#he just hates how human changed to this like Clive but his ways are way more extreme

[askthedmvillains]

Character info time woo:

Vector

He’s still stuck in space

Through various objects he found in space, he was able to build a computer strong enough to send text based messages back to earth. Unfortunately for him, the texts ended up going straight to the AVL, where a robot was created for him to speak through.

Vector cares less about the fact that his messages are only being shown to the AVL and more about the fact they deliberately choose to save him from space.

El Macho

After being knocked out by Dr Nefario and the Minions, El Macho was taken in by the AVL

Instead of reversing the effects of the PX-41, the AVL just gave him a custom prison uniform

El Macho has made peace with his situation, not feeling much anger towards the others around him. The two thing that have upset him are the facts the AVL 1. Won’t change him back to his human form and 2. Won’t tell him where his son is and how he’s doing.

Balthazar Bratt

After being left to hang in the air stuck in his own bubblegum, AVL helicopter’s captured Bratt and arrested him

The most the AVL did for Bratt was give him clothes, but after that they refused to accommodate for him in any way.

Bratt is extremely unhappy and is constantly trying to escape through any means necessary, which includes ripping up his own clothes (which is why his sleeves are torn). He’s also not feeling well physically because of the poor quality of the prison food.

Despite desperately wanting to escape, the one thing Bratt really wants to know is what happened to Clive.

Scarlet and Herb Overkill

Several years ago, after being frozen by Gru, the AVL arrested the couple.

Scarlet is borderline feral. She feels as if she’s entitled to royal treatment for being the first female villain. Most people show her minimal respect while otherwise being annoyed by her.

Herb on the other hand is similar to El Macho. He’s had several years to relax and except his life. He still loves Scarlet a lot, but treats everyone around him with respect unlike her. In turn, people like Herb

Vicious… 4

Several years ago, after being turned into rats by the zodiac, the Vicious 6 were captured and arrested.

The AVL never captured Wild Knuckles after he faked his death, and he was never tracked again. Since Nun-Chucks was on the older side, she ended up passing away in prison.

The remaining members are incredibly annoyed by their situation. After all these years, the AVL deliberately chose to not turn them back into humans, with the excuse being that they can only be changed back during the New Years. Belle has managed to use this to her advantage, sneaking around the prison, though she’d still rather be human.

Relationship Chart:

Everyone is either chill or has no opinion on El Macho and vice versa

Vector tries to be friendly with most people, but particularly hangs with El Macho

Bratt and Belle get along well, with both of them trying to escape aswell as both of them having interests in particular Eras (Bratt being 80s themed and Belle being 70s themed)

Bratt is extremely annoyed by Vector in general. Vector doesn’t have to strong of an opinion on Bratt, mainly thinking he’s just weird.

Belle is convinced Vector has not interacted with a woman in his entire life.

No one hates Herb.

Scarlet views everyone except Herb as inferior to her.

[teapots-and-hats]

So, here is my full review of FF16 (spoilers ahead)

So here is my review of FF16 after finishing the game one time (haven't tried the New Game+)

SPOILERS AHEAD FOR NOT ONLY FF16, BUT FF13, FF15, TACTICS AND BRAVELY DEFAULT, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

Overall, FF16 is a good game and a good Final Fantasy, I LOVED the characters! One thing that I think Final Fantasy has been getting better and better each new title is creating characters. FF15 (despite it's numerous flaws) already did a great job putting personality on the main characters. FF16 pushed it further adding more personality to secondary characters and even NPCS that barely appear for more than a few minutes (also praise to the voice acting, it was amazing!). I wish crafting system was more complex, it felt a bit too simple sometimes, to the point I was like "well, I dunno why we have a crafting system, they should have just given me the weapon as quest prize or just leave it for me to buy from some merchant at this point"

If I could say one word to represent FF16, I would say the word is EPIC. Not because the game is perfect. But during our journey with Clive you FEEL how grand is the scale of each eikonic battle. And I personally believe the change to full action played an important role on giving us that scale. Yes, in turn-based FFs we already had big bosses that were clearly bigger than us, but it feels different (mind you, I've played a lot of turn-based RPGs), maybe because turn-based battles usually have the boss keeping its distance from our party most of the time. The cinematic parts with the Active Time Events also helped creating that feel (though I think in some parts I wish there were more actual gameplay and less ATE press button screen moments). That being said, here are my thoughts on several elements of the game (I will not comment on battle mechanics cuz I haven't played many action rpgs to have a solid opinion on whether battle is good or not, I just know I had fun). Music

Music is EPIC, the battle songs were AMAZING. However, while I think the references to FF14's OST were on purpose I do think it did disappoint me a bit that it referenced too much. Several tracks obviously have parts of FF14's Eureka's theme (which is a good theme).

Art / Design

Overall I like the art in this game, they took their time to even give some minor NPCs one detail or another that sets them as unique. My favorite part is the Eikons' design, all of them are gorgeous. I wish some maps had a bit of visual variation (Waloed was my least favorite, while Sambreque is probably my favorite on that aspect). Also, bless Clive's character design.

Edit: May I also add it's a bit of a let down that some maps become rather dull colored after Ultima casts their weird spell that causes aetherical floods everywhere. It reminded me of how The First in FF14 was constantly bathed in light, except in FF16 all open world maps are flooded by a weird purple dim light.

Protagonist

Clive is probably the best FF protagonist I've seen so far because everyone thought he was going to be an edgy character after revenge for whatever happened in his past. He kinda starts that way but we instead got... well, a big puppy (ok, two big puppies cuz we have Torgal). Clive faces his traumas through game and remains a man with a golden heart that just can't say no to helping people. Antagonist

Here is where I think FF16 may have failed, compared to other FF titles like FF7 and FF15. The actual villain is Ultima, and I think they did a great job setting Ultima as an alien that does not understand humans. But I think we were meant to see Barnabas as the antagonist that we would grow to love/hate, with him being introduced right from the start with Cid's and Benedikta's introductions. When Barnabas actually appears in front of Clive and we start the chapters that will lead to our fight with him I just felt... meh. Even his eikonic fight was rather disappointing for me after Bahamut's fight. I believe Barnabas was meant to be something like Sephiroth, or Ardyn, while Ultima is more like Jenova and FF15's Bahamut, but I don't think they managed to do that with Barnabas.

Other characters

As I said, I think they did a great job giving personalities to every character we meet in this game. However I think they missed the opportunity to give more lore development to some key characters such as Benedikta and, again, Barnabas. It's not terrible like FF15, where the base game had actual gaps that didn't make much sense, like Ignis' loss of eyeysight and Gladio going poof! suddenly, but some characters would really benefit if they get a DLC to expand their lore. I have to praise FF16 team for how they dealt with Dion and Joshua though, I think they are my favorite in terms of characterization.

Story

The story overall is really good. Harsh and raw, but good. Unfortunately if you don't do the sidequest as they appear you miss A LOT OF lore. One criticism that I've read a lot is that after the second half of the game the story stops dealing with the theme of slavery and prejudice against minorities. And thinking about it, if I haven't done the sidequest as they appear the main quests alone really don't deal with that theme anymore after a while. The sidequests though, they do. A lot and in certain quests it is brutal and a bit too close to real world, leaving you with some bitter taste.

That being said, because the game relies on many side quests to expand the lore I think the game has an issue with pacing and setting emotional rollercoasters. Again, after Bahamut's fight I think Barnaba's story was a collection of rushed events and Waloed is so empty that before you blink you are already at Barnaba's eikonic fight. You do get to actually explore Waloed via sidequests after that fight but the pacing is already broken by then.

Also, if you take the sidequests off, the game itself is rather linear (as it was meant to be, I believe) and doesn't give you much incentive to explore the world. Once you finish sidequests and hunts there aren't many achievements that makes you want to run around the maps over and over again. Plot and theme similarities with other games The game draws some parallels to FF15's story (both protagonists lose their home, both are sort of princes that have a love interest that are nobility from another country and both sacrifice themselves to save humanity in the end), but I think FF16 managed to at least deal with the romance better than FF15, since Jill fights with us since early game and while yes she is rescued by Clive several times Jill is no damsel in distress and she also saves Clive at least twice on critical moments (and Clive is saved by Joshua several times too). Jill is Clive's love interest but also his partner in his journey. Something I think Lunafreya was meant to be if she had her DLC. Yet, Luna and Noctis' story barely stand with what we actually got from Square Enix.

I can also point out some similarities between FF16 and FF13 with the theme of prejudice. Bearers suffer prejudice much like the l'Cie from Fabula Nova Crystallis, though while l'Cie are probably viewed as cursed individuals to be avoided, Bearers are viewed as slaves in FF16. The destruction of Crystals, while new to a main Final Fantasy, I believe, is not a new concept for Square Enix. Bravely Default already played with the subversion of the usually canonical belief of crystals being a blessing and in both games the protagonists learn that Crystals may not be a blessing at all. FF16, more than FF15 though, has a more direct influence of Final Fantasy Tactics' plot (and not only because both are set in a medieval setting and have an Ultima trying to destroy the world and claim it to themselves). Both Ramza and Clive are outcasts (Ramza as heretic, Clive as outlaw) that fight according to their beliefs, even if that sets them against those in power and subvert the state of things. Both have people that can turn into monsters (Lucavi and Eikon) and such ability has connections with a bigger plan set in place years before the protagonist was even born by some entity that manipulates humans to reach their goal. Both games are also not afraid to deal with politics in a more direct way.

[loregoddess]

5, 8, 28 + a question you'd like to answer for the Echoes Ask Game!

5) What's an aspect of Echoes you feel is underappreciated?

Hmm, I dunno so much if it's "underappreciated" but my favorite, favorite aspect of the game is being able to move around the map and enter towns and crawl through dungeons while still having the core FE-battle mechanics intact, like especially for my second run where I wasn't as concerned about trying to level every single character up and I just picked out my endgame team in my head and used those characters for my dungeon-diving team. I really enjoyed the passive worldbuilding that comes with being able to actually walk around and explore stuff.

Both Zofia and Rigel felt like really fleshed out settings, and I could visually see the differences between the two. Not to mention getting to talk to random NPCs really grounded the game's conflict in a more believable way bc I got to see/hear exactly what the everyday people who were being affected by their gov'ts and the war felt, which gave the entire story a more somber and serious feeling without losing the FE charm of the lighter or goofier moments because the writing strikes a nice balance and knows when to be serious and when to be lighthearted.

It just adds an entirely different layer of environmental storytelling that isn't quite present in other FE games, at least not in the same impactful way.

8) A scene or character moment you really liked?

Hmm, I guess the entire sub-arc with Lutheir and Delthea. Don't get me wrong, I'm as wary of the "FE damsel in distress who sometimes doubles as a brainwashed damsel" as the next person (and I personally really hate brainwashing as a trope outside of FE, like, I just have personal beef with that trope specifically whereas I'm wildly neutral on the damsel in distress trope outside of FE). But like, there's something so human about Alm wanting to help this random village girl bc they happened to run into her brother, and the fact that Clive, despite being pretty okay for a highborn noble, like, cannot wrap his mind around the importance of taking this detour (which isn't a detour, but eh, story writing) for some random girl, it just...I dunno, something about this arc really worked well to show how shortsighted Clive is despite all his good intentions and grand words, and how different a world view Alm as because he grew up as one of those lowborn villagers, and it shows why Alm does and will make a good leader down the line because of his empathy, which is a neat bit of foreshadowing and character building.

Actually, in that same vein, Python's DLC supports with Clive are also like, extremely cathartic bc Python really does break down the flaws with Clive's ideology, which works both the highlight how intelligent and perceptive Python is, as well as how growing up a noble has a deeply ingrained privilege in Clive that he isn't even entirely aware of it. I swear I actually do like Clive, but he is so, so flawed--and because of this, his writing is very believable because of how he acts in the game.

28) Your take on a controversial topic about the game, whichever you prefer.

A-are there controversial topics about Echoes? I mean outside the usual "child soldiers, war sim, sexism, etc." takes? Listen, I have a good portion of the fandom blocked so I can browse the FE tag in peace (which, to be fair, I only started blocking blogs bc of 3H), and I refuse to haunt most fandom spaces outside this website, so I dunno what the petty arguments are about this game. I personally think it's one of the best games that I've played so far, and that it is better than 3H if we're going off the total game experience, but aside from that I don't think I have any hot takes. Even if I did, I know better than to throw rocks at hornet nests.

37) If you could make a big change to it, what would you change?

I would swap Clive and Mathilda narratively in the game. Clive says at one point that the Deliverance was Mathilda's idea (if I recall correctly?), and like, given that Mathilda is implied to be this force to be reckoned with, I think she should fill the narrative role that was given to Clive, and that Clive should just be her trophy fiancé who also got himself captured and imprisoned. It could also work for the narrative w/ Fernand leaving the Deliverance and defecting to Rigel if like, the idea of a woman leading an army for a time was already going against tradition and norms, and so when Mathilda hands the Deliverance over to Alm to lead bc he's a peasant who could unite the army better than she, as a noble, could, it then becomes the last straw for Fernand and he defects.

The only major drawback to this is, of course, the narrative has Alm take lead of the Deliverance, and a lot of fans would be pissy about "a man taking the power from a woman" even though the themes of class are more central to Echoes than are the themes of gender roles. But honestly, if the writing was careful, this switch of power wouldn't be too much of an issue since Alm's "leadership" could be a means of uniting the commoner army members, as well as putting to ease any unrest caused by Mathilda leading bc she was a woman, while Mathilda still maintains her agency as an important character and woman via the role of advisor to Alm since she actually does understand how a military works and can run it effectively, thus still allowing her most of the power but also having her work alongside Alm for a common goal, and further showing that Alm is a kid who's growing into the leader role by learning from good leaders. But fans would probably still be really annoying about it.

Overall I feel like Mathilda fits Clive's narrative role better, and Clive fits her role better. The writing can still have Clive, and even Mathilda, be shortsighted due to their privilege of being born nobles. And like, there are plenty of women characters who should have gotten more narrative importance, but I feel this especially for Mathilda bc she is one of the strongest characters in the game, both in her characterization and her actual game stats.

[starstruckteacup]

Cottagecore Films (pt. 11)

A Little Princess (1995)

starring Liesel Matthews, Liam Cunningham, Vanessa Chester, Eleanor Bron

synopsis

I was extremely disappointed in this film, to put it lightly. The story itself was beautiful, but that is thanks exclusively to the novel on which it was based. The movie itself utterly failed to convey the magic and timelessness of the book. The acting was flat, emotionless, and forced at every point, from every actor (except for maybe Cunningham, but he was absent for half of it). One would think a gaggle of girls would have some form of natural chemistry, whether pulling them together or apart, but not a single child actor portrayed even the remotest semblance of a relationship to another. (Note: I describe in my review of Pan’s Labyrinth what quality acting from a child looks like, for reference.) Even Matthews and Cunningham could not pass a believable father-daughter relationship, despite the story being about that. As far as emotional acting, the adults were just as bad as the children. They couldn’t even feign a single moment of joy, sadness, or anger, regardless of the context. I actually laughed for the entire scene during which Sara nearly died because of how bad the acting from the adults was. At least Chester seemed somewhat worried; Bron and the nameless police officers stood around so vacantly it looked like they forgot what was happening. I really was appalled by the abysmal acting, especially when so much was handed to them in the story. I want to preface my next point by saying that yes, I know computer animation was still a work in progress in the 90s. But this was horrifyingly awful. I have never once, not in my entire life, seen CGI as terrible as the monster in Sara’s stories. I nearly gave up on the entire movie within the first five minutes because of that monster. And it kept showing up, which absolutely ruined whatever favor I tried to hold for this movie. If you don’t have the budget, which this film clearly didn’t, don’t try to animate a monster. It’s that simple. I wish I had more words for it but it was truly so atrocious that I’m at a loss. Any good will I hold for this movie is due to my fondness for the story (no credit to the film), the settings (while not exceptional, they were fairly pretty), and Liam Cunningham’s acting. 2/10

Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007)

TW: blood, mild gore, torture, racism against indigenous people

starring Cate Blanchett, Geoffrey Rush, Clive Owen, Abbie Cornish, Jordi Mollà, Samantha Morton

This film is the sequel to Elizabeth (1998) (see part 10 of my film reviews), which continues the story of Queen Elizabeth I as her rule progresses. Tensions between Catholic Spain and Protestant England grow ever greater, escalating to treasonous plots and assassination attempts. Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, and King Philip II of Spain conspire to depose Elizabeth and place Mary on the throne, restoring Catholicism as the national religion. Even as these events lead to war between the two superpowers, the court provides no sense of stability as new faces and new stresses surround the Virgin Queen. She forms a strong friendship with the pirate Walter Raleigh upon his return trip from the New World, where he seeks to establish colonies under the English flag. However, his stay is extended greatly when Elizabeth’s selfishness and pride take over, and are only broken down in the face of battle when she puts him at the forefront of the British navy. Outnumbered, Elizabeth will need Raleigh’s loyalty and cunning, along with the unwavering loyalty of her people, if they wish to survive the Spanish onslaught.

While still a drama, this film proved to be much more war-oriented than its predecessor, but I’m not sure it did either as well. I liked the deeper look this film gave us into the Elizabeth’s mind, especially with her social and emotional conflicts. They remind us that she is still human, despite the somewhat cold appearance the first film gave her at the end. She is more mature, and even more prideful, but there’s still a limit to what she can take as a person. I think the first film gave a better portrayal of her complicated mind, but this was a solid continuation of what years of ruling can do. I also liked how much detail they put into Raleigh’s character, which the first film didn’t do as well with its secondary characters. We got to know more about him, even if he did still feel somewhat surface-level. I think the dramatic aspects could have felt more high-stakes than they did, especially for the characters who were actually in danger. Even though so many characters were actively committing treason, I only felt that level of tension with one: Mary Stuart. Her death was particularly elegant and laden with symbolism, and even though I knew the outcome historically the scene still delivered the anxiety it was meant to. The others simply didn’t have the same delivery. Even the assassination attempt didn’t project any kind of concern, regardless of one’s historical knowledge. The war focus was a fairly different take than the first had, which I appreciated. The film established a strong balance between the tensions in England, Scotland, and Spain, and did a good job making the stakes very clear for each group. Given the uncritically positive stance on England that this film takes, I would have expected the film to villainize Spain a little more to form a stronger dichotomy between the two rulers, but Spain was presented rather neutrally to the audience. The Spanish ruler and nobles didn’t have much character, despite being the antagonist. As for that uncritical positivity regarding England, I do have a bit more to say. Although to an extent it makes sense that the film would lean in favor of England, given its content and the point of view from which the story is told, it became overbearing at times. England could do no wrong in this film, despite children dying in battle, indigenous people being humiliated and dehumanized for show, talk about slavery, and a complete disregard for the suffering of non-white and non-Protestant groups. In contrast, the first film heavily criticized England, from Mary of Guise shaming Elizabeth for sending young children to war, to Elizabeth frowning upon Walsingham’s torture methods (granted she never stopped them, but she didn’t approve as readily as she did in this film), and so on. Although England in truth did all of these things without rebuke, the film could have handled it more gracefully and came across less like propaganda, at the very least. 5/10

Loving Vincent (2017)

TW: suicide (action offscreen, death onscreen)

Sensory Warning: movement of the impressionistic paintings can be very disorienting for those with sensory processing difficulties. I had to break from watching multiple times so as not to become ill.

starring Douglas Booth, Eleanor Tomlinson, Jerome Flynn, Robert Gulaczyk

This fully hand-painted animated film follows Armand Roulin, a young man with a severe temper, on his way to deliver Vincent Van Gogh’s last letter to a living recipient. When he reaches the town where Vincent died, he begins speaking to a variety of villagers with their own stories about the artist, and their own theories about how he died. Armand tries to piece the puzzle together, wondering if the death was not a suicide as claimed, but rather something more sinister.

This film was spectacularly breathtaking. The amount of work that went into painting every scene was awe-inspiring, and definitely sets the bar high for any other films of its kind. The team of artists that created this film represented Van Gogh’s unique art style exquisitely through their loving application of oil-based paints, and truly brought to life the emotion he put into his works. I wish I hadn’t struggled so much with the constant movement, as I feel I would have been able to appreciate the film in its entirety better, but as it was I struggled to pay attention to the story because the art style consumed too much of my sensory processing capabilities. As for the story, I thought it was interesting, but I found it lacking despite the incredible artwork. Foremost, after some cursory research, I discovered that the homicide theory on which this film was based was only acknowledge by one individual, and spurned by hundreds of others. Although the film leaves the verdict open-ended, both to Roulin and to the audience, the story itself seemed to lean into the homicide theory, then completely give up on it with no resolution, so it came across as fairly noncommittal. I won’t argue for or against the theory, as I don’t know nearly enough about Van Gogh to assert an opinion, but I’m somewhat unsettled by the amount of weight it gave to it without any kind of evidentiary support, only to dump it as if the writers changed their mind themselves. The pacing was also slow for a murder mystery, which is basically what the story turned out to be. I would much have preferred the film to cover Vincent’s life, or even the days/weeks leading up to his death, instead of only featuring him in other people’s flashbacks. This kind of existential impressionism should capture the life of its creator, not the mundane views of people who didn’t understand him or even hated him. There wasn’t anything wrong with the film, per se, but I wish the writing was given as much love as the art was. 7/10

Part 1 // 2 // 3 // 4 // 5 // 6 // 7 // 8 // 9 // 10

[banditthewriter]

Electric Love - Billy Russo - 9

Here we have the last part for Electric Love. Thought about stretching it out to 10, but might as well wrap it up. Thanks for reading and for being interested in more than just a oneshot with this one!

Warning: Violence. 

Tags are at the bottom. Let me know if you would like to be added to one of my tag lists!

*gif is mine*

Enjoy!

*****

All of you were close enough to the safehouse that Clive could tell you there was at least two metas inside. He thought he could feel something else—more like the lack of something else.

“I can’t swear to it, but I think he might be in there,” Clive said as he moved to stand beside Anna.

David was at the house because if this went south, he was to distribute all of the information that you had gathered on the creator as well as Rawlins. It might be too late and it might not help at all, but it was the only thing that you could prepare for at that point.

“You trust that one?” Billy jerked his head towards the new meta—Shauna—and then met your eyes. “She said she wants to help us take the creator down, but what if that’s just part of her plan?”

You shot a look at the woman and shrugged a shoulder. It hadn’t taken her long under Frank and Billy’s focus to change her tune. She had given some information to them that had helped David track down some more places where the creator was keeping his metas.

That alone earned her some trust. Not much, but some.

Frank came up behind the two of you and put his hand on your shoulder. Your spark moved over his hand, but you knew that he wouldn’t feel pain from it. You had finally started to trust yourself. 

“This could be it. You ready for this?”

Billy checked his gun and then made sure that the knife he had strapped to his wrist was correctly attached.

“You know it brother.”

You let a spark grow in your palm and then extinguished it.

“I’m ready for it to be over.”

With that, you all got into position. Storming your old safehouse wasn’t something you ever expected to have to do, but at least you’d been able to tell the others about the layout and possible entry points.

If the creator was there, this was going to end today. And if Gregory was in the way? He’d end too.

------

The taste of blood made your head throb. Or maybe that was from the building falling down around you. As you scrambled to try to stand, you could feel a twinge in your ankle. It wasn’t broken, but maybe twisted. Walking was going to hurt like a bitch.

Half of the building that had housed your safehouse was rubble now. You could hear coughing nearby but you couldn’t stop. If you stopped to check on whoever that was, you’d have to focus on what had just happened. And if you stopped to think about it, your entire world would collapse faster than the building had.

Instead you dragged your body over to the part of the safehouse that hadn’t collapsed. You needed to see for yourself. As you crawled over toppled sections of brick, you took a deep breath. On the other side of the wall was a body, back bent at an impossible angle. Blood was haloed around the body, dark and oozing sluggishly.

You couldn’t feel him. There was nothing there where his presence used to be. As you moved closer, you could tell that there was no way he could still be alive. His chest was cracked open, a piece of rebar piercing through his chest cavity. 

He was dead. He was gone.

But not yet. You raised your hands and with a feral scream, all of your hate and anger and fear released into the air, you launched more electricity at the body. The body shook and spasmed with it until the heat became too much, catching flame.

The creator was gone. You were free.

From the distance you heard your name being called. You closed your eyes and turned around, trying not to breathe in the smell of burning flesh.

He wasn’t the only one that was gone.

------

The first few minutes after you had burst into the safehouse was a blur. The actual housing area where you had stayed was off to the side and empty, but the rest of the warehouse that was attached to the reinforced living area had plenty of metas in it. Clive hadn’t been able to sense them all because at least one had a power for masking their power.

Glass exploded, streams of multicolored light flew around the warehouse. Frank and Billy were firing their guns, taking out metas one at a time. Clive stayed back near Anna, a gun in hand and another tucked into his jeans. Shauna was further back, her hands shaking. She had explained that it would take a full blast from her to take out the creator so you had told her to save it if she could.

You didn’t have that problem. You shot off volley after volley of electricity towards the metas, hitting them indiscriminately. 

Any that went down obviously weren’t Gregory. And you owed him a beating.

There was a familiar sheen in the corner of the room, but there was a wall of metas in front of him. You recognized the formation and let out a swear as you ducked behind a column.

“Corner, two o’clock,” you shouted to the guys as you tried to focus on building your power for a large blast. “There’s about six metas and Gregory right there. I have a feeling that’s where the creator is. Our purpose was to protect the creator at all times.”

The guys nodded. Frank did a couple of quick hand gestures but you understood the gist of what he wanted. You let out a breath as you ducked around the column, letting out a blast of your power and knocking out as many of the metas as you could.

It left the perfect opening for Frank and Billy to come up and finish off the last few. They surged forward together, with Frank pealing off to the left to take out the last ones that were bothering Anna and Clive. Billy shot a few bullets at Gregory, but none of them did more than glance off his protected skin.

You wanted to tell him it was useless, but you didn’t have a chance. Shauna came running up, screaming that she had to do it now or lose her chance. You realized what she meant when you saw the creator behind Gregory. 

He was there. He was there and in Shauna’s path. The green energy built up around her and you made sure you were behind her so that you wouldn’t get hit with it.

It all happened so quickly. The burst of energy went straight for Billy, Gregory, and the creator. You weren’t sure what would happen if it hit Billy, but you didn’t think Shauna cared right then.

Before you could even think to yell out for Billy to watch out, Gregory grabbed him and spun the two of them around. The blast hit Gregory’s back fully, but his body shielded Billy from the blast. And the rest of the blast struck the creator in the chest, knocking him over as if he weighed nothing.

The green was gone. Shauna fell to her knees, her hands shaking as she raised them in front of her. She looked from her hands to where you stood, her mouth quivering. 

Not quivering. She was mouthing something to you.

She was sorry.

Your head shot up. Gregory and Billy had fallen to the floor as well. Without thinking, you took off at a sprint over to them. Gregory’s power was no longer activated. Instead he had what looked like dozens of open wounds on him.

“She reversed my power,” he gasped, blood in his mouth. His eyes rolled over to where Billy was crouched, looking untouched. “I thought it might kill a human.”

You fell to your knees, your chest tight. It might not kill a human, but it was going to kill Gregory. There was no way he could heal from all of these wounds. Your hands hovered uncertainly but he shook his head, blood bubbling in the corner.

“Knew you’d track me to him. Knew it was the only way we’d find him.” He coughed, blood smearing across his face as his eyes started to close. “Only way I could make up for what I did.”

Clive was beside you at that point. You stood up, unable to watch Clive discover his friend dying or already dead. Instead you moved over to Billy and helped him stand. The creator was only a few feet away, slithering around on the floor in pain. His body looked emaciated, his skin nearly see through and his eyes white with no pupil. He gave part of himself with every meta he created. If you hadn’t found him, soon there wouldn’t be anything left.

“We need to end this,” you said as you looked away from the creator, meeting Billy’s eyes. “We have to Billy, we can’t… Gregory is dead and… we have to.”

Billy cupped your cheek, blood smeared on his hand from one of the metas he had killed with his knife. You closed your eyes to find comfort in the touch. It was almost over. All that was left was killing the creator and then you’d be free.

A gust of air brushed across your face. No, not air. It was a breath, as if it had been punched out of the body. You opened your eyes, wondering what had caused Billy to let out his breath that way.

Black lines crawled over Billy’s face in jagged edges, across his jaw and cheeks, streaking up to his forehead. His body swayed and then collapsed, dragging you with him.

Your first thought was that it was from Shauna’s attack, but then you saw the creator. He had crawled just close enough to reach and touch Billy’s skin where his pants had torn at some point.

“Billy? FRANK!”

Frank came running over, landing next to you in time to catch Billy’s head from hitting the floor. He looked around in surprise, his eyes lingering on the effects on Billy’s face. He kicked out at the creator, kicking the man in the face and sending him backwards a few feet.

“What… what’s going on? What’s the reverse of the creator’s power? How is it effecting Billy?”

You looked over but Shauna was gone. Instead you leaned forward and grabbed Frank’s knife. You cut open Billy’s shirt to check how far the lines went. They were on his chest as well.

“He gives life to the dead and he… he brings out powers that are inside the person.”

The lines seemed to be pulsing under Billy’s skin. And Billy… it looked like he could barely breathe. His hand gripped Frank’s, his other hand clutching at your wrist.

“He’s dying,” you said with certainty, feeling it in your chest as Billy’s own life faded. Or maybe not his life exactly. “He’s dying and the creator is pulling… no.”

The creator gave pieces of himself to each person he brought to life in order to activate their powers. Now he was killing Billy in order to steal the power that rested in his chest, whatever it may be.

The creator was killing Billy to save himself.

