#he has Caleb but turns into a very troubled kid

[artsymephy]

You’re right

Let them be buddies

Buddies, playmates, partners in crime, chaotic besties, malicious soulmates, troublemaker friends, mischief pals, whatever!! I think they’d be fun! No one else gets their weirdness so they stick together !!!

[lollytea]

hi lolly i just binged the la la land machine au posts and i was wondering if evelyn and raine and lilith are also involved and if so how :)

Ahhh okay I'll try to give straightforward answers!! I'll use some discord screenshots to make it easier.

Evelyn was Eda and Lilith's older sister, though she was never involved in the Hollywood lifestyle. She was just a regular high school girl when she met Caleb Wittebane

She died from childbirth complications over a decade later, which left her husband wrought with grief. It's rumored that he was considering retiring from acting altogether to put all his attention towards raising his child but he also passed not long after.

Lilith:

She began as a homely little girl who never felt good enough and was seduced by the Hollywood spotlight because it felt like the only feasible means of proving herself as worthy of love.

Eda and Lilith reconnect in their adulthood, with the latter being a highly prolific and glamorous actress. The guilt has been weighing heavily on Lilith for years and all she really wants is to give her sister a second chance. Lilith knows people. She has connections. She can pull Eda back into the spotlight. She can make up for what she did. And she really can't understand why Eda is so difficult about it. Why wouldn't she want to go back to acting? (Says the woman who is so brainwashed by her own desire to feel worth a damn that she has not even noticed that she's never been passionate about acting.)

Ironically, what Lilith does to redeem herself is not be brightening up Eda's reputation, but by setting her own up in flames.

Lilith Clawthrone, one of the biggest celebrities in Hollywood, goes public about a well kept secret. She tells the world about how Eda Clawthorne was thrown away like she was nothing and she names the people involved.

She is blacklisted from the industry.

After that, it's a few months of living on Eda's couch while she tries to get her life together.

Eventually, Lilith finds her true passion in life, which is producing and being an accuracy consultant on historical documentaries. She's happy as a clam :D

Anyway, Raine Whispers.

I've been a little unsure as to how to incorporate them. They are a non-binary masc presenting person who likely first met Eda in an extremely bigoted environment, in the year 1973.

So far, I've been adamant that this AU doesn't stray away from the very real prejudice of Hollywood. However, when it comes to transphobia, that just isn't my place to go in-depth.

To summarise. Raine likely endured a lot of it. I just won't go into detail about it.

I was considering that they may have been the one to play Azura, before they transitioned and that's when they had their romance with Eda, who played Hecate. But again, I'm not sure if that's insensitive for not. All I know for certain is that Raine also had a role in the Azura movie and Eda and Raine fell in love.

Similar tensions between them arose, namely Eda bottling up all her pain and devastation and Raine eventually getting frustrated and breaking up with her.

Currently, as in the year the story takes place, (Between 2005-2009) Raine is a high school music teacher whose become a safe space for any kid that needs a little extra emotional support.

They're such a consistently supportive and loving figure that three young adults (Katya, Derwin and Amber) who came from troubled home lives, remembered their kindness from High school and the comforting way they used to say "My door is always open" and gradually those three kids turned up on their doorstep, one by one, having else nowhere to go. So yeah, Raine currently has three loud chaotic roommates.

Despite their quiet nature and nerdy interests, Raine identities as punk. They are constantly encouraging both students and roommates alike to ask questions, to stand their ground, to push back against the system. They've even committed the occasional crime, with their young spritely accomplices.

This is around the time when they end up bumping into Eda again.

[netherzon]

Chapter 1 of Bear Jail

Exactly what it sounds like. Kuma gets put in Polar Bear Jail.

(note, there are no Hetalia characters other than Kuma in this chapter, but there will be in the next one I promise!)

Rating: T for language

Content Warnings: discussions of animal abuse and the exotic pets black market.

It was around 2pm when their hotline went off.

“Hello, hello! You have reached the emergency Polar Bear B Gone hotline.” Riley snorts from her desk across the room.

It was an unconventional hotline. There were only 900 people in this town anyway, and most of them had interacted with their team before. It was probably fine.

“Caleb?”

Yup. “That’s me.”

“Aha, I thought it sounded like you. It’s me, Bob? You answered the phone two weeks ago when that other rascal got caught by the fire hall while we were celebrating my niece’s engagement party?”

“Uh huh?”

“They’ve broken up now, by the way. I heard her say you were pretty cute at the engagement party, should’ve seen the end coming really. Are you single by any chance?”

“You called because you saw a polar bear right?” Caleb quickly changes the subject, “There’s a fine if you called this hotline for non polar bear purposes.” He wasn't actually sure if there was a fine, but it felt like there should be.

It has the effect of getting Bob back on track anyway, “Yes! Right, I live in Zone 2, and there’s a bear sniffing around my shed.”

Caleb gestures towards Riley that she should start mobilizing their capture team, “Any identifiable traits? Can you see a tracking collar”

“No to both.”

“Adult or juvenile?”

“Looks like an adult to me.”

“Does it seem hungry?”

“Well, yes, but not the way I think you mean.”

Caleb frowns, “What does that mean?”

Bob clears his throat on the other end of the line, “Well, it’s just— it’s just sitting by the door to the shed. Like a dog. It looks like a healthy weight. It hasn’t tried to break in, but I think I also saw it trying to open the door with its mouth?? Like it was biting the door handle and trying to turn it. But other than that it hasn’t gotten very, uh, physical? But I think it can see me too, if that makes sense? It looks at me sometimes. Like it's waiting for me to open the door for it.” Bob’s voice gets lower with each word, like he’s afraid the bear will hear him,”It’s very creepy. Never seen a bear act that way in all my life. And I’ve lived in the Polar Bear Capital of the World for 50 odd years now, so that’s really saying something!”

Caleb gets stuck on the idea of the bear trying to open doors, especially in a way so obviously learned from humans. The goal of their work was to make cohabitation safer for humans and bears by minimizing interactions between them. By maintaining a healthy feeling of caution on both sides. Humans stay away from bears. Bears stay away from humans. Nobody gets into any trouble.

If this bear had already learned how to open doors though…. If it was so familiar with this already that it really didn’t bother just trying to knock the door down, something it could probably do easily if it's an adult.....

“Hello?

Caleb is knocked out of his thoughts by Bob’s staticy voice over the phone, “Yeah, yeah, I’m here. We’re on our way over, alright?”

“Alright”

~~~~~~~

The rest of the team are almost finished getting dressed when Caleb enters the garage.

Dereck looks over at him, everything he says underscored by the sound of his long, graying beard scratching the waterproof material of their jackets, “Details?”

Caleb grabs a sweater and starts listing:

“Zone 2,” dress warmly, bring cracker shells.

“Large, probably an adult,” pack regular dose tranq darts.

Dereck nods along with each point, “Way ahead of you.” He gestures for everyone to get in their trucks.

Caleb hesitates pulling on his gloves, and Dereck notices.

“Is there anything else, kid?” Dereck asks.

He considers mentioning the behavior Bob described, but, “Nah, nothing ‘bout the bear,” he raises his voice to be heard over the noise of multiple engines starting, “Just thought everyone should know it's Joey’s cousin again!”

He hears someone in the third truck groan loudly. The window starts rolling down, but Joey’s head is already poking out when it's only halfway, “Bobby?!”

Caleb only has to grin for Joey to go off again, “The bear’s sniffing around his shed too, ain’t it?!” Joey leans further out the window, “You know, he told me he was going ice fishing a few days ago. That moron left the fish guts in his shed again, I’d bet money on it!”

“Alright, that’s enough chit chat,” Dereck admonishes, “you can rip your cousin a new asshole after we’ve scared off the bear who wants to do it for you, Joey.”

He gives Caleb his own disappointed father look, before climbing into the first truck.

~~~~~~~

“Remind me which cousin this is, and do they live on Airport Lane or Airport Road?”

Caleb looks at Riley in the driver’s seat, leaning forward so the end of her braid doesn’t press uncomfortably into her back, “Airport Road, close to where it changes into Lake Road and Farnworth Road.”

“Got it,” Riley says. Her voice is low and smooth. He always prefers riding over with her.

On the way over he sends the message he always sends to his wife before every job like this: “

“You were acting strange in the garage,” Riley says, and Caleb flinches. It’s no use denying it. Riley is too perceptive, and now he’s stuck in a confined space with her.

“Bobby told me the bear was acting strange.”

“Strange how? Is it injured or something?” Riley asks, confused. An injured bear would be a completely different task for them. Caleb would’ve mentioned it to the team if that were the case.

“No, it seems…” he pauses, “I don’t know.”

Riley presses again, “Seems what?”

Caleb collects his thoughts, and then cautiously asks, “Hey, do you think it's possible polar bears are still going through the black market as pets?”

Riley snorts with derision this time, “Do I think its possible? Not only possible, I’d be surprised if they’re not. I know its hard for us to understand how anybody could do that, but I wouldn’t put anything past someone with enough money to get away with it.”

“Okay, so, what if somebody released that pet polar bear up here?”

Riley frowns outright. Her grip on the steering tightens, “You think it was a pet?”

“Bobby told me,” Caleb says cautiously, “that the bear tried to open a door the way a human would. By using the knob. That it wanted to get into his shed, but it didn’t just break down the door, it tried to turn the knob.”

Riley blows a lock of graying hair out of her eyes as she considers this. After a moment, her shoulders slump, and she speaks with a new sadness, “It must’ve seen humans do that a lot.”

Caleb sighs, sinking with the weight of it, “Yeah.”

~~~~~~~

When they arrive, the bear is still sitting patiently by the door of the shed. The only sign that it's moved is the circle of snow packed down around the shed’s perimeter.

He sees Derek and the rest of the crew speaking to Bobby through the door of his house about 7 meters away. They are all facing the bear, but they shoot disturbed looks at Riley and Caleb when their truck pulls up.

“What’s going on?” Riley asks, taking in their tense stances.

“Nothing!” Joey whisper-shouts, wide eyes still fixed on the polar bear, “Nothing is going on! It just sits there!”

Derek shakes his head in warning and begins shifting down the porch stairs towards them. “What’s up with this bear, Caleb?” he asks. His tone is deadly serious.

He decides to keep it short. “We think it didn’t come here from the wild. That it used to be someone’s pet.”

Riley nods. Derek’s eyes widen with understanding, before he curses. They all eye the bear. The Bear stares back at them. Now that the team is aware of it, all its other behaviors fall into place. It’s not starving even in the off season because somebody’s been feeding it. It doesn’t break the door down because food has always been given to it. It stares at them expectantly now because it’s always been humans giving it that food.

It doesn’t fundamentally change the mission, but it does change a lot about the mechanics of it. They still don’t know where it came from, if somebody dropped it off here or if it escaped from somewhere. It might be easier to convince it to get into one of their transport tubes, but it could also be harder. People could convince themselves they could turn a bear into a tame house pet, but it was always a roll of the dice. Plus, they weren’t trained on how to interact with the bears this way. They’re entire goal was to make sure the bears didn’t get familiar with humans or associate them with food. It seemed like they’d already lost that battle here.

“Alright,” Derek starts, ready now to give them directions, “we probably won’t be able to scare it away from town like we’d usually do. If it was a pet it will probably just come back to where the people are anyway, and if it doesn’t know how to hunt on its own it won’t survive out there either. Our best bet is to get it in a transport tube, bring it back to the center for further assessment, and if it can’t live in the wild we’ll just have to find a zoo or sanctuary or something that can take him in. Understood? This has turned into a capture mission.”

The team give a chorus of “Understood!” In response. While they are apprehensive, it’s all they really can do. The bear can’t stay here.

Their usual techniques are ineffective though. Nothing they do shakes it. The bear watches them bang pots and pans and set off firecrackers with total passivity. They turn on the engines of their car and rev them as loud as they can with no response. They can’t use tranq rounds cause they wouldn’t be able to bring it to the transport tube on their own. They try for 20 minutes, edging closer and closer. The bear just refuses to move.

Out of sheer desperation, Caleb does possibly the stupidest thing he’s ever done.

He decides to talk to it.

With shaking hands, he calls out, “Hey!” It’s a small test. Just wanting to see how the bear reacts.

His team shoot him deadly looks, warning him not to do what he’s about to do.

The bear though, the bear responds by looking directly at him. It doesn’t charge him, or growl, or display any other signs of aggression. Caleb forges on.

“Are ya hungry?” He asks. To all of their shock the bear almost looks like it nods. Its attention is focused even more on Caleb now.

“Do you wanna eat?” His voice shakes with fear. Not me, he wants to add. He knows if the bear decides that’s what it was hungry for, though, there’d be nothing he could do about it.

This time, the bear heaves itself up on all fours. The rest of his team clutch their tranq guns nervously as they all watch the bear walk towards Caleb. Caleb also watches nervously, but he doesn’t raise his own gun. Scenes from How to Train Your Dragon flash through his mind, and he comes to the irrational conclusion that he also needs to lay down his weapons to gain the beast’s trust.

The bear doesn’t seem to notice or care either way. It walks right up to Caleb, leans in. Caleb can smell it’s bad breath as the bear sniffs him once, twice, and then obediently sits back down in front of him. Caleb stares into its deep, dark eyes —something he’s pretty sure you’re not supposed to do with bears— and imagines he can hear its thoughts. Do you have food for me, human?

“Y-yes,” Caleb whimpers, ”I have food. Food for you.”

The bear huffs once. The burst ruffles Caleb’s hair. Show me, he swears he can hear it speaking.

“Okay,” on shaky legs Caleb backs away, loath to turn his back on the bear, “I’ll show you where you can get some food.”

He walks backwards, like that would give him a fighting chance if the bear lunged. The size of polar bears up close has never stopped being impressive to him, but he’s never been so close to one that’s awake. They try to make it clear to the bears that there’s nothing of interest to them when it comes to humans. There’s nothing to be curious about, nothing to gain from coming towards human towns other than a month spent in a very, very boring room. That’s why people are allowed to visit their center, but they never show anyone any actual bears, and employees only ever interact closely with the bears that are injured or sick.

His work has never been without danger, but he’s never tempted it so much. The Bear follows him closely. His coworkers follow behind them from a great distance. He can see they are alarmed by how close the Bear is, but they won’t say anything. He knows they won’t want to risk startling or provoking it, in case it does decide to attack him.

He leads it to the closest transport tube. They bait all of them with seal meat. Once the bait is pulled on, the other door to the tube falls down. Trapped bear, ready to be taken in. Simple.

The bear comes up beside him and regards the tube. He gestures towards it encouragingly. The bear shakes its head, but complies. Miraculously, it walks by Caleb without incident, so close that for a second he can’t see anything but it’s white-yellow fur. It walks easily into the tube, grabs the seal meat, and yanks. The door at the other end falls down. The Bear walks back to look at them through the bars. Now what? it seems to ask.

Caleb’s knees buckle underneath him. The rest of the team runs up to him, yelling and crying in equal measure. He’s the youngest of all of them, so they’ve always babied him a little. Right now, it’s just comforting. He can tell they’re angry, but when Riley pulls him to his feet they surround him in a hug. He can hear her admonishing him with motherly concern, “Don’t ever do that as again, understand me? Don’t ever do that again!”

He eyes the Bear over Joey’s shoulder. It tilts its head at them. I wasn’t going to eat you. I can tell you wouldn’t taste good anyway.

Derek recovers more quickly than the rest of them. He sniffles, wipes a few tears of relief off his cheeks, before turning to the Bear. He keeps one hand firmly on Caleb’s shoulder. His mouth is set in a grim line.

“We’ll take it back to the center now, and I’ll call an old friend of mine from when I worked at the zoo and see what he thinks about this.”

~~~~~~~

More Notes!

This fic was inspired by the the Polar Bear Holding Facility in Churchill, Manitoba, otherwise known as "the Polar Bear Capital of the World". The holding facility was established in 1982 as an alternative to what they'd been doing before if a bear got too close to town, which was just killing it. It is colloquially called "polar bear jail". They'll try to scare bears out of town first, but bears that walk into town repeatedly or begin breaking into buildings get put in "polar bear jail", where they are given water, but no food to avoid creating an association between humans and food. After some time, or after the Bay freezes over again, the bears are re-released outside of town.

You can read more about it on Atlas Obscura here:

[owlish-owlhouse]

Belos/Philip for headcanon thing please! Be that kid, young adult or emperor. Thank you 💝

Kid Philip/Inner Philip (Platonic)

I personally headcannon Philip with undiagnosed autism and think as a kid he definitely had emotional processing issues. Growing up in a Puritan society with these issues was not easy and is why he has so many issues when he's older. You were his closest neighbor and although he was a touch averse kid he became very clingy of you. He'd scare off any friends who tried to get close to you and only let you be close with your own family and him and Caleb.

In the show he has been shown using his left and right hand. I think he's left handed by since that was the devil/evil hand he was forced to start using his right. When you mention how cool it is that he can use his left hand and right hand he gets blushy about it as it's secretly a skill he's very proud of. Not many are ambidextrous after all. He will use his left hand but only when he's around you or Caleb as he trusts you both not to tell.

Philip has always been very smart but not very strong. As a farm boy he grew up doing chores with his brother in the mornings where he had to lift heavy items and he struggled to complete them on time. His true strength was always school and church. In the evenings he would walk to school with you and Caleb to learn and was the best in class despite being one of the youngest. He always sits next to you in the schoolhouse and shares his ink/quills not letting you touch anybody's else or sit anywhere but next to him. Anytime you had trouble with the material he'd help you and took pride in his ability to do so.

Philip may be strange but from a young age he has most of the Bible memorized. The adults in the community see this as a great accomplishment since he's younger and the Bible is long and complex. He's always been a "gifted" child and this feeds into his ego. During Sunday school he asks the most questions as he believes he loves God most and needs to know these answers to get into heaven. He often quizzes you about the Bible and leans against you during Bible lessons as he doesn't let you sit anywhere but next to him just like school. You're his friend and he makes sure everyone in town knows it.

