all know now to keep an eye on us and everyone’s watching us now, for real. we stop talking or acknowledging each other, but we deal with it in fucked up ways, like when your friends convinced you act like you were grossed out by me or when mine would suggest i still wasn’t over you and i would respond by acting like you were just another science experiment. we both bottle our feelings up until seventh grade when we are caught holding hands and kissing at a birthday party, which causes a whole new ruckus when you’ve barely recovered from the first one years earlier. by high school you have become a really surly goth girl, nothing like you were with the abercrombie crowd you were once so loyal to. in all the unlikely scenarios to happen, i became somewhat of a jock once i learned to take my aggression out with a baseball bat and eventually football. one day during junior year i get into a fight with my cheerleader girlfriend, someone whose name you once wrote next to friends 4eva on your trapperkeeper in white-out, was supposed to be my ride that day. i hadn’t taken the school bus in years and almost decided to just walk home, but then i saw you get on. something came over me and i jumped in as soon as they were about to shut the doors. you were looking out your window in a daze, music blasting into your ears, and i walk directly to the back to slide in beside you. you don’t even notice me until the bus starts moving and the first thing you do is shoot me a very angry browed stare. i start to say something but you pull your earphones off and just go, what? i try to say how’s it going and you say no i mean what are you doing here? i say there were no other seats, but there are plenty of seats. this bus doesn’t even go anywhere near my house and we both know it. you say something really vicious like the angry little chihuahua you’ve become, something like, i didn’t know your nose could detach this far from kelly’s asshole, and i can only laugh and say that’s a good one. i’m not as smart or as witty as you, i’m actually terrified of you on most days. i ask if your parents still hate me and you scoff like, why do you even care? i care. i have always cared. i’m the worst thing that’s ever happened to you as far as they’re concerned, and you laugh like yeah that makes three of us. i follow you out to your stop and you look at me like i’m a crazy person before calmly walking ahead. and maybe i am a crazy person, this is a crazy person thing to do, i live nowhere near you and was banned from your life years ago. but here i am chasing after you like it’s another game of tag, except i’m following you home, uninvited and unperplexed. i just want to know why you hate me, or that’s what i say anyway. i want to know everything about you and to find a sandbox for us to dig in together and just erase all the bad parts of our impalpable history. i want to see what’s under your black nylons and what your tiny hand with the chipped black nails would look like in my beast paw. you turn around and say that you don’t hate me, in this way like i’m supposed to know. you grasp at your forehead in this frustrated way like you’re trying to explain where babies come from to a child, and these little wisps of bangs fly out from under a black beanie in the process. look i know your dad doesn’t like me and i’m not the wholesome image of the strapping young man that he expects to be in your life but, and you stop me. what? since when do you want to be in my life? ever since you let kelly give you a blowie at the spring formal you two have been inseparable. i look at you like i’m surprised you even know anything about me, and i am. look, i know kelly was your friend, and you let out a loud scream-grunt into the air. the fucked up part is that i only started talking to kelly in hopes it would get me closer to you, that maybe she would bring you up in conversation and give me hints about your life and who you are. all she did was complain and soon the friendship crumbled and after losing all hope i settled for a vapid drama queen that was just someone to kill time with. i can see your black lace bra through your white blouse, and you’ve got this black sweater and these black boots and i want to know why you’ve drained yourself of color but can’t stop staring at the way your mouth moves and how hard your stare is when you rant at me. i don’t even know what you’re saying anymore and the whole world stops when i lean in to kiss you and you grab onto my face, clawing like the little black cat that you are, and kissing me back with a force i have never felt before. you pull back and smack the shit out of me, my face beating red when you go there, is that what you wanted? we’re in a quiet suburb and everyone is inside watch tv when i drop to my knees in the middle of the street and say yes, and a million more, it’s worth every slap to me. you sneak me into your backyard and the garden your mother grew protects us from being seen when i taste you until midnight and your fingernails clench into the soil. you wear your same goth clothes the next day to school but with my letterman jacket and everyone oohs and ahhs. someone makes a shitty comment about how i’m trading a barbie like kelly for dracula’s daughter and i nearly go postal, grabbing him by the collar and slamming him against the nearest locker. i ask him to repeat what he said and he gives me that shit eating grin that i hate so i grab him by the throat. it isn’t until i hear your little voice speak up beside me like, please don’t. and so i don’t. i let him go and walk away, grabbing your hand with proudest posture. we eat lunch together alone and everyone around us gossips about it the same way they’ve done time and time again. i don’t give any fucks. you give a few fucks, but your shyness is slowly replaced with a flirtatious kind of vibrancy. we make out on the steps outside the library, my grabby hands and your thighs, god those thighs. you have been my forbidden lover since the beginning of time now and all i want to do is to feel and squeeze and touch and grab and god don’t go yet, i haven’t even felt up your boobs, your blouse still has all the buttons done. you start going to my games and i go to concerts with you for bands with names like fragile monsters and fully loaded impostors, and we manage to keep it from your parents for an entire year. when they find out, they’re too tired to even be mad about it at this point. in a surprising twist they see you as someone who is adult enough to make her own decisions and there must be something drawing us back together again and again like this. i actually end up becoming friends with your dad, the most sensational part of all. he’s glad that i got you to open up more to color again and i don’t tell him that i actually love when you dress like the craft and that is basically a form of lingerie at this point, because i don’t want to give the guy a heart attack. same goes for when he asks about the scratch mark on my face, i play it off as something that happened at practice but really i just don’t want to be like actually i was eating your daughter’s pussy so good that in a euphoric spasm it made her involuntarily claw half my face off and i fucking loved it. i fucking love you.

[thenightling]

What is Neil Gaiman’s Sandman?