You met Billy’s eyes and saw the fear there. It wasn’t fear of death, because Billy had never been scared to die. No, he was scared of what he saw on your face.

With a sad smile, you bent down and pressed your lips to Billy’s, tasting dust and the words that Billy was trying to gasp out. Then you stood up and stepped away from him.

“Protect him Frankie,” you warned as you turned to where the creator had fallen.

Everything else fell away. All you could hear was the crackle of electricity that ran through your body. It smelled like hot metal, the taste of it filling your mouth as your power built inside of you. This wasn’t in your hands as it usually was. This was coming from a hollow spot in your chest, building in a halo around you.

Collateral damage was the least of your worries. You focused your gaze on the creator who had started to stand, his body growing stronger as Billy’s withered. 

“No,” you whispered before you let out a scream. 

A flash filled the warehouse as your power shot out of your chest at the man who had created you. It struck him, sending him airborne and through the reinforced wall of the living area. But that wasn’t all. The surge went through the entire building, shaking the very foundation as it did. And as the light started to fade, you glanced up in time to see the building give a shudder before it collapsed around you.

------

Frank called your name again and you stumbled away from the creator’s body that you had turned to ash. He had dug himself out from where you had dropped the building on all of you.

Clive. Anna. They had been next to Gregory’s body. You couldn’t really remember where that had been. Your mind was fuzzy once you realized what was happening.

And you hadn’t realized your power was capable of that.

“His heartbeat is too slow,” Frank called to you which sped you up. 

Soon you were at his side, looking at Billy. He looked… dead. His skin was ashen from the dust and dirt, but it didn’t even look like he was breathing. You fell to your knees beside him, tears falling down your cheeks as you stared.

“It wasn’t supposed to be him,” you said as your hands went to cradle his face. “I died first. I was okay letting go because I knew Billy would be okay. I don’t… I don’t want to do this without him.”

Frank put his hand on your shoulder, a touch of comfort. He knew what it was like to lose your love.

Somewhere in the back of your mind, you had an image of going to Billy’s funeral. You pictured your life without him. The ring on your left hand felt like a hangman’s noose.

“No,” you whispered as you reached up to wipe away your tears, “no, this isn’t how the story goes. I refuse to let it go like this.”

You had an idea. It might be a really bad one, but it was all you had. You looked at where Frank had settled beside you, his hand pressed against Billy’s chest as if to measure his very thin pulse.

“Move your hands,” you cautioned as you raised your hands up over Billy’s chest.

Frank hesitated but he did as you told him. From the corner of your eye, you could see Clive and Anna nearby. They had made their way out of the rubble, thankfully. They stood with their arms around each other as they watched you.

“This better work,” you mumbled as you let power build. And with nothing left to lose, you pressed your hands against his chest and sent the electricity into him.

His body jerked from the force of the shock. You held your breath as Frank checked his pulse. He started to shake his head, but Billy shot upright and nearly knocked both of you onto your ass. He coughed, his breathing erratic as he reached out to ground himself.

“Billy? Billy, breathe baby, it’s okay,” you said as you gripped his shoulders, your hand pressed against his neck. 

A steady thrum. And in your chest, that hollowness you had felt was full once more. He was alive. He was alive and he was going to stay that way.

“Fuck,” he breathed as he partially collapsed onto you, his hand reaching out to grab Frank’s shoulder. “Fuck, I think I died.”

You let out a watery laugh as you buried your face into Billy’s neck. Frank leaned down with you, his arms wrapping around the two of you completely.

Clive and Anna were sniffling. From the corner of your eye, you watched them dig out Gregory’s body. Between that and the sound of you, Frank, and Billy’s breathing, you realized that this was really it. You had won. It had cost Gregory his life, and countless metas who didn’t know any better, but you had won.

It was over.

“Hey uh, someone wanna tell me what the hell is going on?”

David’s voice in all of your ears startled every single one of you. None of you remembered that he was on comms. 

It was just the thing you all needed. Teary laughter echoed in the collapsed warehouse. Emergency crews would be there soon so you all needed to leave, but right then, you all just held on and basked in the fact that you had won.

*****

"Frank and Karen will be here in about an hour," Billy reminded you as you walked into the room. "David and his family can't make it but Clive and Anna should be coming."

You leaned over his lap and kissed Billy's cheek. The lines on his face from what had happened with the creator had never gone away fully, but they had faded.

A not so subtle reminder that Billy had been seconds from dying. As much as you hated those lines for the reminder, you loved them as well. 

"I've got dinner almost finished. And if none of them will be here until later…"

You let the sentence hang in the air as your hands went over his shoulders and smoothed down his chest. There were faint scars in the shape of your hands and you could almost feel them through the fabric of his shirt.  

Billy reached up and grabbed your wrists, using the leverage to tug you into a kiss.

"You thinking what I'm thinking Mr Russo?"

He grinned against your mouth as his fingers linked with yours. The silver band on his finger gently clicked against yours. 

"I believe I am Mrs Russo. House warming can wait. I'm more interested in bed warming."

Your laugh echoed as he stood up off the couch and dragged you towards the bedroom of your new house. The two of you hadn't wasted any time once the creator was gone; it'd only been three months. You had gotten married, bought a house, and started working at Anvil with Billy. It was part of his initiative to give jobs to metas who otherwise have nowhere to turn. 

Once upon a time, you had thought that your life was over. You were brought back from the dead but unable to have your life back. You were dangerous and, technically, dead. 

But Billy changed that for you. With him at your side, you had better control over your powers than ever before. And you might technically be dead but you'd never felt more alive.

Life might be different, but you found yourself after your death. You and Billy found each other and fit right back together. 

It was better than you could have imagined it.

X

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[letterboxd]

How I Letterboxd #2: Dave Chen

In our second of this series, we put Dave Chen in the Letterboxd spotlight. The podcaster, musician and filmmaker is most famous on Letterboxd for his weirdly specific lists. He tells us how he uses the platform, why every film that exists is miraculous, and why we shouldn’t sleep on Not Another Teen Movie.

Hi Dave! How long have you been on Letterboxd? About eight years. I believe I first signed up when it was in beta. I loved (and still love) the interface: how smooth the user flow is for logging/reviewing films, and how beautiful all that movie art looks as it’s organized on the site.

What do you mainly use Letterboxd for? I love reading the reviews on Letterboxd. On a film’s page, the site surfaces many of the most popular reviews and I find it’s a great way to find some quick, witty, and thoughtful comments on something I might be considering watching. But of course, I also love reading and making funny lists. Finally, I’ve heard Letterboxd is great for keeping track of films at a film festival but sadly I haven’t yet attended one since I started using it again.

Do you rate films? Would you consider yourself a generous or harsh rater? I rate films to remind myself how I felt about them at the time I watched. Of course, my opinions on movies change but it’s sometimes interesting to look back and think back to a time when, “Oh right, I did love that movie in the summer of 2019 when I was going through XYZ”. Our feelings about movies can often reflect what’s going on in our lives.

That said, over time, I’ve come to understand that films are miracles. I don’t think I’m the first person to come up with this observation but they are like miniature plays resulting from the collective work of hundreds or thousands of people that have been preserved for your amusement, and you can just play them on demand. Many of them cost only a few dollars. Some are free! Every film that exists is miraculous.

So, despite some of my harsh reviews, I do try to keep that perspective in mind.

You’ve been a member for a while but most of your reviews are recent. What brought you back? We note that you restarted with your third viewing of 1917! I am pretty active on Twitter and I started seeing a bunch of screen-capped reviews go viral there. But to be honest, much of social media can be exhausting to me these days. What I realized recently about Letterboxd was that much of it is free of the negativity. It’s just a bunch of folks who love movies sharing thoughts on those movies, but it also feels like a real community of people. There are filmmakers on there who share their thoughts on films and their favorites, and that’s of course endlessly fascinating (such as Sean Baker). Even the negative reviews can be fun to read. There’s a lot of pithiness and wit on the site, and its design really helps facilitate that.

Okay, take us way back, what was the film that got you hooked on cinema? My first cinematic true loves were the films of John Woo. I’d watched action movies before but I was introduced to John Woo ironically by a counselor at my church youth group! I became dazzled by movies like The Killer and Hard Boiled. It was then that I realized that things I had seen dozens of times (e.g., a shootout in a warehouse) could be elevated by sheer craftsmanship.

What keeps you from sharing your four favorites on your profile? A few reasons. For me personally, it takes months if not years for my thoughts on a film to really crystallize. My relationship with a movie doesn’t end when the credits roll—its ideas and themes and images are often clanging around in the back of my head for months if not years afterwards. As a result, my favorite films of all time change pretty frequently and I didn’t want to have to think about maintaining my four favorites over time.

Michael Caine in Alfonso Cuarón’s ‘Children of Men’ (2006).

Is there any film you could say is your all-time number one? If I had to name one though, it’d probably be Children of Men. It combines all my favorite things into one movie: science fiction, action, Michael Caine and a heartfelt message about how humanity has to be kinder to one another if we are to survive the challenging days ahead.

Your most popular lists are weirdly specific and fun (but true!). What are some other weirdly specific lists on Letterboxd that spoke to you? All the lists I like fall into that category. I love it when people make connections that I never otherwise would’ve thought of. To make a funny list, I think you need to be able to juggle extremely specific pattern recognition with a description that makes people feel like they are learning something about the films or their subjects. While the vast majority of the time these are just for fun, sometimes they actually can lead to insights about filmmakers, actors and the specific themes they try to bring to life in their work.

Also, shout out to Thijs Meuwese, who is leading the way on creative lists.

What is your favorite or most useful feature on Letterboxd? The Stats page [generated for all Pro and Patron members] is a beautiful visualization of the history of my film watching. As I continue to build out my watch history, I’m curious to see the trends that will arise.

What’s a movie where you don’t understand why Letterboxd members love or hate it so much? To answer this question, I took a look at some “worst-rated films on Letterboxd” lists and here’s a totally random one for you: the teen romantic comedy parody Not Another Teen Movie. It’s rated a 2.6 and a lot of the humor of this film has aged poorly but there are some amazing gags in here and it features Chris Evans in a performance that will likely be the apex of the comedic phase of his career. My brother and I still quote this movie to each other. Don’t sleep on it.

Chyler Leigh and Chris Evans in ‘Not Another Teen Movie’ (2001).

Your feature film, Stephen Tobolowsky’s one-man show The Primary Instinct, has a Letterboxd page and a pretty solid rating, congrats! How do you feel having that livestream of instant reactions to it? I’m glad that the ratings are decent, but to be honest, I can’t bring myself to look at them! As part of the filmmaking process, I’m totally open to constructive feedback from people I know and trust, but I’m not sure I can handle the same from strangers. Nonetheless, I’m grateful some Letterboxd members have seen fit to watch the film and take the time to rate it! Perhaps if I make more films in the future, I’ll feel better about checking out the reviews for an individual one.

Among your other skills, you are a talented musician. Can you tell us about some of your favorite film scores? Any cello-heavy scores or composers you find particularly influential? While not really cello-specific, the music of Nicholas Britell makes amazing use of strings (see Moonlight and [TV series] Succession). His music is achingly beautiful and is often in rotation in my playlists.

More generally, Hans Zimmer and John Williams are both legends and I’ve always found their work to be very interesting. In recent days, I’ve been quite taken with the work of Daniel Pemberton, whose work on films like King Arthur and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. have a great populsive energy to them. Finally, when I’m into something more moody, atmospheric or modern, I appreciate the work of Cliff Martinez.

Are you self-isolating right now due to Covid-19? Discovered anything great and new to you to pass the time? We hope everything is alright otherwise! Yes, I'm quarantining due to a “stay safe and healthy” order in Washington State right now. Like many people staying at home, I’ve been watching a lot of TV, which includes things like Tiger King, Devs, Better Call Saul, and Dave (the show on Hulu). These are the things that give me comfort and distraction these days.

Jennifer Ehle in Steven Soderbergh’s ‘Contagion’ (2011).

What are your go-to comfort movies that you recommend to people at this strange and difficult time? This is a weird recommendation, but I’d say Steven Soderberg’s Contagion is a great choice. Contagion depicts a virus far more deadly than Covid-19, and how it eventually leads to the deterioration of the social order. But it’s also a deeply hopeful movie. You see governments come together to try to figure this thing out. You see the people on the front lines risking their lives to fight the fictional virus and I think it’s a great way to help people understand how courageous and valuable all our medical workers are in times like these. It’s “competence porn” in an era where I think we need to be reminded of what competence looks like.

[Editor’s note: Dave isn’t alone, Contagion has consistently been in our 20 most popular films for the past month.]

When the universe is allowed to go back to the cinema, where do you prefer to sit? As close to the center of the theater as possible, with my eyeline at about halfway up the screen.

What’s in your ‘hall of shame’—the movies you haven’t seen and know Letterboxd will boo at you for missing? Don’t worry, we’ll protect you. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Say Anything. Also Firefly, the Joss Whedon show which I don’t think is on your website anywhere. Many people have been complaining to me about this oversight in my viewership for years so I think it’ll do well if we can list it here.

Which film from the past ten years that went by fairly unloved do you think will be a future classic and you’ll fight to the death for loving? I’m going to cheat a little and list a movie that’s eleven years old: Tony Gilroy’s Duplicity. This movie didn’t do super well at the box office when it was first released and currently has a 2.8 on Letterboxd. But it was one of my top ten films that year. I think Clive Owen and Julia Roberts have great chemistry, but I think the film’s depiction of corporate espionage is outlandish, fun and irresistible. These characters are playing a "triple game" and it’s so much fun to see the layers upon layers of deception that they’re creating, and the cascading impacts they have on their relationship. Also, how can you say no to a movie that has Paul Giamatti and Tom Wilkinson as competing CEOs literally going at each other?

And finally, please name three other Letterboxd members you recommend we follow. I collaborate with Melissa on YouTube/podcast reviews and she is incredibly thoughtful and articulate. I always appreciate Khoi’s thoughtfulness. And Mike Ginn—this guy is hilarious.

You can enjoy more Dave on his website; his YouTube channel; and his podcasts The Slashfilmcast and Culturally Relevant. Dave was photographed by Brandon Hill.

[truthbeetoldmedia]

iZombie 5x11 "Bye, Zombies" Review

It feels like I’ve been waiting for this episode the entire series, in more ways than one. Buckle in, there is so much to discuss!

The episode opens with Liv tending to all the Freylich brain kids at the headquarters, and she gives a quick rundown of events via voiceover. I wish this narrative device was used more consistently this season. I have a love-hate relationship with voiceover, I think it can often tip into cheesy and unnecessary. On iZombie, however, the use of voiceover was crucial in the early seasons. If Liv is on a different brain every week, her personality and character development can get lost in the mix. Her voiceover bookended the episodes and was a good way to touch base with her, and to make sure the audience still had access to inside her head. Liv sums up the events that have happened thus far, and how stressful things have been. But her hope remains in the cure; it’s the only thing they have to look forward to. 

This hope becomes complicated fairly quickly. Liv walks in on an upset Ravi, who tells her that the CDC has decided to use the uptiopium for treatments, rather than a cure. Charlie has been kicked off the project, and it’s been moved to a high security building. Ravi points out there’s more money in treatments than cures, and the CDC doesn’t actually have any interest in being helpful to the suffering people of New Seattle. It’s a good call back to Ravi’s fraught relationship with his old employer, the CDC. He was fired for taking biological warfare too seriously, and it seems he finds himself back at square one with them. He and Liv decide the only thing to do now is to pull off an Oceans 11-esque heist. Obviously the only answer! They gather with Clive, Peyton, and Major to tell them the plan. If I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again, this show is always at its strongest when it trusts its five main players to drive the story, and let them drive it together. Getting the entire gang involved is part of what made this episode so great. 

It turns out there can be advantages to being zombies — they don’t actually have to learn any heist skills overnight, they can just consume them. They order a ninja and acrobat from Don E (who is in a really foul mood due to Darcy’s death) and Clive thinks of some old petty criminals he knew back in the day. At first, Clive doesn’t plan on going with them. He gives an emotional goodbye to Liv and Ravi, including hugs, and maybe there were a few tears involved. But Bozzio tells him to get his butt out there, and to save the world for their daughter. “You’re the Clooney,” she reminds him. How are they going to pull this off without him? Clive finally steps through the closet of the Renegade quarters, and it’s one of my favorite moments of the whole series. Everything is coming together for one last adventure, and it was an immensely satisfying scene. 

In order to get the pickpocket brain Clive recommended, Major and Liv dig up his grave together. It’s difficult to write this scene objectively, without taking into account the uproar in the Veronica Mars fandom this week. A shocking twist at the end of the new revival season regarding the show’s main couple has left many fans feeling betrayed, confused, and frustrated. Rob Thomas, the showrunner for both Veronica Mars and iZombie, has expressed multiple times that he’s not interested in writing main female characters with boyfriends or writing couples with happily-ever-afters. He didn’t see a way that he could incorporate hard-hitting detective stories and a healthy romance into the same show. 

I have only seen a few episodes of Veronica Mars, but I’ve seen every episode of iZombie, and several things about this show now make sense. I now understand why all of Liv’s boyfriends have been killed off and then never mentioned again. I now understand why when Clive and Bozzio finally got together, Bozzio got pregnant and practically dropped off the face of the earth. It makes me wonder if romance between Ravi and Liv was never explored because the showrunner believed it meant he had to eventually axe one of them, and didn’t want to do that. And most of all, it makes sense why Liv and Major haven’t had any significant progress in their relationship in several seasons. 

Rob Thomas has basically admitted that he doesn’t know how to successfully juggle murder and love on his shows, and he has no interest in finding out. So the timing for this Major and Liv scene is terrible, in more ways than one. Not only do I wish I could have enjoyed it without the baggage of another show hanging over it, but I really think it should have happened sooner in the series. Regardless, now we know why it didn’t. 

The scene itself is actually incredibly sweet. “I’m really glad we’re at this place in our relationship,” Major says. “We can dig up graves without having to talk.” The two of them reminisce on their relationship over the entire series — from how they used to be engaged to wed in a pre-zombie world, to how they’ve both done things that hurt the other, and how they’ve wound up here. “We’ve both done a lot of well-intentioned crap to each other. But here we are, still here,” Major says. He gives her a heartfelt pep talk, telling her that he believes she’s the only one that can pull this off. And pull this off, she must. The fate of the world depends on it. Not only is this a commentary on their deep friendship, but also on who they are as characters. They both have gone through immense changes throughout the series, but it feels like the core of who they are is still there. Major and Liv are both good people, with a capital G. A war-torn, zombie world has tried to change that, but it never succeeded. I’m forever grateful for this show for giving me these two. Major tells Liv she’s a badass, and she kisses him, right in the middle of the grave. Within the world of iZombie, it felt true to the show, and something I’ve been waiting on for so long! 

It means, however, that I’m incredibly worried about Major’s life. The tension between humans and zombies is finally at a breaking point. His Fillmore Grave squad tells him that zombies are riding in the streets, provoking humans and wanting to start a war. Major takes a team out to hopefully quell the riots. “They want to start a war, let’s not give them the satisfaction,” he says. He and his team ride out, but while Major is giving orders, a huge explosion hits their van. My heart skipped a bit, because I really thought Major might have been taken out in this moment. He crawls out of the van, bleeding and confused. Enzo rolls up in a Fillmore Graves van, and the final stand that we always knew was coming finally happened. Enzo convinces all of Major’s men to betray him, leaving Major standing alone. Fillmore Graves has never believed in Major, never totally committed to him as a leader. I’ve never felt the show built a convincing argument as to why Chase Graves inspired so many more followers than Major and that Major was a bad leader. Major has tried to keep the peace in New Seattle for as long as he’s been in charge, but his zombies are out for brains. He escapes by the skin of his teeth, and Enzo goes on TV letting everyone know that he’s the new sheriff in town, and humans had better hide. Dolly and her people watch from their fish food truck, and she gives the go ahead to retaliate and recruit. 

Meanwhile, Blaine discovers that Ravi has stolen his Freylich brains. He tells his smuggler that if he sees Ravi, shoot to kill. This season has really doubled down on Blaine being evil, with no interest in redeeming him. This episode sees him doing some truly unforgivable acts. While Liv is gone, she asks Peyton to housesit at the Renegade quarters. Because Blaine is the worst, he and Don E “follow Ravi’s favorite thing” to lead them to where the Freylich brain kids are hiding out. He and Don E muscle themselves in, and Peyton emotionally begs Blaine to leave them alone. It’s hard not to imagine a season that had gone all in as Blaine as the Big Bad of the entire series. If they had whittled down on nuclear threats and off-shoot human supremacist gangs, and beefed up even more on Blaine’s goal of taking control of New Seattle, I wonder if the season would have been stronger. Thankfully, the show did cut back on forcing real world political parallels that it didn’t have the range for, as I was afraid it would be the main focus of the season, but I think a centered focus on Blaine would have made everything much more focused. This scene, for example, was absolutely terrifying. Both Aly Michalka’s emotional performance and David Anders cold brutality elevated the tension in this moment, and left the fate of both Peyton and the Freylich brain kids in the balance. I’m holding out hope that this will be the moment that our dark horse player, Don E, will emerge as an unlikely hero of this series, but we are going to have to wait until the finale to find out. 

In Atlanta, Clive, Liv, and Ravi actually pull off the heist. Despite Liv on pickpocket brain having the stickiest fingers ever, Ravi being incredibly unpleasant on Russian hacker brain, and Clive getting momentarily distracted by busting some serious moves on the dance floor, they manage to hit their mark, Gladys from HR. For the second half of the heist, Liv and Ravi switch to the ninja and acrobat brains, and sneak into the high security building. Clive saunters passed a guard that thinks all black people look the same, and helps Charlie smuggle in too. For a moment, it seems like the CDC has caught on to our heroes. Saxon rushes in and opens the vault to make sure the uptiopium was still there. Unfortunately for him, he fell right into their trap. Liv points a gun at Saxon and smugly tells him they knew they wouldn’t be able to get into the vault, so they tipped him off so he could do it for them. Saxon tries to bargain with Ravi, and to apologize for how the CDC has treated him, but Ravi is done standing by. No one knows better than Ravi the importance of this cure. Not only is he a man of science, he’s watched his loved ones deal with the zombie virus for several years. He’s had a front row seat to Liv and Major’s trials and watched Peyton buckle under the pressure of being New Seattle’s mayor. He watched Isobel pass away, and then when he tried to avenge her by ethically pursuing a cure, he kept losing to Blaine and the CDC. Well, not anymore. After five seasons of setbacks, there’s no way Ravi’s going to let go of the cure that easily. Ravi rages out. He knocks out Saxon, and Liv grabs the uptiopium. There’s just one more piece they needed for the cure — the Max Rager from Fillmore Graves. Liv calls Major, and he reassures her not to worry about it. When the camera cuts to him, we see him hiding out in the waterfront, injured and alone. 

There is a lot of things to wrap up next week, but I thought this penultimate episode was exciting, character-driven, and showcased elements of the show that made me love it so much. Next week, I’ll see you back in New Seattle, for one final time. 

Stray Thoughts: 

“You’re not that great with boyfriends, are you?” Don E tells Liv, which is the first time all season anyone has mentioned that Liv’s boyfriends have short lifespans on this show. 

“His hair makes me so angry!” 

Clive mentions that if Liv eats the pickpocket brain, to “get ready for visions of me rockin’ a mustache” and I’m so mad the show didn’t make good on this promise. 

“What are you going to do without me?” Liv asks Clive, pointing out that she’s no use as a police partner without her visions. What’s their relationship going to look like when Liv is no longer a zombie?

Peyton tells Liv that she’s probably going to marry Ravi. Pavi forever. 

“We are in the south now, you don’t put stolen jewelry in a black man’s pocket.” I squeaked at this line! Between the racist janitor and this line, Clive was really coming for Atlanta in this episode. 

I thought it was a hilarious gag to have someone remember Ravi from his CDC days, even if it was a one night stand that didn’t really reflect well on his character

Haley’s episode rating: 🐝🐝🐝🐝.5

The series finale of iZombie airs Thursday, August 1 at 9/8c on the CW.

[seasaltmemories]

To Live As Free Men and Women

Over and over again I hear the conflict of echoes summarized as “shifting from relying on gods to relying on humanity’s own accomplishments.”  And on the surface that makes perfect sense.  All the endgame quotes are about refusing to bow down to Duma and wanting to fight for their world.  

However this reading has always not sat well with me because of two things.  First this celebration of humanity’s individual strength is not brought up until the last moments of Act 5.  To call it the main theme when so much of the earlier conflict was about class feel disingenuous.  Second, this reading tends to pit Alm and Celica as opposites where Alm shows Celica the light.  Aside from disliking the convenient dismissive treatment of the female protagonist, my obvious bias aside, it just isn’t good storytelling to have one of your leads solely exist to be wrong.  Not to mention the game is going for a sort of dualism between the two of them, so to paint Celica’s route as just one mistake is short-sighted.

So the question remains, what is the main theme of Echoes?  Does it have a theme?  Regardless of your thoughts on the game, it still sends a message, every piece of art does, even if it is as banal as “good will always triumph,” that is still a theme.  So to examine echoes, thoroughly we have to find a thread that manages to link the entire game together.

The best place to start is obviously the beginning.  After the opening video.  We are given a little exposition dump about the state of Valentia.  Two countries and two gods, one emphasizing war and the other emphasizing peace.  Makes sense, it is pretty obvious which one we’re supposed to root for and what country we’ll be following.  Cue the prologue where after everyone was so excited to meet the knight in the woods, he turns out to be totally willing to murder children.  It would be so easy to write Slayde off as a bad apple but the narrative makes no attempts to try and act as if anything about him is non-standard.  If anything the start of Act 1 goes out of its way to detail just how rotten Zofia is.  It’s fitting that Alm joins a rebellion first and foremost, and it is not until Act 3 Rigel really becomes an antagonist.  And much of Act 1 is targeting Zofia’s own corruption, its bandits and power-hungry nobles.  Despite being massive problems, Alm rushes headlong into them, wanting nothing more than to protect people.

Act 2 starts similarly, Celica learning of just how horrible the pirates are, and how they have been allowed practically free reign of the seas.  She has even fewer reasons to get involved, considering her party is literally five people, but she can’t secure safe passage otherwise so let’s do this.  If it takes fighting necrodragons then she will fight necrodragons.

Despite both of their reckless behavior, they accomplish real change and make things for the better.  And so after growing up into the people they are today, Alm and Celica in an obviously heartwarming manner.  Except quickly things tilt sideways.  

Celica’s hypocritical behavior has been long-pointed out, wishing him to avoid bloodshed after just killing a pirate king, but things still stay civil until this moment.

“Alm: Nrgh… If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear I was speaking to a blue blood. My station doesn’t matter, Celica. I’m here because I was called. I have a duty to perform, and I’ll perform it. No more, and no less.

Celica: Oh, Alm…

Alm: Do you think I WANTED this fight? This all started because Lima IV went and angered the empire. If you wish to point fingers, point them at the ruler who failed his people. It’s his fault we’re in this mess.”

Alm points to Lima and the system that failed Zofia, and while he is not wrong, as the Zofian heir, Celica is just as much a part of that system.  And to have someone so important to her throw the failings of the state at her feet, when all her life she has simply tried to survive, feels like the worse betrayal.  And when Alm still expects her to hold responsibility for all those mistakes (even if he doesn’t directly ask it of her) she explodes.  Now obviously Alm didn’t know how his words would impact her, and Celica was the first to go on the offensive, but often this discussion gets characterized as just being about violence, when that discussion is just a footnote to the real conflict.

Starting with Alm, Act 3 opens with Alm finally meeting Berkut face to face, someone who represents all of Rigel’s teachings about power and strength.  While a fearsome opponent, he has an utter meltdown after Alm’s army beats him.  As they go on their way to face Desaix, even Clive starts to fail Alm by doubting him and questioning if it is worth it to try and save Delthea, and depending on how well you play the next few levels, he really might fail Alm such as when/if Mathilda dies and he blames Alm for her death.  While he still will eventually come around to believe in Alm once again, we see that even after retaking Zofia, the old order is still not completely gone.

Celica meanwhile has to confront another outlaw king, but this time Greith is more personal, aside from people in her army having been directly harmed by him, there’s this lingering thread of Greith only having been able to grow so powerful because of Lima’s negligence.  In-universe there is no reason she has to go and stop him, it is a significant detour from her pilgrimage, still she refuses to enable this injustice.  Greith warns her that there will always be another one like him, and when they arrive at the temple, Mila is gone and unable to fix everything like she wanted to do.  So Celica does what she has been running away from her entire life, she reveals her status as the lost princess and promises to protect Zofia and Mila.

However while this is a good choice both for her development and from a logical standpoint, we start to see that even it is not without consequences in the Act 4.  Determined to save Mila, Celica eventually comes into contact with Jedah, who says as long as she gives up her soul to Duma, he will return Mila.  Now while Celica is often lambasted for this choice, let’s look at how she sees this and why she doesn’t immediately distrust him.

While we have seen Jedah be a creep all game, this is the first time Celica has seen him, and while he is othered and marked evil with a lot of traits, such as his blue skin, how stupid would it be if in real life you refused to work with people because “they looked evil” not to mention he is the leader of a similar faith, it would be like if a protestant Christian talked with the Pope.  Jedah is a scumbag but Celica has no reason in her eyes to immediately distrust him/assume he is lying.

And having traced Celica’s actions up until now, how she hates the suffering of others and will do anything in her power to fix things, why would she not consider herself a worthy exchange for Zofia’s restoration?  With Conrad’s reappearance, there’s even another heir ready to take over.  All her life she’s been confronted with her father’s failure, and what kind of ruler would she be if she followed in his footsteps?  