When he's not working on the farm, doing school work, or spending time at church he enjoys sitting and drawing with you in his families barn. He also likes writing and has fun creating stories with you. Mostly he draws/writes himself as a witch hunter or becoming a witch hunter general but he also sketches you and Caleb. Whenever you all play together he acts as the Witch Hunter General while Caleb is his knight/guard and you are the person they're saving from evil witches. Philip always wants to be your protector when you play and uses his wooden sword against invisible enemies to save you.

Philip (Platonic but can be taken as romantic)

Meeting you in the Isles hes immediately taken in by your charm. You're unlike so many witches he's met before and he finds that he actually likes your company and enjoys the occasional talks you have. You ask him about his travels and what he thinks of the Isles. He lies of course and tells you everything you want to hear like your homeland is beautiful but he's secretly plotting to take you back to Earth with him once he's completed his plans.

He's a hypocrite and has a savior complex. Because he likes you he deems you are not like other witches and believes he can save you. I feel like he'd call you biblical pet names since he was raised Puritan and although the meaning is lost on you the friendly gesture isn't. You give him nicknames in turn and they always make him smile.

Philip is surprisingly a good dancer. When your town holds festivals or dances he always enjoys spinning you around. He's not a fan of being surrounded by so many witches and demons but he always pushes those feelings away because he wants to spend time with you. He knows dancing unwed is a bit crass but he doesn't dwell on that. It doesn't mean anything if it's between friends or someone he's thinking of courting later. He loves your laugh and the way you smile when you dance together makes his heart flutter.

He loves sharing his discoveries with you. He wants you to see how intelligent he is and often brags about his research as he lets you read (the safe parts of) his journal. If you compliment his hand writing and drawings when looking at his journal he'll start leaving you little notes and drawings for you to keep. He also enjoys pressing flowers and giving them to you. If he gives you live plants and you wear them he gets pretty blushy. He loves giving you trinkets/knick nacks too see your smile and is very proud of the gifts he acquires for you.

With his silver tongue and flattery he makes you trust him despite his reputation. Eventually he'll have to move towns but he hopes he can convince you to come with him. He would love to have you as a companion on his travels.

Emperor Belos (Platonic but can be taken as romantic)

He misses being called Philip but changing his name was for his own safety as Philip was deemed a danger to the Isles and chased out of just about every town on the Titan. However, it's been centuries since then and you are his most trusted advisor. The only one he trusts on this dreaded island and the only one he wants to save. Whenever he hears you say his real name when it's just the two of you he just melts. The intimacy of hearing someone else saying his name always makes him smile.

On slow nights when nothing is going on in the castle and you're together he likes for you to sit on his lap or lean against him. The man is very touched-starved and since he trusts you so much you often fulfil his need for companionship. While you lean against him reading your book he enjoys threading his fingers through your hair or twirling it around his hand as he reads his.

You know about his private workspace (though he keeps the GrimWalker/Day Of Unity notes hidden) and often bring food and water down for him. He looks forward to these quiet moments with you. He'll discuss his research and you'll eat together enjoying each other's company. It's also nice to know someone's looking out for his health and he always laughs when they chide him into taking better care of himself. He promises to sleep better once his work is done.

He writes you little letters when he gets busy and can't see you. He has only his most trusted scouts deliver them to you. Just because he can't see you doesn't mean he doesn't want you to know he's thinking of you. Sometimes the notes have little things in them like sketches or an object from his workspace. If you ever start writing back he makes a point to collect the letters and put them somewhere safe.

He would love for you to brush and touch his hair. It's such an intimate but also gentle act. Feeling the brush get out any knots and your gentle touch as you style his hair always calms him down after a stressful day. Philip is also very good at styling and doing hair and would return the favor. He just loves to touch your hair or have you touch his.

[thatshadowgastwhore]

If the Mighty Nein went to Camp Half-Blood!

What’s this? My two favorite fandoms? Couldn’t be. Enjoy this brainchild; VM, BH, and EXU: Kymal characters to follow soon

Fjord

Cabin #3 - Poseidon

This one is the most obvious one. My man is a sailor who got his powers from a water god, there’s no one else he really could be. 

I think that we keep his orphan status, and have a satyr be sent to sniff out potential demigods in orphanages, where he found little Fjord. He came to camp when he was fairly young, and lived there year-round starting at about nine years old. However, I don’t think he would have been claimed until three years later when he was twelve, despite obviously displaying water powers before that. 

As for his powers, he inherited hydro and cryokinesis (manipulation of water and ice) as well as underwater breathing and extreme temperature resistance. He did not gain the ability to speak with equine animals, but he can communicate with sea life. His weapon and fighting style are similar to the show; he has a falchion. 

At camp, he’s a pretty chill guy. People might originally be intimidated by his ‘Big Three’ status, but he’s actually pretty gentle, and does a lot of work with welcoming new campers and making them feel like they have a home and are safe, because that’s what older campers did for him when he first arrived.  

Beau

Cabin #1 - Zeus

I struggled to place Beau into a cabin. She could be with the Ares kids, or the Athena kids just as easily. But I ended up deciding on Zeus, because I think that his kids are just as combative, and she has lightning gloves. Also, she has Slow Fall, which could be retrofitted to flight. 

Beau definitely still got into a lot of trouble and fights with Thoreau, who would have been her step-dad. I think her tendency towards acting first, thinking later (as a teen) would have led her into a fight that she couldn’t win on her own: one with a monster. She was rescued not by a satyr, but by another demigod, probably Dairon (who I would put into Athena’s cabin btw). She was claimed immediately when she got to camp, because she inexplicably managed to survive on her own all the way to sixteen. 

Her powers are controlling the winds/fight and electrokinesis. Her fighting style is still very much so martial arts, and her weapons are a gift from Zeus: twin electric brass knuckles that allow her the chance to stun and shock her enemies. 

At camp, she and Fjord have a kind of unlikely friendship. Everyone is friends with Fjord, whereas most people are afraid of Beau. She’s the daughter of Zeus who can and will punch anyone who crosses her, and is kind of mean. But to those who are her friends, she is unrelentingly loyal and kind. Many younger campers tell whispered stories of the blur of cobalt blue who’s mere presence had scared off people who were bullying them. 

Caleb

Cabin # 20 - Hecate

I considered his place being with Hephaestus due to his affinity for fire, but he doesn’t exactly fit that mold. And as a wizard, Hecate is also a very good fit. And hey - magic fire is also good.

Caleb’s parents died when he was very young, around seven, in an accidental house fire, and he was taken in by his rich great-uncle, Trent Ikithon, who was abusive in every way, and gas-lit him into believing that his parents deaths were his, Caleb’s, fault. Eventually, when he was thirteen, he ran away from Trent, and before getting to camp, met up with Veth. She knew that she was a demigod at that point, and essentially took him in, very Luke and Thalia. They were discovered accidentally by a satyr who took them to camp, and he’s been there ever since. 

Like all children of Hecate, Caleb possesses mystiokinesis (the ability to manipulate the Mist). While he has a natural affinity for creating fire, usually amber colored, he has a great interest in using the Mist to change things into other things, and not simply through illusion. While turning people into animals is easy enough for many in Cabin #20, Caleb is known to change the properties of things with uncanny skill and ability. (Besides the rest of his magical abilities.)

At camp, Caleb is seen as a bit of an oddball. He’s chronically anxious and dislikes being in groups of people. He has a magical cat that is always with him, and he can look through the eyes of, and is for some reason friends with the loud and abrasive Beauregard. Even among his siblings, he is quiet, mysterious, and kind of quietly intimidating, and is constantly asking Chiron for a quest to take care of “the monster who raised me.” 

Veth

Cabin #7 - Apollo

Veth was very tricky for me. My first instinct was to put her in Hermes, for her sneakiness and love of taking trinkets. I considered putting her in Dionysus due to that iconic never-ending flask. But in the end, I thought I would honor her more positive traits, and focus on her skill in archery.

Veth has the misfortune to have been on her own for a long time, and knew specifically that she had been kicked out because of her demigod heritage. Knowing that she had powers and could use them allowed her to survive on her own, and later with Caleb before the two were taken to camp. 

Veth’s talents from Apollo came not in the form of musical prowess or healing, but in the bow. While most of her siblings favor a longbow, she is uniquely proficient with her hand crossbow. Her accuracy is so uncanny, that she has never been known to miss a shot. Her crossbow was simply found in the armory collecting dust before Veth found it and decided to make it hers. 

At camp, Veth is both an extremely friendly, and highly avoided character, due to her propensity to take shiny things. Usually nothing valuable, but she is known to be able to take the button off of someone’s coat - while they’re wearing it. However, she is a good friend to all who do right by her, and is extremely close friends with the brooding and quiet Caleb. 

Jester

Cabin #11 - Hermes 

Oh, Jester, Jester Jester. Somehow, every option is viable, and yet none work besides this one. She already has a god to look to for inspiration in Artagan, which is how I finally settled on the trickster Hermes. 

Jester absolutely still grew up the same way, and the Ruby of the Sea is the Sally Jackson of this AU, and Hermes is also a criminal, so really, Gentleman vibes all around. However, unlike Sally, Marion sent her to camp when it became dangerous for her not to be trained in her powers. She spends summers at camp and goes home for the rest of the year. 

But what powers does she get? I settled on being able to turn herself invisible for the trickery aspect, as well as having a natural affinity towards forgery. Besides her invisibility, her mere presence can make other people stealthier by proxy.

At camp, she is extremely popular and loved by all.  She and Veth are known to run a detective agency of sorts at camp, and it’s unclear whether the two of them commit the crimes so that they have things to solve or not. Either way, she is always willing to lend an ear, or a hug, or this candy and pop that she stole from the nearest gas station before pranking someone else. 

Mollymauk

Cabin #10 - Aphrodite

There’s something intrinsically Aphrodite about Mollymauk, just in the way that he holds himself. He sees himself as a canvas for beauty and art with all his tattoos, and adorns himself with baubles and jewelry. 

Molly suffered a traumatic head injury when he was young that gave him complete anterograde amnesia for everything before the accident. It isn’t known who or where his biological family is, but he found a new home with a carnival that happened to be owned by a son of Dionysus named Gustav. Gustav recognized both him and Yasha as demigods, and after patching them up, took them to camp, so that they could have an actually life

Molly’s devil's tongue is reflected in the charmspeak that he inherited from his mother. Besides that, he also takes after her more fickle and vindictive side in the other abilities he gained. Unlike many of his siblings, he chooses to fight with swords, and he uses them to help channel these abilities. Molly’s blood allows him emotokinesis, or the manipulation of emotions. When shed, it allows him to project it outwards, and when contacted or consumed by a target, allows him to manipulate them specifically. 

At camp, people are thankful that he isn’t malicious, because his abilities are truly scary to imagine in the wrong hands. He gets along well with the Dionysus kids and their revelry, and in general is fun loving and hates a dull moment. He and Jester often team up to raise the energy of the camp.  

Caduceus

Cabin # 40 - Persephone

I waffled so hard between Hades and Demeter, death and plants, for this man before remembering how dumb I am and that the compromise was staring me in the face. The Queen of the Underworld and goddess of springtime: Persephone.

Cad’s upbringing was tricky to marry into this world’s setting. I think that he hasn’t known anywhere besides camp, and that Persephone specifically gave baby Caduceus to Chiron to figure out how to raise. Chiron contacted two of his former students. His parents were demigods themselves who had their own children, and happily adopted little Cad into their family with them. He eventually started staying at camp full time, but his whole family stays at camp during the summer.

Because his mother is the goddess of springtime, Caduceus is able to communicate with both plants and animals, and can grow plants and heal wounds. On the flip side, he is also able to raise skeletons like a child of Hades might. However, his springtime associated powers are stronger in the spring/summer and weaker in the fall/winter, and vice versa. 

Caduceus is an extremely calming presence at camp. When one is exhausted from everything else that is happening, they can usually make their way to Cabin 40, nestled further into the woods than any other cabin, and have a cup of tea with him. He also is often found sitting and speaking with Hestia at her hearth, and of all of the demigods at camp, has the closest relationship with his godly parent. Persephone so rarely has demigod children that she definitely gives him a lot of attention. 

Yasha

Cabin #5 - Ares

Wouldn’t it be fun to have sweet, gentle, Yasha be in Ares? People often wonder if he’s actually her dad until they see her filled with righteous fury and become practically unkillable in combat. 

Yasha, was forced out of her home after the first monster attack when she was a child for “attracting demons.” Gustav found her all alone and kindly took her in. She and Molly became fast friends, and when Gustav realized their heritage, he took them to camp. She and Molly are very close, despite their polar opposite personalities, 

As for her powers, when in combat, Yasha attains a nearly unmatchable spirit. Anyone who has ever attempted to defeat her in melee combat has walked away with fear in their eyes. This rage allows her to shrug off major wounds in the moment and keep fighting. The damage will catch up with her later of course, but she will keep fighting forever to protect her loved ones. 

At camp, Yasha is pretty shy and closed off. She doesn’t get along particularly well with her cabin mates, and frequents the Demeter and Persephone cabins often to speak with them about flowers and enjoy the serenity. Many are afraid of her large sword and quiet and mysterious nature until they get to know her. 

Essek

Cabin #6 - Athena

Of course I’m going to add in Essek. Literally, why wouldn’t I? Essek was surprisingly easy to place for me. He thinks that he’s the best choice for literally anything, loves knowledge and research, and hates anything illogical. For such a complex character, he is a textbook child of Athena

Essek was the child of a well-known senator, who in shame after having a magic baby show up on his doorstep, hid him away from the public eye as best as possible. Every time that Essek was ever noted by the public for questioning something that his parents supported in Congress, he caused a scandal for the family. Eventually, Essek began making deals for things his parents wouldn’t let him look into with their opponents in the next election, and in an attempt to keep Essek from losing his father’s senate seat, they shipped him away to camp, where he has remained ever since. (with the exception of when his father needs him to make some sort of appearance so people know he’s not dead).

As far as his abilities, I’m giving him straight up Matilda powers, because that much brain power, and he gets to move stuff around with his mind. Also, it fits into his graviturgy speciality from the show. 

At camp, people don’t like Essek that much. They think he’s pretty aloof and stand-offish, but anyone who really knows him knows how much of a nerd he is.

[samcat0925]

TOH Goldric AU Idea

So, I was watching a certain Tim Burtin movie recently and got a great Goldric Au idea for The Owl House!

A Coraline Au:

The Jones family -> Wittebane Family (aka Philip, Caleb, and Hunter who move into The Cardinal Castle[The Pink Palace].)

Hunter -> Coraline, Caleb -> Mr. Jones, Philip -> Mrs. Jones (but in this au, he’s Hunter’s uncle who has been living with him and his father since his mother passed. After Hunter’s mother passing, Caleb has been overworking himself to help pay for the bills as well as a way to cope with the death of his wife, but he still cares for Hunter even though he doesn’t have as much time for him as he used to. Philip is a bit cold and distant towards Hunter during the start of the move due to the stress from the move and work but he’s a pretty decent guardian towards Hunter than he is in the canon universe. Although his decency level is depended on how you view Coraline’s mother.)

Hunter’s old friends before the move are Willow Parks and Gus (who he misses a lot but is unable to talk to at the moment due to the house’s phone service being down for a while.)

Edric Blight -> Wybie Lovat (a prankster as well as a troublemaker but is pretty harmless. He lives with his parents who both work a lot so it’s usually up to his sisters to keep him out of trouble. Hunter will find him a bit annoying at first due to Edric scaring him after accidently mistaking him for his younger sister, Amity who he calls Mittens. After a while, Hunter will warm up to him and eventually tell Edric about The Other World and The Other Uncle which will freak out Edric but will help Hunter after seeing how freaked out Hunter is while explaining everything.)

The cat -> Flapjack (a red cardinal that Edric feeds. He follows Ed and Hunter around, seemingly to keep an eye on them and also helps Hunter and guides him when he’s in The Other World. Other Uncle hates Flapjack for some unknown reason.)

Miss Spink and Miss Forcible -> Eda and Lilith (They used to be a world-famous traveler until they retired. The Other Eda and Lillith are the same as they are in canon. They bring Hunter along with them on their adventures. The dog(s) are replaced with owls that turn into ravens when things take a sudden turn.)

Mister Bobinsky -> Raine Whispers (A great violinist but due to their stage fright, they perform by themself but they dream of one day being able to play in front of a crowd while The Other Raine doesn’t have this problem so Hunter will get to see them playing when he visits them in the Other World with the Other Edric who is muted.)

The Ghost Children that tell Hunter about Belos and he helps set free -> Luz, Vee and Mattholomule(Matt). 

The Plot:

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Hunter, feeling like he’s being a bother to his two overworked guardians, goes around exploring when he gets scared by Edric Blight who accidently mistakes Hunter for his younger sister, Amity, but quickly takes an interest in the new kid and so does a red cardinal that Ed feds, much to Hunter’s dismay. After Ed’s sisters calls for him to get home, Hunter returns home to later he receives a button-eyes doll that look very similar to him from Ed as an apology for scaring him which Hunter, though a little creeped out by how similar looking the doll is to him, accepts the doll and even starts to call it Mini-Hunter or mini-me. 

Afterwards he goes to his dad to ask if there is anything that he could do, hoping that there is something around the house that he could help with as a way to be useful but instead his father tells him to explore the house to see if there is anything exciting which Hunter begrudgingly does. While exploring, he finds a small, sealed-off door and that night, he gets woken up by a weird noise of someone calling his name that leads him to the same door but, instead of being sealed off, there’s a long, dark corridor. Curious, Hunter goes through it where he gets taken into the Other World where he meets the Other Uncle and the Other Father. Hunter, while in the Other World, believes that it’s all just some dream that he made up at first which only gets strengthens when he wakes up back in his normal home the next morning. 