What is Neil Gaiman’s Sandman?

Explanation below.

Warning: Here there be Spoilers.

I fully admit that I, myself, am a late comer to the fandom of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman comics.  Back in the 1990s many friends had recommended the series to me and or insisted that I would love “Death.”   But no one gave me a proper explanation or summary of what I was to expect.  I figured it had to have been an over-rated trend.  I was too busy trying to get people to watch or listen to the Nightmare before Christmas soundtrack (which hadn’t yet become the cultural phenomena it became in the early 2000s).

The comics I read in those days mostly consisted of the likes of Morbius: The Living Vampire, The Midnight Sons, Legion of Monsters, Tomb of Dracula and the occasional Tales from the Crypt reprint when I could find it.  I was lucky enough to have recurring access to a store called Dracula’s Comic Crypt on Long Island.   But as a woman into all things Gothic (and most especially art in the style of Bernie Wrightson) I was recommended Sandman over and over again.

Part of what discouraged me was that I have always had poor eyesight.  Today, of course, on a nice twenty inch computer monitor I can make the comic book images nice and big and keep physical copies mostly for collecting purposes. But mostly I just didn’t really know what Sandman was all about. 

Well, fast forward over twenty years later...  The TV show Lucifer has gained my attention and is both fascinating and fun for being different so I finally cave and decide to read the comics that he first came from... Sandman.  I was particularly interested in the storyline where Lucifer quits Hell (Season of Mists) but I wisely decided to start from the beginning.  I started at the beginning...  It wasn’t long before I realized that I liked this thing... I really, really liked this thing.  In fact I soon found I liked the protagonist, Morpheus, more than Lucifer.   

My response was along the lines of “Why didn’t anyone tell me this was so good?” to which several friends practically shouted “WE DID!”

So for anyone who was or is in a similar situation to me, I’ll explain Sandman as best I can for you right now since no one properly explained it to me back when it was first recommended to me a almost a quarter of a century ago.

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DC comics has had three characters named Sandman.  The first was a gas mask wearing Noir character named  Wesley Dodds.  The second was a golden age style superhero who later passed his mantel on to another, the replacement character called Hector Hall. 

And now for the third, the most important of DC’s Sandman / Sandmen.  The literal Sandman AKA Dream of the Endless, otherwise known as Morpheus. Ruler of The Dreaming realm.  Master of both Dreams and Nightmares.  First published by DC and later concluded by Vertigo (DC’s adult content label) Sandman was a very unique kind of story, set in the DC universe. 

  Morpheus (AKA Dream) sometimes changes his form but he’s fairly easy to recognize because he is always depicted with black talk bubbles with white text, originally intended to indicate a psychic form of communication more than actually vocal (but I think that idea was mostly dropped after the first issue and only hinted at again in the storyline called A Game of You). 

During the very first storyline of Sandman comics Morpheus was captured by humans.

Later it is revealed in a stand alone comic that the universe (in an effort to balance itself out) granted Wesley Dodds certain dream based abilities.  Dodds had something of a psychic link with Morpheus while Morpheus was in captivity. 

Later two nightmares escape from The Dreaming realm and these two (Brute and Glob) manipulate the super hero “Sandman” and his successor, Hector Hall. They do this to create a dream dimension of their own since the one Morpheus ruled had fallen into chaos without him. 

Morpheus / Dream is a member of The Endless and his full title (besides Sandman) is Dream of The Endless.

The Endless is a family of anthropamorphic personifications representing seven aspects or abstract concepts in relation to conscious life.    It’s not as complicated as it seems.

The Endless are:

Destiny:  Destiny is the eldest.  He is depicted as a shrouded blind man whose wrist is chained to a book containing the past, present and future.  Despite being apparently blind he can read his own book.  His sigil (the symbol that represents him) is a book.

Destruction.  Destruction grew weary of ...well, destruction when he saw humanity progressing toward increasing violence.  Determining that each Endless actually represents a concept and it’s counter-part he quit his vocation and wandered off to try to reinvent himself as a creative force instead of destructive.  His sigil is a sword.

Death.  Death is Death incarnate, much like Death of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld but instead of resembling the traditional Grim Reaper Death takes the form of a pale Goth girl with an eye of horas tattoo under her right eye.  You might think that she should be the most depressed or brooding of the group but no.  She’s friendly and optimistic.  She also loves films like Mary Poppins and The Little Mermaid (Disney version).  She wears an ankh pendant, which also is her sigil.

Now we have Dream AKA Morpheus. He is The Sandman of folklore.  Dream is the middle sibling and he is The Sandman.  He rules the realm of The Dreaming.  He has wild “Robert Smith style” hair, bone-white skin and black eyes with small star-like pupils.  Morpheus is also very tall and skinny.  Dream’s sigil is his “Helm” - a battle mask he made for himself using the bones of two Lovecraftian “Old Gods” that attacked The Dreaming a long time ago.  (He almost never gets to wear this helm in actual battle as Morpheus is not really a warrior character by nature).  The helm is made from a large skull and spine and so it resembles a bone version of Wesley Dodd’s gas mask. 

     Desire.  Now come the twins, the first of which is Desire.  Desire is a genderfluid being that can be male or female (or both or neither) at will.  Desire is very fickle and can also be extremely cruel but also (on occasion) can be helpful and once even saved the universe (even though Desire doesn’t remember doing it).  Desire is slender, androgynous and has golden eyes.  Desire’s sigil is a heart. 

Despair.  Despair is the twin of Desire though you might never know it.  They look nothing at all alike.  Despair is a short, very full-figured woman who has jagged tusk-like teeth, and almost never wears clothes.  Despair’s sigil is a ring with a sharp hook attached to it. 