Still despite this mindset, she does not go to Duma Tower to die.  She plans to see Mila and rescue her first and foremost.  But when it looks as if Mila is completely gone and impossible to recover, she decides she will at least try and protect those she loves.

Before we can look at how that decision go, we need to return back to Alm.  In Act 4, we learn that Rigel is pretty much as corrupt as Zofia.  People like Nuibaba and Jerome manipulate good people like Zeke and Tatiana purely for their own selfish gain.  Throughout all this Alm is treated as if he is already King of Zofia, which Alm never really confronts and very obviously chafes at the thought.  He stands poised to become a living legend, when horror of all horror he ends up being the one to kill his own father.  

While Rigel welcomes him with open arms as there prince, Alm finds no joy in the title and learns that all his hard work was just to fulfill Rudolf’s plans.  And the closer he gets to the climax the more and more trauma he suffers,  having to kill his only remaining family left, Berkut having gone mad from his failure to live up to Rigel’s ideals of power over everything.  In the end it culminates in Alm having to even kill the woman he loves.

The only thing that keeps this story from becoming the tragedy we first saw at the beginning of the game is the fact Mila takes pity on them and decides to release Falchion for Alm.  So to act as if the events of Echoes were purely fueled by human ingenuity is disingenuous.

So what was the point of this little recap?  Well when you look closely you see it is not just Duma and Mila who failed them, but the entire way their world was structured, the sins of their fathers who created/maintained a world where the weakest were always exploited the most.  A world where they were denied happiness and set up to fail.  Celica has her entire life defined by being a part of this system, less an individual person and more a title.  What use was she as an individual, if she didn’t give her all for a country her blood had left down?  And Alm was denied a family, and forced to kill them simply because of Rudolf’s plan, even if it was for the greater good.  The world Duma and Mila set-up centuries ago is not the type of world these people need anymore.  Killing them is not enough, they have to change the entire structure of society as they know it. It’s why they get rid of Rigel and Zofia in the end to create the One United Kingdom, because only then can they start fresh, free from the influences of before.

Now some might say, why explain make such a big deal over such a minor detail?  Gods, society, what’s the difference?  But like I said earlier a theme needs to encapsulate the entire work, not just the climax.  And society’s failing manifest in multiple ways in Echoes, from classism, to tragedy of Sonya’s family, to Valber’s loss.  From start to finish Echoes never lets you forget what a broken world Valentia is.  And to fix it you can’t just take Alm’s impulsive idealism or Celica’s country-bound devotion.  Sometimes you need both, and to attack the problem at the source of its roots.

[northelypark]

I wish you'd write a fic where...Bernard. Just Bernard. (and maybe a tongue-tied Clive who forgets how to human because he's in the presence of a beautiful chess goddess :)

Apparently I can’t even write a drabble without turning it into a 2000+ word fic. But thanks, friendo~ I had way too much fun with this. 

Bernard and Clive have their first ever heart-to-heart.

Finally.

Bernard shut his Maths textbook with a satisfying whumph. Now that homework was out of theway, it was time for a bit of leisure reading before bedtime. He turned to hisbookshelf, scanning the top right corner where all his current reads were shelved.Gibson’s The Perception of the Visual World, a shorter work by Bandura onaggression and social cognitive theory, and a few of his father’s old issues ofthe Journal of the Chemical Society (nothis favorite subject, but several of the articles had caught his interest).

He stroked his chin, considering each in turn. It was adifficult choice, but he finally decided on Gibson. There was one chapter inparticular that had given him trouble the other day and he wanted to see ifcouldn’t straighten out what the old bloke was going on about.

Settling in the small crevice between his desk and hisdresser (a new reading spot that was surprisingly comfortable), he cracked openthe musty hard-cover to the page his tattered bookmark had saved.

He had just broken into the first sentence when anexcruciating sound flailed his ears.

Thud, thud.

Bernard swore. Never failed. At least it wasn’t coming fromthe ceiling this time.

“I heard that,” came the unruffled reply.

“Good.”

Bernard squeezed himself out from hisreading spot and opened the door. Clive was waiting for him on the other side.He wore casual clothes, layered, suitable for an evening made cool by the spring shower that had let up only that afternoon.

“What.”

“Are you ready?”

Bernard gazed blankly at him.

Clive’s eyelids dropped, hooding his eyes in apatheticannoyance.

“You forgot, didn’t you?”

Forgot… A terrible dread writhed in Bernard’s stomach. Hispeaceful evening. Ruined. What had he forgotten? A meeting in the “secrethideout”? Some plan to break into a restricted area of the school? Spying onthe Patrol whilst they performed ridiculous rituals?

“The London Symphony Orchestra?”

Bernard shut his eyes. Even worse then he’d expected. But heremembered now. It had all been Gemma’s idea, of course. The London SymphonyOrchestra was holding a free concert in a park near the school that evening.Dreycott’s choir director had arranged for a bus to take any pupils who wereinterested in attending. When Gemma had found out, she had insisted they all gotogether. Something about doing more “fun” things together besides working onexposing the school’s layers of corruption and secrets. As if that wasn’tenough.

“Oh, that,” Bernard crossed his arms, “No. I changed mymind. I’m not going. I’ll weather Gemma’s wrath tomorrow.”

Despite the lingering threat of facing Gemma, he allowedhimself a small, smug smile. Nothing quite so satisfying as canceling one’splans and remaining a recluse for the evening.

“Gemma dropped out,” Clive said, “Emergency drama practice.”

“Oh? Good. Let’s all drop out, then.”

Clive hesitated, his hand moving to fiddle with his collar.Bernard prepared for the worst.

“It’s just…Amelia is rather keen on going now, I think.”

“Okay. Then you two go together. Problem solved.”

A look of panic crossed Clive’s face, as if a train wasbarreling down at him and his foot was caught in the track.

“Are you sure youdon’t want to come? You like the orchestra, don’t you?”

“Not especially.”

Why that pleading look in his eyes? Bernard had known Clivefor almost two years now, but he had never seen his friend look so desperately miserableas he did now.

“I know Amelia wanted you to come.”

Amelia. Clive’s eyes had darted to the side when he’d spokenher name and his collar-fiddling had increased slightly. He knew how to concealhis emotions well, but Bernard prided himself in his ability to read even themost guarded of persons. When he felt like it, anyway.

So. That was it. He was just needed as a sort of third wheelto keep the outing from becoming awkward. Or something. Which was ridiculous.Weren’t the two always off playing chess alone together? Why was cramming intothe back of a sweaty bus in order to cram into the back of a sweaty crowd tolisten to some strains of Mozart by musicians who knew they weren’t gettingpaid any different?

Bernard sighed. Clive was still looking at him with thoseoncoming-train eyes. If he wanted to keep his evening to himself, he’d either have to convincehis friend to stay or convince him to go. He would undoubtedly think it ungentlemanly tolet Amelia go by herself, so that left the other option.

“Come in,” Bernard said, turning on his heel.

“But what – ”

“Shut up and come in or I’ll charge double for my services.”

Clive followed him into the room and sat down on the edge ofhis bed, raising his eyebrows skeptically.

“Your services.”

“Yes. I’m going to diagnose your problem and offer suitablerecommendations for solving it.”

Bernard sat down at his desk, retrieving a notepad and pencil. If hewas honest, he and Clive mainly communicated through quips, insults,and their shared interests in reading and sarcasm. As muchas he hated to admit it, Clive was the closest thing he had to a brother, arather paltry wish he had given up on years ago.  But they rarely talked about any problemsthey had. Not seriously anyway. Bernard wasn’t even sure he could carry on aconversation like that…what did they call it? A heart-to-heart. He shuddered.It sounded like some type of high-risk surgery.

Still. Clive was his friend and it was evident he need a bitof encouragement. Bernard had a feeling that even if he did decide to tagalong, Clive would remain miserable. There had been something between him and Amelia for awhile now. Something neither seemed capable or willing to properly address. Perhaps there was a way to save hisevening of leisure reading and ease Clive’s anxiety without sacrificing eitherof their dignity…or at least his own. He had to have a bit of fun along theway, after all.

“The bus leaves in five minutes,” Clive said, “And I don’t have a problem.”

“That’s all the time I need. And you do have a problem. Myanalysis of your sorry face tells me everything.”

Clive closed his eyes.

“Why do you do this?”

“To torture you. Also, to help you using the latest in clinical psychology. Now, what are your symptoms? Particularly when you’re around Amelia.”

“I don’t know. This is ridiculous.”

“Answer the question or I’ll have to pry it out of you usingunethical methods.”

“Unethical methods,” Clive cocked an eyebrow, “You’re threatening my life, aren’t you?”

“Yes. Now answer the question. You’ll feel better. Maybe. Probably not, but answer it anyway.”

Clive rubbed his forehead.

“I don’t know,” he sighed, “Sometimes nothing. I just feelnormal around her. But other times, it’s as if all the air is being sucked out of me,as if I’m screaming inside. Into the void of space. Or I wish I could besucked into space. One of the two.”

“Hm. Yes,” Bernard looked up with a professional frown, “It’s most definitely infatuation. Textbookexample. A horrible disease, really. But not without known treatment options.”

Clive’s furious blushing was all the evidence he needed.

“What? No. I – ”

“Shut up, please,” Bernard scribbled in his notebook. “Nowthe preferred treatment option is to become a hermit and avoid all humancontact for the remainder of your life.”

“Bernard – ”

“Or to remind yourself daily of the crushing weight of your own fragile and meaningless existence.”

“Okay, I get it.”

Clive sighed again, his creased brow and slash of a frown revealinga mixture of irritation and impatience.

Bernard stopped writing. Perhaps he really was no good atthis sort of thing.

“I’m kidding,” he rolled his pencil between his fingers.

What to say? Hisdiagnosis was only half the story. It wasn’t just a matter of infatuation.Clive and Amelia were friends. They’d been through a lot together this pastyear. Cared a great deal for one another.

He racked his brain for suitable words. Words that wouldn’tcome out biting and sharp as they usually did. Advice that could help and not simplyadd salt.

Think.

He’d fancied a girl in primary school once. But then she’dstuck gum in his hair when he tried teaching her what the word photosynthesismeant. No good. He continued to pick through the last fourteen years. Lookingfor something useful.

And then, out of countless gray memories, one took form that didn’t seem to relate to Clive’s problem at all. Old, but strangely luminous. 

It was of when he and his parents had lived in that housenear the empty lot, overgrown with trees and sagging bushes. It had been abusy, and stressful, time for his parents, he recalled, when both had beenworking long days and longer nights at one of London’s biggest hospitals. Theyweren’t around much, but when he did see them they still smiled and talked andpoked fun at the other. And sometimes they would shove everything aside, allthe bills and paperwork and to-do-lists and go to that empty lot. His dad wouldlight a small fire in a homemade fire-pit, as if they were out in the middle ofthe woods, instead of the middle of London. It was most likely illegal, but noone was ever around to care. And then they would take turns reading to him, ashe was still too small to quite know how to do it himself.

Sometimes he would end up nearly asleep, curled up in the lap of oneor the other, but still alert enough to listen to their conversations.Sometimes they’d argue. Quietly. But other times they’d simply talk about howthe other’s day went. And that was enough to reassure him for the time being.

Clive stood.

“I’ve got to go. I’ll just tell her that – ”

“That you’ll go,” Bernard said, “I think you two should go. And I’m not just saying that because I want you to leave me alone.”

Clive’s brow creased, but he waited. Bernard shrugged, stillturning the memory in his mind.  “Tomorrow we’ll all be back to being busy. Dry lectures. Bland food. Four-page essays. Exposing evil livingstatues. Better take a break while you can and, I don’t know, it’s good to gosomewhere for a while with someone. To check-up on each other and sharebeing miserable, even. To remind yourself that even though you hate most everyone, there’s still one or two or three people you can stand to be with.”

He was rambling. Why was he rambling? What was he evensaying? “I guess what I’m trying to say is, maybe you’ll look back and regret notspending more time with certain people if you’re only ever worried about things. And by the time you realize it – well…” He shruggedagain, “That’s it, then.”

Clive remained silent, rubbing his chin. Considering.

Bernard looked away. He never usually wished to take backwhat he said, but he did now.  Because itwas stupid or because it was true? And if it was true, what did that make him?

There was a long pause before Clive finally spoke again, his voice quiet and thoughtful.

“I’d better go find her then, before the bus leaves.”

Bernard stood, feeling a bit disoriented.

“I’ll go with you. Make sure you don’t run away.”

Amelia was waiting for them at the bottom of the steps to the girls’dormitories. She wore a jumper with a white pawn stitched across the front, rain-boots, anda peach ribbon in her hair.

Bernard noticed Clive looked ready to pass out. He placed asteadying hand on his back.

Amelia smiled teasingly when she saw them.

“There you two are. Thought you might have gotten lost.Ready to go?”

“Yes, but Bernard’s decided to stay and read in his darkenedroom,” Clive said.

“Oh, so – ”

“Yes, just, er, just me and you, if that’s alright?”

“Oh, um – alright. I’m mean, yes, if it’s alrightwith you…”

Bernard looked between the two of them, blushing andstammering and fiddling with collars and hair, and wished he were blind anddeaf and living in Antarctica. 

“Alright. Time to go. Get out of here now,” he said, shooingthem along.

Amelia waved.

“See you, Bernard.”

“Thanks, mate,” Clive said. He smiled, but his eyes were solemn. 

Bernard nodded.

His friend’s smile shifted to a cheeky grin, “You know, you make a pretty good therapist.“

“I’m glad you think so,” he grumbled, “I expect my fees by tomorrow. One hundred quid per minute, so, that’ll be five-hundred, altogether.”

Clive’s grin faded.

Returning to his room, Bernard watched the two out the windowas they made their way towards the long drive where the bus stood idling in the pale dusk. They were laughing at something or other, dodging puddles, shoulders brushingnow and then. The bus honked and Amelia grabbed Clive’s hand, pulling him alongso he nearly tripped over his own clownish feet.

A tolerable match, Bernard decided, allowing a faint smile.He gave himself a mental pat on the back. His good deed was done for the week. Maybe it would make up for being a hypocrite. 

Then again, he thought, as the stars came out, sometimes it’s necessary to be miserable alone, too. 

With this in mind, he slipped back into his dark, dusty creviceand cracked open his book once more.

[fiction-phan]

Ghostly

Summary: Dan Howell has been able to see ghosts his whole life. Things have gone from bad to worse now that his mother remarried and he finds himself sharing his new room with Phil, avery good looking guy. A guy, who happens to be dead. 

Words: 22.7k

Rating: Mature

Read it on AO3

A/N: I’m not even sure what I’m going to say. I wrote the first few paragraphs of this story back in December 2016. I was going to post it for one of the days of the 25 days of christmas but I started getting so many ideas that I knew it would be too long for that. It took me months to get it completely done. I stressed, I panicked and I cried because I wasn’t sure I was going to finish it in time. Somehow, I did it. This story is like my little baby and I’m so, so proud of it. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. 

(Btw, don’t let the title get to you. I promise the story is much better than the title I came up with in five minutes)

Big thank you goes to @findmeinthekingdm. She was the best beta I could have asked for. From rewording sentences that made no sense to pitching me new ideas, she was essential for this story to be posted today. Thank you for dealing with my procrastination. 

Thank you also to @gay-lizard-dads for the amazing art. You’ll get to see it soon, I promise. 

Warnings: Mentions of death. There is a short mention of homophobia in the beginning of the story. It’s nothing too bad but you should be aware it’s there. 

Dan was ruined. His mother obviously hated him, his father wanted absolutely nothing to do with him, and his friends had lost interest in him the second he said he was moving to a different school. It’s not as if it was something he chose himself. He couldn’t be blamed for his mother choosing to remarry someone who lived two hours away from his school.

If you asked him, the obvious choice would have been to drop this guy and find someone more accessible who wouldn’t ask for them to pack up their whole lives and move two hours away from their home. His mum clearly disagreed, judging by the dark stare she gave him when he dared to share his opinion.

Confronting his mum had resulted in an hour long rant from his mother about the beauty of falling in love, which only made Dan roll his eyes. “Falling in love is a beautiful experience that makes you do the craziest thing, the most thrilling things, no matter how stupid it may seem,” she said.

“Even if it means packing up everything and going to a place you’ve never been to?” Dan replied in the most monotonous way he could manage. Dan bit his tongue in order for him not to blurt out a sassier reply. All that coming from a woman who divorced twice, with one marriage that didn’t last a year. Hilarious.

“It’s well and good for you, mum, but I’m not the one who fell in love, so why the hell am I the one who’s stuck packing my whole life away?” He muttered angrily under his breath just as he taped up the last box with his belongings. He couldn’t get over how stupid the idea of them moving. Not only was he going to have to change schools in order to go to one closer to his mum’s future husband, but he was also expected to move into his house with them.

At first, Dan didn’t think it sounded too bad. Apparently Clive owned a larger than average house which would be an improvement over their minuscule apartment. He should have known that Clive owned a big house for a reason.

Imagine Dan’s shock when he found out that Clive had three sons. Three sons. He was going to have to share a bathroom with three tiny devils running around his feet and expected to take it with a smile. Not to mention that he couldn’t risk uttering a single complaint lest causing the end of his mother’s third marriage before it even happened.

Dan protested, of course he did. Not once, not twice, but countless of times. His mother found a way to shut him up, threatening him to leave him with his father if he didn’t stop complaining. And Dan did shut up. As much as he wasn’t happy about having to move away from where he had lived all his life, he would gladly take that option over having to live with his homophobic father who had quite a few choice words to share with him when Dan finally had the guts to come out to him. Needless to say, it didn’t go so well and they barely ever spoke anymore. Dan imagined that living with him would be like hell on earth.

His mum seemed to think that changing school meant Dan would no longer surround himself with criminals. If only she knew that Dan chose to have friends like that because it meant he didn’t have to let anyone get too close to him. Having people close to him meant forming relationships and feelings, both things Dan couldn’t allow himself to have.

It’s a never-ending cycle, and Dan seemed to be the only one who constantly has to face this. Dan had “friends” telling him they’d be there for him through thick and thin, but the second he does something that seems weird to society, they drop him like a hot potato and pretend they never even knew him. Dan learned it the hard way. How could eight-year-old Dan possibly have known that it wasn’t normal for kids to suddenly start seeing dead people and attempting to talk to them?

The first person he told was his mum who freaked out and started looking for psychiatrists she could send him to because, in her words, ‘he clearly was taking her divorce from his father really hard and that made him see things that weren't really there’. Her words, not his.

All the visits to specialists and psychiatrists did absolutely nothing. He kept seeing dead people and they still kept trying to communicate with him. No matter how many times he said that he didn’t have any idea who they were, they kept asking him for help in getting them out of the limbo they found themselves in.

It took him a while, but he finally figured out that the trick in getting his mother to stop sending him to specialists was to lie his way out of it. It hurt having to tell his mum that he was fine now, that he wasn’t seeing dead people anymore, but he kept seeing more and more of these people.

When lying to his mum, Dan lied to himself too. Every moment convincing his mum that it probably was a figment of a child's imagination that got a little carried away, he told himself the same exact thing. It's just my imagination. There's a little voice at the back of his mind chanting "You didn’t see anything. Your mind is just playing tricks on you,” but all he could see was a dead lady standing by his door frame. He felt her stare on him, and he felt violated, but he didn't dare to look or to speak up. The fear of seeing her sent shivers down his spine. She didn't look particularly ghostly, but there's just something about knowing she doesn't belong in his room.

He just ignored it. Ignorance really is bliss sometimes.

Dan should have known. After his mother’s reaction, his ‘gift’ was a secret he needed to keep to himself. It clearly wasn’t something normal and everyone would treat him differently like he was a freak. Dan’s not a freak, and he hated every moment spent having to see ghosts, and at the same time, living, breathing humans treating him as if he belonged in a mental institution if he hinted at the fact that he could see dead people.

Dan persevered. They don’t see it but he does. He decided to act as if everything about him was as normal as his peers but, as his mother said, love makes you do the craziest of things.

When Dan was thirteen, he was absolutely sure he was head over heels in love with his best friend. Thinking back on it now, it makes Dan cringe. His so-called feelings of love were enough for Dan to come clean to his best friend.

Dan had told his friend that he could see dead people. He helped them fix or get over the bad things they had done in life so they could leave the limbo they found themselves in and move on to the afterlife. Add that to the fact that he was gay, and Dan should not have been so surprised over the reaction he got.

Ollie had looked absolutely disgusted and called him names that was hard for Dan to forget to this day. He should have known that Ollie wouldn’t keep his mouth shut and Dan quickly became the school’s laughing stock; the faggot who can see dead people and talk to them.

He’ll never forget the months of bullying he endured just because he trusted someone with his deepest secret. That’s when he learned that people can’t be trusted, and someone like him couldn’t have any kind of relationship with anyone. He wasn’t ‘normal’ -- whatever normal meant -- and it was about time he accepted it.

Luckily enough, his mother remarried for the second time a few months after the incident and he changed schools. He attended a school where no one knew who he was or what he could do. He would never be normal as long as he kept seeing dead people, but as long as they don’t know about his condition, they wouldn’t consider him a freak. Dan got the fresh start he wanted.

That didn’t mean he wanted to be alone. He quickly learned how to fit in with the outcasts of his new school. He tried to ignore their bad habits and sometimes straight out offensive behaviour so he could have people to hang around with at school. No harm done. His mother clearly disagreed, though. She thought his “friends” were the reason why he never brought anyone home for her to meet and why he was so against the idea of moving home. Again.

Knowing that arguing was futile and not wanting to risk his mum going through with the threat of sending him to live with his dad, left Dan with very little he could do. He was just going to pack his stuff in boxes for the second time and hope there would not be a third time.

In the end, packing was better than thinking about the upcoming wedding.

*

The wedding was anything but extravagant. Dan never considered himself liking weddings and his mother’s was no different. However, he admitted that his mother actually looked really happy. Maybe moving would not be so bad if it meant his mum’s happiness didn’t just vanish after the wedding.

Luckily for Dan, there were no ghosts hanging around at the wedding, hence enjoyed a drink or two without anyone interrupting him and without having to disappear from his own mother’s wedding. His step-brothers did try to initiate awkward conversation with him but he was quick to start avoiding them after that.

Even though he was going to have to start living with them in the same house, Dan didn’t have any interest in involving to playing the part of a loving family. He agreed, albeit reluctantly, to move into a house with his mother’s new husband and that’s as much as he was willing to compromise.

Dan and his mum spent the previous week packing everything up into labelled boxes in preparation for their move since his mum was adamant that they spend the first night after the wedding in the new house. All of their belongings were taken to their new house by the removal guys, and now all that was left to do was for Dan to actually go to the house and start unpacking his stuff.

Not that he was in any rush to do that. As long as his room has a bed he can readily  sleep on, and all his toiletries are out of the box, there was no need for him to rush the unpacking process. He only hoped that this was going to be the last time he would have to pack his whole life away only to have to unpack it again somewhere new.

It was more work than it was worth.

A few hours into the wedding, Dan started getting restless. It was nice to see his mum in a pleasant mood, but he was very much looking forward to leaving the party and get into bed for a good night’s sleep. Parties were never really his thing and it only got worse when he swore to keep socialising with other people to a bare minimum.

He could only drink so much before his mother started directing worried frowns on his way, and so he soon found himself leaning against the wall in a corner and hoping his mum and her new husband didn’t take too long to cut the cake.

It seemed his wishes were finally answered since the photographer hired by his mum was soon pulling him to the very front so that he could take a photo of the whole ‘family’ together as his mum and her husband cut the cake together.

Dan tried his best to smile in a way that was considered realistic. He glanced at his mum and they shared a look. While his mum’s smile was warm and content, he prayed that his smile mirrored hers, and was not one of boredom. Thinking about getting to go to his new home after eating a piece of cake made it a bit easier.

After the cake has been cut and distributed among the guests, many people started saying their goodbye. Dan tried not to look overly happy when his mum let him know that they were going to leave soon so he could go home first.

He was aware that ideally he would have told his mum that he was fine with waiting so that they could all leave together as one new happy family, but he just couldn’t bring himself to actually tell her that. He just wanted to go home, get changed out of the uncomfortable suit he was forced to wear and get into bed.

So with a quick goodbye to his mother and an awkward handshake with Clive, he was off.

Now that Dan was on his way to what could be considered as his new home, he couldn’t help feeling a little uncomfortable. The only time he was taken to visit their new home by his mum was a few days before the wedding, when they had taken a few boxes that could fit in the car. His mum insisted on showing him his new room, maybe as an attempt to get him feeling excited over their upcoming move.

Dan didn’t hate the room his mum chose for him. It was spacious and there was a large window that allowed for a lot of light to shine inside. It was a nice upgrade that almost made their move worth it. Almost.

Now he found himself having to go to this new house by himself and Dan couldn’t help but feel like he was intruding somewhere he did not belong. He was almost inclined to turn back and return to the party in order to wait for his mother so they could go to the house together for the first time.

The thought of having to return to and force himself to engage in conversations with people he has never even seen before in his life quickly changed Dan’s mind. Clive’s house was going to be his new home now and so Dan needed to get used to going in and out on his own. Sure, he would have felt more comfortable going in with his mum for the first time but he had no intention of ruining the last few minutes of her wedding day.

He got out his new set of keys as soon as his home was visible down the road. He didn’t waste much time looking at it from the outside. Dan was looking forward too much to finally getting some well needed rest. It had been a very tiring week but Dan could finally put it all behind him.  Dan unlocked the door and quickly made his way inside, planning on preparing a nice hot bath to relax before going to bed.

Imagine his shock when, on walking into his new room, he realised that the room was inhabited by someone else. Someone who was not exactly alive.

*

“What the hell?”

This could not be happening to him. Of all the problems Dan had thought of regarding moving to a new home, he had never considered having a ghost in his room to be one of them. The ghost looked equally surprised as him, but that didn’t make Dan feel much better.

“I didn’t expect to see anyone coming in this early,” this man - this ghost - said nervously. He glanced at the clock that was already on Dan’s bedside table. Midnight. “Well, that’s not too early either,” the ghost admitted.“ It’s been awhile since anyone has come to stay in my room. My name is Phil,” the ghost said, smiling at him brightly. Dan wasn’t buying it.

Dan’s brain went through the two things things he wanted to do when he arrived home: take a relaxing bath and then sleep the night away. Instead, what he got was a ghost in his room who, unlike most ghosts Dan had met before, seemed to have no intention of starting a fight. That could mean two things: either Phil was still not aware that he was dead or he’s a harmless ghost.

Judging by what he said, Dan guessed it was the latter. That made things a little bit easier for him as it meant he didn’t have to break the news that Phil was dead and no longer exactly human. Few were the ghosts who took that piece of information well and Dan winced when he remembered back on all the times he ended up with bruises on his body because of that.

That didn’t mean Dan was at all happy with the current situation he found himself in. It was quite late in the evening and his week was tiring, to say the least. He didn’t have the time to try and get Phil to move on to the afterlife. Phil the Ghost would just have to wait.

“I think you mean my room. In case you haven’t noticed, you’re dead, so that means the room is not yours anymore. If you could kindly leave so I can get some sleep, it would be very much appreciated”, Dan said, already moving around the room to get the things he would need for his bath.

Phil’s smile was quickly wiped off of his face at Dan’s attitude. “Excuse me? I might be dead but this is still my house and you are still in my room. I’ve been staying here for years so, if anyone should leave, it should be you.”

Dan groaned and fought the urge to hit his head against the wall a few times. Of course he was stuck in the bedroom inhabited by a ghost. A ghost who did not seem the least bit inclined to get out and leave Dan alone.

“Look”, Dan started, trying to take on a different tactic. “I know you’re probably excited over finally meeting someone who can see you even though you’re a ghost. You probably can’t wait for me to start helping you fix whatever it is you need to fix so you can move on to the afterlife. I promise I’ll start helping you tomorrow, but for now I just need some rest. It’s been a hellish day, so I’ll repeat myself: get out.”

Phil looked confused and offended. “I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. I have no intention of going to the ‘afterlife’, as you called it, and I was perfectly happy here until you barged in, demanding that I leave.”

Dan was quickly coming to his wit’s end. He realised that he could stay in the middle of the room arguing until he turned blue in the face, and Phil would still be adamant on not leaving. Dan considered his best option: to ignore Phil and carry on with his plans regardless of the ghost currently sitting on his new bed.

He grabbed a towel and changed out of clothes, then walked to his ensuite bathroom, ignoring the pair of eyes following his every move. Dan slammed the bathroom door shut, hoping to get across to Phil just how pissed off he was feeling.

There wasn’t much he could do about the ghost situation at the moment. The following day, he would politely ask his mum’s husband for a new room and hopefully this whole mess would be put behind him.

*

“Absolutely not,” his mum said, crushing all his hopes and dreams of getting a bedroom that was not inhabited by a ghost.

Dan’s night with the ghost was not as horrible as he initially thought it would be. Phil barely talked to him at all and was gone most of the time. That didn’t mean Dan was going to stick around.

His bedroom had always been the one place he could go to that felt safe and private. He could do whatever he wants to do in it and no one would be the wiser. Dan lost count of how many times he slept naked at night when he got too hot or walked around naked when he forgot to take a towel to the bathroom. There was no way he could do that knowing there was the chance a ghost could have just appear out of thin air and see him in that vulnerable state.

He needed a new room. Surely, in a house as big as this, it would have some spare room he could use instead of the one that he was given.

Apparently not.

His mum refused to ask Clive for a new room. “I don’t see why you would want a new room. You have the biggest bedroom in the house because Clive wanted to get on your good side, and you’re the only one who doesn’t have to share anything. What’s not to like?”

It’s not as if Dan could tell her all about finding a ghost waiting for him in his new room when he got back from the wedding, so instead he tried to come up with a half-assed excuse that wasn’t convincing.