After he eats, he decides to walk around the neighborhood where he bumps into Edric, much to Hunter’s dismay, who ask Hunter all kinds of questions about him and what his life was like before coming to The Cardinal Castle to which Hunter does answer all of them honestly but shortly(Although he avoids the question about if he had any friends before moving). Hunter ends up asking Ed if there had been any other kids that lived in The Cardinal Castle before Hunter to which Edric tells him that ever since the disappearance of a couple of kids, one being a girl named Luz that his grandmother used to know, there hasn’t been any kids that have been living there until Hunter which sends an unknown chill down Hunter’s spine.

Afterwards Hunter goes to meet his neighbors, Raine Whispers and the Clawthorne sisters, Eda and Lilith, who warn him that there is something dangerous after him which worries Hunter but tries to reason that they were probably just trying to scare him, so it doesn’t stop him from going into the Other World to see if it was all just a dream. 

On his second trip, he meets with the muted Other Edric who accompanies him while he is being entertained by the Other World’s doppelgangers of his neighbors and meets the red cardinal that calls itself Flapjack, who has the ability to go between the real world and the Other World as well as the ability to talk in the Other World. On his third visit, the Other Uncle tells him that he could stay in the Other World permanently, in exchanged for sewing buttons over his eyes. This horrifies Hunter and causes him to try to escape to the real world however the Other Uncle stops him from being able to and traps him in a room that’s behind a mirror where Hunter meets three ghost children. A girl with spotted freckles on her cheeks named Vee, A small boy named Mattholomule and another girl named Luz who was the missing girl that Ed was talking. They were all victims of the Other Uncle or who they all call Belos. They tell Hunter that Belos used the doll, that changed to look like each of the victims, to spy on them and to help being them into the Other World. After they accepted Belos’s offer to having buttons be sew into their eyes so they can stay there forever, he stole them of their souls to which they tell Hunter that the only way that they can be freed is if he can retrieve their souls, which Belos had hidden each one throughout the Other World. After Hunter promises them that he’ll help free them by getting the souls, he is saved by the Other Edric who helps as well as sacrifices himself to get Hunter safely home before Belos could get him. 

Once Hunter gets back, he goes to look for his uncle and father to only find that they’re not in the house. Hunter, getting a bad feeling, goes to his father’s room where he finds out that Belos had kidnapped his guardians after he finds a doll that has his father’s likeness on one side while his uncle’s likeness in on the other side. Terrified and feeling the spidery string of panic, Hunter starts having a panic attack. Luckly Ed finds him and helps him calm down as well as makes sure that Hunter’s breathing is back to normal. After Hunter is able to calm down, he ends up telling Ed everything about what happened, the Other World, Belos, the ghost children, and about how his uncle and father were both missing. Ed, despite being freaked out and in a bit of disbelief by what Hunter just told him, stays with Hunter to comfort him and ends up offering Hunter to stay at his place for the night, stating that Hunter must be tired after all that he’s been through. Hunter, although secretly appreciates the offer, declines knowing that he can’t run from Belos if he wants his real uncle and father back.

Accompanied by Flapjack, Hunter returns to the Other World where he proposes a game to Belos: if he can find his guardians and the souls of the ghost children, Belos will have to let them all go free but if he can’t find them all in time, then he’s let Belos sew buttons into his eyes. Belos agrees and Hunter starts searching for the ghost’s souls during which he finds of what remains of the Other Edric who Belos had disposed of for his defiance. As Hunter find each of the souls with Flapjack’s help, the Other World starts becoming lifeless that leaves the entire dimension, except for the living room, disintegrating. After retrieving one of the souls, one of the ghosts tells Hunter that even if he wins the game, Belos won’t keep his side of the deal. Hunter ends up going back to the living room which he finds Belos in his true terrifying form. Using the advice that he was given, Hunter tricks Belos into opening the door to the real world by telling him that his guardians are behind it. Afterwards Flapjack distracts Belos so he can rescue his uncle and father who are trapped in a snow globe that was his mother’s. He was barely able to escape but not without severing Belos’s hand with the door in the process.

Once Hunter gets back home, he is reunited with his uncle and father who have both forgotten about their capture. That night while Hunter is asleep, the ghosts appear in his dream to not only thank him for saving them but to also warn him that Belos is still after him so it can get the key to open the door. Hunter wakes up and goes to an old well near the house to drop the key down it but gets attacked by Belos’s severed hand. Luckly Edric soon arrives and, after a bit of a struggle, manages to help Hunter destroy the hand by dropping a large rock on it. After the two tossed the key and the remains of Belos’s hand before sealing it off, Hunter asks Edric how he knew that he was in trouble to which Ed replies that he was worried about him after he saw him having a panic attack, so he was walking to his house to check on him to see if he was alright when Flapjack, who seemed in distressed led to the old well where he heard Hunter yelling and found him being attacked by a weird severed hand. Hunter, touched by Ed’s words, thanks him for his help and tells Ed that he may be a bit of trouble but he’s not a bad person to have around which Ed smiles and blushes at. 

A week after, Hunter and his family host a small party for their neighbors, including Ed’s family where Edric interduces Hunter to his sisters who make a teasing comment saying that Ed talks about him a lot ever since he moved in which makes the two boys blush red.

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

And that’s what I got so far!

Please let me know what you think. And if there any headcanons/questions for these or Owl House movie au ideas that you all come up with, please let me know! I’d love to read them!

[romeoandjulietyouwish]

this is so niche but I love the idea of a mighty nein House on the Cerulean Aea au

Marion is the matron of the house, after her daughter began to show magical abilities, she know that DICOMY (department in charge of magic youth) would try to take her from her. So she registered herself as the matron of an orphanage, giving up her illustrious singing career to do so

Fjord was the first one to be entrusted into her care, a half orc child who wakes from nightmares spewing salt water and has untamed magic from an unknown source is not a child most want to deal with.

It’s when Marion meets him and sees how badly he was treated at other homes, that she decides to take in those kids who have been hurt and abandoned by the system. And she always looks for kids around Jester’s age.

Yasha arrived next, a girl who could speak to lighting and storms. She’s very quiet and it takes a while for Marion to understand what she needs, some space and something to keep her hands busy and a large window to watch the clouds. She doesn’t really open up at all until Mollymauk arrives.

Unlike the others, Molly wasn’t turned over to the government or taken from his parents, he was just found covered in dirt with red eyes all over him and was taken to DICOMY where he was immediately taken to Marion. He didn’t speak a word to anyone for months, but he attached himself to Yasha’s side, moving into her room. And when he cut himself on a shard of glass and his blood did magic, it just cemented his place among them even more.

Beau was next, it didn’t take Marion long to figure out why Beau was here. Unlike most of the children she dealt with, Beau didn’t have any obvious magical abilities being a polygot is nothing dangerous. But Beau is combative and angry and hates Marion and everything and everyone, most likely the reason she’s been tossed out of so many homes.

Once Marion connects her with Dairon and gets her to a healthy outlet for her anger, Beau tells Marion that her dad had her taken from his home because she was causing trouble, not because of her abilities.

Caleb was the last one, at least for a while. He arrived when everyone else was teenagers, turned over not from another home but from a DICOMY school (well known to be awful places). He wakes screaming nearly every night, his fingers alight with fire.

Marion never fully learns the horrors he experienced at the school, but it’s his experiences along with everyone elses that encourage her to start to dismantle DICOMY from the inside, using as many of her connections from her past life as possible to help as many children out of the system as she can.

And what’s where Veth and Caduceus come in, encouraged by Marion, they also welcome magical children into their homes as well.

[thequeenofmyownscreen]

Nineteen things I noted about CR2E133 “Hunter and Hunted” and the Talks Machina about it :

Thank the gods there was a disclaimer before WHATEVER THIS IS :

Matt said “toothy maw”, and Laura screamed “Take a shot !!!” and then immediately drank out of her canteen. A legend.

I liked how they reacted to this encounter, they expressed very well the thought on everyone’s minds : they can’t waste high level spells on these two lizards, because the real fight with Lucien is waiting around the corner.

The description of the streets of Aeor, its building collapsed, the skeletons, is jarring. Even more so when Caduceus flew over the amphitheater and Matt described that there was a lot of people here when death took them, when the destruction happened. Hear this after watching ExU Calamity is even more horrifying, because WE KNOW exactly what those 15 seconds before the end must have looked like for Aeor…

Jester, as Veth is dismantling the robot they found in the ruins of Aeor, for Caduceus’ spell of Speak with dead : “It have a soul, potentially… I don’t know how these things work !” Sam, jokingly : “Don’t be judgmental !” ARE YOU KIDDING ME ????!!! HAVE I JUST SEEN THE MOMENT WHERE SAM HAD THE IDEA FOR F.C.G. ????? A ROBOT WHO’S NOT SURE IF THEY HAVE A SOUL ?????

“In every campaign, we need at least one flying cow”

I agree with Jester 100%. They should set up the ambush and not go explore. However…. aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh I want to see everything Aeor !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I’m so curious !!!!!!!!!!

Yasha is trying to crush opals into dust for Jester, while flexing her arms, with her sheer strength. Beau, a lesbian : “Come on, babe, this is the hottest you’ve ever been” Caleb : “Maybe thighs is the way to go.” Beau, agreeing : “She’s got really strong thighs…” (my mind and Marisha’s mind went into the gutter)

I would like to thank the cast of Critical Role for forcing me to google ‘Bad Dragon’ to get the joke, and thus subjecting me to the unspeakable horrors of bad sex toys.

Very important information : Essek’s favorite food is soup or nice stews. I love this dude.

Caleb : “You know what a bunch of wizards in one place is ? Fucking trouble.”

Oh god, THE WAITING !!! I did agree with Laura’s theory, that they’re not going to get a full rest before Lucien & Co enter. That’s what I would do as a DM, and also Lucien has done this before, because he’s a pain in the ass. And there it went, minutes after.

Oh, Fjord. The choice of knowing you can sacrifice soldiers for a battle and still not win the war, but gain an advantage (wounding slightly the Tomb Takers, maybe)… And he did it. Knowing that those rangers and Dagen will be lucky if they escape alive.

They got 3 of the 5 Tomb Takers, and more importantly, Otis is amongst the victims !! I’d call that a win.

Fjord, as he’s killing Zoran with two hits on his turn, to Lucien : “No way out of this fight, my friend.” HOT

Talks Machina almost got called Critical Role After Special, or CRAS. Figures.

Travis talking about how he figured out in-game when looking at the map that Vandren is literally on the next island after their ship crashed, and that he just… stayed there… is amazingly funny, because he came to the conclusion that he was a “fucking moron” for never deducing he should look there first.

Travis, the self-described man who doesn’t know youth linguo, made a Tumblr reference when they discussed Essek, and I’m proud. We do have an Essek obsession over here !

Travis describing Fjord’s time in the Happy Fun Ball with Yasha and Beau : “I’m just, back at the fish market… at the whims of the lesbians !” THAT’S THE TRUEST DESCRIPTION EVER

[hecrtgolden]

(  JONATHAN  DAVIS  +  CIS  MALE  +  HE  /  HIM  )     🠒     PARENTS  by  yungblud  is  something  that  resonates  with  SAMMY  TURNER.   the  drug  dealer  /  bartender  at  glen  ellen’s  local  bar  is  glen  ellen's  very  own   DIRTBAG   who  has  been  in  town  for  fifteen  years  and  while  they  are  only  twenty  five,    they  can  be  very   SHORT  FUSED    but  if  their  friends  mentioned  them,    you'd  think  they  were  more  LOYAL.   in  a  town  where  every  one  knows  everyone,    it's  hard  to  keep  a  secret,     but  i  think  the  killer  knows  that  [  REDACTED  ],     and  it's  bound  to  get  out  sometime  soon.   i  wonder  if  the  killer  also  thinks  of   bloodied  knuckles,  care  bear  plasters,  misplaced  anger,  shotgunning  at  parties,  black  nail  polish,  discarded  baggies,  a  thick  cockney  accent   like  i  do,    when  i  think  of  them. 

full name — samuel alexander turner nickname(s) — sam, sammy. name meaning — god has heard age — twenty five date of birth — april 1st place of birth — hackney, london, england current location — glen ellen, california, us gender — cis-male pronouns — he/him sexual orientation — homosexual

height — 5′11 religion — agnostic occupation — bartender / drug dealer education level — high school family — douglas turner ( father ), katherine turner ( mother ) joshua, caleb, poppy, beau, max, mila ( siblings ) finances — lower working class / poor spoken languages — English 

medical diagnosis’ — adhd, depression, ptsd, anxiety, oppositional defiance disorder

voiceclaim — danny dyer

Inspired by : James Cook ( Skins ), Mickey Maguire ( shamless ), Neil Sutherland ( the inbetweeners ), Nathan Young ( misfits ), alex karev ( greys anatomy )

Tw for abuse, substance misuse, violence. 

- Sammy is the second eldest of several children born to Douglas and Katherine Turner. He grew up in a two bedroom housing estate in Hackney, London. He attended a state school on the verge of closure, he ran wild ran the estate with friends a lot older. He did everything and anything to avoid going home. Nobody saw the signs - or more, nobody wanted to see the signs. 

- Douglas and Katherine did not parent well. They barely existed well. Douglas was abusive in his methods with a temper that couldn’t be controlled around adults or children. Katherine, sweet Katherine, grew tired and fearful. Trapped and complacent. Josh and Sammy basically took on the role of parents to the smalls. 

- Shortly after his tenth birthday the family immigrated to the states. ‘too much trouble over ‘ere’ Douglas had mumbled. 

- Coming into teenage hood, Sammy grew angry. Angry at his situation and the cards dealt to him. He had always struggled in school, but now his behaviour was unmanageable. It was like his body was constantly in fight or flight mode. ‘Defensive, Lazy, Unmotivated - a teachers nightmare’ - all words scrawled across his report cards over the years. they don’t care, Sammy had realised. They don’t want to listen to my screams for help. nobody fucking cares.

- It would have been obvious, to anybody who stepped back and looked at the entire unit, that Sammy had a magnitude of odds stacked against him. Some days all he needed was a fucking win. Somebody to turn around and say that they saw him. Nobody did. He was pegged as a failure before he even had a chance. Nobody cares !! Nobody cares !! It’s all his fault and nobody fucking cares !!

- Douglas only grew angrier with age and the aggression only got worse as his kids grew stronger and started to fight back. Stupid sack of shit - you’ll never win against him.

- Sammy knew he would never win. He knew by fourteen that it was futile to try. He took whatever fist was thrown at him, and he spent his teenage years stepping between his father and his siblings, pleading with his mother to do something. If she couldn’t protect them, he would. Josh had grown useless in his own years. While Sammy only felt anger, he felt a strong desire to step away and keep his head down. Coward - why don’t you grow a better fucking coping mechanism !!

- aside from the obvious, there was another undetected reason for Sammy’s piss poor school performance. He couldn’t read - not well at least. He had managed to skirt by this issue for the majority of his life. He used their own diastase of him to hide the embarrassment. He spoke in jibberish with a shit eating grin when asked to read aloud, made sexual innuendos when questioned about board work and kicked off or doodled on school tests. Fuck it, if they didn’t care, why should he?. Until one teacher did, one who had been eyeing up the boy and taking note of his deteriorating behaviour for a while. He kept him back one afternoon and asked Sammy to read a passage from the assigned text to him. Sammy did the usual - pout and moan and roll his eyes and demand to be let go for lunch. This interaction repeated itself again and again, and after years of screaming to be seen, he suddenly wanted to be left alone again.

- this teacher didn’t leave him alone. In fact, he invested in Sammy. He encouraged him to take up drumming, and payed for his lessons (unbeknownst to Sammy, who assumed it was free), he tutored him after school and once building up some trust he took Sammy for an eye test one afternoon. It transpired that not only could Sammy not read well, he couldn’t see very well either. The opticians where shocked at how he had been going about day to day tasks with one blind eye and the other with intense short sightedness (not that he will wear the stupid glasses. Fuck that).

- Adulthood doesn’t feel too dissimilar to teenage hood, Sammy finds. It’s still just misdirected anger and school runs he didn’t sign up for. It’s still running for your life against wolves, it’s still fight or flight and pre conceived judgements. It’s still untamed loyalty that his teachers swore he would grow out of. The only difference is while he once questioned why the universe just wanted to piss on him, he know understands it’s probably deserved.

WANTED CONNECTIONS

- Exes / hookups / fwb: Sammy is massively touch starved and falls for people very easily (though he will never admit it). He always tends to be the one to fuck it up though

- The teacher: as stated in his bio, this teacher has a massive positive impact on Sammy and changed the course of his life. They still check up on Sammy and is no doubt teaching the other Turners right now. They may even be Sammys call when he gets arrested for dumb shit. 

- best friends: while Sammy can appear to be a pos, he has the biggest heart in the world. He really is just misunderstood but once he builds a connection he guards it with his life.

Enemies: It’s well known this boy likes to throw a punch or two - if you’re lucky it could be you!

Clients: As well as working at the bar, Sammy also deals drugs. The money is mostly used to support his siblings, so really it’s like charity! The more drugs you do, the more shoes there are for the kids!

Potential partners: I have nothing to say but 😢 give him one good thing

[deactivated-almonds]

Trapper’s Moon

Summary

November 25th, 2015 It's barely been a month since the fire. The acting Sheriff of North Kill, Travis Hackett, has only just finished sweeping up the ashes left behind in the wake of his family's horrific mistake. The investigation is over, the kids are in the clear, and the Hackett's are resilient folk. He tells himself they'll all be stronger for this, in the end. Travis reckons it couldn't get much worse, when a family emergency calls him home to Hackett House. The full moon can really bring out the worst in people.      

Travis Hackett pov \ Blood and Gore \ Body Horror \ Family Bonding \ 10k+  

Read it here on my AO3 - part of a larger work, Witness to the Dawn  

Hank Williams had devoted his entire life to serving and protecting the people of North Kill, New York, and acted as their Sheriff for over thirty years. He had never married and had quite intentionally avoided siring any children of his own. Although, if you asked around, a surprisingly large number of people would tell you they viewed him as a father figure, or a mentor at the very least. He possessed a paternal gravity that pulled the troubled and broken into his orbit, where he dished out sage wisdom, second chances, and tough love in equal measure. He had always been able to bring out the good in people, no matter how deeply it was buried within them. Not a soul in North Kill grew up without receiving at least one of his infamous speeches, and they typically walked away better for it. He was loved in life, and sorely missed in death.