Delirium.  Delirium is the youngest of the Endless and very child-like.  She used to be Delight but someone or something hurt or abused her a long time ago and she became Delirium as a way to cope.  It’s implied that someday she might return to being Delight but as it stands that might take a whole lot of therapy.   Delirium can be very sweet but if you are mean to her or try to touch her without permission she will punish you by driving you to madness.  Her sigil was once a flower.  Now it’s a rainbow blob or smearing of color.

And there you have it.  The Endless in a nutshell.  Now on to the basic plot of Sandman...

_______________________________

Sandman was first published in late 1988 and ran until 1996.  It then had several spin-offs and one shots, a prequel novel set in Ancient Japan (Dream hunters), a collection of short story comics called Endless Nights (one for each Endless), and finally the gorgeous prequel comic Sandman: Overture (compiled as a graphic novel in 2016).

Since the first run of Sandman is over seventy five issues long I will only give a summary of the first story arc.  Preludes and Nocturnes...

____________________

Preludes and Nocturnes:

A group of late Victorian / Edwardian era occultists known as The Order of Ancient Mysteries (Modeled loosely after the Hermetic Order of The Golden Dawn) is lead by their Lord Magus, Roderick Burgess.  They use a grimoire known as the Magdalene Grimoire (which will later get use in Green Arrow) to cast a ritual spell to summon Death incarnate but instead of summoning her they accidentally summon The Sandman.

They realize their mistake but decide to keep Dream as their prisoner anyway.

A “sickness” occurs where several people end up with severe sleeping disorders because of the way Morpheus was taken.  One woman ends up with “Sleeping beauty syndrome” where she would wake for brief periods of time but usually slept.  Another goes into a coma.  One young man in Africa dreamt of a cloud castle, as was his usual dream, but the castle crumbled and he became catatonic.  A soldier would suffer a form of “Shell shock” that made him severely insomniactic.  But in general most people continued to sleep and dream normally. 

However in The Dreaming realm Morpheus’ absence was noticed.  And over time things started to deteriorate.  The vast library in The Dreaming started to disappear.  Some dream entities vanished.  Some Nightmare creatures escaped into the human world.

And Morpheus’ castle began to fall into disrepair.  This all happened over the span of many years, mind you.

For over seventy-two-years Morpheus is kept prisoner inside a clear crystal-glass cage, surrounded by a magical binding circle in Roderick’s cellar.   They take his helm, his pouch of dream sand, and his ruby amulet as magical trophies. They also take his clothes and leave him naked and caged.  They don’t even bother to feed him and though he won’t die of starvation he does suffer hunger.  The binding circle holds back Morpheus’ magick and psychic powers while the glass cage holds his physical body. 

During Morpheus’ captivity Roderick grew old and died and his son took his place as Morpheus’ main captor.  And eventually old age started to creep up on the son, Alexander.  One night Alexander visit’s his prisoner (who has refused to speak the entire time of his captivity) and Alex’s assistant (and lover) Paul, accidentally brushes Alex’s wheelchair slightly over the rim of the binding circle, breaching it and it’s hold over Morpheus’ psychic abilities. But they do not notice this slight breach.  Morpheus, however, does notice the breach in the circle holding him prisoner.  Morpheus waits for his opportunity.  As one of his guards has a brief day dream about a vacation on a beach, Morpheus is able to psychically connect with this dream to steal a fistful of the sand there on the dream beach and use this sand as he would use his pouch of dream sand.

Morpheus pretends to collapse within his cage.  

Appearing to be dead, the guards call for their employer, and open the glass cell.  Morpheus uses the pilfered dream sand to make good his escape.  

The first thing Morpheus does is he enters someone’s dream about wearing a clown costume to a party and no one else is in costume.  Here Morpheus (still quite naked) raids the buffet, even eating frog legs from a fried chicken style bucket held by Colonel Sanders.  He’s too hungry to think about anything other than eating. 

Once that’s done he conjures clothes for himself and seeks revenge on his captor...

Morpheus enters the dream of Alexander Burgess where he confronts him on holding him prisoner and how he treated him.  Morpheus used to be a very cruel and petty being and his cruelty lingers long enough for him to punish Alexander severely.  He condemns him to a dream of eternal waking, an eternal nightmare which entails waking up from a nightmare only to find he’s in yet another nightmare, just to wake up again and be in yet another nightmare and on and on forever while his body remains comatose and or may actually, one day, die while his soul could be stuck in that nightmare within The Dreaming for eternity. (Dream does eventually release Alexander Burgess though and forgives him).

Exhausted by this act of vengeance, Morpheus tries to make his way to his castle at The Heart of The Dreaming but faints in “The shifting lands” where he’s found by Gregory The Gargoyle.  Gregory is the pet of Cain. 

Cain and Abel are old horror host comic book characters from the 1960 and 1970s in the style of the Crypt Keeper, with Cain compulsively murdering Abel roughly once a night (Abel recovers each time as he’s immortal).  And yet Cain and Abel weirdly love each other. 

These characters originally came from the comic book series The House of Mystery and The House of Secrets.

The House of Secrets are the comics that first introduced DC’s Swamp Thing. 

At The House of Mystery (Cain’s home) Cain is presenting Abel with a new baby gargoyle egg (this gargoyle eventually gets named Goldie.  Originally Abel called the baby gargoyle Irving but Cain insisted that gargoyles need G names) that’s when Gregory (the large green Gargoyle) carries the barely conscious Morpheus to Cain.  This is one of the only times in the comics where you out right see Morpheus ask for help.  He’s a very proud character.

Cain and Abel set about nursing their king back to health.