“I’m used to noisy rooms and this one is so quiet. I couldn’t sleep properly last night so I thought maybe I could get a bedroom that was facing the main road instead?” Dan wanted to hit himself the second he opened his mouth. What sort of excuse was that? His mum was not going to believe him and she isn’t the one to be blamed.

HIs mum raised her eyebrows at him, clearly have caught him lying, but she didn’t call him out on it. Instead, she suggested something that made Dan’s skin crawl. “I’m sure James would love to make some room for you so you can share with him. His bedroom is facing the main road so it’s just what you’re looking for and you can get to know each other better. You would have to share a bathroom but I’m sure you won’t mind”.

Dan’s plan had backfired completely and he wasn’t sure how he was going to get out of it. Even the idea of the ghost in his room catching him sleeping completely naked was more appealing than the thought of sharing a room with one of his new step brothers. Not just any step brother, but James. He was one of the most disgusting persons Dan had ever met and sharing a room with him is equivalent to Dan voluntarily entering his own personal hell. That was not something what he wanted now.

“You know what, I think I’ll just stick with the room I have now but thanks for the offer. I think the quiet will do me some good once I get used to it. Help me think better and… stuff,” Dan rambled, slowly backing out of the room, making a hasty retreat. He didn’t fail to notice the amused look on his mother’s face and, with a sigh, admitted that she played him really well.

Dan was left with only one choice. He was going to have to learn to share a bedroom with a ghost, at least until he could figure out the reason why Phil couldn’t get to the afterlife, and then try to help him out. He tried not to think about the fact that Phil didn’t seem inclined on leaving the world of the living and move on to the afterlife.

He walked into his room and somehow managed to keep himself from jumping a foot in the air when he caught sight of Phil sitting on his bed as if he was the king of the bed. Dan refused to admit that this probably was an everyday occurrence for Phil. Whether it was or not, Dan planned on putting a stop to it.

He fake coughed in order to get Phil’s attention and then went straight on to business. “My plan to switch rooms failed so I’m stuck here, at least for the time being. I understand that, technically, this is your room as much as it is mine, but we’re going to have to establish some ground rules.”

Phil grunted, and didn’t look particularly happy about it, but Dan couldn’t care. His goal is to win himself some privacy from this ghost. Dan’s the one alive and breathing. This is his room anyway.

“First of all, no random appearances in the bathroom. I don’t want to feel paranoid while taking a shower because I’m scared you’ll just pop up out of nowhere and see me naked. Also, you’re capable of knocking. Please do so before coming into the room so I can at least expect your appearance.” Dan didn’t think he was being too unreasonable with his requests. It’s what everyone with a roommate would expect in order to live peacefully.

Phil was not of the same opinion. “You think I’m going to be knocking to come into my own room? If anyone here should be knocking, it’s you! How dare you just show up here and expect me to live like a guest in my own home? Who do you think you are?”

Dan probably looked like a fish out of water. From the second he laid eyes on him, Phil seemed like the kind of guy that was very difficult to anger. Dan was surprised that he managed to do so after just two encounters. He was not about to back down, though. This room might have been Phil’s at some point but he was dead now and Dan was the rightful owner.

Phil just had to deal with it.

“I don’t know if you’ve realised this but you’re dead,” Dan said, starting to lose his patience. “The one thing you should really be doing is trying to figure out a way to move on so you can leave me alone and I can finally get some privacy in this stupid house.”

That seemed to be the worst thing to say. Phil started turning red (or as red as you can turn when you’re a ghost) and then simply disappeared with a pop.

Maybe Dan had finally gotten through to him.

*

He didn’t.

The following night, Dan was woken up in the middle of the night to the sound of banging coming from his bathroom.

“What the hell?” he muttered, quickly getting out of bed to check what all the commotion was about. He could only stare in bewilderment at the sight of Phil throwing bottles of shampoo and body wash onto the floor.

“What in the world are you doing?!” Dan shouted, and then bit his tongue, realising that it is the middle of the night and he doesn’t want to wake anyone up.

Phil looked at him in what appeared to be satisfaction, and then threw one last bottle to the floor just to spite Dan before disappearing as if he was never there in the first place.

Dan really wanted to think that this was all a big misunderstanding. Maybe Phil needed to use the shower, and he accidentally dropped the bottles he wanted to use. Even with his brain feeling muddled with weariness, Dan could tell that was probably not the case. Why would a ghost need to take a shower?

The truth was that Dan knew perfectly well what Phil was doing, he just couldn’t believe it. The ghost was trying to get back at him for trying to put up some boundaries. “I can’t believe this is the thanks I get for not exorcising him and instead trying to make things go smoothly.”

He went back to bed, hoping that this would be the last time before his patience wear off.

*

That wasn’t the last time.

In the next few days, Phil continued to try his very best to make Dan’s life difficult. It started off with a mild disturbance; an instance that was similar to how Phil woke Dan up by throwing bottles in the bathroom. But now, it was going downhill.

Dan still turned bright red whenever he remembered catching Phil peaking from behind his bedroom door as he was changing into his pyjamas for the night. The only reason he didn’t start yelling on the top of his lungs, screaming to lecture Phil the Ghost about privacy, and reminding the ghost the importance knocking was because he didn’t want to wake up the rest of the people in the house. If he was caught, how would he explain to his mum the reason why he was yelling at the wall about privacy?

He hadn’t gotten off before they moved out, and Dan was feeling particularly lustful. He hadn’t gotten off since before they moved out and now Dan was feeling the effects of it. He was never the kind of guy to go too long without having a little bit of fun, even if by himself. With everything that had been going on since he moved, Dan just never found the time.

Phil’s presence, or the fact that he can poof into thin air without a warning, had been the constant reason why any of Dan’s plans to enjoy himself were ruined. He didn’t consider himself to be very shy but certain things were meant for his eyes only. However, the ghost had cheekily seen him changing into his clothes more often than he should. There was no way Dan was letting the ghost see him in the midst of pleasure.

Strangely enough, it had been a few days since he saw Phil. Even though a part of him knew that it was probably a ploy so as to get to him when he least suspected, a more hopeful part wanted to believe Phil had finally given up and was leaving him alone for a few days.

Whatever the reason, Dan was not about to waste an opportunity like this. He hurriedly grabbed an extra towel, and walked into the bathroom, feeling excited. Dan made sure to look his doors, in case any living person in this house decided to barge into his room. Even though Phil could easily appear wherever he wanted to, at least he was secured from one thing, and that allowed him to be a little less paranoid than he already was.

Dan stood under the shower and waited for the warmth to kick in. He tried not to think about how he preferred his bed than being in the shower. He didn’t let his mind go there. Phil’s a creep and Dan really wanted to avoid feeling embarrassed. This was his chance, and Dan was not going to waste it.

All thoughts of Phil were gone from his head as he slowly started moving his hand up and down, letting out small huffs and moans with each drag of his hand. One thing was for sure, Dan was never going to go so long without getting himself off again.

He spent the next few minutes in the same way, moving his hand up and down and making sure to change his rhythm every once in awhile in order to keep himself on his toes.  Dan could feel himself getting close, but he still made sure to keep his noises under control. The last thing he needed was for his mum to hear him or even worse, his new “family”.

Dan used one hand to hold on to the wall and kept pleasuring himself with the other, making sure to increase his speed just as he felt himself getting closer and closer to the edge. He was so close, just a little longer and he would get there--

“Oh my God.”

Dan quickly whirled around when he heard a voice behind him and almost caused him to slip in the shower. He could feel himself turning bright red the second he realised it was Phil staring at him with his mouth wide open and looking him up and down; flustered.

Dan quickly tried to cover himself as much as he could with his hands and then threw the bottle of bath wash he was using at Phil’s head. He missed.

“Get the hell out of here!” Dan hissed, wanting to get out of the shower and push Phil out himself but not wanting to risk exposing himself more than he already had. Thankfully, that made Phil snap out of the daze he seemed to have found himself in and quickly walked out of the bathroom by walking through the wall; probably the same way he had let himself in, but not before getting one last look at Dan which made the latter turn rosier out of embarrassment.

With the knowledge that Phil was safely out of the bathroom, Dan turned around once again and made a quick work of rinsing himself off. The lustful mood he was in before had completely disappeared just like his hard on, and now all he wanted to do was to get out of the shower, get dressed and then find a corner to hide in for the rest of the month.

Just the thought of facing Phil after what had just occured made him wish the ground would just swallow him up so that he never had to look at the ghost again.

Dan quickly dried himself up and got dressed then walked out of the bathroom. It was time to give the ghost a piece of his mind. He was putting up with way too much and Phil was clearly taking advantage of it. Walking in on Dan during such private moment was the last straw.

His anger ebbed out when he noticed Phil sitting on Dan’s bed, looking petrified. “I didn’t mean to walk in on you like that!” Phil defended himself as soon as he caught the sight of Dan. “I thought I’d mess with you because I haven’t done that in a while so I decided to scare you while you were showering. I didn’t know you would be doing… other things.”

Dan could feel himself turn red in embarrassment again at having the ghost remind him of what the latter saw. Even though he wanted to be angry at Phil for barging into the bathroom on him during something that should have been private, he couldn’t find it in himself to yell at him.

It was clear by the look on Phil’s face that, even though he wanted to be mischievous and get on Dan’s nerves, it was never his intention to sneak a peek at Dan while he was busy pleasuring himself. It was also clear to Dan that Phil was not going anywhere and they needed to figure out a few ground rules if they were to cohabit without a problem. Dan hadn’t seen this situation coming when he tried to make a truce with Phil in the beginning, but with the ghost finally seeing the point, it might be a good time for Dan to try to establish a protocol.

Dan sighed and sat down next to Phil on the bed. “What happened today cannot -- under any circumstances -- happen again,” he started, and was glad to notice that Phil was nodding vigorously from the corner of his eyes. At least they were finally on the same page.

Despite wanting to solve the matter, Dan’s mind muddled with trying to come up with a solution to their dilemma, and he couldn’t think of something that would allow him to have the privacy he wanted.

It was then that Dan recalled the time at his old school -- the time when he heard a couple of students talk about what students in university do to get some private time when they are in shared dormitories. Dan figured that that could actually work for him and Phil without being too awkward.

“I could use a sock”, he said, and but pressed his lip to keep himself from laughing when he saw the baffled look that Phil was giving him. “Students at college tend to wrap a sock around the door handle when they don’t want their roommates to barge in on them. Maybe we could adopt that system ourselves so no more awkward encounters like today happen again?”

Phil seemed to be a little confuse,  and it reminded Dan of the fact that he knew next to nothing about the ghost who was inhabiting his room with him. Phil could have died years before Dan was even born and he wouldn’t know because he had never bothered to ask.

“How old are you exactly?” he asked, a little hesitant to know the truth. “I mean your real age, not how old you were when you died.”

Phil seemed to be in thought for a few seconds before he answered. “I think I might be thirty years old this year. I can’t be sure, though. It’s hard to keep a proper track of time when you’re dead. All I’m sure of is that I was twenty-two when I died.”

Dan couldn’t help but feel relieved. If he had to be stuck with a ghost sharing his bedroom, at least said ghost wasn’t much older than him. The situation they found themselves in would have been a lot creepier if the ghost Dan was stuck with was double his age.

“You’re old enough to know about the sock method then, right? I put a sock on the doorknob, and you’ll know that I need some alone time, and you’re not to interrupt me. Do you think you can do that?”

Dan half-expected the ghost to argue and say that this was his house, not Dan’s, and he wasn’t going to be stopped by some stupid sock on a doorknob. But Dan was pleasantly surprised when all Phil did was nod in acceptance of Dan’s idea.

“That sounds good to me. I wanted to apologise again. It’s true that I had no idea what you were actually doing in the shower,” he started, being kind enough to ignore the way Dan’s face turned cherry red at being reminded of the incident earlier. “It was wrong of me to just barge in like that, no matter what you were doing.”

Dan was not expecting an actual apology from the ghost, who just a few days earlier, was yelling at him for being an intruder. This left Dan off guard, and he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to reply. In the end, he just settled for a thin smile and a nod.

His plan was to leave it at that, but then Dan remembered that he was not the kindest to the ghost when they first met and, in retrospect, had said things that he shouldn’t have said. Phil was not the only one who needed to apologise.

“I’m sorry too,” Dan finally said, figuring that he needed to get their misunderstandings out of the way. “I wasn’t the nicest to you when I got here, and I could have been a little more understanding of the fact that a stranger was walking into your home; trying to order you around.”

Dan almost made a joke over the fact that he didn’t really need to apologise for walking into his room in the first place but changed his mind at the last second. Something told him Phil would not appreciate the joke, especially after he had finally apologised.

With all the apologies out of the way, Dan decided this was the right time to bring up something that had been making him curious ever since he found Phil in his room. “You never did tell me why you didn’t move on to the afterlife.”

He realised it might not have been his greatest idea when he saw the way Phil’s face closed off when he brought it up. They were finally making progress and acting friendlier towards each other, but it seemed as if Dan somehow managed to ruin it with just one sentence.

“I don’t really want to talk about it, and I don’t think it’s any of your business anyway.”

Dan wanted to accept that as his answer and move on, he really did, but curiosity always got the best of him. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, but I can help you if you want. I’ve helped many ghosts who were stuck here get to the afterlife.”

Phil scoffed at that and shook his head. “My apology did absolutely nothing. You’re still trying to get rid of me.”

Dan could understand why the ghost would get that impression, but it really wasn’t the case. Now that they got a few things out of the way, he was no longer in any rush to get rid of him. He was genuinely just trying to help, but it seemed like his good intentions were not getting through to Phil.

“I can understand why you would get that impression, but I swear this isn’t me trying to get rid of you,” Dan explained, trying to get through to Phil. “I genuinely just want to help. It can’t be easy hanging around on your own with no one to keep you company.”

He managed not to upset Phil even more with his answer and even got a small smile in return. “I appreciate you wanting to help me, but I’m fine. You get used to it after a while and besides, I’m not completely alone anymore. I’ve got you to keep me company.”

Dan tried not the let his words affect him but ultimately failed when he couldn’t stop himself from smiling. How they had gone from arguing and fighting to enjoying each other’s company was beyond him, but Dan couldn’t find it in himself to care.

*

Their relationship improved after the conversation. Phil was always careful to knock before walking into his room, and Dan soon found himself comfortable enough with the ghost to open up like he never had before, not even with Ollie.

“I’ve been able to see dead people since I was very young,” he said, as he was lying in bed with Phil lying down next to him. “At first I didn’t realise they were dead. I would see someone staring at me, and I would point them out to my mum, only to be told that there was no one there. It took me a while to figure out not everyone could see what I was seeing.”

Dan let out a humourless laugh; thinking back on what he went through from such a young age. “At first my mum just thought it was harmless imagination. She thought I was pointing out my imaginary friends to her. She freaked when she realised I had been serious all along. That’s when the visit to the therapists started.”

He felt a hand settle on top of his and he squeezed in return to show Phil he appreciated his comfort. Dan learned from their budding friendship that Phil was a really good listener. He always let Dan finish what he had to say before making any comments and knew just how to comfort him silently.

“They all had something different to say. Some said I was delusional, others thought I was experiencing hallucinations. Most of them thought it was just my way of showing how upset I was over my parents getting a divorce. It didn’t matter that I kept telling them I was glad for their divorce because it meant I didn’t have to hear any more fighting.”

A part of him still couldn’t believe that he was speaking about this out loud to someone for the first time in his life, and he wasn’t getting judged. He wasn’t sure what was making him trust Phil so much.

Maybe it was the fact that the ghost already knew he could see dead people, so he knew he wouldn’t be judged over it. Whatever it was, Dan was grateful for it. It felt really good to finally be able to open up about a part of himself which he had always kept hidden.

“When the therapists started talking about giving me medication, I panicked. I knew what I was seeing was real. There really were dead people trying to talk to me, and they weren’t just a fragment of my imagination. In the end, I figured out that the only way to get everyone off my back was to lie and tell them that I stopped seeing dead people. It worked like a charm.”

Dan still felt bitter when he remembered how accomplished everyone looked when he lied. As if their useless treatment and telling him over and over again that what he was seeing was not real, was finally working. As heartbreaking as it was as a child, Dan couldn’t help but to think back on that moment with a degree of happiness.

Lying to everyone got him out of a situation he hated being in. There were no more therapists behaving as if they knew better than him, and his mother stopped looking at him with eyes and words brimmed with worry and fear. He could finally live a normal life with his friends, even if that didn’t last very long.

He had already told Phil he was gay, and recalling the ghost’s reaction after telling him just what Ollie did, never failed to put a smile on his face. Phil had demanded Dan to tell him just where Ollie lived so he could give him a little visit for revenge. Dan couldn’t bring himself to remind Phil that he could not really do much to Ollie considering he was a ghost and no one could see him. It was the thought that counts, anyway.

Once he was sure he was finished with his story, Phil turned to look at him, and Dan was shocked to see him looking so sad. It was true that what he told Phil was not a happy story, but it still amazed him to see someone else looking so upset on his behalf. It was a new feeling and Dan found himself feeling fonder of Phil.

“I’m sorry you had to go through that. It can’t be easy, but I can’t say that it’s an unfortunate ability to possess. If you weren’t able to see dead people, we never would have met, and I would have kept on walking aimlessly in this life with no one to communicate with.”

Even with the pain and suffering Dan went through because of his ability to see the dead, he still couldn’t disagree with Phil. It’s true that they didn’t get along at first, but now Dan couldn’t even imagine himself coming back home from school without finding Phil ready to greet him in his room.

Even Dan’s mum was starting to notice a difference, and even commented on the fact that Dan seemed happier these days. She thought it was because of his new school and the new house, but to Dan, his happiness comes from coming home to see Phil. He finally had someone to listen and talk to after so many years. Dan could finally say he was content.

Of course that wouldn’t last forever.

“You’ve been so honest with me”, Phil suddenly said, shaking Dan out of his thoughts. “You’ve told me about being gay, about Ollie, and now you’ve even told me about what you went through when you were younger. I haven’t even told you why I never moved on to the afterlife.”

Dan found himself suddenly sitting up straight after hearing that. It was true that Phil never brought up the topic again after Dan offered his help. Dan was still curious about it,  but never brought it up himself because he wanted to respect the ghost’s wishes. He wanted to wait until Phil was ready.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. Talking about personal things that still hurt us… It’s hard. I don’t want you to tell me just because you feel like you owe me. You don’t. I told you all of that because I trust you. I want you to do the same. Tell me only when you’re ready.”

Phil was quick to reply. “I know I don’t have to tell you, but I want to, because I trust you.”

Knowing that Phil trusted him enough to talk to Dan about something grievous warmed his heart. It was a good feeling, but he shouldn’t fail Phil’s trust in him.

Phil took a deep breath, preparing himself for what he was about to say. “Ten years ago, I was sleeping in this very room. I woke up in the middle of the night because I could hear screams and shouts coming from outside. At first, I thought it was some drunks having a fight or something but, when I looked out of my window, I realised they were all looking at my house in horror. The whole thing was on fire.”

Dan could only look at Phil in shock. Clive had never mentioned anything about the house being burnt down when Dan and his mum moved in. Granted, Dan never really asked him anything about the house, but it was still a shock to hear.

“I quickly ran to the door to get out even though I was already thinking it was going to be hopeless. You know this room is at the very top of the house. The chances of me getting out of my room and downstairs safely were slim, but I didn’t want to just give up. Turns out, it didn’t matter. My bedroom door was locked from the outside, and there was no way for me to get out.”

Even though Phil didn’t say it, Dan could still assume what he meant. He was killed. Someone must have locked the door from the outside, then set fire to the house with the intention of Phil being trapped inside with no way of getting out. “It was murder.”

Phil nodded with a bitter smile. “Yeah. That’s not why I can’t move on to the afterlife though. I.. .never found out who murdered me. From what I figured, the police carried out an investigation but, by the time they put off the fire, the whole house was in ruins, and they could barely even identify my body. There was no evidence -- everything was destroyed by the fire. The case was filed as unsolved.”

Dan wasn’t sure what he could say. He desperately wanted to help Phil to find peace after years of uncertainty, by moving on to the afterlife. Dan didn’t even know where to begin. If the police were unable to find anything after investigations, Dan doubted he was going to have any luck in finding Phil’s murderer.

“I’m going to do everything I can to help to uncover the truth, Phil,” he promised.

Phil smiled at him, but Dan could tell that the ghost was convinced that there was nothing Dan could do, and he wasn’t exactly wrong. But Dan was determined not to give up.

You deserve to know who killed you. I know it might seem impossible right now, but so does seeing the dead and… Here I am,” Dan said, gesturing to himself, making Phil laugh.

“Thank you,” Phil said with a smile. That only made Dan more resolute to find out the truth.

*

“Dan, you’ve been on your laptop for days and haven’t gotten any closer to figuring it out. If I had known you would act like this I would have never told you what happened. You haven’t done your homework in three days!”

Dan could only roll his eyes at Phil. “Please. If I wasn’t looking things up, I still wouldn’t do my homework until my teachers threatened to expel me so I’m really not doing anything different.”

Phil looked like he wanted to argue but it wasn’t as if Dan was lying. He was never the kind of person to finish his homework early and always tried to find whatever excuse possible to simply not do it at all.

“Fine, don’t do your homework but at least stop wasting your time searching for things you won’t find. Whatever it is you’re looking for, you won’t find it on the Internet. It happened ten years ago, Dan.”

Dan was on a streak; looking through the internet in the hopes of stumbling on something that could help him in his search for Phil’s murderer, but Phil was right. The chances of finding anything remotely useful about a case that happened ten years was almost impossible.

He stopped typing and scrolling long enough to give Phil a dirty look. “It’s like you don’t even want me to find out who murdered you. I know that the internet is most probably not going to give me what I’m looking for, but I can’t just do nothing. I’ve already looked through every newspaper in the library with no results.”

“It’s not that I don’t want you to find out the truth. I just don’t want to see you waste your time on something that happened ten years ago.”

Phil just didn’t get it. Dan needed to find out the truth. He wanted to help out Phil more than he ever wanted to help any ghosts he has encountered before. It just so happened that Phil’s case was the hardest one he had ever tried to solve.

Usually the dead people who ask Dan for help just want him to deliver a message to loved ones or want to know how their families were doing. Once, there was even an old lady who wanted him to find a new home for her dog. Never before did he have to play detective and attempt to solve a murder.

It suddenly hit Dan. “I think I’m searching for the wrong things. You said the police gave up because there were no evidence, and yes, it’s unlikely I’d find any if they can’t even find anything. But maybe I can look something up about my… power,” he said.

Dan thought his idea would be received well by Phil, and the ghost would finally offer to help him out rather than leaving him to look things up on his own, but all Dan got was a sigh. “What are you going to look up, Dan? ‘I see dead people in the streets and need to know how to help them cross to the other side’. I’m sure that is going to give you a lot of trustworthy results and not swindlers, taking money from people who are grieving.”

That was not the attitude Dan was looking for. “You know what, I’m not doing this for fun. You’ve been stuck in this limbo for ten years and I’m doing my best to try and help you out. I would appreciate a little help rather than you trying to demotivate me,” he snapped.

Dan was more than aware that he was fighting a losing battle. He was not going to find any evidence about who killed Phil and the chances of finding anything remotely helpful about his power on Google was slim.

He knew all that, but Dan still didn’t want to give up. Phil was turning into the one person who meant the most to Dan and it killed him to see Phil stuck in a limbo with no way out. He just wanted to help, so having Phil constantly telling him to give up was getting on his nerves.

Phil didn’t seem to have any intention of backing down. “Did you ever think that maybe I don’t want your help? I’ve been here on my own for ten years and suddenly you show up, trying to change everything. Maybe I don’t want to go to the afterlife. Maybe I just want to stay here and talk to you and have actual conversations with actual people after years of only having myself for company.”

Dan tried to ignore the guilt feeling that was starting to creep up. It never occurred to him that Phil might not want to move on to the afterlife. He just figured that since Phil opened up about the reason why he was still here, it meant he was finally ready to accept Dan’s help and that he was ready to move on. He also tried not to think that Phil moving on to the afterlife would mean never seeing him again. The thought hurt Dan.

“You can’t possibly want to stick around here, Phil,” he said, trying to reason with him. “I enjoy your company as well but I’m the only person you can talk to. No one else can see you. And I’m going to get old, Phil. I’m going to get old while you stay exactly as you are because you’re dead. Is that really the life you want for yourself?”

“Don’t you think I know that?” Phil snapped; he looked hurt. “Don’t you think I spend every moment thinking about having to watch you grow older, while I stay looking exactly the same? I think about it all the time, but it doesn’t make me want to leave. I appreciate you wanting to help Dan - I really do - but I should be the one to decide what I want to do.”

Dan wasn’t sure what he was supposed to reply. On one hand, Phil’s words warmed his heart. Phil enjoyed spending time with him as much as he did. He didn’t want to leave him. On the other hand, Dan didn't want to be the one keeping Phil from finally moving on to the afterlife to  live a better life.

“You’re right, I can’t tell you what to do. I can’t force you to help me find out the truth, and I’ll accept your wish not to move on to the afterlife if that’s what you want. But you can’t stop me from looking. I will keep on looking for ways in which I can help you so that, if you change your mind, I’ll know what to do.”

Phil seemed disappointed and it was clear he disagreed with Dan, but at least he didn’t argue. Dan was going to count that as his victory. He was going to respect Phil’s wishes and secretly celebrate the fact that he was going to have Phil all for himself, at least for the time being.

But no one was going to stop him from looking for answers.

*

Dan spent weeks searching for answers and he wasn’t any closer to finding out anything than he was at the start.

Looking through Google gave him nothing but disappointment and frustration as he could only find websites of people claiming they could talk to dead loved ones for a price. Dan didn’t doubt for a second that these people were all frauds and not like him.

At least they were all frauds, until he stumbled upon a particular website which did not seem as shady as the others had. At first he was uncertain, as it was a website dedicated to the supernatural and Dan never considered himself as anything. At the most, he could say that he considered himself to be a medium.

Or he didn’t, until he stumbled upon a particular post written by a guy who appeared his age. What caught Dan’s eye was the fact that this guy described everything Dan went through from when he was young; when he started seeing dead people.

His logic was telling him that this was all coincidence and this guy was just joking around or lying. There was no way there were other people like Dan out there, who knew what it was like to be like him.

Even knowing that the chances of this being fake were high, he couldn’t help but try to get in contact with the person who wrote the post: Maurice.

Dan quickly typed out a message and sent it to him. He made sure not to say anything about his own abilities, instead he kept the message general. He just wanted to learn more about Maurice; not expose himself.

Maurice was quick to reply. He told him all about seeing his first dead person when he was six years old and telling everyone at school about his ability. Much like Dan, it resulted in him getting shunned by all his classmates.

Dan tried not to fall for anything, but he couldn’t help it. Maurice’s story almost matched his experiences - and they were convincing. He couldn’t help but to consider that there could be some truth to it.

Dan then messaged Maurice back, asking him to meet up before Dan changed his mind. If there was any chance of other people out there having the same ability as him, he wasn’t going to waste it. He might never get another chance to learn about himself.

It didn’t take long for Maurice to reply and agree to meet up. They quickly settled for a place and time and agreed to talk more face-to-face.

After setting up their appointment, Dan began to regret his rash decision. He thought of what Phil would say if he were ever to find out Dan agreed to meet a total stranger to discuss about his power. There was no doubt in Dan’s mind that Phil would be completely against it.

That was mostly why, in the end, Dan decided not to tell him anything about it. Dan was going to come up with some excuse of why he was going out, then meet up with Maurice. If things went well, he would tell Phil about it, and if it didn’t go to plan, Phil wouldn’t know anything in the first place. It was a fool-proof plan.

Now all Dan needed to do was to meet up with Maurice and hope that he was not making a big mistake.

*

Dan was relieved to find out that Maurice really was telling the truth about seeing dead people, and he was only a few years older than him. One of the biggest fears Dan had about this meeting was not having known anything about Maurice, not even his age. At least now he could confirm that he was not old enough that Maurice could pass as his dad.

“Do you know anything else about people like us… apart from being able to see dead people”, Dan asked curiously.

Now that he knew someone who was in the same boat as him, Dan was desperate to find more about who they were and what they could do. Dan found it hard to believe that all he could do was see dead people. There have to be other things he could do, maybe even something he could do to help out Phil.

Maurice did not disappoint. “Did you seriously think that all you could do was see dead people? After all these years, you’ve never figured anything else out?”

Dan could feel himself turning red. How was he supposed to learn anything else about his power when, until a few days ago, he was certain that he was the only person in the whole world that could do this? Not to mention that half of the time he was too busy trying to hide his abilities from everyone else.

“Are you actually going to tell me what else we can do, or do I have to guess?” Dan asked sarcastically. So far, he was not impressed by Maurice’s attitude towards him.

“It’s not as simple as a lecture. There are things which I can’t describe but I can definitely show you. If you’re interested, that is.”

Of course Dan was interested. He would not be here if he didn’t want to learn more about his ability. He would be back home and hanging out with Phil.

“What else can people like you and me do then?”

The last thing he was expecting was for Maurice to smirk and shake his head. “I’ll show you everything you want to know and teach you. However, we can’t possibly do everything today and it’s getting late. How about we meet up another time?”

Dan was starting to get the impression that Maurice didn’t have much interest in talking to him about their abilities, and was much more interested in getting into his pants instead. The hungry look he was giving him only confirmed his suspicions.

He was so close to saying no and going back home, but then he thought of just who was waiting for him back at home. Phil. He needed to do this if he was going to have any luck in finding out a way to help out Phil get to the afterlife if he ever changed his mind.