And yet somehow, Travis Hackett was the only one willing to settle his estate. In the month since Hank’s tragic death, the former deputy and now acting Sheriff of North Kill had been the only one who volunteered to make funeral arrangements and carry out the stipulations of his predecessor’s final will and testament. Travis had cleaned up his house and sold it, making sure every last dime was donated to Hank’s preferred children’s charity organization. He had found a good home for his two big drooly hunting dogs, Scoot and Bill. He had even turned in a proposition to build a memorial for Hank, though it would have to pass through the mayor’s office first and Lord knows how long that would take.

He had done all of this on his own on top of taking over the duties of Sheriff, and not a single person in the village endeavored to help him. He was sure if he had asked, maybe someone might have, but he was a staunch believer that there were certain things one shouldn’t have to ask for. Or…maybe he took all that responsibility upon himself because of the guilt. His family had fucked up in a major way. And by extension, so had he. 

Everything had happened so fast, Travis felt like he had a chronic case of whiplash. He wasn’t there when the fire started, but he was there to clean up the mess, both in the role of a police officer, and as a concerned uncle. He would never forget trapsing through those woods, air heavy with smoke, heat still radiating off smoldering trailers. The lingering smell of burnt flesh. Hank’s body, unrecognizable but for the charred star on his chest. Still nothing compared to the unholy shitstorm that occurred at Hackett House that next day.  

He had quickly discovered his own niece and nephew had been responsible for the fire, in an attempt to “save” a caged little boy from the Harum Scarum show. In the process, Caleb had accidentally set fire to the entire goddamn campsite, engulfing dozens of people in flames. The little boy in question, Silas, ended up running off anyway, but not before assaulting Caleb first. Thankfully he had healed from the bite in no time. Travis could still clearly remember the ensuing argument, his mother switching rapidly between tearfully begging him not to arrest the kids and violently threatening him for evening considering it. Nothing he wasn’t used to, of course, but what he could not handle was the way his niece and nephew fell to pieces, cowering in their father’s arms.

Kaylee apologized over and over again through racking sobs, and Caleb refused to speak or move for days, practically catatonic. He couldn’t bear to see them like that. He loved them like his own, he had to protect them, no matter the cost. Family is the most important thing, after all. And so, he gave in to his family’s demands, like he always did. He had seen to it that any trace of the Hackett children was either misplaced or never found at all, and the cause of the fire remained a mystery. He blamed it on a lit cigarette carelessly tossed into a bale of hay. A tragic accident, and nothing more.

His career as Sheriff started with a lie, and he hated himself for it. He would give or do anything to make it better and, to that end, had been working himself to the bone over the past month. It wasn’t a sustainable pace, but it was no less than he felt he deserved. With Hank properly put to rest, and all his major affairs settled, Travis had more time to focus on the little things. He hadn’t even transitioned into Hank’s old office yet, and initially couldn’t stomach packing his belongings into boxes. Hank’s office had been more well-furnished than his own home; he had practically lived in the station.

As Travis removed certain framed photos from the walls and sorted through decades of clutter from the desk drawers, he couldn’t help but reminisce. He had a lot of fond memories of that office, good laughs and even better gossip shared over morning coffee. And some not so fond ones as well, which were the most impactful of all, in hindsight.

In his youth, Travis had sat across from ol’ Hank many, many times. The new Sheriff had a rap sheet, long since expunged, of adolescent drunk and disorderlies under his belt. And petty assaults. Travis remembered sitting opposite Hank, face black and blue from a particularly nasty back-alley fight, idly picking at his scabbed knuckles. Doing anything to avoid Hank’s disappointed gaze.

“You could do so much better,” he remembered Hank saying.      

Travis had snorted in response; a skinny, arrogant punk with no respect for anyone or anything. “You should see the other guys,” he had laughed, halfheartedly.

Hank scowled and shook his head disapprovingly, “You know that’s not what I mean, Travis.” He leaned heavily over his desk, face searching for Travis’s gaze, making sure the boy looked him in the eyes. “You have so much potential and you are pissing it all away, and that’s a fuckin’ shame Travis.”

“Potential?” Travis had asked mockingly, looking up to meet the older man’s eyes. “I have the potential to kick someone’s ass when they talk shit about my family, that’s my potential.”

Hank’s calm, resolute expression did not falter. “What I mean is, you’re better than this Travis. I don’t know what kind of backwards shit your Ma and Pa have drilled into your head, but you are so much better than bar fights and shit stomping nonsense. You’re smart, Travis, smartest person in the room most of the time. I know you feel so strongly about what’s right and what’s wrong, and you can’t stand it when other people shit all over that. I know it’s exhausting. And I know, you feel like no one listens to you. And I know it makes you madder than hell-”

“You don’t know a fuckin’ thing about me,” Travis nearly yelled, venom oozing through his words.

Hank, God bless him for the patience of a saint, remained unphased. “Travis, I know you better than you know yourself,” he continued softly. “You have been in this office more times than I can count on both hands. I’ve been called to your house nearly as often, too. I have watched you grow up into a fine young man. I know…” he paused, considering his next words carefully. “I know it hasn’t been easy for you, son.”  

Travis involuntarily winced at this and looked away, mouth screwed into a tight frown, pressure starting to build behind his eyes. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“You do,” Hank said with a simple nod. “You know what I mean. I like your folks, Travis, I do, and I won’t talk ill of them. I know you don’t like that. But that place is no good for you. You deserve better-”

“I ain’t better than anybody else,” Travis interrupted with a phrase he had heard many, many times, and damned himself for the tremble in his voice. He had swallowed hard and pinched the bridge of his nose swiftly, hoping to covertly catch his welling tears before they became obvious.    

Hank sighed and leaned back in his creaky chair, sensing the conversation was going nowhere fast. “Travis,” he said, shifting the tone of the conversation to something more inquisitive. “Have you ever considered a career in law enforcement?”

Travis recalled being completely thrown off by this question and chuckled to himself about where it had led. Hank thought he would benefit from the structure and discipline a career in the law entailed. That having something entirely his own would help him to gain a bit of independence from his family. The former was true, while the latter, in retrospect, was not. At least not entirely. He had moved out of Hackett House after receiving his first couple paychecks and settled into a nice little place of his own on the edge of town. Hank had sponsored his education at the police academy, along with a semester of pre-law at NYU. It was more than Travis felt he had the right to ask for, but Travis hadn’t technically asked and Hank was just like that in the first place. Generous. Selfless. Things Travis had always hoped to be, though he more often than not found himself falling short of that high bar. You can take the man out of the Hackett’s, but you can’t take the Hackett’s out of the man.  

The only wall hanging Travis decided to keep on display was one he initially found a little embarrassing. It was a framed photo of him and Hank from the day of his academy graduation ceremony. Arms slung around each other’s shoulders, shaking hands. Hank was absolutely beaming, and so was Travis. His parents had been there too, of course, but nobody was or ever had been as proud of him as Hank was in that moment. Travis gently swiped the dust off the glass with the side of his hand and repositioned the photo in its original home on the wall directly behind the desk, taking extra care to make sure it hung straight.

He considered the photo for a moment longer, the familiar pang of grief beginning to swell in his chest. It wasn’t fair that bad things always seemed to happen to good people. It just didn’t make sense. He cleared his throat, and stamped the feeling down, back into whatever dark hole it had crawled out of. Just in time as well, as he heard a small, timid knock on the closed office door. “Come in, Darcy,” he commanded, quickly pretending to straighten papers on the desk. He wasn’t one to get caught being sentimental.

The office secretary, Darcy, opened his door just a crack and peaked her head into the dimly lit room. “Uh offi- er, Sheriff Hackett,” she corrected herself, “your brother is on line one. Says he needs to talk to you right away. Couldn’t reach you on your cell, sir.”

Travis pulled his phone out of his back pocket, and sure enough, no bars. The reception in North Kill seemed to drop in and out at the worst of times. He sucked his teeth, “Shit. Okay, I’ll be right out Darcy. Thank you,” he said to her, not bothering to look up from his useless device until he noticed her lingering in the doorway.  

“It seemed…urgent,” she added with a wince.

Travis rolled his eyes and sighed, following Darcy out into the main lobby of the station. His brother made no effort to hide the fact he felt entitled to Travis’s sweet time, and in truth the two were still a bit sour with each other over the fire incident. Some very harsh names had been exchanged that first night, “shitty father” and “fascist pig” surprisingly being the worst out of all the many peppered motherfucker’s and asshole’s. “Chris,” he answered the phone curtly, “What’s up?”

“T, I need you to come to the house,” Chris responded quickly, voice soaked with obvious stress that immediately put Travis on high alert.

“Why what is it, what’s wrong?” His younger brother was not one to panic.

“It’s Caleb. I think he’s really sick man. I’m back and forth on taking him to the hospital, I don’t wanna leave Kaylee alone,” Chris explained.

“Sick how? Aren’t Ma and Dad home?” He asked, and noticed Darcy was still standing right next to him, anxiously biting her nails. He raised his brows at her, a silent plea for some privacy, and she seemed to take the hint, quickly scuttling behind her desk.

“Well, yeah. But…y’know,” he lowered his voice to a whisper, “I’d prefer to have a responsible adult around. C’mon man, please. It’s gonna be dark soon and Kaylee’s freakin’ out. I just- I could just use a little help.” He sounded so defeated. Kaylee had been especially…sensitive, after the fire. And who could blame her, it had barely been a month.  

Travis held the phone to his chest and pursed his lips as he considered his options for a moment. It was late afternoon, on a Wednesday, and he was supposed to be on duty at least until nine, when he’d switch off with the officer on call for the night. Then again, his family needed him, although it didn’t seem like a huge emergency if he was being quite honest. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Darcy wave for his attention, and silently mouth the words “just go”, followed by some indecipherable gesturing. He brought the phone back up to his ear, “Okay. Okay, I’m on my way. Hang tight.” He didn’t wait for a response before hanging up. As per usual, he could not resist the pull of his family.  

He donned his jacket, a standard issue black number with faux fur trim, left the station in Darcy’s reasonably capable hands, and took off in his patrol car. He appraised the other officer on duty, deputy McGillan, of the situation via radio, and made short work of the long and winding drive to Hackett House. He decided to take a shortcut; an old and poorly maintained dirt road originally used for logging. People tended not to use it, as it only really led to Hackett’s Quarry, and Travis found he could easily get away with really pushing the pedal to the metal there.

The sun was just beginning to set over the trees as he pulled his vehicle in front of the ramshackle old house. The air had grown crisp since he left the station, and he could just barely begin to see the fog of his own breath in the cool November air. He wasted no time entering the gigantic house, boots thudding heavily as he traversed the front porch. He tested the front door handle and found it was unlocked. He allowed himself inside and immediately caught sight of both Chris and Kaylee across the foyer, sitting together on the bottom step of the grand staircase.  

“Uncle Travis!” Kaylee shouted, jumping up and rushing toward him before he even had a chance to shut the door behind him. She flung her arms around his chest in a tight embrace, burying her face in his shirt. Her breaths came up shaky, like she had just been crying.

“Woah,” he laughed nervously, placing a gentle arm around her shoulders. “Hey kiddo, you okay?” He asked Kaylee but looked to his brother for the actual answer.

Chris slowly rose from his seat on the stairs and huffed a sigh of relief. “We’re alright,” he said solemnly, “just a little shaken up. Caleb’s running a pretty bad fever.” The two men both glanced upstairs, toward Caleb’s bedroom, then back down at each other. “Thanks for comin’ man-”

He began to say more, but was interrupted by Constance, shuffling in her own quick, distinct way through the drawing room and into the foyer. “Travis, close that door behind you! You’re letting all the heat out. Kaylee-girl, come with me hon, come help your Gammy fix supper.” She beckoned toward Kaylee, who finally released Travis from her nearly crushing embrace.

Travis smiled at his mother, tight lipped and entirely fake. “Nice to see you too, Ma.” She ignored him and ushered Kaylee toward the kitchen. He closed the door, as instructed, and turned to his brother again. “Where’s Dad and Bobby?”  

“Wrapping up at the scrapyard, I think,” he said dismissively. Chris looked uncharacteristically worried, the lines on his aging face deeply furrowed.

Travis put his hands on his hips, “So, what’s going on here? You said Caleb’s running a fever. How high?”

“101,” Chris said sheepishly. “It’s not good, but not terrible either. Y’know they say it’s best to let a fever run its course. Sometimes. If it’s not too high.”

Travis was starting to get a little annoyed. What was the point of him leaving work to rush out here if Chris wasn’t even taking Caleb to the hospital? Travis didn’t know much about medicine, but maybe he could convince Chris to leave. If not for Caleb's sake, then to at least make it worth the drive. “You don’t think this had anything to do with the fire, do you? When that kid bit him? Can’t be sanitary,” he suggested.

Chris thought for a moment. “No? I- I don’t know,” his tone was quickly becoming frustrated. “I mean he healed quick and he’s been healthy as a horse since then. Distant, sure, but physically okay. And then just a couple hours ago he did this total 360, he got real pale all the sudden, and he’s burning up. Says his stomach hurts, he’s really hungry but I’m not sure I should let him eat…,” he trailed off.

“180,” Travis corrected.  

Chris narrowed his eyes at his older brother, confused. “What?”

“A 360 is a full turn around, 180 is when something is the opposite of what it was,” Travis explained.  

Chris just stared at him blankly, face unable to mask the visible, bubbling anger slowly rising to the surface. “Y’know if you’re gonna be an asshole you can just go.”  

“I’m not trying to be an asshole. You called me here to help and now nothing’s happening, Chris. Got me all worried for nothing.”

“Nothing’s happening?” Chris started to raise his voice, “Don’t you think enough has happened lately? I would fucking love for things to just stop happening around here for five fucking minutes!”  

Travis didn’t much like his younger brother’s tone. He stepped forward toward Chris, closing the gap between them. “So would I, because I’m real fuckin’ busy lately cleaning up the mess you left me.”

“What, me specifically?” Chris looked incredulous. “Why don’t you get off your high fucking horse Travis and-” BAM!

Whatever foul sentiment Chris was about to spit at Travis was cut short by a loud thud from upstairs that caused both men to jump nearly out of their shoes. The force of it shook the entire house, causing the light fixtures to flicker as a wispy cloud of dust floated down from the ceiling. The two men stopped their bickering and looked up toward Caleb’s room, listening. “Caleb?” Chris called. “You alright buddy?” No response.

“Caleb?” he called again, to no avail. The moment Chris had placed his foot upon the first step, the pair heard a subtle, soft creaking of floorboards, and the younger Hackett brother paused his ascent to listen once more. What he heard next, however, was any parent’s worst nightmare: a sudden, ear-splitting wail of pain that was unmistakably Caleb’s voice, his little boy’s voice, followed by a wet, squelching sound that could only be described as a massive splat. Like someone throwing a sopping wet towel against a wall. Or heavy rain, blown sideways against the house by an angry wind.

“Caleb!” Chris screamed for his son as he bolted up the stairs, nearly tripping on his way to Caleb’s room. Even within those few seconds, the thumping and banging continued, and grew even louder, rattling the entire second floor. Travis began to follow his brother, but spied Constance and Kaylee rushing toward the foyer, no doubt coming to investigate the noise.

“Woah woah woah, stay right there,” he shouted, extending his left hand to stop to stop them, the other instinctively flying to the handle of his service weapon, releasing the single snap that held it in place. They both came to a screeching halt and the trio all looked up just in time to see Chris bursting into Caleb’s room, practically kicking in the door.

They all observed what felt like an eternal millisecond of silence before Chris let out a horrendous scream. It was a sound Travis had never heard before; it made his blood run cold. He was on the stairs in an instant, skipping steps two and three at a time, not daring to peel his eyes away from Caleb’s doorway, the deafening screaming still ringing from its dark maw. And something else, some other, primal sound. A low, gurgling growl, resonating several frequencies below the rest of the chaos.

“Chris!” Travis called his brother’s name as he reached the top of the stairs, and was promptly answered by the musical crash of broken glass. His own momentum had propelled him forward, and he crashed painfully into the doorframe, barely catching himself from tumbling into the room, one hand still gripping his holstered sidearm. Bright, white moonlight filtered in through Caleb’s broken bedroom window, now little more than a massive, jagged hole. Its wooden frame was busted into splinters, and shards of glass littered the ground, sparkling in the moonlight.

He found Chris slumped against the right wall, grimacing and groaning in pain but thankfully alive. He held his right shoulder with a white-knuckled death grip, absolutely oozing crimson red blood from a large, gaping wound. Travis quickly scanned the room and saw no sign of Caleb. He rushed to his brother, and knelt down beside him, “Jesus Christ, Chris, what the fuck happened here?” He lightly touched Chris’s shoulder but quickly pulled away when his brother inhaled sharply and stomped one foot against the hardwood floor.

“Fuck! Don’t touch it, don’t touch it,” Chris begged. “Jesus fucking Christ.”  

“What the in the MOTHERFUCKIN’ HELL is goin’ on up there?” Travis heard his mother shriek and turned to see her and Kaylee both poking their heads out from upon the staircase.

“Do not come up here Ma,” Travis shouted back at her, “Take Kaylee downstairs. Now!” He ordered. Normally, his mother would argue, would yell at him for raising his voice at her. His tone must have been convincing enough for her to actually listen to him for once, she obeyed his order without complaint, the tops of their heads quickly disappearing from his field of view.

Travis looked around the room once more, finally able to take a moment to really assess the situation. The walls were splattered with blood, running down in thick syrupy rivulets. Some sick and twisted mockery of a Jackson Pollock painting. Chunks of what looked disturbingly like skin, clinging to the wallpaper. “This can’t all be yours Chris. Tell me this isn’t all yours,” he said, looking at his brother wide-eyed.