Morpheus gradually recovers in Cain’s House of Mystery (Abel’s home is The House of Secrets) before making his way to his castle (now in ruins) in the heart of The Dreaming.  Morpheus’ loyal librarian, Lucien, had been trying to keep things running in Morpheus’ absence.

Lucien AKA Mr. Raven (not to be confused with Morpheus’ spy raven, Matthew, who comes later) is another horror host from older DC comics and the castle he resided in (known as the “Ghost Castle”) turns out to be Morpheus’ own castle, which has appeared in both The Waking World and The Dreaming, much like Cain’s House of Mystery and Abel’s House of Secrets.

Meanwhile Morpheus’ usual groundskeeper, Mervyn (A Jack-o-lantern headed scarecrow) had taken to driving a bus in The Dreaming and had to be brought back to The Castle to return to his original duties. 

Morpheus realizes he needs to get his property back- The pouch of dream sand, his helm, and his ruby dreamstone amulet (which is a conduit and amplifier for his powers) that had been taken at the start of his captivity and had drifted to different owners over time.  The Hecateae (The triple goddess AKA The Furies AKA The Fates AKA The Kindly Ones) tell Morpheus that John Constantine had his pouch of Dream Sand.  And so Morpheus goes to meet Constantine.  

John Constantine (who is a practicing occultist and private investigator) figures out that a former lover of his his own has the pouch of self-replenishing dream sand (he, himself, was unable to pull the draw strings of the pouch). The exlover has tragically been using the sand to get high and several Dream entities have been feeding on her imagination when she does this.  Her body is shutting down.  By the time Morpheus and Constantine find her there is little that can be done but Constantine demands Morpheus do something for her and so Morpheus gives her a pleasant final dream before she passes away.  Morpheus repays Constantine’s assistance by helping him with his chronic nightmares.

Next Morpheus has to retrieve his helm, which was taken by a demon.  Morpheus is forced to visit Hell to reclaim it.  Here he is guided by Etrigan The Demon (a demon that exists Dr. Jekyll and Hyde style with a human immortal host, Jason Blood).  Etrigan deliberately takes Morpheus past an imprisoned former lover of Morpheus’ own, Nada. She pleads for Morpheus to rescue her but he tells her that though he loves her he has not yet forgiven her.  (later we learn Morpheus left her in Hell because she rejected him back when he was a much crueler character).

Morpheus has started to change since his captivity.  He’s becoming softer, less cruel.  And though he does not rescue her here, he will eventually go back for her after his older sister, Death makes him realize that he had wronged Nada.

The demon who has taken Morpheus’ helm challenges him to a contest where each one has to out do the creativity of the other, inventing personas that would best the previous one conceived by the opponent.  Eventually Morpheus wins with the simple phrase “I am Hope.”  

This is later (much later) very bitterly sweetly elaborated on in the prequel comic Sandman: Overture, where Hope is revealed to have been a little girl whose ghost helps Morpheus but all he can remember of her is her name.

Side note: Lucifer (the main ruler of this Hell) becomes bitter and slowly makes up his mind to quit ruling there.  He does not get around to doing this until the storyline called Season of Mists, in which Lucifer leaves the key to Hell to Morpheus when Morpheus came back, looking to rescue Nada.  Lucifer also asks Morpheus to help him by cutting off Lucifer’s large bat-like wings for him. (Lucifer gets those wings back in his own solo comics, back to their original white, feathery Angelic state).

Eventually Morpheus gives The Key to Hell to two Angels who turn Hell into a place of redemption, and Lucifer retires to Earth where he opens a piano bar in LA called Lux but that’s a whole other story.

Morpheus’ ruby dreamstone amulet had been taken by the villain Doctor Destiny AKA John (or Johnny) Dee. (Not to be confused with Morpheus’ elder brother, Destiny personified).  Doctor Destiny AKA John Dee was being kept at Arkham Asylum.  Doctor Destiny happens to escape around this time as Morpheus is trying to reclaim his lost amulet.  The amulet was in a Justice League of America storage warehouse.  The amulet had been so corrupted by Doctor Destiny that merely touching it saps Morpheus of a great deal of his strength and he collapses, fainting in the warehouse, where it was being stored. 

By the time Morpheus regains consciousness, he finds that Doctor Destiny has taken the amulet and Doctor Destiny had used the ruby’s power on a diner full of people (whom he has toyed with, driven to madness, and then ultimately killed or made them kill each other and themselves in very gruesome ways).  Doctor Destiny and Morpheus have a confrontation where Doctor Destiny says he will kill Morpheus. 

Morpheus tricks Doctor Destiny into following him into The Dreaming where Doctor Destiny destroys the ruby, believing it will kill Morpheus if The Dreamstone is destoryed.  Instead of killing Morpheus, the power that was in the ruby dreamstone reverts to him, making Morpheus more powerful than he had been in centuries.  The ruby had contained a small fragment of Morpheus’ very soul.  Morpheus (who has started to change, becoming a bit kinder) shows pity on Doctor Destiny and instead of cruelly punishing him, he escorts him back to Arkham Asylum where he gives all the inmates a night of deep sleep and pleasant dreams.    

Once Morpheus has gotten back his lost artifacts he restores his castle and library. 

Now Morpheus feels restless and uncertain as to what to do with himself.  He’s lonely and feels like he’s lost his purpose.  So he goes to a park to feed the pigeons in order to try to cheer himself up.

(He loves birds and feeding birds is a comfort for him).  Here he meets up with his sister, Death, who makes pop culture references that fly right over his head (Since he’s been out of touch for nearly a century and wasn’t very good at slang to begin with). 

Morpheus loves and respects his sister and doesn’t understand why so many people fear her. 