“Fine, we’ll do it your way. I’ll meet you next week at the same coffee shop, and you can show me everything I need to know. Happy?”

Maurice wasn’t done trying to get what he wanted. “One meeting is not enough to get through everything. There’s a lot for me to teach you. I’ll make you a deal. We’ll meet at my place every Tuesday at five and I’ll teach you everything you want to know.”

Dan had no doubts over what Maurice was doing now. He didn’t have any actual interest in teaching him, and at this point, Maurice was just taking advantage of the situation. He must have realised that Dan was desperate for more information and decided to gain something from it.

At first thought, Dan didn’t have any intention in saying yes. Maurice didn’t interest him in the same way, and it was clear that they both wanted very different things from each other. Thinking about Phil again quickly changed Dan’s mind.

He needed Maurice, whether Dan liked it or not. Without him he was not going to learn anything new about his abilities and he would not be of any help. He wasn’t happy about having to spent so much time with Maurice, but it was clear that there weren’t many choices for him to choose from. Maurice got nothing out of helping him out and so he was not going to settle for anything else than what he was offering.

“Fine, it’s a deal. But I’m only meeting you for an hour every week. No more and no less.”

Phil wasn’t going to be happy about this.

*

“You did what?!” Phil yelled, looking at Dan as if he completely lost his mind. Dan couldn’t blame him, but there was no need for yelling.

“I know it sounds bad, but there’s a reason why I agreed in the first place. He’s going to teach me more about my ability, about what else I can do other than seeing dead people,” he rushed to explain.

Phil didn’t seem to be unfazed. “You agreed to meet a complete stranger without telling anyone about it, and now you’re telling me that you’ve agreed to go to his place once a week. Dan, I shouldn’t be telling you what a stupid idea this is,” he said, sounding exasperated.

“You know nothing about this guy. For all we know, he could be lying about seeing dead people and just using it as an excuse to take advantage of you. You can’t just show up to his place like that.”

Dan knew that what Phil was saying was true, but he also knew that he didn’t have any other choice. “What he told me fits perfectly with what I have experienced ever since I started seeing dead people. I don’t think he’s lying, Phil, and if there’s any chance for me to learn more about what I can do, I have to risk it. It’s the only way I can help you.”

That was clearly the wrong thing to say judging by the way Phil clenched his fists and looked away from him. “I’ve already told you that I don’t need your help! We agreed that you will give me the choice and going around to strangers’ homes for ‘lessons’ is not giving me a choice.”

Dan was getting tired of his attempts at helping being thrown back in his face by Phil over and over again. “I said I’m going to give you the choice and I have no intention of going back on my promise. But I want to have it all figured out in case you change your mind. Besides, did you ever think that maybe I’m not just doing this for you? That maybe after years of thinking I’m the only one who can see dead people, I’ve finally found someone who is like me? Who can understand me?”

Dan made sure not to mention anything about how Maurice did not particularly impress him with his attitude. Phil already seemed to be on edge, he didn’t want to end up making it worse. Let Phil think that he was happy to hang out with Maurice.

Phil let out a resigned sigh, then shook his head. “I don’t know why you even bothered telling me. It’s pretty clear to me that you never had any intention of listening to what I have to say. Go, hang out with Maurice. See if I care.” With that Phil disappeared and Dan was left alone in his bedroom, staring at thin air.

This had gone even worse than Dan was expecting.

*

Phil didn’t really talk to him for the next couple of days. He was adamant on telling Dan just how bad of an idea hanging out with Maurice was.

“Are you sure you want to do this, Dan? Because we’re talking about spending an hour every week with a complete asshole who only wants to get in your pants. It’s dangerous.”

Dan had enough of this. “I’m going to his place to learn more about my abilities. How is that dangerous? Besides, I’m more than capable of taking care of myself. Can’t you just trust me?”

Phil didn’t bring it up again after that but it was clear that he was not happy about the situation but Dan didn’t care. Phil would eventually get over it, and he would have more knowledge about what he could do.

The first session with Maurice wasn’t bad. He still tried flirting with Dan, but it never went further than that, and he did keep his end of the bargain by explaining to Dan more about their abilities and what they could do.

He even introduced Maurice to Phil and, even though the ghost was determined on hating him, at least now he could no longer give Dan grief over meeting with a stranger.

The problems only started later on, when it seemed as if Maurice was starting to get more confident in his advances on Dan.

“Not everyone can do what I do,” Maurice said. “I’ve met people whose powers are not strong enough; they can just hear dead people. Others can see them. People who are more powerful tend to have more capabilities. I have a good feeling about you.”

Dan ignored the smirk Maurice was directing his way. Instead, Dan only focused on the new information he was given. He could certainly do more than just hear dead people; Phil was proof. Not to mention that Dan could also touch them. Maybe Maurice wasn’t exactly wrong. “What can you do?”

Dan regretted asking Maurice the question as soon as he saw the shade of cockiness on the latter’s face.

“I’m glad you asked. I can do more than just talking to the dead. I have the ability to remove someone’s soul from their body and replace it with someone else’s. That’s pretty cool, but I think my favourite ability is being able to travel back in time. I’ve always wanted to be a time traveller.”

Dan wasn’t sure whether Maurice was just taking the piss or was being serious. Both abilities sounded far-fetched and he couldn’t help but think that Maurice just made them up to mess with him. Then again, even speaking to dead people sounded far-fetched to someone who couldn’t do it.

“Wouldn’t removing someone’s soul from their body kill them?” Dan asked, saying the first thing that came into his head.

Maurice shrugged. “Essentially, yes.”

Dan would have taken a step back from Maurice if he could.  Maybe Phil was onto something when he said Maurice could be dangerous. Someone who went around ripping people’s souls from their bodies didn’t  seem like the sort of person Dan wanted to be associated with.

Maurice must have noticed the effect of his words on Dan because he quickly backtracked. “I only did it once and I didn’t know what I was doing. I was still new to this whole thing and it just happened. I don’t make a habit out of ripping souls out of people.”

Something about the way he said it didn’t convince Dan. He was so invested in this new tidbit of information he got from Maurice that he barely thought about the fact that apparently Maurice could travel back in time.

“I think we should call it a day, I’m not feeling very well,” Dan said. He needed to get away from Maurice to try to process what he had been told.

“You’re leaving already? It hasn’t been an hour and our deal was that we meet up for an hour once a week.”

Dan knew he was right. Their deal was an hour every week, but he couldn’t force himself to stick through their meeting; not when his mind was filled with thoughts of people painfully having their souls ripped out of their bodies, leaving them in a comatose state. Dan’s thought was going to be the death of him.

“I know, but I’m really not feeling well today. We’ll continue next time.”

Maurice didn’t seem to be buying it, but at least it didn’t seem like he was going to argue. “Fine, we’ll continue this next week then. I’ll just give you something so that you don’t miss me until I see you again next week…”

Before Dan could get a chance to react, Maurice had already leaned in to kiss him. Dan quickly pushed him away in order to put more space between them. “What the Hell do you think you’re doing?!” Dan hissed.

Maurice didn’t even look remotely guilty. He was still smirking at Dan as if he hadn’t just kissed him out of the blue, given that he must have sensed that Dan wasn’t interested in him.

“Oh, come on, Dan. You must have realised that I like you.”

Unbelievable. Dan could not believe that Maurice was acting as if nothing was wrong. “And you must have realised that I have zero interest in you whatsoever, and yet you still kissed me. I think these meetings were a mistake. Don’t expect to see me next week,” he said, making a move to grab his bag. He was stopped by Maurice.

“I don’t think you want to do that, Dan,” said Maurice in a provocative voice that creeped out the wits of Dan. “At least not if you want to keep on seeing your precious Phil.”

That stopped Dan right in his tracks, turning cold. “What did you just say?”

“Let’s just say that I did a bit of research after you introduced us and I know where he is buried. I could very easily exorcise him if I wanted to. Do you really want that to happen to poor Phil?”

Dan wanted to punch the smirk off of Maurice’s face. He did not want to keep attending these ‘lessons’ with Maurice, not after what happened. Maurice made his intentions clear. Dan could see that he didn’t have any real interest on helping him learn more about his abilities.

As much as he wanted to tell Maurice to get lost and never see him again, he knew he couldn't do that. Dan wasn’t sure if Maurice was serious about exorcising Phil. He didn’t have any way of knowing if Maurice could really exorcise Phil to the afterlife, but he knew that he couldn’t risk it. Phil meant too much to him.

Maurice knew that, which is why he was looking so smug, like the cat that got the cream. “So, I’ll see you next week?”

Dan left without another word, but they both knew that he would be back.

*

Dan didn’t mention anything about what happened with Maurice to Phil. The ghost already hated him, and Dan didn’t want to give him more reasons to do so. Phil would probably insist Dan to stop seeing Maurice, even if it meant Maurice might carry out his threat of exorcising him. Dan couldn’t let that happen.

He also refrained from telling Phil about his newfound abilities. Maybe it was because he wasn’t sure about it himself, or maybe it was because he wanted to forget everything that happened from the second he met Maurice.

It was his fault he was in this situation in the first place. Phil warned him it was dangerous to meet up with a stranger and to take ‘lessons’ from him, but Dan didn’t listen. He was so excited at the idea of finally meeting someone like him and knowing more about his abilities that common sense went out of the window.

Now Phil was in danger and it was all because of him. The thought of Phil getting exorcised… Phil who was a great listener, who trusted him enough to tell him how he died, who spent hours watching movies with him.

Dan admitted - at least to himself - that what he felt  towards the ghost was more than the merely caring for a friend. However, it was completely ridiculous, and Dan knew that the chances of something more happening between them were slim. Phil was dead while Dan was very much alive.

But Dan would never let anything bad happen to Phil, even if it meant he had to keep seeing Maurice once every week.

“What’s up with you?” Phil asked, shaking him out of his thoughts. “You’ve been acting weird ever since you came back from meeting that guy. Did he do anything to you? Because if he did I swear I will-”

Dan cut him off before Phil could go on a rant on just what he would have done to Maurice if given the chance. “It’s fine, nothing happened. I’m just tired, that’s all.”

Phil didn’t seem to believe him, but quickly gave up and changed the subject. “Do you want to watch a movie tonight? We haven’t done that in a week.”

Dan wanted so badly to say yes and be able to spend some quality time with Phil to forget everything about Maurice. Unfortunately, he couldn’t.

“I can’t. One of my stupid stepbrothers is throwing a party in the garden today, and my mum wants me to supervise while she and Clive are gone. Something about making sure things don’t get too wild,” he said, rolling his eyes.

Phil looked disappointed, but he nodded. “That’s fine, I understand. If your brother is involved in the planning of the party, then things are bound to get pretty crazy. I’ll leave you to it and wait for you here.”

Dan was hoping Phil would offer to keep him company during the party. No one he knew was going to be there except for his stepbrothers, and watching on while a bunch of teenagers were dancing horribly, drinking bottles after bottles of alcohol wasn’t exactly his idea of fun.

However, he understood why Phil wouldn’t really want to hang around. It didn’t really seem like it would be his kind of scene either. Not to mention the fact that Dan would be the only one capable of seeing him so he would be his only form of entertainment.

“I’ll try to sneak up here at some point, if things don’t get too crazy.”

Dan was positive he wouldn’t have any problems doing so. After all, what was the worst that could happen?

*

Things ended up going very badly.

It started like any other party did. People arrived and, after mingling, most of the guests moved on to the drinks table.

The music was a little too loud for Dan, but nothing worried him more than the party annoying neighbours and the impending noise complaints. Overall, it seemed like it was a fun night, and Dan was positive that if no one was being disruptive, he would able to sneak up to his room to hang out with Phil sooner than he thought.

Of course, that was when things started going wrong.

Dan was just about to head up to his room when he heard shouting coming from behind him. Since his mum made it pretty clear that he was responsible during the party, it was up to him to figure out what was going on and put a stop to it.

Dan groaned when he realised that the shouting was coming from two guys who seemed ready to attack each other. Dan deduced that they were both drunk and probably didn’t know what they were doing.

Dan asked people around him quickly, asking why the two drunk guys were almost throwing punches at each other. He was told that the two guys were fighting about a girl, and that only made Dan want to groan louder. Why couldn’t they just resolve their situation in a friendly way instead of ruining his plans to hang out with Phil?

He considered letting the two guys ‘discuss’ it between them, but knew he would have to interfere when one of them threw the first punch. His mum would kill him if she found out he let a fight break out in their garden.

Dan wasn’t a fighter and always preferred to hide in the shadows, especially when it meant avoiding fights, but today was not his lucky day.

“Guys, stop this. Someone is going to get hurt.”

They both seemed very uninterested in what Dan was saying, and so he found himself with no other choice than getting in between them in the hopes that he could speak some sense to them. He should have known it wasn’t a brilliant idea to do so.

His reflex hadn’t kicked in when a punch landed between his cheek and the bridge of his nose. Dan fell onto the ground, wincing from the impact of the punch.

Dan could feel blood oozing from his nose, and he was almost sure it was broken. The two guys who were fighting in the first place where nowhere to be seen and the rest of the guests were quick to leave when they found Dan on the ground, hurt. No one offered to help, but Dan could hear murmurs around him. He was on his own.

He couldn’t remember the last time he felt this embarrassed. So much for trying to end a dispute. Dan quickly pulled himself up before more guests could see him, and ran to his bedroom only to come face to face with Phil.

Shit. He forgot that Phil was waiting for him in his room to watch a movie in case he managed to sneak away from the party.

Phil looked shocked. He wasn’t expecting for Dan to be done with the party so soon, and definitely not with blood gushing out of his nose.

“What happened?” He asked, quickly snapping out of his stupor, reaching for a wet towel from the bathroom. Phil pulled Dan to sit, and held his head up then pressed the wet towel to his nose as gently as possible. “Do you think it’s broken?”

Dan really didn’t want to recount the story of how he tried stopping a fist fight between two guys, then ended up being the one getting punched, so he tried keeping it as vague as possible. He wanted some of his dignity to remain intact.

“There was a bit of a fight but nothing big. I don’t think it’s broken, but I’m no doctor.”

Phil realised Dan was feeling embarrassed about it, so he didn’t push him further for explanations. He just held the towel to Dan’s nose in silence until the bleeding subsided, then popped away for a minute to get Dan a bag of frozen peas. “I don’t know if these will be much help, but I’ve seen they do it in movies, so I thought you could give it a try.”

Dan couldn’t help but to smile at what Phil said, but winced painfully since smiling apparently didn’t help his aching, probably broken, nose. Dan took the bag of frozen peas and held it up to his nose. The coolness of the bag helped slightly in numbing the pain. Dan nodded at the ghost gratefully.  “Thanks, this helps a lot.”

Phil selected the movie they would be watching that night, so that Dan wouldn’t feel uncomfortable with Phil worrying over Dan’s condition. They spent the next two hours enjoying the movie and each other’s company.

By the time the movie was over, Dan was half asleep and his head was resting on Phil’s shoulder. If he wasn’t so tired, he would think about moving away, giving the ghost his space since they were practically cuddling, but he didn’t. Instead, Dan just edged closer with the excuse of feeling cold.

“Thanks for taking care of me.

Phil just shrugged it off with a smile. “Don’t worry about it. It actually wasn’t so bad. I’m just glad your nose wasn’t broken, although it’s probably going to bruise for the next couple of days or weeks.”

Dan wasn’t too upset about it. This was much better than having to go to A&E for a broken nose, then having to explain to his mum how he broke it when he was supposed to be the one in charge while she was gone. It was better for everyone this way.

“Still,” he said, lifting his head slightly to look at Phil. “I appreciate it, so thank you.”

Dan didn’t know who leaned in first. It could have been him, but it could also be Phil. All he knew was that they were kissing, and Dan was enjoying it. He was enjoying it a lot.

Or at least he was before he felt Phil pushing him away, and he found himself sprawled on his back on the bed, almost falling off, looking at Phil in confusion. “What’s wrong?”

Phil was looking more panicked by the second. “I shouldn’t have done that, I’m so sorry.”

That only left Dan more confused. What was Phil sorry about? Wasn’t it obvious that Dan wanted that to happen, and was willing to kiss Phil back? “There’s no need to apologise. I wanted that.”

Unfortunately, his confession did nothing to calm the ghost down. “Don’t you get it?” Phil finally snapped, looking at Dan as if he was the one freaking out. “I’m dead and you’re very much alive. Nothing can come out of this! I’ll end up ruining your life.”

Phil made a compelling argument. It wasn’t exactly something Dan would argue against, considering he was often thinking the same thing whenever he thought of the ghost. But having Phil saying it out loud somehow made it worse. Dan didn’t want to think that their relationship was a mistake.

“But in what way could you ruin my life? I know you’re dead, and I’m one of the few people who can see you, but we can figure something out. Don’t you want to at least give it a try?”

For a second Phil looked tempted, and Dan was sure that he managed to somehow convinced Phil, but it didn’t last long.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t do that to you.”

Phil was gone within the blink of an eye, leaving Dan to stare at the empty space Phil had left behind.

*

Dan didn’t have a clue of where Phil was, but he definitely wasn’t in his room. He didn’t catch a single glimpse of him since they shared their kiss which meant the ghost was hiding from him.

It’s not that Dan was expecting anything, considering the ghost was completely freaking out the last time he saw Dan, but it still hurt. Dan thought they had finally gotten somewhere when they kissed. Instead, it went downhill.

One step forward, two steps back.

Things would have been easier if Dan had any idea where Phil was hiding. He could corner him and convince him to talk before the ghost could disappear once again.

Unfortunately, Phil managed to keep his distance from Dan. Phil didn’t even seem to care what was happening between them, and Dan could feel himself going crazy. Dan just wanted to talk. Was it too much to ask?

This kept going for a while until Dan decided that it was time for some drastic measures.

He got up one morning and left for school as usual. He attended the first two lessons and then, when he was absolutely sure both his mother and Clive would have left the house, he made his way back home. Dan thought it would be the perfect way to corner Phil since the ghost would not be expecting him back home so soon.

His plan ended up failing since he couldn’t find Phil anywhere in the house. Dan could have just given up. Phil couldn’t hide from him forever, and eventually, they would get the chance to talk. But Dan didn’t want to wait. It was something they needed to talk about.

I did say that drastic times call for drastic measures, he thought.

“I’m sick and tired of this Phil,” Dan yelled, trying not to feel foolish over shouting into the wind. He impatiently waited for a reply. No reply from Phil.

Dan knew that the ghost was listening to his every word. He just needed to figure out what would make Phil snap and come out from hiding.

“I’m serious, Phil! You know… you’re not the only one who kissed me lately,” Dan said challengingly, though a part of him regretted it for taking it too far.

“Maurice gave it a try last week. I stopped him, told him I wasn’t interested. I might just go back right now; finish whatever we left off. Not that you would care, right, considering that you’re still ignoring me.”

Dan smirked when he heard a dull thud that came from behind, but quickly recovered. “Interesting that the thought of me making out with Maurice made you change your mind.”

“He kissed you?” Phil asked, bewildered, completely disregarding what Dan had said.

Dan needed to be really careful about what he had to say next. Phil didn’t need to know about what Maurice told him about Dan’s other abilities, and definitely not the fact that Maurice had threatened Dan.

“He did, when we met last week. I didn’t let him kiss me. I did what you did: I pushed him away,” he said. Dan knew he was being petty, but he couldn’t help it. He, too, kissed Phil, and was pushed away.

Phil looked distraught, but he quickly turned away to leave Dan once again.

Dan quickly grabbed a hold of Phil’s arm before he could disappear again. “Stop that! You’re behaving like a child. I’m not going to jump you and force you to kiss me. I just want to talk.”

“I like you Dan, I really do. But if you want something more out of our relationship, that’s too much to ask; it’ll never work. I’m dead and you’re alive. I can’t take you out on dates, I can’t meet your parents. You’re the only one who can see me. A relationship where we would be happy and alive would make no sense!”

Dan knew that already, but he didn’t care. He liked Phil more than he had ever liked anyone before. Dan realised that he was acting selfish, but all he wanted was a chance to be with the one he loved.

“I know our situation isn’t normal. Hell, it’s so unusual that it’s laughable; madness. But do you really not want to give us a chance?”

For a moment, Dan was certain that Phil was actually thinking about it. Dan wanted to give him more of a reason to say yes. “If you’re so worried about not being able to take me out on dates, I have just the solution. I know a place, it’s near the lake. It’s well-hidden; no one knows about it. We can go there as often as you like. Maybe for a picnic and… other things.”

Dan’s words seemed to be the push Phil needed to finally take the leap. He inched closer, and pulled Dan in for a kiss he had been dreaming about ever since their first kiss. Dan broke the kiss, but positioned his forehead against Phil’s. “Took you long enough,” he mumbled.

Phil rolled his eyes, and kissed Dan again.

“So, that lake you mentioned,” Phil said, as he pulled away from the kiss, “want to go there some time?”

*

As much as Dan hated Maurice, he wanted information. But their meeting was over promptly, and Maurice didn’t give him any information. Dan lost count of how many times he avoided the the stranger’s advances.

Maurice couldn’t care less even after Dan told him he was seeing someone. Dan observed Maurice and deduced that the guy seemed like the kind of person who wasn’t used to being told no, and so he behaved as if he was oblivious to the fact that Dan wasn’t interested in him. If it wasn’t for Phil, he would have left Maurice ages ago.

He jumped when he felt his phone vibrating in his pocket, but quickly smiled when he realised what it meant. Their meeting was coming to an end, and he could finally leave and go on a date Phil promised him in the morning.

Dan got up to leave, but was blocked at the door by a smirking Maurice. “Are you sure I can’t interest you in staying for a little longer? I’ve got a bottle of wine that we can share.”

Dan refrained himself from rolling his eyes. Instead, he politely shook his head. “Thanks, but I actually have a date that I need to get to. Maybe next time,” he said, even though in his head he was already thinking of how he was going to avoid another proposition from Maurice for the following next week.

Maurice was obviously not happy about it, but at least he let Dan leave without anymore complications.

Dan quickly made his way to the lake, and was glad to find Phil waiting for him at the entrance of the park. “I spent an hour with Maurice. I had to ward off his advancements, so I hope you brought food. I’m starving.”

Dan knew that mentioning Maurice’s name never failed to make Phil jealous, even though the ghost was aware that Dan was not interested in the guy. A little jealousy never hurt anyone, and that’s why Dan liked to bring him up occasionally.

Phil pulled him in for an intense kiss, and Dan smirked. Bingo.

Since Dan was the one who knew where the hidden area was, he was in charge of leading the way.

The view did not disappoint Phil. The area wasn’t spacious, so they didn’t have much space to move around, but they had a perfect view of the lake, shining under the sunlight.

Phil took care of spreading out an old blanket for them to sit on, then took out various foods from his bag. “You better appreciate the effort I went through to get all of this prepared without anyone catching me. Explaining to your mum or step-father why sandwiches were floating in the air in the kitchen wouldn’t be fun.”

Dan couldn’t help but burst out laughing at the thought of that. Sometimes, it was easy to forget that as he was the only one who could see Phil. What Dan deemed as normal would freak other people out as they can’t see ghosts, like his mum once did.

Dan took a bite of the sandwich and smiled. “Well, you’ll be happy to know that your efforts were very much appreciated. This tastes great; just what I needed after a long day.”

Phil tried to look as if he didn’t really care whether Dan liked the sandwiches or not, but Dan could tell from the blush on Phil's face, that he appreciated the compliment.

Spending time together like this made them forgot that that they were not like the usual couples. Like this, enjoying each other’s company, and soaking up the sun, it was easy to forget that outside of their little world, things were not as straightforward.

Dan sometimes couldn’t help but think of what his mum would say if she were to meet Phil. She would probably say that Phil was a good influence on him and she would probably be happy that Dan had finally found someone he loved and cared about, after the mess that was Ollie.

He always tried to quickly shake himself out of such thoughts. Thinking about things that could never happen would lead them to nowhere. He wanted to enjoy the times he got to hang out with Phil like this with no interruption.

Dan saw Phil sneakily move his hand in order to take the last sandwich, and quickly snatched it from under his nose, laughing at the affronted look the ghost aimed at him. “Better luck next time,” he said, taking a bite of the sandwich.

He should have known that Phil would not let him get away with it, and that was how they spent the rest of the day chasing each other around the little clearing and kissing softly on the blanket whenever they got tired of running.

*

Things were going great for Dan for the first time of his life, but he couldn’t help but to make the mistake of thinking it was going to remain that way.

Maurice quickly ruined his good mood and optimism during their next meeting.

“You know,” Maurice began as soon as Dan walked in, not even offering his guest a simple ‘Hello’. “When you told me you couldn’t go out with me because you were seeing someone, it never even crossed my mind that you would lower your standards so that you could date a ghost.”

Dan felt his blood run cold. Maurice was never supposed to know that he was dating Phil. That was supposed to be their own little secret. Even though Phil never failed to let him know just how much he didn’t like Maurice, Dan knew the ghost wouldn’t be stupid enough to go and confront Maurice without telling Dan.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said, acting as undoubtedly clueless as he could. For all he knew, Maurice was just guessing, and it just so happened to be right. Dan needed to be careful not to validate Maurice’s assumptions, and Dan’s secret with Phil would be fine. At least that was what he thought at first.

“I couldn’t help but feel curious when you told me you were actually dating someone. I wanted to know who this person was, but I knew you would never tell me, so I followed you,” he admitted, a smirk stuck firmly on his face.

“Imagine my shock when I saw you kissing that ghost you’re always so adamant on protecting. Everything makes a lot more sense now.”

Dan was at a complete loss of what to do. Maurice had seen them, and that made it difficult for him to somehow lie his way out of it. He remembered Maurice’s threatening words that convinced Dan to agree to weekly meetings with Maurice in order to protect Phil.

That was before Maurice was aware of Dan’s relationship with the ghost. Dan got the feeling that things were about the get a lot worse.

“I don’t think I’ve ever pursued anyone who has told me no before, and you’ve done it over and over again. You rejected me so that you could be with a ghost who’s been dead for years?” Maurice hissed, smirk dropping off to be replaced with a grimace. “He can’t give you what you want, but I can. Think about it, Dan. Are you going to spend the rest of your life with someone only you can see?”

Dan was terrified. This was the exact situation he wanted to avoid, and he didn’t know to what length Maurice would go to. That didn’t mean he was going to let anyone talk about Phil like that.

“Phil might be a ghost, but he’s ten times the man you are,” he snapped.

That was the wrong thing to say.

“You’re going to regret saying that. Have you forgotten that I can do things you haven’t learned yet? I can go back to the past and stop Phil from getting himself killed in that fire. There won’t be any ghost for you to kiss, then. Or there will be, but he’ll have no idea who you are.”

Phil was right, Dan admitted. He shouldn’t have ignored the risks and he shouldn’t have agreed to the weekly ‘lessons’ in the first place, knowing that Maurice was interested in other things. What was he supposed to do now?

Maurice wasn’t lying about what he would do. Their ‘lessons’ consisted more of Dan ignoring Maurice’s flirts than learning anything, but it goes without saying that Maurice was still more knowledgeable than Dan was.

If Maurice really could go to the past and keep Phil from getting murdered, then Dan had no way of stopping him. Dan didn’t have a clue on how people like them could go to the past. And even if he did, what was he supposed to do? Tie Maurice up until he gave up and taking them back to present time?

Dan didn’t have much time to think things through. He could see Maurice’s skin losing colour, almost as if he was turning into a ghost himself, and it was then it dawned on him that he didn’t know anything.

“It wasn’t hard to figure out when and how your little boyfriend died. I’ll admit that I haven’t got a clue of who killed him, but that’s not going to matter when I get to be the one saving him from death. You should be thanking me, because I’m about to give him a second chance at living. If you really liked him, you would be helping me, not stopping me.”

That made Dan pause. As much as he hated Maurice, he couldn’t deny that he had a point. Wasn’t he the one who was desperate to learn about who killed Phil in order to help him get to the afterlife? He should be all for the idea of giving Phil another chance. No one deserved it more than him.

But Dan wasn’t ready to say goodbye. Judging by the fact that Maurice looked so transparent that Dan could barely even see him anymore, whatever Maurice was doing was working. Dan wasn’t even going to get a chance to see Phil for the last time.

He couldn’t let that happen. Before he think about it too much, he jumped forward and grabbed onto Maurice’s hand.

Everything turned into a blur.

*

When Dan regained consciousness, he was greeted by the sight of Maurice glaring at him. “What the Hell is wrong with you? I could have killed you!”

Dan tried not to think too much about what could have happened to him if things went awry, instead, focused on the situation he found himself in.

It seemed Dan had somehow traveled to the past with Maurice when he grabbed onto him. It meant that he still had a chance of saving Phil. All he needed to do was keep Maurice from stopping Phil’s murderer.

But it made Dan pause. He could stop the murderer and save Phil. It meant Phil wouldn’t have to spend years stuck in a limbo. It meant he wouldn’t have go through the pain of being burnt alive.

The only downside to this was the fact that Dan would never see Phil again. He would lose the only relationship he ever had in his life. The only true friend. But was that more important than Phil getting to live his life?

Dan was being selfish, he knew that. Maurice was about to give Phil something which Dan hadn’t been able to give himself, and instead of being happy for him and trying to help out in every way he could, he was planning on putting a stop to it.

If Dan really loved Phil like he thought he did, then he knew what he had to do - he needed to do everything he could to keep Phil alive. Phil would get another chance at life and, hopefully, when he did eventually die, he would not be stuck in a limbo, unable to move on to the afterlife. It was the least he could do for someone who had made such an impact on his life.

Maurice seemed on edge. He probably thought that Dan was still intending on trying to stop him. Little did he know that Dan had decided on doing the very opposite of that, even though it was killing him on the inside.