Chris had been hyperventilating but was now making a concerted, labored effort to control his breathing. Desperately trying to regain some modicum of composure. “No,” he said after a moment. “Not all of it. It was like this when I got up here. And that-” he paused, and swallowed hard. “Something…attacked me. Tried to bite a fucking chunk outta me.”

“Something? What- who? Was it Caleb? Where is Caleb, Chris?”

“I don’t know!” Chris snapped at him. “I have no fucking clue what’s going on right now!” He shifted onto one leg, rising to his feet with great effort, despite his brother’s protestations. “Either my son is missing, or-or he’s…,” he paused, and gave Travis a look that was nothing short of piteous.

Both brothers slowly turned their heads in unison, looking out toward the obliterated bedroom window and the night sky beyond. “No,” Travis said in disbelief. “No fucking way.”  

Chris turned abruptly on his heels, rushing back down the staircase, followed quickly by Travis, who was a ball of nerves and confusion. “Wait, Chris!” he called after his brother, close on his heels. “Where the fuck are you going? We need to get you to a hospital.” Chris rounded the bottom of the stairs and stomped down the central hallway, a man on a mission. He threw open one of the many closets and linen cupboards that lined the long expanse and pulled out exactly what Travis had predicted: their father’s hunting shotgun. One of many. He slung the long, heavy weapon over his left shoulder by its strap, grunting out loud from the pain that accompanied the simple movement. “Chris,” Travis addressed is brother, trying to remain as calm as possible. “I need you to listen to me-”

“No,” Chris interrupted, “I need you to listen to me.” Finally able to see his brother’s face, Travis’s heart sank lower than he had ever thought possible. A clear stream of tears flowed down Chris’s cheeks, cutting straight paths through the still fresh blood smeared across his face and neck. “My son-” he began, choking back an emerging sob. He pointed one trembling finger toward the front door, “My son is out there. Alone. He’s obviously very fucking sick, and I need to find him. What I need you to do,” he said, now pointing at the center of Travis’s chest, “Is stay here, and protect the girls. I need you to do that.”

Travis stared at his brother, mouth agape. “Chris,” he protested, “You can’t go out there alone. You’re hurt, and you don’t know if that thing was Caleb, or something else-”

“Just try to get a hold of Dad and Bobby on the radio, okay? They need to know what’s happening here,” he pushed past Travis, marching in a straight line toward the front door.  

“Daddy?” Kaylee’s small, shaky voice called out from the drawing room. The brothers both turned to see Constance and Kaylee, lingering in the doorway. Kaylee had obviously been crying, her face red and puffy, wet tears trickling down her cheeks. Chris took the first step toward her, and father and daughter met each other halfway. Kaylee tried and failed to speak in between sobs that shook her entire body.

Chris grimaced through what was likely a very painful hug before bending down to look into his daughter’s frightened face. “Hey sweetheart, it’s okay. I’m okay.” He wiped away her falling tears with the pad of his thumb. “It’s okay baby. Caleb’s gonna be okay too, you hear? I promise you. I have to go look for him right now, but I’ll be back. I’m gonna bring him back to us.” He tried his best to look reassuring, and genuine. “Your uncle Travis is gonna stay here with you and Gammy, he’s gonna keep you guys safe while I’m gone. He would never let anything bad happen to you,” he looked at Travis as he said this, and Travis confirmed with a solemn nod. Chris gave his daughter one last, swift peck on her forehead. “You get Dad and Bobby on that radio Travis,” he reminded his brother as he walked backwards toward the front door. “I’ll be back.”  

Chris slammed the door behind him, leaving Travis, Constance, and a crying Kaylee behind in stunned silence. It didn’t last long though, as Constance gave Travis a harsh shove, shaking him out of his incredulous stupor. “What the fuck happened up there, Travis? Why won’t nobody answer me? Where the fuck is my grandson?”

Travis ignored her barrage of questions. “It’s a long story, Ma,” he answered simply. He couldn’t begin to explain what happened because he just couldn’t understand it himself. “Kaylee,” he addressed his terrified niece, “why don’t you go take a seat in the other room, okay?”

“Why did Dad have a shotgun? Is Caleb gonna be alright?” she asked, vigorously wiping the tears from her face, making no move to leave the foyer. “We need to go help him!”    

“It’s gonna be fine, now go sit down,” he commanded, trying to bring a gentle authority to his voice. She didn’t seem to like that but turned and trudged into the drawing room all the same. “Ma,” he turned to Constance, “You go to the hall, grab Dad’s other shotgun. The short one!” She gave him an affirmative nod and disappeared down the hallway.

Travis began to fiddle with the P25 radio perpetually hooked to his belt, and finally found the family’s typical frequency they used to communicate in their cellular dead zone of a property. “Dad, Bobby, come in. It’s Travis, over,” he all but yelled into the walkie attached to his shirt, pacing back and forth across the foyer, still riding an adrenaline high.  

“Travis?” He heard Bobby’s familiar voice over the walkie. “I didn’t know you were comin’ home tonight! I guess Mom’s making that chicken parm you like…” Bobby prattled on, blissfully unaware of the dire nature of their current situation.

“Bobby, you and Dad need to hightail it to the house, we need you here. We have a- a uh…a situation. Over.”  

“Uh oh,” he heard Bobby say sheepishly, “Is it about the fire? Oh shit, is it the cops? Over.”

Travis pinched the bridge of his nose with his free hand, brows knitting together in consternation. “No, Bobby, I am the cops. Look, there’s no time to explain…” He saw Constance emerge from the long dark hallway, loading shells into the smaller shotgun that still looked almost comically large in her frail grasp.  

She reached out and yanked Travis’s walkie from his hand, “Bobby you and your father need to get your fuckin’ asses back here right this instant, no questions asked do you hear me boy?” She screamed at her youngest at breakneck pace with all the authority of a drill sergeant. “Over,” she added politely, shoving the receiver back into Travis’s grip before turning to join Kaylee in the drawing room.

“Okay,” Bobby whined, “Jeez…over.”  

Travis allowed himself a sigh of relief and grazed one hand over his head and through his black hair, smoothing it away from his sweating face.  

“Kaylee?” He heard Constance call from somewhere deeper within the house. “Kaylee!” He rushed toward his mother’s voice, finding her in the dining room, practically spinning around in circles, frantic. “Travis, I can’t find Kaylee. She’s not here!”

Fuck. “Did you look everywhere?”  

“Yes I fucking looked everywhere, I’m not goddamn blind!” She screamed at him, and he took an immediate, involuntary step back. Just then, looking past his mother and into the kitchen, Travis saw through the picture window the distant white gleam of a flashlight appear and quickly disappear into the trees bordering the property. “Fuck!” he yelled, pushing past Constance and into the kitchen. “She went out the side door.”

He made a move to open the screen door that connected the kitchen to the eastern side of the house, but paused when Constance clutched his arm, pulling him back. “I’m comin’ with you,” she insisted.

He turned back to face his mother, wide-eyed. He knew she would only slow him down, more likely to hurt herself than actually be of any help. He gingerly placed his hands on either of her shoulders and spoke as calmly as he possibly could, gently pleading with her. “No, I need you to stay here to catch Dad and Bobby when they come. We can’t have everybody running around in the woods at once-”

“You’re just gonna leave me here?” She interrupted, face absolutely aghast.

He gave her a stern look. “You tellin’ me Constance Hackett can’t take care of herself?” He knew well by now that playing into her ego could get her to do almost anything.

She stared at him a moment, eyes searching her son’s expression for anything resembling insincerity, or mockery. Evidently finding no trace of either, she inhaled a deep and calming breath, lifted her chin high and proud, and cocked her shotgun. “I’ll hold down the fort. You go get my grandbabies back,” she ordered.

Travis couldn’t help but spare her a small, appreciative smile. “Yes ma’am,” he said with a nod. He wasted no time with further goodbyes, bursting through the door and running full tilt into the woods where he had seen the flashlight beam disappear into the foliage.  

He decided it was finally time to draw his sidearm, and held it pointed low in his right hand, a small flashlight in the other dimly revealing the path ahead about ten feet at a time. The trek across the lawn had been bright enough, the full moon illuminating the overgrown grass in silvery shades of blue. In the trees and the underbrush, however, the thinning canopy of fall leaves seemed to obscure almost all of the moon’s radiant glow. He moved as swiftly as caution would allow, eyes scanning ahead for any signs of light or movement.  

“Kaylee!” he called out after his niece, perhaps a little too loudly. That…thing, was still out here somewhere. Travis hadn’t seen it himself, and didn’t know what it looked like, or if it could have possibly been his nephew. Whatever it was, it’s bite certainly wasn’t human. Just the thought of the deep, distinct ring of teeth marks that encircled Chris’s bleeding shoulder sent a shiver down his spine. It looked too much like the shark bites Travis had only seen on TV; nothing any human mouth could possibly inflict. “Kaylee,” he called again, this time more of a whisper than a shout.

He made himself jump with every twig snapped underfoot and gritted his teeth at the way the leaves crunched as he tread across the forest floor. He could hear his own heartbeat hammering in his ears. He had lost sight of the house, its yellow porch lights quickly diminishing behind him as he trekked deeper and deeper into the woods. He felt, in that moment, incredibly stupid. Inept. Useless.

He had rushed into the woods with no game plan and no real way of tracking Kaylee and had realized it far too late to turn back. All he could do was stumble around in the cold dark and pray he caught some sight or sound of her. Or Chris, for that matter. Fuck. He had promised Chris he’d look after the girls, keep them safe. Now Kaylee was running around in the fucking woods, unarmed, and their mother was stuck in the house all by herself with a shotgun that would probably dislocate her shoulder if she fired it. He cursed himself for a damned fool, always acting before thinking. He cursed this whole situation. Hadn’t his family been through enough? Hadn’t he been through enough?  

A sudden rustling in the brush ahead had snapped him out of his little pity party. He stopped abruptly and crouched low, double checking that the safety on his pistol was turned off. “Kaylee?” He called softly, shining his light over where he had heard the noise. Whatever had rustled the brush suddenly took off like a bullet, away from Travis, and he leapt into a full tilt run after it. It was too far ahead to tell what it was, but he couldn’t take the chance not pursuing if it might be Kaylee.

He ran as fast as his old legs could carry him, ignoring the sting of bare branches whipping his face, and narrowly avoiding tripping over the tree roots and large stones that littered his path. In all his years of police work, he never had to run like this. It was as invigorating as it was terrifying. “Kaylee!” he yelled once more, breathless. The thing he pursued, whatever it was, suddenly stopped, and Travis almost stumbled from the sudden loss of momentum. He held his pistol in front of him, and lightly rested his finger on the trigger. “Kaylee?” he whispered, almost inaudibly.

The brush before him rustled gently, and he fought the near overwhelming urge to squeeze the trigger as two gleaming yellow eyes materialized in the beam of his flashlight. “Jesus Christ,” he swore through gritted teeth, as the round form of a wild hog waddled out of the bushes. He lowered his weapon and released a breath he didn’t know he had been holding. The small, adolescent sow blinked at him stupidly. He angrily stomped his foot in her direction, sending her scampering back into the dark underbrush. “Fuck. Stupid asshole,” he cursed, smacking his forehead with the butt of his flashlight. He grumbled to himself as he surveyed his surroundings, unsure of where exactly his false query had led him, “Goddamn hogs…wild fuckin’ goose chase-”

“-it’s okay…”

Travis whipped around, hearing a small voice somewhere, not too distant. He stood as still as possible, careful to not make a single sound, and listened intently.

“It’s just me. It’s gonna be okay. I’m here…”  

His eyes followed the voice to his left, where he could just barely spy the glow of moonlight, illuminating a break in the trees. Something within him, some inner voice of instinct, screamed for him to not speak a word. To make as little noise as humanly possible.  

“…let’s go home…” he heard a girl’s voice say, as he crept quietly toward the clearing. He lowered his flashlight to the ground, hoping its light would not give away his position.

As he broke through the tree line, he was grateful his approach seemed to go unnoticed. He discovered the source of the voice, which he now knew was unmistakably Kaylee Hackett. She was crouching down in the grass on both knees, back facing toward him. One hand braced against her bent legs, while the other extended out toward the shadow of a great twisting oak tree. Beckoning to something. To someone. “Caleb,” she said, voice trembling, “take my hand. I won’t let anyone hurt you. Please.”  

Travis squinted into the darkness, barely able to decipher the shape of a humanoid figure, curled into a tight ball. It’s knees were drawn into its chest, and bare arms wrapped tightly around them. The figure rocked itself back and forth gently, and while it made no noise, Travis thought he could just barely see the glint of a single eye, peaking over its hunched shoulder. She had called it Caleb. He had to know whether or not this shadow was his nephew. Being unable to suffer the silent tension one moment longer, he slowly raised his flashlight toward the thing under the oak tree. “Caleb?” he called.

Kaylee gasped loudly, almost a scream, and turned her head to look back at her uncle. So much happened in the following seconds, following the moment Kaylee broke eye contact with the thing she called Caleb. In the glow of Travis’s flashlight, and in reaction to Kaylee’s startled outburst, the figure beneath the oak tree uncurled its folded limbs. Long, sinewy arms spread wide like wings, revealing the dark, hairless form that had been hidden beneath them. Thin to the point of emaciation, all harsh angles and jutting bone beneath its tight skin and torn rags of clothing, caked copper red with coagulating blood. It released a deafening snarl, and its impossibly wide mouth unhinged like a snake, revealing rows of jagged, gleaming white teeth. It rocked back onto its heels, and in an only an instant, sprang toward Kaylee; hand still outstretched, staring at her uncle.  

It tackled her, knocking her off her knees and onto her back with a hollow thud, her outstretched hand already enclosed within its gaping maw. Kaylee screamed. Travis knew he had screamed, too, though all he could hear was the wet, meaty smack of the creature burying its teeth into his niece’s flesh. Maybe action was better than thought after all. Travis raised his weapon and didn’t hesitate as he pulled the trigger.

The first bullet hit the creature’s shoulder and caused it to drop Kaylee’s arm from its mouth. It whined like a kicked dog upon impact and turned to roar at the Sheriff. Travis marched toward it, stride unbroken by the bone rattling thunder of its growl, acting on pure instinct and adrenaline. He was able to get within just a few feet of it before delivering his next bullet, shooting it right in the throat. Its hot blood sprayed from it like a fountain, raining down on the Sheriff in a foul-smelling deluge of red. The creature toppled backward, off of Kaylee, its gangly limbs flailing violently. The Sheriff took aim, ready to unload his entire clip into the abomination, when he felt Kaylee grab his ankle. “Don’t!” she screamed at him, choking on her own blood and tears. “It’s Caleb!”

He stared at her in shock. How could she still think this thing was her brother? The Sheriff looked up only to find the retreating form of the creature, taking its opportunity to escape into the woods. He wanted nothing more than to blindly empty his gun into the trees, to do anything to put that monster down, but Kaylee was more important.  

Travis fell to his knees beside his niece and brushed the hair out of her eyes, matted and wet with blood. She nursed her mangled left arm close to her chest as Travis helped lift her into a seated position. Kaylee burst into loud, trembling sobs and buried her face against his shoulder. “Shhh,” he said, rubbing small circles on her back, “Shhh, it’s okay now. It’s gone. Kaylee, look at me honey.” He held her face in both hands, looking her over to assess the extend of the damage. “We’re gonna get you to a hospital, okay? I need to take a look at that arm first.”

She wept into his hands. “I can’t. I can’t,” she began to hyperventilate, and withdrew her bloody arm further away from him.

“Okay. That’s okay,” he reassured softly. He knew they were running out of time, sitting out there in the open. That beast was able to just run off after being shot through the throat. He was afraid to find out what it took to actually kill it. He was very afraid indeed, but he couldn’t let Kaylee see it on his face. He pressed his forehead to hers and looked into her eyes. “Let’s just breathe, okay? It’s gonna be okay Kaylee.” He allowed his eyes to flutter closed, “Deep breath in. Do it with me now.” He didn’t look, but he could hear Kaylee take in a shaky breath through her nostrils. “And sloooowly exhale,” he said, and followed it with a whooshing sound from his mouth.  

He repeated this process with her several times and could gradually hear her breathing begin to steady. When he felt she had sufficiently calmed down, he opened his eyes again and smiled at her. “That’s a good girl,” he praised her. “Will you let me look at that arm now?” She sniffled and nodded her head in response.  

There was no denying her arm was in a pretty bad state. He could tell it was broken just from looking at it, the way her forearm bowed slightly in the middle. The swelling of her wrist. The bite itself didn’t nearly resemble the clean impression of teeth Chris had the displeasure of receiving. Ribbons of jagged flesh crisscrossed each other from the base of her pinky finger all the way down to her elbow, looking disturbingly similar the lattice work of an uncooked cherry pie. A blue-black bruise was already beginning to settle into her skin, traveling past her elbow and onto her bicep. She looked away while he inspected her arm, shivering all the while. Travis knew he couldn’t do a damn thing to help her at that moment. He had nothing to wash it with and nothing to treat the pain. He secretly prayed whatever shock she was experiencing right then would last until they reached the hospital, residual adrenaline hopefully mitigating the sensation of pain.  

He ripped off his black tie, gently wrapped it around her wrist, and tied it behind her neck, underneath the hood of her yellow sweatshirt, trying his best to keep her elbow at a consistent 90-degree angle. She choked back sobs through the pain, but toughed it out, nonetheless. She was a stubborn little fighter, Travis had to give her that. He shrugged out of his puffy officer’s jacket and draped it over her shoulders. It practically swallowed her tiny form. Her shivering was more likely from shock than from cold, but he hoped the warm jacket would at least help her feel just a little bit safer. “Can you stand?” he finally asked her, after he felt he had done all he could do.

“Yeah,” she nodded, “I think so.” He took her good hand in his own, and the pair helped each other to their feet.  

“Okay,” he continued, ready to lay out the game plan. “We’re gonna have to walk now, either to the road or to the house. I’m gonna get you to the hospital either way,” he told her.

She glanced around their position in the clearing. “Which way?”  