He considers himself far more terrible than she could ever be.  She manages to cheer him up by simply being there.  She has him accompany her as she makes her rounds through the city, escorting souls to where they are meant to go. 

There are several adventures for Morpheus after this but this is the first story of the Sandman comics.  Most of his adventures deal with Morpheus righting the wrongs of his own dark past and coming to terms with very human things such as loneliness, friendship, guilt and grief.

Marvel fans might notice that Morpheus AKA Dream has certain similarities to Marvels’ Nightmare character.  And there are definite similarities.  The biggest difference is Dream is essentially what would happen if Nightmare went on a redemption arc.

_________________________

Other adventures of note:

At one point Morpheus is summoned to help Calliope, the muse.  Calliope and Morpheus had been married thousands of years earlier.  She has recently been held prisoner by cruel mortals who use her for inspiration and have physically abused her as well.  Morpheus tries to ask for her release and when that doesn’t work he’s forced to torment her captor with maddening, intensely creative dreams until he releases her.

Another storyline deals with Morpheus going back to Hell to rescue his abandoned lover, Nada, only to find that Lucifer has quit and Lucifer asks Morpheus to help him cut off his large bat wings (which he gets back as pretty feathery wings later in his own solo comics.)

Lucifer goes to Earth and decides to learn how to play Piano, among other things.  His lover, the demoness, Mazikeen, soon follows, while Morpheus’ older sister, Death, tries to sort out what to do with all the newly displaced wandering souls.

When Morpheus is left the key to Hell, various supernatural entities, beings of folklore, and religion come to The Dreaming to try to claim it from him.  One demon that arrives (made of many mouths) has Nada imprisoned inside of his very being.  Morpheus goes inside the demon and rescues Nada and while he’s there he also finds and rescues the very demon that had once had his helm and challenged him during the first Sandman storyline, Preludes and Nocturns.  Morpheus’ sense of compassion has grown.

In his pride Morpheus gives a flimsy apology to Nada for leaving her in Hell and she slaps him hard across the face.

He apologizes more sincerely after momentarily getting angry and tells her that she has a choice to make.  Nada chooses to be reincarnated.

When she’s reborn in Hong Kong, Morpheus sneaks into the nursery in the hospital maternity ward, where he cradles the baby, (The baby is male), telling the baby that he’ll never forget her and that she’ll always be welcome in The Dreaming.   

The key to Hell is ultimately passed to two Angels who choose to try to make it a place of reformation and redemption but somehow devise tortures equally as cruel (if not crueler) than what was there when Lucifer ran the place.  In Neil Gaiman’s lore souls only go to Hell if they believe that is what they deserve and then demons take advantage of that there in Hell.  In Lucifer’s stand alone comics it’s revealed that he was not given Hell as a punishment but as a place where he wouldn’t have to live in his Father’s shadow.  It became a place of darkness and misery because of Lucifer’s own dark mindset.  Lucifer now seems content on Earth and never returns to ruling Hell.

(Note: The current Devil / Satan of the DC universe is “First of the Fallen” (a different entity from Lucifer as Lucifer is “retired” and is not actually categorized as evil anymore.)   

In current DC / Vertigo lore, a different being, “First of The Fallen” has taken the title of Satan while Lucifer has happily become a neutral character, considered neither Good nor Evil (though leaning heavily toward Good in his TV show incarnation).  Lucifer is retired and categorized as Neutral in his moral alignment while First of the Fallen is categorized as Evil.  Lucifer may have been the first Angel to fall from grace but he was not the first entity to fall from grace (by that list Lucifer is actually the fourth to fall) and so Lucifer does not actually have the title First of the Fallen in the current comics. 

One sweet storyline in Sandman is how Morpheus met a man who ‘refused to die” (an immortal) and the man (known as Hob and later Robert) agreed to meet with Morpheus every century to tell him what it was like to go from being mortal to being immortal, how his life has been for the last century, and to tell him if he wanted to continue to live).  In the 1700s they run into John Constantine’s Great, great, grandmother, Johanna Constantine, who mistakes Morpheus and Robert (Hob) as “The Devil and the Wandering Jew” and tries to capture Hob / Robert and Morpheus. 

In the 1800s Hob confronts Morpheus on the fact that there are actually other formerly-human immortals around the world and Hob believes Morpheus only meets with him once a century because they are friends and not because he is curious to know how Hob handles his immortality.  Morpheus becomes indignant and prideful, insisting that he doesn’t need friends.

He storms off and Hob calls after him that if he shows up next century he’ll know it’s because they’re friends and no other reason.

A century later Morpheus arrives and Hob admits he had not thought he’d come and Morpheus tells him that he had been told that it is rude to keep one’s friends waiting.  It’s sweet.

In the lore of Sandman Morpheus is the father of the mythological Orpheus, the musician who went into the Greek underworld to retrieve his dead wife. Orpheus’ mother is the muse, Calliope.  Hades agreed to let Orpheus have his wife back if he did not look back at her until they left The Underworld, proving his trust in the Greek God of The Dead.  Orpheus made the mistake of looking back at her at the last second and so lost her just before they could exit The Underworld.  Orpheus was then later torn apart by zealots and since he was condemned to immortality he was stuck as a severed head.  Shortly before going to The Underworld Orpheus had denounced his father, Morpheus, for refusing to help get his wife back from The Land of The Dead.  Hurt and angry, Morpheus refused to help him other than to send some priests dreams about Orpheus so that they and their descendants would tend to him (as he’s just a severed head) for centuries to come.