“No need to keep staring at me like that. I’m not going to stop you. I’m going to help you.”

The bewildered look on Maurice’s face helped making Dan feel a little better. At least until Maurice managed to shake off his shock and gave him his signature smirk - the smirk that never failed to make Dan’s skin crawl.

“I knew you would get it eventually. Honestly, it took a little longer than I had hoped for, but at least you get it now. Don’t see this as me trying to ruin your life. Think of it as me helping your little ghost friend out.”

Dan took a deep breath. He needed to stay on Maurice's good side for all the help he can get. Punching him in the face like he desperately wanted to do would probably be counterproductive. It was hard not to try and wipe that stupid smirk off of his face, though.

“Don’t get cocky. I’m going to help you because I love Phil, and he deserves a second chance. I still can’t stand you and, once we get back, you can forget about our weekly sessions.”

Maurice ignored him and started walking towards a house that shared some similarities with the one Dan currently lived in. Whoever rebuilt the house after the fire decided to keep some of its original characteristics. But somehow, it reminded him of his room, where Phil would be waiting for him. Dan’s heart ached.

Dan quickly followed Maurice and grabbed his arm to stop him. “What exactly is the plan? We can’t just break into the house and drag Phil out. Not to mention that we still have no idea who murdered him in the first place.”

Maurice didn’t seem worried at all. In fact, Dan would actually dare say that Maurice knew more about Phil’s murderer than he was letting on.

“Did you think I was going to travel all the way to the past without having a clear idea of what I was working with and what would need to be done?” Maurice snapped, then rolled his eyes. “Have faith in me, Dan. I happen to know that your little friend’s parents had the tendency to leave the backdoor unlocked in the afternoon, because Phil was always around. We just need to get in and find Phil.”

Dan could only stare at him. “How the Hell do you know all that? Phil couldn’t have been the one to tell you, he would have told me first. Not to mention he happens to hate your guts.”

“I didn’t need your ghost’s help to figure everything out,” Maurice said, exasperated. “You shouldn’t forget that you’re not the only one who can see dead people, Dan. I can see them too, and I’m more experienced than you. I saw the ghost of Phil’s father lurking near your house. Did you know your boyfriend had a really turbulent relationship with his dad? Or should I say stepdad?”

Dan could feel a ball of dread dropping in his stomach when he heard of Phil’s father because he got the feeling that he knew where this was going. “What does his dad have to do with anything?”

“Do you even need to ask me that, Dan?” Maurice asked, beamused. “Phil’s stepdad was the one who murdered him. They never got on well, and Paul felt like Phil was always trying his best to turn his mother against him. One day, they got into an argument, and Paul had enough. He waited until Phil was sleeping then set the whole house on fire. I found it quite ironic how he did everything out of fear of losing his wife but risked her life as well in order to get rid of Phil.”

Dan was left speechless. He had no doubts that even if he had spent months looking for information about what happened on the night Phil was murdered, he would have never figured out the truth. He would have never realised that the person behind the whole thing was Phil’s own stepdad. It certainly didn’t help that Phil had never confided in him regarding his relationship with his family members.

Phil lost his life because a person he considered family hated him enough to murder him. He was left to burn alive in his own bedroom because his stepdad considered him to be a danger to his relationship with his wife.

“So how exactly are you planning on saving him?” Dan managed to mumble once he got his emotions under control.

“Simple. You get Phil out of his room and out of the house. I’ll stop his stepdad from burning the whole house to the ground.”

“You do realise that there is nothing remotely simple about your plan right?” Dan said, if he should be taking Maurice seriously. “How do you expect me to convince Phil to listen to what I say and get out of the house? In case you’ve forgotten, ‘alive Phil’ doesn’t know me. I think the chances of him trusting an intruder are very slim.”

All Maurice did was roll his eyes. “Introduce yourself! Do whatever you did to get the ghost interested in you and use it on this Phil. Charm him. Flirt a little.”

Dan could already tell that this whole mission was going to end up disastrously. If Phil’s chances of not dying that night rested on him having to trust a complete stranger who intruded his home, and flirting him, then Phil was as good as dead.

However, Dan was aware that they didn’t have much time. It wouldn’t be long now until Phil’s dad sneaked out, and they needed to get to work before it was too late.

“Just to be clear, I still think your plan is shit, but there’s not enough time to come up with something else. I’ll try my best to get Phil out of the house, but it’s going to be hard, so you need to keep his dad from setting fire to the house,” he said, already making his way around the house in order to get to the back door.

Just as Maurice said, the back door was unlocked, and Dan didn’t have any trouble making his way inside. His mind flooded with Phil’s recount of the night he died, and he quickly figured where Phil’s room was located, and didn’t waste anymore time.

Dan tried to move as quietly and quickly as possible. He couldn’t afford someone hearing or seeing him. It would raise a lot of questions that he would not be able to answer, not to mention ruin their whole plan.

He couldn’t help but hesitate once he finally got to Phil’s room - the same room he had been sleeping in for the past few months. The same room where he met Phil for the first time, and where they eventually started getting to know each other. The room where Dan fell in love with Phil.

Dan was determined to save Phil, and it would be as if everything they had shared together, never actually happened. Dan was terrified that the second he saw Phil - his Phil - alive and well, he wouldn’t be able to go through the ordeal. He wouldn’t be able to stop his murder from happening, not knowing that, in doing so, he would never be able to see him again.

Taking a deep breath, Dan reached his hand out and opened the door. It revealed a dark room, and Dan saw a figure - Phil - on the bed, sleeping soundly. How was he going to get Phil out of his room to somewhere safer?

Knowing that there was no time for him to waste, Dan shuffled closer to the bed, then hesitantly tapped Phil on the back in an attempt to wake him up. When that didn’t work, he tapped the latter’s shoulder with vigour. Phil tousled in his bed. Dan was pleased to see Phil slowly waking up.

At least, until Phil bolted up when he saw an unfamiliar figure looming over his bed, startled, and before Phil had the chance to scream, Dan quickly covered the latter’s mouth preventing Phil from waking up his mother and stepfather.

“Please don’t shout! I’m not going to hurt you,” Dan said hastily. He hushed Phil who was retaliating under his grip, and Dan listened attentively for footfalls. His first mission was cleared. Now, time to convince Phil to trust him. “Look, I know you have no idea who I am, but I’m here to help you. I’ll remove my hands if you promise not to scream. I just want to explain myself. Do you promise?”

Phil frantically nodded.

Dan hesitantly removed his hands from Phil’s mouth. He was relieved when Phil kept his word. “I know this sounds insane, but I’m here to… I’m here to save your life. Hear me out! Someone is going to murder you in a few minutes and you don’t deserve that. That’s why you need to listen to me, and you need to get out of the house right now, for your own safety,” Dan said quickly. He was under immense pressure, and their time was running out, and Phil’s refusal to cooperate is something he didn’t want to deal with at the moment.

But to Dan’s surprise, Phil simply jumped out of his bed and did what Dan said, no questions asked. But this Phil wasn’t Dan’s Phil even though, deep down, he knows that his Phil was in this Phil.

The air was unusually still, and Dan was nervous. He saw Phil’s face; scowling. Dan didn’t expect for Phil to burst out laughing after Dan intruded his house, his room, and his sleep.

Once he calmed down, Phil turned to face Dan, looking angry, nonetheless. “Look,” Phil began to speak for the first time. “I have no idea who you are, or what you drank before you barged in here but clearly, you’re a bit out of it. I’m not as cruel as other people who live in this house, so if you walk out right now, I won’t call the police.”

Dan had known that Maurice’s plan was stupid and it had no chance of working, but he was still a little disappointed. A part of him had been hopeful that maybe this Phil he was facing would feel whatever connection they shared back in the future, but it was clear now this was just Dan’s wishful thinking.

“I’m so sorry,” Dan said, leaving Phil looking confused. “I know you don’t believe me right now, but I’m doing this for your own safety. If you don’t get out of the house, you’ll die.”

Dan grabbed Phil’s wrist. Phil was still disoriented, and Dan started dragging him out of the room, but Phil was not making it easy. He quickly fought back. He knew they were not going to make it outside if they continued like this.

“Please just listen to me, we have to go outside…”

“Let go of me! You’re out of your mind for breaking into my house, expecting me to believe some crazy story about someone trying to kill me,” Phil said, pulling his wrist and kicking his feet to try and break Dan’s hold on him.

“It’s not just anyone, it’s your stepdad. You had an argument today, didn’t you? He’s still pissed at you and thinks you’re trying to break him and your mum up and he’s going to get rid of you!” Dan hissed desperately.

It didn’t matter what he said. Phil was not interested in listening to anything Dan had to say, and Dan couldn’t blame him. If their roles had been reversed, Dan surely wouldn’t believe a stranger that broke into his home and started spouting out crazy stories about a crazy stepdad wanting  to kill him too. Who was he kidding? Dan definitely wouldn’t believe it.

He was just about to let Phil go and start thinking of an alternative plan when he heard it. There were voices coming from outside. “No, no, no, it’s too early…” Dan muttered to himself, quickly getting up and moving to the window. The sight of fire was unmistakable.

“Dan!”

He whirled around at the sound of his name, to be greeted with the sight of a panicked looking Maurice running into Phil’s room.

“What the Hell is going on here?” Phil snapped, looking between them like the apocalypse was coming. “Look, I don’t know what the Hell you two think you’re doing but it’s not funny and you need to get the Hell out right now before I call to the police.”

Maurice ignored Phil. “We need to get out of here right now. I couldn’t stop his stepdad. I tried to reason with him, and then used force when he wouldn’t listen to me, but he hit me. Let’s go,” he said, taking a hold of Dan’s hand and starting to pull him out.

Dan shook Maurice’s grip off him and moved back. He quickly walked over to Phil, who at this point was starting to realise that what Dan had been telling him might not have been so crazy.

“Listen, I know this is all probably really overwhelming but we need to leave or we’re going to end up burning alive.”

“I-I can’t..”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Maurice snarled before pulling on Dan’s hand again. “His stepdad surrounded the whole house with fuel. This place is going to burn down before you know it. Let’s get the Hell out of here.”

But Dan couldn’t leave. He couldn’t leave Phil to die, not after he travelled so far into the past to stop everything from happening. Maurice was right, if they left now the ghost version of Phil - his Phil - would still be there to welcome him home, but it wasn’t worth it.

The Phil welcoming him back in his time would just be a shell of the man he was seeing in front of him right now. He was a version who could be seen only by Dan and others who shared his gift. The man he had slowly fallen in love with deserved so much more than that.

But Dan wouldn’t be able to live knowing that he saved his own ass and left Phil… the real Phil… to burn alive.

“I can’t… Maurice, we can’t just leave after all of this. He’s going to die in here. I love him, I can’t leave.”

Maurice looked at him like Dan had lost his mind.

“What difference will it make? Instead of him just dying, you’ll be dying with him. Is that what you want? Sacrificing your life so you can die together like Romeo and Juliet?” Maurice sneered in a mocking tone. “Suit yourself, but I’m not hanging around to watch it. I’m out of here.”

Dan could see Maurice start to fade out, and all he could do was stare at him with wide eyes. He never liked Maurice, but he had never thought that he would abandon him like that.

“What the Hell is wrong with you people?”

Turning around, Dan saw Phil staring at Maurice with complete bewilderment. “I have no idea what the Hell you’re talking about… both of you, but I’m not stupid. I understand if you don’t want to save me because you don’t know me, but you obviously know each other. You can’t just leave him here,” he said, pointing at Dan.

Dan heard a creaking noise coming from underneath them. They didn’t have a lot of time. A look at Phil let him know that the other was aware of it too.

“If he wants to risk his life to stick with you, then he’s more than welcome to do that.”

Another creak, another warning that they were surviving on borrowed time. The floor was not going to hold them up forever. The house was burning down and it wouldn’t be long until it gave out underneath them.

Maurice was almost gone at this point, and Dan felt helpless. Dan and Phil were doomed.

Everything was a blur to Dan after that. He saw Phil running towards him and covering his body with his own. Phil pushed him towards Maurice and all he could do was grab on to the vanishing boy. The floor underneath them gave way straight after, but before his mind started working, Dan’s body spinned and saw Phil’s face looking sad and horrified at the same time, and then all Dan saw was complete darkness.

*

The first thing he saw when he came into consciousness was white. Looking around he realised that he was staring at the white walls of the hospital. “W-What am I doing here?” Dan thought to himself.

A hand squeezing his own brought his attention away from the hospital walls to the figure sitting beside his bed. What he saw made Dan’s breath caught in his throat.

Phil. His Phil. Not the one in the past who had no idea who Dan was. This was the ghost, but Dan couldn’t help but to think that he preferred him like this or maybe he was just biased because the ghost was looking at him with adoration.

“What happened?” Dan croaked, at which point he allowed Phil to help him sit up and drink half a glass of water.

“You were stupid, that’s what happened,” Phil said, but his harsh words were softened by the fond tone he uttered them in. “Next time, when you decide to travel back in time to save someone’s life, how about you let me know so that I’d at least know what to expect?”

Dan couldn’t quite understand how Phil knew about what had happened. Had Maurice woken up before him and admitted to everything?

Phil must have caught the confused look on Dan’s face because he sighed. “I know your sessions with Maurice usually last an hour, so when you didn’t come back home after two hours, I started getting worried. I dropped by at Maurice’s and found both of you passed out on the floor. But I saw another body there with yours.”

Dan froze. There was no way they could have brought past Phil here with them when they travelled back to their present time. But who else would the third body belong to if not past Phil? A nod from Phil confirmed his suspicions.

“Is… is he okay?” He asked, unsure of what he was supposed to say in a situation like this.

Phil sighed and shrugged. “I’m not sure. I’m in a coma. Well… not exactly me. My past self. No one knows for sure what’s wrong with me, but I think I have an idea. My past self can’t live in this time; not when I’m inhabiting this time as a ghost. You know what I mean?”

This was all so strange and so new that Dan wasn’t sure what was real and what wasn’t anymore. He still understood what Phil was trying to tell him, regardless of his circumstances. Phil from the past couldn’t live in this time with ghost Phil still around. He was dying.

Dan should have never messed with time.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

Phil gave him a weak smile and squeezed his hand again. It seemed as if they were both left without words after what happened.

“What’s going to happen to you?”

Phil sighed and that’s when Dan knew that it wasn’t going to be good news. “I can’t be sure but I don’t think I have much time left here. My body is slowly dying, and you helped me figure out who murdered me all those years ago, so it won’t be long now until I get to go to the afterlife.”

Now more than ever, Dan wished he had somehow stopped Maurice from going back in time. He knew it now: messing with time caused consequences, and those consequences hurt more than one could imagine.

He tried to save Phil from the fire because he knew he deserved another chance, but when they didn’t manage to do it, he really thought he would be able to go back to his Phil and enjoy their time together. He failed to realise that finally knowing who murdered him would mean Phil would finally be able to move on to the afterlife without anything holding him back.

Phil must have realised how devastated Dan felt. Phil felt responsible to change the subject. “Can you walk?” When Dan slowly nodded, Phil continued, “Come on, I want to get a look at myself again. It’s so strange seeing myself alive again, even if in a coma. I’d gotten used to looking pale and no one being able to see me.”

Dan let out a watery laugh and allowed Phil to lead him to the Intensive Care Unit.

His breath caught in his throat when he saw Phil’s body lying on the bed. It was surreal seeing Phil’s his chest moving up and down slowly with every breath he took, despite having to have a ventilator to help him breathe. Even unconscious, he looked breathtakingly beautiful and it pained Dan to know he was dying. He didn’t even get the chance to hug him and feel his warmth rather than the chill he always felt when hugging Phil’s spirit. The sound of the ECG machine beeping loudly but steadily made Dan’s heart clench. At least Phil was still alive.

Dan was about to say that Phil looked beautiful when he noticed Phil slowly fading away, almost like Maurice did when he travelled back in time.

Phil let out a shaky breath then gave Dan a sad smile. “I guess it’s time for me to go,” he whispered, voice cracking with emotion.

Dan desperately wanted to be strong because he knew that, at the end of the day, this was something good, even if it hurt him. Phil had waited years aimlessly for the chance to move on to the afterlife; he deserved to finally get the chance to move on.

It still didn’t stop Dan from tearing up. “I’m going to miss you,” he said in a shaky voice, trying to get his emotions under control.

“Me too,” Phil said, taking a hold of his hand and squeezing it. “Thank you… thank you for trusting me, for being my friend, for doing your best to help me out.”

Phil leaned in to kiss Dan for one last time and, in doing so, his hand brushed the leg of his unconscious body. They stopped, and the next thing Dan realised, he saw Phil’s body covered in white light and Phil was gone in a blink. Dan was finally alone in the ward with nothing but Phil’s lifeless body on the bed.

He dropped into a chair and rested his head against the bed sheets. With Phil gone, there was no need for him to be strong anymore, and soon found himself crying. “I love you,” he mumbled, taking Phil’s cold hand into his. The sound of the ECG machine made Dan become aware of Phil’s current state. He wasn’t dead.

That was when Dan felt his hand being gripped tightly, and his head snapped to look up. Phil’s arm moved. Dan saw Phil’s pale knuckle gripping Dan’s  own. Dan stood, alarmed. He saw Phil frown, but slowly trying to open his eyes, trying his best to adjust to the harsh white light in the room.

“Phil?” he asked, alarmed.

“W-where am I?” Phil’s raspy voice said inaudibly, but Dan gets closer to him to hear Phil repeat his question once again. “Where am I?”

“In the hospital. I-I’m gonna get the nurse. W-wait, I’ll be back in a second,” Dan panicked, rushing out to find a nurse.

*

“Dan!” His mum called from downstairs. This was the third time she was calling him but there was still no sign of Dan coming down the stairs. Dan was taking his time. Going to the Winter Dance with his boyfriend will only happen once in a lifetime, and Dan wanted to look as perfect as possible. He wanted to live the moment and… maybe he wanted to make a big entrance too.

Dan reached for his phone to check for messages, but realised that he had made everyone waited for him for five minutes. Standing in front of the mirror, he was satisfied with how smart he looked. He smiled at his reflection in the mirror, and promised himself a great time at the dance. Quickly, he grabbed his phone and keys then started to make his way downstairs.

As he was making his way down, he caught sight of his oldest stepbrother hurriedly making his way upstairs with an armful of books. “Am I about to start seeing pigs flying? Because if you are actually studying, then anything can happen.”

All he got in return was a glare, but his stepbrother did stop before entering his room. “Hey, Dan,” he called out. “You look good.” Before Dan could say thank you, he had already closed his door behind him.

That was the only positive interaction they had so far.  

Dan looked down onto his feet to watch where he was stepping before he rolled down the stairs, but when he looked up, he smiled at the sight that greeted him.

Clive was asking everyone who happened to be in his way to taste some new dish he was preparing for dinner. His mum was playing around with the camera in her hands, trying to figure out how it worked.

And then there was Phil. Dan couldn’t get over how Phil looked absolutely breathtaking in his black tux and bowtie. He couldn’t wait for the Winter Dance to end so he could have fun taking off Phil’s tux when they were spending the night at his boyfriend’s new apartment.

Dan stopped short at the sight of Phil, and he had to bite his lip to keep himself from showing everyone just how much it was affecting him.

It was a pretty typical family scene of the parents making a big deal out of their child’s first school dance and their date picking them up, but to Dan, it meant something more. Because his family could actually see his date.

He was dating someone real and not a ghost that only he could see. He was going to attend the school dance with his very real boyfriend, and he got to show him off to all his schoolmates, instead of going alone like he planned all those months ago.

Dan’s mum was the first one who saw Dan walking down the stairs. She gave him a big smile and gestured for him to come closer so she could fix his bowtie. “You look stunning, sweetheart,” she said and, to his horror, he felt himself blushing at the compliment.

He gazed at Phil who was still talking to Clive, and their eyes met. Dan caught Phil’s grin, and the next second, Phil’s attention was on Clive. Dan guessed Phil had to present himself as likable to Dan’s parents.

“So, I see you’ve met Phil,” Dan said as his mother fixed how bowtie.

Dan’s mum smiled tenderly. He missed his mum’s motherly smile. Dan had no doubts that after years of worrying over her son not having any friends, she was over the moon when Dan revealed he had a boyfriend, even though he was a few years older than him.

“I have,” his mum said. “It’s lovely to meet you, Phil,” she said, smiling at Phil. “Come over here Phil so I can take a photo of you two together.”

Dan groaned but moved closer, moving his arm around Phil’s back.

“I won’t hear any complaints from you, young man,” she said sternly, but smiled to indicate that she wasn’t serious. “I deserve to take many photos of you two after you hid the fact that you have a boyfriend.”

Dan’s mum took enough photos of them to fill up a whole album before she finally allowed them to leave and start heading for the dance. He waved goodbye, promising his mum to be back home safely after the dance, even though the both knew he probably wouldn’t be back before lunchtime the next day, and then made their way to Phil’s car.  

Well… more like Maurice’s car. Maurice had felt guilty for almost leaving Dan to burn alive with Phil and he offered to lend Phil the car for the occasion when he came over to apologise to Dan.

A part of Dan wanted to say that lending his car was a small price to pay for almost leaving him to die, but then he remembered what Maurice had told him before he left. “You two are meant to be together. Phil protected you even when he had no idea who you were. I could have never done that. He really loves you.”

Dan thought maybe they could make peace.

Dan just hoped they weren’t stopped by the police on the way to the dance considering Phil had no licence, or birth certificate, or school reports so he could start attending college… nothing really. They were still working on it.

They were lucky that Maurice had once again helped out by getting Phil a job. At least Phil now could afford his own apartment.

Once they arrived at the school, Dan found himself having troubles controlling his giddy smile when he walked down the hall with Phil, holding hands. He could finally show off his dashing boyfriend.

Just as they were passing in front of the back doors, Dan caught sight of a man walking around aimlessly. The greyish tinge to his skin proved he was a ghost. He knew that the responsible thing to do was to help him, but tonight, Dan just wanted to be with Phil at the dance. He swore to himself that he would look for the man to talk the next day.

“Want to dance?” he asked Phil, before leading him to the dance floor.

“We should talk to that man tomorrow, see if we can do anything to help,” Phil said, slowly swaying to the beat.

Dan nodded in agreement before he realised what his boyfriend had just said. “Wait… you can see him? The man walking around near the back door?”

Phil nodded with a chuckle. “I can definitely see him. Why, is that a problem?”

Dan shook his head, dumbfounded. “No, but… that means you can see dead people too.”

“Apparently so.” Phil paused. “That means we can go on supernatural adventures together, helping them cross over to the afterlife. Maybe we can start a business or something,” he joked.

Dan rolled his eyes but couldn’t help but smile. Phil… his Phil, was no longer a ghost. Instead he was just like him. “I hate you.”

“I love you too.”

*

A/N: So there you have it! My fic for the Phandom Big Bang 2017. Like I’ve already said, I’ve been working on this for almost a year and it’s surreal to finally have it posted for everyone to read. With almost 23,000 words, it’s also the longest oneshot I’ve ever written. I hope you enjoyed it and, if you did, make sure to let me know! Like, reblog, send me asks! I reply and appreciate everything. 

Now look forward to the 25 Days of Christmas 2017, starting on December 1st!

[aion-rsa]

Michael Myers vs Pinhead: The Hellraiser/Halloween Crossover That Never Was

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Up until the new millennium, cinematic crossovers were largely the preserve of Abbott and Costello or Godzilla. But that all changed in 2003 with the arrival of Freddy Vs. Jason. The Nightmare on Elm Street/Friday the 13th mashup had been 16 agonizing years in the making. New Line Cinema shelled out a reported $6 million on script development alone with as many as 16 different writers taking a stab at the concept. 

Despite such inauspicious beginnings, however, Freddy Vs. Jason ended up being a massive hit, raking in $116.6 million off the back of a modest $30m budget.  All of a sudden, crossover movies were in vogue. The kind of pop culture hybridization once reserved for the world of comic books was becoming big business in Hollywood. Freddy Vs. Jason was soon followed by Paul W.S. Anderson’s Alien vs. Predator which also cleaned up at box office making $177.4m off an initial $60m outlay. 

It was around that time that the idea for a crossover involving Halloween’s masked killer Michael Myers and Hellraiser’s iconic sadomasochistic cenobite, Pinhead, was first floated. 

Filmmaker Dave Parker, who went on to enjoy success with horror films like The Dead Hate the Living and The Hills Run Red, revealed during an interview with Creature Corner [via Paul Kane’s book The Hellraiser Films and Their Legacy p.224] he pitched an idea for Michael Myers vs Pinhead to Dimension. 

“I had pitched, unsuccessfully, Freddy vs Jason to a guy named Ross Hammer at Sean Cunningham’s company around ’94 or early ’95. After that didn’t go well, I started think about what other franchises were at other studios…It was a no-brainer to see that Dimension had both the Halloween and Hellraiser franchises, so I put together a trailer using footage from the Halloween movies … and I called the idea ‘Helloween’.” 

Parker elaborated further on his idea for the plot of the movie in an interview with Fangoria Corner [see The Hellraiser Films and Their Legacy p.224] published later that same year, saying that explaining why Michael Myers couldn’t die “led to opening the doors” to introduce Pinhead and the Hellraiser mythos. 

“I was just trying to come up with a plausible way to get these two guys together to fight,” he said. “So, why does he all of a sudden go out and kill his sister in Halloween? He’s trick-or-treating in a flashback and he goes up to this one house … and sees the guy with the black boots, who gives him the box. He opens it and the Lord of the Dead – Sam Hain – escapes from hell and takes over Michael’s body because he doesn’t want to be in hell. Now, Sam Hain is who the Shape is, and that’s why he can’t be killed.”

With the origin story out of the way, the modern part of the tale naturally followed. 

“So, the story takes place when people try to destroy the Myers house and they find the box hidden between the walls. Of course, they open it and Pinhead shows up, and it’s Halloween and it’s the Myers house, so Michael shows up because there are people there and Pinhead recognizes that Michael is Sam Hain because he can feel it – which begins this whole battle in the real world. And of course, the third act takes them all to hell…” 

Despite Parker’s intriguing proposal, Dimension rejected the concept – this was the mid-90s after all, a time when Kramer vs. Kramer was about as close as you got to film with a ‘vs.’ in the title. It would take another eight years and the success of Freddy vs. Jason before the studio would be turned on to the idea of a horror movie mashup. 

At one point, there were even plans afoot for Pinhead to feature in Freddy vs. Jason. One draft of the script written by Mark Swift and Damian Shannon saw Krueger and Voorhees fight their way down to Hell, only for the familiar Cenobite to appear and say: “Gentlemen…what seems to be the problem?” The cameo could have paved the way for an even more outlandish sequel featuring all three horror icons. Unfortunately, New Line Cinema balked at the idea of licensing Pinhead from Dimension Films. 

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Not that anyone was particularly disappointed at Dimension. Speaking to Your Move Magazine [via Movieweb], Pinhead actor Doug Bradley said “they didn’t think it would work…They predicted that Freddy vs. Jason would bomb, but it opened at the top of the box office and stayed there for a second weekend.” 

Of course, that success made Dimension feel more confident about a Hellraiser/Halloween crossover.

Eager to up the ante, in late 2003 the studio set a release date of Halloween 2004 for the film. They also enlisted the biggest of big guns to get the project rolling. In a surprise move, Dimension Films reached out to the original Hellraiser writer and director Clive Barker as well as Halloween’s own original co-writer and director John Carpenter. 

The plan was for Barker to write and Carpenter to direct – something Barker later confirmed during an interview for the Halloween: 25 Years of Terror documentary. Whether Barker got around to writing a script is unclear, but he definitely had ideas. Very interesting ideas, as Bradley revealed to me during an interview marking the 30th anniversary of the original Hellraiser’s release. 

“I remember getting quite excited at the prospect of it,” Bradley says. “Clive said that the versus bit, the Michael Myers vs Pinhead bit was a bit beside the point – it was a bit boring given that Michael doesn’t speak, which makes him a disappointment to Pinhead. Clive wasn’t interested in a mano-a-mano confrontation. He was interested in finding the places where the Hellraiser and Halloween landscapes might have crossed over. The first Halloween works like a classic vampire movie with Michael as Dracula and Dr. Loomis as Van Helsing.”

That relationship helped set up the conflict of the film. 

“Dr. Loomis spends a lot of the film warning people they don’t know what they are dealing with,” Bradley says. “It gave Michael this supernatural, mysterious element that made him so powerful. There was a suggestion he was something not human and Clive felt there was a way in there. Clive saw him as a sadomasochistic sexual pervert and serial killer which would be enough to pique Pinhead’s interest.” 

At the time, John Carpenter was in something of a self-imposed retirement, following the poor reviews that had greeted his most recent film at the time, Ghosts of Mars. Michael Myers vs Pinhead was not only a shot at redemption, it offered a chance to collaborate with one of the most unique voices in the world of horror. 

But just when it looked like the most unlikely of crossovers would come to fruition, everything stopped. While Dimension Films believed in the crossover’s potential, long-time Halloween producer Moustapha Akkad was vehemently opposed to the idea. 

And it was Akkad, crucially, who owned the rights to the Halloween franchise having purchased Carpenter and co-writer Debra Hill’s controlling interests during pre-production on Halloween 4. Barker would later hint at studio interference, telling a Fangoria convention that “The Shape” aka Myers was treated “like Hamlet” by certain big-wigs upstairs. 

In any case, the prospects of convincing Akkad of the project’s viability had not been helped by an online fan poll created by the official Halloween movies’ website at the time, which asked fans if they wanted to see a Halloween/Hellraiser crossover. 