In truth, he had no idea. He had completely lost his bearings after his red herring with the wild hog. When he was a kid, he used to know his family’s woods like the back of his hand. But it had been a long time since he was a kid, and admittedly, everything looked different in the dark. The moon was high in the sky, and he had never paid enough attention to astronomy for the stars to tell him anything of value. He quickly ruled out the direction the creature had retreated in and was left with three equally vague options. “This way,” he said, pointing to the general area from which he had arrived.  

“What about Dad?” Kaylee asked, concern etched across her young face. “And Caleb?”

Travis sighed. “If I know your father - and I do, better than anyone - he’s probably back at the house already, with Caleb. Or, they could be halfway to the hospital by now.” He began to walk, ushering Kaylee to follow beside him, where he could see her.  

“But,” Kaylee protested, “that was Caleb. Just now.”

“Kaylee, I don’t know what that thing was, but it was not your brother. It attacked you-”

“I know my own brother!” she snapped back at him. He gave her a sideways glance from the corner of his eye and she remorsefully lowered her defiant stare. “He was just…scared. That’s all.”

Travis decided to drop the issue; there was no sense in getting her any more worked up than she already was. The pair trudged through the woods in steady silence, the sound of dead leaves crunching underfoot their only accompaniment. Travis preferred the silence because it meant he could listen for any sign of that monster returning. He kept his weapon drawn by his side, and his eyes peeled.  

“Uncle Travis?” Kaylee broke the silence after some time, though she maintained her steady pace by her uncle’s side.

“Yeah? You okay?” Travis asked. Stupid question, he thought to himself.  

She ignored it. “Do you think I’m a bad person?”

The question made Travis stop dead in his tracks, his niece mirroring the motion and turning to look down at his feet. “Kaylee…no. Why would you ask that?” He stared down at her, confused, and concerned.

Her face instantly scrunched in on itself, lip quivering and eyes welling with tears. “Is this all because of what we did?” She put her good hand over her face, covering her eyes from his view.

“Woah, hey,” his body moved of its own accord, dropping down into a low crouch in front of her. “This is not your fault Kaylee. This isn’t anybody’s fault,” he tried to reassure her.

She still wouldn’t look at him. “Then why is this happening to us?”

Travis was at a loss for words as he stared up at his niece, and his heart broke for her. So much pain and suffering in fourteen short years, and not an ounce of it deserved. He remembered holding her as a baby, fresh and new, and hoping that things would be better for her than they had been for him. He had made a silent promise to both his brother’s children that he would do all he could to make the world a better place for them. That’d he’d keep them safe and do everything in his power to give them a happy life. He seemed to be making a lot of promises he couldn’t keep, as of late.

“Kaylee Anne Hackett,” he addressed her after a long pause of consideration. “You, young lady, are the kindest, most gentle soul I have ever had the pleasure of knowing in all my years on this earth. And you know, that’s more than a few now.” He faked a little laugh as his voice began to tremble, joking at his own expense. “You have such a good heart Kaylee, and I know you never meant to hurt anyone. You were just doing what your heart told you was right. How could that ever make you a bad person?” She began to hiccup tiny sobs, knowing he was referring to the fire, and he felt like his heart was going to crack in two. “I know you, Kaylee Hackett. I’ve been with you all your life, for every bit of good and bad that’s ever come your way. And I can say, beyond the shadow of a doubt, you don’t have a single bad bone in your body. You’re golden, kid. I love you, with all my heart, and I am always gonna be on your side, no matter what.”

Kaylee began to properly weep at this and launched toward Travis, throwing her good arm around his neck, squeezing him tight. He reciprocated her hug, trying to hold her to him as close as possible, being mindful of her injury. He was grateful that she hadn’t seen his face as he allowed his own sparse tears to fall, buried in the faux fur collar of her borrowed jacket. “I love you too,” she sobbed into his neck.

This time, he didn’t try to calm her down. He let her cry, let her get it all out. Everything she had bottled up inside herself the past month welled up and burst to the surface, like a geyser. Emotion is a force of nature, after all.  After her breathing had calmed down naturally, and the sniffling had stopped, Travis gently patted her on the back. “Okay kiddo,” he said, breaking the long hug. “We gotta get a move on. Get that arm looked at.”

Kaylee managed a small chuckle, and hurriedly wiped the tears from her face. “Yeah, and you kinda reek, if I’m bein’ honest.” Travis actually laughed at that, and had to admit she was right. His face was still caked in the creature’s blood, now dry and flaky. It smelled…salty? Or sulfurous. And musty, like a wet dog. “My arm doesn’t actually hurt so bad,” she continued, finally making eye contact with her uncle.

Travis’s face quickly dropped. Deep purple rings surrounded Kaylee’s eyes, and he could tell it wasn’t from crying. The veins in her face had taken on a dark blue hue, to the point of being almost black. Her short brown fringe clung to her forehead, which sparkled with a fine sheen of sweat. “Jesus, Kaylee,” Travis said, bringing the back of his hand to rest against her forehead, “Are you feeling okay? You’re burning up.”

Kaylee just looked at him, puzzled. “I feel alright. Kinda hungry,” she said, considering her condition. “Do I not look okay?” Anxiety crept into her voice.

Travis, not wanting to cause her to panic, decided to keep her appearance to himself. “Just a little red is all. Probably from crying.” He stood up sharply, taking Kaylee’s good hand into his own. “C’mon, we gotta go.”

Kaylee didn’t protest and the two managed to emerge out of the woods about fifteen minutes later, seeming to have successfully avoided any further encounters with the monster. They had arrived in quite an unexpected location. Whatever path Travis had blindly led them on had spit them out at Hackett’s Quarry Summer Camp, right at the edge of the cabins. “Shit,” Travis cursed. “We’re further from the house than I thought.”

“At least we know where we are now,” Kaylee mused. Travis glanced at her face again; she was looking worse every minute. She may have said she felt alright, but Travis was unconvinced she could handle the long walk back to the house, even if they had a road to follow. He was no expert, but there was clearly some kind of infection setting in. Something from that creature, working its way through her blood. As they trekked through the camp, he searched frantically for any mode of transportation.

He spied the side-by-sides parked in their small carport but knew they couldn’t hold enough diesel to get them into town. He almost didn’t want to go back to the house, afraid his mother’s inevitable fussing over Kaylee would cost them too much time. An idea suddenly clicked in his mind, and he swiftly redirected Kaylee toward the lodge. She looked up at him with befuddled, bloodshot eyes. “We can take the van,” he said, trying the mask the growing panic in his voice. “I know your dad keeps the keys in his office. We'll take the logging road. It’ll get us to the hospital in no time.”  

“I really don’t feel so bad, Uncle Travis,” Kaylee tried to reassure him. “It hardly hurts at all now.” Even in Travis’s limited experience, he knew that was a very, very bad sign. He quickened his pace, holding her hand closely by his side, almost afraid to let her go.

As they approached the lodge, Travis sighed in relief at the sight of the large white minivan, shining like an ivory chariot in the dappled moonlight. Chris used it to shuttle counselors to and from the main parking lot a few minutes down the road, and Travis was grateful it had stayed put since the camp closed for the season. He jogged up to the van, Kaylee in tow, and gave the driver’s side door an experimental tug. Locked, as he had suspected. Of course, nothing could just be easy for him.

“Kaylee,” he said, turning toward his niece, bracing her shoulders with either hand. “I’m gonna go inside the lodge. I have to get the keys from your dad’s office. I need you stay with the van, okay? I’ll be right back.” He didn’t like the idea of splitting up, but she just looked so sickly, he was worried dragging her through the lodge would be too much.

She simply nodded her head in the affirmative, and he took that as his cue to make a mad dash for the big green building. As he stomped up the front staircase, he heard her holler out behind him, “Check the mug on his desk! Sometimes he puts the keys in there!”  

He didn’t bother to try the main door, already knowing it would be locked tight. Instead, he went straight for the second window to the right, sliding it open with ease. It had never locked properly, and he was perhaps the only person who knew that little fact, having been the one to sabotage the lock in the first place. He used to sneak into the lodge when he was a kid, both as a camper and later, a counselor, to steal cigarettes from his parents' stash. Among other things. He slipped in through the open window with far less finesse than in his younger years, and significantly more noise.  

His boots thumped loudly across the wood floor as he ran to Chris’s office. He could navigate the building blindfolded in the dark, although tonight, he didn’t have to. Moonlight streamed in through the venetian blinds of the building’s large windows, casting disorienting stripes of black and white across Travis’s path, like some funhouse illusion. This place had always been so much creepier at night, even without man-eating creatures to worry about.  

Travis burst into Chris’s office, making an uninterrupted beeline to his brother’s cluttered desk, where to his dismay, he found quite a large number of empty mugs littering its surface. He rolled his eyes and almost laughed in disbelief at his predicament, never having imagined his brother’s slovenly habits could mean life or death someday. He grabbed at each one, inspecting its contents, knocking over precarious stacks of paper to the floor in the process. He’d apologize later, provided they all survived this night. Finally, he found what he was looking for, and plucked the jangling keys out of an orange mug that read “I’m a Monster Without My Coffee!”  

He ran back through the lodge at full speed, able to actually exit through the front door this time. He heaved a deep sigh of relief, able to see Kaylee by the van from his high vantage point. “Got ‘em!” He yelled to her as he shuffled down the stairs.  

“That was quick,” she said, maybe a little to cheery, but he was grateful for it. The whole experience felt like ages to him, and he was becoming increasingly anxious to get on the road. He couldn’t shake the feeling they were being watched. Hunted.

He loaded Kaylee into the back seat, encouraging her to lay down if she needed to and accepting no protestations as he took his place behind the wheel. The engine purred to life and he could’ve almost cheered with joy, he was so relieved. He peeled out of the parking lot like a bat out of hell, kicking up a cloud of dry, dusty dirt behind them. Travis drove past Hackett House as quickly as possible, not wanting to create any opportunities to delay their trip to the hospital. He spied Bobby’s truck in the front lot, parked next to his own cruiser. Chris’s old blue Bronco was still there, too, and he hoped Kaylee didn’t notice it.  

“How you holdin’ up back there kid?” he asked, in an effort to distract her.

In the rearview mirror, he could just barely see her face, chin folded down into her chest. She held his jacket slightly open with her good hand and was looking at something inside it. “I’m fine,” she snapped at him, quickly clutching the jacket tightly over her injured arm. “Sorry,” she said after a long pause. “I’m just…” she trailed off.

“It’s okay,” Travis said softly, glancing back and forth between the road and his niece. “This is almost over, Kaylee. It’s gonna be okay.” He smiled warmly at her, though she likely couldn’t see it.

They finally hit the logging road and Travis laid his foot on the gas pedal, heavy as lead. He breathed deeply, reassuring himself mentally that it would all be over soon. He’d get Kaylee to the hospital first, then he’d figure out what happened to Caleb and Chris. One thing at a time. It was all going to be okay. He repeated it like a mantra in his head. It was almost over.  

“Uncle Travis…” Kaylee piped up after a few minutes of silence. He looked once again into the rearview mirror at his niece, slightly alarmed by her tone of voice. Soft and strained, and just a little bit deeper than normal. His gaze was met by a pair of glowing, yellow eyes. “I don’t feel so good-”

Travis’s vision went red. His eardrums practically burst from the sound of an excruciatingly loud, wet pop. It was abrupt and jarring, and he would have thought it was a gunshot, if not for the hot spray of crimson blood that splattered across the windshield. And everything else. His ears rang, his heart thundered against his ribcage, he lost sight of the road. Something growled behind him in the backseat.

In an instant of blind panic, he cut the wheel too harshly, careening the van off the road and directly into the trunk of a large pine tree. His head collided with the steering wheel upon impact, and for a moment, everything went white. He couldn’t see. Could barely hear. It felt like his head was underwater. The loud ringing in his ears overpowered a distant, muffled banging sound that echoed painfully through his skull. His vision came back swiftly in bursts of light, flickers of a red dashboard, the pale white of his own fists, still clenched around the wheel. He tasted copper. The ringing gradually subsided, giving way to the low rumble of an animal growl. Very, very close.

Travis came to full consciousness in an instant, suddenly too aware of the danger he was in. In one desperate motion, he grabbed his door handle and shoved, tumbling sideways out of the vehicle directly onto the compact dirt of the logging road. Fireworks burst once more across his eyes and he cried out in agony. He rolled onto his back, either too weak or too shaken to stand, and pushed himself backward away from the violently shaking vehicle.  

By the time he reached the middle of the road, the shaking abruptly stopped. Travis froze, staring in wide-eyed horror as something emerged from the gaping driver’s side door. One long, bony hand reached out, curling slowly around the door frame. The sound of its long, sharp talons dragging across the metal made his teeth hurt, a thousand times worse than nails on a chalkboard. Two yellow eyes slowly emerged from the dark cab, it’s interior light casting a dim scarlet glow through the thick film of blood that now covered it. The creature emerged into the moonlight, supporting its weight on long, spindly arms. The light of the full moon glinted off its pearly canines as it bared its teeth at Travis, and emitted a low, clicking snarl.  

Travis couldn’t move, didn’t even think to move, as it slowly crept toward him on all fours. He could do nothing but tremble in the small eternity it took for the creature to reach him. It clambered over his prone, outstretched body, and came within mere inches of his face. Its yellow eyes bored into his own, and he could feel its hot breath fanning across his skin, moving with him as he tried to lean back further on his elbows.  

Travis jumped as the creature suddenly inhaled sharply, and deeply. It shifted even closer to his face, and sniffed him rapidly, like a bloodhound tracking a scent. It paused, just as suddenly as it had started, pulled away from him slowly, a let out a sharp snort through its disturbingly human nose. It crouched low, all four limbs coiling in on themselves, and sprang clean over Travis’s head. He heard it land somewhere behind him with a hard thud and take off into the woods, the sound of snapping twigs and crunching leaves growing increasingly distant.

Travis remained where he was, in the middle of the road, blinking in disbelief. He slowly exhaled a long, shaky breath and collapsed fully onto his back. His head hit the road hard, and he couldn’t tell which stars in the clear night sky were already there, and which were fabricated by his fear-addled mind. He closed his eyes and allowed the black mercy of unconsciousness to take him wholly. 

Thanks for reading! Please consider leaving kudos/comments on my AO3  

Read Witness to the Dawn - an ongoing, Hackett-focused fic beginning a year before the events of The Quarry! 

[violetjedisylveon]

Amaryllis Sinoe and Oriana Sinoe-Claw-Thorn

New OCs! Blue Guard AU here.

The one on top is Amaryllis, the girl on the bottom with the winged platypus is Oriana. The orange haired girl is Styrmir. That platypus's name is Periwinkle, Peri for short. (Yes, yes I did.) That cat batish thing is Amaryllis's Palisman and their name is Ginger.

Oriana has Styrmir's clan colors dyed into her hair and Styrmir has Oriana's colors dyed in her hair cause they love each other.

Amaryllis and Oriana are Caleb and Viviane's daughters, they are or were triplets, they had a brother but he died as a kid.

More stuff about them under the cut ⬇

Amaryllis's hair was blond when she was really little but it turned brown as she got older. She's still got a lot of blond in her hair though.

She is 100% a workaholic and takes her job very seriously. She's the Golden Guard, the second Golden Guard, the first was her dad. She didn't know about Philip's experiments and his Golden Guard.

One of her successors found out about the other Golden Guards and started referring to the grimewalker guards as the Pyrite Guard, calling out that the grimewalker guards aren't the real Golden Guard. All of the true Golden Guards after them called the grimewalker guards Pyrite.

The fox and bird thing is the sigil of the true Golden Guard, it's also the sigil of the Wild Guard.

Amaryllis looks like a good blend between both of her parents, she has a skin tone that's lighter than her mothers but still close to it, she has widow's peek (from her dad) darker hair (from her mom) and blue eyes(from her dad)

Oriana is definitely her dad's daughter since she looks more like him than her mom, she has lighter blond hair, a very pronounced widow's peek and blue eyes like her dad, she has a lighter skin tone than her siblings do but she still has more of her mother's color than her fathers (I literally based their colors off Vivaine). She also inherited her father's attraction to women.

She was an animal kid, she loved animals and nature and all that stuff, she's great with animals and plants. She's the Wild Guard, a position created by her clan and their allies to take charge in issues involving nature and animals, she knows a lot about that stuff so she's a good fit for it.

Periwinkle the Platypus is her pet, her first pet, she found him injured and took care of him til he was better then released him but he just kept coming back so she was able to keep him. He's teal because the bird I decide they're based on is a blue and gold macaw. And cause Perry the Platypus, obvi.

She carved her Palisman(that golden cardinal Palisman) with a lot of help from her father cause she was having troubles with it. He's very important to her.

Both sisters have some magic issues, they can't perform magic as well as others without using glyph sticks or their Palisman. You might assume it's because they're half human but no!

EMOTIONAL DAMAGE! EMOTIONAL DAMAGE!

That's why.

They also both have those scars on their neck for a reason. The same reason they're emotionally damaged.

And that reason is Philip.

He tried to kill them as kids, they were like 10. Is Philip the reason their brother is dead? Yes. He killed their brother.

Amaryllis ignored her trauma for a while, forcing her magic to not freak out as much as Oriana did, who was more expressive with the trauma and had more problems because of it.

Their mom did get them to therapy afterwards but couldn't always get them there and also had her own problems to deal with and ignore. Don't worry, Aunt Carlyne got all these traumatized Sinoes to therapy and it worked, they kept going to therapy.

Styrmir is a Clawthorne, and she's like Eda on steroids. Styrmir is a fitting name for her.

Styrmir's mom is Evelyn.

She's very outgoing and adventure seeking, she and Oriana go together great. She is protective of her girlfriend and aware of her ptsd and trauma and does everything to help. She's a very good girlfriend and she's good with Oriana's family.

Oriana and Styrmir did get married and had kids, they are the direct ancestors of Lilith and Eda.

Amaryllis wasn't really into dating or romantic partners. She did have a kid though.