In the early 1990s, when Morpheus’ youngest sister, Delirium wants to find their lost brother, Destruction, Morpheus is forced to go to Orpheus to find out where Destruction is.  Orpheus bitterly greets his estranged father and tells him that he will give him the information he needs but only if he does him the one mercy he has been pleading for, for centuries.  Morpheus does not want to do it but finally out of mercy he kills his own son, reuniting Orpheus with his wife in The Underworld.  But Morpheus is left with a deep remorse over how he treated his son and for Orpheus’ death.  Morpheus retreats to his private rooms in his castle where he weeps, alone.

Morpheus eventually gets mistaken as the kidnapper of baby Daniel ( a child who, while fetal, spent an unusually long time in The Dreaming realm.  Daniel is the son of Hector Hall, the second superhero Sandman who passed away).   Lyta, the baby’s Mother, is lead to believe her child is dead.  She calls upon the Kindly Ones (representatives of the crone aspect of The Triple Goddess) to seek revenge. They tell her that they cannot seek revenge for her son but an Endless is not allowed to kill someone of their own blood, nor is Morpheus allowed to kill at all except to protect The Dreaming.  As Morpheus has violated these ancient rules, they can seek revenge over the death of Orpheus.

The end of the Sandman comics has Morpheus “die” sacrificing himself to stop The Kindly Ones from Destroying The Dreaming.  Morpheus’ loved ones grieve him but it’s a little ambiguous as to if he’s truly dead.  Morpheus had become weary of his role as ruler of The Dreaming but he knew that he could not just abandon it the way Destruction had abandoned his role.  And he could not quit the way Lucifer had, though he does quote Lucifer about being so very tired.

 The Kindly ones seek Morpheus’ death or the destruction of The Dreaming.  Morpheus gives up his life to save his realm, allowing his sister, Death, to take him.  As Morpheus “dies” all of his memories and power pass on into baby Daniel, who transforms and now wears an emerald with a small amount of Dream’s soul within it.  Everything that was mortal of Daniel is gone as he is transformed into the new incarnation of Dream.

When Lyta had mistakenly thought Morpheus had taken her baby, Daniel had actually been kidnapped by Puck and Loki but Daniel was ultimately rescued by a Nightmare being known as The Corinthian, and Morpheus’ Raven spy / messenger, Matthew (who had been a human soul who died in his sleep and was allowed to remain in The Dreaming after his death as Morpheus’ loyal servant.  Matthew (in his human form) had originally been a character of the Swamp Thing comics.

Daniel- now simply calling himself Dream- (which was Morpheus’ alternate name) took an adult form that looks much like Morpheus except with white hair instead of black.  This can be seen as similar to a Doctor Who style regeneration however there are other things that make Morpheus’ death fishy and or potentially a false ending.

Hob AKA Robert (Morpheus’ immortal friend) has a dream of Morpheus in which Morpheus is with a man he does not know (Destruction) and both walk off together. 

This can imply two things.  1.  Morpheus could have faked his death very elaborately and is telling Hob (as he has told Hob things via dreams before) or 2.  Morpheus did die and Daniel resurrected him as a Dream (which actually is one of his powers, to resurrect anyone who dies in The Dreaming realm as a Dream entity, maintaining free will, personality, and soul).  

And that’s about it.

Though there are serious and complex parts, some of Sandman is fun and light too, such as when Morpheus allows Delirium to drive... in the human world...

And there you go.  A crash course in what the Hell Neil Gaiman’s Sandman actually is.  Despite the spoilers of this post, I assure you that the actual comics are much more enjoyable to read.

[ghostlypeachkryptonite]

Once upon a time, there was a little girl who dreamed of princesses and dragons. Grand parties and sword fights. Unfortunately for this little girl, she lived in Northern Ireland in the 80’s and 90’s when bombs were going off and women were wearing power suits instead of ball gowns.

As the little girl grew up, peace was declared and people began to be grateful for what they had. And thankfully for her, there was a new era of fancy parties as people began to throw events to help raise money for charity. Throughout the year, there were events that needed to be attended. But you couldn’t show up in any old dress. Nay! The would-be princess needed a formal dress for her outings!

Ok, you have probably guessed by now that I am the little girl who dreamt of being a princess. I still do but I tend to think more warrior princess these days than fairy princess. But, I am required to get dressed up from time to time for different events. Thankfully there are companies that recognise this area now and it is really easy to find your prom dress for any occasion. Speaking of events, here are some of the events I’ve been to over the years that have required something a little bit fancy to whish about in.

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My Formal

At the end of my time in school, we had a formal. This was a big deal because our school didn’t have formals and we were the second year to get one. I was a complete goth at the time and dressed completely in black with huge hair that my aunt insisted on doing. It was terrible looking! But, me and my buddies had a blast.

Charity Do-dah

This night was one of the first times I went out dressed up as a proper dressed up grown-up. I had tickets to a charity event (can’t remember what the charity was) and went with my husband on my arm. We had a great night and I loved my dress! I wasn’t keen on it when I saw it on the hanger (or me at the time) but looking back at the photos, I looked amazing. Charity events are so much fun and are a great way to get dressed up a few times a year for a great cause.

Weddings

I’m sorry, but I think people really dress down for weddings. Sure, no-one wants to outshine the bride but for crying out loud! Put some effort in! Do you know that someone showed up to my wedding in a red jumpsuit? It wasn’t even a dressy one, it was something you would wear to the beach. I try and dress up as much as I can when it comes to weddings and I have only outshone the bride once. In my defence, the bride was wearing a black velvet witches dress that looked like a Halloween prop so I’m not to blame there.

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There you have it, just some ideas/reasons you should have a stock of formal dresses (and other stuff) hidden in your wardrobe. I’m off to some charity events over the next while, so keep an eye for the photos and guess who or what I am wearing.