According to CliveBarkerCast: “Out of 84,427 votes, 54% said NO”.  A year after pulling the plug on the project, Akkad was tragically killed, alongside his 34-year-old daughter, Rima Akkad Monla, in the 2005 Amman bombings. 

By then Hollywood had moved on from the short-lived fad for movie mash-ups – a Freddy vs Jason vs Ash of Evil Dead fame was pitched but rejected. A second Aliens vs Predator movie made a tidy profit but drew rancid reviews. 

Halloween eventually moved on too, with Blumhouse obtaining the rights to the intellectual property in 2015, after Dimension failed to move forward with a planned follow-up. No longer owned by the same studio, there remains one small glimmer of hope for anyone still clinging to hopes of seeing Michael Myers indulge in a spot of sadomasochism: David Gordon Green. 

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Green is directing the new trilogy of Halloween films and has also signed on to helm several episodes of an upcoming Hellraiser TV series for HBO. Watch this space. 

The post Michael Myers vs Pinhead: The Hellraiser/Halloween Crossover That Never Was appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[violetsystems]

#personal

I’ve really forgotten at this point when or where this all started in terms of lockdown.  I went to New York for my birthday mid February and that’s when it started to slide downhill.  The city has been officially locked down since mid March.  One of those more interesting things to see is how we get drowned out by the rest of the country.  As far as liberating times in the city of Chicago, things have been less aggravating than they’ve ever been.  People here have read my posts and know what kinds of things I speak about.  It’s pretty obvious that I harbor some pretty complex ideas about anarchy and freedom.  Looking back at all the years I’ve lived in Chicago isn’t some rosy reflection for me.  I wasn’t always a strong enough person to stand up for myself.  Or when I did it wasn’t very graceful.  If you leave people to themselves to make their own mistakes they will eventually learn to move past or drown in them.  I’m an only child and have always been very hard on myself.  I was picked on and isolated for everything from my weight to my intelligence for years.  I moved to Chicago years ago to be closer to culture.  I grew up in suburbs where the only creative outlet was to hang out at Denny’s until four in the morning.  Punk shows and raves happened but always under the threat of being hassled by police or extremist recruiters.  These days I roll out of bed to the kitchen which acts as the only office I’ve ever had with windows.  My life resembles more William Gibson novel than Clive Barker.  I’ve had the same job for two decades now.  It’s only in the last few weeks where I’ve realized that I’m more vital.  And at the same time I feel just as forgotten as I was.  An invisible ghost in the machine.  The perks of being able to do what you want without second thought.  Spending years explaining the motives behind them without ever really saying it outright.  My own subculture has grown around the fuzzy edges.  I have always loved computers.  My mom told me recently she had a premonition when I was young.  That I needed to be around computers.  Before we even had one.  My dad brought home an old apple with a modem on day from work.  It was a brick.  It was so he could work from home.  Years later I can’t get away from them.  Computers that is.  Last night my dad and his wife facetimed me for the very first time.  It was a big deal for them.  For me it was just another day in my kitchen on camera.  Still me.  My parents and my coworkers are about the only people I socialize with on video.  Everybody knows my writing is how I connect to people.  That’s why nothing has ever changed much emotionally for me down here.  Just a far more stable connection on all levels.  Chicago to a fault these days.  The coffee still gets delivered.  Monday is still April 20th.  I’ve forgotten what it feels like to worry about it all for once in my life.  

If you ask me if I worry, it’s true I do.  Not about dying or anything.  That’s fucking stupid to worry about in my mind.  How many times have I lived through miraculous bullshit?  I can’t even count or remember at this point.  I’m resilient for sure.  I’m sure everybody knows how mature I am.  I don’t dye my fucking grey hair or anything.  I don’t even really like going on camera anymore for social media.  The audience is like a void to me.  It has never returned anything except stray likes and the illusion of care.  I’ve written what I’ve wanted to say here for years.  And some of the most beautiful and amazing people in the world have read this.  I find anybody who is patient enough to sift through my prose to be a genuine enough person.  But I have always been a writer.  I used to run a poetry zine in high school.  It had the painfully edgy titled “Emotional Anarchy.”  I almost got expelled from a christian high school because of it.  Though it was mostly gibberish.  I studied English and Psychology at a suburban college in Romeoville, Illinois.  College was definitely culture for me.  I ended up running a radio show in the middle of the night for years.  Nobody listened.  Inmates maybe.  Years later people in Shanghai on the other side of the world bring up college in casual conversation.  Turns out the connections go beyond cool shit.  It’s not somebody asking about some show I played or somebody I dated.  It’s a Catholic school across from a state prison where I received a scholarship.  Years later I work at a school.  I have worked for a school for years.  My boss and I were djs professionally at one time.  I definitely did not make enough money to sustain myself through music.  But working at a school has sustained me through other ways.  I spent a portion of yesterday working with a sewing machine.  I’ve spent years thinking about using one.  I spent years being inspired by fashion and even working directly with it.  And like a tree falling in the forest, I quietly design myself a new mask in my persistent office.  My mom used to spend every Halloween designing costumes for me.  One year I was Spiderman.  I wore the mask.  These days I’m far more Watchmen than I realize.  I wear a balaclava.  I want to upgrade to something a little more fashionable.  My dad couldn’t believe I had a sewing machine.  I have two.  My connection to the internet has been slowly becoming more rigid.  My home is my office for the foreseeable future.  I do have office hours.  People can see me working from the train platform every day.  I help deliver an education across impossible distances.  I don’t think there will ever be a lack of opportunities in that department.  I’ve learned skills I’ve never had.  I could do this from my kitchen all day.  Sitting here alone by myself wondering why.  I don’t worry.  I just don’t know.  Like everybody out there just doesn’t know.  So I focus less on what I can’t control and more on what I can.  Which turns out to be my home.  As officially as this morning  expanded into the 312 area code. 

American media and pundits talk about liberation.  Americans want to point the finger at the root cause.  A scapegoat and boogeyman to turn the attention away from themselves.  They want to pass the blame onto someone else instead of sharing it.  The truth is that it is us.  We as human beings are to blame.  A virus is a perfect example of this.  A poetic one.  The virus doesn’t really care about your freedom.  At least not in the way most Americans understand it.  And yet I do care about freedom.  Because I have been living under duress for longer than I can conceivably imagine.  These days being forgotten about and under the radar isn’t always a problem.  People pay attention more to what really matters.  My writing.  My feelings for certain people that have persisted beyond these fucked up few months.  My way of living with life as it is.  I do want more.  I do not want to be alone day in and day out.  I grow in silence.  It’s not like no one sees it.  Everybody sees it.  Everybody knows exactly what I am about.  And everybody sees me living it just like I’ve always been.  Maybe a little less awkwardly.  Maybe a little less timidly.  Maybe a little more cautious.  I’ve always been cautious.  Always had the capacity to be tender.  These days I’ve felt far more free to live my life.  I still ride public transportation to the store.  I still run in an empty medical district where giant public housing projects used to loom.  I still live in a state where the governor I voted for has exceed my expectations in every way.  And I hate politics for the most part.  Our mayor is the face of America and yet has more impact as a meme than a positive news story.  The news is never positive in America.  The last I’ve read people are criticizing us for buying masks from China low key.  And yet in terms of leadership throughout all of this we in Chicago and Illinois at least know where we stand.  We have the best medical systems and professionals in the United States.  We have some of the best art and design colleges too.  And we have hope that people can get visas next fall to study here again.  We all take this very seriously because health is important to us.  Is freedom important to us?  I mean I don’t want to live anywhere else right now for the foreseeable future.  This might be the reason why I signed a two year contract on Internet.  It might also be why I chose to get a home number.  For the record it’s pretty easy to move your service these days.  But what more am I looking for at this point.  I’ve already found everything I care about thanks to the internet.  The world has changed.  I’ve been changing.  Growing.  Becoming free to be the person I need to be.  Free to love and free to speak my mind.  Free to catch a virus and die too I guess.  Welcome to America.  Free to upgrade my connection speeds to six hundred megabit down.  The connection as steady as my love for you.  Offline and on.  Same as it ever was.  Just locked up safe and sound.  Like the future.  <3 Tim

[briangroth27]

iZombie Season 3 Review

Full spoilers...

iZombie's third season started off with a personal game-changer after Clive (Malcolm Goodwin) learned Liv (Rose McIver) and Major (Robert Buckley) were zombies. I thought that would be the extent of this year's changes, but I was way off. I liked that the season premiere somewhat functioned as a recap/primer for the show after such a long hiatus, but it was great to get back into the cases (and brains) of the week by episode 2. I enjoyed all the episodes, but I especially loved the twist resolutions to the mysteries in “Wag the Tongue Slowly” and “Eat, Pray, Liv.” I liked that Liv, Clive, Ravi, and Peyton all got to investigate the main plot from different angles over the course of the season, even though they didn’t initially know it. It felt a little like Liv was excluded from big portions of the main arc for a lot of the season because of her need to be tied to the cases of the week, but this balanced the leads’ involvement in the run-up to Discovery Day. The threads that led to the public reveal of zombies were really well-developed and came together perfectly. I’d heard the season finale would “reboot” the series, but man…I didn’t expect this! I loved that the writers were willing to be so daring as to change everything by outing zombies to the world and even making Seattle a zombie-run city. There’s no going back now, and the show will be healthier for it.

Liv Moore As always, McIver gave an acting tour de force. Her ability to incorporate different character traits from the brains she eats into her baseline Liv personality is outstanding and it’s a shame she hasn’t gotten more awards recognition for this role. If they ever recast Rogue in the X-men films, they should absolutely ask McIver. The gossip, father, and dungeon master brains were among my favorites this year, but the pre-school teacher brain was easily an all-time top five brain: that was hilarious and included many of my favorite comedic Liv moments of the whole series!

I liked that the brains didn’t always give helpful visions—a fun twist to the show’s formula—or made Liv forgetful: I was really worried the scatterbrain causing Liv to constantly forget to get the materials Ravi needed would make Major’s rapidly deteriorating condition even worse. If it did have an effect it wasn’t commented on, but I loved that they explored the negative effects of brains. Liv getting visions of having sex with Ravi (Rahul Kohli) thanks to eating the brain of his dead ex Katty Kupps (Christina Cox) was super awkward. Drake’s (Greg Finley) ghost appearing thanks to the Weckler (Gordon Woolvett) brain was a fun way to interrupt her relationship with Justin (Tongayi Chirisa), dig into her psyche, and force her to confront the dangling emotional threads from Drake’s death. I liked that Liv and Justin’s first date included eating the brain of a daredevil (Robert Ri’chard): that was a sweet and fun zombie twist on couple bonding. The brains made things even worse for Liv’s personal life as, just as she’d gotten a taste of a normal relationship with Justin, she cheated on him with Chase Graves (Jason Dohring) thanks to Kupps’ brain. I liked that it wasn’t black-and-white that she cheated on Justin due to the brains’ influence on her and thought that was an interesting development. With so much else going on at the end of the season, I understand why this didn’t get a bigger moment, but I wanted to see them at least try to work through this fact of their zombie existence. I liked Justin, but once he called the guards at the Fillmore-Graves packing facility on Liv, I lost all interest in them salvaging that relationship.

Even though Ravi invented a cure that worked, I didn’t think Liv would take it—the show would be over—but I was intrigued to see if they could make an arc out of a temporarily-cured Liv. I’d still like to see that someday, particularly in the zombie-run Seattle. It could be a cool way to make her the underdog again, though Major’s already done the “human pretending to be a zombie” arc this year. I absolutely loved that Liv and Ravi shared the last scene of the season; her agreeing to scratch him to test his zombie vaccine was perfect, touching, and funny! Their platonic “I love yous” were great; their friendship is one of the best parts of the show and I’m glad it’s been so prominent over the years.

I liked Liv’s development over the course of the season and enjoyed her getting to have a normal relationship after Drake last year. It’s great that the show has allowed her to truly be friends with Major, even under the influence of a paranoid brain: it’s healthy to show that exes can be friends if they respect each other. With Clive in on the secret, it was awesome to see her finally able to be open and honest with all the people closest to her. Liv’s begrudging alliance with Blaine (David Anders) to keep zombies under wraps was also a fun development of their antagonistic relationship. I hope next season puts Liv into a leadership position as one of the veteran zombies in town: she deserves a chance to not have to hide herself anymore and she has the experience to be a leader in the zombie community. Liv being out about her zombie status would create the perfect opportunity to bring her mom (Molly Hagan) and brother (Nick Purcha) back for more family drama. Liv coaching Johnny Frost (Daran Norris) through the announcement that many of Seattle’s residents had been turned into zombies was a great moment and I hope that trajectory continues. On a side note, that scene was the most serious I’ve ever seen Norris act and he absolutely nailed the weight of the situation; that was simply stellar. The comparison of becoming a zombie to a person contracting a disease—that those people are still your friends and loved ones—harked back to the beginning of the show, where Liv was essentially a woman who used her illness to help others after it derailed her life plan. I’ve always loved that metaphor, and Liv taking that experience and becoming a guide to the city’s new zombie population would be a powerful way to elaborate on it. 

Ravi Chakrabarti My least favorite part of Season 2 was the Ravi-Peyton-Blaine triangle (I wished both Ravi and Peyton (Aly Michalka) had more of their own subplots than this), so I wasn't super happy it continued into Season 3. Ravi came off as very unlikable in “Eat, Pray, Liv,” and I was hoping the love triangle would be resolved before he got worse. So, I was glad it ended relatively early on. I don’t mind that he made mistakes with Peyton, but I definitely wasn’t on his side here; even if Blaine was faking, Peyton was right to admonish Ravi about constantly trying to say he was bad and derail that relationship. It wasn’t a good look on Ravi, but nothing says characters always have to be perfect and it didn’t ruin his character for me. I was just hoping that plot would end sooner rather than later, and that he’d get some perspective and growth out of it.   

On the other hand, I loved Ravi's undercover work with the militant zombie truthers once Liv couldn’t safely infiltrate them! Getting him out of the lab and into the field—and into danger—was great and I loved seeing him interact with the truthers. That group felt like a smart parallel to real-life hate groups and Don E (Bryce Hodgson) getting captured by Harley Johns (Andrew Caldwell) and nearly broadcast online as a full Romero zombie was a great climax to the arc! The arc also introduced Rachel (Ella Cannon) to the show and I didn’t see her using Ravi to out zombies to the world at all! I wanted to like her and was sorry she was just in it for the story. Kohli was great at playing the spy and feeling the sting of betrayal after Rachel’s true intentions were revealed, but his scenes with Major, about to lose his memory after taking the cure, were some of his finest work on the show to date.

I was hoping they’d expand on Ravi’s expertise in zombie science beyond his experiments with the cure, so developing a zombie vaccine after offering it up as part of his truther cover was a great angle and I hope it leads to him being something of a zombie doctor next year. With Major getting a big role with Fillmore-Graves, I was hoping Ravi would get something similar in a bigger lab, so perhaps zombies becoming public knowledge and him being the preeminent zombie expert will lend itself to that. It’d change the CSI dynamic of the show, but maybe it’s time for Liv to take over the M.E. lab and move Ravi up the science food chain somehow. Perhaps he could lead a Seattle branch of the CDC specializing in zombie affairs. Experimenting with the memory serum and the creation of the blue brain juice was a fun way to change up the visions as well. It was cool to finally see Liv’s vision expression and the affect it had on zombie visions was a great way to play with the concept. I’d love to see more of this sort of experimental zombie science next season and I’m sure that Ravi’s zombie vaccine is going to be a huge part of that. I think it will work…but maybe not the way he’s expecting. While it would be really cool to have a zombie-“Hulk” Ravi, I think the vaccine will fail to turn zombies back into people, but will permanently vaccinate people from becoming new zombies. That will create a massive problem for Chase’s zombie paradise, creating a divide between the living and the undead “species.”

Clive Babineaux I loved Clive getting in on Liv’s secret this season and his reactions to her eating brains—and knowing how they affected her—were gold. I’m sure it was a blast for Goodwin to finally get to play reactions to what was really happening with Liv’s wildly shifting personality and he did an excellent job with that development. Moments like Liv, Clive, Ravi, Major, and Peyton playing Dungeons & Dragons were a lot of fun and couldn’t have happened as purely even last year. Clive’s germophobia was another fun running gag and I liked how it rolled into his reaction to the city-wide vaccinations that triggered the zombie outbreak. The Clive arc I liked the most was his quest to avenge the deaths of Wally Tuttle-Reid (Mataeo Mingo), his mom (Caitlin Stryker), and his uncle (Michasha Armstrong); the show did an excellent job of making me care about them and Clive’s connection to them using flashbacks in just one episode. Wally and his mom were very likable and well-established, and I’m sorry we (and Clive) didn’t get to spend more time with them. I was impressed by how well all the actors involved in those scenes made me care for them. I also loved that exploring detrimental brains, like Liv’s scatterbrain experience, allowed Clive to showcase his detective skills and solve the case of the week on his own. While I wasn’t a fan of the resolution to the case that brought Dale Bozzio (Jessica Harmon) back into Clive’s life—the Russian hacking seemed too far outside this show’s realm of criminal activity—I liked that they got back together. It’ll be great to explore a serious relationship between a human and a zombie; whether Clive and Bozzio can make it work should be very interesting (and a relevant parallel to real-life couples in which one partner has an incurable illness). They seem happy, but for how long? Is he going to be able to stand by her? Will his germophobia get in the way, or is this a way through it for him? Will he get infected accidentally? How would that change his dynamic with Liv? And will his role as a cop bring him into closer concert with Fillmore-Graves now that they essentially run the city?

Major Lilywhite Robert Buckley only got to play one Brain this season, but it was a great one! Liv and Major on dad and teenage daughter brains, respectively, was an awesome change to their dynamic, bolstered by hilarious performances by both actors! Not only was it good to see Major affected by a brain, but I liked that he didn't enjoy getting visions: it gave us some nice variety in zombie reactions to needing to eat brains. Major finding a place to belong with Fillmore-Graves was a cool arc and a nice rebound after the Chaos Killer plot. I really liked that he found a true brotherhood there: even after his status as a cured zombie was revealed and he was forced out, the friends he’d made still truly cared about him. The cure/memory loss portion of Major’s arc was particularly sad and showcased some of Buckley’s (and McIver and Kohli’s) finest acting on the show to date. I loved his trip back home to see his parents, his final night with Liv, and Ravi’s aborted speech. I was interested to see what reboot Major would be like, but I preferred the happier twist that he ended up OK. I was also expecting a downside to the cure, but I suppose he’d suffered enough just waiting to take it and thinking he was going to lose himself completely. I liked that he and Liv spent the night together before he took it and I thought he definitely still felt something for her, so I was surprised he was so cool about her dating Justin (and that things weren’t weirder between the guys). I know Major and Liv weren’t able to be together again since he’d been cured, but they’d also just slept together and neither one of them really got a moment to process their moving on so quickly. I suppose that goes back to the two of them genuinely supporting each other in their relationships, but I wish we’d seen them have a conversation about it. His rebound relationship with Shawna (Sarah Jurgens) was a smart way to remind us of just how alone the Chaos Killer made him; I liked that she crystalized the isolation of his life, both by initially presenting as being attracted to him for his notoriety and then by further ostracizing him by cashing in on it. In fact, his isolation worked so well that, along with being booted out of Fillmore-Graves, I would’ve been content with Major and Natalie (Brooke Lyons) leaving town together. I liked her and their relationship, and this felt like a natural point for him to depart the series. Her death (and the explosion in general) was unexpected, but I thought it was a waste to kill her and the rest of Major’s friends rather than an unavoidable tragedy (and it was odd Liv and Co. were waiting at Ravi’s house watching the news instead of being at the explosion site, searching for Major and Justin’s bodies). However, Major choosing to turn back into a zombie because he had nowhere else to go was a great, sad moment. It’s also an interesting parallel to Vivian Stoll (Andrea Savage) scratching herself to stay by her husband’s side. I’m sure the season’s closing moments—Major and Justin preparing to open fire on a group of anti-zombie humans attacking a brain transport—are going to propel his character into a completely new direction next year. I can’t wait to see if he’ll regret siding with the zombies or if the humans’ actions will convince him he’s on the right side!

Peyton Charles I liked that Peyton was firm with Ravi’s inability to accept her past with Blaine. However, I didn't think Peyton needed to apologize to Ravi when the truth about Blaine’s amnesia came out; even though he was right about Blaine, she didn’t have anything to apologize for. I'd like her to get back to being Liv's best friend in the coming year; though Liv helped her by eating Weckler's brain, there wasn't much chance for them to hang out and it would've helped to center Liv in a bit of normality. Like Ravi, I’m glad Peyton got a meatier subplot this season. The Weckler case felt awkwardly abrupt in its initial episode, so I liked that it was designed that way and Peyton spent a good deal of time pulling at that thread. Getting to see her as a lawyer—and eventually bringing her into Baracus' (Kurt Evans) mayoral circle as his Chief of Staff—were great uses of her role and development of her career. I can't wait to see how that thread continues next season as she helps keep the peace in Seattle. It seems like she’s set up for the most involved plotline of her time on the show now that she’s at the center of the zombie government and I can’t wait to see Michalka play with that!

Blaine DeBeers I liked memory-loss Blaine and wouldn't have minded if he'd stuck around in that form. While at first I thought he was probably lying, the show (and Anders) convinced me he’d truly lost his memory before long (I was sure the memory loss was real up until he took Ravi’s memory booster). I definitely bought his reluctance to try that serum for fear of reverting back into the criminal he’d heard he was, and I was sorry he’d lied for most of the season. I’m not sure I believe him about his feelings for Peyton or the chance to reshape his life being real, but if they choose to explore that to some extent next year, I’d be on board. Making Blaine a lounge singer of all things was an unexpected development, but I liked it. Maybe next season he should open a piano bar (with ample room for dancing, given the zombie flash mob!) called Dead Beats.

I was interested to see where Blaine’s antagonistic relationship with his father Angus McDonough (Robert Knepper) would go, but unfortunately I thought it fell a little flat. Angus initially seemed more intimidating than Mr. Boss (Eddie Jemison), but he eventually came off as sorta one-note. Plot-wise, Angus seemed to plateau with the establishment of the Scratching Post zombie speakeasy (a cool bit of world-building) and I’m surprised he wasn’t a bigger deal for the rest of the characters. I guess I expected more complexity and evil scheming out of him (having Blaine shot notwithstanding), but locking him in a well and periodically giving him chunks of brain was a great, twisted moment of revenge on Blaine’s part. I also expected more from Boss’ return, but his new position as Blaine’s international broker for brains should be fun, if the Discovery Day events haven’t rendered this plotline inert. I guess Seattle will still need brains, though, and it’ll be great to see the Blaine/Boss relationship inverted. I’m definitely interested to see where Blaine goes in this new world order!

Fillmore-Graves First of all, what an awesome name! This show and its puns have been consistently fantastic, and this is no exception. I loved that they provided another twist on the brain mythology with their brain-blends that didn’t produce side-effects; that was a clever evolution of zombie food. I thought we could’ve spent some more time with original FG head Vivian Stoll, but I liked what we got of her. I did think that both she and Chase should’ve had a bigger response to learning there was a zombie cure, though, given it could either eradicate their “species” or solve their problems completely, depending on how they looked at it. It makes me wonder if Fillmore-Graves operatives stole it from Ravi: their non-response to Major suddenly being human again would make sense if they knew a cure wouldn’t be an issue for long. I don’t think they want to be human again.

I knew Fillmore-Graves was behind the deaths of Wally’s family and Katty Kupps the whole time (minus a brief, last-minute thought the Weckler murders could actually be Baracus), but I didn’t suspect Carey Gold (Anjali Jay)! I wish we’d known her better, but Baracus just trying to cover his indiscretions would’ve been underwhelming and Chase Graves would’ve been too obvious. I liked the twist that Chase—who I was absolutely prepared to hate, since Dorhing seemed to be doing something similar to his slimy Logan Echolls from Veronica Mars—was a cad, but was also truly trying to create human/zombie peace and essentially got forced into following through with Gold’s plan since it was so popular among the F-G zombies. Initially I thought Fillmore-Graves was staging zombie murders to justify the existence of its military force, but I didn’t see Discovery Day being the endgame. I thought the Weckler case plot would lead to Fillmore-Graves blackmailing/controlling public officials, not to them turning nearly everyone into zombies. The flu outbreak was definitely an unexpected plot point on the road to Discovery Day, but it was a genius Trojan Horse move. Chase’s plan to supply Seattle with brains is ambitions, but I wonder how long it’ll last. Will he be forced to turn to illegal channels like Blaine, or will he be in conflict with those “unofficial” sources of brains? Will the rest of the nation continue to agree to let Seattle be a zombie city, or are we looking at a war here? How big could that get?

  This was a great season! I'm excited that we're fully into a post-zombie world and can’t wait to see what it brings. The long wait for Season 4 is going to be rough! 

[johannesviii]

The City of the Dead

Some A truckload of highlights of the last EDA I’ve read (The City of the Dead).

I took these screens while reading, along with my reactions. As usual, this is full of spoilers.

Okay, so, just imagine. In a parallel universe, one day, Clive Barker decided to write a Doctor Who story, and even if he tried to seriously tone down his usual mix of strange gore + weird sex + unusual magic, the result was still a bit too much for the series, but so good the BBC published it anyway.

Wouldn't that be great?

Now stop imagining, because it's a book written by Lloyd Rose, and it exists.

It's flawed. Of course. What book isn't? It sidelines Fitz and Anji near the end. Its twist could have used a bit of foreshadowing. It delights a bit too much in torturing Eight. But who cares, honestly. It still transported me in a world where there's real danger, and cute cats, and dark magic, and sugar donuts, and blood spells, and awful and weird and wonderful characters, and nightmares, and laughter. It's an experience, to say the least, and probably not for everybody, but my god, what a ride. 10/10

Okay, so, the only thing I know about this book is that I’ve got one friend who really likes it. And it’s by Lloyd Rose, aka the writer of Caerdroia. Will this book be weird too?

APPARENTLY YES. YES IT WILL. What a start.

Doctor, that’s called sleep paralysis. It might be scary, but nothing bad will actually happen to you, okay? Breathe.

Okay now I’m kind of nervous too.

[Unexpected Scherzo flashbacks]

That’s one of the most unnerving descriptions of Eight I’ve ever seen. Wonderful.

"I believe”

Oh don't start with the Earth Arc feelings...

RELATABLE

Museum of Magic? Take me there.

Art goals.

And the price for best out-of-context sentence goes to...

Excuse me, that's way too cool.

Also, it instantly made me think of which kind of bone I'd cut if I ever wanted to do this. Probably a toe.

So, magic is now a thing in this series. Hasn't been the case since The Scarlett Empress, I believe. Why do I get the feeling I'm gonna say 'that's way too cool' a lot over the course of this story?

I'm cackling

He really doesn't want to admit something's wrong.

Wait wait wait wait. What? The bone charm was in the TARDIS?

Doctor no.

Eight being distracted by donuts in the middle of a discussion about a murder, everybody!

A very nice beach

Hmmm cute? Cute.

The exact kind of offerings I'd like to get once I'm dead.

So, this story seems to be a murder mystery, and the goal is to find who the Magician is. I like it.

The Magician found Eight, then. Maybe he's the source of the nightmares?

Meanwhile, Eight tries to go to a goth party, and it's very awkward and relatable.

And Fitz and Anji are visiting New Orleans at night with a guy who pretends to be a magician, and Fitz keeps ruining his groove.

Swan, you're like a parody of a Mary Sue

GO UP

Meanwhile, Anji and Fitz both want to punch Dupre on the nose and I gotta say... me too.

Every conversation in this fandom ever

Guess that puts Dupre on the suspects list, then.

That sounds like the kind of ludicrously aggressive death electro thing I listen to when I need to use violent lines and colours in a drawing.

I guess we can also put Teddy-weird-artist-Acree on the list of suspects (even though his fear of going downstairs is a pretty good alibi). Also, bonus cat.

THIS CONVERSATION HAS ONLY JUST STARTED AND IT'S ALREADY GOLD

Eight's like "Hmmmm what makes people feel  better, OH I KNOW. CATS. HERE. HAVE A CAT."

THIS IS GETTING BETTER AND BETTER BY THE MINUTE

(mid-liveblog update: I drew that scene before I even finished the book.)

He literally ran away haha.

Teddy Acree is cracking me up, seriously wtf

A perfectly reasonable suggestion, Doctor.

ASDFGHJFF He vaguely remembers the Daleks so he finds saltshakers 'sinister', I'm dead

UNREQUESTED 'THE TURING TEST' FEELINGS

SHIT, THAT HURTS

'What if I'm nuts?' 'I'm rather counting on it'

Interesting.

Eight already regrets starting a discussion with Dupre.

THE UNREQUESTED 'THE TURING TEST' FEELINGS ARE BACK WITH A VENGEANCE

Oh my f█cking god

♫ DO THE CREEP ♫

Aaaaaand I think we can also put Thales on the suspects list.

GOOD SHIT GOOD SHIT

Eight, this is a bad idea.

I love how he's dodging Dupre every time that weirdo tries to touch him.

Also, that's a very relatable reaction.

Eight is like "okay no, I'm way too asexual for this"

THE DOCTOR HAD DECIDED IT WAS ABOUT TIME FOR HIM TO LEAVE

'Hadn't he'

Something was actually summoned??

Can you imagine going home in a corset with spikes because you were stuck in it? Lucky he was here, poor her.

Mood

BIG MOOD

Not exactly a revolutionary development, but interesting nonetheless.

Oooooh. His nightmares are actually trying to take him somewhere?