Styrmir was made the head of the Clawthorne Clan and Oriana was already married to her so she was also heavily involved with Clawthorne Clan stuff.

Amaryllis became the leader of the Sinoe Clan after her mother stepped down from the positon, her mother didn't die for a while and gave both her daughters tips on leadership from retirement.

The Wild Guard position stayed within Styrmir and Oriana's descendants but eventually the active roll fell out of fashion/became too difficult to manage, the helmet is still passed down as an heirloom, as is her Palisman.

Amaryllis's descendants continued being the true Golden Guard well into the Coven era, Sunniva Sinoe was the last recorded true Golden Guard.

__________________________________________

These girls were really fun to draw, I had a lot of fun with their hair and finding all the colors, coloring is one of my favorite parts of my art process.

I hope you like them, it took longer than I expected but still fun.

More OCs and stuff are probably coming.

Have a good day!

VJS out!

[naomijameston]

📙📘📖

Oh gosh, there are so many. 😂 How about the 5 most recent fics that I've poked? 1. "I'll Stay With Her, Kid"- title not final. A missing scene from Disney's Hercules. What did Phil and Meg talk about as she was dying?

2. "5 Times Julieta Saved Augustin, and One Time He Returned the Favor"- Encanto, Julieta/Augustin. It's six scenes from their life together, from first meeting to Casita accepting Augustin, and then a final very painful scene (when Augustin saves Julieta). I may still work on this and perhaps I'll finish it someday, but I am also very well aware of the fact that I am white and have no connection to Colombian culture outside of this movie. It doesn't feel right for me to be writing fanfic when I don't know anything about the culture, you know?

3. "Mutiny"- based on the song "Mutiny" by Caleb Hyles and Jonathan Young. The music video tells its own story- a captain yelling at his crew, who abandon him as the ship sails into a storm. I'm just adding a relationship between the captain and the first mate. :D

4. "Satisfaction"- Nanny McPhee, Cedric/Evangeline, but from Mrs Brown's ghost's perspective. Just a quiet, soft piece. It's been done for ages but it feels incomplete. I'm worried it wants to be in present tense. 😫

5. "The Key to Her Heart"- title not final. Snamione, AU. Do you know the story about the witch who says she'll only marry the person who can get the key from her cat? And how people try all sorts of tricks to catch the cat but one person has the time and patience to make friends with the cat? (There are a lot of different versions. In some, the person also wants to marry the witch but has some reason to not pursue the cat (disability, self-doubt, etc.). In others, the person is interested but doesn't want to "win" the witch.) Then it turns out that the witch is a shapeshifter and she IS the cat??

Well, in my version, Hermione is the witch and is completely fed up the local Gaston figure, Ron. He's been pursuing her relentlessly and making a nuisance of himself. So she says she'll only marry the person who can get the very brittle key off her cat. Any act of aggression will break the key, so the person has to be kind and patient. Ron scoffs at this and sets off to get weapons. He figures the cat is a ruse and that the witch will actually summon a dragon or something. He plans to kill the dragon and take the witch by force, or kill her too.

Severus is the local blacksmith who refuses to supply Ron with weapons. Ron injures him rather brutally because of it, and Severus runs off to warn the witch. On the way, he sees her cat wandering around and scoops him up to take him back to safety.

Hermione is thrilled that Severus shows up with the cat instead of Ron and declares them married. They're both adorable fools- Hermione is all, "Hello husband!" and Severus is like, "Okay, uh, can we deal with that later? Ron is coming to kill you." 😂

Anyway, I kind of lost the thread when Minerva showed up as Hermione's mother and while she is scolding Hermione for causing trouble, Ron shows up completely kitted out in shiny armor. Hermione shapeshifts into a dragon to fight him while Minerva heals Severus' hand and explains what the hell is going on.

I've pretty much given up on it, to be honest. It's a big old mess and I don't know that it can be saved. I feel bad because an H&C member was excited to read it and when it looked like I was going to be able to finish it, I told them to expect it. But now I have nothing to show them and I feel really bad about it.

Anyway, uh, I hope you enjoyed this? 😅

[space-mantis]

I thought it’d be fun to write out a post with some tips and tricks for avoiding the Weaver children’s ghosts in Wick! We’ll go in order of appearance.

A warning for those that’ve never played or seen Wick before, this game has a lot of jumpscares so just be careful

Tim

In-game tip: Run away First appearance: Midnight

Tim is probably one of the easiest to avoid, run away but try not to use all of your stamina trying to get away especially if the other kids are active

You don’t need to completely turn around to get away from Tim, it’s quite easy to get around him at certain times which is helpful if Caleb is active since he’s never far behind you

Avoid where possible enclosed areas like the woodshed and bus

Tim will drop down from trees, appear in the distance or directly behind you and in No Way Out he’ll side out from behind trees in front of you to initiate a chase

Lillian

In-game tip: Stay away from her First appearance: 1am

Like the tip above says, you need to stay away from Lillian however she doesn’t make this easy as she can materialise in front of the player.

Like Tim, don’t use all of your stamina trying to get away from Lillian.

Lillian will randomly teleport you about the map which can be difficult if Benny or Caleb is active because she will often teleport you near them

If you approach the graves while Lillian is active she will often appear from the middle grave so be careful when approaching the graves

how to win Lillian’s game of hide and seek in No Way Out: sometimes Lillian will initiate a game of hide and seek with the player, you have until she counts down from 10 to hide otherwise she will rush at you at an unavoidable speed causing a game over. Hide as quickly as you can in either the woodshed or the bus

Tom

In-game tip: Look away First appearance: 2am

Tom for most people I’ve seen is the one they have trouble avoiding the most, he can be very difficult to avoid especially if it’s your first time playing Wick. Tom and Benny are introduced in the same hour.

Like Lillian, Tom is very fast and will glitch into the players line of sight if you try to look away from him. Keep trying to look away.

Looking up or directly at the ground is a helpful away to get him to leave but isn’t always the best thing to do if another kid like Tim is chasing you

I will give you all my secret trick for dealing with this move very quickly! Simply spinning the camera around 360° as quickly as you can will get rid of Tom very quickly :)

However, Tom has 2 other moves where moving away from him is necessary, staying still will get you a game over

1. Tom will chase you from behind, keep moving while avoiding looking at him even slightly

2. Multiple Tom’s will materialise around you in a circle, the best way I’ve found to deal will this one is to run straight ahead while he’s still materialising. Gain as much distance as possible but don’t use up all of your stamina

surviving getting locked in the woodshed with Tom, simples. Don’t look at him :)

Benny

In-game tip: Don’t wake him First appearance: 2am

Benny is nearly always unavoidable if he’s woken up unless you happen to be able to reach the woodshed or bus in time. It’s also possible to get him to go back to sleep by blowing out your candle and/or getting as far away as possible.

When the player is close to Benny you’ll be able to hear his snoring, be extra careful since too much noise and the light from your candle will wake him.

If Benny is chasing you it’s possible to temporarily distract him by dropping your candle in his path, he’ll sometimes stop to put it out though this is not possible to do at 5:00am

a good thing to know is that Benny does not stay in the same place, he’ll move around the map just like the other children

Caleb

In-game tip: Keep moving First appearance: 3am

On the hours that Caleb is active, he will never be too far behind you. Be on the look out for a mound of dirt moving towards you or the sounds of digging. Avoid staying still for too long.

You’re able to avoid Caleb in the woodshed, bus and on the bridge however it’s possible for him to chase you across the bridge if he’s surfaced

Caleb is fairly slow moving however in No Way Out he moves very fast

Surviving Caleb while he’s surfaced is possible despite being difficult, if you're able to get away quick enough he’ll lose sight of you pretty fast and begin tunnelling again

That’s all the tips n tricks I can think of atm!

[chocolatemilksmoothie]

Any Sport in a Storm

Listen I didn't get the time to do this w the last 2 eps (even though I had a lot of thoughts and feelings believe me) but I'll do it now bc this episode was so cute? And it surprised me too! Let's see

all the coven heads ignoring him is unsurprising, tho Raine hesitating didn't escape me. even under Terra's control they seem a bit concerned

Belos being like a single working parent leaving notes on the fridge or smth

so. the old golden guard sigil is also the Gravesfield sigil? I already had noticed it looks similar to the Emperor's coven symbol but the bird's wings are more closed. thinking...

grown witches let's stop bullying the literal teenager

"Little Prince" is the cutest nickname ever and if Darius is the closest thing Hunter will get to a mentor figure I love the idea of it going from a condescending name to an affectionate one. I love it

seems Darius and Eber are very involved in Belos plans? what are they doing

Darius knew the previous Golden Guard? He was his mentor?? There was a previous Golden Guard???

So I was wondering how or why he would be sent to Hexide, turns out it wasn't Belos idea at all. Makes sense

Willow is an absolute badass and I love her YES GIRL GO

like SHE'S SO POWERFUL god

HER DADS? awww jock nerd family!

Luz dropping all the books really got me for some reason. my child

"spill it hermosa!"

I suspected Luz and Amity would be busy elsewhere, and really enjoyed their B plot! Theorizing just like us about the mysterious person, the answer was the simpler option

I had assumed Eda had brought the books and sold them at some point. It was smth like that but without Eda lol

Tiny Nose has a name now also? good for her

To the surprise of no one, he sucks at interacting with other kids but this is even worse than expected lmao authority! and rules!!

heck yea Jerbo fight the system!

Professor Homunculus is a big jerk. tho we already knew that

Glad our boi Hunter gets to show off a little with the flying skills, he's had a, uh, rough season. He also got attacked by Puddles

I thought Caleb was the name of the museum guy obsessed with witches but it was actually Jacob generic english man names got me confused my bad

"hm, I don't feel sick" oh you clueless child

Gus being suspicious and protective I love my son

the Best and the Brightest I love them

Two "half-a-witch" witches huh? Loved the parallel but also ouch. Guess that's a common insult for kids who struggle with magic which is yikes

Skara tactical genius hell yeah!

"now I'm only scarred emotionally ;)" girl omg

I hope Viney and Jerbo can reconcile after this. He looked terrified lmao we take sports very serious here

I love Hunter's teleporting technique. sneaky boi

TEAM SPORTS. TEAM SPIRIT. Hunter making friends!! and he came up with the team name! Cute and creative

"Icepack for Steve"

seems training for the emperor's coven is brutal. Yet to hunter it's whatever lmao oh boy

also one free day a year.... yikes

Darius pushing Hunter to make choices for himself let's gooo

Boop

and he gave him a phone scroll thingy 😭 which means he can keep in touch. Typing like an old man

I hope he won't get in trouble for it but Belos is ancient af he probably thinks social media is the real dark magic so he'll never see it I guess

sewing is indeed a very helpful skill to have

so third time was the charm, after Luz then Amity tried to reach out it seems Willow and her team might be his first real friends!

what's his username I need to know

I already liked Darius as a fabulous jerk and antagonist but now I'm super interested to see more of him

also his past with Amity's dad SPILL THE TEA! bitter exes? former besties? rivals since forever? is it a one sided aggression thing? please I need it

and he follows him on social media just to scoff and mute him, petty king

obsessed with Amity and Luz showing up at the end like oh did we miss anything imporWHAT

Little Prince!!

So yeah, very cute and fun over all, and revealed more than I expected. S2 has been fantastic non stop. Glad Hunter got to have some fun bc I feel he won't for too long

oh, spoilers for the upcoming episode synopsis:

So next week we'll have Amity and Luz focus, and it seems Amity wants to impress her dad so we might get more Darius too! Show me the handsome witch again!! Not expecting to see Hunter next week but maybe more Willow and Gus. I love them. I do hope we keep seeing the Emeralds hanging out in the future as a club and having practice and playing matches, idk. also show them talking w hunter through the scrolls? it'd be cute

[angelsndragons]

*sing* it's been ~a while~

and i have been watching vm vs the nein a lot so let's talk about it. as always with me, this is a very long word vomit.

i said over on my mechanics post that the vm playbook requires urgency while the nein's playbook requires setup. here's what i mean. if the nein can make it to round 3-4 intact, that is if all of them are up, they are going to win. period. the nein simply have too many ways to steal turns from their enemies or to maximize their own effectiveness for things to go any other way.

if you want to see this in action even with a reduced roster, go watch the fire elemental fight in episode 129 and count the rounds. between caduceus' mass cure wounds and spirit guardians, caleb's slow, veth's sneak attacks, and jester's guiding bolts, the nein were able to scrape out a win thanks more to their bag of tricks than the damage output. veth only got sneak attack because of guiding bolt's secondary effects, slow kept veth safe from an opportunity attack and jester from a multi-attack, mass cure wounds gave caleb that round to cast slow, and the spirit guardians passively whittled down the enemies into KO range. the accumulated secondary effects were too much for the enemies to withstand and they fell hard. notice how everything built on one another here. that's what cockroach parties learn to do well. it was sloppier than a normal nein fight but they did it with a reduced roster AND with nearly all of their high level spell slots spent before the fight. yeah, they're fucking scary.

vm, however, is a whole different kind of scary. this team can put you down before you even know what's happening. it's harder to target the group's biggest damage dealers because you have a hulking barbarian and often an elemental up front locking down combatants. the dagger rogue can teleport and fly. oh, and give himself an extra action each round. the ranger and the gunslinger can stand back and just go to town. the freaking bear can maul you. the bard can make your life a living joke in your final moments. the cleric is a wildcard because the group is built to fight without her; if she's around, good luck because that's another round of attacks you have to take and an extra round vm can take. their DCs are ridiculous, as are their overall ACs.

but the thing to know about vm is that they have to put you down fast. they don't have the hit points for longer fights and they definitely don't have the utility for longer fights. their druid is offensively oriented, their cleric is often absent, and their bard is mostly support. he's often the only one running that bag of tricks. he can and will fuck up an opposing team given the chance and bolster his own, the problem is that he has almost no backup here. it's a giant hole that is begging to be exploited. it's an even bigger hole when that bard can only cast one spell per round.

so, going into the battle royale, the vm side had to down one member of the nein as fast as possible preferably in two rounds or fewer. it almost doesn't matter who, because if you down beau or fjord, that forces jester or fjord to spend their action or spell getting the downed member back up. if jester goes down, fjord has to do something about it. well, i say it almost doesn't matter but beau's deflect missiles makes her the worst target of the trio and yes, i'm including fjord's half-orc bounce back in that calculation. that gives you one round where the person healing isn't fucking up your team. vm's secondary objective was to monitor and control beau. her movement is nothing to compared to a hasted vax but her stunning strike is the most lethal weapon the nein brought into this fight. vm overall is not a melee group to begin with and their con saves are all garbage. vm has to find a way to keep her off their tails if they want a chance. we also know that vm's plan was to try to take out jester first so throw that objective into the mix as well.

all the nein have to do is survive the first couple rounds, monitor scanlan and pike, and get into position. that's basically it. the nein can absolutely withstand vax and percy's damage output for the first two rounds. pike and scanlan's damage output can be scary but pike in particular has to decide whether she wants to hold high level slots for healing. and she would need those higher level slots to get close to percy and vax's damage output. the nein know from experience that the support caster is where the real trouble will begin.

but before we kick things off, remember that matt specifically designed this battlefield to take turns away from the teams. the chests are an action to search and are located far out of the way in the field. the gem requires an action to activate, which basically means sacrificing your action for someone else's, and shifts between six designated points on the field. matt, who has a deep understanding of how both teams operate, decided to play on the nein's insecurities that they were at a severe item disadvantage and see if he could get them to bite. high risk, high reward. granted, this is me speculating but it does look like matt saw the fight very differently from the players and readjusted the field accordingly.

so we kick off and immediately scanlan proves why he is the top priority on the nein's list. he gets the gem, gets fjord prone on the ground, and comes within a hair's breadth of turning the fight into a five on two potential slaughter. travis brilliantly responds to these circumstances in the best of ways. see, fjord isn't the nein's utility magician for this fight; fjord's the bait. travis makes a very big spectacle of himself and fjord's predicament. and vm buys it hook, line, and sinker. ashley tries to continue with the original plan of gunning for jester only to discover that jester is who knows where.

vax, percy and scanlan? immediately take their shots at fjord. but fjord's on the ground which puts percy's awful misfire mechanic into reasonable play. so fjord gets lucky and doesn't take anywhere near the amount of damage he could have from percy. scanlan, after percy is removed from the field, decides he's better off trying to finish fjord but only hits a 3rd level thunder wave instead of a higher level one, which sam was probably saving for some counterspells or such. i don't think a higher level would have made that much of a difference but it is important to note.

more importantly, vax gets greedy. he got two good hits on fjord with his two actions, he could have left and hidden for the next turn. yes, vm has to down fjord as fast as possible. however that haste is going to be more effective over the long term if vax can keep it. but fjord's easy prey and he thinks vm can down him before jester can get over there to do anything about it. so he goes for the bonus action attack. pike eventually joins this mad dash scramble and like scanlan, she absolutely needed to throw something huge at fjord to get past his half-orc racial trait to have a prayer at downing him. but she did not because ashley seems to have been saving all her high levels for healing so fjord survives the round in honestly a very good position. vax can't target him from range with the cloud up, scanlan now has bigger problems than fjord with molly right up on him, and pike ran, taking damage and healing fjord in the process.

meanwhile, the nein's ladies are free to run and play the field as they see fit. jester has a big opening round flame strike. beau decides she can hold off on her round 2 blitz run to vm in favor of bringing molly onto the field. remember kids, never let a monk with 55ft of movement have the run of the place, it's bad for business. jester then makes a great play with her dispel magic at vax's haste. hashtag thanks, fjord. remember, kids, cockroach parties excel at taking turns and actions away from their opponents. in round 2 alone, the nein successfully remove percy from the field and remove vax's extra attack. that's both big damage dealers hobbled in one round. they also gave themselves an extra turn, adding molly onto the field. and oh boy, molly.

here we see the utility martial fighter molly could have been. sam's confused by the low damage that molly's doing his first round but the damage isn't really the point of the attacks. that brand of tethering is far more important, as are taliesin keeping an eye on which reactions will support the nein and molly's second attack wasting scanlan's reaction. counterspell is off the table for the back half of round 2-beginning of round 3, which is important if fjord wants to get the heck out of dodge.