You shall go to the ball || the joy of the charity event Once upon a time, there was a little girl who dreamed of princesses and dragons. Grand parties and sword fights.

[ineedthisforclass-blog1]

Journal #2

This week, we discussed the sexuality of minority groups such as disabled people and the goth community, as well as the heteronormativity of female sexuality in media. In all of these cases, there was a constant theme of standards. Following these instances, it was that women (and men) must meet a certain expectation in order to be considered socially attractive. I will be further analyzing three of the articles discussed in the article in depth to better grasp an understanding of how they relate.

In the article "Gendered Ableism" by Alexandria L. Parsons, Arleigh J. Reichl, and Cory L.  Pedersen, the topic of sexuality and physically disabled people in media is discussed. The main focus was of physically disabled men and women, although there was a larger discussion of women as there was of men. In this study, 707 online participants were surveyed on gender and sexuality when viewing individuals with or without a disability. (207) The results of the study supported the hypothesis that more negative attitudes are held by those with traditional gender role beliefs towards the sexuality of individuals with physical disabilities versus those with egalitarian beliefs (220). This finding is very crucial in the fact that it shows that those with physical disabilities are given a negative portrayal by those with traditional gender role beliefs.

In another article that was discussed this week, "So Full of Myself as a Chick" Amy C. Wilkins analyzes gender in a local Goth scene rather than the Goth subculture at large. (334) The author interviews various members of the goth community. She mentions that of her interviewees, "all but one woman claimed bisexuality (the one exception identified as lesbian) while none of the men did." Zoe, an interviewee, claims that "[she's] been in relationships with men who didn't care if I saw other women but I felt like he didn't perceive women as a threat" (344). These claims alone show that a goth woman's sexuality is for the advantage of the man involved. This shows that even subcultures who try to deviate from the norm still show their own sense of heteronormativity.

In the final article that I'd like to discuss, "I’m Straight, but I Kissed a Girl" Lisa M. Diamond explains the "heteroflexibility" of women. It is often mentioned throughout the article that women feel like they have to justify any homosexual urges. The 2003 VMA kiss between Madonna and Britney Spears is mentioned, as Britney is interviewed on the kiss. Spears stating that, "This is something I’ve dreamt about since I was a little girl ... I am on a major high right now. I feel very cool" (107). although Spears is a celebrity herself. She seems compelled to mention that kissing Madonna is a "dream," and she mentions feeling "very cool," showing the emphasis that kissing a popular female celebrity is something that cannot be denied as glorious by any gender. This shows as evidence that there is pressure on women to be sexualized, but at the same time stay within the norm.

In conclusion, it is important to note that all of these separate stories come together with the common theme of standards. The standards of having to be viewed by the male gaze strongly permeate throughout these articles. At the end of the day, the points made in these articles need to be accounted for. It must be acknowledged that these are serious issues that occur in our modern society. I look forward to further research on these topics and the deconstruction of heteronormativity as a mean to please men.

[bixbythemartian]

so I took a nap. i don’t normally take naps, even when i’m ‘taking a nap’ i’m just, like, laying down and not doing anything. most of the time i don’t sleep, because when i sleep for less than three hours i turn into a cranky hosebeast for a short period of time (normally an hour)

my sister has said to my face ‘bethany you’re bad at naps’ and my only response could be ‘yeah i really am’

i didn’t intend to take a nap either, i was just gonna lay down and cool off and watch funny videos but here we are

i dreamt during my nap

here’s what my dream was

i was having a dinner date with my fairly gothy dude and i had decided to goth it up. not a whole lot, because my wardrobe is medium gothy anyway, but I had gone to town on my makeup

but we’re both, like, Medium Goth. which is cool, we weren’t going for super duper gothy, we were just eating somewhere medium fancy and decided to dress up. the fancier we get, the gothier we get. some of you probably relate.

then some bad guys entered the dining area and said they wanted the gothiest people in the room and me and dude were like OH HELL NO because most of the ppl in the room were not particularly gothy but then I turned and saw @gothiccharmschool and I yelled for her to run? because she was clearly the gothiest person in the whole building

(when had she turned up? HELL IF I KNOW, but if I’d seen her earlier there would have been Mutual Goth Admiration) 

but instead of running outside as my intention when directing her to vamoose, she ran deeper into the building, which was probably because we managed to chase the bad guys outside and lock the doors

at some point in the chaos my date disappeared but I didn’t notice it in the slightest. 

I would like to digress at his point to state that this is the approximate point in which the dream got strange 

so i was trying to find Auntie Jill because she’d run into the building and nobody was sure where, and so were the rest of the ladies there who were all somewhere on the goth scale? (maybe they were in another dining area) but it was more like a house upstairs, so we’re going room to room, and I find a big tv hooked into a computer which told me that the security footage was being backed up to a secure location due to a suspected robbery, and then I got a video call on that computer from a guy who I hadn’t seen since high school who was excited that I was back in town (have been for years) and then there was a dance sequence to very happy music

but I was like “Sorry Colin we’re either being robbed or kidnapped or something so we gotta call the cops” and by that point someone was looking for a phone to call out with (though if I could receive a video call from a rando guy we should be able to contact the authorities?)