FRIENDLY REMINDER THAT IN THE BOOKS, EIGHT IS VERY CLAUSTROPHOBIC SO I'M PANICKING A LITTLE BIT TOO

SHIT HE FOUND SEVEN IN HIS LOCKED MEMORIES

He has no way of knowing that was a past version of him, has he?

Okay so the Magician isn't Dupre. Which... isn't very surprising.

‘AN IMP WITH TERRIBLE EYES’

Hey look it's the best meme from 2016

HARSHER IN HI̟͔͈̻͓̱ͅN͓͇͉̗̜D̤̼̻͙S̮̤̱͓I͓G͔͉̱͓̩̦̠H͕̲̯T͖̰͎

10/10 conversation

Thank you for clarifying, Doctor

HOLY SHIT

THIS IS SO COOL

I MEAN I HAD A FRIEND WHO WAS A TAROT NERD AS A KID, AND AAAAH LOOK, THAT'S ALL THE CLASSIC DOCTORS AS MAJOR ARCANA

Of course Seven is the Hanged Man OF COURSE EIGHT IS THE TOWER ASDFGFFH THE FIRST MEANING IS 'BRUTAL CHANGE, DISASTER AND IMPENDING DOOM'

Now I want to draw all these cards with the Doctors on them, haha.

I keep thinking about Twelve putting like ten spoons of sugar in his coffee.

This book is starting to break the record for the most "asexual Doctor" moments. And I’m 100% okay with that.

YOU DON'T SAY.

He also vaguely remembers Faction Paradox!

I love how patient Fitz can be with him when he's not well.

He's in the past now and trying to find the source of the problem. That may be interesting. Or it will just make everything more confusing.

And I think that child might be the Magician.

LOOK AT MY FAVORITE IDIOTS BEING HAPPY FOR ONCE

it won't last long

'Your blood smells funny'

WHAT

WHAT

WHAT she’s some sort of spirit what

UNDERSTATEMENT OF THE WEEK

I'd say 'somebody do something' but I'm sorry this is way too funny.

Probably.

Oh shit what the fuck. Is he planning to sacrifice him or something?

UH

UH

WHY DO I GET THE FEELING THIS SCENE WILL MAKE THE NUMBER OF LINES IN MY "EVERYTHING BAD HAPPENS TO THE EIGHTH DOCTOR" GOOGLE SHEET SKYROCKET

Eight might be the champion of gallows humor... but he's still starting to panic a little bit

The thing with the Doctor is, you know he can't die permanently since it would be the end of the series, but because he can't, they set the damage limit veeeery high, so a scene like this one is wayyy more stressful than it would be with a human main character.

Please be scared by the double heartbeat thing & let him go because I'm also starting to panic there.

THIS SCENE IS BOTH HORRIBLY STRESSFUL AND VERY FUNNY THIS IS CONFUSING

Meanwhile: what the f█ck is Fitz doing

Doctor please try to concentrate on a way to get the hell out of here

HE STILL HASN'T ESCAPED AND FITZ AND ANJI ARE WAY TOO FAR AWAY

UGH STOP MAKING ME LAUGH I'M TOO STRESSED FOR THAT

I SAID STOP IT

EIGHT STOP MAKING ME LAUGH THIS IS BAD

Meanwhile Fitz has decided to investigate a grave in the middle of the night, because why not, also I'm too stressed for that right now, go back to Eight

WHAT THE F█CK ARE YOU DOING HERE YOU LITTLE SHIT I THOUGHT YOU COULDN'T GO DOWNSTAIRS WHAT THE F█CK

SHIT SHIT SHIT F█CK HE ACTUALLY DID IT F█CK

TEDDY YOU BASTARD

AQZSDFGHJGFFG F█CK

Meanwhile in the cemetery: I have a new suspect

Okay okay now back to Eight being sacrificed because holy shit

I was about to say 'if he could have done something, he would have done it sooner', but I just realised he expects the invocation to work, and call the thing which is chasing him in his nightmares.

Okay. Okay. That worked. Dupre's dead. Good. F█ck. That was so stressful. Also Eight is probably still bleeding all over the floor, but at least it's over.

TEDDY YOU LITTLE SHIT COME BACK & UNTIE HIM

ASDFGHJKHF

Was it really so difficult to tell the police someone was trying to sacrifice you for some bullshit ceremony? I'm sure they've seen worse.

HAHAHA THAT WHOLE HORRIBLE ORDEAL WAS WORTH IT JUST FOR THIS SCENE

Doctor, no

Asexual Doctor moment number 74612

Fair enough.

HE WAS STILL HIDING IN THE HOUSE

OH NO HAHA

GOOD. Thank you.

If the reveal is something like "hey it was the guy who died at the beginning" I'm gonna be angry.

I must admit no other character we saw so far is the right age to be the kid from the destroyed house. This is getting complicated.

SHIT. SHIT. I completely overlooked that. Good twist.

BAD TIMING BAD TIMING

Wait what the f█ck, if the Magician is attacking Eight right now, he can't be Thales. Who the hell is he, then.

WELL THIS IS NEW

And here we have Fitz trying to pretend he's interested in architecture.

Understandable after the recent events.

OUCH Were these feelings really necessary? I mean this book is intense enough as it is

Teddy is a little shit and at the same time it's impossible to 100% hate the guy, he's like a non-murderous version of Johnny the Homicidal Maniac

He was too obviously weird to be the Magician anyway.

Yeah, we know, Teddy, we watch that show

This whole conversation is gold.

OH SHIT

PLEASE TELL US WHO IT IS, THE SUSPECTS LIST IS NOW VERY THIN.

Wait, it's gonna be someone who already died, isn't it.

Perfectly confusing sentence, thank you Doctor.

Okay so, it's 100% confirmed, it's not Teddy. Not a surprise, but good.

STILL TOO SOON AFTER 23 BOOKS

Are they getting sidelined for the finale? Not sure I like that.

I'm cackling again

WHO IS IT

WHAT

WHAT

HE'S NOT THE RIGHT AGE TO BE THE KID OR THE FATHER WHAT

WHAT THE F█CK HE WASN'T EVEN ON MY RADAR

WELL PLAYED

Oooooooh, he sacrificed his lifespan and so he looks older. Nice trick. Well played.

ALSO I JUST REALISED IT'S THE SAME TWIST THAT THE GAME 'HEAVY RAIN' PULLED AND I FINISHED IT ONLY A FEW MONTHS AGO I SHOULD HAVE SEEN THIS COMING BUT NO

Ah yes, clearly there wasn't enough physical pain in this book already.

"You don't sound very certain”

This book is so weird, in the best way possible.

Woah the Magician's house nearly works like a TARDIS.

I just had a revelation. Of course I love this book. It's almost a Clive Barker book.

WE FINALLY KNOW WHAT THE TATTOO WAS

I love this f█cking book so much.

I also love Eight's reaction to that reveal.

OH SHIT WHAT

RUST IS USING HIM AS A WEAPON TO CONTINUE HIS VENGEANCE AND RETRIEVE THE AMULET I LOVE THIS

HOLY SHIT EIGHT

He's gonna leave him to... weird swamp creatures which are supposed to guard him while Rust is away, and I'm sure everything is gonna be fine RIGHT

'It's as if there were somebody else living in here with me'

I KNEW IT THAT WAS A BAD IDEA

WHAT THE F█CK did the swamp things trapped him in an imaginary world?

How long has he been there??

Everytime there's a good scene about the contents of the Doctor's pockets in these books, there's a better one in one of the next books, I swear. But I still doubt this one can be beaten.

That explains so much about the random cup of tea Twelve had in the middle of Skaro in The Witch's Familiar, too.

Third screen about the contents of the Doctor's pocket, because I'm still not tired of that.

Mrs Flood has access to this place. Is it an actual place then?

Asexual Doctor moment number 87454

Mrs Flood, NO.

Wait a second, is this place some sort of fairy realm? Is that why he refuses to eat anything here except what's in his own pockets?

Are... are you attempting to escape this realm by walking

Oooh isn't that the cover of the book?

Good point. Also I'm glad they're back in the plot.

I'M HOWLING

FITZ NO

AZSDFGHJ ANJI NO

OH SHIT SHE GUESSED WHO THE MAGICIAN WAS?! GOOD JOB ANJI

Friendly reminder: I love these two idiots.

FITZ TRYING TO PILOT THE TARDIS, EVERYBODY

THEY ACTUALLY SUCCEEDED

So it WAS some sort of fairy realm, woah.

WAIT WHAT

SECOND TWIST WHAT

RUST ISN'T THE KID EIGHT HAS SAVED?

THALES? IT'S THALES??

Wait wait wait, Teddy said Thales wasn't human either, didn't he?

Ooooh Thales is another Naiad!!

OH SHIT OH F█CK OH LORD

EIGHT, PLEASE NEVER DO THAT AGAIN

So he really was using the Void to track Eight, after all. The nightmares about Nothing chasing him were entirely justified and not a metaphor at all!

HOLY SHIT EIGHT NO BAD PLAN

The finale of this book is literally the concept of Nothing saving the day while Eight literally yells into the uncaring infinity of the Void. What can I even say about that.

He doesn't belong in the Void after all, so it can't really claim him. That should convince him he's not a complete monster, after all. Good. Good and nice ending.

Oh that's even better.

Good.

[mandibierly]

'Broadchurch' series finale: Chris Chibnall and David Tennant on the perfect parting shot

Miller (Olivia Colman) and Hardy (David Tennant) in the final scene of ‘Broadchurch’ (Photo: BBC America)

The finale of Broadchurch‘s final season brought viewers an unexpected conclusion to the investigation of Trish Winterman’s rape, a sad but loving end to the marriage of Mark and Beth Latimer, and in closing, the perfect encapsulation of Hardy and Miller’s relationship. To break down the episode, Yahoo TV spoke separately with creator Chris Chibnall and star David Tennant.

Leo (Chris Mason) calls out Trish’s name as Michael (Deon Lee-Williams) is still clueless (Photo: BBC America)

The case

The hour focused on three key suspects: Ed Burnett, who finally admitted that he’d been sleeping near Trish’s home each night because he “failed her” (once news broke of her assault, he realized that was what he’d overheard from across the lake, not drunken sex as he’d assumed); cabbie Clive Lucas, whose DNA was on the sock used to gag Trish and whose account of his whereabouts that evening kept changing; and “swaggery little s**t” Leo Humphries, who, thanks to some great detective work by Miller, was revealed as the person who planted the bag of bloody twine on Ed’s property.

The big twist came when phone records revealed that Clive’s stepson, 16-year-old Michael, had phoned Leo the night Clive was arrested — and that all three of their phones were in the same location on the night of Cath’s party (because Clive had stumbled upon them walking away from Axehampton and gave them a ride).

What we saw unfold in flashback: After watching Clive raise a hand to Michael while playing soccer (remember Leo is in charge of the uniforms, which explains why he’d have Clive’s socks), Leo — whose difficult relationship with his own father had been established — took Michael under his wing. He gave him porn. He got him drunk and took him to the cemetery to lose his virginity to Leo’s girlfriend (“I’m lettin’ you borrow her. … She does what she’s told. … It’s only sex,” Leo said).

Michael thought they were just going to crash Cath’s party that night, but Leo came prepared with his “party kit.” When Leo knocked Trish unconscious from behind with the cricket bat, Michael was horrified, but he still helped Leo move her and watched him tie her hands behind her back and gag her. Leo said he was doing this for Michael: “You’ve had a young one, now try something else. … She’s ready.” Michael knew it was wrong, but after Leo smacked him when he said so, Michael succumbed: “Go on, Michael, be a man,” Leo insisted. He filmed the assault on his phone. Leo filmed all four of his rapes, one a year when he came home from university.

Leo (Chris Mason) explains how he groomed Michael (Photo: BBC America)

“It became very clear, the more we storylined and the more I wrote, that this is a story about the next generation,” Chibnall says. “The issues of the proliferation of technology, of porn, of the attitudes to women that seem to have taken a step back in the last 20 years, the sexualization of society — all issues that are swirling around and were things I wanted to write about seemed to come to a kind of a fusion in the character of Leo. The sense of entitlement that that character has. He’s talking about a sense of loneliness, a kind of pointlessness. Those things all ganged together into that character very, very early on. I think if you re-watch all eight episodes, thematically and narratively and character-wise all roads are always leading to Leo.”

Miller (Olivia Colman) can’t believe what she’s hearing come out of Leo’s mouth (Photo: BBC America)

The statements Leo made in his confession were chilling: “They’d all had sex before. Why does one more time make a difference?” (“They did not get the choice. Their bodies are not yours,” Miller told him.)

“That scene absolutely draws from real life — not from one person’s assault, but from a lot of research our team did across a lot of areas,” Chibnall says.

Hardy: “He is not what men are. He’s an aberration.” Miller: “I hope so.” (Photo: BBC America)

In the end, Clive tried to get Hardy and Miller to say he did it instead of Michael, because he knows he should have been there more for him. Miller knew that Michael was giving porn to her son Tom, and Hardy knew that Michael was one of the boys harassing his daughter, Daisy. Is one of the season’s messages the importance of parents being present in their children’s lives? “I think that the whole show is about community, and responsibility, and family, and the trickle down of that,” Chibnall says. “It resonates with Mark Latimer’s story, it resonates with Hardy’s story, it resonates with Ellie’s story. It’s a show about how we’re all connected, and we all have to help each other through the difficult things in life. All three [seasons] with these crimes, it shows the tragedy of them — not just for the victims, but the terrible ripple effect.”

Mark Latimer (Andrew Buchan) accepts that his marriage is over (Photo: BBC America)

Mark and Beth’s marriage

Neither Beth nor Mark was able to sleep when they returned home after his suicide attempt. Their conversation about their future — she needs to move on, and he needs to sort himself out somewhere where the memories don’t surround him — was calm and rational. “I love you,” she said. “Yeah, I love you, too,” he answered.

“Again, so much of this is based on research of real-life cases, and the parents of murdered children very rarely stay together is the terrible tragedy of it,” Chibnall says. “I wanted to dramatize the slow burn of that, and to show two people who were still in love but couldn’t be together because of the differing ways that grief has affected them and they’ve dealt with it. So that was why, particularly in this episode, we sort of stopped the whole investigation to have this two-hander between Andy Buchan and Jodie Whitaker. I always knew what that scene was, and I always knew that they would absolutely knock it out of the park. That was just utterly wonderful, and heartbreaking, and warm, and emotional. David and Olivia [Colman] rightly get a lot of praise for their amazing work in the series, but Andy and Jodie have always been equally the heartbeat of Broadchurch, and remained so until the very final images.”

No, Miller (Olivia Colman) and Hardy (David Tennant) will not be going to the pub (Photo: BBC America)

Hardy and Miller’s final scene

Our last moment with Hardy and Miller found them sitting on a bench, in front of the series’ iconic cliffs, decompressing after a job well done. “I could do with a drink. Do you want one? We could go to the pub. We’ve never been to the pub,” Miller said. Pause for Hardy to consider it. “No,” he replied.

“I wanted there to be a laugh in there. That felt very important after a very dark episode, and I wanted it to end with hope,” Chibnall says. “But also, I wanted it to end with everything you love about Hardy and Ellie’s relationship still in play. So there was the refusal to go to the pub, which harks back to his reluctance to come to dinner in the first series in that amazing scene where she asks him and he’s really stubborn and rude about it.”

So instead of a pint, we got this final exchange.

Hardy: I should get back to Daisy.

Miller: I should get back to my boys… So you and Daisy then, you’re gonna stay, properly now? You don’t hate it that much?

Hardy: I’ll see you tomorrow, Miller.

Miller: Fine. See you tomorrow.

And they walked away.

Chibnall says he knew that would be the final line of the series before he even sat down to begin writing Season 3. “I absolutely had the final image and that final line in my head, and that sense of somewhere out there on that coast road, in that car, those two are still out there bickering, and talking about work, and driving into the sunset,” he says.

Tennant more than approved. “I think the journey that Miller and Hardy go on is so beautifully summed up in that final scene,” he says. “They’re both broken people, really. They’re people who don’t have anyone other than each other. They’re sort of the closest thing to best friends that the other one has. They’re both kind of disconnected from their families, and they’ve been through some terrible, bruising experiences. They feel like slightly incomplete human beings. They found each other in this world, and yet even then they can’t quite connect.”

That moment would also seem to definitively dash the hopes of those fans who ship the detectives. “I don’t think anyone on the show has ever conceived that Hardy and Miller would get together. It’s just not who they are. It’s not what they do,” Tennant says. “They’re sort of diametrically opposed human beings, and yet, at the same time, they become mutually dependent on each other. I think that’s why that relationship works. I think if you started having some sort of Moonlighting-style will-we/won’t-we, you break the series immediately. It’s funny — it is brought up in interviews now and again. You sort of go, ‘What? Eh? How? Have you seen the show?'”

For the record, Tennant doesn’t believe Hardy continued to see the woman he met online in episode 4: “We received the scripts just before we shot them, so we filmed that date scene and I had no idea if it would be followed up. I did wonder, ‘Is this Chris setting Hardy up for a happy ending?'” he says. “But it never transpires, and I think it would be wrong, actually, if we saw Hardy walking off into the sunset hand-in-hand with anyone. I think there’s an inevitable misfire when Hardy tries to get his personal life on track.”

What does Tennant picture as Hardy’s future? “In the short term, he’ll just come to work the next day, and he’ll probably go back to dealing with small-town crimes that will infuriate him and make him annoyed that he’s not in some bustling metropolis. Although on one level, of course, he’ll be delighted and relieved because it means that there aren’t any more terrible events going on in this town that’s had its fair share,” he says. “I think he’ll settle back into a life of complaining about his life, probably. And rolling his eyes at the small-town mundanities of it all. But as we find out in this series, he’s clearly decided that this is where he’s meant to be and that that’s where he’s going to stay. Unless something changes. I guess much will [depend on] Daisy and where she goes and what her life becomes, because I think that’s his final salvation, really — his daughter. And probably his Achilles’ heel as well.”

That brings us to our final question: Could we ever see Hardy and Miller reunite again on screen? Chibnall is, of course, taking over showrunner duties next season on Doctor Who (which will feature Whittaker as the 13th Doctor), and Tennant and Colman are never not in demand. “One should never say never to anything because when you do, it’ll only bite you in the bum. But there are certainly no plans. That’s not anything we’ve considered or imagined,” Tennant says. “I think you’d have to be so careful to do something like this. It’s been a delicate modulation to make sure that Broadchurch is about the community as much as it’s about the whodunit or the thriller aspects of it. I think you have to make sure that you own the voracity of what that community would be. If you keep going back and you keep telling stories about more terrible events that happen in this small town, it just becomes implausible quite quickly.”

Now it’s Chibnall’s turn to concur. “I said this was gonna be the end because I don’t have another story in that world. We’ve told one story of a murder, one story of a trial, one story of a sexual assault — I wouldn’t want to go back and repeat things,” he says. “So it’s difficult to think of what other story to tell. But if, years in the future, I’m walking down the street and one pops into my head, I’ll be sure to get on the phone to David and Olivia straight away.”

In the meantime, Chibnall wants to leave fans with these words: “Thank you to everybody who has watched this show from the start to the finish. To see it go around the world this way, and for people to take it to their hearts, has been an incredibly emotional, meaningful experience for all of the Broadchurch family. And it really did become a family. So it’s been wonderful.”

Read more from Yahoo TV: • ‘Broadchurch’ S3, E7: Creator on Mark’s fate, Hardy’s tirade, Trish taking back the night • ‘Broadchurch’ Season 3, Episode 6: Creator Chris Chibnall on Mark’s Big Moment • ‘Broadchurch’ Season 3, Episode 5: Creator Chris Chibnall on Cath’s Chilling Line • ‘Broadchurch’ Season 3, Episode 4: Creator Chris Chibnall, David Tennant on Hardy’s Date • ‘Broadchurch’ Season 3, Episode 3: Creator on ‘Seeing Hardy in a New Light’ • ‘Broadchurch’ Season 3 Episode 2: Creator on Season 3’s Growing List of Suspects • ‘Broadchurch’ Season 3 Premiere Postmortem: Creator Chris Chibnall on the Final Case • ‘Broadchurch’ Final Season: David Tennant Previews Hardy and Miller’s Slight Role Reversal

[mrepstein]

London Life - Saturday July 23, 1966

WHAT NOW FOR THE BEATLE MAKER?

He is one of the richest pop managers in the business now - but he says he doesn’t expect to outlast the Beatles. His friends think differently.

Tough yet easily hurt, smooth, dignified, artistic, brilliant, socially charming... these are some of the qualities to which Brian Epstein’s friends attribute his success. But, asks JOHN VINER, what of the future?

At the age of 31, Brian Epstein is now on the threshold of that delightful situation known as extreme independence - or, as he puts it, “being able to do what one wants, when one wants.” It is a situation he has worked hard to achieve and, naturally, since managing The Beatles is not a cloistered task, a great many people have been on hand to witness Mr Epstein indulging in his chosen vocation.

Before I visited him at his home in Belgravia, I spoke to some of the people who know him. Their views concurred with remarkable frequency, which suggests Mr Epstein is, above all things, constant. But this is a view with which he hastened to disagree, explaining: “I am aware of posing sometimes behind two or more personalities.”

A Stayer

Mr George Martin, the man who records The Beatles, says of Mr Epstein: “Smooth is not a very nice word, but it does describe him. He is good looking, always well groomed and generally even-tempered. I would say he is extremely artistic and as such people close to him could hurt him quite easily; he’s likely to bruise.

“Although he is obviously very proud of himself, he is not completely egotistical: I should say he is about as ruthless as I am. (Mr Martin is not generally considered so.) He tends to play things by ear and in the past his off-the-cuff decisions have been invariably right. What most impressed me in the early days was his complete and utter faith in The Beatles; he knew the boys had something unique. He has a tremendous reputation for being tough. People think of him as a machine, but he is very human. Apart from good food and drink, which he loves, his idea of heaven is The Beatles always being Number One in the hit parade.

“One thing he doesn’t like is trickery, people trying to con him. I think he is nostalgic about the stage, but I doubt if he could make an actor now. (Epstein was once a RADA student, but left after one year.) If he hadn’t managed The Beatles he would have been a success at something in the arts, a ballet impresario or something. He mixes quite a lot with people in the opera and ballet world and he is never embarrassed by his connection with The Beatles. His consuming passion is Spain and the bullfight, and as for books and authors his taste is quite Catholic, in spite of the fact he is Jewish.”

Down in Kensington, Richard Lester, the American film director, who made both The Beatles’ films, was doing his polite damnedest to persuade a bored-looking bloodhound to eat some dog meat for yet another dog food commercial. Eventually the dog won the day, the script was changed a little, and the crew broke for lunch.

Mr Lester, his tanned forehead glowing like all that’s best in the South of France, commented: “Epstein is a man of reasonable dignity. I don’t suppose he is any more mannered than the rest of us in this occupational area.” As we progressed towards the Steak House in Kensington High Street, Mr Lester deliberated on Mr Epstein’s commercial success: “I don’t think he is at all ruthless. Surely his greatest talent is for timing - by that I mean he took the boys to the United States at just the right time, he decided to make their films at just the right time. He has a very accurate judgement.”

Two Lowry’s

Mr Lester was at a loss to describe any personal habits or quirks of Mr Epstein, “although if he threw a fit every 13 minutes I think I’d notice.” He also noted that Mr Epstein has taste: “It shows in his clothes (he is always quietly elegant), his pictures (he has two Lowry’s), his glass and his furniture.” As to the future, Mr Lester considers Mr Epstein is here to stay.

Finally, Dick Lester spoke of manners. “Both he and the boys have a Victorian air about them; they tend to get up when an older person enters the room.”

I asked if they stood up for him. Mr Lester, who is a bit thin on top, winced and said they did and added: “Thank you, very much.”

At the Liverpool headquarters of NEMS Enterprises I spoke to Brian’s younger brother, Clive Epstein. Aged 29, he is a director of the family business, NEMS retail, concentrating on TV rentals, radios and electrical equipment. He is also a director of NEMS Enterprises, the business started by his 31-year-old brother, which rejoices in the telegraphic address: Nemperor.

“My brother is a very determined sort of person,” says Clive Epstein. “We were at Wrekin College together and even then he showed a certain direction - he was brilliant, but for the wrong reasons, at public school. He never excelled at Rugby; it was much more likely to be the school play, or painting. Those were the things he enjoyed most.

“I always feel that Brian is tremendously conscious of other people, their birthdays, anniversaries and so on. He really enjoys doing things for people. He is always trying to encourage me to be impeccable, like him. You see, I’m a bit plumper than he is and I think he feels I should take some weight off. Once upon a time we went to the same tailor.”

Early days

In Liverpool, you’ll find Mr Bob Wooler, who now runs a theatrical agency, and before The Beatles met Mr Epstein, he was a disc-jockey based at that shrine, the Liverpool Cavern Club. “In those days,” says Mr Wooler, “The Beatles were getting £6 to £7 a lunchtime session and I went with them to NEMS record department to meet Epstein for the first time. It was an incongruous sight - he, on the one hand, so refined, The Beatles, on the other, in leather jackets and jeans. He loves expensive, impeccable clothes; he is quite an epicure, and that’s not a play on words. He hates scenes, never likes to appear ruffled, and is a man who loses his temper with great reluctance. In the beginning I don’t think his mater and pater approved of The Beatles and their appearance, but Brian has completely vindicated himself.

“If he had not found The Beatles he would have found another outlet for his talent. I’ve known him since the very beginning and I saw him in London at a first night recently - it was a pleasure to note he hadn’t changed at all, that he hasn’t developed any airs or graces.”

Brian Mulligan worked for NEMS Enterprises for a year, but left 16 months ago to work for one of the major record companies. With considerable experience of the average pop manager, he says: “By and large they are not people of refinement. Brian is. He is elegant, beautifully mannered, and socially has great charm and courtesy. I felt he didn’t really enjoy the administrative side of business, but he very much enjoys the sweet life and would, I think, prefer to leave the business side to someone else. I feel he is a frustrated Thespian.”

There was one other person whose views on Mr Epstein I wanted. The views of Mr Bernard Delfont. Recently Mr Epstein became chairman and managing director of Delfont’s company, Japspic, and so took over the controlling interest in the Saville Theatre. But Mr Delfont’s secretary informed me he had made a decision not to say anything about Mr Epstein.

So that left Brian Epstein himself, padding downstairs to invite me to his first-floor sitting-room overlooking the very best part of Belgravia, ordering coffee over his two-way speaker tucked away in the wall, and wondering how long it would be before we became accustomed to air-conditioning.

Eye for detail

I mentioned some of the things his friends and acquaintances had said of him. What about his great attention to detail? “Yes, I have,” he replied. “I don’t like delegation, I can’t resist involvement.” And the sweet life? “Yes, I enjoy it, both the run around discothèque thing and the luxury of good things. An uncle of mine once took me to dinner at the Savoy grill when I was a National Service private at Aldershot, and he said: ‘This is what you really enjoy.’ Scenes? I don’t like them very much, but I’ll throw one if I feel it’s necessary. Apparently, I don’t often look ruffled, but by and large that is a facade. When I’m worried I chew my nails.”

The Beatles refer to him, out of his earshot, as “Eppie.” “They never call me that to my face. But I suppose it’s quite endearing, really - I was called that at school.

“I don’t think I’m clever at making money. I’m not a fool but I’m not a financial genius. I’m sensitive, I think, and of all the things which hurt me, giving people bad advice hurts most. I’m much more careful about judging people now, and quite prepared to change my first opinion. I’m not easily conned.”

Beatles no bar

Although his interests are now diverging into other more pure forms of artistic direction, he says he is never embarrassed by his connection with The Beatles. “And anyway, if I’m at the opera or theatre I find the English are too sensitive to say anything about the boys.

“I’m not ruthless; I don’t find it an advantage to be ruthless. I am aware I have a good sense of timing and it is sufficiently strong for me to weigh up the pros and cons. As to my Victorian air. It may appear so to others but really it’s a basic, quite natural approach. People seem surprised we do anything quite normally. All this finger snapping, hippy business is very contrived; so much nonsense in many ways.”

Politically, Epstein is a Socialist at heart: “But it’s not very good for me because they take most of the money I make. You just don’t believe they can take so much.”

As a child he was brought up in his parents’ Jewish faith. “But religion doesn’t appeal to me now; I can’t take it. I’m respectful when I should be, no more. It doesn’t worry my parents.” For exercise he swims occasionally and when in the country he likes walking. “By and large I’m healthy. I don’t smoke much, about 10 filters a day, and then only in the evening. Of course, I’m aware of the cancer thing, but I don’t think I run much risk.”

About London’s new mantle of being a “swinging city,” he says: “There is a very grave danger of people deluding themselves into thinking this is some sort of artistic progress. I think this Mod thing is awful. I haven’t had much to do with it.

“I don’t see much TV; I’m much more addicted to newspapers. Some of our Press is incredibly trite, but it seems to me there are others much worse.” Apart from the bullfight, he is currently indulging in a gourmet’s passion for a Spanish cold soup called Gazpacho: “I sometimes have it three times a day.”

Epstein runs three cars - a maroon Rolls, a grey convertible Bentley and a white Mini. “I don’t know why they are all coloured. I used to have all-black cars.”

The future

Cilla Black recommended that he should have his hair cut at Raphael and Leonard and, fingering his long sideboards, he says “It’s much nicer there than at a barber’s.”

His current thoughts, he adds, are about marriage, not because of his age (he is 32 in September), but because “I think it would be nice.” And he wants children. Then, with some candour, he says he would swop everything he has to be able to write songs like John Lennon and Paul McCartney, “because that is basically a creative talent.”

What of the future? He says he doesn’t expect to last any longer than The Beatles - but that is an opinion which few people who know him would agree with. Mr Epstein has a look of extreme permanence about him.