in case it wasn't obvious earlier in the match that the nein are absolutely gunning for scanlan, round 3 begins with beau's blitz against scanlan. fjord's luck against the dominate person balances out with scanlan's save against the stun and beau missing one attack. here, vm starts to get distracted. they chose their focus fire target, fjord, but now do not, arguably cannot, follow through on it. we'll never know what could have happened had vm said to hell with beau and molly in our faces, we have to finish fjord.

vax tries to retaliate against beau but here's where the cockroach starts to come into play. molly blood curses vax, which saves beau a full sneak attack+ worth of damage. it also utterly wastes vax's turn. fjord manages to escape (and damage pike while he's at it) and regroup where it's safe. scanlan tries to dimension door but fails due to the brand. literally any other move scanlan could try on the pair of them had a better chance of success. instead, another vm turn is lost. taliesin recognizes the importance of getting beau advantage and supports her at the cost of two of his attacks missing, but not before scanlan is forced to cutting words one of them. another potential counterspell and cutting words lost. neither jester or pike contribute significantly to this round; the nein have done so much damage to pike in three rounds that she is forced to heal herself while jester chooses to dimension door herself to the gem and only a low damage roll lets it evade her.

beau takes molly's setup and gets the critical scanlan stun. he loses his full round. fjord takes the opportunity molly provided him to polymorph into a t-rex, bringing him fully back into the fight. vm is really going to have a time and a half trying to finish him now unless they can put up a big single damage attack. jester builds on beau's setup by casting flame strike, whose dex save scanlan automatically fails. he goes down. if you're the nein, this is exactly where you want pike focused, on her team and not on yours. she has access to most of the same spells that jester has and the more you pressure her to focus on her team, the better. it's not wasting her turn, precisely, but it is controlling what she can reasonably do with it.

now we come to percy versus beau. i don't want to diminish the insane good luck beau had to take only 26 points of damage from six shots because what matters here is that percy absolutely could not down beau. period. her hit points were too high and after she took almost nothing from the first two shots, it should have been clear that she was going to get her turn and she would absolutely attempt to stun and down pike and scanlan. i'm not going to monday morning quarterback this fight but i will point out that the more rolls travis has to make to maintain concentration, the greater the chance he fails and you get to hit fjord's actual hit point pool and trade fjord for scanlan. and if you can get him before he can get back into the fray, even better.

beau stuns the gnomes and drops scanlan again. her inner cockroach rears its head once more as she negates more than half the damage on vax's critical hit sneak attack. fjord-rex downs scanlan and grapples pike. the stun on pike here really helps negate that high AC of hers. after scanlan's death, it's a long slow death spiral. vax abandons the fight in the next critical round in favor of keeping the gem instead of targeting fjord. percy attacks beau once more instead of fjord due to fjord dangling pike over lava. he starts to focus on fjord only to get distracted by jester. pike goes down but vax gets caught by beau before he can get her back up. and so it goes with vm losing turn after turn after turn until finally the nein poof percy out of existence and bring molly back. a fitting end for the team who started their final boss fight with eight and came out nine.

bottom line here, the vm team played like they had way more time than they actually did. they had to commit to a target and see it dead as fast as possible. they had to control the battlefield quickly and keep it. they didn't so they couldn't. aside from building on damage dealt, they couldn't create advantages or opportunities for each other nearly as effectively as nein did. all of these factors meant that the nein did what they always do: grind their enemies under heel.

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 299: No Chains Left

Previously on BnHA: Horikoshi was all “and then AFO broke out all of the inmates from six other prisons and took a nap. well anyways, here’s the hospital angst.” Kacchan woke up two days later and was all, “WAIT BUT HOW ARE DEKU AND TODOROKI AND ALL OF THE OTHER CHARACTERS EXCEPT IIDA DOING” and then we cut to Shouto’s room where the other U.A. kids were sitting around being Mutually Traumatized and giving each other moral support and such. Everyone was alll, “...”, and then the rest of the Todofam showed up, INCLUDING POSSIBLY REI?! which, omg. The chapter ended with Kacchan STOMPING THROUGH THE HALLS all “WHADDYA MEAN DEKU HASN’T WOKEN UP YET”, dragging along Satou and Mineta behind him, fueled by the power of ALL OF THE FUCKS HE NOW GIVES. He gives so many fucks now you guys. This boy cares so much he can probably deduct it on his taxes.

Today on BnHA: SPEAKING OF PEOPLE WHO GIVE A LOT OF FUCKS, the story cuts abruptly to Hawks, freshly recovering from his near-death experience, and pondering the threads that have weaved the tapestry of his life and led him to this moment. Basically he grew up in poverty with his Jerk Dad and Jerk Mom until his dad got arrested one day and his mom sent him off to go Find Money Or Something, and so he rescued a busload of people and found himself a new career. Back in the present day, Hawks and Jeanist ride around town in Jeanist’s Jamborghini having awkward encounters with civilians in a country on the brink of social collapse, and visiting Hawks’s mother’s home. Hawks is all “I know from an outsider’s perspective it must look like my life currently sucks, but now that the HPSC is gone, my public image is shot, and my parents are finally out of my life, I’m actually feeling SURPRISINGLY GOOD.” Anyway so he’s gonna go meet up with Endeavor now, and p.s. this chapter was fucking fantastic though, damn.

oh my god?? is this Hawks narration?? something about him growing up watching the heroes on TV and thinking of them as fictional characters

okay I scrolled down a little bit more to see the rest of that “Keigo” panel, and wow

this is basically a shed. poor boy definitely grew up rough. let me tell you guys, I came in here ready for some BakuDeku shenanigans; I was not prepared for Hawks Flashback Angst. I AM HERE FOR IT, but also wow I gotta brace myself now lol

HELLO MISTER HAWKS’S JERK DAD, SIR

BnHA sure does have an array of Jerk Dads, doesn’t it. makes me appreciate characters like Masaru and JirouDad all the more for bucking the trend

anyway. so Horikoshi, you really thought that one itty bitty chapter of hospital catharsis would be enough to calm us all before you went right back to showing us child abuse huh. my god man can we rest

BABY HAWKS

swear to god this kid can’t be more than five or six, and yet he has this completely blank look on his face even with his dad looming over him being all threatening and shit. like he’s shut down his emotions to protect himself. imagine what has to happen to a child for him to have learned this at such a young age. fuck

AND MEANWHILE THIS GUY

don’t mingle with humans?? not “other” humans, just humans?? what is this implying here?? and also holy shit Hawks definitely didn’t inherit his looks from his dad orz

then again he doesn’t really bear much of a resemblance to his strung-out mom here either

omg omg omg. and this child is basically trapped here in this environment with these two people. this explains a SHITLOAD about Hawks’s personality though you guys. his ability to completely separate his real thoughts from the face he presents to the outside world. his pragmatic approach to analyzing and solving problems. his layers of emotional walls. turns out almost none of that came from the HPSC training -- that was all learned hands-on in his own personal do-or-die survival nightmare childhood!! oh, boy

and small wonder then that he latched on to Endeavor so strongly if he really is the one who brought down his dad and inadvertently saved him from this. also, just putting this out there, I know people are always talking about him and Dabi being foils, and I think it’s very interesting how Touya grew up in a household where he saw firsthand the dark side of hero society, and so ended up becoming a villain in order to bring it down. whereas young Keigo had almost the exact opposite experience, growing up experiencing the dark side of villain society and becoming a hero in order to bring about a world where no one else has to experience that. just. both of them are so determined not to become their fathers. some interesting parallels there

so Hawks was sort of an accident after his parents had “thanks for helping me not get caught after I killed that guy” sex, and now this little boy is growing up in squalor and being beaten by his father for things like Sitting In The Wrong Out-Of-The-Way Corner Trying Not To Be A Bother To Anybody. holy fuck. this is so rough to read through you guys

wait so does Jerk Dad have a an eyeball manipulation quirk?? because he doesn’t have the wings like his son, but wth are these things??

this presumably also means that Keigo has never been to school or anything either. he basically doesn’t exist. he thinks heroes are fictional characters, he doesn’t realize that they’re real people. these are people who could help him if he could escape and find them, but he doesn’t know, and they don’t know about him

OH MY GOD HE’S JUST SITTING IN HIS CORNER HUGGLING HIS ENDEAVOR PLUSH OH MY GOD

how could this child possibly have an anti-fandom when he’s done NOTHING WRONG HIS ENTIRE LIFE. huh. just explain that to me. lol I mean I’m not looking to pick a fight with anyone, but also, MAYBE I AM, idk?? this kid has gotten me all riled up lmao

anyways, Protect Keigo 2021, and thank you Horikoshi for these three very terrible pages. I am pleased to inform you that you’ve effectively gotten your point across and you may now commence saving this kid already

YAY

oh no, Keigo’s dumbass jerk dad tried to steal a car and the popo nabbed his ass and now his mom can’t just sit around neglecting her VERY YOUNG SON all day long, oh horrors. sorry lady my tiny violin is on backorder. just imagine that I’m playing a very sarcastic song on it for you

anyway so what are you gonna do now, abandon him? I can hardly imagine he’d be worse off, if anything it might be a near-instant improvement

LMAO HE’S ALL “WAIT WHAT ENDEAVOR’S A REAL FUCKING DUDE?!”

AND THEY SAY THAT A HERO CAN SAVE US~~~~ I’M NOT GONNA STAND HERE AND WAAAAAIT~~~~~ I’LL HOLD ONTO THE WINGS OF THE EAGLES, WATCH AS WE ALL FLY AWAAAAAAY~~~~

lol what a randomly pivotal moment in his young life. TIME TO GO MAKE THESE MEMES INTO DREAMS YOUNG ONE

anyway so his mom freaked out and grabbed him and they wound up at a train station with her TELLING HIM TO GO GET HER SOME MONEY, oh my god. SURE MOM LEMME JUST WALTZ RIGHT ON DOWN TO THE “JOBS FOR FIVE-YEAR-OLDS” STORE AND TELL THEM I NEED SOME CASH. ffff manifesting someone to come help him in 3... 2...

...

SIGH, JUST GO RESCUE THE PEOPLE FROM THE BUS, KEIGO. is this the outfit he was wearing when that happened?? it must be, right?? I can’t imagine them surviving more than a couple days out here unless this starts getting REALLY dark in a way I know that even Horikoshi won’t explore, so yeah. cut to the HPSC now please. never thought we’d be glad to see them. I mean sure, it may be an “out of the frying pan...” case, but good god

THANK YOU!!

and I guess it was his mom’s eyeball quirk then. anyway, whatever, see you again never, hopefully. lol oh man. thaaaat, was upsetting. need to center myself here for a sec. NAMASTE

OH YAY THE PRESENT

so we cut from Baby Hawks Angst straight to Present Day Hawks Angst, huh. not that this exhausted and traumatized lil lad isn’t still a baby to me too, I’ll have you know

BEST JEANIST, ALWAYS WITH THE JOKES

“WHEW, THOUGHT YOU DIED ON ME FOR A SEC THERE KID.” lmao. Caleb will no doubt ruin this by making his word choice all stiffly formal as usual, so I’m just going to treasure this “WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAT, I’M FRESH OUT OF FUCKS” version of Jeanist while I can

look at him, driving his Jeanistmobile

again, is it any wonder Kacchan was bitching about Endeavor’s dinky little car when he was used to riding around town in style like this. anyone else staring at this panel trying to figure out how this car is somehow secretly made of jeans

NOOOOO

FUCK YOU DABI LMAO. PUTTING THESE VOICE ACTORS OUT OF A JOB ONE BY ONE

anyway so Jeanist is all “GOOD THING IT’S THE FUTURE AND WE’RE SO GOOD AT MEDICAL SCIENCE” to handwave how Hawks went from one step shy of being a very handsome corpse, to sitting around texting Jeanist in a car all of two days later

OH MY GOD, AND FINALLY AN EXPLANATION FOR THIS

wait a minute. I’m so confused lmfao. soooo, was Hawks all “anyway, here’s Jeanist’s dead body, you can examine it but please don’t look at him too closely and also I’m gonna need that back unharmed.” how tf did you pull that off lmao

(ETA: also isn’t this technically confirmation of the ol’ Noumu Jeanist theory lol. I’m gonna go ahead and say it is.)

NO BUT PLEASE, CONTINUE. I unironically love reading Horikoshi’s overly convoluted “SEE IT’S NOT A PLOT HOLE” explanations

lkldslfk so wait, you’re telling me Hawks convinced Dabi and the League to put Jeanist’s body in storage, and basically just hoped they wouldn’t use him for any experiments until he could put his plan into action and have the HPSC’s people break in and find and revive him?? WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG. A FOOLPROOF PLAN IF I’VE EVER HEARD ONE

fff this man really asked Jeanist to risk it all to prop up his little cover story, and Jeanist was all “sure why not” omfg. anyways, thanks for recapping all of this out loud for no particular reason in your car conversation you two

LMAO NOW WHAT

TROUBLE YOU SAY? GOOD THING THE NEW NUMBER ONE HERO IS ON THE JOB THEN

okay no it’s just some random thugs strolling around terrorizing the downtown. fuck ‘em. so Jeanist is making short work of them now

uh oh

won’t come? not can’t, but won’t?? what???

WOW

well I guess that makes the local heroes A BUNCH OF SHITHEADS now doesn’t it?? jesus

and okay, serious question, if the cops are spread too thin and the heroes have literally walked out on the job, what exactly is stopping everyone from deciding to use their quirks to defend themselves, legal or not? nothing, as far as I can tell. society just got a hell of a lot more chaotic

anyway so this is an interesting panel here

man, Dabi really did pull it off, didn’t he. well anyway so here’s that better world all of the villains were wanting, you guys! isn’t it so great?? everyone’s terrified and angry and losing hope and society is inches away from collapsing into total anarchy! but hey, at least we exposed the number one hero as a hypocrite

anyway so what are these guys up to

fucking hell, he’s visiting his mom. I really wasn’t prepared to commit this much emotional energy towards reading this chapter today. BUT VERY WELL, WE PRESS ON

?? wait she’s not there?

is this supposed to explain how Dabi knew who Hawks really was? except that there’s the little matter of how he even know where to find his mother in the first place. feels like we’re still missing something there, but oh well

OH MY GOD

RHA I TAKE BACK EVERY WORD I EVER SPOKE AGAINST YOU. YOU ARE A SCANLATION GROUP FILLED WITH ANGELS LMAO. I WILL TAKE THIS PANEL IN MY HANDS, AND TREASURE IT AND KEEP IT SAFE

ANYWAY, BECAUSE MY TIRED BIRD SON’S LIFE SUCKED SO MUCH ALREADY, IT TURNS OUT HE’S ACTUALLY PLEASED WITH THIS NEW TURN OF EVENTS LOL HOW ABOUT THAT

GOOD FOR YOU BBY. YOU GO OUT THERE AND BE YOUR OWN PERSON

and in all seriousness, I love that identity he chooses -- chooses, because it actually is him making a choice now, possibly for the very first time in his life -- is “guy who helps people”, though. it really is nothing short of miraculous that he held on to that kind of optimism and desire to do good even with everything he’s been through. there were so many times he could have chosen to turn his back on the world in retaliation for the way it treated him. but he didn’t!! and here he is now, finally free, and what he wants to do with the rest of his life now is simply to help others. anyway please excuse me for a moment, I need to go find some sort of basket or a big vase to put all of my fresh new Hawks Feels in, pardonne-moi

YEAH BOIIIIII

“FIRST ORDER OF BUSINESS, MISTER JEANIST, WHERE DID YOU FIND YOUSELF THAT SWEETASS CAR.” hey, all I’m saying is if this boy’s wings really aren’t growing back, he’s gonna need to find himself a new means of transportation y’know?

oh my god you guys it’s a flashback to his mom buying him the Endeavor plushie when he was like two because, and I quote, ALL MIGHT WAS TOO EXPENSIVE

oh my god oh my god. my boy out here with a new lease on life finding hope in the darkest of times

wasn’t your throat supposed to be all fucked up lmao. Horikoshi was suddenly all “oh shit the VAs are gonna be pissed at me if I keep this up huh”

“that’s why Bubaigawara was such a great guy” motherfucker IT IS A TERRIBLE DAY FOR RAIN. FORECAST SAID NOTHING ABOUT THIS

:’)

yes ma’am. yes indeed. confirmed, I really will straight up fight some motherfuckers for this child. well not really, but YOU KEEP YOUR DISCOURSE OFF MY LAWN AND OUT OF MY BLOG YOU HEAR. THIS IS A HAWKS-FRIENDLY SPACE. WE RESPECT TAKAMI KEIGO IN THESE STREETS

and he’s saying (or is he thinking?? what a weirdly shaped speech bubble this is) that even if what Dabi said about the Todoroki household is true, “I’m not sure it’s the same now.” which happens to be ABSOLUTELY CORRECT. man this whole chapter really is all about saying “fuck the past” and moving forward and I am living for it

SON!!!!

“the first step is at my beginning” fklkjlk. what an iconic fucking line??

AND HIS WINGS!!!! THEY ACTUALLY ARE GROWING BACK AHHHHHHH. “PUT A RAINCHECK ON THAT CAR, JEANIST-SAN.” THE HAWKSMOBILE CAN WAIT, RIGHT NOW HE HAS TO GO INSERT HIMSELF BACK INTO THE TODODRAMA WHETHER THEY LIKE IT OR NOT

you guys. I came here ready for some BAKUDEKU HOSPITAL ANGST, and I got DIDDLY SHIT of that, and none of my other kids were even in this chapter, but!!! ASK ME IF I CARE LMAO omg. because bird son is hanging with his new best friend, and he’s out here Finding Himself and picking up the pieces and putting them back together stronger than ever because RESILIENCE HAS A NAME, AND IT’S SPELLED H-A-W-K-S, and you guys. profound, my love for this child. holy shit. hey google, play Silence by Marshmello