then we promptly forgot about that and were just trying to make sure that the house was locked down but we didn’t own the house and had lost the keys and still weren’t sure where Aunt Jilly was but we hadn’t seen her and the bad guys were still trying to get in so they didn’t have her yet so hopefully she was somewhere safe

there were zero men by this point, they must have evaporated

um we were really panicking about the garage door (weakest point of access tbh) and we were in the garage where there was another vaguely gothy girl who was helping and there was a special way to turn the keys? anyway the garage door was up enough to walk under and i was trying to convince the Girl with the Keys (where did she get them? idk) not to listen to Garage Girl, something was not right 

but she didn’t listen to me, she listened to Garage Girl and we were locked into the garage, out of the house- which, okay, at least that door is locked, but then I noticed a lot of wiring and suspicious packing and I realized that Garage Girl was my nemesis, Helen

now, Helen only appears in my dreams and she’s never the chief Bad Guy, she’s always second banana, but it seems like she’s some Bad Guy for Hire and always takes jobs when it involves me 

so there was a moment where I was like “Helen!”and she was like “Hey Bethany, you might want to clear out we’re about to blow this shit up” because although I hate her she’s always mildly polite to me in person 

she’s got a minion with her (who might have been Girl who had the Keys all along but my dream is fuzzy enough that I’m not sure- I think she was in the garage the whole time, just being quiet while Helen talked us into locking ourselves out) 

and like, I saw before it happened that the explosives were really unstable and likely to fall and while I do not like Helen at all there is such a thing as a Moral Imperative and I was like “dude you’re gonna blow yourselves up” but the timer was going so we all ran like hell 

and that’s when I woke up

it’s one of the kookier dreams I’d had in ages and so I thought I’d share

ps- i fully expected to have leg cramps when I woke up and that’s why with the running but i did not, my abs hurt like hell though so who even knows??? 

[oswednesday]

there was a start to this but i cant express it what happened it was very like raw electric responses from my brain as if i could feel each neuron snap and spark and i woke up my heart was beating so fast it was the only thing i could feel really this out of body my sense of self isnt awake just the too fast beating of my heart then i fell back asleep and dreamt i was on the school bus heading to school like grade school or middle school and i was sitting with a girl and was surrounded by boys and one of them was like super sleezy and i was like calling him out about shit and then it was like a feeling of time lapsin and the girl beside me left and i was all alone, the boy was choking me now and i had to kick at him to get him off me and then a new girl sat besides me and we had a lot in common and we both were youthful goths and she was being really nice and not letting the guys say shit either and we resolved  to hang out at school but it wasnt the same as the girl who sat by me first then by the time we got to school i just couldnt get through the door of the school building it was like the physics of the dream id step and slip and i was too tired to push through the school so i just went home, it was some kind of making a poster day so i was doing it at home and the girl like joined me in skipping like came to my house and i was like all bundled up in blankets in front of a computer and the dream shifted into something else

like the house i lived in was really really huge and the girl wasnt there any more, the phone was on the second floor like literally like that one part of that layers of fear game, the house was all browns and brozens sepia tones and it was ringing and picking up and i was being spoken too in these horrible voices, then like this really dusty like cookoo clock with shelving in it i was trying to clean it and just all the parts were going off and i was a guy now and i had two parents and there were demons in our basement and a fucked up gang accross the street of like serial rapists and stuff so i invited them into my family home after releasing the demons from the basement they were mostly oiled up men but two women were with them and their boobs were so big like plastic surgery big they had trouble squeezing through the door together and then i bolted the door behind me with like an industrail strength gun or w/e and left and as i was walking along the street time elapsed and it was like a news paper reel of like Tragic Party everyone found dead, eatened, disembowled and a bald tattooed dude drove past me in a big white pick up van and was all like dude heard about the party youre so hardcore and i was like yeah haha drugs too lit haha and the guy drove away but like some kind of spiritual guide was like hes turning around up the block you need to get out of here

so i did i like burst into a house and a really thin and tall older teen younger adult girl woman was like oh you can travel through the room above me and she opened the bit of a ceiling up that had a hatch and there was a bathroom and a closet and also like stuff that she was storing like painful memories and i told her id take these things out for her so she could use this space again and then her brother who was younger than her but still also an older person saw that i had gone to her room, im still a guy at this point and he was like mom, dad, isnt it time to wake her up so i hid in the closet until the parents went through then i booked it out the house

and then i was like me again kinda i was both me and like this abstract person and i had this other person with me and we were in this like really sterilized house with a family and they were washing and scrubbing us really brutally hard and we both got out, and then we raided someones house for food and just BARELY got caught and i had to lie my way out of why i was poking into (we were leaving)  a house and i was like lying how i smelled smoke and how like we were raising funds and the woman who was like there with her husband was all like oh the church raffle and i was like [quick look around noticing polish catholic stuff] yeah haha and she brought up how she was so excited to have this one famous american polka band and i was like i just moved my last church [name drop] we use to get them all the time at the very least the summer cultural heritage fest (which irl i do believe is happening rn) and she was all gushin and stuff and then we got out and i was making like haha polish people are good liars joke and the other abstract person who was kinda a girl didnt get it and like there wasnt really a joke like that (like im sure there is) but i was just underplaying my resourcefulness and it was all snowy like really slick with ice and we were holding hands SOOO tight i was holding her hand so tight and she was like is there anyone else you’d hold hands with and in my dream i thought about jenny and was just like yeah one other person but just one and the abstract person got REALLY upset like youre holding my hand SO HARD yet there’s someone else you’d hold hands with and she like dragged me by my ears (i was like an abstract animal person with shapes and lines but also a person) and she took me back to that house at the start and was like ive brought this one back they need cleaning theyre very dirty and the mother figure was very brutal with the two of us like and the other abstract person wa like no whyd i do this, this isnt what i meant to do and i managed to open a window and got out with my human self like my real self and i watched the abstract now empty me get smashed against the glass of the other window (there were a lot of windows) and the other abstract figure like brutalized and tortmented and i kept opening the windows from the outside, at one point i grabbed abstract me and pulled it out and eventually the other abstract person got out of their body and climbed out the window and wanted to run without getting their abstraction 

then i woke up before we did anything else